British service, was taken prisoner, and thrown into a dungeon, where he was said to have been very cruelly used, and where he died; } understood two of his sons, William and Angus, are now in Canada, but I can learn nothing of the fate of his manuscripts."

In consequence of the allusion by Bishop Chisholm to the Rev. John Farquharson who had been President of the Scotch College at Douay, as knowing something of his namesake's collection, Sir John Sinclair requested that he would send him all the particulars he could possibly recollect as to the MS. alluded to, and his opinion regarding the authenticity of Ossian. He also wished to be informed if there was a chance of recovering the whole, or any part of the Douay MS.? or if any copy of any part of it was extant? To which request Mr. Farquharson replied, that he perfectly recollected to have seen in 1775 and 1776 the MS. mentioned, but being no Gaelic scholar, all that he could attest was his having repeatedly heard the compiler assert, it contained various Gaelic songs, a few fragments of modern composi tion, but chiefly extracts of Ossian's poems, collected during his long residence in Strathglass, previous to the rebellion of Forty-five; and to have seen him compare the same with Macpherson's translation, and exclaiming frequently at its inaccuracy; that the MS. might be about three inches thick, large paper, scarce stitched, some leaves torn, others lost, and of course little heeded, as the Highland Society's and Sir John Sinclair's patriotic exertions were not then thought of. What its subsequent fate had been, he could not positively say; for, thrown carelessly amongst other papers into a corner of the college archives, no care whatever had been taken of it, being in a manner en feuilles detachées, in a handwriting scarcely legible, and of a nature wholly unintelligible.

The documents referred to establish beyond the possibility of doubt, that long before the name of Macpherson was known to the literary world, a collection of manuscript Poems in Gaelic did exist which passed as the Poems of Ossian, and that they were considered by competent judges as not inferior to the poems of Virgil or Homer: they demonstrate the absurdity of the charge that Macpherson was the author of the poems he published, and annihilate the rash and unfounded assertion of the colossus of English literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson, that "the poems of Ossian never existed in any other form than that which we have seen," in Macpherson's translation and "that the editor or author never could show the original, nor can it be shown by any other." Whether the celebrated Lexicographer, had he lived to witness the publication of the Gaelic manuscripts under the sanction of the Highland Society of London, would have changed his opinion is a question which cannot be solved; nor is it necessary to speculate on the subject. Every unprejudiced mind must now be satisfied of the authenticity of these poems, and may adopt "the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived and that Ossian sung."

L

Journey to the Western Islands, ed. 1798, p. 205.

H

The most formidable objection against the genuineness of the poems of Ossian, and which has been urged with great plausibility, is the absence of all allusions to religion. Religion," says Mr. Laing, was avoided as a dangerous topic that might lead to detection. The gods and rites of the Caledonians were unknown. From the danger, however, or the difficulty of inventing a religious mythology, the author has created a savage society of refined atheists; who believe in ghosts, but not in deities, and are either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the existence of superior powers. In adopting Rousseau's visions concerning the perfection of the savage state, which was then so popular, Macpherson, solicitous only for proper machinery, bas rendered the Highlanders a race of unheard-of infidels, who believed in no gods but the ghosts of their fathers."

It is certainly not easy to account for this total want of religious allusions, for to suppose that at the era in question the Caledonians were entirely destitute of religious impressions, or in other words, a nation of atheists is contrary to the whole history of the human race. That the druidical superstition was the religion of all the Celtic tribes is placed beyond all doubt, and that the influence and power of imperial Rome gradually weakened and finally extinguished that system is equally certain. The extinction of that superstition took place long before the supposed era of Ossian, but to imagine that all recollection of the ancient belief had also been obliterated, is to suppose what is far from probable. Indeed, the well known traditions respecting the disputes between the Druids, and Trathal and Cormac, ancestors to Fingal, in consequence of the attempts of the former to deprive Trenmor, grandfather to Fingal, of the office of Vergobretus or chief Magistrate which was hereditary in his family, show plainly that Ossian could not be ignorant of the tenets of the Druids; and as the Fingalian race from the circumstance noticed were the enemies of the Druids, the silence of Ossian respecting them and their tenets is not much to be wondered at.

It cannot, however, be denied that this silence has puzzled the defenders of the poems very much, and many reasons have been given to account for it. The reason assigned by Dr. Graham of Aberfoil in his valuable Essay appears to be the most plausible. "We are informed," says he, "by the most respectable writers of antiquity, that the Celtic hierarchy was divided into several classes, to each of which its own particular department was assigned. The Druids, by the consent of all, constitute the highest class; the Bards seem to have been the next in rank; and the Eubages the lowest. The higher mysteries of religion, and probably, also, the science of the occult powers of nature, which they had discovered, constituted the department of the Druids. To the Bards, again, it is allowed by all, were committed the celebration of the heroic achievements of their warriors, and the public record of the history of the nation. But we know, that in every polity which depends upon mystery, as that of the Druids undoubtedly did,

the inferior orders are sedulously prevented from encroaching on the pale of those immediately above them, by the mysteries which constitute their peculiar badge. Is it not probable, then, that the Bards were expressly prohibited from encroaching upon the province of their superiors by intermingling religion, if they had any knowledge of its mysteries, which it is likely they had not, with the secular objects of their song? Thus, then, we seem warranted to conclude upon this subject, by the time that Ossian flourished, the higher order of this hierarchy had been destroyed; and in all probability the peculiar mysteries which they taught had perished along with them: and even if any traces of them remained, such is the force of habit, and the veneration which men entertain for the institutions in which they have been educated, that it is no wonder the Bards religiously forbore to tread on ground from which they had at all times, by the most awful sanctions been excluded. In this view of the subject, it would seem, that the silence which prevails in these poems, with regard to the higher mysteries of religion, instead of furnishing an argument against their authenticity, affords a strong presumption of their having been composed at the very time, in the very circumstances, and by the very persons to whom they have been attributed."

But it is unnecessary to enlarge further on this subject. The pub. lication of the original poems, so long withheld from the world by the unaccountable conduct of Macpherson, has settled the question of their authenticity, and there are few persons now so sceptical as not to be convinced that these poems are of very high antiquity.

CHAPTER III.

PICTISH PERIOD, ANNO 446 TO 843.

PICTS and Caledonians-Chronological Table of the Pictish Kings-The Scoto-Irish or Dalriads-Settlement of the Dalriads in Argyle, in five hundred and three, under Lorn, Fergus, and Angus-Conversion of the Caledonians, or Picts, to Christianity by St. Columba-Inauguration of Aidan, King of Scots, in Iona-Death of St. Columba-Summary of Pictish History-Wars with the Scots-Arrival of the Vikingr or Pirate Kings-Summary of the history of the Scoto-Irish Kings-Accession of Kenneth to the Pictish Throne-Government of the Scoto-Irish-Their Judges and Laws Courts of Justice-Mode of Living-Practice of Fosterage-Genealogy and Chronology of the Scoto-Irish Kings.

We now enter upon what is called the Pictish period of Caledonian history, which embraces a course of three hundred and ninety-seven years, viz., from the date of the Roman abdication of the government of North Britain, in the year four hundred and forty-six, to the subversion of the Pictish government in the year eight hundred and forty-three. This interval of time is distinguished by two important events in the history of North Britain-the arrival and settlement of the Dalriads, or Scoto-Irish, on the shores of Argyle, in the year five hundred and three, and the introduction of Christianity by St. Columba into the Highlands, in five hundred and sixty-three, both of which events will be fully noticed in the sequel.

Many conjectures have been hazarded as to the derivation of the term Pict, to which there seems no necessity to revert here; but of this there can be no doubt, that the Picts were Celts, and that they were no other than a part of the race of the ancient Caledonians under another name. Of the twenty-one distinct tribes which inhabited North Britain, at the time of the Roman invasion, as we have observed, the most powerful was that of the Caledonii, or Caledonians, who inhabited the whole of the interior country, from the ridge of mountains which separates Inverness and Perth on the south, to the range of hills that forms the forest of Balnagowan in Ross, on the north, comprehending all the middle parts of Inverness and of Ross; but in process of time the whole population of North Britain, were designated by the generic appellation of Caledonians, though occasionally distinguished by some classic writers, proceeding on fanciful notions, by the various names of Mæate, Dicale dones, Vecturiones, and Picti.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE PICTISH KINGS.

61

At the time of the Roman abdication, the Caledonians, or Picts, were under the sway of a chieftain, named Drust, the son of Erp, who, for his prowess in his various expeditions against the Roman provincials, has been honoured by the Irish Annalists, with the name of Drust of the hundred battles. History, however, has not done him justice, for it has left little concerning him on record. In fact, little is known of the Pictish history for upwards of one hundred years, immediately after the Roman abdication. Although some ancient chronicles afford us lists of the Pictish Kings, or Princes, a chronological table of whom, according to the best authorities, is here subjoined:

• See Chalmers' Caledonia, Vol. I. p. 206. Innes' Critical Enquiry, Vol. 1. from

p. 111 to 117, &c. &c.