the wind; then rose the shouts of his host over every moving tribe. They gathered, gleaming, round, with all their echoing shields. So rise the green seas round a spirit that comes down from the squally wind. The traveller hears the sound afar, and lifts his head over the rock. He looks on the troubled bay, and thinks he dimly sees the form. The waves sport, unwieldy, round, with all their backs of foam.

Far distant stood the son of Morni, Duthno's race, and Cona's bard. We stood far distant; each beneath his tree. We shunned the eyes of the king; we had not conquered in the field. A little stream rolled at my feet: I touched its light wave, with my spear. I touched it with my spear; nor there was the soul of Ossian. It darkly rose, from thought to thought, and sent abroad the sigh.

"Son of Morni!" said the king, "Dermid, hunter of roes! why are ye dark, like two rocks, each with its trickling waters! No wrath gathers on the soul of Fingal against the chiefs of men. Ye are my strength in battle; the kindling of my joy in peace. My early voice was a pleasant gale to your ears, when Fillan prepared the bow. The son of Fingal is not here, nor yet the chase of the bounding roes. But why should the breakers of shields stand, darkened, far away?"

Tall they strode towards the king; they saw him turned to Mora's wind. His tears came down, for his blue-eyed son, who slept in the cave of streams. But he brightened before them, and spoke to the broadshielded kings.

"Crommal, with woody rocks and misty top, the field of winds pours forth, to the sight, blue Lubar's streamy roar. Behind it rolls clear-winding Lavath, in the still vale of deer. A cave is dark in a rock; above it strong-winged eagles dwell; broad-headed oaks, before it, sound in Cluna's wind. Within his locks of youth, is Ferad-artho", blue-eyed king, the son of

Ferad-artho was the son of Cairbar Mac-Cormac, king of Ireland. He was the only one remaining of the race of Conar, the son of Trenmor, the first Irish monarch, according to Ossian. In order to make this passage thoroughly understood, it may ma be improper to recapitulate some part of what has been said in preceding notes.

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broad-shielded Cairbar, from Ullin of the roes. He listens to the voice of Condan, as grey, he bends in feeble light. He listens, for his foes dwell in the echoing halls of Temora. He comes, at times, abroad, in the skirts of mist, to pierce the bounding roes. When the sun looks on the field, nor by the rock nor stream is he! He shuns the race of Bolga, who dwell in his father's hall. Tell him, that Fingal lifts the spear, and that his foes, perhaps, may fail.

"Lift up, O Gaul! the shield before him. Stretch, Dermid, Temora's spear. Be thy voice in his ear, O Carril, with the deeds of his fathers. Lead him to green Moi-lena, to the dusky fields of ghosts; for there I fall forward in battle, in the folds of war. Before dun night descends, come to high Dun-mora's top. Look, from the grey-rolling of mist, on Lena of the streams. If there my standard shall float on wind, over Lubar's gleaming course; then has not Fingal failed in the last of his fields."

Such were his words: nor aught replied the silent, striding kings. They looked side-long on Erin's host, and darkened as they went. Never before had they left the king, in the midst of the stormy field. Behind

the death of Conar the son of Trenmor, his son Cormac succeeded on the Irish throne Cormac reigned long. His children were, Cairbar, who succeeded him, and Ros-crana, the first wife of Fingal. Cairbar, long before the death of his father Cormac, had taken to wife Bos-gala, the daughter of Colgar, one of the most powerful chiefs in Connaught, and had, by her, Artho, afterwards King of Ireland. Soon after Artho arrived at man's estate, his mother, Bos-gala, died, and Cairbar took to wife Beltanno, the daughter of Conachar of Ullin, who brought him a son, whom he called Ferad-arthe, i. e. a man in the place of Artho. The occasion of the name was this. Artho, when his brother was born, was absent on an expedition in the south of Ireland. A faise report was brought to his father that he was killed. Cairbar, to use the words of the poem on the subject, darkened for his fair-haired son. He turned to the young beam of light, the son of Beltanno of Conachar. Thou shalt be Ferad-artho, he said, a fire before thy race. Cairbar soon after died, nor did Artho long survive him. Artho was succeeded, in the Irish throne, by his son Cormac, who, in his minority, was murd red by Cairbar, the son of Borbar-duthul. Ferad-artho, says tradition, was very young, when the expedition of Fingal to settle him on the throne of Ireland, happened. During the short reign of young Cormac, Ferad-artho lived at the royal palace of Temora Upon the murder of the king, Condan, the bard, conveyed Ferad-artho privately to the cave of Cluna, behind the mountain of Crommal, in Ulster, where they both lived concealed, during the usurpation of the family of Atha. All these particulars, concerning Ferad-artho, may be gathered from the compositions of Ossian: a bard, less ancient, has delivered the whole history, in a poem just now in my possession. It has little merit, if we except the scene between Ferad-artho and the messengers of Final, upon their arrival in the valley of Cluna. After hearing of the great actions of Fingal, the young prince proposes the following questions concerning him to Gaul and Dermid Is the king tall as the rock of my cave? Is his spear a fir of Cluna? Is he a rough winged blast on the mountain, which takes the green oak by the head, and tear it from his hill? Glitters Lubar within his strides, when he sends his stately steps along? Nor is he tall, said Gaul, as that rock; nor glitter streams within his strides: but his soul is a mighty flood, like the strength of Ullin's seas."

them, touching at times his harp, the grey-haired Carril moved. He foresaw the fall of the people, and mournful was the sound! It was like a breeze that comes, by fits, over Lego's reedy lake; when sleep half-descends on the hunter, within his mossy cave.

"Why bends the bard of Cona?" said Fingal, 66 over his secret stream? Is this a time for sorrow, father of low-laid Oscar? Be the warriors remembered in peace; when echoing shields are heard no more. Bend then, in grief, over the flood, where blows the mountainbreeze. Let them pass on thy soul, the blue-eyed dwellers of Lena. But Erin rolls to war, wide-tumbling, rough, and dark. Lift, Ossian, lift the shield. I am alone, my son !"

As comes the sudden voice of winds to the becalmed ship of Inis-huna, and drives it large, along the deep, dark rider of the wave: so the voice of Fingal sent Ossian, tall, along the heath. He lifted high his shining shield, in the dusky wing of war: like the broad, blank moon, in the skirt of a cloud, before the storms arise.

Loud, from moss-covered Mora, poured down, at once, the broad-winged war. Fingal led his people forth, king of Morven of streams. On high spreads the eagle's wing. His grey hair is poured on his shoulders broad. In thunder are his mighty strides. He often stood, and saw behind, the wide-gleaming rolling of armour. A rock he seemed, grey over with ice, whose woods are high in wind. Bright streams leap from its head, and spread their foam on blasts.

It is supposed Malvina speaks the following soliloquy: "Malvina is like the bow of the shower, in the secret valley of streams; it is bright, it the drops of heaven roll on its blended light. They say that I am fair within my locks; but on my brightness is the wandering of tears. Darkness flies over my soul, as the dusky wave of the breeze, along the grass of Lutha. Yet have not the roes failed me, when I moved be tween the hills. Pleasant, beneath my white hand, arose the sound of harps. What then, daughter of Lutha, travels over thy soul, like the dreary path of a ghost, along the nightly beam? Should the young warrior fall, in the roar of his troubled fields? Young virgins of Lutha, arise; call back the wandering thoughts of Malvina. Awake the voice of the harp, along my echoing vale. Then shall my soul come forth, like a light from the gates of the morn, when clouds are rolled around them with their broken sides.

"Dweller of my thoughts, by night, whose form ascends in troubled fields, why dost thou stir up my soul, thou far distant son of the king? Is that the ship of my love, ita dark course through the ridges of ocean? How art thou so sudden, Oscar, from the heath of shields."

The rest of this poem, it is said, consisted of a dialogue between Ullin and Malvina, wherein the distress of the latter is carried to the highest pitch,

Now he came to Lubar's cave, where Fillan darkly slept. Bran still lay on the broken shield: the eaglewing is strewed on winds. Bright, from withered furze, looked forth the hero's spear. Then grief stirred the soul of the king, like whirlwinds blackening on a lake. He turned his sudden step, and leaned on his bending spear. White-breasted Bran came bounding with joy to the known path of Fingal. He came and looked towards the cave, where the blue-eyed hunter lay, for he was wont to stride, with morning, to the dewy bed of the roe. It was then the tears of the king came down, and all his soul was dark. But as the rising wind rolls away the storm of rain, and leaves the white streams to the sun, and high hills with their heads of grass: so the returning war brightened the mind of Fingal. He bounded, on his spear, over Lubar, and struck his echoing shield. His ridgy host bend forward, at once, with all their pointed steel.

Nor Erin heard, with fear, the sound: wide they came rolling along. Dark Malthos, in the wing of war, looks forward from shaggy brows. Next rose that beam of light Hidalla; then the side-long-looking gloom of Maronnan. Blue-shielded Clonar lifts the spear; Cormar shakes his bushy locks on the wind. Slowly, from behind a rock, rose the bright form of Atha. First appeared his two pointed spears, then the half of his burnished shield: like the rising of a nightly meteor, over the vale of ghosts. But when he shone

y The Irish compositions concerning Fingal invariably speak of him as a giant. Of these Hibernian poems there are now many in my hands. From the language, and al lusions to the times in which they were writ, I should fix the date of their composi tion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In some passages, the poetry is far from wanting merit, but the fable is unnatural, and the whole conduct of the pieces injudi cious. I shall give one instance of the extravagant fictions of the Irish bards in a poem which they, most unjustly, ascribe to Ossian. The story of it is this. Ireland being threatened with an invasion from some part of Scandinavia, Fingal sent Ossian, Oscar, and Ca-olt to watch the bay, in which it was expected the enemy was to land. Oscar, unluckily, fell asleep, before the Scandinavians appeared; and great as he was, says the Irish bard, he had one bad property, that no less could waken him, before his time, than cutting off one of his fingers; or throwing a great stone against his head; and it was dangerous to come near him on these occasions, till he had recovered himself, and was fully awake. Ca-olt, who was employed by Ossian to waken his son, made choice of throwing a stone against his head, as the least dangerous expedient. The stone, rebounding from the hero's head, shook, as it rolled along, the hill for three miles round. Oscar rose in rage, fought bravely, and, singly, vanquished a wing of the ene my's army. Thus the bard goes on, till Fingal put an end to the war by the total rout of the Scandinavians. Puerile, and even despicable, as these fictions are, yet Keating and O'Flaherty have no better authority than the poems which contain them, for all at they write concerning Fion Mac-Comnal and the pretended militia of Ireland.

all abroad, the hosts plunged, at once, into strife. The gleaming waves of steel are poured on either side.

As meet two troubled seas, with the rolling of all their waves, when they feel the wings of contending winds, in the rock-sided frith of Lumon; along the echoing hills is the dim course of ghosts: from the blast fall the torn groves on the deep, amidst the foamy path of whales. So mixed the hosts! Now Fingal, now Cathmor came abroad. The dark tumbling of death is before them: the gleam of broken steel is rolled on their steps, as, loud, the high-bounding kings hewed down the ridge of shields.

his fall.

Marronan fell, by Fingal, laid large across a stream. The waters gathered by his side, and leapt grey over his bossy shield. Clonar is pierced by Cathmor: nor yet lay the chief on earth. An oak seized his hair in His helmet rolled on the ground. By its thong, hung his broad shield; over it wandered his streaming blood. Tlamin shall weep, in the hall, and strike her heaving breast. Nor did Ossian forget the spear, in the wing of his war. He strewed the field with dead. Young Hidalla came. "Soft voice of streamy Clonra! Why dost thou lift the steel? O that we met, in the strife of song, in thy own rushy vale!" Malthos beheld him low, and darkened as he rushed along. On either side of a stream, we bend in the echoing strife. Heaven comes rolling down: around burst

z Tla-min, mildly soft. The loves of Clonar and Tlamin were rendered famous in the north, by the fragment of a lyric poem, still preserved, which is ascribed to Ossian. It is a dialogue between Clonar and Tlamin. She begins with a soliloquy, which he overhears,

Tlamin. Clon, son of Conglas of I-mor, young hunter of Dansided roes! where art thou laid, amidst rushes, beneath the passing wing of the breeze? I behold thee, my love, in the plain of thy own dark streams? The clung thorn is rolled by the wind, and rustles along his shield. Bright in his locks he lies: the thoughts of his dreams fly, darkening, over his face. Thou thinkest of the battles of Ossian, young son the echoing isle!

"Half-hid, in the grove, I sit down. Fly back ye mists of the hill. Why should ye hide her love from the blue eyes of Tlamin of harps?

Clonar. "As the spirit, seen in a dream, flies of from our opening eyes, we think we behold his bright path between the closing hills; so fled the daughter of Clun-gal, from the sight of Clonar of shields. Arise, from the gathering of trees; blue-eyed Tlamin

arise.

Flamin." I turn me away from his steps. Why should he know of my love! My white breast is heaving over sighs, as foam on the dark course of streams. But he passes away, in his arms! Son of Conglas, my soul is sad.

Clonar." It was the shield of Fingal! the voice of kings from Selma of harps! My path is towards green Erin. Arise, fair light, from thy shades. Come to the field of my soul, there is the spreading of hosts. Arise, on Clonar's troubled soul, young daughter of blue-shielded Clun-gal."

Clun-gal was the chief of I-mor, one of the Hebrides.