Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

AUTHENTICITY OF OSSIAN's POEMS. in
under their peculiar advantages, to form their morals. If we fup-
pofe the mountains flocked but with a fifth or tenth of the animals
which they now fupport, they would afford ample provifion for the
confumers, who do not feem to have been numerous, and who
were always thinned by war, and by colonies to the adjacent He-
brides, and to the mod contiguous parts of Ireland. — Here, then,
was little room for quarrels or feuds ; which would not, in any
event, find a ready entrance among a tribe diftinct from all others,
clofely allied among themfelves, and, as always happens in fuch
cafes, flrong in their attachments, and even violent in their friend-
fhips. It is only when fociety advances, and the numbers and
wants of men grow many, that their interefls begin to juflle and
interfere, fo as to kindle, and by their collifion bring to light, a
thoufand vices till then unknown. The Caledonians were flill
farther removed from thefe extravagancies, by confining their de-
fires within narrow bounds, and being contented with only the
neceflaries of life *, Whenever thefe began to fail in this moun-
tain or valley, it was bvit fhifting to the next, which was co--
vered with plenty. Strabo tells us, that the Britons, in general,
removed from one place to another ; and the remains of old build-
ings, and the names of places, in all corners of the Highlands, prove
this to have been the manner of Fingal.
This method of procuring fubfiftence, at the very eafy expence
of
* Thefe were greatly reduced by their was the cafe with fome other ancient na-
eating only once a-day. In Galic our tions, appears from the faying of the ci-
names for breakj "aft, dinner, and /upper, tizen of Abdera, who " thanked the gods
are quite modern and exotic. Von, or that Xerxes and his army ate but one
" daily meal," fupplied till of late the meal a-day."
place of all the three. That the fame * : Vid-