“We, who are from our infancy taught to recite them, who bear the appellations of their heroes to this day, and who reside amidst those very scenes of which the poems, even according to their _ingenious_, but not always _ingenuous_ translator, are descriptive--_we_ know, believe, and assert them to be translated from the fragments of the Irish bards, or seanachies, whose surviving works were almost equally diffused through the Highlands as through this country. Mr. Macpherson combined them in such forms as his judgment (too classically correct in this instance) most approved; retaining the old names and events, and altering the dates in his originals as well as their matter and form, in order to give them a higher antiquity than they really possess; suppressing many proofs which they contain of their Irish origin, and studiously avoiding all mention of St Patrick, whose name frequently occurs in the original poems; only occasionally alluding to him under the character of a _Culdee_; conscious that any mention of the _Saint_ would introduce a suspicion that these poems were not the true compositions of Ossian, but those of _Fileas_ who, in an after day, committed to verse the traditional details of one equally renowned in song and arms.” * * Samuir, daughter of Fingal, having married Cormac Cas, their son (says Keating) Modk Corb, retained as his friend and confidant his uncle Ossian, contrary to the orders of Cairbre Liffeachair, the then monarch, against whom the Irish militia had taken up arms. Ossian was consequently among the number of rebellious chiefs. Here, you will allow, was a blow furiously aimed at all my opinions respecting these poems, so long the objects of my enthusiastic admiration: you may well suppose I was for a moment quite stunned. However, when I had a little recovered, I went over the arguments used by Macpherson, Blair, &c., &c., &c., to prove that Ossian was a Highland bard, whose works were handed down to us by _oral_ tradition, through a lapse of fifteen hundred years.