CONTENTS FIRST VOLUME. Page. A Dissertation concerning the Æra of Ossian 1 A Dissertation concerning the Poems of Ossian A critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian Cath-Loda, Part First. 65 207 A DISSERTATION CONCERNING THE ERA OF OSSIAN. INQUIRIES into the antiquities of nations afford more pleasure than any real advantage to mankind. The ingenious may form systems of history on probabilities and a few facts; but, at a great distance of time, their accounts must be vague and uncertain. The infancy of states and kingdoms is as destitute of great events, as of the means of transmitting them to posterity. The arts of polished life, by which alone facts can be preserved with certainty, are the production of a well-formed community. It is then historians begin to write, and public transactions to be worthy remembrance. The actions of former times are left in obscurity, or magnified by uncertain traditions, Hence it is that we find so much of the marvellous in the origin of every nation; posterity being always |