Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremtas LUCAN EDINBURGH Printed for G. HAMILTON and J. BALFOT IN Advertisement. The N this edition fome paffages will be found altered from the former. alterations are drawn from more compleat copies the tranflator had obtained of the originals, fince the former publication. One entire poem is alfo added; which stands No XIII. in this edition. It may be proper to inform the public, that measures are now taken for making a more full collection of the remaining works of the ancient Scottish Bards ; in particular for recovering and tranflating the heroic poem mentioned in the preface. PREFACE. THE HE public may depend on the following fragments as genuine remains of ancient Scottish poetry. The date of their compofition cannot be exactly ascertained.. Tradition, in the country where they were written, refers them to an æra of the moft remote antiquity: and this tradition is fupported by the spirit and ftrain of the poems: themselves; which abound with thofe ideas, and paint thofe manners, that belong to the most early state of society. The diction too, in the original, is very obfolete; and differs widely from the style of fuch poems as have been written in the fame language two or three centuries ago. They were certainly composed before the establish ment |