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THE CELTIC jMAGAZIXE. 157LITERATURE.OSSIAN AND THE CLYDE, FINGAL IN IRELAND, OSCAR IN ICELAND,OR OSSIAN HISTORICAL AND A UTHENTIC, by P. Hately Waddell,LL.D., Minister of the Gospel, Editor and Biographer of Robert Burns, Translator ofthe Psalms into Scottish, dc. Glasgow : James Maclehose, Publisher to theUniversity, 1875.We cannot, after careful study of this book, assign to it any but the firstjDlace in Ossianic literature. In style of composition it is pure, dignifiedand eloquent ; in substance and matter it surpasses beyond reach of comparisonany book hitherto written on the same subject. It can scarcelybe doubted, indeed, that this great work has rescued a discussion whicheven in the highest hands seemed descending to mere verbal quibbles andparty abuse from such a degradation, and has raised it to a position ,whichif it ever held before, it was rapidly losing. Tlie subject is now madeuniversal ; it enters on a new life, strengthened with a new elementwhich will never now be overlooked. A culminating point has beenreached for all preceding criticism, and a sure foundation has been laidfor a new school of investigation, other and higher than the dogmatism ofJohnson, Laing, or ]Macaulay. We kiiuw not how far these men wereable to comprehend and appreciate such pure and unique creations asthose of Ossian, but it is to be attributed neither to their refined andcultivated taste, to their critical discernment, nor yet to their historicaland literary knowledge that they despised and abandoned, as mere mythsof savage tribes or wholesale fabrications of a modern literateur, thepoetic annals of their own land and the grand historical epics where theactions of i!^orsemen, Scots, and Eomans alike, are pourtrayed and immortalised.Now, however, these works stand on a new footing ; comprehensible,l^eautiful, and historical every one, deserving more than everthe enthusiastic admiration with which all nations have received them,for noAV it can be based on reason and knowledge.Tlie historical and critical value of this book, and the change it willeffect not only on the Ossianic literatiu-e, but on the poems themselves,may easily be seen in three Avays at least. First, the importance of thequestion discussed, the universal character of the poems, and the historicalresults depending on the decision of their authenticity are now clearlyset forth. It has been the prevalent, if not the only way of examiningthese Avorks, to regard them merely as interesting literary productions,relics of ancient poetry or modern frauds, and to determine their truth orfalsity, as the case might be^ by such tests as the character of the translator,the means of preserving and collecting such jjoems, and especiallythe form of the language found in them. These were the only groundsof criticism. JS^or did even their most ardent supporters seem to seemuch higher results involved than the recognition of some early nationalsongs and ballads, or the preservation of the oldest Celtic literature of thecountry. To them it Avas an interesting and important discussion in this