Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

34 Dissertation on
cession of bards was retained in every clan, to hand
down the memorable actions of their forefathers.
As Fingal and his chiefs were the most renowned
names in tradition, the bards took care to place
them in the genealogy of every great family.
They became famous among the people, and an
object of fiction and poetry to the bards.
The bards erected their immediate patrons into
heroes, and celebrated them in their songs. As
the circle of their knowledge was narrow, their
ideas were confined in proportion. A few happy
expressions, and the manners they represent, may
please those who understand the language ; their
obscurity and inaccuracy would disgust in a trans-
lation. It was chiefly for this reason, that I have
rejected wholly the works of the bards in my
publications. Ossian acted in a more extensive
sphere, and his ideas ought to be more noble and
universal; neither gives he, I presume, so many
of those peculiarities, which are only understood
in a certain period or country. The other bards
have their beauties, but not in this species of com-
position. Their rhymes, only calculated to kindle
a martial spirit among the vulgar, aff"ord very little
pleasure to genuine taste. This observation only
regards their poems of the heroic kind ; in every
inferior species of poetry they are more successful.
They express the tender melancholy of desponding
love with simplicity and nature. So well adapted
are the sounds of the words to the sentiments,
that even without any knowledge of the language,
they pierce and dissolve the heart. Successful love
is expressed with peculiar tenderness and elegance.
In all their compositions, except the heroic, which
was solely calculated to animate the vulgar, they
give us the genuine language of the heart, without
any of those aff"ected ornaments of phraseology
which, though intended to beautify sentiments,
divest them of their natural force. The ideas, it