Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

170 A CRITICAL DISSERTATION
Had lafts only forty-feven days, whilft that
of the i^neid is continued for more than 2
year.
Throughout the whole of Fingal, there
reigns that grandeur of fentiment, ftyle,
and imagery, which ought ever to dirtin-
guiili this high fpecies of poetry. The
llory is conduced with no fmall art. The
poet goes not back to a tedious recital of
the beginning of the war with Swaran ;
but haftening to the main a61Ion, he falls
m exadly, by a molt happy coincidence of
thought, with the rule of Horace.
Semper ad eventum feftinat, et in medias res>
Non fecus ac notas, auditorem rapit
Nee gcmino bellum I'rojanum auditur ah ovo*
Di Arte Poet:.
He invokes no raufe, for he acknowledg-
ed' none \ but his occafional addreffes to
Malvina have a finer effeft than the invo-
cation of any mufe. He fets out with no
formal propolition of his fubjeil j but the
fubj eel naturally and eafily unfolds itfelf;
the poem opening in an animated manner,
•with the fituation of Cuthullin, and the ar-
rival of a fcout, who informs him of Swa-
ran's landing. Mention is prefently made
of Fingal, and of the expelled affillance
from the (liips of the lonely ifle, in order
to give further light to the fuhje^l. For
ihe poet often, fliows his addrefs in gradual-