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

54 A CRITICAL DISSERTATION
The great objedion made to Ofilan's imagery, is its uniformit\',
and the too frequent repetition of the famecomparifons. In a work
fo thick Town with fimile?, one could not but expedl to find images
of the fame kind fometimes fuggefted to the poet by refembling ob-
je(f\s J efpecially to a poet like Oilian, who wrote from the imme-
diate impulfe of poetical enthufiafm, and without much preparation
of ftudy or labour. Fertile as Homer's imagination is acknowledged
to be, who does not know how often his Lions and Bulls and
Flocks of Sheep, recur with little or no variation j nay, fometimes
in the very lame words ? The objection made to Ollian is, however,
founded, in a great meafure, upon a miftake. It has been fuppofed
by inattentive readers, that wherever the Moon, the Cloud, or the
Thunder, returns in a fimile, it is the fame fimile, and the fame
Moon, or Cloud, or Thunder, which they had met with a few
pages before. Whereas very often the fimiles are widely different.
The objed:, whence they are taken, is indeed in fubftance the
fame ; but the image is new ; for the appearance of the obje<5t is
changed; it is prefented to the fancy in another attitude; and
cloathed with new circumftances, to make it fuit the different illuf-
tration for which it is employed. In this, lies Oifian's great art ; in fo
happily varying the form of the few natural appearances with which
he was acquainted, as to make them correlpond to a great many dif-
ferent objedls.
Let us take for one inftance the Moon, which is very frequently
introduced into his comparifons ; as in northern climates, where the
nights are long, the Moon is a greater objed of attention, than in the
chmate of Homer ; and let us view how much our poet has diverfi-
fied its appearance. The fhield of a warrior is like " the darkened
'• moon when it moves a dun circle through the heavens *." The
face of a ghoft, wan and pale, is like '• the beam of the fettlng
•* moon -j-." And a different appearance of a ghoft, thin and in-
diftind, is like " the new moon feen through the gathered mift,
" when tie fky pours down its flaky fnow, and the world is filent
« and dark X ■," or in a different form ftill, it is like " the watry beam
*• of the moon, when it rufties from between two clouds, and the
»P. 29. fP. 22. JP. J3I-
" midnight