6302. OSSIAN, Poems of.—
These pieces
have been and will, I think, during my life,
continue to be to me the sources of daily and
exalted pleasures. The tender and the sublime
emotions of the mind were never before so
wrought up by the human hand. I am not
ashamed to own that I think this rude bard of
the North the greatest poet that has ever existed.
Merely for the pleasure of reading his
works, I am become desirous of learning the
language in which he sung, and of possessing
his songs in their original form.—
To Charles McPherson. Washington ed. i, 195.
Ford ed., i, 413.
(A.
1773)
