Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

AUTHENTICITY OF OSSIAN's POEMS. 105
the one reafon or the other, both have never failed to recommend
it, by making it an ingredient in their future felicity ; all ages, na-
tions, and religions, agreeing in giving mufic and poetry "a. place
in their paradife, however much they differ in their other notions
of it. — If, therefore, poetry has been thus early cultivated by other
nations, and allowed to have fuch influence upon their morals,
much more might it be expected to flourifh here, under its pecu-
liar advantages, fo as to produce all the effects afcribed to it upon
the Caledonian heroes.
It may be thought flill lefs flrange, that characters fo refpectable
as the Celtic bards, fhould, tinder the aufpices of the Druids, have
fuch influence in forming the manners of their age, when we con-
fider, that, in later and lefs pliant times, fuch flrolling fongfters as
the Provencal Trobadores have been able to give rife to the romantic
fyftem of knight-errantry. The truth is, when the human mind
becomes familiar with any fet of ideas, and revolves them over for
a long time, it takes pleafure in them from acquaintance, and con-
tracts a likenefs to them from the principle of imitation. In any
period of fociety, therefore, the fongs which men are mofl conver-
fant with, muft contribute much to form their temper and behavi-
our. But they do this more efpecially in the earlieft ftages, when
the ideas, the tranfactions, the w r ants, and the cares of men are few;
and when the mind, having little elfe to attend to, " hums" con-
tinually its fong, and broods with pleafure over that favourite ob-
jed.
In accounting for the refinement of fentiments afcribed to the
age of Fingal, we may join with the effects of poetry, thofe of its
fifter-art, mufic. The influence of this upon the paffions, is, like
O the