brought to bear upon these translations of Gaelic poetry. It remains with the modern reader, free from the literary jealousies of a hundred years ago, to decide for himself the weight to be attached to each. More than two thousand years ago in Athens Peisistratus gathered and pieced together the fragments of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Does it seem impossible that the same office should fall to be done in the eighteenth century for a Homer of the North? History, doubtless, has but repeated itself in the storm of adverse criticism which burst upon the restorer of the Celtic bard; and only when the din of wordy battle has died away will be heard the numbers of this last-found lord of song. The merit of the poems themselves, as poetry, may safely be left to take care of itself. Long ago the songs of Ossian earned a place for themselves in the literature of every European language; an Italian version, it is said, being the constant companion and inspiration of the First Napoleon. England alone has refused to admit the claims of the Celtic bard, and that at the bidding of Dr. Johnson, a good and great man indeed, but one who, knowing nothing of the subject, dogmatically imposed his prejudices upon the literary mind of his country, denying, like certain Pharisees of old, that any good thing could come out of Nazareth. The translation, it is possible,
