found from approaching the infected; let all little men like myself, and every member of their families, be cautious of holding intercourse with the perfons or families of Dukes, Earls, Lords, Nabobs, or Contractors, till they have good reafon to believe that such persons and their households are in a fane and healthy state, and in no danger of communicating this dreadful diforder. And, if it has left fuch great and noble persons any feelings of compaffion, pray put them in mind of that well-known fable of the boys and the frogs, which they must have learned at fchool. Tell them, Sir, that, though the making fools of their poor neighbours may ferve them for a Christmas gambol, it is matter of ferious wretchedness to those poor neighbours in the after-part of their lives: It is fport to them, but death to us.

N° 13.

THE

TUESDAY, March 9, 1779.

HE antiquity of the poems afcribed to Offian, the son of Fingal, has been the fubject of much difpute. The refined magnanimity and generofity of the heroes, and the tenderness and delicacy of fentiment, with regard to women, fo confpicuous in thofe poems, are circumftances very difficult to reconcile with the rude and uncultivated age in which the poet is fuppofed to have lived. On the other hand, the intrinfic characters of antiquity which the poems bear; that fimple ftate of fociety the poet paints; the narrow circle of objects and tranfactions he defcribes; his concife, abrupt, and figurative style; the abfence of all abstract ideas, and of all modern allufions, render it difficult to affign any other æra for their production than the age of Fingal. In fhort, there are difficulties on both fides; and, if that remarkable refinement of manners feem inconfiftent with our notions of an unimproved age, the marks of antiquity with which the poems are ftamped, make it very hard to fuppofe them a modern compofition. It is not, however, my intenVOL. I.

F

tion

tion to examine the merits of this controversy, much lefs to hazard any judgment of my own. All I propofe is, to fuggeft one confideration on the subject, which, as far as I can recollect, has hitherto efcaped the partizans of either fide.

The elegant author of the Critical Differtation on the Poems of Offian, has very properly obviated the objections made to the uniformity of Offian's imagery, and the too frequent repetition of the fame comparisons. He has fhown, that this objection proceeds from a careless and inattentive perufal of the poems; for, although the range of the poet's objects was not wide, and confequently the fame object does often return, yet its appearance is changed; the image is new; it is presented to the fancy in another attitude, and clothed with different circumftances to make it fuit the illuftration for which it is employed. "In "this, continues he, lies Offian's great art;' and he illuftrates his remark by taking the inftances of the moon and of mist, two of the principal fubjects of the bard's images and allufions.

I agree with this critic in his obfervations, though I think he has rather erred in ascrib

ing to art in Offian, that wonderful diverfification of the narrow circle of objects with which he was acquainted. It was not by any efforts of art or contrivance that Offian prefented the rude objects of nature under fo many different afpects. He wrote from a full heart, from a rich and glowing imagination. He did not feek for, and invent images; he copied nature, and painted objects as they ftruck and kindled his fancy. He had nothing within the range of his view, but the great features of fimple nature. The fun, the moon, the stars, the defert heath, the winding ftream, the green hill, with all its roes, and the rock with its robe of mist, were the objects amidst which Offian lived. Contemplating thefe, under every variety of appearance they could affume, no wonder that his warm and empaffioned genius found in them. a field fruitful of the most lofty and fublime imagery.

Thus the very circumftance of his having fuch a circumfcribed range of inanimate objects to attract his attention and exercise his imagination, was the natural and néceffary cause of Offian's being able to view and to defcribe them, under fuch a variety of great and F 2 beautiful

beautiful appearances.

And, may we not

proceed farther, and affirm, that fo rich a diverfification of the few appearances of fimple nature, could hardly have occurred to the imagination of a poet living in any other than the rude and early age in which the fon of Fingal appeared.

In refined and polifhed fociety, where the works of art abound, the endless variety of objects that prefent themselves, diftract and diffipate the attention. The mind is perpetually hurried from one object to another, and no time is left to dwell upon the fublime and fimple appearances of nature. A poet, in fuch an age, has a wide and diverfified circle of objects on which to exercise his imagination. He has a large and diffused stock of materials from which to draw images to embellifh his work; and he does not always refort for his imagery to the diversified appearance of the objects of rude nature; he does not avoid thofe because his tafte rejects them; but he uses them feldom, because they feldom recur to his imagination.

To feize these images, belongs only to the poet of an early and fimple age, where the undivided attention has leifure to

brood over

the