Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

DISSERTATION
COXCERNING
THE POEMS OF OSSIAN.
The history of those nations who originally pos-
sessed the north of Europe, is less known than
their manners. Destitute of the use of letters,
they themselves had not the means of transmitting
their great actions to remote posterity. Foreign
writers saw them only at a distance, and described
them as they found them. The vanity of the Ro-
mans induced them to consider the nations beyond
the pale of their empire as barbarians, and conse-
quently their history unworthy of being investi-
gated. Their manners and singular character were
matters of curiosity, as they committed them to
record. Some men, otherwise of great merit,
among ourselves, give in to confined ideas on this
subject. Having early imbibed their idea of ex-
alted manners from the Greek and Roman writers,
they scarcely ever afterwards have the fortitude to
allow any dignity of cbaracter to any nation desti-
tute of the use of letters.
Without derogating from the fame of Greece
and Rome, we may consider antiquity beyond the
pale of their empire worthy of some attention.
The nobler passions of the mind never shoot forth
more free and unrestrained than in the times we
call barbarous. That iiTegular manner of Ufe and
those manly pursuits from which barbarity takes its
name, are highly favourable to a strength of mind
unknown in polished times. In advanced society the
characters of men are more wiiform and disguised.