166 



there is a design on foot to print the originals, as soon as the trans- 

 lator shall have time to transcribe them for the press; and if this pub- 

 lication shall not take place, copies will then be deposited in one of 

 the public libraries, to prevent so ancient a monument of genius from 

 being lost." 



By this advertisement it is evident that Mr. Macpherson knew 

 that the public required something to satisfy its doubts respecting 

 the authenticity of the poems. But although he lived for thirty-four 

 years after giving that pledge, though he was often called upon pub- 

 licly and privately to produce originals, and though he received 

 ^1,000 at one time, and ^200 at another, from the Highland 

 Society of London, for the purpose of defraying the expense of print- 

 ing the originals, he never printed one of them, nor deposited them 

 in any library. 



The bare promise of Mr. Macpherson respecting the originals, did 

 not satisfy the public. The existence of the Gaelic originals of what 

 appeared in English was positively denied, not only by writers of 

 these nations, but also by others on the Continent. In Ireland, the 

 late venerable Charles O'Conor, in his " Dissertations on the History 

 of Ireland," and in his Preface to O'Flaherty's "Ogygia Vindicated," 

 openly charged Mr. Macpherson as an impostor ; and he supported 

 the charge by such observations and arguments as Macpherson did 

 not answer. Sylvester O'Halloran too, author of the History of 

 Ireland, in his introduction to that work, but much earlier, in essays 

 published in " Wilson's Dublin Magazine," brought similar charges, 

 and branded the translator with ignorance and falsehood. The work 

 was warmly taken up in France also by some writers, who published 

 a learned article upon the subject, in the Journal des Spavans, for 

 May, June, &c., 1764. But the most powerful opponent that Mr. 

 Macpherson had to meet with, was the celebrated Doctor Samuel 



