the sublime. It is the thunder and the lightning of genius. It is the offspring of nature, not of art. It is negligent of all the lesser graces, and perfectly consistent with a certain noble disorder. It associates naturally with that grave and solemn spirit which distinguishes our author. For the sublime is an awful and serious emotion; and is heightened by all the images of trouble, and terror, and darkness. Virg. Georg. i. Ipse pater, media nimborum in nocte, corusca Fulmina molitur dextra; quo maxima motu Terra tremit; fugere fera; et mortalia corda Per gentes, humilis stravit pavor; ille, flagranti Aut Atho, aut Rhodopen, aut alta Ceraunia telo Dejicit.Simplicity and conciseness are never-failing characteristics of the style of a sublime writer. He rests on the majesty of his sentiments, not on the pomp of his expressions. The main secret of being sublime is to say great things in few, and in plain words: for every superfluous decoration degrades a sublime idea. The mind rises and swells, when a lofty description or sentiment is presented to it in its native form. But no sooner does the poet attempt to spread out this sentiment, or description, and to deck it round and round with glittering ornaments, than the mind begins to fall from its high elevation; the transport is over; the beautiful may remain, but the sublime is gone. Hence the concise and simple style of Ossian gives great advantage to his sublime conceptions, and assists them in seizing the imagination with full power. Sublimity, as belonging to sentiment, coincides, in a great measure, with magnanimity, heroism, and gener osity of sentiment. Whatever discovers human nature in its greatest elevation; whatever bespeaks a high effort of soul, or shows a mind superior to pleasures, to dangers, and to death, forms what may be called the moral of sentimental sublime. For this Ossian is eminently distinguished. No poet maintains a higher tone of virtuous and noble sentiment throughout all his works. Particularly in all the sentiments of Fingal there is a grandeur and loftiness, proper to swell the mind with the highest ideas of human perfection. Wherever he appears, we behold the hero. The objects which he pursues are always truly great: to bend the proud; to protect the injured; to defend his friends; to overcome his enemies by generosity more than by force. A portion of the same spirit actuates all the other heroes. Valor reigns; but it is a generous valor, void of cruelty, animated by honor, not by hatred. We behold no debasing passions among Fingal's warriors; no spirit of avarice or of insult; but a perpetual contention for fame; a desire of being distinguished and remembered for gallant actions; a love of justice; and a zealous attachment to their friends and their country. Such is the strain of sentiment in the works of Ossian. But the sublimity of moral sentiments, if they wanted the softening of the tender, would be in hazard of giving a hard and stiff air to poetry. It is not enough to admire. Admiration is a cold feeling, in comparison of that deep interest which the heart takes in tender and pathetic scenes; where, by a mysterious attachment to the objects of compassion, we are pleas ed and delighted, even whilst we mourn. With scenes of this kind Ossian abounds; and his high merit in these is incontestible. He may be blamed for drawing tears too often from our eyes; but that he has the power of commanding them, I believe no man, who has the least sensibility, will question. The general character of his poetry is the heroic mixed with the elegiac strain; adıniration tempered with pity. Ever ford of giving, as he expresses it, "the joy of grief," it is visible that, on all moving subjects, he lelights to exert his genius; and, accordingly, never were there finer pathetic situations than what his works present. His great art in managing them lies in giving vent to the simple and natural emotions of the heart. We meet with no exaggerated declamation; no subtile refinements on sorrow; no substitution of description in place of passion. Ossian felt strongly himself; and the heart, when uttering its native language, never fails, by powerful sympathy, to affect the heart. A great variety of examples might be produced. We need only open the book to find them everywhere. What, for instance, can be more moving than the lamentations of Oithona, after her misfortune? Gaul, the son of Morni, her lover, ignorant of what she had suffered, comes to her rescue. Their meeting is tender in the highest degree. He proposes to engage her foe, in single combat, and gives her in charge what she is to do if he himself shall fall. "And shall the daughter of Nuath live?" she replied, with a bursting sigh. "Shall I live in Tromathon, and the son of Morni low? My heart is not of that rock; nor my soul careless as that sea, which lifts its blue waves to every wind, and rolls beneath the storm. The blast, which shall lay thee low, shall spread the branches of Oithona on earth. We shall wither together, son of car-borne Morni! The narrow house is pleasant to me, and the gray stone of the dead; for never more will I leave thy rocks, sea-surrounded Tromathon!-Chief of Strumon! why comest thou over the waves to Nuath's mournful daughter? Why did I not pass away in secret, like the flower of the rocks that lifts its fair head unseen, and strews its withered leaves on the -blast? Why didst thou come, O Gaul! to hear my departing sigh?-O, had I dwelt at Duvranna, in the bright beam of my fame! Then had my years come on with joy and the virgins would bless my steps. But I fall in youth, son of Morni! and my father. blush in his hall!" Oithona mourns like a woman: in Cuthullin's expressions of grief after his defeat, we behold the senti. ments of a hero-generous, but desponding. The sit. uation is remarkably fine. Cuthullin, roused from his cave by the noise of battle, sees Fingal victorious in the field. He is described as kindling at the sight. "His hand is on the sword of his fathers; his red-rolling eyes on the foe. He thrice attempted to rush to battle; and thrice did Connal stop him;" suggesting that Fingal was routing the foe; and that he ought not, by the show of superfluous aid, to deprive the king of any part of the honor of a victory, which was owing to him alone. Cuthullin yields to this generous senti. ment; but we see it stinging him to the heart with the sense of his own disgrace. "Then, Carril, go," replied the chief," and greet the king of Morven. Wher Lochlin falls away like a stream after rain, and the noise of the battle is over, then be thy voice sweet in his ear, to praise the king of swords. Give him the sword of Caithbat; for Cuthullin is worthy no more to lift the arms of his fathers. But, O ye ghosts of the lonely Cromla! ye souls of chiefs that are no more! be ye the companions of Cuthullin, and talk to him in the cave of his sorrow. For never more shall I be renowned among the mighty in the land. I am like a beam that has shone: like a mist that has fled away; when the blast of the morning came, and brightened he shaggy side of the hill. Connal! talk of arms no more departed is my fame. My sighs shall be on Cromla's wind; till my footsteps cease to be seen. And thou, white-bosomed Bragela! mourn over the fall of my fame for vanquished, I will never return to thee, thou sunbeam of Dunscaich !" Uno in corde pudor, luctusque, et conscia virtus. Besides such extended pathetic scenes, Ossian frequently pierces the heart by a single unexpected stroke. When Oscar fell in battle, "No father mourned his son slain in youth; no brother, his brother of love; they fell without tears, for the chief of the people was low." In the admirable interview of Hector with Andromache, in the sixth Iliad, the circumstance of the child in his nurse's arms, has often been remarked as adding much to the tenderness of the scene. In the following passage, relating to the death of Cuthullin, we find a circumstance that must strike the imagination with still greater force. "And is the son of Semo fallen ?" said Carril, with a sigh. "Mournful are Tura's walls, and sorrow dwells at Dunscaich. Thy spouse is left alone in her youth; the son of thy love is alone. He shall come to Bragela, and ask her why she weeps? He shall lift his eyes to the wall, and see his father's sword. Whose sword is that? he will say; and the soul of his mother is sad." Soon after Fingal had shown all the grief of a father's heart for Ryno, one of his sons, fallen in battle, he is calling, after his accustomed manner, his sons to the chase. "Call," says he, "Fillan and Ryno.-But he is not here.-My son rests on the bed of death." This unexpected start of anguish is worthy of the highest tragic poet. If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife- Othello. The contrivance of the incident in both. poets is similar but the circumstances are varied with judgment. Othello dwells upon the name of wife, when it had fallen from him, with the confusion and horror of one tortured with guilt. Fingal, with the dignity of a hero, corrects himself, and suppresses his rising grief. |