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ORRS

OF

OSSIAN

VOL. I.

FRANCFORTAND LEIPZIG PRINTED FORIG.FLEISCHER

1783.

BIBLIOTHECA

REGIA.

MONACENSIS.

Α

DISSERTATION

CONCERNING THE

ANTIQUITY &c. OF THE POEMS

OF

OSSIAN the Son of FINGAL.

nquiries into the antiquities of nations afford more

I

pleasure than any real advantage to mankind. The ingenious may form fystems of history on probabilities and a few facts; but at a great distance of time, their accounts nruft bể vague and uncertain. The infancy of ftates and kingdoms is as deftitute of great events, as of the means of transmitting them to pofterity. The arts of polifhed life, by which alone facts can be preferved with certainty, are the production of a well formed (a) 2

cominu

community. It is then hiftorians begin to write, and public transactions to be worthy remembrance. The actions of former times are left in obfcurity, or magnified by uncertain traditions. Hence it is that we find fo much of the marvellous in the origin of every nation; pofterity being always ready to believe any thing, however fabulous, that reflects honour on their ancestors. The Greeks and Romans were remarkable for this weaknefs. They fwallowed the most abfurd fables concerning the high antiquities of their respective nations. Good hiftorians, however, rofe very early amongst them, and transmitted, with luftre, their great actions to pofterity. It is to them that they owe that unrivalled fame they now enjoy, while the great actions of other nations are involved in fables, or loft in obfcurity. The Celtic nations afford a striking inftance of this kind. They, though once the masters of Europe from the mouth of the river Ob (*), in Ruffia, to Cape Finisterræ, the western point of Gallicia in Spain, are very little mentioned in hiftory. They trufted their fame to tradition and the fongs of their bards, which, by the viciffitude of human affairs, are long fince loft. Their ancient language is the only monument that remains of

them;

(*) Plin. 1. 6.

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