Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

54 JAMES MACPHERSON.
education he could, worked his way into St.
Andrews University, and took a degree there in
1750. In the meantime he had managed to
learn Hebrew from a psalter in that language,
and such instruction as was freely given him by
the ministers whom he visited. On obtaining
the post at Dunkeld, on the borders of the High-
lands, he exerted himself to learn Gaelic, or, as
he called it, Irish, so as to understand the lan-
guage spoken by most of those amongst whom
he was settled ; and he took an interest in col-
lecting its ancient poetry. Stone was undoubtedly
capable of great things ; but he died of a fever
at the age of twenty-nine, only a short time
after his contribution to the Scots Magazine.
The poem which he published, AMn and the
daughter of Mey, was an extremely free render-
ing of the original. Unfortunately, he did not
publish the Gaelic copy ; but, together with other
poems, it was afterwards discovered among his
papers.^ As Stone's venture must at some time
^ Soon after his death they were purchased at a sale in
London by Mr. George Chalmers, the antiquary. Prof.
Mackinnon, of Edinburgh, has since printed them, with a
memoir of Stone, in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of
Inverness, 1887-8.