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, . r " In the battles," says our critic, " it is evident that drums, trumpets, and bagpipes were 

 not known nor used." , , r , 



■'^ No, Macpherson's fear of committing an anachronism of this 

 kind, though he has not scrupled to commit others far more flagrant, 

 induced him sometimes to use too much caution. He knew well 

 that the introduction of a band of music would be as bad as the 

 Trojan hero's quotation from Aristotle, in Shakspeare. The art of 

 criticism was better understood in his days than in those of our great 

 dramatist. Yet, perhaps, he might have introduced the bagpipe 

 without hazard of censure. It would have been characteristic ; but 

 from an excess of prudence, or deeming the bagpipe's notes barba- 

 rous, and little accordant with the refined taste of his heroes 

 and heroines, he declined the use of an instrument capable of stir- 

 ring the most heart-thrilling emotions in the breast of a modern 

 Highlander. From the writings of great poets we can gather much 

 information relative to the state of the arts, sciences, and peculiar cus- 

 toms of the age which they describe, or in which they wrote. But what 

 do we learn from Macpherson's Ossian ? — literally nothing. When 

 Homer describes a funeral, he gives a faithful picture of the rites and 

 ceremonies employed on the occasion. In Ossian's burials there is 

 not a single circumstance peculiar or characteristic, if we except the 

 song of the bards, and the placing the horn of a deer or a sword by 

 the side of the entombed. This defect in the real Ossian would be 

 unaccountable or inexcusable, for we elsewhere learn that heroes 

 were interred " standing in arms, face to face, with their weapons 

 ready,"* a peculiarity susceptible of pathetic description, and which 

 the genuine bard would not omit. But the omission by Macpherson 

 is capable of easy explanation. Indeed the absence of ancient Celtic 



* See Antiquarian Researches, by Sir William Betham, p. 356. 

 VOL. XVI. '^ ° . * • M 



