Fragments Of Ancient Poetry | Page 5

take the form that corresponds to the
development of an emotional experience. As Macpherson told Blair
they are very different from "modern, connected, and polished poetry."
V
The Fragments proved an immediate success and Macpherson's
Edinburgh patrons moved swiftly to raise enough money to enable the
young Highlander to resign his position as tutor and to devote himself
to collecting and translating the Gaelic poetry still extant in the
Highlands. Blair recalled that he and Lord Elibank were instrumental in
convening a dinner meeting that was attended by "many of the first
persons of rank and taste in Edinburgh," including Robertson, Home,
and Fergusson.[17] Robert Chalmers acted as treasurer; among the
forty odd subscribers who contributed 60£, were James Boswell and
David Hume.[18] By the time of the second edition of the Fragments
(also in 1760), Blair, or more likely Macpherson himself, could inform
the public in the "Advertisement" "that measures are now taken for
making a full collection of the remaining Scottish bards; in particular,
for recovering and translating the heroic poem mentioned in the
preface."
Macpherson, a frugal man, included many of the "Fragments"
in his
later work. Sometimes he introduced them into the notes as being later

than Ossian but in the same spirit; at other times he introduced them as
episodes in the longer narratives. With the exception of Laing's edition,
they are not set off, however, and anyone who wishes to see what
caused the initial Ossianic fervor
must consult the original volume.
When we have to remind ourselves that a work of art was revolutionary
in its day, we can be sure that we are dealing with something closer to
cultural artifact than to art, and it must be granted that this is true of
Macpherson's work; nevertheless, the fact that Ossian aroused the
interest of major men of letters for fifty years is suggestive of his
importance as an innovator. In a curious way, Macpherson's
achievement has been overshadowed by the fact that many greater
writers followed him and developed the artistic direction that he was
among the first to take.
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
[1] See Scott's letter to Anna Seward in J. G. Lockhart, _Memoirs of
Sir Walter Scott_ (London, 1900), I, 410-15.
[2] The Poems of Ossian, ed. Malcolm Laing (Edinburgh, 1805), I, 441.
[3] See Home's letter to Mackenzie in the _Report of the Committee of
the
Highland Society of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1805), Appendix, pp.
68-69.
[4] Carlyle to Mackenzie, ibid., p. 66.
[5] Blair to Mackenzie, ibid., p. 57.
[6] Ibid., p. 58.
[7] Quoted from The Poems of Ossian (London, 1807), I, 222. After its
initial separate publication, Blair's dissertation was regularly included
with the collected poems.

[8] Correspondence of Thomas Gray, ed. Paget Toynbee and Leonard
Whibley (Oxford, 1935), II, 679-80.
[9] The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge
(London, 1898), I, 183.
[10] "On Poetry in General," The Complete Works of William Hazlitt,
ed.
P. P. Howe (London, 1930), V, 18.
[11] Quoted in Henry Grey Graham, _Scottish Men of Letters in the
Eighteenth Century_ (London, 1908), p. 240.
[12] Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Alexander
Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), I, 547.
[13] "The Influence of Ossian," English, VII (1948), 96.
[14] The Sublime (Ann Arbor, 1960), p. 126.
[15] The Insistence of Horror (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 86-87.
[16] The Sufferings of Young Werther, trans. Bayard Morgan (New
York,
1957), p. 51.
17 Report, Appendix, p. 58.
18 See Robert M. Schmitz, Hugh Blair (New York, 1948), p. 48.
FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT POETRY
Collected in the Highlands of Scotland,

AND
Translated from the Galic or Erse Language
"Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremtas
Laudibus in
longum vates dimittitis aevuin,
Plurima securi fudistis carmina
Bardi."
LUCAN
PREFACE
The public may depend on the following fragments as genuine remains
of ancient Scottish poetry. The date of their composition cannot be
exactly ascertained. Tradition, in the country where they were written,
refers them to an æra of the most remote antiquity: and this tradition is
supported by the spirit and strain of the poems themselves; which
abound with those ideas, and paint those manners, that belong to the
most early state of society. The diction too, in the original, is very
obsolete; and differs widely from the style of such poems as have been
written in the same language two or three centuries ago. They were
certainly composed before the establishment of clanship in the northern
part of Scotland, which is itself very ancient; for had clans been then
formed and known, they must have made a considerable figure in the
work of a Highland Bard; whereas there is not the least mention of
them in these poems. It is remarkable that there are found in them no
allusions to the Christian religion or worship; indeed, few traces