THE WORKS O F OSSIAN, THE SON of FINGA L. IN TWO VOLUMES. By JAMES MACPHERSON. VOL. II. containing, TEMORA, an Ancient EPIC POEM, IN EIGHT BOOKS; AND SEVERAL OTHER POEMS. THE THIRD EDITION. To which is fubjoined A CRITICAL DISSERTATION on the LONDON: Printed for T. BECKET and P. A. DE HONDT, MDCCLXV. A DISSERTATIO N. THE history of those nations which originally poffeffed the north of Europe, is little known. Deftitute of the ufe of letters, they themselves had not the means of tranfmitting their great actions to remote pofterity. Foreign writers saw them only at a distance, 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 investigated. Some men, otherwife of great merit among ourfelves, give into this confined opinion. Having early imbibed their idea of exalted manners from the Greek and Roman writers, they fcarcely ever afterwards have the fortitude to allow any dig nity 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 these times we call barbarous. That irregular manner of life, and those manly purfuits from which barbarity takes its name, are highly favorable to a strength of mind unknown in polifhed times. In advanced VOL. II. fociety A |