Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of t

by John MacPherson

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386 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1768

About the author

Rev. Dr. John Macpherson (1710 - 1765) was a Scottish minister and antiquarian. The son of Dugald Macpherson, minister at Duirinish, Skye, he studied classics at Aberdeen University, graduating MA 1728, and DD 1761. He was minister of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, 1734 to 1742, and of Sleat on Skye, from 1742 to 1765.

Macpherson published Critical Dissertations on the Origin, Antiquities, Language, Government, Manners, Religion of the Ancient Caledonians, their Posterity, the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots, London, 1768. This work on the Ossian controversy upheld the authenticity of the poems attributed to Ossian. Though not closely related, James Macpherson, author of The Works of Ossian (1765), and John Macpherson knew each other well.

Critical Dissertations also attacked contemporary historians of Scotland, particularly William Robertson. Macpherson claimed to have heard a recitation of Ossianic verse by a Gaelic bard; the poet in question has been identified, tentatively, as Dòmhnall MacMhuirich (fl. 1707 - 1740s), last representative of the MacMhuirich bardic family.

Macpherson's paraphrase of the Song of Moses in Latin verse was published in The Scots Magazine.