We may include above all among these the poems which are usually ascribed to _Ossian._ Although English critics of repute, such as Johnson and Shaw, have been blind enough to publish them as the sole composition of Macpherson, it is none the less wholly impossible that a poet of our own time could create from his own resources alone such ancient social conditions and events; consequently we must presuppose here previous poems as the foundation of such a work, although too in their entire atmosphere, and the mode of conception and feeling expressed in them, many changes more in accord with our modern life may have been introduced in the course of so many centuries. It is true their actual date is not established; they may, however, very well have retained a vital form in the mouth of the folk for one thousand or even fifteen hundred years. Taking them as a whole their form appears to be predominantly lyric. Ossian is here presented as the old minstrel and hero, who has lost his sight, and suffers in a retrospect of lament, the days of glory to rise before him. Yet although his songs originate in woe and mourning they nevertheless are in themselves fundamentally epic; for even these lamentations refer to what has been, and depict this world which has now just vanished, with its heroes, its love-adventurers, its exploits, its expeditions aver sea and land, its chance of arms, its destiny and its downfall, in just the same epic and realistic way--although broken here and there with lyrics--as we find in Homer the heroes Achilles, Odysseus, or Diomede, talking of their exploits, expeditions, and mischances. Yet the development of spiritual emotion, and indeed of the entire national existence, despite the fact that here heart and sentiment have a more exacting rôle to play, is not carried so far as in Homer's case. Most of all we miss the assured plastic form of his characterization and the daylight clarity of his presentment. We are, in short, so far as _locale_ is concerned, exiled in the tempestuous mists of the North, with its gloomy sky and heavy clouds, upon which the spirits ride or appear to heroes, raimented in their form. We may add that it is only quite recently that other Gaelic minstrels of olden time have been discovered, rather connected, so Wallis informs us, with England than Scotland or Ireland, minstrelsy having been for a long time continuous in that country, which already must have possessed a considerable literature. In these poems we have among other things reference to emigrations to America. Mention is also made of Caesar; but the reason here given for his invasion is a private passion for some king's daughter, whom he saw in Gaul and followed to England. As a striking characteristic of their form triads are worthy of attention, which combine in three organic parts three events of similar character, though dating from different periods of time.