Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

lU A PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.
17t)3, " you have undertaken the task which I used tha
freedom to recommend to you. Nothing less than
what you propose will serve the purpose. You must
expect no assistance from Macpherson, who flew into
a passion when I told him of the letter I had wrote to
you. But you must not mind so strange and hetero-
clite a mortal, than whom I have scarce ever known a
man more perverse and unamiable. He will probably
depart for Florida with Governor Johnstone, and I
would advise him to travel among the Chickasaws or
Cherokees, in order to tame and civilize him.
" Since writing the above, I have been in company
with Mrs. Montague, a lady of great distinction in this
place, and a zealous partisan of Ossian. I told her of
your intention, and even used the freedom to read your
letter to her. She was extremely pleased with your
project; and the rather, as the Due de INivernois, she
said, had talked to her much on that subject last win-
ter ; and desired, if possible, to get collected some
proofs of the authenticity of these poems, which he
proposed to lay before the Academic de Belles Lettres
at Paris. You see, then, that you are upon a great
stage in this inquiry, and that many people have their
eyes upon you. This is a new motive for rendering
your proofs as complete as possible. I cannot conceive
any objection which a man, e\en of the gravest char-
acter, could have to your publication of his letters,
which will only attest a plain fact known to him.
Such scruples, if they occur, you must endeavor to re-
move, for on this trial of yours will the judgment of tho
public finally depend." * * *
Without being acquainted with Hume's advice to