396 THE AUTHENTICITY OF 



that oi-al tradition was largely cultivated in Britain : it also enables 

 us to see in wliat manner poems of considerable length could be 

 transmitted with tolerable accuracy, " Disciplina in Britannia 

 reperta : atque inde in Galliam translata esse, existimatur ; et nunc, 

 qui diligentius earn rem cognoscere volunt, plerumque illo, discendi 

 causa, profiscuntur. * * Tantis excitati praemiis, et sua sponte 

 multi in disciplinam conveniunt, et a parentibus propinquisque 

 mittuntur. Magnum ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur* 

 Itaque annos nonnulli vicenos in disciplina permanent. * "* Id 

 mihi duabus de causis instituisse videntur : quod neque in vulgum 

 disciplinam efferri velint, neque eos, qui discant. Uteris confisos, 

 ;minus memoriae studere : quod fere plerisque accidit, ut praesidio 

 -literarum, diligentiam in perdiscendo, ac memoriam remittant,"* 

 In bis Greek Classical Literature (p. 60), Brown thus remarks ^ 

 '" Accustomed as we are to all that assistance to literary composition 

 ■which the art of writing supplies, and, what is still more important, 

 to the substitute for memory itself, which the power of committing 

 "Our thoughts to paper furnishes, it is scarcely possible to form any 

 idea of the natural powers of the memory when obliged to depend 

 on its own. resources. * * It is not, therefore, so impossible a 

 thing as it may at first sight appear, to conceive a poem of many 

 thousand lines composed and arranged as a perfect whole, by an 

 efibrt of memory, and then so perfectly retained in the mind as to 

 be capable of recitation. Instances are not unknown of the wonder- 

 ful power of memoiy when it is compelled to exert itself. Plutarch 

 mentions the astonishing memories which the Greeks possessed." In 

 •the preface to MacCallum's Ossian (p. 17), the following very judi- 

 cious remarks are made regarding the poems of Ossian : " With 

 ■regard to the manner in which the originals of these poems have 

 been preserved and transmitted, which has been represented as 

 mysterious and inexplicable, we have the following plain but satis- 

 factory account : that imtil the present century, almost every great 

 family in the Highlands had its bard, to whose office it belonged to 

 be master of all the poems of reputation in the country ; that among 

 these poems, the works of Ossian are easily distinguished from those 

 of later bards, by several peculiarities in the style and manner ; that 

 Ossian has always been reputed the Homer of the Highlands, and 

 • all his compositions held in singular esteem and veneration ; that it 



* I)e. Bello GalUco : Lib. 6 ; 13, 14. 



