Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

CONTINUES HUME'S ''HISTORY''. 225
the pay of the French king ; but it was reserved
for Macpherson to make still more damaging
revelations.
Hume can hardly have been pleased when
Strahan wrote to tell him that either one or
other of these notorious Jacobites was likely
to continue his work. But we find him writing
good-humouredly to Strahan, and discussing the
merits of the rival candidates. " Macpherson,"
he said, " has style and spirit, but is hot-headed,
and consequently without judgment. The
knight has spirit but no style, and still less
judgment than the other." ^ To his friend
Adam Smith he was much more frank ; and
to him he roundly expressed the opinion that,
of all men of parts, Macpherson had " the most
anti-historical head in the universe "."
Nevertheless, Macpherson put his hand to
the work in earnest ; he spared no pains in
the collection of his material ; and he produced
a volume which excited interest and astonish-
ment. Some of Hume's material had been
taken from the papers left by the indefatigable
^ 30th January, 1773. Hume's Letters to William Strahan,
ed. Birkbeck Hill.
- Burton's Life, ii. 467.
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