Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

64 JAMES MACPHERSON.
it gave him an opportunity of mixing with men
of rank and education ; and it led to incidents
which had important results. He accompanied
his pupil on a visit to the manse of Logierait, in
Perthshire. The minister's son, Adam Ferguson,
afterwards well known, had then given up his
regimental chaplaincy, and also his position in
the Advocates' Library ; and, as far as can be
gathered, he was at the manse during young
Graham's visit. Macpherson showed him, it is
said, some specimens of the Gaelic poetry of the
North ; and Ferguson, greatly interested, urged
him to enlarge his collection. When he heard
that Macpherson was to accompany his pupil
in the following summer to Moffat, Ferguson
gave him an introduction to a friend there.^
The acquaintance which ensued made Mac-
pherson's interest in Gaelic poetry no longer a
casual amusement, but changed it into a serious
business, and opened up a way for him into
the best literary society of his time. It will
be well to describe the meeting as fully as
the evidence allows.
The man whose acquaintance had this impor-
^ The visit to Logierait is given on the authority of a
writer in the Celtic Magazine^ v. 311.