But granting that Ossian is not a myth, but a veritable man who was a great bard among his people, a further question arises, Was the poet Irish or Scottish? The Irish have all along declared that the true and original Ossian belonged to them, and lived in their country. Their indignation over Macpherson’s productions knew no bounds. All Macpherson’s heroes are represented as _going from_ Alba _to_ Erin, which harmonizes well with the recent deliverances of Sayce and Rhys. He described all the Irish Ossians as fictions and fables manufactured by monks in the Middle Ages, and as so far inferior to the genuine remains of Ossian as the most insipid heroics of the present day are to the immortal productions of Homer. He showed that their system of chronology could not be harmonised—that it was, in fact, absurd. As represented in the everlasting dialogues between the poet and the saint, he asked how could Ossian, who was supposed to live in the third century, hold converse with St. Patrick, who did not arrive in Ireland till the fifth century? No such objections could be brought against Macpherson’s Ossian, whose chronology was, perhaps conveniently vague, fairly consistent with itself. The Irish _literati_ then betook themselves to the manufacture of poems _a la_ Macpherson, whom they denounced first as a thief and afterwards as a forger. When they failed to produce any poems of such superior merit as those of Macpherson, the theory of theft from the Irish was given up, and that of forgery substituted. It was quite evident that the Scottish “Ossian” published by Macpherson was very different from the composer of Irish ballads and Finian tales. It was admitted by the Scottish patriots that there was a Scottish Ossian very like the Irish one—that of the later or heroic ballads and of the popular tales. But they held that this was a spurious, inferior, and more recent bard or bards, who attached the name of the great father of Gaelic poetry to their own productions; and that the genuine, true, and original poems of Ossian, the immortal poet of the ancient Caledonians, were translated and published by Macpherson. The claims of the two countries cannot be satisfactorily adjusted or reconciled. History, however, conclusively shows that the Gaels of the North of Ireland and those of Scotland were at this period very closely related—were, indeed, but one people. Just as Shakespeare is claimed by all sections of the English-speaking world as their common heritage, so Ossian would be regarded by all the Gaelic-speaking tribes or clans as their common property. Ossian occupies the same place in both the Irish and Scottish genealogies of the great Finian family. He is the son of Finn or Fingal, the father of the brave and peerless Oscar, the chief bard of his people.