grafs of the rock, the flower of the heath, the thistle with its beard, are the chief ornaments of his landscapes. "The defart,' fays Fingal, "is enough to me, with all its woods and deer." *

The circle of ideas and tranfactions, is no wider than fuits fuch an age: Nor any greater diverfity introduced into characters, than the events of that period would naturally display. Valour and bodily ftrength are the admired qualities. Contentions arife, as is ufual among favage nations, from the flighteft caufes. To be affronted at a tournament, or to be omitted in the invitation to a feaft, kindles a war. Women are often carried away by force and the whole tribe, as in the Homeric times, rife to avenge the wrong. The heroes show refinement of fentiment indeed on feveral occafions, but none of manners. They fpeak of their paft actions with freedom, boaft of their exploits, and fing their own praife. In their battles, it is evident that drums, trumpets or bagpipes, were not known or used. They had no expedient for giving the military alarms but ftriking a fhield, or raifing a loud cry: And hence the loud and terrible voice of Fingal is often mentioned, as a neceffary qualification of a great general; like the βοὴν ἀγαθος Μενελαος of Homer. Of military difcipline or skill, they appear to have been entirely deftitute. Their armies feem not to have been numerous; their battles were diforderly; and terminated, for the most part, by a perfonal combat, or wrestling of the two chiefs; after which," the bard fung the fong of peace, and the battle ceafed along the "field +."

The manner of compofition bears all the marks of the greatest antiquity. No artful tranfitions; nor full and extended connection. of parts; fuch as we find among the poets of later times, when order and regularity of compofition were more fludied and known but a ftyle always rapid and vehement; in narration concife, even. to abruptnefs, and leaving feveral circumftances to be fupplied by the reader's imagination. The language has all that figurative caft, which, as I before fhewed, partly a glowing and undifciplined imagination, partly the fterility of language, and the want of proper terms, have always introduced into the early fpeech of nations; and ip feveral refpects, it carries a remarkable refemblance to the ftyle Page 78.

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of the Old Teftament. It deferves particular notice, as one of the moft genuine and decifive characters of antiquity, that very few general terms or abstract ideas, are to be met with in the whole collection of Offian's works. The ideas of men at firft, were all particular. They had not words to exprefs general conceptions. These were the confequence of more profound reflection, and longer acquaintance with the arts of thought and of speech. Offian, accordingly, almoft never expreffes himself in the abftract. His ideas extended little farther than to the objects he faw around him. A publick, a community, the univerfe, were conceptions beyond his fphere. Even a mountain, a fea, or a lake, which he has occafion to mention, though only in a fimile, are for the most part particularized; it is the hill of Cromla, the ftorm of the fea of Malmor, or the reeds of the lake of Lego. A mode of expreffion, which whilft it is characteristical of antient ages, is at the fame time highly favourable to defcriptive poetry. For the fame reasons, perfonification is a poetical figure not very common with Offian. Inanimate objects, fuch as winds, trees, flowers, he fometimes perfonifies with great beauty. But the perfonifications which are fo familiar to later poets of Fame, Time, Terror, Virtue, and the rest of that clafs, were unknown to our Celtic bard. Thefe were modes of conception too abstract for his age.

All these are marks fo undoubted, and some of them too, fo nice and delicate, of the moft early times, as put the high antiquity of these poems out of queftion. Efpecially when we confider, that if there had been any impofture in this cafe, it must have been contrived and executed in the Highlands of Scotland, two or three centuries ago; as up to this period, both by manufcripts, and by the teftimony of a multitude of living witneffes, concerning the uncontrovertible tradition of these poems, they can clearly be traced. Now this is a period when that country enjoyed no advantages for a compofition of this kind, which it may not be supposed to have enjoyed in as great, if not in a greater degree, a thoufand years before. To fuppofe that two or three hundred years ago, when we well know the Highlands to have been in a state of grofs ignorance and barbarity, there fhould have arifen in that country a poet, of fuch exquifite genius, and of fuch deep knowledge of mankind, and of hiftory, as to diveft himself of the ideas and manners of his own

age, and to give us a juft and natural picture of a ftate of fociety ancienter by a thousand years; one who could fupport this counterfeited antiquity through fuch a large collection of poems, without the leaft inconfiftency; and who poffeffed of all this genius and art, had at the fame time the felf-denial of concealing himself, and of afcribing his own works to an antiquated bard, without the impofture being detected; is a fuppofition that tranfcends all bounds of credibility.

There are, befides, two other circumftances to be attended to, ftill of greater weight, if poffible, against this hypothefis. One is, the total abfence of religious ideas from this work; for which the tranflator has, in his preface, given a very probable account, on the footing of its being the work of Offian. The Druidical fuperftition was, in the days of Offian, on the point of its final extinction; and for particular reafons, odious to the family of Fingal; whilst the Christian faith was not yet established. But had it been the work of one, to whom the ideas of chriftianity were familiar from his infancy; and who had fuperadded to them alfo the bigotted fuperftition of a dark age and country; it is impoffible but in fome paffage or other, the traces of them would have appeared. The other circumstance is, the entire filence which reigns with respect to all the great clans or families, which are now established in the Highlands. The origin of these feveral clans is known to be very ancient: And it is as well known, that there is no paffion by which a native Highlander is more diftinguished, than by attachment to his clan, and jealoufy for its honour. That a Highland bard, in forging a work relating to the antiquities of his country, fhould have inferted no circumftance which pointed out the rife of his own clan, which afcertained its antiquity, or increafed its glory, is of all fuppofitions that can be formed, the most improbable; and the filence on this head, amounts to a demonftration that the author lived before any of the prefent great clans were formed or known.

Affuming it then, as we well may, for certain, that the poems now under confideration, are genuine venerable monuments of very remote antiquity; I proceed to make fome remarks upon their general fpirit and ftrain. The two great characteristics of Offian's poetry are, tenderness and fublimity. It breathes nothing of the

gay

gay and chearful kind; an air of folemnity and ferioufness is diffufed over the whole. Offian is perhaps the only poet who never relaxes, or lets himfelf down into the light and amufing frain; which I readily admit to be no fmall difadvantage to him, with the bulk of readers. He moves perpetually in the high region of the grand and the pathetick. One key note is ftruck at the beginning, and fupported to the end; nor is any ornament introduced, but what is perfectly concordant with the general tone or melody. The events recorded, are all ferious and grave; the fcenery throughout, wild and romantic. The extended heath by the fea fhore; the mountain shaded with mist; the torrent rufhing through a folitary valley; the scattered oaks, and the tombs of warriors overgrown with mofs; all produce a folemn attention in the mind, and prepare it for great and extraordinary events. We find not in Offian, an imagination that fports itself, and dreffes out gay trifles to please the fancy. His poetry, more perhaps than that of any other writer, deferves to be ftiled, The Poetry of the Heart. It is a heart penetrated with noble fentiments, and with fublime and tender paffions; a heart that glows, and kindles the fancy; a heart that is full, and pours itfelf forth. Offian did not write, like modern poets, to please readers and critics. He fung from the love of poetry and fong. His delight was to think of the heroes among whom he had flourished to recall the affecting incidents of his life; to dwell upon his paft wars and loves and friendships; till, as he expreffes it himself, "the light of his foul arofe; the days of other years rofe before him;" and under this true poetic infpiration, giving vent to his genius, no wonder we should fo often hear, and acknowledge in his ftrains, the powerful and ever-pleafing voice of nature.

Arte, natura potentior omni.

Eft Deus in nobis, agitante calefcimus illo.

It is neceffary here to obferve, that the beauties of Offian's writings cannot be felt by thofe who have given them only a fingle or a hafty perufal. His manner is fo different from that of the poets, to whom we are most accustomed; his ftyle is fo concife, and fo much crowded with imagery; the mind is kept at fuch a ftretch in accompanying the author; that an ordinary reader is at first apt to be dazzled and fatigued, rather than pleafed. His poems require to be taken up at intervals, and to be frequently reviewed; and then it

18

is impoffible but his beauties muft open to every reader who is capable of fenfibility. Thofe who have the highest degree of it, will re

lish them the most.

As Homer is of all the great poets, the one whofe manner, and whofe times come the nearest to Offian's, we are naturally led to run a parallel in fome inftances between the Greek and the Celtic bard. For though Homer lived more than a thousand years before Offian, it is not from the age of the world, but from the state of fociety, that we are to judge of refembling times. The Greek has in feveral points, a manifeft fuperiority. He introduces a greater variety of incidents; he poffeffes a larger compafs of ideas; has more diverfity in his characters; and a much deeper knowledge of human nature. It was not to be expected, that in any of these particulars, Offian could equal Homer. For Homer lived in a country where fociety was much farther advanced; he had beheld many more objects; cities built and flourishing; laws inftituted; order, difcipline, and arts begun. His field of obfervation was much larger and more fplendid; his knowledge, of course, more extenfive; his mind alfo, it fhall be granted, more penetrating. But if Offian's ideas and objects be lefs diverfified than thofe of Homer, they are all, however, of the kind fitteft for poetry: The bravery and generofity of heroes, the tenderness of lovers, the attachments of friends, parents, and children. In a rude age and country, though the events that happen be few, the undiffipated mind broods over them more; they ftrike the imagination, and fire the paffions in a higher degree; and of confequence become happier materials to a poetical genius, than the fame events when scattered through the wide circle of more varied action, and cultivated life.

Homer is a more chearful and fprightly poet than Offian. You difcern in him all the Greek vivacity; whereas Offian uniformly maintains the gravity and folemnity of a Celtic hero. This too is in a great measure to be accounted for from the different fituations in which they lived, partly perfonal, and partly national. Offian had furvived all his friends, and was difpofed to melancholy by the incidents of his life. But befides this, chearfulnefs is one of the many bleflings which we owe to formed fociety. The folitary wild ftate is always a ferious one. Bating the fudden and violent bursts of