one of Ossian's, emitting a shrill, feeble cry, and melting away like smoke.

But though Homer's and Ossian's ideas concerning ghosts were of the same nature, we cannot but observe that Ossian's ghosts are drawn with much stronger and livelier colors than those of Homer. Ossian describes ghosts with all the particularity of one who had seen and conversed with them, and whose imagination was full of the impression they had left upon it. Crugal's ghost, in particular, in the beginning of the second book of Fingal, may vie with any appearance of this kind, described by any epic or tragic poet whatever..

Most poets would have contented themselves with telling us, that he resembled, in every particular, the living Crugal; that his form and dress were the same, only his face more pale and sad; and that he bore the mark of the wound by which he fell. But Ossian sets before our eyes a spirit from the invisible world, distinguished by all those features, which a strong astonished imagination would give to a ghost. "A dark red stream of fire comes down from the hill. Crugal sat upon the beam; he that lately fell by the hand of Swaran, striving in the battle of heroes. face is like the beam of the setting moon. His robes are of the clouds of the hill. His eyes are like two decaying flames. Dark is the wound of his breast. The stars dimtwinkled through his form; and his voice was like the sound of a distant stream."

His

The circumstance of the stars being beheld, "dim-twinkling through his form," is wonderfully picturesque; and conveys the most lively impression of his thin and shadowy substance. The attitude in which he is afterwards placed, and the speech put into his mouth, are full of that solemn and awful sublimity, which suits the subject. "Dim, and in tears, he stood and stretched his pale hand over the hero. Faintly he raised his feeble voice, like the gale of the reedy Lego. My ghost, O Connal! is on my native hills, but my corse is on the sands of Ullin. Thou shalt nev.r talk with Crugal, or find his lone steps in the heath. I am light as the blast of Cromla; and I move like the shadow of mist. Connal, son of Colgar! I see the dark cloud of death. It hovers over the plains of Lenna. The sons of green Erin shall fall. Remove from the field of ghosts. Like the darkened moon he retired in the midst of the whistling blast."

Several other appearances of spirits might be pointed out as among the most sublime passages of Ossian's poetry. The circumstances of them are considerably diversified; and the scenery always suited to the occasion. "Oscar slowly ascends the hill. The meteors of night set on the heath before him. A distant torrent faintly roars. Unfrequent blasts rush through aged oaks. The half-enlightened moon sinks dim and red behind her hill. Feeble voices are heard on the heath. Oscar drew his sword."

Nothing can prepare the fancy more happily for the awful scene that is to follow. "Trenmor came from his hill, at the voices of his mighty son. A cloud, like the steed

His robe is of the

of the stranger, supported his airy limbs. mist of Lano, that brings death to the people. His sword is a green meteor, half-extinguished. His face is without form, and dark. He sighed thrice over the hero: And thrice, the winds of the night roared around. Many were his words to Oscar. He slowly vanished, like a mist that melts on the suny hill."

To appearances of this kind, we can find no parallel among the Greek or Roman poets. They bring to mind that noble description in the book of Job: "In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon ine, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes: -There was silence, and I heard a voice-Shall mortal man De more just than God?"*

LESSON XC.

The Dungcon.-LYRICAL BALLADS.

AND this place our forefathers made for man'
This is the process of our love and wisdom,
To each poor brother who offends against us---
Most innocent, perhaps: -And what if guilty?
Is this the only cure? Merciful God!
Each pore and natural outlet shrivelled up
By ignorance and parching poverty,
His energies roll back upon his heart,

*Job iv. 13-17.

And stagnate and corrupt; till, changed to poison,
They break out on him like a loathsome plague-spot.
Then we call in our pampered mountebanks-
And this is their best cure !-uncomforted
And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,
And savage faces, at the clanking hour

Seen, through the steams and vapor of his dungeon,
By the lamp's dismal twilight!-So he lies
Circled with evil, till his very soul

Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed
By fellowship with desperate deformity!

With other ministrations thou, O Nature!
Healest thy wandering and distempered child.
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,
Thy melodies of woods, and winds and waters,
Till he relent, and can no more endure
To be a jarring and discordant thing,
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;
But, bursting into tears wins back his way;
His angry spirit healed and humanized
By the benignant touch of love and beauty.

LESSON XCI.

To the Rosemary.-H. K. WHITE.

SWEET Scented flower! who'rt wont to bloom
On January's front severe,

And o'er the wintry desert drear

To waft thy waste perfume!

Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now,

And I will bind the round my brow;

And, as I twine the mournful wreath,

I'll weave a melancholy song,

And sweet the strain shall be, and long
The melody of death.

Come funeral flower! who lov'st to dwell

With the pale corse in lonely tomb,

And throw across the desert gloom
A sweet, decaying smell—

Come, press my lips and lie with me
Beneath the lowly alder tree:
And we will sleep a pleasant sleep
And not a care shall dare intrude,
To break the marble solitude,
So peaceful and so deep.

And hark! the wind-god, as he flies,
Moans hollow in the forest trees,
And sailing on the gusty breeze,
Mysterious music dies.

Sweet flower, that requiem wild is mine;
It warns me to the lonely shrine,

The cold turf altar of the dead;

My grave shall be in yon lone spot,

Where, as I lie by all forgot,

A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.

LESSON XCII.

A Sabbath in Scotland.-Persecution of the Scottish Covena: ters.-GRAHAME.

Ir is not only in the sacred fane,

That homage should be paid to the Most High:
There is a temple, one not made with hands-
The vaulted firmament: far in the woods,
Almost beyond the sound of city-chime,
At intervals heard through the breezeless air;
When not the limberest leaf is seen to move,
Save where the linnet lights upon the spray;
When not a floweret bends its little stalk,
Save where the bee alights upon the bloom ;-
There, rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love,
The man of God will pass the Sabbath noon;
Silence, his praise; his disembodied thoughts,
Loosed from the load of words, will high ascend
Beyond the empyre'an.--

Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne,
The Sabbath service of the shepherd-boy,
In some lone glen, where every sound is lulled
To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill,
Or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's* cry,

*Pron faw'

Stretched on the sward, he reads of Jesse's son,
Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold,

And wonders why he weeps; the volume closed
With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings
The sacred lays, his weekly lesson conned
With meiklet care beneath the lowly roof,
Where humble lore is learnt, where humble worth
Pines unrewarded by a thankless state.

Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen,
The shepherd-boy the Sabbath holy keeps,
Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands
Returning homeward from the house of prayer.
In peace they home resort. O blissful days!
When all men worship God as conscience wills.
Far other times our fathers' grandsires knew,
A virtuous race, to godliness devote.

They stood prepared to die, a people doomed
To death;-old men, and youth, and simple maids,
With them each day was holy; but that morn
On which the angel said, See where the Lord
Was laid, joyous arose; to die that day

Was bliss. Long ere the dawn, by devious ways,

O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought The upland moors, where rivers, there but brooks,

Dispart to different seas.

Fast by such brooks A little glen is sometimes scooped, a plat

With green sward gay, and flowers that stranger seem.

Amid the heathery wild, that all around

Fatigues the eye: in solitudes like these
Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foiled
A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws:

There, leaning on his spear (one of the array,
Whose gleam, in former days, had scathed the rose
On England's banner, and had powerless struck
The infatuate monarch and his wavering host)
The lyartt veteran heard the word of God
By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured
In gentle stream; then rose the song, the loud
Acclaim of praise; the wheeling plover ceased
Her plaint; the solitary place was glad;

* Pron. time. Pron. meekle-much. Mounted, belonging to the cavalry