This air began to be admired at Edinburgh about the year 1770. The words are a little alter'd, from the original, in the Poems of Ossian, and I am doubtfull whether the tune has any pretensions to antiquity. That very valuable Collection of Highland, and Western Island Music published by the Revd Mr McDonald of Kilmore, which is the ancient and undoubted oldest Scottish music existing, is different from this air—which breathes more of an Italian, than an old Ergadian Composition [i.e., from the districts of Argyll, Lochaber, and Wester Ross]. —RR. Since I wrote the above I have met with a Collection of Strathspeys & c by John Bowie of Perth—In the end of this collection are three airs, (said) [to be] by Fingal and the following note precedes them—“The following pieces of ancient music were furnished to the editors by a gentle-man of note in the Highlands of Scotland—were composed originally for the Harp, and which were handed down to him by his ancestors, who learned them from the celebrated Harper Rory Daul, who flourished in the Highlands in the reign of Queen Ann—this air here called the Maid of Selma seems to be taken from these ancient Fingallian ones.