Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

220 A CRITICAL DISSERTATION
" them behind the wood, and tried the
*' flrength of our arms in the empty air."
Ofuan is always concHe in his defcrip-
tions, which adds much to their beauty and
force. For it is a great mirtake to ima-
gine, that a crowd of particulars, or a very
full and extended ftyle, is of advantage to
defcription. On the contrary, fuch a dif-
fufe manner for the moft part weakens it.
Any one redundant circumrtance is a nui-
fance. It encumbers and loads the fancy,
and renders the main image indiflin61. " Ob-
*' flat," as Quintilian fays with regard to
Hyle, " quicquid noi) adjuvat." To be
concife in defcription, is one thing ; and to
be general, is another. No defcription
that refts in generals can poflibly be good ;
it can convey no lively idea ; for it is of
particulars only that we have a diftindl con-
ception. But, at the fame time, no ftrong
imagination dwells long upon any one par-
ticular ; or heaps together a mafs of trivial
ones. By the happy choice of feme one,
or of a few that are the moft ftriking, it
prefents the image more complete, fhows
us more at one glance, than a feeble ima-
gination is able to do, by turning its ob-
ject round and round into a variety of lights.
Tacitus is of all profe writers the molt
concife. He has even a degree of abrupt-
nefs vefembling our author : Yet no writer
is more eminent for lively defcription.