voice. The music was like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul. The ghosts of departed bards heard it on Slimora's side. Soft sounds spread along the wood. The silent vallies of night rejoice."*

"What a figure would such imagery and such scenery have made," observes Dr. Blair, "had they been presented to us adorned with the sweetness and harmony of the Virgilian numbers." ‡

With one passage more from the poem entitled The Battle of Lora, I shall conclude this selection of scenes, which, were not the few I have extracted, sufficient to illustrate the purport of my paper, might be greatly extended.

"Lorma sat, in Aldo's hall. She sat at the light of a flaming oak. The night came down, but he did not return. The soul of Lorma is

Vol. i. p. 380.

Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian,

VOL. II.

vol. ii. p. 412.
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sad! 'What detains thee, hunter of Cona? Thou didst promise to return. Has the deer been distant far? do the dark winds sigh round thee on the heath? I am in the land of strangers, who is my friend but Aldo. Come from thy sounding hills, O my best beloved!'

"Her eyes are turned toward the gate. She listens to the rustling blast. She thinks it is Aldo's tread. Joy rises in her face! But sorrow returns again, like a thin cloud on the moon.

Wilt thou not return, my love! Let me behold the face of the hill. The moon is in the east. Calm and bright is the breast of the lake! When shall I behold his dogs, returning from the chace? When shall I hear his voice, loud and distant on the wind? Come from thy sounding hills, hunter of woody Cona!' His thin ghost appeared, on a rock, like a watry beam of feeble light: when the moon rushes sudden from between two clouds, and the midnight shower is on the field! She followed the empty form over the heath. She knew that her hero fell. I heard her approaching cries on the wind, like the mournful voice of the breeze, when it sighs on the grass of the cave.

"She came. She found her hero! Her voice was heard no more. Silent she rolled her eyes. She was pale and wildly sad! Few were her days on Cona. She sunk into the tomb. Fingal commanded his bards; they sung over the death of Lorma. The daughters of Morven mourned her, for one day in the year, when the dark winds of autumn returned!"*

Of the passages I have now given, two; one from Apollonius Rhodius, and one from Schiller, beautifully display the effect of contrast arising from the emotions of sorrow, disappointment and remorse, as opposed to the tranquillity of nature during the dead hour of midnight, or to the calm and glowing splendor of a setting sun: whilst the night scenery drawn from Ossian is mingled with the tenderest passions of the heart, and powerfully aids the impression which the poet wishes to inspire.

Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Camöens and Milton. have many celebrated descriptions of night and evening scenery, though, except in the imitations alluded to from the Rhodian, not suffi

*Vol. i. p. 402.

ciently mingled or contrasted with pathetic emotion to become objects of quotation in this paper. They are, for the most part, pictures in Natural History, or still life, and though remarkable for their faithful delineation, or the propriety of their introduction, involve little that may call forth the tear of pity. I must be understood here, however, as speaking only of such occasional descriptions of the evening or night as are interwoven into the body of epic composition, for a considerable portion of the machinery and business of these poems is frequently carried on during the night, and often includes much of the pathetic, as the episode of the destruction of Troy in Virgil, &c. the incidents however of these episodes have little or no connexion with the natural phenomena of the period during which they pass. From Shakspeare also, many apposite specimens might have been taken, but being so popular an author, and these passages almost committed to memory, I preferred selecting from sources less known. Of smaller poems, the Elegy of Gray may be considered as the most exquisite and finished example in the world of the effect resulting from the intermixture of evening scenery and pathetic reflection.

For numerous and varied instances of combination of this kind, however, the works of Ossian are almost inexhaustible, and though the novelty of his style, or rather of the dress in which the Translator has thought proper to clothe him, will at first revolt, yet with due attention the cadences will become familiar, and the imagery, though crowded, no longer distract the mind: it is then that his characters, his descriptive powers, the sublimity and pathos of his sentiments will be accurately and distinctly felt, and enthusiasm take place of inattraction and fatigue.