Ossian Collection > Enquiry into the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian

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the book was afterwards taken intd
every hand.
A variety of realbns occafioned with
fome, doubts of the authenticity of the
fragments ; and many were thorough
fceptics as to the poems of Fingal and
Temora. — Hence the controverfy be-
tween fome of the Scotch and EngUlh
literati, who affirmed, that they never
exifted in any other form than that in
which we have feen them.
The ingenious and learned Dr. John-
fon firft ftarted obje(f^ions; and thofe
arofe from the internal evidence of the
poems againft their authenticity, and
other fadts, which ferved to confirm the
Do6lor in his infidelity.
To the internal evidence much hath
been elegantly faid by Dr. Blair of
Edinburgh ; and many feeming fads
were produced to corroborate the whole.
Dr. Johnfon was too fincere a friend to
truth, to accept of an elegant criticifm
by a profefTor of rhetoric as internal
evidence, and letters, and ipfe dixits
from