very little--yet not much less than some of our modern
geologists; but of localities on the Clyde, or between the Forth and the
Clyde, as described in Ossian, he knew nothing. The Kelvin, in like
manner, as an Ossianic river, was utterly unknown to him; he does not
even attempt to translate its name. All that pertains to Arran, and
still so distinctly traceable there by the help of his own text in
_Berrathon_--for which Gaelic no longer exists--he transfers in his
ignorance to the wilds of Morven. As for Ireland, all that he knows, or
seems to know, is that Ullin is Ulster; but the very scenes which are
most conspicuous in Ulster he transfers to Leinster--from Antrim, for
example, to Meath; and the rest to some undistinguishable point between
Londonderry and Armagh. He brings Sulmalla and her forefathers from
Wales instead of Wigtonshire, into Wicklow instead of Ardglass; and he
lands both Swaran and Cuchullin and Fingal in Lough Foyle apparently,
instead of in the Bay of Larne or Belfast? In such circumstances, of
what use is it for critics any longer to go on squabbling over Gaelic
editions, collecting and collating mediaeval Gaelic ballads, and
asserting with hopeless fatuity that he was the author of these poems,
or that he stole them from the Irish? The Irish themselves are as
ignorant of the subject as he is; and yet in spite of all this ignorance
on his part and theirs, the text of his translation has received on
every page of it the unequivocal countersign of Nature, which can
neither be forged nor forfeited. Taking all which into account, does it
not now begin to be plain to unprejudiced readers that the whole of this
Ossianic controversy has been hitherto on wrong ground; and that if the
truth of it is to be arrived at, at all, it must be removed to other
ground--from questionable MSS. and mediaeval ballads, to the region of
facts and the domain of reality? We do not assert that the sort of facts
now adduced by us, and elsewhere systematised and elaborated, are the
only facts, or the only kind of facts to be considered in such a
controversy; but we do assert that their importance is supreme, and that
they have never hitherto been admitted in the controversy. It is to
facts however, and to facts like these, that the attention of Ossianic
students ought now to be directed; and at every step, if we are not
greatly deceived, they will multiply and reiterate their testimony in so
decided a fashion, that it will be im