Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

DISSERTATION
CONCEllNING
THE iERA OF OSSIAN.
INQUIRIES intotlie antiquities of nations afford jviore
pleasure than any real advantage to mankind. The
ingenious may form systems of history on proba-
Dilities and a few facts ; but, at a great distance of
time, their accounts must be vague and uncertain.
The infancy of states and kingdoms is as destitute
of great events, as of the means of transmitting
them to posterity. The arts of polished life, by
which alone facts can be preserved with certainty,
are the production of a well-formed community.
It is then historians begin to write, and public trans-
actions to be worthy remembrance. The actions of
former times are left in obscurity, or magnified by
uncertain traditions. Hence it is that we find so
much of the marvellous in the origin of every nation;
posterity being always ready to believe any thing,
however fabulous, that reflects honour on their
ancestors.
The Greeks and Romans were remarkable fortius
weakness. They swallowed the most absurd fables
concerning the high antiquities of their respective
nations. Good historians, however, rose very early
amongst them, and transmitted, with lustre, their
great actions to posterity. It is to them that they
Dwe that unrivalled fame they now enjoy, while the
great actions of other nations are involved in fables,
or lost in obscurity. The Celtic nations affbrd a
striking instance of this kind. They, though once
the masters of Europe from the mouth of the river
Oby, in Russia, to Cape Finisterre, tlie westero