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UnhnoLun Lochaber Bards. 211
for, in one i)l;ice, lie gives Gaelic in his 1763 edition in a note
(Teiuora, VIII. 383-5) quite; clitlerent from what he gave when he
came to write the })oem consecutively. The Gaelic is very modern,
its idiom is tinctured strongly with English, while out of its
seventeen hundred words, titty at least are borrowed, and some
forty more are doubtful. The conclusion we come to is simply
this:—-Macpherson is as truly the author of "Ossian" as Milton
is of '' Paradise Lost." Milton is to the Bible in even nearer
relation than Macphei-son is to the Ossianic ballads. Milton
ret^iined the essential outlines of Uiblical narrative, but Macpher-
son did not scruple to change even that. Macpherson's Ossian is
therefore his own poetry; it is i)seudo-anti