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obscure before, without having an additional weight of nonsense 

 thrown around them. To ascribe poetry or romance to any age, 

 though written by ourselves, is an innocent deceit ; but to connect 

 such writings with ancient history, nay, to pretend to alter and cor- 

 rect ancient history by them, is so strange a breach of modesty, that 

 I know not what to call it, no similar instance occurring in the annals 

 of literature. Mr. Macpherson's learning is very ill digested, as Mr. 

 Whitaker has shewn the public ; yet, with all his ignorance of the 

 ancient state of his own country, he has misled many. Doctor 

 Henry, a Dutch compilator, though without Dutch learning, and 

 Mr. Whitaker, a French visionary, though without French vivacity* 

 may shake hands and congratulate one another on the solemn 

 occasion." 



In 1804 appeared Laing's History of Scotland, with a Disserta- 

 tion on the Poems of Ossian annexed. In this Dissertation the 

 author has entered so fully into the subject, with such learning, 

 taste, and discrimination, as to have left little to be done by succeed- 

 ing critics. He exposes many of Macpherson's numberless errors, and 

 dwells with great success on his imitations of Virgil and Homer, of the 

 Sacred Scriptures, and several of the English and Scotch poets. He 

 proves clearly from Macpherson's own admissions, that he had no 

 original, and that it was " the shame of being known only as a trans- 

 lator, that kept him from publishing the fragments " from which his 

 work was constructed. " Such an idea," Laing justly observes, 

 " could have occurred only to a person conscious that the poems were 



writes upon a subject without any knowledge of it, is not the greatest charge against that pro. 

 duction. It also abounds with direct misquotations, in order to mislead. « • » » He 

 says his theory is nev;, and he ought to have known that, of course, it \s false. It would be 

 quite new to assert that Xerxes never existed, and for this we have only history, as well as for 

 the origin of the Scots." 



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