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DISSERTATION.

THE hiftory of those nations which originally poffeffed the north of Europe, is little known. Deftitute of the use of letters they themselves had not the means of tranfmitting their great actions to remote pofterity. Foreign writers faw them only at a diftance, and therefore their accounts are partial and undistinct. The vanity of the Romans induced them to confider the nations beyond the pale of their empire as barbarians; and confequently their history unworthy of being inveftigated. Some men, otherwife of great merit among ourselves, give into this confined opinion. Having early imbibed their idea of exalted manners from the Greek and Roman writers, they scarcely ever afterwards have the fortitude to allow any dignity of character to any other ancient people.

Without derogating from the fame of Greece and Rome, we may confider antiquity beyond the pale of their empire worthy of fome attention. The nobler paffions of the mind never shoot forth more free and unreftrained than in thefe times we call bar VOL. III. A iij

barous. That irregular manner of life, and thofe manly purfuits from which barbarity takes its name, are highly favorable to a ftrength of mind unknown in polished times. In advanced fociety the characters of men are more uniform and disguised. The human paffions lie in fome degree concealed behind forms, and artificial manners; and the powers of the foul, without an opportunity of exerting them, lose their vigour. The times of regular government, and polished manners, are therefore to be wished for by the feeble and weak in mind. An unfettled ftate, and thofe convulfions which attend it, is the proper field for an exalted character and the exertion of great parts. Merit there rifes always fuperior; no fortuitous event can raife the timid and mean into power. To those who look upon antiquity in this light, it is an agreeable profpect; and they alone can have real pleasure in tracing nations to their fource.

The establishment of the Celtic ftates; in the north of Europe, is beyond the reach of their written annals. The traditions and fongs to which they trufted their hiftory, were loft, or altogether corrupted in their revolutions and migrations, which were fo frequent and univerfal, that no kingdom in Europe is now poffeffed by its original inhabitants. Societies were formed, and king

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doms erected, from a mixture of nations, who, in process of time, loft all knowledge of their own origin.

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If tradition could be depended upon, it is only among a peopie, from all time, free of intermixture with foreigners. We are to look for thefe among the mountains and inacceffible parts of a country: places, on account of their barrenness, uninviting to an enemy, or whofe natural strength enabled the natives to repel invafions. Such are the inhabitants of the mountains of Scotland. We, accordingly, find, that they differ materially from thofe who poffefs the low and more fertile part of the kingdom. Their language and original, and their manners are thofe of an antient and unmixed race of men. Confcious of their own antiquity, they long defpifed others, as a new and mixed people. As they lived in a country only fit for pafture, they were free of that toil and bu finefs, which engrofs the attention of a commercial people. Their amufement confifted in hearing or repeating their fongs and traditions, and thefe intirely turned on the antiquity of their nation, and the exploits of their forefathers. It is no wonder, therefore, that there are more remains of antiquity among them, than among any other people in Europe. Traditions, however, concerning remote periods, are only to be regarded, in

fo far as they co-incide with cotemporary writers of undoubted credit and veracity.

No writers began their accounts from a more early period, than the historians of the Scots nation. Without records, or even tradition itself, they give a long lift of antient kings, and a detail of their tranfactions, with a fcrupulous exactness. One might naturally fuppofe, that, when they had no authentic annals, they should, at least, have recourfe to the traditions of their country, and have reduced them into a regular fyftem of history. Of both they feem to have been equally deftitute. Born in the low country, and ftrangers to the antient language of their nation, they contented themselves with copying from one another, and retailing the fame fictions, in a new colour and drefs.

John Fordun was the firft who collected thofe fragments of the Scots hiftory, which had efcaped the brutal policy of Edward I. and reduced them into order. His accounts, in fo far as they concerned recent tranfactions, deserved credit: beyond a certain period, they were fabulous and unfatisfactory. Some time before Fordun wrote, the king of England, in a letter to the pope, had run up the antiquity of his nation to a very

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