ed from his thigh: his shield lay broken near. His fpear leaned against a stone; why, Dermid, why fo fad?

I hear the roar of battle. My people are alone. My fteps are flow on the heath, and no shield is mine.-Shall he then prevail? -It is then after Dermid is low! I will call thee forth, O Foldath, and meet thee yet in fight.

He took his fpear, with dreadful joy. The fon of Morni came. Stay, fon of Duthno, ftay thy fpeed; thy fteps are marked with blood. No boffy shield is thine. Why shouldft thou fall unarmed » ? King of Strumon, give thou thy shield. It has often rolled back the war. I shall ftop the chief, in his courfe. Son of Morni, doft thou behold that ftone? It lifts its grey head thro' grafs. There dwells a chief of the race of Dermid. Place me there in night (1).

he was overpowered and flain. He was buried in the place where he was killed, and the valley was called after his name. Dermid, in his request to. Gaul the fon of Morni which immediately follows this paragraph, alludes to the tomb of Clono, and his own connection with that unfortunate chief.

(1) The brevity of the fpeech of Gaul, and the laconic reply of Dermid are judicious and well fuited to the hurry of the occafion, The incidents

He flowly rofe against the hill, and faw the troubled field. The gleaming ridges of the fight, disjoined and broken round. As diftant fires, on heath by night, now seem as loft in fmoak, then rearing their red ftreams on the hill, as blow or cease the winds fo met the intermitting war the eye of broad-shielded Dermid. Thro' the hoft are the ftrides of Foldath, like some dark ship on wintry waves, when it iffues from between two ifles, to sport on echoing seas.

Dermid, with rage, beheld his courfe. He ftrove to rush along. But he failed in the

which Offian has chofen to diverfify his battles are interesting, and never fail to awaken our attention. I know that want of particularity in the wounds and diversity in the fall of thofe that are flain, have been among the objections, started, to the poetical merit of Offian's poems. The criticism, without partiality I may fay it, is unjuft, for our poet has introduced as great a variety of this fort, as he, with propriety, could within the compass of fo short poems. It is confeffed that Homer has a greater variety of deaths than any other poet that ever appeared. His great knowledge in anatomy can never be difputed; but, I am far from thinking, that his battles, even with all their novelty of wounds, are the most beautiful parts of his poems. The human mind dwells with difguft upon a protracted fcene of carnage; and, tho' the introduction of the terrible is neceffary to the grandeur of heroic poetry, yet I am convinced, that a medium ought to be observed,

midst of his steps; and the big tear came down. He founded his father's horn; and thrice ftruck his boffy shield. He called thrice the name of Foldath, from his roaring tribes.-Foldath, with joy, beheld the chief; he lifted high his bloody fpear.

As a rock is marked with ftreams, that fell troubled down its fide in a storm; fo, ftreaked with wandering blood, is the dark form of Moma.

The hoft, on either fide, withdrew from the contending of kings. They raised, at once, their gleaming points. Rushing came Fillan of Moruth (1). Three paces back Foldath withdrew; dazzled with that beam of light, which came, as iffuing from a cloud, to fave the wounded hero.-Growing in his pride he ftood, and called forth all his fteel.

As meet two broad-winged eagles, in their founding ftrife, on the winds: fo rushed

(1) The rapidity of this verfe, which indeed is but faintly imitated in the translation is amazingly expreffive in the original. One hears the very rattling of the armour of Fillan. The intervention of Fillan is neceffary here; for as Dermid was wounded before it is not to be fuppofed he could be a match for Foldath. Fillan is often poetically, called the fon of Moruth, from a ftream of that name in Morven, near which he was born.

the two chiefs, on Moi-lena, into gloomy fight. By turns are the fteps of the kings (1) forward on their rocks; for now the dusky war feems to defcend on their fwords. Cathmor feels the joy of warriors on his moffy hill their joy in fecret when dangers rife equal to their fouls. His eye is not turned on Lubar, but on Morven's dreadful king; for he beheld him, on Mora, rising in his arms.

:

Foldath (2) fell on his shield; the spear

(1) Fingal and Cathmor.

(2) The fall of Foldath, if we may believe tradition, was predicted to him, before he had left his own country to join Cairbar in his designs on the Irish throne. He went to the cave of Moma, toenquire of the fpirits of his fathers, concerning the fuccefs of the enterprife of Cairbar. The refponfes of oracles are always attended with obfcurity, and liable to a double meaning: Foldath, therefore, put a favourable interpretation on the prediction, and purfued his adopted plan of aggrandizing himfelf with the family of Atha. I shall, here, tranflate the answer of the ghosts of his ancestors, as it was handed down by tradition. Whether the legend is really ancient or the invention of a late age, I shall not pretend to determine, tho', from the phrafeology, I should fufpe&t the last.

FOLDATH, addreffing the Spirits of his fathers.

Dark, I ftand in your prefence; fathers of Fol

of Fillan pierced the king. Nor looked the youth on the fallen, but onward rolled the war. The hundred voices of death arose.«Stay, fon of Fingal, ftay thy fpeed. Beholdest thou not that gleaming form, a dreadful fign of death? Awaken not the king of Alnecma. Return, fon of blue-eyed Clatho».

dath, hear. Shall my steps pafs over Atha, to Ullin of the roes?

Thy fteps shall dwelling of kings. over the fallen There, terrible in the reflected beam

The Answer.

país over Atha, to the green There shall thy ftature arife like a pillar of thunder-clouds. darkness, shalt thou ftand, till or Clon-cath of Moruth, come; Moruth of many ftreams, that roars in diftant land».

Cloncath, or reflected beam, fay my traditional authors, was the name of the fword of Fillan ; fo that it was, in the latent fignification of the word Clon-cath, that the deception lay. My principal reafon for introducing this note, is that if this tradition is equally ancient with the poem, which, by the bye, is doubtful, it ferves to shew that the religion of the Fir-lbog differed from that of the Caledonians as we never find the latter enquiring of the fpirits of their deceased ancestors.