Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

the JEra of Os$ian. 17
•nd the eulogiums of kings and heroes, were pre-
•erveil in the same manner. All the historical monu-
ments of the old Gei'mans were comprehended in
their ancient songs; which were either hymns to
their gods, or elegies in praise of their heroes, and
were intended to perpetuate the great events in their
nation, which were carefully interwoven with them.
This species of composition was not committed to
writing, but delivered by oral tradition. The care
they took to have the poems taught to their children,
the uninterrupted custom of repeating them upon
certain occasions, and the happy measure of the
verse, served to preserve them for a long time un-
corrupted. This oral chronicle of the Germans was
not forgot in the eighth century; and it probably would
have remained to this day, had not learning, which
thinks every thing that is not committed to writing
fabulous, been introduced. It was from poetical
traditions that Garcillasso composed his account of
the Yncas of Peru. The Peruvians had lost all other
monuments of their history, and it was from ancient
poems, which his mother, a princess of the blood of
the Yncas, taught him in his youth, that he collected
the materials of his history. If other nations then,
that had been often overrun by enemies, and had
sent abroad and received colonies, could for many
ages preserve, by oral tradition, their laws and
histories uncorrupted, it is much more probable
that the ancient Scots, a people so free of inter-
mixture with foreigners, and so strongly attached
to the memory of their ancestors, had the works ol
their bards handed down with great purity.
What is advanced, in this short Dissertation, it
must be confessed, is mere conjecture. Beyond
the reach of records is settled a gloom which no
ingenuity can penetrate. The manners described
in these poems suit the ancient Celtic times, and
no other period that is known in history. We
must, therefore, place the heroes far hack in aati-
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