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THE CELTIC ^[ACAZINE.3^3THE OSSIAXIC CONTKOVERSY.Part Eirst.TiiK llrst vciluine of the Celtic Magazine is destined to be distiiu'livclyOssianic in the character of its contents. We have already jnihUslu-d theviews of George GiltiUan, J. E. Campbell of Islay, Dr Clerk of Kihnallie,Dr Hately Waddell, Professor Blackie ; and in order to complete theOssianic character of the volume we now lay before our readers, with theconsent of all concerned, the following able and learned correspondencebetAveen Hector Maclean of Islay and Dr Hately Waddell of Glasgow,Avhich recently appeared in the Coleraine Chronicle. The first letter isa review of Dr Waddell's now famous book— " Ossian and the Clyde "by Hector Maclean, in the form of a "Letter to the Editor." The secondpart of the correspondence will be given in our next—the concludingnuml)or of Yol. I.— and we venture to thinl^ that within the compass ofthis small volume, when completed, will be found an ainount of informationand learned disc[uisition, by the greatest living authorities, on thesubject of the authenticity of Ossian's Poems to be got nowhere else.Almost all that can be said on the question, for and against, by those mostcomj^etent to judge, may be seen in these and in the jireceding pages, ^fr]\Iacleau writes:When so much light has been, of late years, thrown on matters regardingthe poems of Ossian, such as the old poems and tales which Macpherson usedas a substratum for his fictions, it is truly surprising that a man of learningshould, in this age, write a book maintaining that those romances are genuinetranslations of original Gaelic poems, as well as authentic historical narratives." Ossian and the Clyde,'" however, is such a book. And now, MrEditor, as I know that, as a Highlander, you take a deep interest in thesubject, though, I daresay, you may differ from my views, I will, with yourpermission, make a few remarks on this work.According to Dr Waddell, those so-called translations of Macpherson'sare genuine ;Fingal, Ossian, Gaul, and Oscar are as truly historical asAlexander the Great, Julius Ca?sar, Augustus, and Tiberius ; the kingdomof jMorven and the Fingalians had an existence as real as Canaan and theIsraelites ; and King Fingal, in the third century, obtained glorious victoriesover the Roman legions ! Dr Waddell imagines that his cultivated instincthad guided him surely to the truth of these matters ; but however much acultivated instinct may be relied on, so far as the merit of literary compositionis concerned, it is, assuredly, a very uncertain and unsafe guide, whenthe antiquity, genuineness, and authenticity of poems ascribed to an authorwho is supposed to have flourished more than fifteen centuries ago, are to betaken into consideration.To bear out his views Dr Waddell has recourse to geology and archaeology,believing that these poems allude to geological conditions, in Ireland,Scotland, and Iceland, that bring us back to the third century ; and that,certain passages in them have enabled him to identify the tombs of the heroesand heroines in Arran and various other localities. On comparing " Ossianand the Clyde," however, with Macpherson's Ossian, the cool and unbiassedinquirer can find nothing but vague expressions in the latter to confirm theopinions and inferences that are in tho former based on such an unsubstantialfoundation. That passages should be found in Macpherson's Ossian, dimly