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. 20 1
flaved by Tyrants. Tyrtaeus, though a very de-
Ipicable perlbn in his appearance, laved Lacedac-
mon from utter ruin, and by the ftrength of his
poetical abihries * ; and Alcaeus, by employing
the fame talent, refcued his country from the hands
of cruel ufurpers +•
We are told by Quintilian t, that Alcaews was
rewarded with a golden pledrum for his great fer-
vices. Horace, for the fame reafon, afiigns him.
a place of diflingui filed honour in the Elyfian fields :
and to give us a jufl idea of this patriot poet's
mei-it, he throws around him a numerous crowd
of ghcfts, attentively hearing thofe fpirited war
fongs which contributed fo much to expel the ene-
mies of liberty out of Lefbos.
Plato, who was a declared enemy to the or^
der in general, gives the title of a moft divine
poet to Tyrtaeus, and pronounces him at the fame
time a v/ife and good man, becaufe he had in a
very excellent manner celebrated the praifes of
thofe who excelled in war ||. There is fomething
in the charatler of Tyrtaeus which feems to re-
femble that of a Celtic Bard. He was a poet and
mufician at once. The inftruments on which he
played were the harp and that kind of martial
pipe which the Lacedemonians ufed infteadofthe
trumpet of other nations.
The chief Bards of North Britain, like thofe
of other Celtic nations, followed their patrons into
the field, and were frequently of fignal fervice. It
was their bufinefs and cuftom, upon the eve of a
* Jiiftin. lib. iii. cap. 5.
+ Horat. Carmin. lib. 2. od. 13.
1 Inft'tut. lib. X. cap. i.
jj De Repub. lib. 1,
battle.