A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

54 HISTORY OK THE HIGHLANDii.
much tattered in many places, and many leaves had been torn oai.
That from the manner in which it was then treated, very little
rare had been taken of it afterwards ; but allowing tliat what remained
of it had been cai-efully kept, it must have perished with every thing
else in that house, during the French Revolution. That tlie MS. was
a large folio about three inches thick, and entirely in Mr. Far-
quharson's own handwriting. As it consisted wholly of jioems col-
lected by himself, it was written pretty close, so that it must have
contained a great deal. Mr. M'G. could not say positively how Mr
Farquharson had collected the poems ; that many of them certainly
must have been obtained from hearing tlieni recited, and he iiad a
sort of remembrance that Mr. F. frequently mentioned his having got
a great many of them from Mrs. Frazer, and indeed it must have been
so, as she first gave him a relish for Gaelic poetry, by the fine pieces
with which she made him acquainted. That Mr. M'G. could say nothing
at all of the particular pieces which j\[r. F. got from her, or from any
other person, as he ilid not remember to have heard him specify any
thing of the kind. Mr. Macgillivray farther observes, that in the year
1766 or 1767, Mr. Farquharson first saw Mr. Macpherson's transla-
tion of Ossian. It was sent to him by Mr. Glendoning of Partoii.
That he remembered perfectly well his receiving it, although he did
not recollect the exact time, but Mr. Farquharson said, when he had
read it, that he had all the translated poems in his collection. That
Mr. M'G. had an hundred times seen him turning over his folio, when
he read the translation, and comparing it with the Erse ; and he could
positively say, that he saw him in this manner go through the whole
poems of Fiiigal and Temora. Although he could not speak so pre-
cisely of his comparing the other poems in the translation with his
manuscript, Mr. M'G. was convinced he had them, as he spoke in general
of his having all the translated poems ; and he never heard him men-
tion that any poem in the translation was wanting in his collection ;
whereas he has often heard him say that there were many pieces in
it, as good as any that had been published, and regret that the trans-
lator had not found them, or had not translated them. Mr. M'G. does
iiot remember to have ever heard Mr. F. tax Mr. Afacpherson's translation
with deviating essentially from the sense of the original, which
lie would not have failed to have done, had he found grounds for it
for he very frequently complained that it did not come up to the
strength of the original, and to convince his friends of this, he used
to repeat the Erse expressions, and to translate them literally, comparing
them with Macpherson's. This difl^erence, however, he seemed
to ascribe rather to the nature of the two languages, than to any inac-
curacy or infidelity in the translator.
With regard to the time at which Mr. Farquharson collected the
poems he had, it was evident that it must have been during his resi-
dence in Strathglass. as he brought them from Scotland to Douay with
him. Mr. M'G. did not know the very year he came to Pouay, but
;