James Macpherson (Scottish Gaelic: Seumas Mac a' Phearsain or Seumas MacMhuirich) (27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.
Macpherson was born at Ruthven in the parish of Kingussie, Badenoch, Inverness-shire. In 1753, he was sent to King's College, Aberdeen, moving two years later to Marischal College (the two institutions later bec...
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James Macpherson (Scottish Gaelic: Seumas Mac a' Phearsain or Seumas MacMhuirich) (27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.
Macpherson was born at Ruthven in the parish of Kingussie, Badenoch, Inverness-shire. In 1753, he was sent to King's College, Aberdeen, moving two years later to Marischal College (the two institutions later became the University of Aberdeen). He then went to Edinburgh for just over a year, but it is unknown whether he studied at the university. He is said to have written over 4,000 lines of verse while a student; some of this was later published, notably The Highlander (1758), which he is said to have tried to suppress afterwards.
On leaving college, he returned to Ruthven to teach in the school there. At Moffat he met John Home, the author of Douglas, for whom he recited some Gaelic verses from memory. He also showed him manuscripts of Gaelic...
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