The genuine history of the Britons asserted against Mr. Macpherson ...

5 THE GEMITINE HISTORY OF
renounced the fabulous fyfcem of their ancef^
tors. The defpicable forgeries of their anna-
lif^s are no longer obtruded upon us by the
zeal of mifcaken patriotifm, for the truths and
realities of hiflory. They are either brought for-
ward with a diffidence that betrays its own con-
victions of their fahhood, are mentioned merelf
to be condemned, or are entirely pafl over in a
contemptuous filence. And that enlarged and
mafcuHne turn of thinking, which commenced
near two centuries ago in England, has happily
extended its influence among fhe mountains of
Scodand. The monflrous creations of a GeofFry
and a Fordan, or the authors that they plundered,
the wild fpeflres and goblins which- had
for ages hovered in the gloom of our earlier
hifiory, are now chaced away by the daylight
that is diffufed over the face of our annals. The
Gra;cian and Roman writers are allowed to be
the only flandards of hiftorical truth. And the
•whole liland is now, for the firft time, united inr
the profecution of its genuine hiflory.
The human mind, however, even in its de-
teSion of the greateft falfiries, is continually
checked in its operations by the feeblenefs of its
own efforts, and perpetually Hopped in its progrefsby
the contra