make beautiful poetry?

Dr. Samuel Johnson, a great writer of whom we shall hear more
later, was the man of his day whose opinion about books was most
thought of. He hated Scotland and the Scottish folk, and did not
believe that any good thing could come from them. He read the
poems and said that they were rubbish, such as any child could
write, and that Macpherson had made them all up.

So a quarrel, which has become famous, began between the two men.
And as Dr. Johnson was far better known than Macpherson, most
people agreed with him and believed that Macpherson had told a
"literary lie," and that he had made up all the stories.

There is no harm in making up stories. Nearly every one who
writes does that. But it is wrong to make up stories and then
pretend that they were written by some one else more famous than
yourself.

Dr. Johnson and Macpherson were very angry with and rude to each
other. Still that did not settle the question as to who had
written the stories; indeed it has never been settled. And what
most men believe now is that Macpherson did really gather from
among the people of the Highlands many scraps of ancient poetry
and tales, but that he added to them and put them together in
such a way as to make them beautiful and touching. To do even
that, however, a true poet was needed, so people have, for the
most part, given up arguing about whether Macpherson wrote Ossian
or not, and are glad that such a beautiful book has been written
by some one.