Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

60 CRITICAL DISSERTATION
There are four great stages through which men suc-
cessively pass in the progress of society. The first
and earliest is the life of hunters ; pasturage suc-
ceeds to this, as the ideas of property begin to take
root; next agriculture; and, lastly, commerce.
Throughout Ossian's Poems, we plainly find our-
selves in the first of these periods of society;
during which, hunting was the chief employment
of men, and the principal method of their procuring
subsistence. Pasturage was not indeed wholly un-
known; for we hear of dividing the herd in the
case of a divorce ; but the allusion to herds and to
cattle are not many; and of agriculture we find no
traces. No cities appear to have been built in the
territories of Fingal. No arts are mentioned, ex-
cept that of navigation and of working in iron.
Every thing presents to us the most simple and un-
improved manners. At their feasts, the heroes pre-
pared their own repast; they sat round the light of
the burning oak ; the wind lifted their locks, and
whistled through their open halls. Whatever was
beyond the necessaries of life was known to them
only as the spoil of the Roman province; "the
gold of the stranger; the lights of the stranger; the
steeds of the stranger; the children of the rein."
The representation of Ossian's times must strike
us tlie more, as genuine and authentic, when it is
compared with a poem of later date, which Mr.
Macplierson has preserved in one of his notes. It
is that in which five bards are represented as pass-
ing the evening in the house of a chief, and each
of them separately giving his description of the
night. The night scenery is beautiful; and the au-
thor has plainly imitated the style and manner of
Ossian : but he has allowed some images to appear
which betray a later period of society. For we
meet with windows clapping, the herds of goats
and cows seeking shelter, the shepherd wandering,
corn on the plain, and the wakeful hind rebuilding
tlie shocks of corn which had been overturned by
the tempest. Whereas, in Ossian's works, from be-
ginning to end, all is consistent; no modern allu-
sion drops from him; but every where tlie same