authenticity of the _Poems of Ossian_, was the impossibility of any man of sense imagining that they should have been orally preserved ‘during fifty generations, by _the rudest, perhaps of all European nations; the most necessitous_, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled.’” Such is the historian Hume’s estimate of the Macpherson fraud as stated by the _Edinburgh Review_, and such the beggarly array of evidence on which, according to the abettors of Macpherson, the honour and glory of Scotland, must rest in all time to come. The Scotch are a stubborn race on which to operate, especially in matters that concern their nationality. They have conceived the idea that in the dark ages--dark to all but them--their countrymen, a Celtic race, were skilled in the sciences and acquainted with art. This as an article of faith has hardened into a conviction not to be shaken, and is that which, in their view, distinguishes Scotland above all competitors. In it, in the remote ages of the past, there existed culture and refinement rivalling that of the most literary nations of antiquity whether Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek or Roman. The roving Northmen, according to their account, were but plundering pirates, and other nations barbarians. No evidence, however overwhelming, will alter or modify this opinion. Not on any terms will they be induced to give up their preconceptions. Philologers and Ethnologists, Professors, and specialists, _et hoc genus omne_, are called to the rescue, while they refuse to look at the clearest facts. When their favourite idol begins to shake they rush into the market-place crying “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” It is impossible to doubt that Macpherson was an impudent impostor. When his veracity was impugned no simpler method of clearing his reputation from the aspersions cast upon it could have been devised than the very reasonable plan suggested by Dr. Johnson, that he should place the manuscripts in the hands of the professors at Aberdeen where there were persons capable of judging of their authenticity. The manuscripts were never produced, and in admitting this fact the defenders of Macpherson resign the whole question. “To refuse,” Dr. Johnson says, “to gratify a reasonable curiosity is the last refuge of impudent mendacity.” Dr. Johnson’s letter to this vain-glorious boaster repelling a threat of personal violence is a master-piece of contemptuous scorn and defiance. “Mr. James Macpherson, I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel, and what I cannot do myself the law will do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture. I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities since your _Homer_ are not so formidable, and what I hear of your morals