blow or cease the winds: so met the intermitting war the eye of broad-shielded Dermid. Through the host are the strides of Foldath, like some dark ship on wintry waves, when she issues from between two isles "7, to sport on resounding ocean!

He

Dermid, with rage, beholds his course. strives to rush along. But he fails amid his steps; and the big tear comes down. He sounds his father's horn. He thrice strikes his bossy shield. He calls thrice the name of Foldath, from his roaring tribes. Foldath, with joy, beholds the chief. He lifts aloft his bloody spear.

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Fierce as conflicting fires the combat burns,
And now it rises, now it sinks by turns.

"As blow or cease the winds; so met the intermitting war the eye of broad-shielded Dermid." And in a former paragraph, Intermitting darts the light from his shield." Both taken from Pope's notes: "His (Achilles) rage, awakened by that injury, is like a fire blown by a wind that sinks and rises by fits, but keeps continually burning, and blazes but the more for these intermissions." POPE's Iliad, ix. 406. note.

17 Like some dark

between two isles.]

ship on wintry waves, when she issues from THOMSON's Winter.

Till again constrained

Between two meeting hills, it bursts away.

The roused-up river is at last converted into a dark ship, and

the two hills into two isles.

As a rock is marked with streams, that fell troubled down its side in a storm; so, streaked with wandering blood, is the dark chief of Moma! The host, on either side, withdraw from the contending of kings'. They raise at once, their gleaming points. Rushing comes Fillan of Selma1. Three paces back Foldath withdraws, dazzled with that beam of light, which came, as issuing from a cloud, to save the wounded

18 The host, on either side, withdraw from the contending of kings.] Par. Lost, vi. 307.

From each hand with speed retired,

Where erst was thickest fight, th' angelic throng,

And left large field, unsafe within the wind

Of such commotion.

19 Fillan of Moruth, 1st edit. The rapidity of this verse, which indeed is but faintly imitated in the translation, is amazingly expressive in the original. One hears the very rattling of the armour of Fillan. The intervention of Fillan is necessary here; for, as Dermid was wounded before, it is not to be supposed he could be a match for Foldath. Fillan is often, poetically, called the son of Moruth, from a stream of that name in Morven, near which he was born. MACPHERSON, 1st edit.

When this self-commendatory note was omitted, the son of Moruth was silently changed in the latter editions into Fillan of Selma. But the necessary intervention of Fillan (nec deus intersit) to preserve the wounded Dermid from Foldath, is precisely the intervention of Apollo to preserve the wounded Æneas from Diomed; how expressive soever of rattling armour, the rapidity of the verse may be in the original recitative.

chief. Growing in his pride he stands. He calls forth all his steel.

As meet two broad-winged eagles, in their sounding strife, in winds, so rush the two chiefs on Moi-lena, into gloomy fight". By turns are the steps of the kings forward on their rocks above; for now the dusky war seems to des cend on their swords. Cathmor feels the joy of warriors, on his mossy hill: their joy in secret, when dangers rise to match their souls. His eye

20

Rushing comes Fillan of Selma. Three paces back Foldath withdraws, dazzled with that beam of light, which came, as issuing from a cloud, to save the wounded chief.] POPE'S Iliad, v. 529.

Thrice rushing furious, at the chief he strook;

His blazing buckler thrice Apollo shook;

He tried the fourth: when breaking from the cloud,

A more than mortal voice was heard aloud.

So spoke the god who darts celestial fires;

He dreads his fury, and some steps retires.

"Diomed still maintains his intrepid character; he retires but a step or two even from Apollo." POPE's Note, id. 540. "Three paces back Foldath withdraws." Par. Lost, vi. 193. Ten paces huge

He back recoiled.

21 As meet two broad-winged eagles, in their sounding strife, on the winds, so rush the the two chiefs on Moi-lena, into gloomy fight.] First edit. Pop's Iliad, xvi.-522.

As when two vultures on the mountain's height

Stoop with resounding pinions to the fight.

is not turned on Lubar, but on Selma's dreadful king. He beholds him, on Mora, rising in his arms.

Foldath** falls on his shield. The spear of

He went to the cave of fathers, concerning the The responses of oracles

22 The fall of Foldath, if we may believe tradition, was predicted to him, before he had left his own country to join Cairbar in his designs on the Irish throne. Moma, to inquire of the spirits of his success of the enterprise of Cairbar. are always attended with obscurity, and liable to a double meaning: Foldath, therefore, put a favourable interpretation on the prediction, and pursued his adopted plan of aggrandizing himself with the family of Atha.

FOLDATH, addressing the spirit of his fathers.

Dark, I stand in your presence; fathers of Foldath, hear. Shall my steps pass over Atha, to Ullin of the roes?

The Answer.

Thy steps shall pass over Atha, to the green dwelling of kings. There shall thy stature arise, over the fallen, like a pillar of thunder-clouds. There, terrible in darkness, shalt thou stand, till the reflected beam, or Clon-cath of Moruth, come; Moruth of many streams, that roars in distant lands.

Cloncath, or reflected beam, say my traditional authors, was the name of the sword of Fillan; so that it was, in the latent signification of the word Cloncath, that the deception lay. My principal reason for introducing this note, is, that this tradition serves to shew, that the religion of the Fir-bolg differed from that of the Caledonians, as we never find the latter inquiring of the spirits of their deceased ancestors. MACPHERSON. Cloncath, the reflected beam of Moruth: claon, inclined, VOL. II.

Fillan pierced the king. Nor looks the youth on the fallen, but onward rolls the war. The hundred voices of death arise.

Stay, son of Fingal, stay thy speed. Beholdest thou not that gleaming form, a dreadful sign of death? Awaken not the king of Erin. Return, son of blueeyed Clatho."

He darkly

Malthos beholds Foldath low. stands above the chief. Hatred is rolled from his soul. He seems a rock in a desert, on whose dark side are the trickling of waters 23; when

bending, partial; cath, a battle, not a sun beam. But in this obvious imitation of the response of the oracle of Delphi to Croesus, those traditional authors were probably ignorant, that the genuine Ossian could not well have anticipated the discoveries concerning the reflection of light, without a language capable at least of expressing Milton's idea. Par. Lost, x. 1070.

How we his gathered beams

Reflected, may with matter sere foment.

23 He seemed a rock in the desert, on whose dark sides are the trickling of waters.] POPE's Iliad, ix. 19.

So silent fountains, from a rock's tall head,

In sable streams soft-trickling waters shed.

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Here various imitations stand undisguised. "Like a rock on whose sides is the wandering of streams or blasts." High on their face are streams, which spread their foam on blasts." "Like the face of streams, when they mix their foam together from two dark-browed rocks," &c.