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

72 ON THE AUTHENTICITY
sequence has been a long night of barbarism
and ignorance.
It is to be remarked, however, that amidst
all this barbarism, which overwhelmed the
last fifteen centuries, the establishment of the
Bards was preserved inviolate, and was actu-
ally continued in Scotland, as can be suffi-
ciently proved, till within less than one hun-
dred years; and, if the Bards, when deprived
of their masters, the Druids, were incapable
of adding any thing to the treasures be-
queathed to them by better times, they seem
to have proved faithful depositories, at least,
of the stock that had been committed to
their care.
The Bardic order is attributed, by all the
ancient writers, to the Celtic nations ; and
it is extended by Tacitus,* under the same
appellation, to the Germans. Posidonius
tells us, " that, when the Celts go to war,
* J)e Moribus Germ. c. 3.