Ossian Collection > Fingal of Ossian

30 PREFACE.
to exprefs, and were content, as they conceived grofsly, to
be grofsly underftood. After what has been lately talked of
Highland Bards, and Highland Genius, many will flartle
Avhen they are told, that the Earfe never was a written Lan-
guage J that there is not in the World an Earfe Manufcript
a hundred Years old ; and that the Sounds of the Highlanders
were never expreffed by Letters, till fome little Books of
Piety were tranflated, and a metrical Verfion of the Pfalms
was made by the Synod of Argyle. Whoever therefore now
writes in this Language, fpells according to his own Percep-
tion of the Sound, and his own Idea of the Power of the
Letters. The Weljlo and Irijli are cultivated Tongues. The
Welfi, two hundred Years ago, infulted their Englif/j Neigh-
bours for the Inftability of their Orthography ; while the
Earfe merely floated in the Breath of the People, and could
therefore receive little Improvement."
Though jfohnjon, at the firll: fetting out, confefles he knows
nothing of the Earfe, yet this daring felf-fufficient Man, in the
fame Breath, pronounces it the rude Speech of a barbarous Peo-
ple *. But as he brings no Authority to fupport his Opinion,
let
* Notwithftanding the Greeks, and after them the Romans, had the Vanity to call other
Nations Barbarians ; it muft appear very ridiculous in a Defcendant of the Saxons, a
Branch of the favage Samiatte, to ftigmatize with that Appellation the undoubted Re-
mains of the Ccha, a celcb-ated People, who once pofTefled all the Kingdoms from the
Pillars oi Hercules to the Banks of the Fijiitla, and from the Hellefpont to the Shores of the
Baltic. With refpeft to the Highlanders, we boldly alTert the Imputation to be injurious
and falfe : The Ciort Account given of their Manners, from Sir Jolin Dahyinple's Me-
moirs, at the End of the Third Book, fhews them to have been as much civilized as any
of their Neighbours.