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

A DISSERTATION. xvii
ipirit among the vulgar, afford very little plcafuie to genuine tafte.
This obkrvation only regards their poems of the heroic kind ; in
every other fpecies of poetry they are more fuccefsful. They ex-
preCi the tender iiielancholy of defponding love, with irrefiftible fim-
plicity and nature. So v/ell adapted are the founds of the words to
the fentiments, that, even without any knowledge of the language,
they pierce and dillblve the heart. Succefsful love is exprefled witli
peculiar tendernefs and elegance. In all their compofitions, except
the heroic, which was folely calculated to animate the vulgar, they
give us the genuine language of the heart, without any of thofe
affeifled ornaments of phrafeology, which, tho' intended to beautify
fentiments, divefl: them of their natural force. The ideas, it is
confcfTed, are too local, to be admired, in another language ; to
thofe, who are acquainted with the manners they reprefent, and the
fcenes they defcribe, they muft afford the higheft pleafure and fa-
tisfadion.
It was the locality of his dcfcription and fentlment, that, pro-
bably, kept Offian fo long in the obfcurity of an almoft loft lan-
guage. His ideas, tho' remarkably proper for the times in which
he lived, are fo contrary to the prefent advanced ftate of fociety,
that more than a common mediocrity of tafte is required, to
relifti his poems as they deferve, — Thofe v^ho alone were capable
to make a tranflation were, no doubt, confcious of this, "and chofc
rather to admire their poet in fecret, than fee him received, with
coldnefs, in an Engllfli drefs.
These were long my ov/n fentiments, and, accordingly, mv firft
tranflations, from the Galic, were merely accidental. The publi-
cation, which foon after followed, was fo well received, that I was
c oblirred