Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

50 CRITICAL DISSERTATION
has been found coeval with society among the most
barbarous nations. The only subjects which could
prompt men, in their first rude state, to utter their
thoughts in compositions of any length, were such
as naturally assumed the tone of poetry ; praises
of their gods, or of their ancestors ; commemora-
tions of their own warlike exploits ; or lamenta-
tions over their misfortunes. And, before writing
was invented, no other compositions, except songs
or poems, could take such hold of the imagination ,
and memory, as to be preserved by oral tradition,
and handed down from one race to another.
Hence we may expect to find poems among the
antiquities of all nations. It is probable, too, that
an extensive search would discover a certain degree
of resemblance among all the most ancient poetical
productions, from whatever country they have pro-
ceeded. In a similar state of manners, similar ob-
jt cis and passions operating upon the imaginations
of men, will stamp their productions with the same ']
general character. Some diversity will, no doubt, '
b? occasioned by climate and genius. But mankind
never bear such resembling features, as they do in
the beginnings of society. Its subsequent revolu-
tions give rise to the principal distinctions among
nations ; and divert, into channels widely separated,
that current of human genius and manners, which :
descends originally from one spring. What we ^
have been long accustomed to call the oriental vein j
of poetry, because some of the earliest poetical i
productions have come to us from the east, is pro-
bably no more oriental than occidental : it is cha- '
racteristical of an age rather than a country ; and
belongs, in some measure, to all nations at a cer-
tain period. Of this the works of Ossian seem to
furnish a remarkable proof.
Our present subject leads us to investigate the
ancient poetical remains, not so much of the east,
or of the Greeks and Romans, as of the northern '
nations ; in order to discover whether the Gothic
poetry has any resemblance to the Celtic or Galic,
which we are about to consider. THiough theGoths,
under whose name we usually comprehend all the
Scandinavian tribes, were a people altogether fierce