from his shield. Dark in thought, a-while, he bends: his words, at length, came forth.

When thou, Oftone, shall moulder down, and lose thee, in the mofs of years, then shall the travellercome, and whistling pass away.Thou know'ft not, feeble wanderer, that fame once shone on Moi-lena. Here Fingal refigned his fpear, after the laft of his fields. - Pafs away, thou empty shade; in thy voice there is no renown. Thou dwelleft by fome peaceful ftream; yet a few years, and thou art gone. No one remembers thee, thou dweller of thick mift! But Fingal shall be clothed with fame, a beam of light to other times; for he went forth, in echoing fteel, to fave the weak in arms.

Brightening in his fame, the king ftrode to Lubar's founding oak, where it bent, from its rock, over the bright tumbling ftream. Beneath it is a narrow plain, and the found of the fount of the rock. Here the standard (1) of

piece of arms, and a bit of half-burnt wood. The caufe of placing the laft there is not mentioned in

tradition.

(1) The erecting of his standard on the bank of Lubar, was the fignal, which Fingal, in the beginning of the book, promised to give to the chiefs, who went to conduct Ferad-artho to the army, should he himself prevail in battle. This standard here (and in every other part of Offian's poems, where it is

Morven poured its wreaths on the wind, to mark the way of Ferad-artho, from his fecret vale. Bright, from his parted weft, the fun of heaven looked abroad. The hero faw his people, and heard their shouts of joy. In broken ridges round, they glittered to the beam. The king rejoiced, as a hunter in his own green vale, when, after the ftorm is rolled away, he fees the gleaming fides ofthe rocks. The green thorn shakes its head in their face; from their top, look forward the roes.

(1) Grey, at his moffy cave, is bent the aged form of Clonmal. The eyes of the bard had failed. He leaned forward, on his staff. Bright in her locks, before him, Sul-malla listened to the tale; the tale of the kings of Atha, in the days of old. The noife of battle had ceased in his ear he ftopt, and raised the secret figh. The fpirits of the dead, they said, often lightened over his foul. He faw the king of Atha low, beneath his bending tree.

mentioned) is called, the fun-beam. The reason of this appellation, I gave, more than once, in my notes in the preceding volume.

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(1) The poet changes the fcene to the valley of Lona, whither Sul-malla had been fent, by Cathbefore the battle. Clonmal, an aged bard or rather druid, as he feems here to be endued with a prefcience of events, had long dwelt there, in a cave. This fcene is awful and folemn, and calculated to throw a melancholy gloom over the mind.

Why art thou dark, faid the maid? The ftrife of arms is paft. Soon(1) shall he come to thy cave, over thy winding streams. The fun looks from the rocks of the weft. The mifts of the lake arife. Grey, they spread on that hill, the rushy dwelling of roes. From the mift shall my king appear! Behold, he comes in his arms. Come to the cave of Clonmal, O my best beloved!

It was the fpirit of Cathmor, ftalking, large, a gleaming form. He funk by the hollow ftream, that roared between the hills. << It was but the hunter, she faid, who fearches for the bed of the roe. His steps are not forth to war; his spouse expects him with night. He shall, whistling, return, with fpoils of the dark-brown hinds. »Her eyes

are turned to the hill; again the ftately form came down. She rofe, in the midst of joy, He retired in mift. Gradual vanish his limbs of fmoak, and mix with the mountain-wind.Then she knew that he fell!« King of Erin art thou low ! »> Let Offian forget her grief; it waftes the foul of age (2).

(1) Cathmor had promifed, in the seventh book, to come to the cave of Clonmal, after the battle was

over.

(2) The abrupt manner, in which Offian quits the ftory of Sul-malla, is judicious. His fubje&t led him immediately to relate the reftoration of

Evening came down on Moi-lena. Grey rolled the ftreams of the land. Loud came forth the voice of Fingal : the beam of oaks

the family of Conar, to the Irish throne; which we may confider effectually done, by the defeat and death of Cathmor, and the arrival of Ferad-artho in the Caledonian army. To purfue, here, the story of the maid of Inis-huna, which was foreign to the fubject, would be altogether inconfiftent with the rapid manner of Offian, and a breach on unity of time and action, one of the fundamental effentials of the epopaa, the rules of which our Celtic bard gathered from nature, not from the precepts of critics. Neither did the poet totally defert the beautiful Sul-malla, deprived of her lover, and a stranger, as she was, in a foreign land. Tradition relates, that Offian, the next day after the decifive battle between Fingal and Cath mor, went to find out Sul-malla, in the valley of Lona. His addrefs to her, which is ftill preferved, I here lay before the reader.

« Awake, thou daughter of Conmor, from the fern-skirted cavern of Lona. Awake, thou fun-beam in defarts; warriors one day muft fail. They move forth, like terrible lights; but, often, their cloud is near. - Go to the valley of ftreams, to the wandering of herds, on Lumon; there dwells, in his lazy mift, the man of many days. But he is unknown, Sul-malla, like the thistle of the rocks of roes; it shakes its grey beard, in the wind, and falls, unfeen of our eyes.- Not fuch are the kings of men, their departure is a meteor of fire, which pours its red course, from the defart, over the bofom of night.

He is mixed with the warriors of old, thofe

arofe. The people gathered round with gladness; with gladness blended with shades. They fidelong looked to the king, and beheld his unfinished joy. Pleafant, from the way of the defart, the voice of music came. It feemed, at first, the noise of a stream, fardiftant on its rocks. Slow it rolled along the hill like the ruffled wing of a breeze, when it takes the tufted beard of the rocks, in the ftill feason of night. - It was the voice of Condan, mixed with Carril's trembling harp. They came with blue-eyed Ferad-artho, to Mora of the ftreams.

Sudden burfts the fong from our bards, on Lena: the hoft ftruck their shields midst the found. Gladness rofe brightening on the king, like the beam of a cloudy day when it rifes, on the green hill, before the roar of

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fires that have hid their heads. At times shall they come forth in fong. Not forgot has the warrior failed. He has not feen, Sul-malla, the fall of a beam of his own: no fair-haired fon, in his blood, young troubler of the field. I am lonely, young branch of Lumon, I may hear the voice of the feeble, when my ftrength shall have failed in years, for young Ofcar has ceafed, on his field. —***

The rest of the poem is loft; from the ftory of it, which is ftill preferved, we understand, that Sul-malla returned to her own country. Sul-malla makes a confiderable figure in the poem which immediately follows in the ensuing volume; her behaviour in that piece accounts for that partial regard with which the poet fpeaks of her throughout Temora,