Nature's simple plan; a phase of radical thought in the mid-eighteenth century . ic chant, and Masoninstinctively followed the lead of his real step in the direction of loose numberswas to be taken by Masons successor who, aban-doning fixed metres altogether, represented thebard as singing rhythmic, or, if you will, poly-phonic, prose. The bardic figure had now reached a high de-gree of imaginative development—so high, in-deed, that a need was felt for something moresubstantial than a poets dream of what a bardmight have sung. Oh, for the song itself, thevery words of the minstrel o
Nature's simple plan; a phase of radical thought in the mid-eighteenth century . ic chant, and Masoninstinctively followed the lead of his real step in the direction of loose numberswas to be taken by Masons successor who, aban-doning fixed metres altogether, represented thebard as singing rhythmic, or, if you will, poly-phonic, prose. The bardic figure had now reached a high de-gree of imaginative development—so high, in-deed, that a need was felt for something moresubstantial than a poets dream of what a bardmight have sung. Oh, for the song itself, thevery words of the minstrel of Nature, as he sangthem to the British warrior thirteen hundredyears ago! And pat it came—just at the moment whenthe public was prepared to receive it, in the lineof direct descent from Mason and from Gray—the poems of Ossian, son of Fingal, ancient Brit- IN G A L A N ANCIENT EPIC POEM, In SIX BO O K S 5 Together with feveral other POEMS, compofed hj OSSIAN the Son of F I N G A L. Tranflated from the Galic Language, By JAMES MAC P HER SO N^^Fortia faSfa pairum^ L O M D O NiPfiated for T* Beckit and P. A. De Hondt, in the Strand M DCC Lxa ANCIENT BARD 71 ish bard of the third century , filled with theprophets fire, sung in loose numbers wildlysweet, in honour of the chieftains of old, passion-ate, sad as the wind that sobbed over Morven,the joy of heroes, the consolation of the dream of Gray come true! The highly-coloured imaginings of Mason outstripped by theauthentic facts of history! But were they au-thentic? Caractacus was published in the springof 1759, the first volume of Ossianic poetry in theautumn of 1760. The sequence was , when one thought it all out in cool blood,had come a little too pat. There is no necessityof rehearsing here the well-known history of thepublication—within four short years—of the Os-sianic epics and lyric fragments which are nowknown to have been almost entirely the work of ayoung Scots clergym
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectciviliz, bookyear1922
