189 



with the Hibernian extract of the Scottish nation !" Will this be 

 believed on the authority of Macpherson so often convicted of false- 

 hood ? Will it be believed by those who look to the quotation 

 already given from Doctor Shaw, page 20, or to the poems from the 

 Highlands and islands of Scotland, prefixed to Lhuyd's Archaeologia, 

 every one of which refers to " the Hibernian extract of the Scottish 

 nation ? " 



We shall now dismiss the Dissertations of Mr, Macpherson, and 

 take a cursory view of the " Critical Dissertation on the Poems of 

 Ossian," by Doctor Blair, prefixed to this and some other editions of 

 the poems. With the beauties which the Doctor found in the poems, 

 or the faults and defects that others have found in them, we have 

 nothing to do ; we shall confine ourselves to a few observations on 

 the internal evidence which the Doctor thinks he has found in the 

 poems, to prove their being composed in a period of very remote 

 antiquity. Upon this and other supposed internal evidence, the 

 Highland Societies also rest the credibility of the antiquity of the 

 poems ; and, indeed, if the poems did really contain that kind of 

 evidence, unmixed with any thing of a contradictory nature, the 

 weight of it could hardly be disputed. This requires our particular 

 attention. -^ ' 



Mr. Macpherson himself. Doctor Blair^ and the Highland Socie- 

 ties, acknowledge, that in the days of Ossian, the Highlanders, or 

 the whole Scotch nation, were totally unacquainted with the arts of 

 civilized society. Doctor Blair tells us, " the compositions of Ossian 

 are so strongly marked with characters of antiquity, that although 

 there were no external proof to support that antiquity, hardly any 

 readers of judgment and taste could hesitate in referring them to a 

 very remote era. There are four great stages through which men 

 successively pass in the progress of society. The first and earliest is 



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