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rent from the present order of things ; in short, that a modern Euro- 

 pean should produce such a work as the poetry of Ossian, distin- 

 guished exclusively by the ideas peculiar to a people in the most sim- 

 ple state of society ; all these, I confess, I must consider as efforts 

 beyond the reach of humanity." 



From which confession we are obliged to infer that its author did 

 not take sufficient pains to inform himself of what humanity is capa- 

 ble of effecting, or he would have considered the poetry which he 

 eulogizes as within the compass of very ordinary powers. Indeed, 

 had Macpherson been destitute of those literary stores, both ancient 

 and modern, with which his mind was enriched, there would have 

 been some validity in the argument. But as it is stated, the very 

 premises expose the fallacy of the conclusion. Were it even true, 

 which we are far from admitting, that the poetry is " distinguished 

 exclusively by the ideas peculiar to a people in the most simple state 

 of society ;" what would such a truth prove more than this, that the 

 author had carefully observed those laws which the nature of his 

 work required, and which he could not violate without shocking all 

 probability ? A poet who sits down to write a pastoral, if he is not 

 ignorant of his art, knows that he ought not, and of course will not, 

 introduce ideas foreign to the pastoral life. He will not give his 

 shepherds the manners of courtiers, nor present his goatherds disput- 

 ing about metaphysics. The dramatic writer who lays his scene on 

 the borders of the artic circle, will be careful how he employs the 

 imagery of the tropics. He is an unskilful artist who covers his can- 

 vas with incongruities, who paints a dolphin in the woods and a boar 

 in the waves. Macpherson knew this well, and having fixed on an 

 age and country for his pastoral epics, he exercised as much skill as 

 he possessed to make his colouring and imagery correspond. But 

 after all his care, he did not succeed so happily as to hide his artifice. 



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