Ossian Collection > Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland

[ vi ]
and the north of Scotland. Every chief
or great man had in his family a Bard or
poet, whofe office it was to record in
verfe, the illuftrious adlions of that fa-
mily. By the fucceffion of thefe Bards,
fuch poems were handed down from race
torace; fome in manufcript, but more
by oral tradition. And tradition, in a
country fo free of intermixture with fo-
reigners, and among a people fo flrong-
ly attached to the memory of their an-
ceftors, has preferved many of them in
a great meafure incorrupted to this day.
They are not fet to mufie,. nor fung.
The verfification in the original is
fimplc ; and to fiich as underftand the
language, very fmooth and beautiful-
Rhyme is feldom ufed : but the cadence,,
and the length of the line varied, fo as to
fuit the fenfe. The tranflation is ex-
tremely literal. Even the arrangement
of the words in the original has been
imitated;