SOURCE: "Blair on Ossian," in The Review of English Studies, Vol. VII, No. 25, January, 1931, pp. 80-3.

In the following essay, Chapman examines correspondence written by Blair and London bookseller Thomas Becket, which discusses the terms of payment and final corrections for the publication of A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, Son of Fingal.

The correspondence printed below, which came lately into my possession, does not seem to have been published. It perhaps deserves record for its Ossianic interest and as pleasing evidence of the manners of the age.

Macpherson's first Ossianic publication, Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and Translated from the Galic or Erse Language, was a kite. It was published anonymously (Edinburgh, G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, 1760), and the Preface of six pages by Hugh Blair was also unsigned. In the same year appeared a second edition, containing a new...