Ossian Collection > Celtic Mss. in relation to the Macpherson Fraud

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belief on the subject. He is told in his youth
the story about Hengist and Horsa, and if he
remembers it at all it gives him no particular
concern. The Imlk of Englishmen and Scotch-
men too, are profoundly ignorant as to their
history and origin. The Englishman has some
vague conception that he is an "Anglo-Saxon,"
while the Scot takes it for granted that all
Scotchmen are Celts, and that all art found in
Scotland is Celtic. Sir Daniel Wilson could
discern in the rude rock scroll the " stately
Cathedral." There are others " who can see a
coffin in a flake of soot." It is hardly by such
an adversary as M. du Chaillu, Professor Freeman
says : " that we shall be beaten out of the belief
that there is such a thing as English people in
Britain. Perhaps too we shall not be more
inclined to give \\\) our national l)eing, when we
see its earliest records tossed aside with all the
ignorant scorn of the eighteenth century." This
is absolutely childish. It reads more like mental
imbecility than intellectual acumen. M. du
Chaillu does not deny that there is an English
peoi)le in Britain. He only doul^t.s that the
English people are Saxon, and affirms that they
are Scandinavian, and in this view of the matter
he is sustained by many and strong ]>resumptions.