“ which has a few rules, affixed, for learn ^g. the language. This, with a vocabulary, which is also sent, is all the assistance that, at this distance, I can give you to learn my mother tongue. Had this been thought of when I had the pleasure of being with you, at your sweet retreat, at the mountains, I would have, cheerfully, become your instructor. Should any Celtic pieces, hereafter, be ushered into light, I shall do myself the pleasure of sending them to you. I hear of no intended publication--few, or none indeed, are equal to the task. In the remote Highlands there are still to be found a number of Ossians poems, abounding equally in the tender and sublime with those with which M ^r. Macpherson has favoured the public, and these are chanted away, with a wildness, a sweetness of enthusiasim [sic], in the true spirit of Song. I rejoice to hear of your success in life. If I can render you any acceptable service here, I beg you may command me, with a friendly freedom. For, I can, with truth, assure you, that, I am, with the utmost sincerity and regard, Dear Sir, your most obedient most humble Servant.”

The enclosure, dated from London, August 7, 1773, reads: “I received your letter. I should be glad to accommodate any friend of yours, especially one of M ^r. Jefferson’s taste and character. But I cannot, having refused them to so many, give a copy of the Gaelic poems, with any decency, out of my hands. The labour, besides, would be great. I know of none, that could copy them. My manner and my spelling differ from others: and I have the vanity to think that I am in the right. Make my humble respects to your American friend. Excuse me as you can to him: and pray excuse me yourself . . .””

Jefferson retained his interest in Ossian over a period of years. In his Travels in North America published in French in 1786 and in English in 1787 (qqv. no. 4020 and 4022), Chastellux thus describes an evening at Monticello: . . . I recollect with pleasure that as we were conversing one evening over a bowl of punch, after Mrs. Jefferson had retired, our conversation turned on the poems of Ossian. It was a spark of electricity which passed rapidly from one to the other; we recollected the passages in those sublime poems, which particularly struck us, and entertained my fellow travellers, who fortunately knew English well, and were qualified to judge of their merit, though they had never read the poems. In our enthusiasm the book was sent for, and placed near the bowl, where, by their mutual aid, the night far advanced imperceptibly upon us . . . [English edition, Vol. II, page 45.]

Jefferson’s copy of Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (a mixed edition partly published in Paris in 1789) was entered by him in his undated manuscript catalogue, and was therefore probably acquired in that year before he left the Continent in October, 1789. In the last volume of his copy, Jefferson has written a passage from Ossian’s Carthon [q.v. no. 101]. Jefferson never apparently referred to the Ossianic controversy. Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Highlands of Scotland , the first book to cast doubts upon the honesty of Macpherson, was published in 1775, and W. Shaw’s An Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems attributed to Ossian in 1782.

Jefferson’s entry in his manuscript catalogue omits the name of Macpherson, and reads Ossian by Blair. For a further note, see Jefferson and Ossian, by Gilbert Chinard in Modern Language Notes, Vol. xxxviii, no. 4, April, 1923.

Hugh Blair, 1718-1800, Scots divine, had encouraged Macpherson to publish the Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, and published his Critical Dissertation in the first edition of the Poems of Ossian, Edinburgh, 1762. The Critical Dissertation was included in a large number of the subsequent editions of the poems.

James Macpherson, 1736-1796, Scots poet and writer, and the alleged translator of the Ossianic poems. Jefferson owned several books by Macpherson, for which see the Index.