pedigree, for which he declared, with the voluntary accompaniment of an oath, he had previously declined “_A Sousand pounds_.” It is my experience that to persons of this class it comes more natural to state a falsehood than to speak the truth. We all remember Charles Surface’s exculpatory witness in _The School for Scandal_, “Oh yes, I swear.” Mr. Mackinnon states that “The Gaelic text of Ossian which James Macpherson handed over to Mr. Mackenzie, and which was given to the editor of the edition of 1807, has disappeared.” How very odd that manuscripts on which the human eye never rested should thus so strangely disappear! Can that be said to disappear which was never visible? Of the poems of Ossian, Dr. Irving says, “We are required to believe that these were composed in the third century; and that by means of oral tradition, they were delivered by one generation to another for the space of nearly fifteen hundred years. If this account could be received as authentic, if these poems could be regarded as genuine, they must be classed among the most extraordinary effort of human genius. That a nation so rude in other arts, and even unacquainted with the use of letters, should yet have carried the most elegant of all arts to so high a degree of perfection, would not only be sufficient to overturn every established theory, but would exceed all the possibilities of rational assent. But if we could suppose an untaught barbarian capable of combining the rules of ancient poetry with the refinements of modern sentiment one difficulty is indeed removed; but another difficulty scarcely less formidable still remains--By what rare felicity were many thousand verses, only written on the frail tablet of memory, to be safely transmitted through fifty generations of mankind? If Ossian could compose epic poems on the same model as Homer, how was it possible for them to preserve their original texture through the fearful vicissitudes of nearly fifteen centuries? * * * * It is utterly incredible that such poems as Fingal and Temora, consisting each of several thousand lines were thus transmitted from the supposed age of Ossian to the age of Macpherson.” “It is” Dr. Irving continues “no longer pretended that any Gaelic poetry has been preserved in early manuscripts; and indeed the period when Gaelic can be traced as a written language is comparatively modern.” “That many poems and fragments of poems,” he goes on to say, “were preserved in the Highlands of Scotland cannot however be doubted; and it is sufficiently ascertained that Macpherson was assiduously employed in collecting such popular reliques, some of which had perhaps existed for many ages. _From the materials which he had thus procured he appears to have fabricated the various works which he delivered to the public under the name of Ossian, and afterwards to have adjusted the Gaelic by the English text._” “The ground upon which Hume finally decided against the