people call it Ardven. There the towers of Mora rife. There Conlath looks over the fea for his only love. The daughters of the chace returned, and he beheld their downcaft eyes. Where is the daughter of Rumar? But they anfwered not.---My peace dwells on Ardven, fon of the diftant land!

TOSCAR.

AND Cuthona fhall return to her peace; to the halls of generous Conlath. He is the friend of Toscar: I have feafted in his halls.---Rife, ye gentle breezes of Ullin, and ftretch my fails towards Ardven's fhores. Cuthona fhall reft on Ardven but the days of Tofcar will be fad.--I fhall fit in my cave in the field of the fun. The blaft will ruftle in my trees, and I shall think it is Cuthona's voice. But fhe is diftant far, in the halls of the mighty Conlath.

CUTHONA.

OH! what cloud is that? It carries the ghofts of my fathers. I fee the fkirts of their robes, like gray and watry mift. When fhall I fall, O Rumar?---Sad Cuthona fees her death. Will not Conlath behold me, before I enter the nar◄ row houfe?*

OSSIAN.

AND he will behold thee, O maid: he comes along the rolling fea. The death of Tofcar is dark on his spear; and a wound is in his fide. He is pale at the cave of Thona, and fhews his ghaftly wound *. Where art thou with thy tears, Cuthona? the chief of Mora dies.The vifion grows dim on my mind :---I behold the chiefs no more. But, O ye bards of future times, remember the fall of Conlath with tears: he fell before his day ; and sadness darkened in his hall. His mother looked to his fhield on the wall, and it was bloody. She knew that her hero died, and her forrow was heard on Morá.

ART thou pale on thy rock, Cuthona, befide the fallen chiefs? The night comes, and the

—inhumati venit imago

Conjugis, ora modis adtollens pallida miris:

Crudelis aras, trajectaque pectora ferro
Nudavit.-

VIRG.

-the ghoft appears

Of her unhappy Lord: the spectre ftares,
And with erected eyes his bloody bofom bares.

DRYDEN.

+ Nam quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat, Sed mifera ante diem, &c.

VIRG.

It was the opinion of the times, that the arms left by the heroes at home, became bloody the very inftant their owners were killed, though at ever fo great a distance.

day returns, but none appears to raise their tomb. Thou frightneft the fcreaming fowls* away, and thy tears for ever flow. Thou art pale as a watry cloud, that rifes from a lake.

་

THE fons of the defart came, and they found her dead. They raise a tomb over the heroes; and she refts at the fide of Conlath.---Come not to my dreams, O Conlath; for thou haft received thy fame. Be thy voice far diftant from my hall; that fleep may defcend at night. O that I could forget my friends: till my footsteps ceafe to be feen! till I come among them with joy and lay my aged limbs in the narrow houfe!

*The fituation of Cuthona is like that of Rizpah, Saul's miftrefs, who fat by her fons after they had been hanged by the Gibeonites.

And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took fackcloth, and fpread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of the harvest ntil water dropped on them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beafts of prey by night. 2 SAM. XXI. 10.

CARTHON:

CARTH ON*: THON*

A P. OE M.

A

TALE of the times of old! The deeds

of days of other years !---The murmur of thy ftreams, O Lora, brings back the memory of the paft. The found of thy woods, Garmallar,

This poem is compleat, and the fubject of it, as of most of Offian's compofitions, tragical. In the time of Comhal the fon of Trathal, and father of the celebrated Fingal, Clefsámmor the fon of Thaddu and brother of Morna, Fingal's mother, was driven by a form into the river Clyde, on the banks of which flood Balclutha, a town belonging to the Britons between the walls. He was hofpitably received by Reuthámir, the principal man in the place, who gave him Moina his only daughter in marriage. Reuda, the son of Cormo, a Briton who was in love with Moina, came to Reuthámir's house, and behaved haughtily towards Clefsámmor. A quarrel infued, in which Reuda was killed; the Britons, who attended him preffed fo hard on Clefsámmor, that he was obliged to throw himself into the Clyde, and fwim to his fhip. He hoifted fail, and the wind being favourable, bore him out to fea. He often endeavoured to return, and carry off his beloved Moina by night; but the wind continuing contrary, he was forced to defift.

Moina, who had been left with child by her husband, brought forth a fon, and died foon after.- -Reuthámir named the child Carthon, i. e. the murmur of waves, from the form which car

Garmallar, is lovely in mine ear. Doft thou not behold, Malvina, a rock with its head of heath? Three aged firs bend from its face; green is the narrow plain at its feet; there the flower of the mountain grows, and shakes its white head in the breeze. The thiftle is there alone, and sheds its aged beard. Two ftones, half funk in the ground, fhew their heads of mofs. The deer of the mountain avoids the place, for he beholds the gray ghost that guards it for the mighty lie, O Malvina, in the narrow plain of the rock. A tale of the times of old! the deeds of days of other years!

ried off Clefsámmor his father, who was supposed to have been caft away. When Carthon was three years old, Comhal the father of Fingal, in one of his expeditions against the Britons, took and burnt Balclutha. Reuthámir was killed in the attack: and Carthon was carried fafe away by his nurse, who fled farther into the country of the Britons. Carthon, coming to man's eftate was refolved to revenge the fall of Balclutha on Comhal's pofterity. He fet fail, from the Clyde, and, falling on the coaft of Morven, defeated two of Fingal's heroes, who came to oppofe his progrefs. He was, at laft, unwittingly killed by his father Clefsámmor, in a fingle combat. This story is the foundation of the prefent poem, which opens on the night preceding the death of Carthon, so that what paffed before is introduced by way of episode. The poem is addreffed to Malvina the daughter of Tofcar.

It was the opinion of the times, that deer faw the ghofts of the dead. To this day, when beafts fuddenly ftart without any apparent caufe, the vulgar think that they fee the fpirits of the deceased.

WHO