Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 1

THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 49
heroic, which was solely calculated to animate
the vulgar, they gave us the genuine language
of the heart, without any of those aftected
ornaments of phraseology, which, though in-
tended to beautify sentiments, divest them of
their natural force. The ideas, it is confessed,
are too local to be admired in another lan-
guage; to those who are acquainted with the
manners they represent, and the scenes they
describe, they must afford pleasure and sa-
tisfaction.
It was the locality of their description and
sentiment, that, probably, has kept them hi-
therto in the obscurity of an almost lost lan-
guage. The ideas of an* unpolished period
are so contrary to the present advanced state
of society, that more than a common medio-
crity of taste is required, to relish them as
they deserve. Those who alone are capable
of transferring ancient poetry into a modern
language, might be better employed in giving
originals of their own, were it not for that
wretched envy and meanness which affects to
despise cotemporary genius. My first publi-
cation was merely accidental. Had 1 then
met with less approbation, my after-pursuits
would have been more profitable; at least I
might have continued to be stupid, without
being branded with dulness.
VOL. I. E