169 



This expedient did not make the affair better. Doubts had not 

 been pubhcly expressed, as to the authenticity of the poems, within 

 so short a time as six weeks after their pubhcation. No one had heard 

 of the alleged manuscript being then at the printer's : of course no one 

 went to see it. But when the authenticity of the poems, and the 

 very existence of an original was denied, it was not produced, and 

 this served to confirm the doubts entertained of Macpherson's vera- 

 city. 



The poems, however, were not without their advocates. The 

 celebrated Doctor Hugh Blair, before the controversy respecting them 

 had become general, wrote a " CrJtitical Dissertation on the Poems 

 of Ossian," in which all that could be said in behalf of their authen- 

 ticity, from the internal evidence of the poems, was urged with a 

 force that nothing could exceed ; and their principal beauties were 

 displayed in the most facinating language. The Doctor, however, 

 in his zeal to promote the literary reputation of the ancient Caledo- 

 nians, forgot that in a critical dissertation the internal evidence, 

 which the poems afforded, against their authenticity, and the defects 

 that were contained in them, should be put in counterpoise to the 

 internal evidence for their authenticity, which he thought they con- 

 tained, so that the reader might form an unbiassed judgment on both. 

 The Doctor's first labours in this affair do not seem to have been 

 quite satisfactory to himself. He saw that his arguments did not 

 carry conviction, and to improve their force, he found it necessary to 

 have recourse to authority. For this purpose he applied to several 

 Highland gentlemen and clergymen for information on the subject, 

 and the result of his inquiries he published in an Appendix to his 

 Critical Dissertation. 



Doctor Blair was not, however, the only stickler for the authen- 

 ticity of Macpherson's Ossian. Others, with infinitely less ability, 



