Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

on the Poems of Ossian. 57
barbarous nation. It breathes a most ferocious
spirit. It is wild, harsh and in-egular; but at
the same time animated and strong ; the style, in
the original, full of inversions, and as we learn
from some of Olaus's notes, highly metaphorical
and figured.
But when we open the works of Ossian, a very
different scene presents itself. There we find the
fire and the enthusiasm of the most early times,
combined with an amazing degree of regularity
and art. We find tenderness, and even delicacy
of sentiment, predominant over fierceness and bar-
barity. Our hearts are melted with the softest
feelings, and at the same time elevated with the
highest ideas of magnanimity, generosity, and true
heroism. \Mien we turn from the poetry of Lod-
brog to that of Ossian, it is like passing from a
savage desert into a fertile and cultivated country.
How is this to be accounted for ? or by what means
to be reconciled with the remote antiquity attri-
buted to these poems ! This is a curious point ;
and requires to be illustrated.
That the ancient Scots were of Celtic original is
past all doubt. Their conformity with the Celtic
nations in language, manners, and religion, proves
it to a full demonstration. The Celtse, a great
and mighty people, altogether distinct from the
Goths and Teutones, once extended their dominion
over all the west of Europe ; but seem to have had
their most full and complete establishment in Gaul.
Wherever the Celtse or Gauls are mentioned by
ancient writei-s, we seldom fail to hear of their
Dmids and their Bards ; the institution of which
two orders was the capital distinction of their
manners and policy. The Druids were their
philosophers and priests ; their Bards, their poets
and recorders of heroic actions ; and both these
orders of men seem to have subsisted among them,
as chief members of the state from time imme-
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