na_. The
growing appreciation of a wider outlook on life, and possibly
acquaintance with the romances of chivalry, made the composition of the
_Colloquy_ possible, but, again, it may represent a more generous
conception of paganism existing from the time of the first encounter of
Christianity with it in Ireland.

The strife of creeds in Ireland, the old order changing, giving place to
new, had evidently impressed itself on the minds of Celtic poets and
romancers. It suggested itself to them as providing an excellent
"situation"; hence we constantly hear of the meeting of gods, demigods,
or heroes with the saints of the new era. Frequently they bow before the
Cross, they are baptized and receive the Christian verity, as in the
_Colloquy_ and in some documents of the Cuchulainn cycle. Probably no
other European folk-literature so takes advantage of just this
situation, this meeting of creeds, one old and ready to vanish away, the
other with all the buoyant freshness of youth.

Was MacPherson's a genuine Celtic epic unearthed by him and by no one
else? No mortal eye save his has ever seen the original, but no one who
knows anything of the contents of the saga can deny that much of his
work is based on materials collected by him. He knew some of the tales
and ballads current among the folk, possibly also some of the Irish MS.
versions. He saw that there was a certain unity among them, and he saw
that it was possible to make it more evident still. He fitted the
floating incidents into an epic framework, adding, inventing, altering,
and moulding the whole into an English style of his own. Later he seems
to have translated the whole into Gaelic. He gave his version to the
world, and found himself famous, but he gave it as the genuine
translation of a genuine Celtic epic. Here was his craft; here he was
the "charlatan of genius." His genius lay in producing an epic which
people were willing to read, and in making them believe it to be not his
work but that of the Celtic heroic age. Any one can write an epic, but
few can write one which thousands will read, which men like
Chateaubriand, Goethe, Napoleon, Byron, and Coleridge will admire and
love, and which will, as it were, crystallise the aspirations of an age
weary with classical formalism. MacPherson introduced his readers to a
new world of heroic deeds, romantic adventure, deathless love, exquisite
sentiments sentimentally expressed. He changed the rough warriors and
beaut