compositions were attributed to Ossian, the son of Fingal, a warrior bard of distant antiquity. For the collation and translation of the poems, and for the determining of obsolete words, the collector engaged the assistance of Mr. Gallie, afterwards minister in Badenoch, as well as of Mr, Macpherson of Strathmashie. Presently, by the advice of friends, he removed to London; and there, in 1762, under the patronage of Lord Bute, he published the first results of his labour. These were two volumes of literal prose translations entitled Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem, in Six Books, with other lesser poems.
At that time the dominating figure among the literary coteries of the metropolis was Dr. Samuel Johnson, the eminent dictionary maker; and his violent prejudices against everything Scottish were greatly in fashion. Londoners, besides, had not forgotten or forgiven the panic into which they had been thrown seventeen years previously by the march to Derby of the Highland host under the young Chevalier. The fact, therefore, that a book hailed from the north side of the Border was by no means, just then, a passport to its kindly reception. The coldness with which Hume, the most illustrious historian of his time, had lately been received, and the furious attacks which were killing poor Smollett, the greatest novelist of the day,
