It is now quite well established that Dr. Johnson was wrong on all these points.  To say nothing of the Homeric poems, the ancient Finns, Scandinavians, and Germans were as barbarous as the Gael; yet they produced the Kalewala, the Edda, and the Nibelungen Lied.  The Kalewala, a poem of 22, 793 lines—­as long as the Iliad—­was transmitted orally from a remote antiquity and first printed in 1849.  As to Gaelic manuscripts, there are over sixty in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh, varying in age from three hundred to five hundred years.[7] There is, e.g., the “Glenmasan Manuscript” of the year 1238, containing the story of “Darthula,"[8] which is the groundwork of the same story in MacPherson’s “Ossian.”  There is the important “Dean of Lismore’s Book,” a manuscript collection made by Dean MacGregory of Lismore, Argyleshire, between 1512 and 1529, containing 11,000 lines of Gaelic poetry, some of which is attributed to Ossian or Oisin.  One of the poems is identical in substance with the first book of MacPherson’s “Temora;” although Mr. Campbell says, “There is not one line in the Dean’s book that I can identify with any line in MacPherson’s Gaelic."[9]

Other objections to the authenticity of MacPherson’s translations rested upon internal evidence, upon their characteristics of thought and style.  It was alleged that the “peculiar tone of sentimental grandeur and melancholy” which distinguishes them, is false to the spirit of all known early poetry, and is a modern note.  In particular, it was argued, MacPherson’s heroes are too sensitive to the wild and sublime in nature.  Professor William R. Sullivan, a high authority on Celtic literature, says that in the genuine and undoubted remains of old Irish poetry belonging to the Leinster or Finnian Cycle and ascribed to Oisin, there is much detail in descriptions of arms, accouterments, and articles of indoor use and ornament, but very little in descriptions of outward nature.[10] On the other hand, the late Principal Shairp regards this “sadness of tone in describing nature” as a strong proof of authenticity.  “Two facts,” he says, “are enough to convince me of the genuineness of the ancient Gaelic poetry.  The truthfulness with which it reflects the melancholy aspects of Highland scenery, the equal truthfulness with which it expresses the prevailing sentiment of the Gael, and his sad sense of his people’s destiny.  I need no other proofs that the Ossianic poetry is a native formation, and comes from the primeval heart of the Gaelic race."[11] And he quotes, in support of his view, a well-known passage from Matthew Arnold’s “Study of Celtic Literature”:  “The Celts are the prime authors of this vein of piercing regret and passion, of this Titanism in poetry.  A famous book, MacPherson’s ‘Ossian,’ carried, in the last century, this vein like a flood of lava through Europe.  I am not going to criticise MacPherson’s ‘Ossian’ here.  Make the part of what is forged, modern, tawdry,