Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

Of the Bards. 187
imagine that he had a right to the name of Vates,
though the fhepherds were pleafed to honour him
with that title.
" Incipe fi quid habes : et me fecere poetajn
'' Pierides, funt et mihi carmina : me quoque
dicunt.
" Vatem paftores, fed non ego credulus ilHs :
" Nam neque adhuc Varo videor nee dicere
Cinna
" Digna, fed argutos interflrepere anfer olo-
res *."
Servius, and Tome other commentators of great
reputation, have done a manifeil injury to this
paiTage. Dr. Martin, after having given a Jong
and learned note on it, concludes that the proper
fignification of Vates is, a poet of the firfh rank,
a mafter of the art, and one that is really infpired.
He had laid before that Fates feems to be an ap-
pellation of greater dignity than Poet a, and to an-
fvver to the Bard of the EnglilTi. In this lail opi-
nion he has been followed by another learned tran-
Oator.
If I underflund the Englilli language. Bard is
not a title of greater dignity than poet ; notwith-
flanding two eminent Englilli writers are of that
opinion. The title of Bard, no doubt, is fome-
times given to men defervedly celebrated for their
poetical genius ; but the prefent modeof expreffion
feems to have affixed an idea of contempt to that
name. But in whatever degree of efteem the
name of Bard is or miay have been held, it is cer-
tain that Vates never lofl its original dignity.
Some Celtic Bards treated, it is true, of theo-
logical fubjeds in their compofitions. We are
Virg. Eciog. ix. ver. 32, &c,
told