Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

36 Dissertation on
part, I prefer the national fame arising from a few
certain facts, to the legendary and uncertain annals
of ages of remote and obscure antiquity. No king-
dom now established in Europe can pretend to
equal antiquity with that of the Scots, inconsider-
able as it may appear in other respects, even
according to my system, so that it is altogether
needless to fix its oi-igin a fictitious millennium
before.
Since the first publication of these poems, many
insinuations have been made, and doubts arisen,
concerning their authenticity. Whether these sus-
picions are suggested by prejudice, or are only the
effects of malice, I neither know nor care. Those
who have doubted my_ veracity, have paid a com-
pliment to my genius: and were even the allegation
true, my self-denial might have atoned for my fault.
Without vanity I say it, I think I could write
tolerable poetry ; and I assure my antagonists, that
I should not translate what I could not imitate.
As prejudice is the effect of ignorance, I am not
surprised at its being general. An age that pro-
duces few marks of genius ought to be sparing of
admiration. The truth is, the bulk of mankind
have ever been led by reputation more than taste,
in articles of literature. If all the Romans who
admired Virgil understood his beauties, he would
have scarce deserved to have come down to us
through so many centuries. Unless genius were in
fashion. Homer himself might have written in vain.
He that wishes to come with weight on the super-
ficial, must skim the surface in their own shallow
way. Were my aim to gain the many, I would
write a madrigal sooner than an heroic poem.
Laberius himself would be always sure of more
followers than Sophocles. I
Some who doubt the authenticity of this work,
with peculiar acutencss appropriate them to the
Irish nation. Though it is not easy to conceive