Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

J52 A CRITICAL DISSERTATIOM
thefe, in a country where poetry had b^en
io long cultivated, and fo highly honoured,
is it any wonder, that among the race and
fuccefTion of bards, one Homer Ihould a-
rife j a man, who, endowed with a natu-
ral happy genius, favoured by peculiar ad-
vantages of birth and condition, and meet-
ing, in the courfe of his life, with a varie-
ty of incidents proper to fire his imagina-
tion, and to touch his heart, fl^ould attain
a degree of eminence in poetry, worthy to
draw the admiration of more refined ages r*
The compofitions of Offian are fo flrong-
]y marked with charaders of antiquity, that,
although there were no external proof to
iupport that antiquity, hardly any reader
of judgment and tafte could hefitate in re-
ferring them to a very remote jera. There
are four great llages through which men
fuccefTively pafs in the progrefs of fociety.
The firft and earlieli is the life of hunters ;
pafturage fucceeds to this, as the ideas of
property begin to take root j next agricul-
ture •, and laltly, commerce. Throughout
OfTian's poems, we plainly find ourfelves in
the firll of thefe periods of fociety ; during
which, hunting was the chief employment
of men, and the principal method of their
procuring fubfiftence. Pafturage was uot
indeed wholly unknown j for we hear of di-
viding the herd in the cafe of a divorce ^ but
the allufions to herds and to cattle are not
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