Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

i88 JAMES MACPHERSON.
general, with regard to description, imagery and
sentiment". This was putting the work to a
strain which it was unable to bear ; but such
mistaken zeal made it all the easier for Mac-
pherson to persevere in an idea which, as we
have seen, was probably first suggested to him
by the distinguished professor. If Blair, instead
of waxing enthusiastic over the fancied discovery
of a national epic, had applied to an examina-
tion of the poems, not any formal rules of
criticism, but a little poetic genius, with an
admixture of common-sense, he could never
have given Macpherson any ground for supposing
that the collection of lyrical pieces which he
produced was characterised by any real unity,
or possessed any other mark of a true epic. It
was only with the prevailing ignorance of the
nature of the poetry of the Highlands, an ignor-
ance shared by Macpherson himself, that he
could seriously discuss the poems as though they
were a genuine legacy from the third century.
But the lectures appealed to his hearers, and
by their desire they were enlarged and given
to the public as a Critical Dissertation on the
Poems of Ossian. Blair's work was published
in London at the beginning of the year 1763,