The Arkansas advocate., 1830-11-24

ciOPeula, thus relates the orlgln Of the celebrated literary fiction known as the Poems of Ossidn.-
 Some fragments of the songs of Scot fish Highlanders, of very uncertain an tiquity, appear to have fallen into the hands of Macpherson, a young man ofno mean genius, unacquainted with the higher criticism applied to the genuine ness of ancient writings, and who was too much stranger to the studious world 10 have learnt these refnements which extend probity to literature as wellasto property. Elated by the praise not unjustly bestowed on some of these fragments, instead of insuring general assent to them by publication in their natural state, he unhappily applied his talents for slSiltul imitation to complete peetleal works in q style similar to tie fragments, and to work them into the unsuitable shape of epic and dramatic poems. He was not aware of the i'm 2 possibility of poems, preserved only by tradition, being intelligiblc after thirteen centuries to readers who knew only the languageof their own times: and he did not perceive the extravaganza of peop- ling the Caledonian mountains in the fourth century with race of men so generous and merciful, so gallant. so mild, and somagnanimous, that the most ingenious romances of the age of chiyal- ry could not have ventured to represent | single hero as on level with their common virtues. He did not consider the prodigious absurdity of interesting as 1t were people thus advanced in moral civilization, between the Britons. lguoraat and savage as they are printed by Gasar, and the Highlanders. fierce and rude as they arerepresented by the first accounts of the chroniclers of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Even the better parts of the Scots were, in the latter period, thus spoken of.-"In Scot land ye shall find noman lightly ofhonor or gentleness: they are like wild and sa- wage people,
 The great historian who made the annals of Scotland part of European literature had sufficiently warned his countrymen against such faults, by the : decisive observation that their fore-fa- thers were unacquainted with the art of writing, which alone preserves language from a total change, and great events. from oblivion. Macpherson was encour- aged to overleap these and many other improbabilties by youth, talent. and ap- plause: perhaps he did not at first dis tinctly present to his mind the perma- hence of the deception. It is more probable, and it is supposition coun- sfenanced by many circumstances, that after enjoying the pleasures of duping so many critics, he intended one day to claim the poems as his own; but if he had suchadesign, considerable obstacles toits execution arose around him. He was loaded with so much praise, that he seemed bound in honor to his admirers pot to desert them. The support of his own country appeared to render adhe- renee to those poems which Scotland inconsiderateiy sanctioned by sort of national obligation. Exasperated, on the other hand, by the. perhaps, undu- ly vehement, and sometimes very coarse attacks made upon hina, he unwil- ling to surrender to such opponents He involved himself at last so deeply as to leave him no decent retreat. Since the keen and searching publication of Mr. Laing these poems have fallen in reputation, as they lost the character of gcnuIncness. They had been admired by all the nations, and by all the men ofgeuias in Europe. The lassineiaent in their story is perhaps the most re-. narkable. in an Italian version. which poftened their defects. and rendered their characteristic qualities faint. they formed almost tsE.e whole spooticai}ibra- ryof Napoleon:--a man who, wilatev- ermay be finally thought of him in oth- CT respects, must be owned to be, by the transcendant yigor of his powers, entitled to place in the first class of human minds. No other imposture in literary history approaches themin the sPiendor of their course.
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