to be spurious, to be nothing in
fact but translations into bad Gaelic from Macpherson's good English. This
conclusion is further supported by the mass of borrowings from the Bible
and the classics which have been found in "Ossian." See J. C. Smart:
"James Macpherson, An Episode in Literature" (1905).

P. 276. _lamentation of Selma_. Lament of Colma in "Songs of Selma,"
Ossian, ed. William Sharp, p. 410.

_Roll on_. Cf. ibid., p. 417: "ye bring no joy on your course!"

MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS

[The identification of quotations has been omitted for this essay in order
to allow students an opportunity to try it for themselves.]

The third and fourth paragraphs of this essay had appeared in a letter of
Hazlitt's to the Examiner (Works, III, 152). The entire essay was first
published in the third number of the Liberal (see note to p. 244).

P. 277. _W--m_. Wem.

P. 281. _Murillo_ (1617-1682) and _Velasquez_ (1599-1660) are the two
greatest Spanish painters.

_nothing--like what he has done_. In the essay "On Depth and
Superficiality" ("Plain Speaker"), Hazlitt characterizes Coleridge as "a
great but useless thinker."

P. 282. _Adam Smith_ (1723-1790), founder of the science of political
economy, author of "The Wealth of Nations" (1776).

_huge folios_. In the essay "On Pedantry" ("Round Table") Hazlitt writes:
"In the library of the family where we were brought up, stood the _Fratres
Poloni_; and we can never forget or describe the feeling with which not
only their appearance, but the names of the authors on the outside
inspired us. Pripscovius, we remember, was one of the easiest to
pronounce. The gravity of the contents seemed in proportion to the weight
of the volumes; the importance of the subjects increased with our
ignorance of them."

P. 283, n. Hazlitt's father was the author of "Discourses for the Use of
Families on the Advantages of a Free Enquiry and on the Study of the
Scriptures" (1790) and of "Sermons for the Use of Families" in two volumes
(1808).

P. 284. _Mary Wolstonecraft_ (1759-1797), author of the "Vindication of
the Rights of Woman" (1792).

_Mackintosh_, Sir James (1765-1832), wrote "Vindiciae Gallicae, a Defence of
the French Revolution and its English Admirers against the Accusations of
the Right Hon. Edmund Burke." Hazlitt writes of Mackintosh in the "Spirit
of the Age" as "one of the ablest and most accomplished men of the age,
both as a writer, a speaker, and a convers