The word bard being a primitive noun, neither derived nor compounded, it can neither be tra- ced to its root, nor resolved into its parts. It signified one who was a poet by his genius and profession; and "who sung of the battles of heroes, or the heaving "breaths of love."

The curiosity of man is great with respect to the tran- sactions of his own species; and when such transac- tions are described in verse, accompanied with music, the performance is enchanting. An ear, a voice, skill in instrumental music, and, above all, a poetical genius, are requisite to excel in that complicated art. As such talents are rare, the few that possessed them were highly esteemed; and hence the profession of a bard, which, beside natural talents, required more culture and exer- cise than any other known art. Bards were capital persons at every festival and at every solemnity. Their songs, which, by recording the achievements of kings and heroes, animated every hearer, must have been the entertainment of every warlike nation. We have He- liodorus's authority, that in his time bards were as common as potters or joiners, and as liable to envy. Demodoc- us is mentioned by Homer as a celebrated bard; and Phemius, another bard, is introduced by him depri- vating the wrath of Ulysses in the following words:

"O king! to mercy be the soul in eld, "And spare the poet's ever-gentle kind. "A deed like this thy future fame would wrong, "For dear to gods and men is sacred song. "Self-taught I sing; by heav'n, and hear'n alone, "The genuine seeds of poetry are sown; "And (what the gods below) the lofty lay, "To gods alone, and godlike worth, we pay. "Save then the poet, and thyself reward; "'Tis thine to merit, mine to record." Odyssey, viii.

Cicero reports, that at Roman festivals, anciently, the virtues and exploits of their great men were sung. The same custom prevailed in Peru and Mexico, as we learn from Garcilasso and other authors. We have for our authority Father Gobien, that even the inhabitants of the Marian islands have bards, who are greatly ad- mired, because in their songs are celebrated the feats of their ancestors.

But in no part of the world did the profession of bard appear with such lustre as in Gaul, in Britain, and in Ireland: Wherever the Celts or Gauls are men- tioned by ancient writers, we seldom fail to hear of their druids and their bards; the institution of which two orders, was the capital distinction of their man- ners and policy. The druids were their philosophers and priests; the bards, their poets and recorders of heroic actions: and both these orders of men seem to have subsisted among them, as chief members of the state, from time immemorial. The Celts possessed, from very remote ages, a formed system of discipline and manners, which appears to have had a deep and lasting influence. Ammianus Marcellinus† gives them this express testimony, that there flourished among them 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, philosophizing upon the highest subjects, affected the immortality of the human soul. Tho' Julius Cæsar, in his account of Gaul, does not expressly mention the bards; yet it is plain, that, under the title of Druids, he comprehends that whole college or order; of which the bards, who, it is probable, were the disciples of the druids, un- doubtedly made a part. It deserves remark, that, according to his account, the druidical institution first took rise in Britain, and passed from thence into Gaul; so that they who aspired to be thorough masters of that learning were wont to resort to Britain. He adds too, that such as were to be initiated among the druids, were obliged to commit to their memory a great num- ber of verses, inasmuch that some employed twenty years in this course of education; and that they did not think it lawful to record these poems in writing, but sacredly handed them down by tradition from race to race.

So strong was the attachment of the Celtic nations to their poetry and their bards, that amidst all the changes of their government and manners, even long after the order of the druids was extinct, and the na- tional religion altered, the bards continued to flourish; not as a set of strolling songsters, like the Greek "Aulos" or "rhabdodrissi," in Homer's time, but as an order of men highly respected in the state, and supported by a public establishment. We find them, according to the testimonies of Strabo and Diodorus, before the age of Augustus Cæsar; and we find them remaining under the same name, and exercising the same functions as of old, in Ireland, and in the north of Scotland, almost down to our own times. It is well known, that, in both these countries, every regulus or chief had his own bard, who was considered as an officer of rank in his court.

Of the honour in which the bards were held, many instances occur in Ossian's poems. On all important occasions, they were the ambassadors between con- tending chiefs; and their persons were held sacred. "Cairbor feared to stretch his sword to the bards, tho' his soul was dark. Loofe the bards, (said his brother Cathmor), they are the sons of other times. Their voice shall be heard in other ages, when the kings of Temora have failed."—The bards, as well as the druids, were exempted from taxes and military ser- vices, even in times of the greatest danger; and when they attended their patrons in the field, to record and celebrate their great actions, they had a guard assigned them for their protection. At all festivals and public assemblies they were seated near the person of the king or chieftain, and sometimes even above the greatest nobility and chief officers of the court. Nor was the profession of the bards less lucrative than it was honour- able. For, besides the valuable presents which they occasionally received from their patrons when they gave them uncommon pleasure by their performances, they had estates in land allotted for their support. Nay, so great was the veneration which the princes of these times entertained for the persons of their poets, and so highly were they charmed and delighted with their tuneful strains, that they sometimes pardoned even their capital crimes for a song.

We may very reasonably suppose, that a profession that was at once so honourable and advantageous, and enjoyed so many flattering distinctions and desirable immunities, would not be deserted. It was indeed very much crowded; and the accounts which we have of the numbers of the bards in some countries, particularly in Ireland, are hardly credible. We often read, in the poems of Ossian, of a hundred bards belonging to one prince, singing and playing in concert for his enter- tainment. Every chief bard, who was called Allah Redan, or doctor in poetry, was allowed to have 30 bards of inferior note constantly about his person; and every bard of the second rank was allowed a retinue of 15 poetical disciples.

Though the ancient Britons of the southern parts of this island had originally the same taste and genius for poetry with those of the north, yet none of their poetical compositions of this period have been preserved. Nor have we any reason to be surprized at this. For after the provincial Britons had submitted quietly to the Roman government, yielded up their arms, and had lost their free and martial spirit, they could take little pleasure in hearing or repeating the songs of their bards in honour of the glorious achievements of their brave ancestors. The Romans too, if they did not practice the same barbarous policy which was long after practised by Edward I. of putting the bards to death, would at least discourage them, and discontinue the repetition of their poems, for very obvious reasons. These sons of the song being thus persecuted by their conquerors, and neglected by their countrymen, either abandoned their country or their profession; and their songs being no longer heard, were soon forgotten.

It is probable that the ancient Britons, as well as many other nations of antiquity, had no idea of poems that were made only to be repeated, and not to be sung to the sound of musical instruments. In the first stages of society in all countries, the two finer arts of poetry and music seem to have been always united; every poet was a musician, and sung his own verses to the sound of some musical instrument. This, we are directly told by two writers of undoubted credit, was the case in Gaul, and consequently in Britain, in this period.

"The bards (says Diodorus Siculus) sang their poems," Lib. v. "to the sound of an instrument not unlike a lyre," sect. 31. "The bards, (according to Ammianus Marcellinus)," Lib. xv. "as above hinted), celebrated the brave actions of illus- trious men in heroic poems, which they sung to the sweet sounds of the lyre." This account of the Greek and Latin writers is confirmed by the general strain, and by many particular passages, of the poems of Ossian. "Beneath his own tree, at intervals, each bard sat down with his harp. They raised the song, and "touched the string, each to the chief he loved."

The invention of writing made a considerable change in the bard profession. It is now an agreed point, that no poetry is fit to be accompanied with music, but what is simple: a complicated thought or description requires the utmost attention, and leaves none for the music; or, if it divide the attention, it makes but a faint impression. The simple operas of Quinault bear away the palm from every thing of the kind composed by Boileau or Racine. But when a language, in its pro- gress to maturity, is enriched with variety of phrases fit to express the most elevated thoughts, men of genius aspired aspired to the higher strains of poetry, leaving music and song to the bards; which distinguished the profession of a poet from that of a bard. Homer, in a lax sense, may be termed a bard; for in that character he strolled from feast to feast. But he was not a bard in the original sense: he, indeed, recited his poems to crowded audiences; but his poems are too complex for music, and he probably did not sing them, nor accompany them with the lyre. The Trouvères of Provence were bards in the original sense; and made a capital figure in the days of ignorance, when few could read, and fewer write. In later times, the songs of the bards were taken down in writing, which gave every one access to them without a bard; and the profession sunk by degrees into oblivion. Among the Highlanders of Scotland, reading and writing in their own tongue is not common even at present; and that circumstance supported long the bard-profession among them, after being forgot among the neighbouring nations.