Ossian Collection > Critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

j8 a critical DISSEP.TATION
srafs of the roc';, the P.owcr of the heath, the thifth with Its
beard, are the chief ornaments of his landfcapes. " The defart,"
fays Fingal, " is enough to me, with all its woods and deer."*
The circle of ideas and ti'anfadlions, is no wider than fuits fuch
an age: Nor any greater diverfity introduced into charadl.rs, than
the events of that period would naturally difplay. Valour and bo-
dily (Irength are the admired qualities. Contentions arife, as is
iifual among favage nations, from the flightefl: caufes. To be af-
fronted at a tournament, or to be omitted in the invitation to a
feaft, kindles a war. Women are often carried away by force j
and the whole tribe, as in the Homeric times, rife to avenge the
wrong. The heroes fliow refinement of fentiment indeed on feve-
ral occafions, but none of manners. They fpeak of their pafi: ac-
tions with freedom, boaft of their exploits, and fing their own
praife. In their battles, it is evident that drums, trumpets or bag-
pipes, v^'ere not known or iifed. They had no expedient forgiving
the military alarms but ftriking a fliield, or raifing a loud cry: And
hence the loud and terrible voice of Fingal is often mentioned, as a
neceffary qualification of a great general ; like the f2o'^v uyxQo^ Rlsj-eXat;?
of Homer. Of military difcipline or fkill, they appear to have been
entirely deftitute. Their armies feem not to have been numerous;
their battles v/ere diforderly; and terminated, for the moft part, by a
perfonal combat, or wreflling of the two chiefs ; after which, " the
" bard fung the fong of peace, and the battle ceafed along the
" field f."
The manner of compofition bears all the marks of the greateft
antiquity. No artful tranfitions ; nor full and extended conneftion
of parts ; fuch as we find among the poets of later times, when or-
der and regularity of compofition were more fiudied and known j
but a flyle always rapid and vehement ; in narration concife, even
to abruptnefs, and leaving feveral circumfiances to be fupplied by
the reader's imagination. The language has all that figurative cafr,
which, as I before fliewed, partly a glowing and undifciplined ima-
gination, partly the fterility of language, and the want of proper
terms, have always introduced into the early fpeech of nations; and
in feveral refpeds, it carries a remarkable refemblance to the ityle
* Page 78. -J- Page 140,
of