Page:Poems of Ossian.djvu/42

xl fought with our swords. I was young, when, towards the east, in the bay of Orcon, we made torrents of blood flow, to gorge the ravenous beast of prey, and the yellow-footed bird." Dr. Blair, however, quoted Ammianus Marcellinus, to show that the Celts were by no means on a level with the savage Goths and Teutons. "There flourished among them," he translates, "the study of the most laudable arts, introduced by the Bards, whose office it was to sing in heroic verse the gallant actions of illustrious men, and by the Druids, who lived together in colleges, or societies, after the Pythagorean manner, and, philosophising upon the highest subjects, asserted the immortality of the soul." The late researches, too, of Anderson, Skene, Hill Burton, and other historians and archæologists, prove early Celtic art to have attained astonishing perfection, beauty, and delicacy. Many examples of this art are now known to antiquarians, but one only need be mentioned. At Abbotsford there is preserved a bronze mask which was unearthed some considerable time ago on the Border. It bears traces of delicate and fine ornamentation, and its shape, bearing horns, is so curious and unmistakable as to render its identification almost certainly true. Mr. Anderson, in his valuable Scotland in Pagan Times (p. 114), suggests it to