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

ON THE POEMS OF O S S I A N. 29
With regard to that property of the fubjedl which Ariftotle re-
quires that it fl^.ould be feigned not hiftorical, he inuft not be un-
derftood (o ftridly, as if he meant to exclude all fubjeds which, have
any foundation in truth. For fuch exclulion would both be unrea-
fonnble in itfelf; and what is more, would be contrary to the prac-
tice of Homer, who is known to have founded his Iliad on hiftorical
fadts concerning the war of Troy, which was famous throughout
all Greece. Ariftotle means no more than that it is the bulinefs of
a poet not to be a mere annalift of Fadls, but to embellifli truth
with beautiful, probable, and ufeful fidions; to copy nature, as
he himfelf explains it, like painters, who preferve a likenefs, but
exhibit their objeds more grand and beautiful thanthey are in reality.
ThatO;iian has fo'lowed this courfe, and building upon true hiftory,
has fufficiently adorned it with poetical ficflion for aggrandizing his
charaders and fads, will not, I believe, be queftioned by moft
readers. At the fame time, the foundation which thofe facts and
charaders had in truth, and the fhare which the poet himfelf had
in the tranfadions which he records, muft be confidered as no
fmall advantage to his work. For truth makes an impreffion on the
mind far beyond any fidion ; and no man, let his imagination be
ever fo ftrong, relates any events fo feelingly as thofe in which he has
been interefted ; paints any fcene fo naturally as one which he has
feen ; or draws any charaders in fuch ftrong colours as thofe which
he has perfonally known. It is confidered as an advantage of the
Epic fubjed to be taken from a period fo diftant, as by being in-
volved in the darknefs of tradition, may give licence to fable.
Though Oilman's fubjed may at firft view appear unfavourable in
this refped, as being taken from his own times, yet when we refled
that he lived to an extreme old age ; that he relates what had been
tcanfaded in another country, at the diftance of many years, and
after ali that race of men who had been the adors were gone off the
ftage; we Ihall find the objedion in a great meafure obviated. In
fo rude an age, when no written records were known, when tra-
dition was loofe, and accuracy of any kind little attended to, what
was great and heroic in one generation, eafily ripened into the mar-
vellous in^ the next.
The natural reprefentation of human charaders in an Epic Poem
is highly eflential to its merit: And in refped to this there can be
no