The recent revival by a distinguished Celtic scholar of the theory of Laing that Macpherson's Gaelic Ossian is a translation from the English, affords an opportunity of examining that question in a more strictly philological fashion than it has hitherto had the fortune to enjoy. Parts of the question were no doubt touched by Mackenzie in the Report of the Highland Society, published in 1805 by Graham in his dissertation on the authenticity of Ossian, by Dr Clerk of Kilmalie, the distinguished author of the new version of Ossian in the late splendid edition published at the expense of the Marquis of Bute; but systematically grappled with the question has never been.