“That Fingal is not from beginning to end a translation from the Gallick, but that some passages have been supplied by the editor to connect the whole, I have heard admitted by very warm advocates for its authenticity. If this be the case, why are not these distinctly ascertained? Antiquaries, and admirers of the work, may complain, that they are in a situation similar to that of the unhappy gentleman whose wife informed him, on her death-bed, that one of their reputed children was not his; and, when he eagerly begged her to declare which of them it was, she answered, That you shall never know', and expired, leaving him in irremediable doubt as to them all.”

—  James Macpherson

James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), p. 490.
Criticism

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James Macpherson46
Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician 1736–1796

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