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THE CELTIC MAGAZINE. 39In the meantime, by -way of Ijringing our present argument to a point,Avould tlie reader believe that IMacpherson, by Avhose text alone hithertowe have been guided, "was himself more ignorant of these very scenes thana school boy ; that he never, in fact, saw them, and did not know where,in Scotland or in Ireland, they were to be found 1 Yet such is the case.Of the Clyde, of which he could not help knowing something, he knewnevertheless very little— yet not much less than some of our moderngeologists ; but of localities on the Clyde, or between the Forth and theClyde, as described in Ossian, he knew nothing. The Kelvin, in likemanner, as an Ossianic river, was utterly unknown to him ; he does noteven attempt to translate its name. All that pertains to Arran, and stillso distinctly traceable there by the help of his own text in Berratlion—for which Gaelic no longer exists—he transfers in his ignorance to thewilds of INIorven. As for Ireland, all that he knows, or seems to know,is that Ullin is Ulster ; but the very scenes which are most conspicuousin Ulster he transfers to Leinster—from Antrim, for example, to Meatliand the rest to some undistinguishable point between Londonderry andArmagh. He brings SulmaUa and her forefathers from Wales instead ofWigtonshire, into Wicklow instead of Ardglass ; and he lands both Swaranand CuchuUin and Fingal in Lougli Eoyle apparently, instead of in theBay of Larne or Belfast ? In such circumstances, of what use is it forcritics any longer to go on squabbling over Gaelic editions, collecting andcollating mediteval Gaelic ballads, and asserting vni\\ hopeless fatuity thathe was the author of these poems, or that he stole them from the Irish 1The Irish themselves are as ignorant of the subject as he is ; and yet inspite of all this ignorance on his part and theirs, the text of his translationhas received on every page of it the unequivocal countersign of Nature,which cap, neither be forged nor forfeited. Taking all which into account,does it not now begin to be plain to unprejudiced readers that the wholeof this Ossianic controversy has been hitherto on Avrong ground ;and thatif the truth of it is to be arrived at, at all, it must be removed to other ground—from questionable MSS. and medigeval ballads, to the region of facts andthe domain of reality 1 We do not assert that the sort of facts now adducedby us, and elsewhere systematised and elaborated, are the only facts, orthe only kind of facts to be considered in such a controversy ; but we doassert that their importance is supreme, and that they have never hithertobeen admitted in the controversy. It is to facts however, and to factslike these, that the attention of Ossianic students ought now to bedirected ; and at every step, if we are not greatly deceived, they wiUmultiply and reiterate their testimony in so decided a fiishion, that it willbe impossible for any critic, or for any collector in the world, to disregardor dispose of them. All farther serious controversy on the subject, inshort, is destined to be of this character— common-sense and practical; andthe sooner we prepare ourselves, as honest enquirers, to engage in it afterthis fashion and in this spirit, the better.P, HATELY WADDELL.