Ossian Collection > Small tribute to the memory of Ossian

P06A ground /or the substance o^ It at least, we have
no reason to conclude that the celebrated historian of an
enemy would ever have penned it. Let Mr Laing point
out where the instances of savage barbarims are to be
met with in that speech, before he considers the ancient
Caledonians as brutes in human shape. Had the speech
of Galgacus been delivered by a French, German, or
British Commander-in-chief, it is probable that all Europe
would have resounded its praise, even in the nineteenth
century ; but it cuts some men to the very soul to hear
such sentiments from the mouth of a native Caledonian.
But let us not wonder at such prejudice, when we re-
flect that the same historian declares, that there is not
now in Scotland, a Highlander of the race which existed
at the beginning of the era ascribed to Fingal. He says,
that an Irish chieftain of the name of Riada, invaded Scot-
land in the year 258, who founded a kingdom in the
Highlands, from which he concludes, that the present
race in that country is descended from the invaders. This
he ground^s en the authority of an obscure sentence in
the .ecclesiastical history of Boeda, which appears to be
wholly without foundation, from the total silence of
cotemporary historians, or those who were nearly so ;
and it seems impossible to admit, that a people who often
contended Viith the sovereigns of the world, and could
bring upwards of 30,000 ir.en into the field of battle, al-
most tv/o centuries before the supposed invasion of the
country by Riada, would have been vanquished by a
contemptible horde from the adjoining coast of Ireland.
We are assured, on the authority of Tacitus, that an
Irish cliieftain, with whom* he frequently conversed, de-
clared, that a single legion from Rome, with a few auxi-
liaries would be sufficient to subjugate the vv^hole Island,
It is a curious paradox, that six or eigiit thousand men
could have subdued Ireland, and yet that the said coun-
try could have vanquished another, which was capable of
mustering 30,000 men 1 He who can believe this, may