With a genius truly poetical, he [Macpherson] was one of the first literary impostors in modern times. - James Macpherson

Go, view the settling sea: the stormy wind is laid. The billows still tremble on the deep. They seem to fear the blast.

Ossian is the decay and old age of poetry. He lives only in the recollection and regret of the past. There is one impression which he conveys more entirely than all other poets, namely, the sense of privation, the loss of all things.

Dr. Blair, relying on the internal evidence of their antiquity, asked Dr. Johnson whether he thought any man of a modern age could have written such poems? Johnson replied, "Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many children."