son of genius affords no materials for biography, because it was passed in retirement and inaction. If there remain records of his mental occupations, if his opinions, his feelings, and the rainbow-like colours of his fancy can be remembered, and properly told, they will contribute essentially to the best and most interesting department of human intelligence.

March 21, 1807.

N. VIII.

Rowley and Ossian.

SIR,

TO THE RUMINATOR.

Yet

In this age of critical inquiry, of patient, accurate, and laborious investigation, it might be supposed that no author would be so hardy as to attempt to deceive the world; it might be thought that no literary imposture could be so well carried on, as to escape discovery from the lynx-like eyes of the wise and learned, or the acute discernment of the readers of the works of other times. in point of fact, this does not appear to be the case; deceits of this kind are often attempted, and not always, at least satisfactorily, discovered. Though that ingenious young gentleman, Master Ireland, made a full confession (but not till it was too late) and even had the hardiness to "glory in his shame,” the fountains of other works of much greater merit are still as much concealed as those of the Nile ; and other authors, translators, or editors of much higher genius and pretensions have quietly stolen

r

out of the world (or like poor misguided Chatterton indignantly rushed out of it), leaving posterity to settle the matter among themselves, and assign them their proper place at their leisure.

This however has not always been done in a manner perfectly convincing. Attempts have lately been made to shew that even the forgeries of Lauder were not wholly without foundation. There are still persons who are not entirely convinced that the youth of Chatterton was able to produce those noble poems, which he chose to ascribe to the maturer age of Rowley; and there are many more, who find it difficult to believe that Macpherson was the sole author of the poems published under the name of Ossian. $

Concerning these last, the investigation seems not to have heen very fairly and impartially conducted. On the one hand, there was great national and perhaps personal, pride, which would not deign to give such information as the public had a right to expect; on the other, a captious unwillingness to give way to pretensions to such remote antiquity,

r Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.

Virg. L. XII. 952.

I have not read the report of the Committee of the Highland Society upon this subject, nor have learnt what has been the result of their inquiries.

which must of course be very little capable of being supported by external proof.

It seems to be allowed by all, that the Erse, as it is commonly called, has not been a written language till within, comparatively, a very few years; and it is contended, that the changes which take place in language, and the well-known inaccuracy of oral tradition, must have prevented such long and regular poems as Temora and Fingal, from being thus handed down during so many centuries. But to this it may be replied that, in a country so remote as the Highlands of Scotland, and so little visited by strangers as they were during the dark ages, their language, like their local superstitions, probably remained nearly the same. And with respect to tradition, in countries where there are no written records, it is more likely to be preserved in tolerable purity and correctness than where there are. It may also be urged, that till the time when they were collected by Pisistratus, even the works of Homer were recited only in detached parts; and the acts of Diomede, the parting of Hector and Andromache, the death of Patroclus, &c. &c. were known by the people in general, only as so many detached ballads, or rhapsodies, and not as parts of the noblest whole ever produced by human genius. The art of book-making does not then seem to have

been known; and there is no reason to suppose that after the parts had been arranged in their proper order, any doubts arose in Athens as to the genuineness of the work. Yet even then the history of the author was so obscure, that it could not be determined whether he was born in Asia or Europe; in one of the Grecian islands or on the Continent; and it is thought doubtful at this day, by very eminent scholars, as it was also in different periods of antiquity, whether the whole subject of his narra-. tive be or be not fabulous, and whether, if founded on truth, the event was as he has represented it.

This seems therefore to be an argument on which Dr. Johnson, and other writers on that side. of the question, have dwelt too strongly. The prejudices of that distinguished scholar certainly operated upon this, as well as many other occasions, and his tour in Scotland did not tend to lessen them. He had no taste for the rude, wild, and naked scenery of the Western Isles, and the absence of written documents seemed to him convincing proof against the alleged antiquity of the lays of Ossian ; and he refused to receive the testimony of those inhabitants who were most competent to give it, because he chose illiberally to fancy that they would prefer the credit of their country to truth. Yet I have been told, by a lady, now deceased, of high literary reputation, that the late Sir James Macdonald, elder