For the English knew
little of the Highlanders and their customs. Even after the '15
and the '45 people in the south knew little about the north and
those who lived there. They thought of it as a land of wild
mountains and glens, a land of mists and cloud, a land where wild
chieftains ruled over still wilder clans, who, in their lonely
valleys and sea-girt islands, were for ever warring against each
other. How could such a people, they asked, a people of savages,
make beautiful poetry?
Dr. Samuel Johnson, a great writer of whom we shall hear more
later, was the man of his day whose opinion about books was most
thought of. He hated Scotland and the Scottish folk, and did not
believe that any good thing could come from them. He read the
poems and said that they were rubbish, such as any child could
write, and that Macpherson had made them all up.
So a quarrel, which has become famous, began between the two men.
And as Dr. Johnson was far better known than Macpherson, most
people agreed with him and believed that Macpherson had told a
"literary lie," and that he had made up all the stories.
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