Ossian Collection > Temora, an ancient epic poem, in eight books

76 T E M O R A:
like a reHefted beam, are yc fecn in the defart wild ; but ye retire
in your blafts before our fteps approach. — Go then, ye feeble race !
knowledge with you there is none. Your joys are weak, and like
the dreams of our reft, or the light-winged thought that flies acrofs
the foul. Shall Cathmor foon be low ? Darkly laid in his nar-
row houfe ? where no morning comes with her half-opened eyes. —
Away, thou fliade ! to fight is mine, all further thought away ! I
rufh forth, on eagle wings, to feize my beam of fame. In the
lonely vale of ftreams, abides the little * foul. — Years roll on, fea-
fons return, but he is flill unknown. — In a blaft comes cloudy
death, and lays his grey head low. His ghofl: is rolled on the va-
pour of the fenny field. Its courfe is never on hills, or mofiy vales
of wind. So fhall not Cathmor depart, no boy in the field was
he, who only marks the bed of roes, upon the echoing hills.
* From this paffage we learn in what
extreme contempt an indolent and unwar-
like life was held in thofe days of heroifm.
Whatever a philofopher may fay, in praife
of quiet and retirement, I am far from
thinking, but they weaken and debafe the
human mind. When the faculties of the
foul are not exerted, they Icfe their vigour,
and low and ciixumfcribed notions take the
place of noble and enlarged ideas. Ac-
tion, on the contrary, and the vicifTitudes
of fortune which attend it, call forth, by
turns, nil the powers of the mind, and, by
exercifmg, ftrengthen them. Hence it is,
that in great and opulent flates, when
property and indolence are fecured to indi-
viduals, we ftldom meet with that ftrength
of mind, which is fo common in a na-
tion, not far advanced in civilization. It
is a curious, but juft, obfervation ; that
great kingdoms feldom produce great cha-
railers, which muft be altogether attri-
buted to that indolence and diffipation,
which are the infeparable companions of
too much property and fecurity. Rome, it
is certain, had more real great men with-
in it, when its power was confined within
the narrow bounds of Latium, than when
its dominion extended over all the known
world ; and one petty flate of the Saxon
heptarchy had, perhaps, as much genuine
fpirit in it, as the two Britifli kingdoms
united. As a Rzte, we are much more
powerful than our anceftors, but we would
lofe by comparing individuals with them.
My