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

OF OSSIAN'S POEMS. 8T
consummation devoutly to be wished for,
yet it had ahuost prov^ed fatal to the re-
mains of our ancient national poetry. There
was a peculiar felicity in the period when
IMacpherson began his collections.* Had
this undertaking been deferred for thirty
years longer, these Poems must have shared
the fate of the Sibyl's volumes, and scarcely
one- third of them would have been found
remaining. Notwithstanding the diligence of
Mr Macpherson, Dr Smith, too, has been so
fortunate as to have obtained some precious
gleanings of Ossianic poetry, a circumstance
which affords no slight evidence of the au-
thenticity of the whole. Some few reliques
of Ossianic verse are still to be met with, in
the memory of the aged; but, in twenty
years hence, it is probable, that there shall
not be a single person alive, who can recite,
* About the year 1758. Of these collections, and the
manner in which they appear to have been made, an ac-
count shall be afterwards given.