Chapter V

The _Fragments_ proved an immediate success and Macpherson's Edinburgh patrons moved swiftly to raise enough money to enable the young Highlander to resign his position as tutor and to devote himself to collecting and translating the Gaelic poetry still extant in the Highlands. Blair recalled that he and Lord Elibank were instrumental in convening a dinner meeting that was attended by "many of the first persons of rank and taste in Edinburgh," including Robertson, Home, and Fergusson.[17] Robert Chalmers acted as treasurer; among the forty odd subscribers who contributed 60£, were James Boswell and David Hume.[18] By the time of the second edition of the _Fragments_ (also in 1760), Blair, or more likely Macpherson himself, could inform the public in the "Advertisement" "that measures are now taken for making a full collection of the remaining Scottish bards; in particular, for recovering and translating the heroic poem mentioned in the preface."

Macpherson, a frugal man, included many of the "Fragments" in his later work. Sometimes he introduced them into the notes as being later than Ossian but in the same spirit; at other times he introduced them as episodes in the longer narratives. With the exception of Laing's edition, they are not set off, however, and anyone who wishes to see what caused the initial Ossianic fervor must consult the original volume.

When we have to remind ourselves that a work of art was revolutionary in its day, we can be sure that we are dealing with something closer to cultural artifact than to art, and it must be granted that this is true of Macpherson's work; nevertheless, the fact that Ossian aroused the interest of major men of letters for fifty years is suggestive of his importance as an innovator. In a curious way, Macpherson's achievement has been overshadowed by the fact that many greater writers followed him and developed the artistic direction that he was among the first to take.

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[Footnote 1: See Scott's letter to Anna Seward in J. G. Lockhart, _Memoirs of
Sir Walter Scott_ (London, 1900), I, 410-15.]

[Footnote 2: _The Poems of Ossian_, ed. Malcolm Laing (Edinburgh, 1805), I, 441.]

[Footnote 3: See Home's letter to Mackenzie in the _Report of the Committee of the
Highland Society of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1805), Appendix, pp. 68-69.]

[Footnote 4: Carlyle to Mackenzie, _ibid_., p. 66.]

[Footnote 5: Blair to Mackenzie, _ibid_., p. 57.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., p. 58.]

[Footnote 7: Quoted from _The Poems of Ossian_ (London, 1807), I, 222. After its
initial separate publication, Blair's dissertation was regularly
included with the collected poems.]

[Footnote 8: _Correspondence of Thomas Gray_, ed. Paget Toynbee and Leonard
Whibley (Oxford, 1935), II, 679-80.]

[Footnote 9: _The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry_, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge
(London, 1898), I, 183.]

[Footnote 10: "On Poetry in General," _The Complete Works of William Hazlitt_, ed.
P. P. Howe (London, 1930), V, 18.]

[Footnote 11: Quoted in Henry Grey Graham, _Scottish Men of Letters in the
Eighteenth Century_ (London, 1908), p. 240.]

[Footnote 12: _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, ed. Alexander
Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), I, 547.]

[Footnote 13: "The Influence of Ossian," _English_, VII (1948), 96.]

[Footnote 14: _The Sublime_ (Ann Arbor, 1960), p. 126.]

[Footnote 15: _The Insistence of Horror_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 86-87.]

[Footnote 16: _The Sufferings of Young Werther_, trans. Bayard Morgan (New York,
1957), p. 51.]

[Footnote 17: _Report_, Appendix, p. 58.]

[Footnote 18: See Robert M. Schmitz, _Hugh Blair_ (New York, 1948), p. 48.]

FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT POETRY

Collected in the Highlands of Scotland,

and

Translated from the Galic or Erse Language

"Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremtas
Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis aevuin,
Plurima securi fudistis carmina _Bardi_."

LUCAN