75 . 



"Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep 

 Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? - - - ^ - 



For neither were ye playing on the steep. 

 Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, &c." 



Milton's Lycidas. 



Imitated from Virgil, Ecl. x. 9, and Theocritus, Idyl. i. 66. 



" Where have ye been, ye southern winds ! when the sons of my love were deceived ? 



But ye have been sporting on the plain, pursuing the thistle's beard." 



Darthula. 



A multitude of imitations might be added to these, but we are unwilling to exhaust the 

 patience of the reader. 



SECTION IV. 



Of the Argument founded on the Excellence of the Poetry, i 



The supposed excellence of Macpherson's poems, is with some 

 a good argument in favour of their authenticity : --i 



" To suppose," says Blair, " that two or three hundred years ago, when we well know 

 the Highlands to have been in a state of gross ignorance and barbarity, there should have 

 arisen in that country a poet of such exquisite genius, and of such deep knowledge of man- 

 kind and of history, as to divest himself of the ideas and manners of his own age, and to 

 give us a just and natural picture of a state of society ancienter by a thousand years; one 

 who could support this counterfeited antiquity, through such a large collection of poems, 

 without the least inconsistency ; and who, possessed of all this genius and art, had at the 

 same time the self-denial of concealing himself, and of ascribing his own work to an anti- 

 quated bard, without the imposture being detected, is a supposition that transcends all 

 bounds of credibility." 



