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, spurious in the book as large as you please;
strip Scotland, if you like, of every feather of borrowed plumes which,
on the strength of MacPherson's 'Ossian,' she may have stolen from that
_vetus et major Scotia_--Ireland; I make no objection. But there will
still be left in the book a residue with the very soul of the Celtic
genius in it; and which has the proud distinction of having brought this
soul of the Celtic genius into contact with the nations of modern Europe,
and enriched all our poetry by it. Woody Morven, and echoing Lora, and
Selma with its silent halls! We all owe them a debt of gratitude, and
when we are unjust enough to forget it, may the Muse forget us! Choose
any one of the better passages in MacPherson's 'Ossian,' and you can see,
even at this time of day, what an apparition of newness and of power such
a strain must have been in the eighteenth century."

But from this same kind of internal evidence, Wordsworth draws just the
opposite conclusion. "The phantom was begotten by the snug embrace of an
impudent Highlander upon a cloud of tradition. It traveled southward,
where it was greeted with acclamation, and the thin consistence took its
course through Europe upon the breath of popular applause.[12]. . . Open
this far-famed book! I have done so at random, and the beginning of the
epic poem 'Temora,' in eight books, presents itself. 'The blue waves of
Ullin roll in light. The green hi