Such are the leading facts here produced for the confuta. tion of the claim of Offian's poems to an ancient origin: and fome of them, if thought to be fufficiently authenticat-ed, fuch as the confeflions of Macpherfon, are abfolutely decifive. Others have confiderable weight and cogency. But an appeal, in our opinion, might also be made to tafte. Macpherfon, as the latter part of thefe volumes fufficiently proves, had afpired to be an English poet. But he was a bad poct. He had fome notions of fublimity, but they were extremely confined; aerial meteors and ghofts formed his whole flock. So is it in the Highlander, fo is it in Fingal. Many of these refemblances are well compared by the prefent editor. The following paffage is, however, curious. A young warrior appears fuddenly to a group of flumbering fees. He is immediately compared to a ghoft. "Thus often to the midnight traveller, Some grave unhallow'd, ftain'd with murder'd gore." The image is grand, without doubt, but it is false; it is founded on nothing. It is not true that fuch fpectres appear and it is mere nonfenfe to illuftrate a reality by a nonentity. It is like the mock hero faying, "So have I feen in Araby the blest,” what nobody ever did or could fee, "A phoenix couchant on her funeral neft."" Equally falfe are most of the innumerable Offianic Ghofts; they appear when no one wants them, or could conceive them likely to be feen. The great fault of the pretended Offian is bombaft. Often, very often, have we wondered how fo many perfons of genius, and fome of judgment in other things, could be taken in by fuch abominable fuftian, of which we really have never been able to read ten lines together with patience. Every thing that is falfe, every thing that is abfurd is here accumulated; and a few fpecious paffages, fanctioned by The opinion of Dr. Blair would weigh much, but who can calculate the force of prejudice? the the fuppofed authority of antiquity, have caufed an admiration, which nothing either in the plan or execution of the poems (if they must be fo called) could fairly warrant. We feel perfectly convinced that no poems fo full of falfe tafte, fo full of bombaftic expreffion and exaggerated images, ever could be preferved for any long period, in any country in the world. Truth and nature are the only foundations for permanency to poems, wherever produced; and truth and nature have nothing to do with the Mock-Offian. To make this matter clear, let us examine a little clofely into the first book of his Fingal. The opening is well known. "Cuthullin fat by Tura's wall: by the tree of the ruffling found. His fpear leaned against a rock. His fhield lay on grafs by his fide." P. 7. Here is an attempt at a picture, but how incongruous are the parts! A city wall, a tree, a rock, and grafs. They might poflibly meet all together, but it is not very likely. In the first edition, it was "the tree of the ruftling leaf," and then explained the alpin. What tree is now meant may be doubted and quare,--whether leaf and found are expreffed by the fame word in Gaelic? "I beheld their chief," fays Moran, " tall as a glittering rock. His fpear is a blafted pine. His hield the rifing moon." P. 10. This would be a good defcription of a giant, or a demon, as the two latter circumftances are employed in Milton, who is here copied, but applied to a mortal hero it is nonfenfe. "He spoke like a wave on a rock," ibid. He had just looked like a rock, washed by a wave. It is all the fame. author had faid, he poke like an afs, or an empty bladder, it would have been much more like the truth; for hear what ! he faid! If the "Who can meet Swaran in fight? Who but Fingal, king of Selma of ftorms? Once we wreftled on Malmor; our heels overturned The note on Selma at the end of this book is very curious. "The rate of Selma.] The race of the defart,' in the first editions; one of the many proofs, that there was no prototype for the pretended tranflation. Fingal's refidence was at Almbuin, the hill of Allen, in the province of Leinfter; (Keating, 271,) which Macpherson has uniformly altered to Albion; but Selma feems to be either a tranfpofition of Salem, or Sailm, in the Irish ballads overturned the woods. Rocks fell from their place, rivulets chang ing their course, fled murmuring from our fide." Ib. Can bombaft and nonfenfe go beyond this? All becaufe two heroes wrestled! The alarm of war is prefently given by ftriking the fhield of Semo, Cuthullin's father, which hung by "Tura's ruftling gate." It is ftruck only with a spear, but the effect is beyond that of twenty Chinese gongs; a most marvellous fhield it must be! The heroes of the vales and mountains are roufed. The last hero mentioned by name is Ca-olt, whom the poet thus addresses. "Ca-olt, ftretch thy fide, as thou moveft along the whistling heath of Mora: thy fide that is white as the foam of the trou bled fea, when the dark winds pour it on rocky Cuthon." P. 13. We will not difpute whether a white fide be here well defcribed, nor will we deny that the white skins of some of the heroes are mentioned in the genuine Irish ballads. But the impertinence of mentioning Ca-olt's fide at all, whether white or brown, or whatever fide it might happen to be, is beyond all patience and what good was to be done by Stretching his fide? Had he the cramp in it, or was it apt to be drawn together? Obferve alfo, that though the scene is placed in Ireland, the fcenery is all Scottish: the bleak heath, the barren rock, the mountain cataract, objects which might, indeed, be found in Ireland, but not at all characteristic of its milder clime, and gentler features. The heroes, being affembled, are as ufual like mifts, and clouds, and meteors; and" the grey dogs howl between," an attempt at a striking image, but a very falfe one. They debate on a very useless queftion, namely, whether they fhall fight or not, when a formidable enemy is actually landed on their coaft. "Another sport," fays Cuthullin, "is drawing near; It is like the dark rolling of that wave on the coaft." (P. 15.) That is, going to fight is like a dark wave; how, nobody can tell; but fo is every thing elfe, according to Offian; like a dark wave, or a light one. Connal is for peace, which gives Calmar occafion to fay, like Agamemnon," Fly, thou man of peace." Φεῦγε μαλ', εἴ τοι θυμὸς ἐπέσσεται. ballads of Offian, and Phadrich n'en Sailm, Patrick of Pfalms, con. verted into Selma. Neither Selma, the palace of the great Fingal, nor the ancient kingdom or kings of Morven, were ever heard of, or known to exist in Scotland.' P. '. 51. This Calmar is a very furious gentleman. He calls on the winds and the whirlwinds, not forgetting the ghofts. "Rife ye dark winds of Erin, rife! roar, whirlwinds of Lara of hinds! Amid the tempeft let me die, torn in a cloud, by angry ghosts of men." P. 17. All this only means that he is ready to fight; but why the winds are dark, or why the ghoits are to interfere, it is not easy to conjecture. We believe that "angry gholts of men" very feldom tear heroes, or even common men to pieces. Cuthullin loves war also, to him it is "pleafaut as the thunder of heaven." P. 18. The idea of thunder being pleafant is rather new; and certainly it very feldom comes, if ever, in Ireland or Britain, "before the fhower of fpring." The ftory of Duchomar, who is dead with-out Cuthullin's having heard of it, (probably for want of newfpapers) and of his friend Cathba, is a tiffue of abfurdities. Yet Duchomar was no obfcure man; he was, "a mift of the marshy Lano; when it moves on the plains of autumn, bearing the death of thoufands along!" Cathba was a funbeam, like madam Aifé, or Bragela, only not a lonely one. Cathba's fpeech to his miftrefs is original. He means, we prefume, to tell her it is bad weather; but he fays, "the ftream murmurs along. The old tree groans in the wind, (poor old tree!) the lake is troubled before thee." But then, fhe is fnow, and her hair a curled mift, with other particulars, not fo proper to mention. But Duchomar, notwithftanding thefe very pretty compliments fpeeds extremely ill. Mifs Morna does not love him, becaufe he is gloomy. She owns that fhe loves Cathba, and Duchomar very kindly tells her, that he has juft killed him. She begs to look at his blood on the fword, and moft neatly flicks the owner with it; he begs her to draw it out from his fide, and when he comes, "all in her tears," he kills her. So there is an end of all the three; and all this is an epifode, told in a kind of parenthefis; merely becaufe Cuthullin expected to fee thele two unfortunate heroes, to fight by his fide. "As rufhes a ftream of foam from the dark fhady fteep of Cromla; when the thunder is travelling above, and dark brown night fits on half the hill. Through the breaches of the tempeft look forth the dim faces of ghojis." P. 26. So went the fons of Erin to battle. Thefe peeping ghofts, who have been in and out in different editions, (doubtlefs as the ancient MSS. varied!) are in truth very impertinent perfonages; but without ghoffs, where would be the fabricator's fublimity? The car of Cuthullin, next defcribed, is a paffage fome refemblance to which has been produced in the X X BRIT, CRIT, VOLL XXVI11, DEC. 1806. Irith Irith ballads; but nothing that at all juftifies the extravagant bombaft with which it is filled. The Irifh ballad, fays the prefent editor," contains the names of the hero and his two horfes; but no defcription whatever of the chariot, no reference to any epic poem; much lefs the impropriety of putting fuch minute particulars, as the ornaments of the chariot, and the very names and trappings of the horses, into the mouth of a breathlefs and terrified scout*.” The heroes meet, of course, like forms, and ftreams, and all fuch terrible things. "Helmets are cleft on high. Blood burfts, and fmokes around. Strings murmur on the polished yews." The fabricator doubtlefs fuppofed thefe to be character iflic circumftances. But they are too minute; the smoking of the blood, and the noife of the bow-ftrings, are not objects to be noticed at fuch a moment. As the battle proceeds, Swaran roars, "like the fhrill fpirit of the ftorm." P. 37. Therefore he roared frill, which is an odd fpecies of roaring; but this fhrieking of fpirits has had many mo dern copyifts, and is doubtlefs thought fublime. We have lately had "pleasant thunder," we are now to have lovely ghafls. "Weep on the rocks of roaring winds, O maid of Inistore! Bend thy fair head over the waves, thou lovelier than the ghost of the hills; when it moves in a fun-beam, at noon, over the filence of Morven." P. 39. Thefe ghofts really are put to all work. In the very fame page we have had a blaft" laden with the fpirits of night." But a lovely ghoft riding on a fun-beam at noon, puzzles all our ghofto-logical notions. When the two principal he roes meet, the effect is like the boaft of Swaran. ́ "The little hills are troubled around; the rocks tremble with all their ofs." P. 42. The hills and rocks of Ireland have certainly long left off trembling when a duel is fought, however great may be the combatants. But they were more timid, it feems, in Offian's time. We are really fatigued with collecting abfurdities, even from this one book. We thall only add that as the whole has been full of ghofts in its progrefs, fo with ghofts it concludes. *Not to mention that Cuthullin could not have a chariot fo ornamented. "The |