Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/269

Macpherson and gave him some of the poems he had collected. On his way back he stayed for some time with the Rev. A. Gallie, then missionary in Brae Badenoch, and exhibited to him several volumes beautifully written on vellum, but much worm-eaten and obscured, which Macpherson said he had from the Clanranalds. (For the probable character of one of these volumes see, op. cit. ii. 392.) With the assistance of Gallie and Morrison, who, unlike Macpherson, were good Gaelic scholars, he spent some time in arranging his materials, and preparing a version for translation. After a visit to Ruthven in October 1760, he made a second journey to Mull and the coast of Argyllshire, and obtained some manuscripts from the Fletchers of Glenforsa.

Returning to Edinburgh, he lodged in Blackfriars' Wynd, close to Dr. Blair, and busied himself with the translation both of what he had collected and of other poems sent him by friends. Writing on 16 Jan. 1761 to the Rev. Mr. M'Laggan, he referred to his luck in finding ‘a pretty complete poem, truly epic, concerning Fingal, and of an antiquity easily ascertainable’ (Report of the Committee of the Highland Society, Edinburgh, 1805, Appendix, pp. 153–156).

Probably at the invitation of Lord Bute, then at the height of his power, Macpherson went to London, where in December 1761 he issued, partly by subscription, the first result of his translation as ‘Fingal,’ an epic poem in six books, describing the invasion of Ireland by Swaran, king of Lochlin (Denmark). He dedicated it to Bute, who had helped him in publishing it, and he prefixed a critical dissertation of his own, in which Celtic was preferred to Greek heroic poetry. ‘Fingal’ was reprinted in Dublin in the same year, and at once became popular in translations on the continent. In England it met with a mixed reception, and it was soon denounced as spurious and bombastic, partly, no doubt, owing to the prejudice current at the time, both in England and Scotland, and traceable to the memories of 1745, against anything connected with the Gaelic language, or those who spoke it.

In 1763 appeared ‘Temora,’ in eight books, published entirely at Bute's expense. If ‘Fingal’ had raised doubts, ‘Temora’ confirmed them. Hume wrote to Blair on 19 Sept. 1763 that most men of letters in London took the poems for ‘a palpable and impudent forgery,’ but he admitted that a few fragments might be genuine (see his Essay in Hume, vol. i. App. p. 471). Writing again to Blair on 6 Oct. Hume described Macpherson as a ‘strange and heteroclite mortal, and most perverse and unamiable.’

By the two poems Macpherson had made some 1,200l., and, becoming proud of his success, he was scornful of suspicion. Writing to Cesarotti, who had sent him a complimentary letter (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 22899, f. 5), he had promised on 4 May 1763 that if the prefatory dissertation failed to satisfy the abbé on the question of authenticity, he would transmit such further light as might be required (ib. f. 165). But subsequently Macpherson declined to adopt Blair's suggestion that he should ask those who had given him materials in the highlands for their direct testimony. It is said that when challenged to produce the originals, he deposited certain manuscripts with his publishers, Beckett and De Hondt in the Strand; advertised the fact in the newspapers, and offered to print them if enough subscribers came forward; and as none came, Beckett returned the manuscripts to their owner (see Beckett's letter, dated Adelphi, 19 Jan. 1775, in Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iii. 28; but compare, Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill, ii. 294). Macpherson then withdrew from the controversy, and declined further requests to publish the originals on the plea of expense or want of leisure. He never seriously exerted himself to rebut the charge of forgery.

In his ‘Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland’ (1775) Johnson gave, as the result of local investigation, an opinion strongly adverse to Macpherson's honesty. He denied the existence of any originals; declared Macpherson's stubborn audacity to be the last refuge of guilt; and belief in Macpherson to flow from a mistaken patriotism. ‘Macpherson,’ said Johnson, ‘had only found names, and stories, and phrases, nay, passages in old songs, and with them blended his own compositions, and so made what he gave to the world as translations of an ancient poem’ (ib. v. 242); ‘it was easy,’ Johnson continued, ‘to abandon one's mind to write such stuff.’ Macpherson appears to have heard of the terms in which Johnson was going to attack him, before the publication was issued, and tried to prevent it by letters to William Strahan, Johnson's publisher. Johnson proved obdurate and failed to insert in the volume a protest which Macpherson sent in the form of a slip advertisement (see Macpherson's letters in the Academy, 19 Oct. 1878). When the book appeared, Macpherson sent Johnson a challenge through his intimate friend, William Duncan (Sinclair's edition of the Poems of Ossian, i. ccxx). Johnson purchased a stout oak stick, and answered in a well-known