That I have cousins stout of arm In Breadalbane and Balquhidder; Clan Lauchlan and Clan Lamond, too, All numbered with my kin, sir; I really see no end in view When once that I begin, sir; For in my veins of noble blood Dame nature was so lavish, She added some drops from the flood Of thy pure fount Clan Tavish, Lads that plenish our green hills With virtue and with vigour, Tight little men, but with more pith Than many who are bigger. I visit MacDougall of Craignish, And from the good MacIvor I get my dinner full and free, And never pay a stiver. And now my race and lineage rare, When you have bravely mastered, You’ll find the best of all your blood Flows in my veins—the bastard! The following poem is by a Phelim Macdougall. The power of his muse cannot be said to be of so high an order as his moral suggestions. But poetry and severe ethics do not always go together. So we can afford some literary and religious sympathies to poor Phelim in his fifteenth century gropings after light:— ’Tis not good to travel on Sunday, Whoever the Sabbath would keep; Not good to be of ill-famed race; Not good is a dirty woman; Not good to write without learning; Not good are grapes when sour; Not good is an Earl without English; Not good is a sailor, if old; Not good is a bishop without warrant; Not good is a blemish on an elder; Not good a priest with but one eye; Not good a parson if a beggar; Not good is a palace without pay; Not good is a handmaid if she’s slow; Not good is a lord without a dwelling, &c. The author of the following verses was neither the first nor the last that fathered their petty productions on poor Ossian. THE AUTHOR OF THIS IS OSSIAN, THE SON OF FINN.