Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal > Volume 1

4» A DISSERTATION CONCERNING
is, that their authority is of little confequence on either
fide. From the inflances I have given, they appear to
have been the v^'^ork of a verj'^ modern period. The
pious ejaculations they contain, their allufions to the
manners of the times, fix them to the fifteenth century.
Had even the authors of thefe pieces avoided all allu-
fions to their own times, it is impofilble that the poems
could pals for ancient, in the eyes of any perfon tole-
rably converfant with the Irifh tongue. The idiom is
fo corrupted, and fo many words borrowed from the
Englifn, that that language mull have made confide-
rable progrels in Ireland before the poems were writ-
ten.
It remains now to Ihew, hew the Irifh bards began
to appropriate Ofiian and his heroes to their own coun-
try. After the Englilh conqueft, many of the natives
of Ireland, averfe to a foreign yoke, either actually
vere in a flate of hoftility with the conquerors, or at
leaft, paid little regard to their government. The Scots,
in thofe ages, were often in open war, and never in
•tordial friendfhip with the Englifb. The fimilarity of
manners and language, the traditions concerning their
common origin, and alDove all, their having to do with
the fame enemy, created a free and friendly intercourfe
between the Scottifli and Irifh nations. As the cuftom
of retaining bards and fenachies was common to both;
fo each, no doubt, had formed a fyftem of hiflory, it
matters not how much foever fabulous, concerning their
refpecSlivc origin. It was the natural policy of the
times, to reconcile the traditions of both nations toge-
ther, and, if pofTible, to deduce them from the fanue ori-
ginal flock.
The Saxon manners and language had, at that time,
made great progrefs in the fouth of Scotland. The an-
cient language, and the traditional hiflory of the na-
tion, became confined entirely to the inliabitants of
the Iliglilands, then fallen, from feveral concurring cir-
cumftances, into tlie lafl degree of ignorance and bar-
l)&rirm. Tl^e Iriih, who, for fome ages before the con-