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

302
THE GENUINE HISTORY OF
trariety of parts to parts is fo glaring, and this
begins fo early in the work, and is continued fo
regularly through it, that in it, as in man, the
feeds of death are incorporated with the firfl
elements of life, that they " grow with its
** growth and flrengthen with its ftrength," and,
on the iirfl occafion that has invited them forth,
have burll out, as we have feen, to the abfolute
deflru£lion of the whole.
It is not the unhappinefs of Mr. Macpherfon,
that he is miftaken in fome unimportant circum-
ftances, that he has mifreprefented fome fubor-
dinate facls, and that he has failed in fome in-
confiderable reafonings. It is not his unhappinefs,
that he is miilaken in feveral circumftances of
confequence, that he has mifreprefented feveral
incidents of importance, and that he has failed
in feveral confiderable arguments. And it is not
his unhappinefs, that he has even failed occafion-
ally, or yet frequently, in main clrcumflanccs,
in effential incidents, and in arguments of the
firfl magnitude. But it is his fmgular and un-
paralleled infelicity, that he has alraoll regularly
failed in all ; that fcarcelya circumdance, ahd:,
or a reafoning, however flight and infignificant,
.is jufl or appofite; that nearly every important
circumflance, every confequential incident, and
every effential argument, are either frivolous in
their nature or ufelefs in their application ; and
that each capital and leading topic of the work
is