tronghold is denial; his sole logic is assertion; his best
rhetoric is abuse; his _ultima ratio_ is to create distrust, and to
involve both himself and everybody else in confusion. Genius, for
example, he declares without hesitation to be trickery; poetry to be
bombast; pathos, monotonous moaning; the tenderest human love to be
sham; the most interesting natural incidents, contemptible inventions;
the plainest statistical information, a deliberate act of theft; the
sublimest conceptions of human character, a fudge; the details of human
history for three hundred years, a melodramatic, incredible fiction; and
what cannot now be found anywhere else recorded, a dream; accidental
coincidence he speaks of as detected dishonesty; imaginary resemblance,
as guilty adaptation; a style suitable to the subject, as plagiarism;
occasional inspiration he calls a lie; translation, a forgery; and the
whole, if not a "magnificent mystification," then, in Procurator-Fiscal
phrase, a "wilful falsehood, fraud, and imposition." But all this,
without proof--and nothing like proof is ever advanced--may be said in
an hour, and the argument would remain as it is. Such, in point of fact,
has been the sum total of assault, reiterated by every new antagonist
with increasing boldness for a century, till reasonable readers have
become callous to it, and only ignorant or prejudiced listeners are
impressed. To be "hopelessly convinced" by it, is perhaps the latest
phase of incredulity; to be edified or enlightened by it is impossible.

But, besides the advantage of being able to speak with freedom of an
author like Ossian, from any natural point of view, an almost infinitely
higher advantage still is to be obtained by actually verifying his text;
by realising his descriptions, ascertaining his alleged facts, and
localising the scenes of his narrative. Whatever is truly grand in
Ossian may thus be identified with nature, if it has a counterpart
there; and what seems only an imaginary outline at first may be filled
up and fixed for ever as among her own still extant properties. A new
sense, coherent and intelligible, may thus be imparted to the most
familiar figures; and not an allusion to earth or sky, to rock or river,
will be lost after such a process. Nay, a certain philosophic
significance, amounting to scientific revelation, may be honestly
associated with some of his loftiest figures; and what the translator
himself apologises for as extravagant, m