“In the beginning, when naught was, there Was neither sand nor sea nor the cold waves, Nor was earth to be seen nor heaven above. There was a Yawning Chasm [chaos] but grass nowhere.…” _Ár vas aida pat-es ekki vas; vasa sandr né sær né svalar unnir, iœr[x]o fansk æva né upp-himinn; Gap vas Ginnunga, enn gras ekki,_ … Voyez Mallet, _Monuments celtiques_, p. 135; et pour le texte, le poëme même de la Voluspa, _in Edda islandorum_, Mallet paraît avoir suivi un texte erroné. As to the Gallic poetry of the Scotch bards, that Macpherson has made known to us under the name of _Ossian_, much is needed that they may have a sufficient degree of authenticity for them to be cited as models, and placed parallel with those of Homer, as has been done without reflection. These poems, although resting for the greater part upon a true basis, are very far from being veritable as to form. The Scotch bards, like the Oscan troubadours, must be restored and often entirely remade, if they are to be read. Macpherson, in composing his _Ossian_, has followed certain ancient traditions, has put together certain scattered fragments; but has taken great liberties with all the rest. He was, besides, a man endowed with creative genius and he might have been able to attain to epopœia if he had been better informed. His lack of knowledge has left a void in his work which demonstrates its falsity. There is no mythology, no allegory, no cult in _Ossian_. There are some historic or romanesque facts joined to long descriptions; it is a style more emphatic than figurative, more bizarre than original. Macpherson, in neglecting all kinds of mythological and religious ideas, in even mocking here and there the _stone of power_ of the Scandinavians, has shown that he was ignorant of two important things: the one, that the allegorical or religious genius constitutes the essence of poetry; the other, that Scotland was at a very ancient period the hearth of this same genius whose interpreters were the druids, bards, and scalds. He should have known that, far from being without religion, the Caledonians possessed in the heart of their mountains, the Gallic Parnassus, the sacred mountain of the Occidental isles; and that when the antique cult began to decline in Gaul, it was in Albion, reckoned among the holy isles by even the Indians, that the druids went to study. Voyez _Les Commentaires de César_, iv., 20; _L’Introduction de l’histoire de Danemark_, par Mallet; _L’Histoire des Celtes_, par Pelloutier; et enfin les _Recherches asiatiques_ (_Asiat. Research._), t. vi., p. 490 et 502.