Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

HIGHLANDERS' TESTIMONY. 211
But Hume jjersisted in his scruples ; and by
an application of his well-known argument
from probability, refused to admit any evidence,
however positive, in support of a theory which
he could not reconcile with common -sense. ^
This was the theory, to which Macpherson was
unfortunately led to commit himself, that the
poems had been handed down from the third
century. But it was one thing to show that on
the question of antiquity Macpherson was him-
self mistaken or was misleading the public ; and
another, to refute the evidence adduced by Blair
that his work was drawn in the main from
poetry actually recited in the Highlands.
^See his letter to Gibbon, March 18, 1776. Gibbon's
Misc. Works, i. 225. Hume wrote an essay on the poems,
which he condemned as tiresome and insipid ; but, out of
deference to the feelings of his friend Blair, it was not
published. It may be found in Burton's Life, i., App.,
p. 471.