Here again theory
showed the way to practice. The melancholy of the Ossianic poems is not
the melancholy of the Celt, but a melancholy compounded of many simples,
and extracted from works that were held in high esteem in the eighteenth
century--Young's _Night Thoughts_, Blair's _Grave_, Gray's _Bard_, and
the soliloquies of Milton's Satan.
Macpherson was soon challenged, and his whole life was passed in a brawl
of controversy. Two famous men dismissed him contemptuously. Dr.
Johnson, who knew what honesty means among scholars, treated him as an
impudent impostor. Wordsworth, who knew what simplicity means in poetry,
declared that all the imagery of the poems is false and spurious. But
the whole question early became a national quarrel, and the honor of
Scotland was involved in it. There are signs that Macpherson would
gladly have escaped from the storm he had raised. Aided by his early
literary success, he became a prosperous man, held a well-paid post at
court, entered Parliament, and was pensioned by the government. Still
the controversy persisted. He had found it easy to take up a haughty
attitude towards those hostile critics who had doubted his good faith and
had asked him to produce his Gaelic originals. But now the demand for
the originals came from his champions and friends, who desired to place
the fame of Scotland's oldest and greatest poet on a sure foundation.


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