Ossian Collection > Essay on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian

260 ON THE AUTHENTICITY
many learned Highlanders, well versed in the
language and antiquities of their country,
and rendered anxious, by recent circum-
stances, for the honour of their national
poetry, Mr Macpherson would have ventu-
red to expose, during so long a period, a
mass of spurious verse, as the genuine pro-
duction of the Celtic Bard ?
Mr Macpherson appears, however, at an
early period, after the success of his transla-
tions had been ascertained, to have allowed
some expressions to escape him, which have
given rise to suspicions of fabrication, and
which have been understood to imply an in-
tention of appropriating this poetry to him-
self. After the strong and pointed assertions
of their originality, which he had advanced
in his prefaces and dissertations prefixed to
the earlier editions, it was a matter of much
delicacy, and of some risk, to attempt to
turn the tide of public opinion from Ossian
to the author of the Highlander. Without