Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

CHAPTER III.
Gaelic Poetry in the Highlands. — Jerome
Stone and other Collectors. — ^Macpher-
soN becomes Tutor in the Family of
Graham of Balgowan. — Meets John
Home at Moffat. — The First Fragment.
The Scots Magaz'hie is likely to have attracted
Macpherson long before he wrote anything in it
himself; for the literary aspirant looks with a
fond eye on the literary periodical. It would be
interesting if we could show that he read it
during the winter of 1755-6, which, as it seems,
he spent in Edinburgh ; for during that winter
there appeared in its pages an English version
of a Gaelic poem. It deserved attention as the
first that had ever been published.
The poem was accompanied by a remarkable
letter calling attention to the great quantity
of Gaelic verse to be found in the Highlands.
That such compositions existed was, said the
writer, a fact well known to any one who had a
tolerable acquaintance with Gaelic ; if it were not
for the neglect, or rather, the abhorrence which
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