Ossian Collection > Essay on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian

OF OSSIAN'S POEMS. 75
Indeed, it is well known, that every great
family, in the Highlands, had a Bard attach-
ed to it, whose office it was, not only to
preserve the genealogy, and to record the
atchievements of the family, but also to re-
tain, by memory, like the disciples of the
Druids of old, a vast number of verses,
which they recited, at the entertainment, to
amuse the chieftain and his friends. Martin,
in his British Isles, speaking of the -Sibudcs,
seems, in this view, to give the true idea of
the relation which the Bards bore to the an-
cient Druids : — " The orators,'' says he, (i. e,
the Bards,) " after the Druids were extinct,
" were brought to preserve the knowledge
"of families," &c.
That the art of writing was, at the same
time, preserved and practised, at an early
period, in Scotland, has been undeniably pro-
ved, by the existence of ancient manuscripts,
of which the late learned Dr Donald Smith
has given a very interesting account in the