Ossian Collection > Fingal of Ossian

6 The ATTESTATIONS of many GENTLEMEN to
the Original to many thoufand Inhabitants of Great Britain,
and illuftrated too by many of their current Tales and Stories
concerning them, fuch extreme Scepticifm is altogether out of
Place. For who would have been either fo hardy or fo ftupid,
as to attempt a Forgery which could not have failed of being
immediately detected ? Either the Author muft have had the
Influence to engage, as Confederates in the Fraud, all the Na-
tives of the Highlands and IJlands, diiperfed as they are through-
out every Corner of the Britijfj Dominions ; or, we fhould long
ere this Time, have heard their united Voice exclaiming,
" Thefe are not our Poems, nor what we were ever accullomed
to hear from our Bards or our Fathers." Such Remonftrances
would, at leaft, have reached thofe who dwell in a Part of the
Country which is adjacent to the Highlands ; and muft have
come loud to the Ears of fuch, efpecially, as were known to be
Promoters of Mr. Macpherfons Undertaking. The Silence of a
whole Country in this Cafe ; and of a Country, whofe Inha-
bitants are well known to be attached, in a remarkable Degree,
to all their own Antiquities ; is of as much Weight, as a thou-
fand pofitive Teftimonies. And furely no Perfon of common
Underftanding would have adventured, as Mr. Macpherjon has
done in his Differtation on Temora, to engage in a Controverfy
with the whole Irijh Nation concerning thefe Poems, and to
infift upon the Honour of them being due to Scotland, if they
had been mere Forgeries of his own, which the Scots, in Place
of fupporting fo ridiculous a Claim, muft have inftantly rejefted.
But as Reafoning alone is apt not to make much Impreffion,
where Sufpicions have been entertained concerning a Matter of
Fadl,