Poet and historian James Macpherson is best known for his “translations” of the Gaelic epic poems by the fictitious ancient bard Ossian. Though the authenticity of these poems came under attack almost immediately, they nevertheless exerted a powerful influence on the British Romantic literature that soon followed. Born in a small town in the Scottish highlands, Macpherson began his career collecting, then translating Gaelic verse, and was encouraged by literary antiquarian Hugh Blair to publish some of these efforts as Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and Translated from the Galic or Erse Language (1760). Supported by funds contributed in response to this publication, Macpherson set out to search for ancient Celtic poetry, returning with the alleged third century epics Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books: Together with Several Other Poems (1761) and Temora, an Ancient Epic Poem, in Eight Books: Together with Several Other Poems (1763), both professedly "Composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal" and translated by Macpherson. The authenticity of Macpherson’s Celtic works was vehemently debated during his lifetime, but only after his death was it determined that the poems consisted partly of some Gaelic verse dating as far back as the fifteenth century and partly of Macpherson’s own material. Macpherson’s historiography and political writing includes An Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (1771); The History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hannover (1775); The Rights of Great Britain Asserted against the Claims of America: Being an Answer to the Declaration of the General Congress (1776); Original Papers relative to Tanjore (1777), also possibly a Macpherson forgery; A Short History of the Opposition during the Last Session of Parliament (1779); and The History and Management of the East-India Company, from its Origin in 1600 to the Present Times (1779).