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Scottish poet and literary collector most famous as the perpetrator of a literary hoax: Macpherson claimed to have "translated" the poems of a Gaelic bard named Ossian, and those poems were hugely popular in the late C18, taken as evidence of and support for the "natural poet" concept so popular with the Romantics and their precursors. The poems were in fact written by Macpherson himself, though he never admitted the fact. Macpherson's own work, sometimes elegiac in tone, puts him within the far reaches of the Graveyard School. Mac went on to be a Member of Parliament and, despite (or perhaps because of? ;) having spent some time in Florida, was an official spokesperson for the British government against the American independence revolt, a political connection which later helped him become quite wealthy. And who says crime (at least literary forgery) doesn't pay?
Sites:
Macpherson page
[Scottish Libraries Across the Internet]
Biographical note
[Dafydd Moore, U Plymouth; Literary Encyclopedia]
Brief biographical note
[Wikipedia]
Brief biographical note
[Scotland Online]
Brief biographical note
[NNDB]
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