Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

AUTHENTICITY OF OSSIAN's POEMS. 107
crime of adding to them. Even in fcripture, the charming of an
evil fpirit, and the calming of the mod violent fallies of nature, is
afcribed to mufic, which the religious of almofl all ages have adopt-
ed into their facred fervice ; if we except a few, who can perhaps
give no orthodox reafon for difcarding this great help both of mend-
ing the manners, and of heightening the devotion. To a flranger,
at lead, they feem to lie tmder a vail difadvantage, in their at-
tempts to form the heart with fewer tools than heaven and reafon
have allowed them, and cannot fo eafily foar aloft after taking ofFa
part of their wings. But leaving thefe to affect that fpirituality on
earth, which, in their own belief, even the worfhip of heaven does
not pretend to, we return to our fubjec~l.
Music, we fee, has been univerfally allowed to have an intimate
connexion with the moral fyftem. The ancient Caledonians then,
were a nation of muficians. The art was not at all peculiar to
the Bards, although they were the chief matters of it. Eve-
ry hero, every virgin, could " touch the harp, and melt the
foul *." This univerfality of the art was probably owing in
fome meafure to the fimplicity of the inftrument. In the an-
cient ttates of Greece, the harp, confining of only four firings, was
of fo fimple a conflruclion, that warriors, women, and even chil-
dren, engaged in other purfuits and avocations, could play upon
it. In Egypt the cafe was the fame, infomuch that even the If-
raelitifh women, notwithstanding the feverity of their bondage,
could all of them play on inflruments of mufic f . The Caledo-
O 2 nian
* Beda gives us to underftand, that, who was fo afhamed he could not pla'/np-
even in the 7th century, the harp was io on it, that he flunk away for fear of ex-
generally played in Britain, that it was pofing himfelf. L. 4. c 24.
cuftomary to hand it from one to one at f Exod. xv. 20. '
their enteitainments; and fpeaks of one * Tern-