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—40(J NOTES.strong fact of these poems having been collected from oral recitationin the islands and Highlands of Scotland, must have convincedthem that the struggle was in vain. But it was in A^rgylethat this Dalriadic colony settled, and Argyle was the principalscene of Fingal's atchievements. Hence Ireland claims bothFingal and the colony. This double claim of the Scots andIrish has led some foolishly to imagine that there were two Fingals.No such thing. The Irish claimed the colony and Fingal,because this colony was originally from Ireland ;and the Scotsclaim both, because actually residing in Scotland. But thissame colony, after a residence of two centulL^, was defeated bythe Picts, obliged to evacuate Argyleshire, and to take refuge inIreland, about the middle of the fifth century. By this unfortunateevent, the history, the traditions, and records of this colony,found their way direct to Ireland. Indeed, when I reflecton the repeated catastrophes of the Scottish records, I couldalmost sit down and weep ! This colony resided fifty years inIreland, before it was reinstated in Argyleshire; and hence theIrish must have been well acquainted with the history of Fingal,and the poems of Ossian. If in these manuscripts a copy ofOssian''s Poems^ or even of one of the poems of Ossian, couldbe found, it would lay the important controversy for ever torest. It would even be a poirt of primary importance, if the«ra of Fingal could be exactly fixed. The miinner in whichFinksrton has treated these poems is almost idiotical. The onemoment they are downright trash, and utterly contemptible, andthe next, tht y contain many passages truly sublime, and are theproduction of some poet of superlative genius, who flourished inthe Highlands of Scotland during the fourteenth or fifteenth century.Satisfied with neither of these theories, he gives us a newone in his list of errata, in the following words: Since seeing^e specimens of the genuine traditional poems ascribed to Ossianin the memoirs of the Irish Royal Society, the author is induced^0 think that most of these pieces arc really composed hj Irishhards. In order to appreciate the meaning of this important