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39 i THE CELTIC MAGAZINE.THE TiLVKSLATUIl OF OSSIAN.TO THE EDITOR OF THE CELTIC MAGAZINE.14th September 1876.Deah Suij—The just j^iri'-le Avliich all Higlilaudevs take iu the workj)erfonuecl by Macpliersou will, I trust, be sufficient apology for my sendingthe Celtic Magazine the enclosed obituary, Avhich I copy from theGentleman's Magazine for Marcli 1796, where it appears under the heading—" Obituary of Eemarkable Persons, witli Biographical Anecdotes."Eelieve me to be yours vcrj'- faithfully,Denis A. O'Leahy.Kilbolane Cottage, Charleville, Co. Cork."17th Feb. 1796.—At BalviUe, in Badenoch, lAverness-shire, in his59th year, James Macpherson, Esq., M.P. for Camelford. His remainswere l^rought to Highgate, Middlesex, and were eighteen days on theroad. At that place the hearse was met by eight gentlemens' coaches andsix mourning coaches, and with this attendance the corpse was on Tuesdaythe 15 th Marcli, brought to Westminster Abbey, and interred in thePoet's (]!orner, near tlxe monument of John, Duke of Argyll, and not farfrom the bust and tablet to the memory of the late Dr Goldsmith, which,we believe, was erected at the expense of Mr M., who wrote the epitaphinscribed on the marble. Mr M. made some noise in his day in theliterary as well as in the political world. The first publication by whichhe was distinguished, he called a translation of the poems of Ossian theson of Fingal, wliich appeared in the year 1762,This performance exciteda long and acrimonious controversy, in wliich Dr Hugh Blair early distinguishedhimself.It produced some severe animadversions from Dr Johnson,which the author resented, and added to his resentment some menacingexpressions, wliicli produced from the Doctor that very spirited and intrepidletter which Boswell has puljlished in his memoirs. In 1773 hepublished a translation of the Iliad of Homer, in the same heroic prosewith which he had dignified the son of Fingal ; to this work the late SirJohn Eliot was so extremely partial that he preferred it to Pope's, carriedcopies of the book round to all his patients. Not satisfied Avith thelaurels he gathered in poetry, ]\Ir M. next embarked in the character ofan historian, and in 1771 published an 'Introduction to the History ofGreat Britain and Ireland;' and in 1773 a 'History of Great Britain fromthe Ilestoration in 16G0, to the Accession of the House of Hanover,' intwo volumes quarto ; the chief merit of this collection lies in original extractsfrom the private memoirs of King James the Second, and theii