V

V

The _Fragments_ proved an immediate success and Macpherson's Edinburgh patrons moved swiftly to raise enough money to enable the young Highlander to resign his position as tutor and to devote himself to collecting and translating the Gaelic poetry still extant in the Highlands. Blair recalled that he and Lord Elibank were instrumental in convening a dinner meeting that was attended by "many of the first persons of rank and taste in Edinburgh," including Robertson, Home, and Fergusson.[17] Robert Chalmers acted as treasurer; among the forty odd subscribers who contributed 60£, were James Boswell and David Hume.[18] By the time of the second edition of the _Fragments_ (also in 1760), Blair, or more likely Macpherson himself, could inform the public in the "Advertisement" "that measures are now taken for making a full collection of the remaining Scottish bards; in particular, for recovering and translating the heroic poem mentioned in the preface."

Macpherson, a frugal man, included many of the "Fragments" in his later work. Sometimes he introduced them into the notes as being later than Ossian but in the same spirit; at other times he introduced them as episodes in the longer narratives. With the exception of Laing's edition, they are not set off, however, and anyone who wishes to see what caused the initial Ossianic fervor must consult the original volume.

When we have to remind ourselves that a work of art was revolutionary in its day, we can be sure that we are dealing with something closer to cultural artifact than to art, and it must be granted that this is true of Macpherson's work; nevertheless, the fact that Ossian aroused the interest of major men of letters for fifty years is suggestive of his importance as an innovator. In a curious way, Macpherson's achievement has been overshadowed by the fact that many greater writers followed him and developed the artistic direction that he was among the first to take.

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[Footnote 1: See Scott's letter to Anna Seward in J. G. Lockhart, _Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott_ (London, 1900), I, 410-15.]

[Footnote 2: _The Poems of Ossian_, ed. Malcolm Laing (Edinburgh, 1805), I, 441.]

[Footnote 3: See Home's letter to Mackenzie in the _Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1805), Appendix, pp. 68-69.]

[Footnote 4: Carlyle to Mackenzie, _ibid_., p. 66.]

[Footnote 5: Blair to Mackenzie, _ibid_., p. 57.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., p. 58.]

[Footnote 7: Quoted from _The Poems of Ossian_ (London, 1807), I, 222. After its initial separate publication, Blair's dissertation was regularly included with the collected poems.]

[Footnote 8: _Correspondence of Thomas Gray_, ed. Paget Toynbee and Leonard Whibley (Oxford, 1935), II, 679-80.]

[Footnote 9: _The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry_, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge (London, 1898), I, 183.]

[Footnote 10: "On Poetry in General," _The Complete Works of William Hazlitt_, ed. P. P. Howe (London, 1930), V, 18.]

[Footnote 11: Quoted in Henry Grey Graham, _Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century_ (London, 1908), p. 240.]

[Footnote 12: _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, ed. Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), I, 547.]

[Footnote 13: "The Influence of Ossian," _English_, VII (1948), 96.]

[Footnote 14: _The Sublime_ (Ann Arbor, 1960), p. 126.]

[Footnote 15: _The Insistence of Horror_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 86-87.]

[Footnote 16: _The Sufferings of Young Werther_, trans. Bayard Morgan (New York, 1957), p. 51.]

[Footnote 17: _Report_, Appendix, p. 58.]

[Footnote 18: See Robert M. Schmitz, _Hugh Blair_ (New York, 1948), p. 48.]

FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT POETRY

Collected in the Highlands of Scotland,

and

Translated from the Galic or Erse Language

"Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremtas Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis aevuin, Plurima securi fudistis carmina _Bardi_."

LUCAN

PREFACE

The public may depend on the following fragments as genuine remains of ancient Scottish poetry. The date of their composition cannot be exactly ascertained. Tradition, in the country where they were written, refers them to an æra of the most remote antiquity: and this tradition is supported by the spirit and strain of the poems themselves; which abound with those ideas, and paint those manners, that belong to the most early state of society. The diction too, in the original, is very obsolete; and differs widely from the style of such poems as have been written in the same language two or three centuries ago. They were certainly composed before the establishment of clanship in the northern part of Scotland, which is itself very ancient; for had clans been then formed and known, they must have made a considerable figure in the work of a Highland Bard; whereas there is not the least mention of them in these poems. It is remarkable that there are found in them no allusions to the Christian religion or worship; indeed, few traces of religion of any kind. One circumstance seems to prove them to be coeval with the very infancy of Christianity in Scotland. In a fragment of the same poems, which the translator has seen, a Culdee or Monk is represented as desirous to take down in writing from the mouth of Oscian, who is the principal personage in several of the following fragments, his warlike atchievements and those of his family. But Oscian treats the monk and his religion with disdain, telling him, that the deeds of such great men were subjects too high to be recorded by him, or by any of his religion: A full proof that Christianity was not as yet established in the country.

Though the poems now published appear as detached pieces in this collection, there is ground to believe that most of them were originally episodes of a greater work which related to the wars of Fingal. Concerning this hero innumerable traditions remain, to this day, in the Highlands of Scotland. The story of Oscian, his son, is so generally known, that to describe one in whom the race of a great family ends, it has passed into a proverb; "Oscian the last of the heroes."

There can be no doubt that these poems are to be ascribed to the Bards; a race of men well known to have continued throughout many ages in Ireland and the north of Scotland. Every chief or great man had in his family a Bard or poet, whose office it was to record in verse, the illustrious actions of that family. By the succession of these Bards, such poems were handed down from race to race; some in manuscript, but more by oral tradition. And tradition, in a country so free of intermixture with foreigners, and among a people so strongly attached to the memory of their ancestors, has preserved many of them in a great measure incorrupted to this day.

They are not set to music, nor sung. The verification in the original is simple; and to such as understand the language, very smooth and beautiful; Rhyme is seldom used: but the cadence, and the length of the line varied, so as to suit the sense. The translation is extremely literal. Even the arrangement of the words in the original has been imitated; to which must be imputed some inversions in the style, that otherwise would not have been chosen.

Of the poetical merit of these fragments nothing shall here be said. Let the public judge, and pronounce. It is believed, that, by a careful inquiry, many more remains of ancient genius, no less valuable than those now given to the world, might be found in the same country where these have been collected. In particular there is reason to hope that one work of considerable length, and which deserves to be styled an heroic poem, might be recovered and translated, if encouragement were given to such an undertaking. The subject is, an invasion of Ireland by Swarthan King of Lochlyn; which is the name of Denmark in the Erse language. Cuchulaid, the General or Chief of the Irish tribes, upon intelligence of the invasion, assembles his forces. Councils are held; and battles fought. But after several unsuccescful engagements, the Irish are forced to submit. At length, Fingal King of Scotland, called in this poem, "The Desert of the hills," arrives with his ships to assist Cuchulaid. He expels the Danes from the country; and returns home victorious. This poem is held to be of greater antiquity than any of the rest that are preserved. And the author speaks of himself as present in the expedition of Fingal. The three last poems in the collection are fragments which the translator obtained of this epic poem; and though very imperfect, they were judged not unworthy of being inserted. If the whole were recovered, it might serve to throw confiderable light upon the Scottish and Irish antiquities.

FRAGMENT