LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to himself. The luxurious of the present age, pass every hour in gaming that can be spared from sensual pleasure. Idleness is their excuse, as it is among savages; and they would in some degree<423> be excusable, were they never actuated by a more disgraceful motive.

      Writers do not carefully distinguish particular customs from general manners. Formerly, women were not admitted upon the stage in France, Italy, or England: at that very time, none but women were admitted in Spain. From that fashion it would be rash to infer, that women have more liberty in Spain than in the other countries mentioned; for the contrary is true. In Hindostan, established custom prompts women to burn themselves alive with the bodies of their deceased husbands; but from that singular custom, it would be a false inference, that the Hindow women are either more bold, or more affectionate to their husbands, than in other countries. The Polanders, even after they became Christians in the thirteenth century, adhered to the customs of their forefathers, the Sarmatians, in killing infants born deformed, and men debilitated by age; which would betoken horrid barbarity, if it were not a singular custom. Roman Catholics imagine, that there is no religion in England nor in Holland; because, from a spirit of civil liber-<424>ty, all sects are there tolerated. The encouragement given to assassination in Italy, where every church is a sanctuary, makes strangers rashly infer, that the Italians are all assassins. Writers sometimes fall into an opposite mistake, attributing to a particular nation, certain manners and customs common to all nations in one or other period of their progress. It is remarked by Heraclides Ponticus as peculiar to the Athamanes, that the men fed the flocks, and the women cultivated the ground. This has been the practice of all nations, in their progress from the shepherd-state to that of husbandry; and is at present the practice among American savages. The same author observes, as peculiar to the Celtae and Aphitaei, that they leave their doors open without hazard of theft. But that practice is common among all savages in the first stage of society, before the use of money is known.

      Hitherto there appears as great uniformity in the progress of manners, as can reasonably be expected among so many different nations. There is one exception, extraordinary indeed if true, which is, the manners of the Caledonians described by<425> Ossian, manners so pure and refined as scarce to be parallelled in the most cultivated nations. Such manners among a people in the first stage of society, acquainted with no arts but hunting and making war, I acknowledge, miraculous. And yet to suppose these manners to be the invention of an illiterate savage, is really no less miraculous: I should as soon expect from a savage a performance equal to the elements of Euclid, or even to the Principia of Newton. One, at first view, will boldly declare the whole a modern fiction; for how is it credible, that a people, rude at present and illiterate, were, in the infancy of their society, highly refined in sentiment and manners? And yet, upon a more accurate inspection, many weighty considerations occur to balance that opinion.

      From a thousand circumstances it appears, that the works of Ossian are not a late production. They are composed in an old dialect of the Celtic tongue; and as, till lately, they were known only in the highlands of Scotland, the author must have been a Caledonian. The translator^(a) <426> saw, in the Isle of Sky, the first four books of the poem Fingal, written in a fair hand on vellum and bearing date in the year 1403. The natives believe that poem to be very ancient: every person has passages of it by heart, transmitted by memory from their forefathers. Their dogs bear commonly the name of Luath, Bran, &c. mentioned in these poems, as our dogs do of Pompey and Caesar.^* Many other particulars might be mentioned; but these are sufficient to prove, that the work must have existed at least three or four centuries. Taking that for granted, I proceed to certain considerations tending to evince, that the manners described in Ossian were Caledonian manners, and not a pure fiction. And, after perusing with attention these considerations, I am not afraid that even the most incredulous will continue altogether unshaken.<427>

      It is a noted and well-founded observation, That manners are never painted to the life by any one to whom they are not familiar. It is not difficult to draw the outlines of imaginary manners; but to fill up the picture with all the variety of tints that manners assume in different circumstances, uniting all concordantly in one whole—hic labor, hoc opus est. Yet the manners here supposed to be invented, are delineated in a variety of incidents, of sentiments, of images, and of allusions, making one entire picture, without once deviating into the slightest incongruity. Every scene in Ossian relates to hunting, to fighting, or to love, the sole occupations of men in the original state of society; there is not a single image, simile, or allusion, but what is borrowed from that state, without a jarring circumstance.—Supposing all to be mere invention, is it not amazing to find no mention of highland clans, or of any name now in use? Is it not still more amazing, that there is not the slightest hint of the Christian religion, not even in a metaphor or allusion? Is it not equally amazing, that, in a work where deer’s flesh is frequently mentioned, <428> and a curious method of roasting it, there should not be a word of fish as food, so common in later times? Very few highlanders know that their forefathers did not eat fish; and, supposing it to be known, it would require singular attention, never to let a hint of it enter the poem. Can it be supposed, that a modern writer could be so constantly on his guard, as never to mention corn nor cattle? In a story so scanty of poetical images, the sedentary life of a shepherd, and the industry of a husbandman, would make a capital figure: the cloven foot would somewhere peep out. And yet, in all the works of Ossian, there is no mention of agriculture; and but a slight hint of a herd of cattle in one or two allusions. I willingly give all advantages to the unbeliever: Supposing the author of Ossian to be a late writer, adorned with every refinement of modern education; yet, even upon that supposition, he is a miracle, far from being equalled by any other author ancient or modern.

      But difficulties multiply when it is taken into the account, that the poems of Ossian have existed three or four centuries at least. Our highlanders at present are<429> rude and illiterate; and were in fact little better than savages at the period mentioned. Now, to hold the manners described in that work to be imaginary, is in effect to hold, that they were invented by a highland savage, acquainted with the rude manners of his country, but utterly unacquainted with every other system of manners. The manners of different countries are now so well known as to make it an easy task to invent manners by blending the manners of one country with those of another; but to invent manners of which the author has no example, and yet neither whimsical nor absurd, but congruous to human nature in its most polished state, I pronounce to be far above the powers of man. Is it so much as supposable, that such a work could be the production of a Tartar, or of a Hottentot? From what source then did Ossian draw the refined manners so deliciously painted by him? Supposing him to have been a traveller, of which we have not the slightest hint, the manners of France at that period, of Italy, and of other neighbouring nations, were little less barbarous than those of his own country. I can discover no source<430> but inspiration. In a word, whoever seriously believes the manners of Ossian to be fictitious, may well say, with the religious enthusiast, “Credo quia impossible est: I believe it because it is impossible.”

      But further: The uncommon talents of the author of this work will cheerfully be acknowledged by every reader of taste: he certainly was a great master in his way. Now, whether the work be late, or composed four centuries ago, a man of such talents inventing a historical fable, and laying the scene of action among savages in the hunter-state, would naturally frame a system of manners the best suited in his opinion to that state. What then could tempt him to adopt a system of manners, so opposite to any notion he could form of savage manners? The absurdity is so gross, that we are forced, however reluctantly, to believe, that these manners are not fictitious, but in reality the manners of his country, coloured perhaps, or a little heightened, according to the privilege of an epic poet. And once admitting that fact, there can be no hesitation in ascribing the work to Ossian, son of Fingal, <431> whose name it bears: we have no better evidence for the authors of several Greek and Roman books. Upon the same evidence, we must believe, that Ossian lived in the reign of the Emperor Caracalla, of whom frequent mention is made under the designation of Caracul the Great King; at which period, the shepherd-state was scarce known in Caledonia, and husbandry not at all. Had he lived so late as the twelfth century, when there were flocks and herds in that country, and some sort of agriculture, a poet of genius, such as Ossian undoubtedly was, would have drawn from these his finest images.

      The foregoing considerations, I am

Скачать книгу