J. F. Campbell Collection > Original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ulin, and other bards, who flourished in the same age

IjLxvi l-KEFACE.
these poems were preserved by oral recitation.
Were this mode of proof in our power, the next
disingenuous shift would be to exclaim with Dr.
Johnson, that these fifty generations preferred
Scotland to truth.
Mr. Laing's pretended detections have been
sufficiently answered, as far as the limits of this
work will permit; we shall offer no farther re-
marks upon the subject, especially, since the
gentleman himself, after bringing what be calls in^
controvertible arguments, owns, at the end, they
may be easily answered. What could induce
him to make this concession, we are at a loss to
conjecture, unless, upon reading them over again,
they did not appear so conclusife as he at first
imagined.
As for Mr. Laing's arguments, wherewith he
has attempted to discredit Ossimis Poems, the at-
tempt could not come more naturally than from
Orcadians*. Pierhaps the severe checks given
by the ancient Caledonians, to their predatory
Scandinavian predecessors, raised prejudices not
yet extinct. We conceive how an author can
write under the influence of prejudice, and not
sensible of being acted upon by it. If Mr. Laing
will bring forth more arguments in support of his
former opinion regarding Ossian, and the ancient
customs of the Highlanders, it would become him
f Mr. Laing is a native of tlie Orkneys,