Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

148' A CRITICAL DISSERTATION"
nations continually employed on the ideas
of heroifm j who had all the noems and
panegyrics which were compofed by their
predeceffors, handed down to them with
care 3 who rivalled and endeavoured to out-
iliip thofe who had gone before them, each
in the celebration of his particular hero j
Is it not natural to think, that at length
the charafter of a hero would appear in
their fongs with the higheft luftre, and be
adorned with qualities truly noble ? Some
of the qualities indeed which dlftlnguifh a
Fingal, moderation, humanity, and clemen-
cy, would not probably be the firft ideas of
heroifm occurring to a barbarous people :
but no fooher had fuch ideas begun to dawn
on the minds of poets, than, as the human
mind eafily opens to the native reprefenta-
tions of human perfeftion, they would be
feized and embraced : they would enter in-
to their panegyrics -, they would afford ma-
terials for fucceeding bards to work upon
and improve j they would contribute not a
little to exalt the public manners. For fuch
fongs as thefe, familiar to the Celtic war-
riors from their childhood, and throughout
their whole life, both in war and in peace»
their principal entertainment muft have had
a very confiderable influence in propagat-
ing among them real manners, nearly ap-
proaching to the jioetical ^ and in forming
even fuch a hero as Fingal. Efpecially