Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

HUME— WHITTAKER— GIBBON. 219
elusions, found it to contain "a great deal of
genius and good writing " ; and he sent Macpher-
son a kindly message through a common friend,
Colonel Dow, of the East India Company's
service. ^ In the following year an attempt was
made by John Whittaker to refute its state-
ments, in a volume entitled The Genuine Histoi'ii
of the Britom Asserted;^- but, nevertheless, Mac-
pherson's work reached a second and even a
third edition. It may be mentioned that a
writer of Gibbon's standing found it of some
value ; for in the twenty-fifth chapter of his
Histori/ he acknowledged in a note that he
had chosen as his guides to Caledonian anti-
quity " two learned and ingenious Highlanders ";
and he referred to the third edition of Mac-
pherson's work, and to the minister of Sleat's
Dissertations. In an advertisement prefixed
to the second edition, Macpherson expressed
his admiration for Mr. Whittaker's ingenuity
and learning, but declared that he remained
unconverted by his arguments. " I am," he
went on to say, " tired of polemical writing,
and I leave my system to its fate. Even my
^Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, Sept., 1810.
- See Nicholls' Lit. Anecd., iii. 102.