were raised to admire, and all hearts were ready to pay homage to the 

 splendid phenomenon. Scotland in particular was delighted. She 

 flattered herself that now she had a poet who would rival Homer, and 

 it became a point of national honour to laud and magnify his various 

 beauties. We learn from a letter of Hume's, that every one was per- 

 suaded of his authenticity, that philosophers and men of letters, the 

 celebrated Adam Smith, and the Laird of Mac-Farlane^ the greatest 

 antiquary in Scotland, and Major Mackay, Lord Rae's brother, and 

 the Laird and the Lady Macleod, to say nothing of names of inferior 

 note, were all of one sentiment on the subject. It was now disco- 

 vered, that in the Highlands every body could repeat the poems in 

 the original,- that the names of Fingal and Ossian, and Oscar and 

 Dermid, were as common to the mountaineers of Scotland, as Ctesar 

 and Pompey to the old citizens of Rome, insomuch, that their favou- 

 rite mastiffs were designated by those heroic appellations.* The 

 happy translator, who had experienced how hard it is " to climb the 

 slippery steep of fame," now found himself transported, as bv a sud- 

 den bound, to its highest elevation. A liberal subscription was com- 

 menced among the patrons of genius in Edinburgh, to reward his la- 

 bours, and enable him to make a tour to the Highlands, to discover 

 more poetical treasures. In that tour he fulfilled the object of his 

 mission, and in the commencement of the ensuing year, published in 

 London a new and enlarged edition of the poems, which seems to have 

 obtained an extensive circulation, and added much to his celebrity. 

 Blair, the distinguished divine and professor of Rhetoric and Belles 

 Lettres, became, through the influence of Home, the well-known au- 

 thor of the. Tragedy of Douglas, their zealous and decided advocate. 



* Lord Kaims says that Luath and Bran, the names of Fingal's dogs, were the appellations 

 still retained. . .Q .Q ;iic!ri it-jH'lo ttf^.JhW'ij.:* ^^liJ 3;in(. J.'.ucja:. . 



