Anxious that the truth should be elicited on a subject so interesting to them as their national poetry, the Highland Society had already, as far back as 1797, appointed a committee to inquire into the nature and authenticity of Ossian’s poems. Mr. Laing’s Dissertation, of which a second edition was published in 1804, seems to have quickened the movements of the committee. To assist in elucidating the subject, a series of queries was circulated throughout the Highlands and the Scottish Islands. The series consists of six articles, of which the first is the most important. “Have you ever heard repeated or sung any of the poems ascribed to Ossian, translated and published by Mr. Macpherson? By whom have you heard them so repeated, and at what time or times? Did you ever commit any of them to writing, or can you remember them so well as to set them down?” The same answer was requested as to any other ancient poems of the same kind; and the committee likewise expressed a wish to obtain as much information as possible “with regard to the traditionary belief of the country concerning the history of Fingal, and his followers, and that of Ossian and his poems.”
It was not till 1810 that the society published the result of the inquiry which it had set on foot. The answers to the queries were certainly by no means satisfactory. The report, which was drawn up by Henry Mackenzie, stated that the committee had directed its inquiry to two points: firstly, what poetry, of what kind, and of what degree of excellence, existed anciently in the Highlands of Scotland, which was generally known by the denomination of Ossianic; and, secondly, how far that collection of such poetry published by Mr. James Macpherson, is genuine. On the first point the committee spoke decidedly. It declared its firm conviction that such poetry did exist; that it was common, general, and in great abundance; that it was of a most striking and impressive sort, in a high degree eloquent, tender, and sublime. On the second point, there was a woful falling off in confident assertion. “The committee,” says the reporter, “is possessed of no documents to show how much of his collection Mr. Macpherson obtained in the form in which he has given it to the world. The poems, and fragments of poems, which the committee has been able to procure, contain, as will appear from the article in the Appendix, No. 15, often the substance, and sometimes almost the literal expression (the _ipsissima verba_) of passages given by Mr. Macpherson in the poems of which he has published the translations. _But the committee has not been able to obtain one poem the same in title and tenor with the poems published by him. It is inclined to believe that he was in use to supply chasms, and to give connexion, by inserting passages which he did not find and to add what he conceived to be dignity and delicacy to the original composition, by striking out passages, by softening incidents, by refining the language; in short, by changing what he considered as too simple or rude for a modern ear, and elevating what in his opinion was below the standard of good poetry._ To what degree, however, he exercised these liberties, it is impossible for the committee to determine. The advantages he possessed, which the committee began its inquiries too late to enjoy, of collecting from the oral recitation of a number of persons, now no more, a very great number of the same poems, on the same subjects, and then collating those different copies, or editions, if they may be so called, rejecting what was spurious or corrupted in one copy, and adopting, from another, something more general and excellent in its place, afforded him an opportunity of putting together what might fairly enough be called an original whole, of much more beauty, and with much fewer blemishes, than the committee believe it now possible for any one person or combination of persons to obtain.”