Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 1

116 A CRITICAL DISSERTATION ON
to be frequently reviewed ; and then it is im-
possible but his beauties must open to every
reader who is capable of sensibility. Those
who have the highest degree of it, will relish
them the most.
As Homer is, of all the great poets, the one
whose manner, and whose times, come the
nearest to Ossian's, we are naturally led to run
a parallel in some instances between the Greek
and the Celtic bard. For though Homer Hved
more than a thousand years before Ossian, it is
not from the age of the world, but from the
state of society, that we are to judge of resem-
bling times. The Greek has, in several points,
a manifest superiority. He introduces a greater
variety of incidents ; he possesses a larger com-
pass of ideas; has more diversity in his cha-
racters ; and a nmch deeper knowledge of human
nature. It was not to be expected, that in any
of these particulars, Ossian could equal Homer.
For Homer lived in a country where society
was much farther advanced; he had beheld
many more objects ; cities built and flourishing ;
laws instituted ; order, discipline, and arts, be-
gun. His field of observation was much larger
and more splendid ; his knowledge, of course,
more extensive; his mind also, it shall be
granted, more penetrating. But if Ossian's
ideas and objects be less diversified than those