J. F. Campbell Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

366 SUPPLEMENTAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE
The extraordinary powers of memory must at tlie
present moment be universally admitted. Mauy
persons might be named, to prove that those powers,
even in our age, are ahnost unhmited M'hen f'uUy
exercised and called into action. By afììdavits and
other sources of evidence, so conclusive that in any
case, excepting the authenticity of Ossian's poenis,
no person would dare to question them, it is indis-
putahly established, that the whole of those poems
published by Mr. Macpherson, and many others,
were preserved in their native Gaelic, at least froni
time immemorial, by oral tradition ; but reference
shall be made to one affidavit only, (as given in
the Appendix to Sir John Sinclair's Dissertation
prefixed to this work,)* namely, the affidavit of
Captain John Macdonald of Breaki&h, who solemnly
swears, and his veracity is unimpeached, that, for a
certain period of his life, he could repeat some
thousand verses of those poems, which he had ac-
quired solely by oral tradition. In a subsequent divi-
sion, viz. Summary of Evidence, we shall have occa-
sion to detail more amply this and the other proofs.
In note E. to Cesarotti's Dissertation we have the
testimony of the learned Sir Wm. Jones, respecting
the credit due to the traditions of tlie ancient Arabs ;
whose monuments of old history are coUections of
poetical pieces orally recited for ages, and thus trans-
mitted from one generation to another. Writing was
so little practised among the Arabs, that their niost
tous les };cnres de connoissances: lcs druidcs dc la iucinièro classfi
devoient lcs suvoir par coeur.
Monumcnn Celtiques, par M.Cumhni de i Acadevik Cdtiquc, Sfi:.
* -Appendix, No. 1.