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

THE BRITONS ASSERTED. 397
revolutions in Gaul, and to correfpond with the
interior difpofition of Britain. But, to make the
records of both conformable to the demands
of this hypothcfis, he has flretched out the hif-
tory where it was too fhort, he has curtailed it
where it was too long, and has given us a nar-
ration at iaft, with fcarcely a fmgle member of
that which we ufed to contemplate in the authors
of Greece and Rome. And this is executed with
fuch a grofs perverfion even of his own quota-
lions, and with fuch plain and manifefl corrup-
tions even of his own authorities, fuch erazings
of records, and fuch interpolations of hiftories,
as pain me greatly for Mr. Macpherfon's fenfibilities,
becaufe they exhibit him in a light, I am
fure, the very oppofiteof his real charafter. Mr.
Macpherfon, I am perfuaded, is a gentleman of
high honour and fpirit, and could not voluntarily
have been capable of fuch actions, even in imagi-
nation. But what then muft be the magic power
of that prejudice, which could thus bind up the
force'of a difcerning fpirit, and lufpend all his
faculties of precifion and judgment ;
could thus
warp his mind from its natural bias of falrnefs,
and throw the illiberal hue of dilhonefly over
one of the mofl ingenuous and candid of men I
It is furely a melancholy inilance of the weak-
nefs of the human intelleft, even in its manly
exertions of flrength. And thofe only have a
right