ral and agricultural economy, makes mention of the fox only once, in the whole compass of his poems?* In the Seandana, a collection of Gaelic poems published by Dr Smith, which, notwithstanding many inequalities, and innumerable interpolations, contains much poetry, which is undoubtedly ancient, and of very high merit, we meet with frequent mention of the wolf:† and the whole of the poem of Diarmid, in that collection, relates to the hunting of the wild boar.

As to the charge of the absence of all sort of allusion to frost in these Poems, without taking advantage of the observation of Tacitus, concerning the mildness of the climate, I must say, that it is totally unfound

* Virg. Ecl. iii. v. 91.

† See Finnan and Lorma, and Conn, p. 252. It is singular, that Dr Smith apologizes (Gaelic Antiq. p. 210.) for the omission of all mention of the wolf, though it occurs in the poems given by himself.

Tac. Agr. c. 12. « Asperitas frigorum abest.”

ed. The opening of the eighth book of Temora furnishes a magnificent image, derived from frost; and, in Dr Smith's Collection, we have innumerable allusions to the same object, though, even in his own translation, these are sometimes, according to his usual manner, mutilated and lost. The singular circumstances, in which we are placed, with respect to the originals of Macpherson's Collection, render it impossible, at present,

* See Seandana, pages 73. 82. 84. 103, &c. It is, indeed, very singular, that, exclusive of the simile derived from frost, in the eighth book of Temora, now alluded to, the learned gentleman himself, in the course of his Dissertation, has cited two other passages, alluding to the same phenomenon. The one is, Ossian's comparison of Swaran "to a rock of ice." The other is his comparison of the heroes, upon a certain occasion, to "oaks with all their branches round them, when they "echo to the stream of frost." All this shews a very strange inaccuracy of criticism. That Mr Laing should

assert, that only "a single image, in Fingal, is derived "from frost," whilst he himself has furnished two, may serve to shew what we are to expect in the sequel of his detections.

to ascertain precisely what images and allusions they contain, and what are wanting in them. Till the originals are brought forward,

we must trust to the skill or integrity of the translators.

SECTION III.

Of the Mode in which these Poems have been preserved, and transmitted to us, through so many Ages.

THAT such a mass of poetry, as has been presented to the public by Mr Macpherson, together with what may be reckoned ancient and genuine, in Dr Smith's collection, should have been preserved amongst a rude people, and transmitted by oral tradition, through a period of more than fifteen centuries, with any degree of purity, is, it must be acknowledged, a phenomenon, of which we have no example in the history of literature. It can be accounted for only, by remarking, that we have no example, in the history of Europe, of a people placed in similar circumstances,

and possessed of institutions similar to those of the Caledonians.

To elucidate this subject, it is necessary to advert to two distinguishing circumstances, which mark the situation of the Caledonians, during the period that elapsed, from the time in which these Poems were composed, till that in which they were collected and translated by Mr Macpherson :The first is, That they remained, during that period, unconquered, and consequently unmixed with any other people:-the other is, That, in consequence of this permanency of political situation, their language remained unaltered and unmixed with any foreign idiom. Let us attend to these two circumstances separately.