When you actually read the Ossian epics, you find that they are shaped entirely to neoclassical tastes.

NEWYORKER: The Dragon��s Egg

Even if, as Johnson thought, a child could have written Ossian, children were never meant to read it.

NEWYORKER: The Dragon��s Egg

Two other heroes are Harrison Reed and Ossian Hart, governors who ruled during the so-called congressional Reconstruction that briefly overturned the racist regimes installed under Andrew Johnson after Lincoln's assassination.

WSJ: Book Review: Finding Florida

It is no insult to young Paolini to say that his books are effectively co-written with Tolkien, any more than it is an insult to Chatterton-Rowley to say that his had a co-author in Macpherson-Ossian or, for that matter, that virtually all medieval-minded historical novels in the nineteenth century, including some very good ones, were produced jointly with Sir Walter Scott.

NEWYORKER: The Dragon��s Egg