Ossian Collection > Morison's edition of the Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

25 8 A DISSERTATION CONCERNING
the vulgar, afford very little pleafure to genuine tafte»-
This oblervation only regards their poems of the heroic
kind ; in every other fpecies of poetry they are more fuc-
cefsful. They eXprefs the tender melancholy of defpond-
ing love, with irrefiftible fimplicity and nature. So well
adapted are the founds of the words to the fentiments, that,
even without any knowledge of the language, they pierce
and diflblve the heart. Succefsful love is exprefled with
peculiar tendernefs and elegance. In all their compofitions,
except the heroic, which was foleiy calculated to animate ,
the vulgar, they give us the genuine language of the heart,
without any of thofe affeded ornaments of phiafeology,
which, though intended to beautify fentiments, diveft then!
of their natural force. The ideas, it is confefled, are too
local, to be admired, in another language ; to thofe who
are acquainted with the itianners they reprefent, and the
fcenes they defcribe, they muft afford the higheft pleafure
and fatisfadion.
It was the locality of his defcription and fentiment, that,
pirobably kept Oilian fo long in the obfcurity of an almoft
loft language. His ideas, though remarkably proper for
the times in which he lived, are fo contrary to the prefent
advanced ftate of fociety, that more than a common me-
diocrity of tafte is required, to reliih his poems as they de-
ferve. Thofe who alone were capable to make a tranfla-
tion were, no doubt, donfcious of this, and chofe rather
fo admire their poet in fecret, than fee hint received, with'
Coldnefs, in an Englifti drefs.
Thefe were Ibng my own fentiments, and accordingly,
itiy firft trandations, from the Galic,- were merely acciden-'
t'al. 1 he publication, which foon after followed, was fo-
well received, that I was obliged to promife to my friends
a larger colle»5tion. In a journey through the Highlands
and-