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his advocate. Of all literary impostors, Macpherson has a just claim to 

 precedence. Psalmanazar, who pretended that he had brought a new 

 language from Formosa to Europe, falls far behind him. Chatterton's 

 ascription of the works of his own splendid genius to Rowley, a priest 

 of the fifteenth century, was a comparatively innocent device to arrest 

 public interest. Lauder's attempt to rob Milton of his glory, by the 

 fabrication of Latin verses, which he affirmed the great poet, as a 

 plagiary, had transferred to his Paradise Lost, was sufficiently infa- 

 mous. But Macpherson, ambitious of being more deeply "damned 

 to everlasting fame," not contented with purloining many of the 

 choicest gems of Irish, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew poetry, falsified 

 the histories of Rome, of Denmark, of Scotland, and above all, of 

 Ireland ; and in violation of the laws of time and place, and in defi- 

 ance of all written documents, dared with matchless effrontery, to 

 give his own crude, unfounded inventions, to the world as authentic 

 history I Ut quisque est meritus, prcemium ferat. . 



Note. — Since this Essay was prepared for the Press, a Member of the Royal Irish 

 Academy informed tlie author, that another work on the same subject has been published 

 by the Rev. Edward Davies, F. R. S. L. This work the author has not seen, nor has he even 

 learned wliat views Mr. Davies has taken of the subject. If, therefore, tlie reader of the 

 two works should discover in them any coincidence of thought or of argument, he will con- 

 sider it as accidental, and remember with Doctor Johnson, that " there are occasions in which 

 all reasonable men will think alike." 



DuBUN, May 4, 1830. 



