mauce, it will not be thought surprising, when we reflec、 on the account before given of the Celtic bards, that this imaginary refinement of heroic manners should be found among them, as much, at least, as among the Troubadors, or strolling Provençal bards, in the 10th or 11th century; whose songs, it is said, first gave rise to those romantic ideas of heroism, which for so long a time enchanted Europe. Ossian's heroes have

all the gallantry and generosity of those fabulous knights, without their extravagance; and his love scenes have native tenderness, without any mixture of those forced and unnatural conceits which abound in the old romances. The adventures related by our poet which resemble the most those of romance, concern women who follow their lovers to war disguised in the armor of men; and these are so managed as to produce, in the discovery, several of the most interesting situations; one beautiful instance of which may be seen in Carric-thura, and another in Calthon and Colmal.

Oithona presents a situation of a different nature. In the absence of her lover Gaul, she had been carried off and ravished by Dunrommath. Gaul discovers the place where she is kept concealed, and comes to revenge her. The meeting of the two lovers, the sen timents and the behavior of Oithona on that occasion, are described with such tender and exquisite propriety, as does the greatest honor both to the heart and to the delicacy of our author; and would have been admired in any poet of the most refined age. The conduct of Croma must strike every reader as remarkably judicious and beautiful. We are to be prepared for the deuth of Malvina, which is related in the succeeding poem. She is therefore introduced in person; "she has heard a voice in her dream; she feels the fluttering of her soul:" and in a most moving Jamentation

addressed to her beloved Oscar, she sings her own death-song. Nothing could be calculated with more art to sooth and comfort her than the story which Os. sian relates. In the young and brave Fovargorrio, another Oscar is introduced: his praises are sung; and the happiness is set before her of those who die in their youth "when their renown is around them; before the feeble behold them in the hall, and smile at their trembling hands."

But nowhere does Ossian's genius appear to greater advantage, than in Berrathon, which is reckoned the conclusion of his songs, 'The last sound of the voice of Cona.'

Qualis olor noto positurus littore vitam,

Ingemit, et moestis mulcens concentibus auras
Præsago quæritur venientia funera cantu.

The whole train of ideas is admirably suited to the subject. Every thing is full of that invisible world, into which the aged bard believes himself now ready to enter. The airy hall of Fingal presents itself to his view; "he sees the cloud that shall receive his ghost; he beholds the mist that shall form his robe when he appears on his hill ;" and all the natural objects around him seem to carry the presages of death. "The thistle shakes its beard to the wind. The flower hangs its heavy head; it seems to say, I am covered with the drops of heaven; the time of my departure is near, and the blast that shall scatter my leaves." Malvina's death is hinted to him in the most delicate manner by the son of Alpin. His lamentation over her, her apo. theosis, or ascent to the habitation of heroes, and the introduction to the story which follows from the men tion which Ossian supposes the father of Malvina to make of him in the hall of Fingal, are all in the highest spirit of poetry. "And dost thou remember Ossian, O Toscar, son of Conloch? The battles of our youth

were many; our swords went together to the field." Nothing could be more proper than to end his songs with recording an exploit of the father of that Malvina, of whom his heart was now so full; and who, from first to lust, had been such a favorite object throughout ali his poems.

The scene of most of Ossian's poems is laid in Scotland, or in the coast of Ireland, opposite to the territories of Fingal. When the scene is in Ireland, we perceive no change of manners from those of Ossian's native country. For as Ireland was undoubtedly peo pled with Celtic tribes, the language, customs, and religion of both nations were the same. They had been separated from one another by migration, only a few generations, as it should seem, before our poet's age; and they still maintained a close and frequent intercourse. But when the poet relates the expeditions of any of his heroes to the Scandinavian coast, or to the islands of Orkney, which were then part of the Scandinavian territory, as he does in Carric-thura, Sul-malla of Lumon, and Cathloda, the case is quite altered. Those countries were inhabited by nations of the Teu. tonic descent, who, in their manners and religious rites, differed widely from the Celta; and it is curious and remarkable, to find this difference clearly pointed out in the poems of Ossian. His descriptions bear the native marks of one who was present in the expeditions which he relates, and who describes what he had seen with his own eyes. No sooner are we carried to Lochlin, or the islands of we are in a foreign region.

Inistore, than we perceive New objects begin to ap pear. We meet everywhere with the stoues and cir cles of Loda, that is, Odin, the great Scandinavian deity. We meet with the divinations and enchantments for which it is well known those northern na tions were early famous. "There. mixed with the

murmur of waters, rose the voice of aged men, whe called the forms of night to aid them in their war;" whilst the Caledonian chiefs, who assisted them, are described as standing at a distance, heedless of their rites. That ferocity of manners which distinguished those nations, also becomes conspicuous. In the combats of their chiefs there is a peculiar savageness; even their women are bloody and fierce. The spirit and the very ideas of Regner Lodbrog, that northern scal. der, whom I formerly quoted, occur to us again. "The hawks,' ," Ossian makes one of the Scandinavian chiefs say, "rush from all their winds; they are wont to trace my course. We rejoiced three days above the dead, and called the hawks of heaven. They came from all their winds, to feast on the foes of Annir."

Dismissing now the separate consideration of any of our author's works, I proceed to make some obser vations on his manner of writing, under the general heads of Description, Imagery, and Sentiment.

A poet of original genius is always distinguished by his talent for description. A second-rate writer discerns nothing new or peculiar in the object he means to describe. His conceptions of it are vague and loose; his expressions feeble; and of course the object is presented to us indistinctly, and as through a cloud. But ʼn true poet makes us imagine that we see it before our eyes; he catches the distinguishing features; he gives it the colors of life and reality; he places it in such a light that a painter could copy after him. This happy talent is chiefly owing to a lively imagination, which first receives a strong impression of the object; and then, by a proper selection of capital picturesque circumstances employed in describing it, transmits that impression in its full force to the imaginations of others. That Ossian possesses this descriptive power in a high degree, we have a clear proof, from the effect which

his descriptions produce upon the imaginations of those who read nim with any degree of attention, or taste. Few poets are more interesting. We contract an inti mate acquaintance with his principal heroes. The characters, the manners, the face of the country, become familiar; we even think we could draw the figure of his ghost. In a word, whilst reading him we are transported as into a new region, and dwell among his objects as if they were all real.

It were easy to point out several instances of exquisite painting in the works of our author. Such, for instance, is the scenery with which Temora opens, and the attitude in which Cairbar is there presented to us; the description of the young prince Cormac, in the same book; and the ruins of Balclutha, in Cartho. "I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls: ind the voice of the people is heard no more. The stream of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook there its lonely head; the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows; the rank grass of the wall waved round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina; silence is in the house of her fathers." Nothing also can be more natural and lively than the manner in which Carthon afterward describes how the conflagration of his city affected him when a child: "Have I not seen the fallen Balclutha ? And shall I feast with Comhal's son? Comhal! who threw his fire in the midst of my father's hall! I was young, and knew not the cause why the virgins wept. The columns of smoke pleased mine eye, when they arose above my walls: I often looked back with gladness, when my friends fled above the hill. But when the years of my youth came on, I beheld the moss of my fallen walls. My sigh arose with the morning; and my tears descended with night.