reminding them of the honour of Bolga. "Why should Conar reign," they said, "the son of resounding Morven ?" Co They came forth, like the streams of the desert, with the roar of their hundred tribes. nar was a rock before them: broken they rolled on every side. But often they returned, and the sons of Selma fell. The king stood, among the tombs of his warriors. He darkly bent his mournful face. His soul was rolled into itself; and he had marked the place, where he was to fall; when Trathal came, in his strength, his brother from cloudy Morven. Nor did he come alone. Colgar was at his side; Colgar the son of the king and of white-bosomed Solin-corma. As Trenmor, clothed with meteors, descends from the halls of thunder, pouring the dark storm before him over the troubled sea: so Colgar descended to battle, and wasted the echoing • As Trenmor, clothed with meteors, descends from the halls of thunder.] An expansion of Job. "Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?" The simile itself is a repetition of the Angel in ADDISON's Campaign; and the sole purport of an episode, "arising immediately from the situation of affairs," is to inform Fillan, that "the tear should not dwell in the eye of war." field. His father rejoiced over the hero: but an arrow came! His tomb was raised, without a tear. The king was to revenge his son. He lightened forward in battle, till Bolga yielded at her streams! When peace returned to the land: When his blue waves bore the king to Morven: then he remembered his son, and poured the silent tear. Thrice did the bards, at the cave of Furmono, call the soul of Colgar. They called him to the hills of his land. He heard them in his mist. Trathal placed his sword in the cave, that the spirit of his son might rejoice. Colgar, son of Trathal," said Fillan, "thou wert renowned in youth! But the king hath not marked my sword, bright-srreaming on the field. I go forth with the crowd. I return, without my fame. But the foe approaches, Ossian! I hear their murmur on the heath. The sound of their steps is like thunder, in the bosom of the ground, when the rocking hills shake their groves, and not a blast pours from the darkened sky 10!" 10 Like thunder in the bosom of the ground, when the rocking bills shake their groves.] Repeated above, "When green-val He rai Ossian turned sudden on the spear. sed the flame of an oak on high. I spread it large, on Mora's wind. Cathmor stopt in his course. Gleaming he stood, like a rock, on whose sides are the wandering of blasts; which seize its echoing streams and clothe them over with ice". So stood the friend of strangers! The winds lift his heavy locks. Thou art the tallest of the race of Erin, king of streamy Atha! "First of bards," said Cathmor, Fonar ", lied Erin shakes its mountains from sea to sea." i. n. 14. The translator forgot that these exaggerated effects of an earthquake were unknown to Ossian, though introduced with propriety into his own poem upon Death. Earth dreads and shivers from her inmost womb : Domes throw their stately towers to earth, &c. Gleaming-like a rock in whose sides are the wandering of blasts, which seize its echoing streams, and clothe them over with ice.] A selection of images from a paragraph in THOMSON'S Winter. An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool -'till seized from shore to shore The whole imprison'd river growls below A livid track, cold-gleaming on the morn. 11 Fónar, the man of song. Before the introduction of Chris call the chiefs of Erin. Call red-haired Cormar: dark-browed Malthos: the side-long-looking gloom of Maronan. Let the pride of Foldath appear. The red-rolling eye of urlutho. Nor let Hidalla be forgot; his voice, in danger, is the sound of a shower, when it falls in the blast tianity, a name was not imposed upon any person, till he had distinguished himself by some remarkable action, from which his name should be derived. Hence it is that the names in the poems of Ossian suit so well with the characters of the persons who bear them. MACPHERSON, 1st edit. At that rate Fonar must have gone without a name till he became a bard; and the greater part of the Celtic heroes, unless distinguished by some remarkable exploit, must have been nameless till their death. Characteristical names, like those of modern comedies, are a sufficient proof that such fictitious personages as Fonar, the man of song, (from fon, delight, pleasure, fun, inclination, a song,) Cathmore, great in battle; Mor-annel, strong breath, a very proper name for a scout; Morlath, great in the day of battle; Foldath, generous, &c. are all the produce of the author's invention. Ossian, Oscar, Cairbar, Fingal, and the few historical names introduced into the poems, are not susceptible of such characteristical etymologies; and Homer, whose personages are all real, might have taught his Highland competitor, that even before the introduction of Christianity, no man, whether distinguished or not by some remarkable action, could remain without a name from his birth. Qdys. viii. 552. Οὐ μὲν γὰρ τις πάμπαν ΑΝΩΝΥΜΟΣ ἔς ̓ ἀνθρώπων, Οὐ ΚΑΚΟΣ, ἐδὲ μὲν ΕΣΘΛΟΣ, ἐπὴν τά πρώτα γένηται ̓Αλλ ̓ ἐπὶ πᾶσι τίθενται, ἐπεὶ κι τέκωσι τοκῆες. ed vale, near Atha's falling stream. Pleasant is its sound on the plain, whilst broken thunder travels over the sky 13." They came, in their clanging arms. They bent forward to his voice, as if a spirit of their fathers spoke from a cloud of night 14. Dreadful shone they to the light; like the fall of the stream of Brumo, when the meteor lights it, before the nightly stranger. Shuddering, he stops in his journey, and looks up for the beam of the morn! "Why delights Foldath," said the king, "to pour the blood of foes, by night? Fails his arm in battle, in the beams of day? Few are the foes before us, why should we clothe us in shades? The valiant delight to shine in the battles of their land! Thy counsel was in vain, chief of Moma! The eyes of Morven do not sleep. They 13 Whilst broken thunder travels over the sky.] A sentence added in the improved edition. From the Temple of Fame. Like broken thunders that at distance roar. 14 As if a spirit of their fathers spoke from a cloud of night.] HOME's Douglas, infra, v. 4. In such a place as this, at such an hour, E |