FINGAL.—­On his return, in 1762, he published Fingal, and, in the same volume, some smaller poems.  This Fingal, which he calls “an ancient epic poem” in six duans or books, recounts the deliverance of Erin from the King of Lochlin.  The next year, 1763, he published Temora.  Among the earlier poems, in all which Fingal is the hero, are passages of great beauty and touching pathos.  Such, too, are found in Carricthura and Carthon, the War of Inis-thona, and the Songs of Selma.  After reading these, we are pleasantly haunted with dim but beautiful pictures of that Northern coast where “the blue waters rolled in light,” “when morning rose In the east;” and again with ghostly moonlit scenes, when “night came down on the sea, and Rotha’s Bay received the ship.”  “The wan, cold moon rose in the east; sleep descended upon the youths; their blue helmets glitter to the beam; the fading fire decays; but sleep did not rest on the king; he rode in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill to behold the flame of Sarno’s tower.  The flame was dim and distant; the moon hid her red face in the east.  A blast came from the mountain; on its wings was the spirit of Loda.”  In Carthon occurs that beautiful address to the Sun, which we are fortunate in knowing, from other sources than Macpherson, is a tolerably correct translation of a real original.  If we had that alone, it would be a revelation of the power of Ossian, and of the aptitudes of a people who could enjoy it.  It is not within our scope to quote from the veritable Ossian, or to expose the bombast and fustian, tumid diction and swelling sound of Macpherson, of which the poems contain so much.

As soon as a stir was made touching the authenticity of the poems, a number of champions sprang up on both sides:  among those who favored Macpherson, was Dr. Hugh Blair, who wrote the critical dissertation usually prefixed to the editions of Ossian, and who compares him favorably to Homer.  First among the incredulous, as might be expected, was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, in his Journey to the Hebrides, lashes Macpherson for his imposture, and his insolence in refusing to show the original.  Johnson was threatened by Macpherson with a beating, and he answered:  “I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian ...  I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still ...  Your rage I defy ...  You may print this if you will.”

Proofs of the imposture were little by little discovered by the critics.  There were some real fragments in his first volume; but even these he had altered, and made symmetrical, so as to disguise their original character.  Ossian would not have known them.  As for Fingal, in its six duans, with captional arguments, it was made up from a few fragments, and no such poem ever existed.  It was Macpherson’s from beginning to end.