Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

24 DISSERTATION ON
magistrates and laws. This, at last, produced so
great a difference in the manners of the two
nations, that they began to forget their common
origin, and almost continual quarrels and animo-
sities subsisted between them. These animosities,
after some ages, ended in the subversion of the
Pictish kingdom, but not in the total extirpation
of the nation according to most of the Scots writers,
who seem to think it more for the honour of their
countrymen to annihilate, than reduce a rival
people under their obedience. It is certain, how-
ever, that the very name of the Picts was lost, and
that those that remained were so completely incor-
porated with their conquerors, that they soon lost
all memory of their own origin.
The end of the Pictish government is placed so
near that period, to which authentic annals reach,
that it is matter of wonder, that we have no monu-
ments of their language or history remaining. This
favours the system I have laid down. Had they
originally been of a different race from the Scots,
their language of course would be different. The
contrary is the case. The names of places in the
Pictish dominions, and the very names of their
kings, which are handed down to us, are of Galic
original, which is a convincing proof, that the two
nations were, of old, one and the same, and only
divided into two governments, by tiie effect which
tiieir situation had upon the genius of the people.
The name of Picts is said to have been given by
the Romans to the Caledonians, who possessed the
east coast of Scotland, from their painting tlielr
bodies. The story is silly, and the argument absurd.
But let us revere antiquity in her very follies. This
circumstance made some imagine, that the Picts
were of British extract, and a different race of men
from the Scots. That more of the Britons, who fled
northward from the tyranny of the Romans, settled
in the low country of Scotland, than among the Scots
of the mountains, may be easily imagined, from the
very nature of the country. It was they who intro-
duced painting among the Picts. From this circum-
stance, affirm some antiquaries, proceeded the name