Fragments Of Ancient Poetry | Page 2

the poem that was to become "Fragment VII" in?this collection; Home was so much pleased with it that he requested additional translations.[3]
"Jupiter" Carlyle, whose autobiography reflects the keen interest that he took in literature, arrived at Moffat after Home had seen the "translations." Home, he found, "had been highly delighted with them," and when Carlyle read them he "was perfectly?astonished at the poetical genius" that they displayed. They agreed that "it was a precious discovery, and that as soon as possible it should be published to the world."[4]
When Home left Moffat he took his find to Edinburgh and showed the translations to the men who earned the city Smollett's sobriquet, a "hotbed of genius": Robertson, fresh from the considerable success of his two volume History of Scotland (1759); Robert Fergusson, recently appointed professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh; Lord Elibank, a learned aristocrat, who had?been patron to Home and Robertson; and Hugh Blair, famous for the sermons that he delivered as rector of the High Church of St. Giles. Home was gratified that these men were "no less pleased" with Macpherson's work than he had been. David Hume and David Dalrymple (later Lord Hailes) were soon apprised of the discovery and joined in the chorus of approbation that emanated from the Scottish capitol.
Blair became the spokesman and the leader for the Edinburgh literati, and for the next forty years he lavished his energy in praising and defending Macpherson's work. The translations came to?him at the time that he was writing his lectures on belles lettres and was thus in the process of formulating his theories on the origins of poetry and the nature of the sublime. Blair lost no time in communicating with Macpherson:
"I being as much struck as Mr Home with the high spirit of poetry which breathed in them, presently made inquiry where Mr. Macpherson was to be found; and having sent for him to come to me, had much conversation with him on the subject."[Footnote 5]
Macpherson told Blair that there were "greater and more considerable poems of the same strain" still extant in the Highlands; Blair like Home was eager for more, but Macpherson again declined to translate them. He said that he felt himself inadequate to render "the spirit and force" of the originals and that "they would be very ill relished by the public as so very different from the strain of modern ideas, and of modern, connected, and polished poetry." This whetted Blair's interest even more, and after "repeated importunity" he persuaded Macpherson to translate more fragments. The result was the present volume, which Blair saw to the press and for which he wrote the Preface "in consequence of the conversations" that he had with Macpherson.[Footnote 6: ]
Most of Blair's Preface does seem to be based on information supplied by Macpherson, for Blair had almost no first-hand knowledge about Highland poetry or its traditions. It is apparent from the Preface then, that Macpherson had not yet decided to ascribe the poems to a single poet; Ossian is one of the principal poets in the collection but the whole is merely ascribed "to the bards" (see pp. v-vi). It is also evident from the Preface that Macpherson was shifting from the reluctant "translator" of a few "fragments" to the projector of a full-length epic "if enough encouragement were given for such an undertaking."
Since Blair became famous for his _Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian_ (London, 1763), it may seem strange that in the Preface to the Fragments he declined to say anything of the "poetical merit" of the collection. The frank adulation of the longer essay, which concludes with the brave assertion that Ossian may be placed "among those whose works are to last for ages,"[7] was partially a reflection of the enthusiasm that greeted each of Macpherson's successive publications.
III
Part of the appeal of the Fragments was obviously based on the presumption that they were, as Blair hastened to assure the reader, "genuine remains of ancient Scottish poetry," and therefore provided a remarkable insight into a remote, primitive culture; here were maidens and warriors who lived in antiquity on the harsh, wind-swept wastes of the Highlands, but they were capable of highly refined and sensitive expressions of grief--they were the noblest savages of them all. For some readers the rumors of imposture served to dampen their initial enthusiasm, and such was?the case with Hume, Walpole, and Boswell, but many of the admirers of the poems found them rapturous, authentic or not.
After Gray had read several of the "Fragments" in manuscript he wrote to Thomas Warton that he had "gone mad about them"; he added,
"I was so struck, so _extasi��_ with their infinite beauty, that I writ into Scotland to make a thousand enquiries....?The whole external evidence would make one believe?these fragments