thinks that under this double process of distillation—­a copy by MacPherson and then a copy by Ross—­“the ancient form of the language, if it was ancient, could hardly survive."[17] “What would become of Chaucer,” he asks, “so maltreated and finally spelt according to modern rules of grammar and orthography?  I have found by experience that an alteration in ‘spelling’ may mean an entire change of construction and meaning, and a substitution of whole words.”

But the Gaelic text of 1807 was attacked in more vital points than its spelling.  It was freely charged with being an out-and-out fabrication, a translation of MacPherson’s English prose into modern Gaelic.  This question is one which must be settled by Gaelic scholars, and these still disagree.  In 1862 Mr. Campbell wrote:  “When the Gaelic ‘Fingal,’ published in 1807, is compared with any one of the translations which purport to have been made from it, it seems to me incomparably superior.  It is far simpler in diction.  It has a peculiar rhythm and assonance which seem to repel the notion of a mere translation from English, as something almost absurd.  It is impossible that it can be a translation from MacPherson’s English, unless there was some clever Gaelic poet[18] then alive, able and willing to write what Eton schoolboys call ‘full-sense verses.’” The general testimony is that MacPherson’s own knowledge of Gaelic was imperfect.  Mr. Campbell’s summary of the whole matter—­in 1862—­is as follows:  “My theory then is, that about the beginning of the eighteenth century, or the end of the seventeenth, or earlier, Highland bards may have fused floating popular traditions into more complete forms, engrafting their own ideas on what they found; and that MacPherson found their works, translated and altered them; published the translation in 1760;[19] made the Gaelic ready for the press; published some of it in 1763,[20] and made away with the evidence of what he had done, when he found that his conduct was blamed.  I can see no other way out of the maze of testimony.”  But by 1872 Mr. Campbell had come to a conclusion much less favorable to the claims of the Gaelic text.  He now considers that the English was first composed by MacPherson and that “he and other translators afterward worked at it and made a Gaelic equivalent whose merit varies according to the translator’s skill and knowledge of Gaelic."[21] On the other hand, Mr. W. F. Skene and Mr. Archibald Clerk, are confident that the Gaelic is the original and the English the translation.  Mr. Clerk, who reprinted the Highland Society’s text in 1870,[22] with a literal translation of his own on alternate pages and MacPherson’s English at the foot of the page, believes implicitly in the antiquity and genuineness of the Gaelic originals.  “MacPherson,” he writes, “got much from manuscripts and much from oral recitation.  It is most probable that he has given the minor poems exactly as he found them.  He may have made considerable changes in the larger ones in giving them their present form; although I do not believe that he, or any of his assistants, added much even in the way of connecting links between the various episodes.”