might have been better done. More than one attempt has been made to improve upon it, the latest being the version by the Rev. Mr. Clerk of Kilmallie, published in 1870 at the instance of the Marquis of Bute.[1] None of these, however, has superseded Macpherson's version, and the world assuredly would have been poorer had it not been made at all. If power to inspire the heart with valour, chivalry, and virtue be any title to remembrance, the poems of Ossian will live long in the mind of man. But most of all will they be beautiful to the traveller among the lonely glens and valleys of the North. The scenery there asks some such memories. Wordsworth, the poet of Nature, himself felt this as he listened to the plaintive singing of the Highland reaper:—
"Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago."
It has not been much questioned whether all the compositions translated by Macpherson were the work of the single bard, Ossian. The uniformity
- ↑ Since writing these pages I have had an opportunity of reading Mr. Clerk's Dissertation, and I should like to direct attention to his admirable summary of the whole Ossianic question.
