collection, there is ground to believe that most of them were originally
episodes of a greater work which related to the wars of Fingal.
Concerning this hero innumerable traditions remain, to this day, in the
Highlands of Scotland. The story of Oscian, his son, is so generally
known, that to describe one in whom the race of a great family ends, it
has passed into a proverb; "Oscian the last of the heroes."

There can be no doubt that these poems are to be ascribed to the Bards;
a race of men well known to have continued throughout many ages in
Ireland and the north of Scotland. Every chief or great man had in his
family a Bard or poet, whose office it was to record in verse, the
illustrious actions of that family. By the succession of these Bards, such
poems were handed down from race to race; some in manuscript, but more by
oral tradition. And tradition, in a country so free of intermixture with
foreigners, and among a people so strongly attached to the memory of their
ancestors, has preserved many of them in a great measure incorrupted to
this day.

They are not set to music, nor sung. The verification in the original is
simple; and to such as understand the language, very smooth and beautiful;
Rhyme is seldom used: but the cadence, and the length of the line varied,
so as to suit the sense. The translation is extremely literal. Even the
arrangement of the words in the original has been imitated; to which must
be imputed some inversions in the style, that otherwise would not have
been chosen.

Of the poetical merit of these fragments nothing shall here be said. Let
the public judge, and pronounce. It is believed, that, by a careful
inquiry, many more remains of ancient genius, no less valuable than those
now given to the world, might be found in the same country where these