The historical and critical value of this book, and the change it will effect not only on the Ossianic literature, but on the poems themselves, may easily be seen in three ways at least. First, the importance of the question discussed, the universal character of the poems, and the historical results depending on the decision of their authenticity are now clearly set forth. It has been the prevalent, if not the only way of examining these works, to regard them merely as interesting literary productions, relics of ancient poetry or modern frauds, and to determine their truth or falsity, as the case might be, by such tests as the character of the translator, the means of preserving and collecting such poems, and especially the form of the language found in them. These were the only grounds of criticism. Nor did even their most ardent supporters seem to see much higher results involved than the recognition of some early national songs and ballads, or the preservation of the oldest Celtic literature of the country. To them it was an interesting and important discussion in this light only; the history contained in these songs they either did not understand, or entirely neglected. It has been reserved for the author of this book to shew, beyond dispute or doubt, that the poems of Ossian are not on the one side merely grand romances or national myths, or on the other only curious literary deceptions; they are tales of history, grand and romantic certainly, but unreal or deceptive never; annals of war and songs of love for Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, and Denmark; lives of these countries' heroes, pictures of their lands. And though more may yet be discovered, and stranger things be proved, this at least--the early history of these nations with their lawgivers, kings, and emperors, Scotch and Roman, Celt and Saxon; with their wars and works, their public acts and private life, their religion, their customs, their trade; their moors and glens and streams, their Roman walls and battlefields--this, and nothing less than this, is Ossian; in interest and importance coming close beside Homer, both as historian and poet, and leaving Junius, Chatterton, the German "Epistolæ," &c., far, far behind:--