7. _Irish Writers_ were all along jealous of the attention which Macpherson’s translations secured for Gaelic poetry in Scotland. Societies and individuals determined not to be behind Scotland in supplying the public with ancient Ossianic poems. The _Ossianic Society_ especially published five volumes of tales, and poems, and translations; Macpherson was charged with stealing the substance of his poems from Ireland; and at the same time the arguments of Johnson and Laing were reiterated; while the most of what they themselves published as ancient was not more than a century or two old. The Irish could neither manufacture nor lay their hands on epics like those of James Macpherson, so Dr Drummond, Edward O’Reilly, &c., charged Macpherson with _fabricating_ the poems, when they found they could not prove that he stole them from Ireland. Ireland has extensive Celtic literature; much of it ancient too; but it can show nothing like Macpherson’s productions. 8. _Dr W. F. Skene._—This Celtic scholar says:—“A review of all the circumstances which have been allowed to transpire regarding the proceedings of James Macpherson seems rather to lead to the conclusion that the Gaelic version, in the shape in which it was afterwards published, had been prepared in Badenoch, during the months Macpherson passed there, after his return from his Highland tour, with the assistance of Lachlan Macpherson of Strathmashie, and Captain Morrison, and that the English translation was made from it by Macpherson in the same manner in which he had translated the fragments.” The following facts appear to favour Dr Skene’s conclusion:—After Lachlan Macpherson’s death, a paper was found in his repositories containing the Gaelic of the seventh book of Temora, in his handwriting, with many corrections and alterations, and thus described—“First rude draft of the seventh book of Temora.” Mr Gallie sent to the Highland Society a part of the Gaelic of Fingal, which afterwards appeared as part of the Gaelic version. He had taken it from a MS. he had recovered, written by a friend, “who was at that time with Mr Macpherson and me—a gentleman well known for an uncommon acquaintance with the Gaelic, and a happy facility in writing it in Roman characters.” Pressed to tell who this friend was, he says:—“His name was Lachlan Macpherson, of Strathmashy. He died in 1767.” Dr Skene says:—“This Gaelic version seems, therefore, to have been put together before 1767; and if before 1762, it will account for the original of the seventh book of Temora having been published in that year, and also for an advertisement which appeared soon after the publication of the second quarto, that the originals were lying at the publisher’s, and would be published if a sufficient number of subscribers came forward; but as few subscribers appeared, and fewer came to look at them, they were withdrawn.”