Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

ON THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. I 55
merits of his landfcapes. *' The defert,"
fays Fingal, " is enough for me, with all
*' its woods and deer."
The circle of ideas and tranfadlons is
no wider than fuits fuch an age ; nor any-
greater diverfity introduced into charafter?,
than the events of that period would na-
turally difplay. Valour and bodily flrcngth
are the admired qualities. Contentions
arife, as is ufual among favage nations,
from the flighted caufes. To be affronted
at a tournament, or to be omitted in the
invitation to a feaft, kindles a war. Wo-
men are often carried away by force 5 and
the whole tribe, as in the Homeric times,
rife to avenge the wrong. 1 he heroes fhow
refinement of fentiment indeed on feveial
occafions, but none of manners. They
Tpeak of their paft actions with freedom,
boail of their exploits, and fing their own
praife. In their battles, it is evident, that
drums, trumpets, or bagpipes were not
known or uied. They had no expedient
for giving the military alarms but itriking
a ihield, or railing a loud cry : And hence
the loud and terrible voice of Fingal is of-
ten mentioned as a neccfiary qualification
of a great general ; like the ,Soy!v uyyJo? M«-
yiXaog of Homer. Of military difcipline or
ikiil, they appear to have been entirely
deftitute. Their armies feem not to have
been numerous 3 their battles were difor-