the clang of steel. "I will find thee, king of Erin! in the gathering of thy thousands find thee. Why should that cloud escape, that Kindle your mete Light my daring ors on your hills, my fathers. steps. I will consume in wrath. But should not I return! The king is without a son, grey 8 Here the sentence is designedly left unfinished by the poet. The sense is, that he was resolved, like a destroying fire, to consume Cathmor, who had killed his brother. In the midst of this resolution, the situation of Fingal suggests itself to him in a very strong light. He resolves to return to assist the king in prosecuting the war. But then his shame for not defending his brother recurs to him. He is determined again to go and find out Cathmor. We may consider him as in the act of advancing towards the enemy, when the horn of Fingal sounded on Mora, and called back his people to his presence. The comparison, with which the poet concludes his soliloquy, is very fanciful, and well adapted to the ideas of those, who live in a country where lightning is extremely common. MACPHERSON, 1st edition. 9 I will consume in wrath---But should not I return.]“Here the sentence is designedly left unfinished." From POPE's Iliad, xvii. 137. Let me but, oh! ye gracious powers above, Wrath and revenge from men and gods remove. "Achilles leaves the sentence thus suspended, either because in his heat he had forgot what he was speaking of, or because he did not know how to end it; for he should have said, "Since I have done all this, I will perish to revenge him." Pope's Notes, ibid. haired among his foes! His arm is not as in the days of old. His fame grows dim in Erin. Let me not behold him laid low in his latter field. But can I return to the king? Will he not ask about his son? "Thou oughtest to defend young Fillan." Ossian will meet the foe! Green Erin, thy sounding tread is pleasant to my ear. I rush on thy ridgy host, to shun the eyes of Fingal. I hear the voice of the king, on Mora's misty top! He calls his two sons! I come, my father, in my grief. I come like an eagle, which the flame of night met in the desert, and spoiled of half his wings 10 !" Distant, round the king, on Mora, the broken ridges of Morven are rolled. They turned their Even the most mechanical beauties, though invisible in Homer, are derived from imitation. 10 Like an eagle, which the flame of night met in the desert, and spoiled of half his wings.] A modern simile, or disguised conceit, of an eagle intercepted and winged by a shot. Ossian returning without Fillan, like an eagle half scorched by lightning, is much the same with the following simile, applied to two lovers crushed by the fall of a tower. MACPHERSON's Poem on Death. Thus when the younger bears the parent stork, eyes each darkly bends, on his own ashen spear. Silent stood the king in the midst. Thought on thought rolled over his soul. As waves on a secret mountain-lake", each with its back of foam. He looked; no son appeared, with his longbeaming spear. The sighs arose, crowding, from his soul; but he concealed his grief. At length I stood beneath an oak. No voice of mine was heard. What could I say to Fingal in his hour of woe? His words rose, at length, in the midst: the people shrunk backward as he spoke. "Where is the son of Selma, he who led in war? I behold not his steps, among my people, returning from the field. Fell the young bounding roe, who was so stately on my hills? He fell; for ye are silent. The shield of war is cleft in twain. Let his armour be near to Fingal; and the sword of dark-brown Luno. I am waked on my hills; with morning I descend to war." 12 High on Cormul's rock, an oak is flaming Thought on thought rolled over his soul. As waves on a secret mountain lake.] Night Thoughts, Night i. I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams Tumultuous, where my wrecked desponding thought, At random drove. 12 This rock of Cormul is often mentioned in the preceding to the wind. The grey skirts of mist are rolled around; thither strode the king in his wrath. Distant from the host he always lay, when battle burnt within his soul. On two spears hung his shield on high; the gleaming sign of death; that shield, which he was wont to strike, by night, before he rushed to war. It was then his warriors knew, when the king was to lead in strife; for never was this buckler heard till the wrath of Fingal arose. Unequal were his steps on high, as he shone in the beam of the oak; he was dreadful as the form of the spirit of night, when part of the poem. It was on it Fingal and Ossian stood to view the battle. The custom of retiring from the army, on the night prior to their engaging in battle, was universal among the kings of the Caledonians. Trenmor, the most renowned of the ancestors of Fingal, is mentioned as the first who instituted this custom. Succeeding bards attributed it to a hero of a later period. In an old poem, which begins with Mac-Arcath na ceud sról, this custom, of retiring from the army before an engagement, is numbered among the wise institutions of Fergus, the son of Arc or Arcath, the first king of Scots. I shall here translate the passage; in some other note I may probably give all that remains of the poem. Fergus of the hundred streams, son of Arcath who fought of old: thou didst first retire at night : when the foe rolled before thee, in echoing fields. Nor bending in rest is the king: he gathers battles in his soul. the stranger; with morn he shall rush abroad. When, or by whom, this poem was written, is uncertain. MACPHERSON. Fly, son of he clothes, on hills, his wild gestures with mist13, and issuing forth, on the troubled ocean, mounts the car of winds. Nor settled, from the storm, is Erin's sea of war! they glitter, beneath the moon 14, and, low-humming, still roll on the field. Alone are the steps of Cathmor, before them on the heath; he hangs forward, with all his arms, on Morven's flying host. Now had he come to the mossy cave, where Fillan lay in night. One tree was bent above the stream, which glittered over the rock. There shone to the moon the broken shield of Clatho's son; and near it, on grass, lay hairy-footed Bran's. He had missed the chief 13 Dreadful as the form of the spirit of night, when he clothes, on hills, his wild gestures with mist.] Par. Lost, iv. 126. On th' Assyrian mount Saw him disfigured, more than could befal 14 They glitter beneath the moon.] Par. Lost, iv. 799. Dazzling the moon. 15 I remember to have met with an old poem, wherein a story of this sort is very happily introduced. In one of the invasions of the Danes, Ullin-clunda, a considerable chief on the western coast of Scotland, was killed in a rencounter with a flying party of the enemy, who had landed, at no great distance, |