OSSIAN, THE CELTIC BARD.

Ir is to us a source of no small satisfaction, as it must be to every blind person who has a philanthropic zeal for the honor and elevation of his order, to find so many characters laboring under the same privation, in every period of man's history, who have walked triumphantly the path of fame. Of all the antique literature that has withstood the ravages of time, and at the present day enriches the commonwealth of letters, there is none more justly claiming our admiration, than the poems of this illustrious Celtic bard. As the meteor shoots through blackest night, and pours its glaring light over torrents wild, rocky cliff, and ocean surge, so do the works of this, and the Grecian poet, shine forth with transcendent luster through all succeeding ages.

But as the venerable Ossian flourished in an age when traditional songs supplied the place of written history, we can learn nothing of his long and eventful life, save the few particulars we gather from his poems. So little do we know of him, that even the era of his life has long been a subject of dispute. But from the incidents which the poet mentions, identical in Roman and other authentic histories, we think it

may be decided without doubt to have been in tne Latter part of the third century. In this we agree with McPherson, the translator, and Rev. Dr. Blair, the reviewer, of these sublime poems. Ossian waɛ the last of a line of kings renowned in their time for magnanimity and heroism in war, and clemency and magnificence in peace, who held dominion over Morven, a kingdom comprising that mountainous section of country lying along the north-west coast of Scotland. Fingal, his father, is represented to us as a true hero; though terrible in battle, he displayed many of those ennobling graces found in civilized life. His ancestors, Trathal and Trenmor, are also portrayed in song, possessing such manly virtues as make us forget that they lived in a period when humanity was disgraced at Rome, and heathen darkness, like the dusky curtains of night, spread over the earth.

The following advice of Fingal to his grandson, Oscar, (son of Ossian,) concerning his conduct in peace and war, is an example of true generosity, worthy of the most refined age: "O Oscar, pride of youth. I saw the shining of the sword. I gloried in my race. Pursue the fame of our fathers; be thou what they have been, when Trenmor lived, the first of men, and Trathal, the father of heroes! They fought the battle in their youth. They are the song of bards. O Oscar! bend the strong in arm; but spare the feeble hand. Be thou a stream of many tides against the foes of thy people; but like the gale

that moves the grass, to those who ask thine aid. So Trenmor lived; such Trathal was; and such has Fingal been."

While the fire of youth inspired the heroic heart of Fingal, his military aid was solicited by Cormac, king of Ireland, to quell the insurrection and usurpation of Colculla, chief of Atha, where he fell in love with and took to wife Rosecanna, daughter of Cormac, who became the mother of our poet. If the long-established maxim is true, that the first striking event and impressions in one's existence, give the leading impulse to character, it was but natural that Ossian should become a great poet and musician. The wild, animating, and heroic songs of the thousand bards that crowded the halls of Selma, during the life and triumphant career of his father, were perhaps the first sounds that greeted his ear, and formed the lullaby of his early years. It has been the well-founded opinion of our ablest modern literary persons, that an age of uncivilization, when the passions and feelings of men are in unrestrained exercise, is more favorable to poetry than one of nice refinement, when the intellect bows to the deity of arbitrary rules. So prevalent has this opinion become among the literati of our day, that we not unfrequently hear the period known in ancient history as "the dark ages," classically termed the age of poetry.

The method of transmitting history and heroic fame to future times, through poems or traditional songs, which nearly all the nations of antiquity adopted he

fore the art of writing became prevalent, afforded a powerful incentive to the exaltation of poetic genius. A skillful bard, familiar with the history of heroes, and able to poetize with luster what was deemed noble and generous in character, was ever greeted with cordiality at the mansions of the great, and flattered at kingly courts. We are informed that the ancient Spartans were so prejudiced in favor of transmitting their laws and panegyrics in this way, that they never would allow them to be committed to writing. The Germans also preserved monuments of their antique history, and transmitted them orally to quite a modern date, by couching into verse the elegies of their heroes and chief national transactions.

But especially did poetic genius obtain great popularity among the Celtic tribes. Living a roving and indolent life, their highest entertainment in peace, was to gather around the burning oak, or sit in the halls of their fathers, and listen to the praises and exploits of their heroes, from the lips of bards; and in war, these poets rehearsed the deeds of their ancestors to inspire the chiefs with heroic fire. Their greatest incentive to noble deeds was to receive their fame; that is, to become worthy of being celebrated in the songs of bards; and to have their name on the four gray stones. To die unlamented by a bard, was deemed so great a misfortune as even to distureir ghosts in another state. "They wander in thick mists beside the reedy lake; but never shall they rise, without the song, to the dwelling of winds."

Julius Cæsar informs us, that this class of men comprised many of the first rank, possessing superior talents, highly respected in state, and was supported by public establishment. So thorough a knowledge of ancient historical poetry was requisite, before be ing initiated into this order, that, with many, a course of diligent study for a term of twenty years was required.* In this way the Celtic bards transmitted, as a sacred charge, their poems through successive generations. Consequently, we not unfrequently hear them termed, in ancient verse, the sons of future times. Their persons were held so inviolable, that they were ever secure against personal outrage from foes. "He feared to stretch his sword to the bards, though his soul was dark." When this institution had attained to its meridian excellence, and the cap ital of Morven was enriched and embellished, to a degree of magnificence before unknown among the nations of north-western Europe, the voice and harp of Ossian woke their echoes in the halls of Selma, the first among a thousand bards. The heroic splendor and peculiar institutions of Ossian's age, formed a conjunction of circumstances highly favorable towards developing a poetic spirit. "Ossian himself," says Dr. Blair, "appears to have been endowed

* Under an institution like this, it is not strange that the best po ems produced and preserved of those times, were the compositions of blind bards. Their extraordinary concentrative and retentive powers, and natural fondness for poetic numbers, must have given them great superiority over their cotemporaries.