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The Life and Letters of James Macpherson : Containing A 0^, X8^. JAMES MACPHERSON ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS. THE LIFE AND LETTERS JAMES MACPHEESON CONTAINING A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OP HIS FAMOUS QUARREL WITH Dr. JOHNSON, AND A SKETCH OF THE ORIGIN AND INFLUENCE OF THE OSSIANIC POEMS BAILEY SAUNDEES LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. NEW YORK : MACMILLAN & CO. 1894 PEEFACE. Among educated Englishmen Macpherson com- monly passes for an audacious impostor who published his own compositions as the work of an ancient writer, and received due punishment at the hands of Dr. Johnson. The historians of literature comj^are him with Chatterton, and brand him as a forger. Even those who re- frain from giving him a harsh name treat him with doubt and hesitation. An equal ol)scurity envelops his life and actions and the nature of his work ; and the result of ignorance or mis- concej^tion is that he has obtained something less than justice. If none but the great deserved a biography, this book would not have been written. For Mac- pherson was in no sense a great man : he was a miscellaneous writer of considerable talent, a busy journalist, a member of parliament, an agent for an Indian prince, a popular and that prosperous citizen ; and, beyond the fact vi PREFACE. lie brought out the Ossianic poems at the age of twenty-five, he did little in the sixty years of his life that would entitle him to permanent remembrance. This work of his youth was, as he declared, translated from Gaelic fragments found in the Scottish Highlands. By its wonderful success, and its no less wonderful influence on literatm^e, both in England and on the Continent, it gave him, in his own day, a world-wide reputation. Literary fashions have suffered many changes in the century that has passed since his death, and Macpherson's repu- tation no longer exists ; but his work retains an historical interest of a curious and unique character. It is strange evidence of the insta- bility of literary fame that poems which, three generations ago, were everywhere in vogue and everywhere imitated—which appealed to the feelings of all the cultured classes in Europe, and excited the enthusiasm even of a Goethe, a Byron, and a Napoleon—should now be almost forgotten. The origin, reception, and extraordinary effect ; PREFACE. vii of the Ossianic poems form a chapter, hitherto unwritten, in the literary history of the eight- eenth century ; and to attempt to write it is, I trust, at least a respectable endeavour. I have thrown it into the form of a biography because the question of the authenticity of the poems largely tm^ns on Macpherson's actual proceed- ings, and his personal character and attain- ments ; and thus it is that some interest still attaches to the details of his life, so far as they can be discovered. While I beheve that, on the whole, he has been greatly slandered, he is certainly no hero and I hope that I am not afflicted, in regard to him, with what has been called the lues boswelliana, or the disease of admiration. I hope also that I am free from any suspicion of national prejudice ; I have not the honour of being a Scotsman. My curiosity about so wide and perplexing a subject as the Ossianic con- troversy was aroused by an accident ; and one of the recognised ways of getting rid of a burden is to write a book on it. viii PREFACE. I have been fortunate in obtaining some information from unpublished sources in the British Museum and elsewhere. My best thanks are due to the Marquess of Abergavenny for kindly permitting me to make use of a series of Macpherson's letters preserved in the library at Eridge ; and to Mr. Brewster Macpherson of Belleville for the reproduction of Romney's portrait of his ancestor. I am also grateful for assistance rendered by friends, notably by Miss Mary Grant (of Kilgraston) and by Mr. John Cameron Grant (of Glenmoriston). May m, 189J^. — CONTENTS. Chapter I. PAGE The Ossianic Poems. — Their Character and Influence. Macpherson, --.--.. i Chapter II. The Macphersons.—Birth. —Ruthven, and the Rising of '45. —Education at Aberdeen.—Return to Ruthven as Schoolmaster.—Early Poetry, - - - - 27 Chapter III. Gaelic Poetry in the Highlands. —Jerome Stone and other Collectors. — Macpherson becomes Tutor in the Family of Graham of Balgowan. —Meets John Home at Moffat.—The First Fragment, - - - - 52 Chapter IV. Home shows the Specimens to the Edinburgh "Literati". —Blair and Macpherson.—Publication of the "Frag- ments ". —Their Success. —Opinions of Hume, Gray, Shenstone, Mrs. Montagu.—Macpherson urged to collect more.—His Reluctance, - - - - 72 Chapter V. The Enthusiasm in Edinburgh.-—Ancient Gaelic Poetry. —The Irish and the Scotch Tradition.—" The Dean of Lismore's Book."—Carsewell's " Book of Common Order ".— Scotch Manuscripts. —Oral Recitation and the Bards. —Condition of Scotch-Gaelic Poetry in Macpherson's Time. —His Critical Efforts.—His At- titude to Irish-Gaelic Poetry, - - - - 95 — X CONTENTS. Chapter VI. PAGK Macpherson's Highland Mission. —The Evidence. —Visits Skye and the Hebrides.—The Macmhuirichs and Clanranald.—Manuscripts. —Return to Badenoch, - 117 Chapter VII. Macpherson's Materials. —His Method.—His Knowledge of Gaelic.—The Translation.—His Second Journey. —Return to Edinburgh.—Proposal to publish the Originals.—Ramsay's Account of him, - - - 134 Chapter VIII. Goes to London.—Introductions. —Bute, Horace Walpole. —Protest from Ireland. —Publication of " Fingal ". —Extracts, - - - - - - - ' ^57 Chapter IX. The Charge of Forgery. —^Contemporary Hatred of the Scotch.—The "North Briton ".—Churchill. — Blair's " Dissertation ". —Publication of " Temora". —John- son's Attitude. —Cesarotti.—Change in Macpherson's Conduct. — Boswell. — Hume's Letters to Blair. - Direct Testimony from the Highlands : its Result, 182 Chapter X. Visits North America.—Returns to write for the Press. His " Introduction to the History of Great Britain ". —Translates the "Iliad".—Continues Hume's " His- tory ". —Carte's Papers.— Visits Paris. —Publishes the " Original Papers". —The Attack upon them, - 212 —— CONTENTS. Chapteb XI. PAGE Macpherson's Social Position. —His Scotch Friends. Gibbon's Criticism. —New Edition of the Poems. Johnson in Scotland.—The Quarrel with Johnson. The Originals.—Further Controversy, - - - 233 Chaptek XII. Macpherson as a Pamphleteer.—Assists Sir John Mac- pherson in attacking the East India Company. Reviews the Conduct of the Opposition.—Letters on the Threatened Invasion.—Irish and Indian Affairs. —Becomes Member for Camelford. —Agent for the Nabob of Arcot. —Rise in his Fortunes.—The Os- sianic Controversy again.—The Indian Subscription, 258 Chaptek XIII. Macpherson's Later Life in Badenoch. —Joins the Whigs. —The Debates on the Regency Bill. —Letters to Robinson. — The Gaelic Originals. — Macpherson's Children.—His Last Days, ----- 281 Chapteb XIV. Subsequent History of the Poems. —Laing's Attack. Scott. —The Highland Society's Report.- Publica- tion of the Originals. —Further Controversy. —Con- clusion, -.--...- 303 Portrait of Macpherson, . - - - to face title Reduced Fac-simile of his Handwriting, . - 276 CHAPTER I. The Ossianic Poems.—Their Character and Influence. —Macpherson. In the middle of the eighteenth century a rumour went out from Edinburgh that the songs of an ancient poet, as great as Homer, had been dis- covered in the Highlands. Fragments of an heroic strain were, it was said, often to be heard in the valleys beyond the Grampians, or on the shores of the Hebrides ; telling, in mournful verse, of the brave deeds of other days, of the battles of Fingal, a glorious king, and the woes of Ossian, his son, who was left, old and blind, to lament the friends of his youth. Those who were familiar with the barbarous speech of the country declared that these wild poems were of singular beauty, and sublime in their pathos ; tradition assigned them to a dim antiquity ; nay, if report were true, their forlorn author lived at the time when the Romans invaded the north, and his words had been handed down on the lips of the people for fifteen hundred years. — 2 yAMES MACPHERSON. There are some who still believe in the legend ; nor is it unwelcome. Could we suppose that the mountains, as we see them in an air of soft mist and broken sunshine, are haunted by the voices of an antique age, it would please our fancy ; even though a great magician has peopled the moors and valleys with the creatures of later romance. Who that has wandered in the deserted glens, or by the rocky coast where the tide swells among islets innumerable, would not willingly dream that a tale of the times of old lingers in the midst of that wild and melancholy grandeur ? that we hear its echo on loch and hill, in the measured chant of the boatmen, or in the song of the Highland lass ^s she reaps in solitude " Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. " Will no one tell me what she sings ? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things. And battles long ago." If we feel that poetry is at home in the High- lands, it is a feeling inspired by the beauty of nature ; and the old fragments that were found did, it seemed, truly reflect the best features of THE HIGHLANDS. 3 a landscape now familiar. But in the middle of the eighteenth century there was little admira- tion for bleak mountains and rugged hills ; and at first the scenery of this wild poetry yielded to its human interest, and its picture of ancient life in a desolate country. It was only in recent years that the Highlands had been explored. Their condition at the period of the rising in '45, the independent rule of the chiefs, and the rough life of the clans, are now matters of general knowledge.
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