just as much a part, comparatively, in their daily life as 'housing' does in ours. But James Macpherson never heard of them; they are not to be found in his Ossian,' either Gaelic or English. If his Gaelic 'originals' had been really based on genuine ancient material the huts that we are now finding so enlightening might have been expected to be there. To judge from Macpherson's work the ancient Gaels lived either in palaces or caves. But they lived in houses, of a kind that he-and the fabricator of these poems-had no idea of, otherwise we may be very sure the hut-circles would have appeared in 'Ossian.'

The matter of the hill-forts is still worse. The study of these, too, is subsequent to Macpherson's time, and it is not to his discredit in any way that he knew nothing about them. But that no reference to them appears in his 'Ossian' productions is conclusive evidence against the genuineness of his material. His chiefs were continually at war, and often he makes them take to their hills; but never do they take to a hill-fort, the 'dùn,' the typical Gaelic stronghold, of which Scotland is now seen to possess so many admirable examples, not merely on the mainland, but in the Western Islands. Not only were these hill-forts the strongholds of the chiefs, they were, too, the safe enclosures of the Gaelic people, just as the hill-forts of Gaul were the enclosures of the Celtic folk in the days of Cæsar.

Note how different is Macpherson's silence on this material point compared with genuine ancient Gaelic tradition. An admirable instance will be found in the Book of the Dean of Lismore, of date prior to the 16th century. It is the same Ossian as Macpherson wished to glorify who speaks; but he does so in his own country, Ireland, and the material is of genuine Irish source:

'I have a tale which I would tell regarding our people, O Patrick!

Listen to Finn's prediction.

Shortly ere thou cam'st, O Priest,

The hero was to build a fort

On Cnailgne's bare and rounded hill.

He laid it on the Feine of Fail

Materials for the work to get' ('Dean of Lismore,' p. 14).

The outcome of this study is inevitable, and easily

summed up. First-James Macpherson, who began with 'Ossian' imposture in 1759, before anything was published on the subject, continued the imposture throughout his life, and on this subject is unworthy of belief in any degree. Second-Undoubtedly he made a translation from Gaelic 'originals,' which were published in 1807, after his death, these 'originals' being in his own handwriting or in that of his assistants; further, that he was so incompetent in the Gaelic as to be incapable of putting together in that language the material of those 'originals,' and that the process of expressing the material in form was done by those persons with whom he was closely in touch, who were known to be sufficiently competent for such work. Third-The Gaelic 'originals' were themselves impostures; and the conception of them was due to a single person, of Macpherson's own time, of limited knowledge, not only in Gaelic speech, but also of Gaelic history and archæology-all tending to the certainty, when the known facts are taken into account, that the real author of these Gaelic 'originals' was Macpherson himself. The only further question that could possibly arise would be, Was he the actual trickster through all this wretched scheme of deception, or was he the tool of others? There can be but one answer. Macpherson was the only person who stood to gain-who, in point of fact, did gain-by the publication of the pretended 'discoveries'; while his known record indicates sufficiently that he would have no scruples. It may well be that in such an affair as this-in the earlier stages, at least— no high ethical standard was involved, but the period of deception was too prolonged, and the process too well considered, for an explanation of honest dealing to apply.

It is a sordid record-sad for the memory of a person who had good abilities, and not creditable to the Gaelic scholarship of the 18th, and the first three-quarters of the 19th centuries. It is much to the credit of Gaelic scholarship of our own time that, uninfluenced by racial feeling which previously must have affected impartial judgment of the work, it has finally rejected James Macpherson and his 'Ossian,' which can now be set down as one of the most remarkable literary impostures that has happened in Britain in modern times.

G. M. FRASER.

Art. 9.-THE FATHER OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

In

THE father of Political Economy and the inventor of the term was Antoyne de Montchrétien, who in 1615 published his Traicté de l'Economie Politique' at Rouen. It is a very interesting book and he was a remarkable man; but both are very little known outside France, and even there Montchrétien is better known as a dramatist and man of letters than as an economist. Elsewhere the man and his book are hardly ever mentioned; few economic writers seem to have heard of them. fact, the invention of the term 'political economy' is still often ascribed to Adam Smith or to the Physiocrats 150 years after its real origin. This neglect is curious in an age when historical research into economic theory in the past is so active. Surely the man who first conceived and named the science which plays so great a part in modern thought deserves some of the attention lavished on other early writers who contributed to some particular branch of the subject, but had no such comprehensive grasp of it. It is a fact of real historical interest that the conception of political economy did not come in, as commonly supposed, with the 'classical economists' of the 18th century, who preached Free Trade, but with the rise of the 'mercantile system,' which intervened between the medieval order and the era of free enterprise. The fact has been missed through the studied refusal to give Montchrétien his proper place in the history of economic theory. Not that he invented or inaugurated the mercantile system in the same sort of way as the Physiocrats and Adam Smith may be said to have invented Free Trade by preaching it as a reaction against the system of regulation in force. But he did preach it for France, because other countries were already practising it to her detriment; and by his treatment of the subject he gave coherence to the principles on which it was based, systematised it, and inspired the subsequent policy of France under Richelieu and Colbert, which effectually established and consolidated it as the standing economic order, both national and international.

There is a remarkable parallel between his position

and that of Tariff Reform in this country since Mr Chamberlain took it up more than twenty years ago; and this makes him all the more interesting. The parallel is, indeed, in particular details almost ludicrously close to the actual situation to-day, as I shall presently show. Montchrétien was really at heart in favour of reciprocally free trade, but since free trade had come to mean free imports of foreign goods into France and protective tariffs against French goods in other countries, he was driven to advocate protection. To make all this clear, however, it is necessary to give an account of the man and of the times in which he lived. Who was Montchrétien ?

The biographical details are scanty. When M. Funck Brentano resuscitated and republished the 'Traicté' in 1889, he collected, with the assistance of other French scholars, all the information that could be gathered from contemporary sources and embodied it in the introduction to his edition. The chief source was the 'Mercure François' of 1621, which published a memoir after the death of Montchrétien in the Huguenot rising of that year. M. Brentano suggests that this account was mainly responsible for the ill odour in which the name of Montchrétien was held, and the consequent injustice done to his memory. There is certainly evidence of hostile prejudice, which was indeed inevitable in the excited partisan atmosphere of the times. Though not a Huguenot, Montchrétien had taken up arms on their behalf against the royal forces in that extraordinarily confused conflict; and the contemporary newspaper, which was on the other side, naturally presented him in the most unfavourable light possible. Its account reminds one of Gibbon's description of St. George, who was born in a fuller's shop: 'From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by the talents of a parasite.' Similarly the 'Mercure François' assigns to Montchrétien an obscure and servile origin, which carried with it great prejudice in those days, and blackened his character in other ways. But some of the details it gives are themselves inconsistent with this view, and the fact that it devoted a memoir to him at all shows that he was a man of some mark.

He was born, M. Brentano concludes from other

evidence, about 1575 at Falaise in Normandy. His father, the 'Mercure' said disparagingly, was an apothecary who appeared in Falaise without any one knowing whence he came or who he was-all very damning circumstances, of course. But he could not have been an altogether insignificant person, because on his death the Procureur du Roy ordered the neighbours to select a guardian for the boy he left behind him, and they chose the Sieur de Saint-André Bernier, who was afterwards compelled to disgorge 1000 livres which he had misappropriated out of the boy's patrimony. According to the 'Mercure,' the family name was really Mauchrétien, which was changed by Antoine to Montchrestien or Montchrétien. Whatever the truth about his parentage may be, there is no doubt that he was a brilliant youth. He was educated at the College of Caen, and began to write poetry at an early age. Before he was twenty he had written a full-blown tragedy. Between 1596 and 1601 he wrote four others and a sixth a little later. These works gained for him a high place in contemporary literature, and their merits have been recognised in more modern times by Sainte-Beuve and other literary critics of the highest standing. Coming as he did between Montaigne and Corneille in the great age of French literature, he must be credited with no common powers to have achieved such intellectual distinction at such an early age. It is quite incompatible with the hints of the 'Mercure' that he occupied some menial position at the College of Caen and afterwards in the houses of neighbouring gentry. The 'Mercure' was determined to make him out a very low fellow; but menials did not write successful tragedies, nor did they fight duels, as he did. He was obviously a remarkably gifted, high-spirited, and active young man.

In 1603 he fled to England in consequence of a duel, and it was there that he began to take up economic questions, for which he was prepared by having already turned his attention to serious studies. He found a number of French refugees, for the most part artisans, settled at Hampton and carrying on their trades, in which he became interested. He took employment himself in some cutlery and tool works there and mastered the business. After a time he went to Holland to study the