Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

ON THE rOFMS OF OSSIAN. 107
Fingal reigned over a considerable territorj- ; he
was enriched with the spoils of the Roman pro-
vince ; he was ennobled by his victories and great
actions ; and was in all respects a personage of
much higher dignity than any of the chieftains,
or heads of clans, who lived in the same coun-
try, after a more extensive monarchy was esta-
blished.
The manners of O-ssian's age, so far as we
can gather them from his writings, were abund-
antly favourable to a poetical genius. The two
dispiriting vices, to which Longinus imputes the
decline of poetiy, covetousness and effeminacy,
were as yet unknown. The cares of men were
few. They lived a roving indolent life ; hunt-
ing and war their principal employments ; and
their chief amusements, the music of bards and
* the feast of shells.' The great objects pursu-
ed by heroic spirits, was 'to receive their fame ;'
that is, to become worthy of being celebrated in
the songs of bards ; and ' to have their name on
the four gray stones.' To die unlamented by a
bard, was deemed so great a misfortune, as even
to disturb their ghosts in another state. ' They
wander in thick mists beside the reedy lake ;
but never shall they rise, without the song, to
the dwelling of winds.' After death, they ex-
pected to follow employments of the same na-
ture with those which had amused them on
earth ; to fly with their friends on clouds, to
pursue airy deer, and to listen to their praise in
the mouths of bards. In such times as these,
in a country where poetry had been so long
cultivated, and so highly honoured, is it any
wonder that, among the race and succession of
bards, one Homer should arise ; a man, who,
endowed with a natural happy genius, favoured
with peculiar advantages of birth and condition,
and meeting, in the course of his life, with a