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A chos air Cromleach, druim-ard,
Chos eile air Crom-meal dubh,
Thoga Fion le lamh mhoir
An d'uisge o Lubhair na fruth.

With one foot on Cromleach his brow,
The other on Grommal the dark,
Fion took up with his large hand

The water from Lubar of the streams.

Cromleach and Crommal were two mountains in the neighborhood of one another, in Ulster, and the river of Lubar ran through the intermediate valley. The property of such a monster as this Fion I should never have disputed with any nation; but the bard himself, in the poem from which the above quotation is taken, cedes him to Scotland:

Fion o Albin, siol nan laoich!

Fion from Albion, race of heroes!

Were it allowable to contradict the authority of a bard, at this distance of time, I should have given as my opinion, that this enormous Fion was of the race of the Hibernian giants, of Ruanus, or some other celebrated name, rather than a native of Caledonia, whose inhab itants, now at least, are not remarkable for their stature. As for the poetry, I leave it to the reader.

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If Fion was so remarkable for his stature, his heroes had also other extraordinary properties. "In weight all the sons of strangers yielded to the celebrated Tɔniosal; and for hardness of skull, and, perhaps, for thickness too, the valiant Oscar stood unrivalled and alone.' Ossian himself had many singular and less delicate qualifications than playing on the harp; and the brave Cuthullin was of so diminutive a size, as to be taken for a child of two years of age by the gigantic Swaran. To illustrate this subject, I shall here lay before the reader the history of some of the Irish poems concerning Fion Mac Comnal. A translation of these pieces, if well executed, might afford satisfaction, in an

uncommon way, to the public. But this ought to be the work of a native of Ireland. To draw forth from obscurity the poems of my own country has wasted all the time I had allotted for the Muses; besides, I am too diffident of my own abilities to undertake such a work. A gentleman in Dublin accused me to the public of committing blunders and absurdities in translating the language of my own country, and that before any translation of mine appeared. How the gentleman came to see my blunders before I committed them, is not easy to determine; if he did not conclude that, as a Scotsman, and, of course, descended of the Milesian race, I might have committed some of those oversights, which, perhaps very unjustly, are said to be peculiar to them.

From the whole tenor of the Irish poems concerning the Fiona, it appears that Fion Mac Comnal flourished in the reign of Cormac, which is placed, by the univer sal consent of the senachies, in the third century. They even fix the death of Fingal in the year 268, yet his son Ossian is made contemporary with St. Patrick, who preached the gospel in Ireland about the middle of the fifth age. Ossian, though at that time he must have been two hundred and fifty years of age, had a daughter young enough to become wife to the saint. On account of this family connection, "Patrick of the Psalms," for so the apostle of Ireland is emphatically called in the poems, took great delight in the company of Ossian, and in hearing the great actions of his family. The saint sometimes threw off the austerity of his profession, drank freely, and had his soul properly warmed with wine, to receive with becoming enthusiasm the poems of his father-in-law. One of the poems begins with this useful piece of information: Lo don rabh Padric na mhúr, Gun Sailm air uidh, ach a gol, Ghluais è thigh Ossian mhic Fhion, O san leis bu bhinn a ghloir.

The title of this poem is "Teantach mor na Fia." it appears to have been founded on the same story with the "Battle of Lora." The circumstances and catastrophe in both are much the same: but the Irish Ossian discovers the age in which he lived by an unlucky anachronism. After describing the total rout of Er ragon, he very gravely concludes with this remarkable anecdote, that none of the foe escaped, but a few, who were permitted to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This circumstance fixes the date of the composition of the piece some centuries after the famous croisade for it is evident that the poet thought the time of the croisade so ancient, that he confounds it with the age of Fingal. Erragon, in the course of this poem, is often called,

Rhoigh Lochlin an do shloigh,

King of Denmark of two nations

which alludes to the union of the kingdom of Norway and Denmark, a circumstance which happened under Margaret de Waldemar, in the close of the fourteenth age. Modern, however, as this pretended Ossian was, it is certain he lived before the Irish had dreamed of appropriating Fion, or Fingal, to themselves. He concludes the poem with this reflection:

Na fagha se comhthróm nan n arm,
Erragon Mac Annir nan lann glas
'San n'Albin ni n' abairtair Triath
Agus ghlaoite an n' Fhiona as.

"Had Erragon, son of Annir of gleaming swords, avoided the equal contest of arms, (single combat,) no chief should have afterward been numbered in Albion, and the heroes of Fion should no more be named."

The next poem that falls under our observation is "Cath-cabhra," or "The Death of Oscar." This piece is founded on the same story which we have in the first book of Temora. So little thought the auth`r

of Cath-cabhra of making Oscar his countryman, that in the course of two hundred lines, of which the poem consists, he puts the following expression thrice in the mouth of the hero:

Albin an sa d'roina m' arach.—

Albion, where I was born and bred.

The poem contains almost all the incidents in the first book of Temora. In one circumstance the bard dif fers materially from Ossian. Oscar, after he was mortally wounded by Cairbar, was carried by his people to a neighboring hill which commanded a prospect of the A fleet appeared at a distance, and the hero exclaims with joy,

sea.

Loingeas mo shean-athair at' an
'S iad a tiächd le cabhair chugain,
O Albin na n'ioma stuagh.

"It is the fleet of my grandfather coming with aid to our field, from Albion of many waves!" The testimony of this bard is sufficient to confute the idle fictions of Keating and O'Flaherty, for, though he is far from being ancient, it is probable he flourished a full century before these historians. He appears, however, to have been a much better Christian than chronologer; for Fion, though he is placed two centuries before St. Patrick, very devoutly recommends the soul of his grandson to his Redeemer.

"Duan a Gharibh Mac-Starn" is another Irish poem in great repute. The grandeur of its images, and its propriety of sentiment, might have induced me to give a translation of it, had I not some expectations, which are now over, of seeing it in the collection of the Irish Ossian's Poems, promised twelve years since to the public. The author descends sometimes from the region of the sublime to low and indecent description; the last of which, the Irish translator, no doubt, will choose to leave in the obscurity of the original. In

this piece Cuthullin is used with very little ceremony, for he is oft called the "dog of Tara," in the county of Meath. This severe title of the redoubtable Cuthullin, the most renowned of Irish champions, proceeded from the poet's ignorance of etymology. Cu, "voice” or commander, signifies also a dog. The poet chose the last, as the most noble appellation for his hero.

The subject of the poem is the same with that of the epic poem of Fingal. Caribh Mac-Starn is the same with Ossian's Swaran, the son of Starno. His single combats with, and his victory over, all the heroes of Ireland, excepting the "celebrated dog of Tara," i. e. Cuthullin, afford matter for two hundred lines of toleerable poetry. Cribh's progress in search of Cuthullin, and his intrigue with the gigantic Emirbragal, that hero's wife, enables the poet to extend his piece to four hundred lines. This author, it is true, makes Cuthullin a native of Ireland: the gigantic Emir-bragal he calls the "guiding-star of the women of Ireland." The property of this enormous lady I shall not dispute with him or any other. But as he speaks with great tenderness of the "daughters of the convent,' ," and throws out some hints against the English nation, it is probable he lived in too modern a period to be intimately acquainted with the genealogy of Cuthullin.

Another Irish Ossian, for there were many, as ap pears from their difference in language and sentiment. speaks very dogmatically of Fion Mac Comnal, as an Irishman. Little can be said for the judgment of this poet, and less for his delicacy of sentiment. The history of one of his episodes may, at once, stand as a specimen of his want of both. Ireland, in the days of Fion, happened to be threatened with an invasion by three great potentates, the kings of Lochlin, Sweden, and France. It is needless to insist upon the impro

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