Ireland claimed this Ossian as her own, and her learned doctors declared that Macpherson stole his poems from their country. Two or three words will be sufficient to dispose of all this: 1. Macpherson never was in Ireland; and never kept up any correspondence with Irishmen. 2. The Ossianic poems published by the Dublin Gaelic Society and the Ossianic Society were all collected and made known subsequent to the publication of Macpherson’s Ossian. 3. It is admitted by the late Eugene O’Curry, one of the highest authorities, that prior to the 15th century there existed in Ireland only _eleven_ Ossianic poems, which are extremely short, and which will be found in the Book of Leinster, compiled in the 13th, and in the Book of Lecan in the 15th century. Of these, seven are ascribed to Finn himself, two to Ossian, one to Fergus, and one to Caoilte. This clearly disposes of Ireland’s claim to possess anything like Macpherson’s work. Indeed it has been given up by some who advanced it, while at the same time these writers and others laboured to manufacture and publish poems _a la_ Macpherson; but to the great chagrin of these learned sons of Erin the public will not assign them the same distinction and appreciation, which have been accorded to Macpherson’s productions. Let us now glance at the genuine, and indisputably ancient Ossianic ballads preserved in Scotland: 1. We have the tragic tale of _Deirdri_ in the Glenmasan MS., bearing the date of 1238, now in the Advocate’s Library. 2. There is a MS. of the 15th century, containing a glossary and a poem of five quatrains, attributed to Ossian. A text the same as this poem is in the Book of Leinster of the 13th century. 3. There is the Book of the Dean of Lismore, compiled between 1512-20 A.D. This book contains 28 Ossianic poems, nine of which are directly attributed to Ossian, two to Fergus, one to Caoilte; two to Allan MacRuairi, and one to GillieCallum Mac an Olla,—these two last bards being hitherto unknown; and there are eleven anonymous ones, which in style and subject belong to the Féinne. These twenty-eight poems extend to 2500 lines, or one-fourth of all Macpherson’s Gaelic poems. The rest of the extant heroic poetry has been collected in the Highlands and Islands, chiefly within the last 150 years; and in the main consists of versions of the same productions that we have in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. They are genuine Highland compositions of an ancient character, and some of them are instructive as showing how far oral transmission during the last 400 years has affected their style and language.