The Ossian forgeries
Wrong but romantic
Hugh Trevor-Roper
Before 1745 the Scottish Highlanders were despised barbarians. In 1745 they were feared barbarians. After 1746 they could no longer inspire fear. They could therefore become romantic barbarians. The man who made them romantic throughout Europe was James Macpher- son, the author, or translator, or editor, or forger, of Fingal and other poems ascribed by him to the supposed ancient Irish bard whom he had impudently transferred to Scotland, Ossian.
Macpherson was not himself a romantic man. His contemporaries saw him as a proud, sullen, coarse, lecherous man, an intriguer and a bully. Though he found his way into literature, society and govern- ment, no educated man remained his friend. The equable David Hume disco- vered him to be the most 'perverse and unamiable' of men. In London, he lived apart, surrounded by a mafia of creature Highlanders. When he retired, as a rich bachelor, to his native valley in Inverness, he was 'shunned' by society: he was 'ex- cluded from domestic life by unhappy connections, kept only tavern company, and was the prey of toad-eaters and design-
ing housekeepers'. Wealth and power, not romance, had been the aim of his life.
How, we may ask, could such a man write (if he did write) a poem which enchanted the literary world not merely by its antiquarian interest but, especially, by its elevated moral sentiments? For Mac- pherson's Caledonian heroes of the 3rd century AD were not only patriotic, brave and poetical: they were also of exquisite sensibility. This important anthropological revelation excited sophisticated London- ers. Who would have thought (they ex- claimed) 'that such sentiments of delicacy as well as generosity could have existed in the breasts of rude, uncultivated people?' Who indeed? So impressed were Mr and Mrs Sheridan that they fixed Fingal as 'a standard of feeling', making it 'a thermo- meter by which they could judge the warmth of everybody's heart'.
To explain the paradox we must go back to the beginning when Macpherson's own heart was relatively warm. As a boy he had seen the Highland collapse after 1746. As a young man he had studied classics at Marischal College, Aberdeen. The princip- al there had been Thomas Blackwell, who,
in his famous Life of Homer, had argued that the most sublime epic poetry was the natural product of a society still emerging from barbarism to civilisation. The young Macpherson fancied himself as a poet and was genuinely interested in Gaelic poetry -- he had a cousin who wrote it, and it was probably at this time that he acquired a 16th century manuscript collection of poems, some of them ascribed to Ossian, which, being written not in Irish but in Latin script, he could read. Then, in 1759, came his famous visit to Moffat, his enthu- siastic reception by the literati of Edin- burgh, the publication of his (spurious) Fragments of ancient Highland poetry, and the germination of the idea that behind the Ossianic ballads of the Highlands there lurked an ancient epic which might still, if one were quick, be recovered. The sensible Blackwell would have scouted such an idea: he knew, and despised, 'the Irish or Highland Riiners% but the Edinburgh liter- ati were of a later, less critical generation: they believed Macpherson and sent him on a sponsored tour of the Highlands to seek out the Celtic Homer.
If seems clear that Macpherson, when he set out, had already been corrupted by the literary embrace. Whether it existed in reality or not, the epic of Ossian alreadY existed in his mind. He had decided its length — 9,000 lines — and knew where It was to be found: an old man in Lochaber had it by heart. If it could not be found, it would have to be invented, for clearlY there was money in it. But he tried first to find it — though not in Lochaber. Picking up his cousin, the Gaelic poet, Lachlan Macpherson, Laird of Strathmashie, he set off to Skye. There he stayed with the minister of Sleat, John Macpherson, wh° remembered Ossianic poems recited by wandering bards and was eager to supPort the theory. Then he went on, with Ewan Macpherson, the Gaelic-speaking school- master of Badenoch, to Benbecula, where Macdonald of Clanranald, the heir a a great dynasty, still kept a hereditary bard and possessed manuscript collections. With the aid of his more expert companions, Macpherson (whose Gaelic was poor) re- corded some recited ballads, and he bor- rowed, against a receipt, some of Clanra- , nald's manuscripts — which (for gond reasons) he would never return. Then he retreated to his cousin's house at Strath- mashie, from which he emerged, a few months later, with at least the draft of the epic which he claimed to have found. Back in Edinburgh, Macpherson re- ported to his sponsors. He showed them his manuscripts 'which appeared to be old. . . much stained with smoke and daubed with Scotch snuff, and he read out parts of the epic which, he said, was derived from them. The literati were delighted. Hugh Blair, Professor of Rhetoric, the rnn!t gullible of them, saw in the new epic confirmation of all his theories. Even David Hume was, briefly, taken in: he gave Macpherson a letter of introduction to his own publisher in London — which Macpherson, however, did not need, for through John Home, another believer, he would find his way to a more powerful Patron, the greatest of all Scotchmen in London, the Prime Minister himself, Lord Bute. It was Bute who would pay for the Publication of Fingal, he to whom — dis- creetly but transparently — it would be dedicated.
When the poem was published, the English literati were at first, like the Scotch, bowled over; but unlike the Scotch, they soon recovered their balance, and by 1763 they were convinced, on every ground, that the epic was a fake. Their reasons also convinced David Hume, who now broke the Edinburgh front and told Blair firmly that Macpherson must submit his evidence or be branded a forger. Blair was sufficiently disturbed to write to Mac- pherson's allies in Skye and Badenoch who all insisted that the poems were genuine (they would, wouldn't they?). Macpherson himself refused to answer any questions: .merely to put them, he said, was an impertinence. The Edinburgh literati were satisfied with Blair's enquiry. Hume was not. Privately he declared that he would not believe in the authenticity of Fingal though 50 bare-arsed Highlanders should swear to it'.
The real test, of course, lay in the manuscripts. Why would Macpherson nev- er submit them to scrutiny? Did they, indeed, exist? Dr Johnson, when he en- tered the fray after his return from the Hebrides, thought they did not. He be- lieved that there were no ancient Gaelic manuscripts: that the language had only recently been reduced to writing, for mis- sionary purposes. In this he was wrong, and Clanranald's manuscripts would have proved him wrong. But Macpherson, though talking boldly of his manuscripts, unaccountably kept them to himself. On one occasion, indeed, in 1762, he had announced that they could be seen at his Publisher's shop; but the announcement had been so unobtrusive that no one had noticed it: clearly it was made for self- protection only. Now, as the pressure grew, he authorised his agent to show the manuscripts to Johnson on application. Johnson did not apply himsef but sent a friend, the Gaelic scholar William Shaw. Shaw reported that the manuscript shown to him contained nothing of Ossian: only Irish genealogies and matter concerning Montrose's war: a valuable revelation, Which identifies the manuscript as Clanra- nald's. It enraged Macpherson, who im- mediately withdrew his offer, denied everything, and abused Shaw. In fact Macpherson's manuscripts (though not very old) were genuine enough, but they had no connection with the poem that was said to be derived from them. Macpherson was willing to show them to Englishmen, Who (like himself) could not read them, but he was frightened of the Irish scholars Who could, and had been his first critics. By the 1770s, when Johnson reopened it, the lines of the battle had long been fixed. The English rejected the whole poem as a fraud. The Edinburgh literati, apart from Hume, would cling, all their long lives, to the illusions in which they had invested. To the Highlanders, the authenticity of the work was an article of faith which they would profess, against all the evidence, for over a century. Perhaps some of them profess it still. However, the real success of Ossian was not in Scotland: it was in Europe, where Celtic romanticism could run riot, uncontaminated by local know- ledge or local patriotism. What a fortune Ossian enjoyed in Europe! His 'works' were translated into nearly every language. In Italy, their trans- lator, the Abbe Cesarotti, would form a circle of young devotees whom he would honour with the names Oscar and Malvina (he himself being Ossian). In Germany Ossian would be extolled by Herder, trans- lated by Klopstock, compared with Homer by Voss, with Shakespeare by Goethe. Napoleon read the poems, in Cesarotti's version, on his homeward journey from Egypt and outward bound to St Helena. His marshal Bernadotte would carry them to Sweden_and give the name of Oscar to successive Swedish kings (and, indirectly, to the son of the court physician Dr Wilde). Meanwhile Ossian conquered the world of art. Angelica Kaufmann, the Danish artist Abilgaard, the French disci- ples of David — Gerard, Girodet, Ingres — would follow the Scot Alexander Runci- man in painting Ossianic themes, and huge pictures of the dream of Ossian calling up the ghosts with his lyre, Ossian welcoming the ghosts of Napoleon's soldiers, would decorate the imperial apartments in Paris and Rome.
All this was very satisfActory to Mac- pherson, but hardly concerned him, for after 1765, when the complete works of Ossian were published, he refused to in- volve ' himself further in such matters, leaving his defence, when necessary, to his Highland mafia. For by now he had other, fatter fish to fry. He had moved on from literature to politics: first, briefly, to Flor- ida, which got him a pension; then to India, which netted him a fortune.
His essential ally was John Macpherson, the son of the minister of Sleat, who had gone to India and ingratiated himself with the Nawab of Arcot. James Macpherson protected his rear. He became a prolific hack-writer for the government, sat in parliament for a rotten Cornish borough, and, as 'Minister Plenipotentiary of his Highness the Nabob of the Carnatic to the - Court of St James' had a salary of 12,000 pagodas a year plus expenses and large perqs in jewellery and bribes. He never spoke in Parliament, but he was busy behind the scenes. Through John Mac- pherson he planted his Highland kinsmen, including two of his own bastards, in India, and he invested for them the fortunes which they sent home. Soon he would claim to be the real ruler of India: was it not he who, by skilful manoeuvres, had overthrown Warren Hastings and set up Sir John Macpherson — 'the Highland snake' as Hastings called him — as governor- general in his stead? How inconvenient that, just at this time, the naive Highland officers in India, to show their gratitude, and in hope of benefits to come, decided to finance the publication of the original Gaelic text of Ossian! Macpherson had always pretended that he was eager to publish that text, but was prevented by the cost. This innocent calling of his bluff was later to cause him a great deal of trouble.
Unfortunately the rule of Sir John Mac- pherson in India did not last long. 'A system of organised jobbery', it collapsed in a few months. But James Macpherson survived every change. Even the bankrupt- cy of his London investment company, which ruined his clients, left his own fortune intact: indeed, it enabled him to buy up their property. So he could retire to his native valley, to the fine new house which Robert Adam had built for him, and live as a laird, patronising his own chief, whom, by his interest with government, he had restored. He had achieved everything that he had wanted, 'having never,' as he wrote, 'extended my views farther than a perfect independence, to which I have attained'. Financial independence, he in- sisted, had been 'the uniform pursuit of my life'.
But let us end on a charitable note. Nine years after Macpherson's death, a writer in the Edinburgh Review examined the evi- dence against him and concluded that it was irrefutable. Scotland, he. admitted, must give up Fingal. Macpherson, he admitted, was not an admirable character. Nevertheless, 'our national vanity may be equally flattered by the fact that a remote and almost barbarous corner of Scotland produced, in the 18th century, a bard' who had not only excited all lovers of poetry but had also given 'a new tone to poetry throughout Europe'. That handsome tri- bute came from the second founder of Scottish romanticism, the man who would rescue it from its false start and put it on a sounder historical base, Sir Walter Scott.
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