Excerpt from The Life and Letters of James Macpherson Among educated Englishmen Macpherson com mouly passes for an audacious impostor Who published his own compositions as the work of an ancient writer, and received due punishment at the hands of Dr. J ohnson. The historians of literature compare him with Chatterton, and brand him as a forger. Even those who re frain from giving him a harsh name treat him with doubt and hesitation. Ah equal obscurity envelops his life and actions and the nature of his work; and the result of ignorance or mis conception is that he has obtained something less than justice. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.