Let not the in the field. Let Carril fallen be forgot, they were mighty Let Carril pour his song, that the kings may rejoice in their mist. To-morrow I spread my sails to Selma's shaded walls; where streamy Duthula winds through the seats of roes." AFTER our observations upon Fingal, in the former volume, the epic art of the Temora requires little consideration. The greater part of the poem was written in London; but the author's knowledge of books was not much enlarged. His images are still derived from the same sources; from Homer, Virgil, and their two translators; from Milton, Thomson, Young, Gray, Mason, Home, and the English Bible; nor had he any new resources, or fund in reserve, from which his poetry might be enriched or diversified. He had never read the Italian poets, nor consulted the minor epics in Greek and Latin; and his occasional imitations of Catullus, Tibullus, and Apollonius Rhodius, were suggested either by translations or quotations. His machinery is the same as in Fingal, with the addition of the correlative spirits of heaven and of night. The characters are also the same; the fictitious Cathmor is the counterpart of Fingal; Cairbar, of Starno; Foldath, of Calmar, from Moloch, Milton's furious king; and young Fillan is a repetition of young Oscar; the twin brother of Alpin the Highlander. The turgid sentiments ascribed to these characters, are precisely those of the modern drama, introduced by Young, of which the tragic extravagance was mistaken for the sublime. As the imitations, perhaps, were less frequent, and as all ostentatious imitation of the classics was carefully avoided, the Temora was less pleasing and popular than Fingal. The composition of an epic poem within a twelvemonth is not surprising; as the chief labour was to disguise the similes previously collected from other poets, on inserting them into a fable of which the plot and narrative are utterly contemptible. It is easy to diversify, and even to improve occasionally, the ideas of others; bnt to compare any subsequent poets with Homer among the ancients, or with Shakspeare among the moderns, is to forget the immense distance between the most happy imitation, and the rare, or rather solitary, merit of original invention. To estimate the facility of such imitations, it is sufficient to consider, that the chief difficulty of Wilkie's forgotten Epigoniad consists in the rhyme, and that Glover might have furnished a short Leonidas annually in blank verse. With a genius for poetry far superior to either, or perhaps to any contemporary poet, Gray excepted, Macpherson was released even from the rules of versification; and if we may judge from the subjects which he had provided, the pretended translator might have produced, each year, an epic poem like an annual novel, had the Temora been equally successful with Fingal. ARGUMENT. AN address to Malvina, the daughter of Toscar. The poet relates the arrival of Cathlin in Selma, to solicit aid against Duth-carmor of Cluba, who had killed Cathmol, for the sake of his daughter Lanul. Fingal declining to make a choice among his heroes, who were all claiming the command of the expedition; they retired each to his hill of ghosts; to be determined by dreams. The spirit of Trenmor appears to Ossian and Oscar: they sail from the bay of Carmona, and, on the fourth day, appear off the valley of Rathcol, in Inis-huna, where Duth-carmor had fixed his residence. Ossian dispatches a bard to Duth-carmor to demand battle. Night comes on. The distress of Cathlin of Clutha. Ossian devolves the command on Oscar, who, according to the custom of the kings of Morven, before battle, retired to a neighbouring hill. Upon the coming on of day, the battle joins. Oscar and Duth-carmor meet. The latter falls. Oscar carries the mail and helmet of Duth-carmor to Cathlin, who had retired from the field. Cathlin is discovered to be the daughter of Cathmol, in disguise, who had been carried off, by force, by, and had made her escape from, Duth-carmor. MACPHERSON. The traditions which accompany this poem inform us, that it went, of old, under the name of Laoi-Oi-lutha; i. e. the hymn of the maid of Lutha. They pretend also to fix the time of its composition, to the third year after the death of Fingal; that is, during the expedition of Fergus the son of Fingal, to the banks of Visca-duthon. In support of this |