Poesy_ emphasizes qualities (emotion and sublimity) which the _Essay on
Criticism_ had not stressed; and _The Bard_ presents a wildly picturesque
figure of ancient days. Gray felt that classicism might quicken its
spirit and widen its interests without surrendering its principles, that
a classical poem might be a popular poem; and the admiration of posterity
supports his belief.

An astounding and epochal event was the publication (1760 ff.) of
the poems attributed to Ossian. Their "editor and translator," James
Macpherson, author of a forgotten sentimental epic, alleged that Ossian
was a Gaelic poet of the third century A.D., who sang the loves and wars
of the heroes of his people, brave warriors fighting the imperial legions
of Rome; and that his poems had been orally transmitted until now,
fifteen centuries later, they had been taken down from the lips of Scotch
peasants. It was a fabrication as ingenious as brazen. As a matter of
fact, Macpherson had found only an insignificant portion of his extensive
work in popular ballads; and what little he had found he had expanded and
changed out of all semblance to genuine ancient legend. Both the
guiding motive of his prose-poem (it is his as truly as _King Lear_
is Shakespeare's), and the furore of welcome which greeted it, may be
understood by recalling the position of the sentimental school on the eve
of its appearance. The sentimentalists were maintaining that civilization
had corrupted tastes, morals, and poetry, that it had perverted Man from
his instinctive goodness, and that only by a return to communion with
Nature could humanity and poetry be redeemed. But all this was based
merely on philosophic theory, and could find no confirmation in history
or literature: history knew of no innocent savages; and even as
unsophisticated literature as Homer was then supposed to be, disclosed no
heroes perfect in the sentimental virtues.