Macpherson, James

mak-fer'son, James (1736-1796), a Scottish author and member of Parliament. He issued two or three volumes of poetry purporting to be translations from the Gaelic of fragmentary poems by Ossian, an alleged third century Scottish Homer. According to Macpherson's story, he had gathered these traditional fragments with incredible industry among the fishermen and peasantry of the Western Isles. He made much of storm-clouds, of rolling waves, of deep, resounding caverns, of shaggy warriors, of fighting, and of feasting, using enough incident and scenery to have supplied William Black with material for a dozen novels. His work was pronounced a forgery. Had he possessed a trifle more of literary ability--that is to say, had he written more simply--and had he sent out his volumes as his own conception of third century life in the Western Isles of Scotland, Macpherson would have won fame. If, instead of pretending that he gave literal translations of poetry that had been passed from bard and minstrel to mother and child for fourteen centuries, the deluded writer had been honest and had published his conception of prehistoric Scottish ministrelsy, the name of Macpherson would have had standing; but, as the case was, his pretense was soon discovered and his rhapsodical verses fell short of success by the narrow margin that separates the sublime from the ridiculous. The poems of Ossian are now a mere literary curiosity. See Ireland