Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

THE POEMS OF OSSIAX. 63
have atoned for my fault. Without vanity I say it,
I think I could write tolerable poeti-y ; and I assure
my antagonists, that I shordd not translate what I
could not imitate.
As prejudice is the effect of ignorance, I am not sur-
prised at its being general. An age that produces few
marts of genius ought to be sparing of admiration.
The tmth is, the bulk of mankind have ever been led
by reputation more than taste, in articles of literature.
If all the Romans v.ho admired Virgil understood his
beauties, he would have scarce deserved to have come
down to us, through so many centuries. Unless genius
were in fashion. Homer himself might have ^vTitten in
vain. He that wishes to come with weight on the su-
perficial, must skim the surface, in their own shallow
way. Were my aim to gain the many, I would write
a madrigal sooner than an heroic poem. Laberius
himself would be always sure of more followers than
Sophocles.
Some who doubt the authenticity of this work, with
peculiar acuteness appropriate them to the Irish na-
tion. Though it is not easy to conceive how these
Poems can belong to Ireland and to me at once, I shall
examine the subject, without farther animadversion
on the blimder.
Of aU the nations descended from the ancient Celtae,
the Scots and Irish are the most similar in language,
customs, and manners. This argues a more intimate
connexion between them, than a remote descent from
the great Celtic stock. It is evident, in short, that, at
some period or other, they formed one society, were
subject to the same government, and were, in all re-
spects, one and the same people. How they became
divided, which the colony, or which the mother-na-
tion, 1 have in another work amply discussed. The
first circumstance that induced me to disregard the
vulgarly-received opinion of the Hibernian extraction
of the Scottish nation, was my observations on their
ancient language. The dialect of the Celtic tongue,
spoken in the north of Scotland, is much more pure,
more agreeable to its mother-language, and more
abounding with primitives, than that now spoken_, or