SINCE the printing of the second Edi tion, Doctor Warner published a pamphlet, entitled, Remarks on the History of Fingal and other Poems of Offian. The Doctor, it appears, is compiling a general hiftory of Ireland, and is of opinion that Offian, and the heroes he celebrates, were natives of that country. As he has advanced no argument to fupport fo fingular an opinion, I should have pailed over his pamphlet in filence, had he not too precipitately accufed me of a falfe quotation from O'Flaherty. I had said, in a note, on one of the leffer poems of Offian that Fingal is celebrated by the Irish hiftorians, for his wifdom in making laws, his poetical genius, and his foreknowledge of events, and that O'Flaherty goes fo far as to fay, that Fingal's laws were extant, when he (O Flaherty) wrote his Ogygia. The Doctor denies that there is any fuch thing in O'Flaherty; and modeftly quotes a paffage from the fame Author, which he supposes, I have mifrepresented. I shall here give the whole paragraph, and the world will judge whether the Doctor has not been too hafty in his affertions. Finnius ex Morniâ filia Thaddai, filius Cuballi, jurifprudentiâ, fuper quâ fcripta ejus hactenus extant, carminibus patriis,&, ut quidam ferunt, prophetiis celeberrimus, qui ob egregia fua,& militia fua» facinora uberrimam vulgo, & poetis commi nifcendi materiem relinquens, a nullâ ætate reticebitur. Ogyg. p. 338. As the Doctor founds his claim of Offsian and his heroes, on the authority of fome obfcure paffages in Keating and O'Flaherty, what he fays on the fubject ftands felf-confuted. These writers neither meet with, nor deserve credit. Credulous and partial, they have altogether difgraced the antiquities they meant to eftablish. Without producing records, or even following the ancient traditions of their country, they formed an ideal fyftem of antiquity, from legends of modern invention. Sir James Ware, who was indefatigable in his researches, after the monuments of the Irish history, and had collected all the real, and pretendedly ancient manufcripts, concerning the antiquity of his nation, rejects as mere fiction and romance, all that is faid concerning the times before Saint Patrick, and the reign of Leogaire, in the fifth century I shall transcribe the paffage, for the benefit of those who are compiling the hiftory of Ireland from the earliest ages, and at the fame time, caution them, not to look upon the antiquities of that country, through the falfe mediums of Keating and O'Flaherty. Perexiguam fupereffe notitiam rerum in Hyberniâ geftarum exortam ibi evangelii auroram liquido conftat. ante Neque me latet a viris nonnullis doctis pleraque que de antiquioribus illis temporibus ante S. Patricii in Hyberniam adventum traduntur, tanquam figmenta effe explofa. Notandum quidem defcriptiones fere omnium qua de illis temporibus (antiquioribus dico) extant, opera effe pofteriorum feculorum, Waræus de antiq. Præf. p. 1. I muft obferve that the Doctor's claiming Offian's poems (p. 8.) in formâ pauperis not only invalidates his caufe, but is also no very genteel compliment to the Irish nation. I am far from being of his opinion, that that nation can produce no monument of genius, but the works of Offian, should these be tacitly ceded to them. On the contrary, I am convinced that Ireland has produced men of great and diftinguished abilities, which, notwithstanding the Doctor's prefent opinion, I hope, will appear from his own hiftory, even though he, confeffedly, does not underftand the language, or ancient records of that country. |