Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

26 DISSERTATION CONCERNING
in^, that all that is delivered down concerning the times
of Paganism were tales of late invention, stranejely
mixed with anachronisms and inconsistencies. Such
being the opinion of Ware, who had collected, with un-
common industry and zeal, all the real and pretendedly
ancient manuscripts concerning the history of his coun-
try, we may, on his authority, reject the improbable
and self-condemned tales of Keating and O'Flaherty,
Credulous and puerile to the last degree, they haye dis-
graced the antiquities they merint to establish. It is to
be wished, that some able In.^hman, who understands
the language and records of his country, may redeem,
ere it be too late, the genuine antiquities of Ireland,
from the hands of these idle fabulists.
By com.paring the historv preserved by Ossian with
the legends of the Scots and Irish writers, and by after-
wards examining both by the test of the Roman authors,
it is easy to discover which is the most probable. Pro-
bability is all that can be established on the authority
of tradition, ever dubious and uncertain. But when it
favours the hypothesis laid down by cotemporary wri-
ters of undoubted veracity, and, as it were, finishes the
figure of which they only drew the outlines, it ought,
in the judgment of sober reason, to be preferred to ac- :
counts framed in dark, and distant periods, with little
judgment, and upon no authority.
Concerning the period of more than a century, which
intervenes between Fingal and the reign of Fergus the;
son of Ere, or Arcath, tradition is dark, and contradic-
tory. Some trace up the family of Fergus to a son of
Finfral of that name, who makes a considerable figure
in Ossian's Poems. The three elder sons of Fingal, Os-
sian, Fillan, and Ryno, dying without issue, the succes
sion of course devolved upon Fergus the fourth son, and
his posterity. This Fergus, say some traditions, was
the father of Congal, whose son was Arcath, the father
of Fergus, properly called the first king of Scots, as it
was in his time the Cael, who possessed the western
coast of Scotland, began to be distinguished by foreign-
ers by the name of Scots, Fr-^ra thcncciyrward. tb.c