this founding group of the Kingdom of Scotland were not Celts, but had a Teutonic origin. He endorsed the views of John Pinkerton on the matter, as did John Jamieson and James Sibbald. Ossian critic In 1805 Laing published in two volumes Poems of Ossian, containing the Poetical Works of James MacPherson in Prose and Verse, with Notes and Illustrations. It contained juvenilia by James Macpherson, fabricator of the Ossian poems, who had died in 1796. It also described how they might be dependent on modern sources that had been borrowed. Laing's criticism was seminal for a theory that Macpherson had used Robert Lowth's study of Hebrew verse to construction his own alleged translations. For Charles James Fox, as explained in a letter to Laing, Macpherson was in the ranks of politically mischievous historians, led by David Hume and his A History of England. Others there were Sir John Dalrymple, 4th Baronet and Thomas Somerville. The underlying issue was Tory and Jacobite revisionism of the Whig historical narrative. The "Ossian debate", on the poems' authenticity to supposed ancient sources, was coming to a head that year. Via Robert Anderson, Laing was in possession of a confession by Macpherson of the complete fabrication to another party, Sir John Elliott, who had mentioned it to Thomas Percy. On the other hand, the Report of the Highland Society (1805) upheld the authenticity claims. Percy took the eirenic view that the blame game, at least, should cease. Family On 10 September 1805 Laing married Margaret Dempster Carnegie, daughter of Thomas Carnegie and Mary Gardyne. References "Laing, Malcolm." British Authors of the Nineteenth Century H. W. Wilson Company, New York, 1936. Notes External links Attribution 1762 births 1818 deaths Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Orkney and Shetland Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies 18th-century Scottish historians Scottish literary critics UK MPs 1807–1812 Writers from Orkney Historians of Scotland Scottish agronomists 19th-century Scottish historians