turned his fudden ftep, and leaned on his bending fpear. WHITE-BREASTED Bran came bounding with joy to the known path of Fingal. He came, and looked towards the cave, where the blueeyed hunter lay, for he was wont to ftride, with morning, to the dewy bed of the roe. It was then the tears of the king came down, and all his foul was dark. But as the rifing wind rolls away the ftorm of rain, and leaves the white ftreams to the fun, and high hills with their heads of grafs fo the returning war brightened the mind of Fingal. He bounded *, on his fpear, *The Irish compofitions concerning Fingal invariably fpeak of him as a giant. Of thefe Hibernian poems there are how many in my hands. From the language, and allufions to the times in which they were writ, I fhould fix the date of their compofition in the fifteenth and fixteenth centuries. In fome paffages, the poetry is far from wanting merit, but the fable is unnatural, and the whole conduct of the pieces injudicious. I fhall give one inftance of the extravagant fictions of the Irish bards, in a poem which they, most unjustly, afcribe to Offian. The ftory of it is this: Ireland being threatened with an invafion from fome part of Scandinavia, Fingal fent Offian, Ofcar, and Ca-olt, to watch the bay, in which, it was expected, the enemy was to land. Ofcar, unluckily, fell asleep, before the Scandinavians appeared; and, great as he was, fays the Irish bard, he had one bad property, that no lefs could waken him, before his time, than cutting off one of his fingers, or throwing a great ftone against his head; and it was dangerous to come near him on those occafions, till he had recovered himself, and was fully awake. Ca-olt, spear, over Lubar, and ftruck his echoing fhield. His ridgy hoft bend forward, at once, with all their pointed steel. NOR Erin, heard, with fear, the found: wide they came rolling along. Dark Malthos, in the wing of war, looks forward from fhaggy brows. Next rofe that beam of light Hidalla; then the fide-long-looking gloom of Moronnan. Blueshielded Clonar lifts the fpear; Cormar fhakes his bushy locks on the wind. Slowly, from behind a rock, rose the bright form of Atha. First appeared his two pointed fpears, then the half of his burnished shield: like the rifing of a nightly meteor, over the vale of ghofts. But when he fhone all abroad: the hofts plunged, at once, into ftrife. The gleaming waves of fteel are poured on either fide. As meet two troubled feas, with the rolling of all their waves, when they feel the wings of con Ca-olt, who was employed by Offian to waken his fon, made choice of throwing the stone against his head, as the least dangerous expedient. The ftone, rebounding from the hero's. head, fhook, as it rolled along, the hill for three miles round. Ofcar rofe in rage, fought bravely, and, fingly, vanquished a wing of the enemy's army. Thus the bard goes on, till Fingal put an end to the war, by the total rout of the Scandinavians. Puerile, and even defpicable, as these fictions are, yet Keating and O'Flaherty have no better authority than the poems which contain them, for all that they write concerning Fion Mac-comnal, and the pretended militia of Ireland. tending winds, in the rock-fided frith of Lumon; along the echoing hills is the dim courfe of ghofts from the blaft fall the torn groves on the deep, amidst the foamy path of whales. So mixed the hofts! Now Fingal; now Cathmor came abroad. The dark tumbling of death is before them: the gleam of broken fteel is rolled on their steps, as, loud, the high-bounding kings hewed down the ridge of fhields. MARONNON fell, by Fingal, laid large acrofs a ftream. The waters gathered by his fide, and leapt grey over his boffy fhield. Clonar is pierced by Cathmor: nor yet lay the chief on earth. An oak feized his hair in his fall. His helmet rolled on the ground. By its thong, hung his broad fhield; over it wandered his ftreaming blood. Tla-min* fhall weep, in the hall, and strike her heaving breast. NOR * Tla-min, mildly foft. The loves of Clonar and Tlamin were rendered famous in the north, by a fragment of a lyric poem. It is a dialogue between Clonar and Tlamin. She begins with a foliloquy, which he overhears. TLAMIN. "Clonar, fon of Conglas of I-mor, young hunter of dunfided roes! where art thou laid, amidst rushes, beneath the paffing wing of the breeze? I behold thee, my love, in the plain of thy own dark streams! The clung thorn is rolled by the wind, and ruftles along his shield. Bright in his locks he lies the thoughts of his dreams fly, darkening, over his face. Thou Nor did Offian forget the fpear, in the wing of his war. He ftrewed the field with dead. Young Hidalla came. "Soft voice of streamy Clonra! Why doft thou lift the fteel? O that we met, in the ftrife of fong, in thy own rufhy vale!" Malthos beheld him low, and darkened as he rushed along. On either fide of a ftream, we bend in the echoing ftrife. Heaven comes rolling down around burft the voices of fqually winds. Hills are clothed, at times, in fire. Thou thinkeft of the battles of Offian, young fon of the echoing ifle! "Half hid, in the grove, I fit down. Fly back, ye mists of the hill. Why should ye hide her love from the blue of Tlamin of harps? CLONAR. eyes "As the fpirit, feen in a dream, flies off from our opening eyes, we think, we behold his bright path between the closing hills; fo fled the daughter of Clun-gal, from the fight of Clonar of fhields. Arife from the gathering of trees; blue-eyed Tlamin arife. TLAMIN. "I turn me away from his steps. Why fhould he know of my love! My white breast is heaving over fighs, as foam on the dark course of streams. But he paffes away, in his arms! Son of Conglas, my foul is fad. CLONAR. "It was the fhield of Fingal! the voice of kings from Selma of harps! My path is towards green Erin. Arife, fair light, from thy fhades. Come to the field of my foul, there is the spreading of hofts. Arife, on Clonar's troubled foul, young daughter of the blue-fhielded Clungal." Clungal was the chief of I-mor, one of the Hebrides. Thunder Thunder rolls in wreaths of mift. In darkness fhrunk the foe: Morven's warriors stood aghast. Still I bent over the ftream, amidst my whiftling locks. THEN rose the voice of Fingal, and the found of the flying foe. I faw the king, at times, in lightning, darkly-ftriding in his might. I ftruck my echoing fhield, and hung forward on the steps of Alnecma: the foe is rolled before me, like a wreath of fmoak. THE fun looked forth from his cloud. The hundred ftreams of Moi-lena fhone. Slow rofe the blue columns of mist, against the glittering hill. "Where are the mighty kings *? Nor by that stream, nor wood are they! I hear the clang of arms! Their ftrife is in the bofom of * Fingal and Cathmor. The conduct here is perhaps proper. The numerous defcriptions of fingle combats have already exhausted the subject. Nothing new, nor adequate to our high idea of the kings, can be faid. A column of mift is thrown over the whole, and the combat is left to the imagination of the reader. Poets have almost universally failed in their descriptions of this fort. Not all the ftrength of Homer could fuftain, with dignity, the minutia of a fingle combat. The throwing of a fpear, and the braying of a fhield, as fome of our own poets moft elegantly exprefs it, convey no magnificent, though they are ftriking ideas. Our imagination ftretches beyond, and confequently, defpifes, the defcription. It were, therefore, well, for fome poets, in my opinion, (tho' it is, perhaps, fomewhat fingular) to have, fometimes, thrown mift over their fingle combats. that |