Ossian Collection > Critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

DISSERTATION.
NATIONS, fmall in their beginnings and flow in their progrefs
to maturity, cannot, with any degree of certainty, be traced
to their fource. The firfl hiftorians, in every country, are, therefore,
obfcure and unfatisfadlory. Swayed by a national partiality, natural
to mankind, they adopted uncertain legends and ill-fancied fidions,
when they ferved to ftrengthen a favourite fyftem, or to throw luftre on
the antient ftate of their country. Without judgment or difcernment
to feparate the probable and more antient traditions, from ill-digefted
tales of late invention, they jumbled the whole together, in one
mafs of anachronifms and inconfiftencies. Their accounts, how-
ever, though deduced from asras too remote to be known, were re-
ceived with that partial credulity wliich always diftinguifhes an un-
poliflied age. Mankind had neither abilities nor inclination to dif-
putc the truth of relations, which, by throwing luftre on their an-
ceftors, flattered their own vanity, — Such were the hillorians of
Europe, during the dark ages, which liicceeded the fubverfion of
the Roman empire. When learning began to revive, men looked
into antiquity with lefs prejudiced eyes. They chofe rather to truft
their national fame to late and well-attefted tranfattions, than draw
it from ages, dark and involved in fable. ^
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