Ill 



given with such veracious dryness, as clearly shews the absence of 

 invention and the pre-existence of explicit unadorned annals. Oral 

 tradition never would have given them so simply pithy. In short, in 

 the words of the Journal des Scavans, (October, 1764,) " Plusieurs 

 scavants etrangers reconnoissent que les Irlandois ont des annales 

 d'une antiquite tres respectable et d'une authenticite a toute epreuve." 

 As these historical accounts were from the earliest period accom- 

 modated to verse, and intrusted very much to tradition, it is obvious 

 that poetry in such a national cause must have ultimately attained 

 some excellence, especially where its professors are recorded to have 

 been, like the Chinese literati, exempted from taxes and ennobled as 

 by right of genius. Their pretensions were subjected to some jealous 

 scrutiny, and in the Seabright collection of Irish MS. in Trinity Col- 

 lege, Dublin,* there is preserved a small tract on the necessary qualifi- 

 cations of a bard.-f- Like the northern Skialds,;]: this order recited 

 their productions on all public occasions amidst the deep attention 

 and breathless sympathies of thousands, who listened to impress their 

 verses on memories long practised to such exertions ; and thus it is, 

 that after the lapse of many centuries, the Finian poems of the Irish, 

 many of which have been attributed to Ossian, yet remain. In point of 

 fact, the labour of learning, and remembering so many verses, which Dr. 

 Johnson urges as an invincible argument against the antiquity of such 

 poetry, is precisely that which could alone assure us of the tenacity 

 with which they must have established themselves in the memory; and 

 Caesar, who, with the alleged attributes of Ossian, carried the genius of 

 history to the field, and recorded where he fought, while he witnesses 

 a similar practice in Gaul, relies (as we have seen) on its superior effi- 

 cacy. § The Psalter of Cashel has been already alluded to as a collec- 



• Class H. 54. fo. 53. f Trans. lb. Celt Soc. p. xiii. 



I See Mod. Univ. Hist. v. 1 1. p. C72. fol. § De Bell. Gall. Lib. C. c. 14. 



