Ossian Collection > Fingal of Ossian

Book III. FINGAL. i6i
65 Three Days of Reft fhall recreate your Souls,
With fplendid Banquets, and with flowing Bowls ;
When thefe are paft, you fhall as many more,
With Hound and Horn purfue the tulky Boar ;
That blaz'd abroad, the youthful Stranger's Fame,
70 May recommend him to the Fair's Efteem.
The fraudful King, who with this Welcome kind,
Conceal'd the mighty Mifchief he deflgn'd,
A fumptuous Banquet order'd in the Hall,
And tTiere perfidioufly had murder'd all,
Had
modern Iceland. Thefe Voyages could not have been performed in open
Boats, nor in Hulls of Wicker covered with raw Hides. The Art of
Ship-building, though perhaps in its rudeft State, was known in the North,
when the firfl feeble Light of Hiftory rofe on its Nations. Men who failed
to I'hule could fcarcely be unacquainted with Britain ; and had the Inha-
bitants of the latter neglected an Art which their maritime Situation muft
have naturally fuggeRed to them, they mufl; have certainly adopted it from
the Scandinavians. Rivers, narrow Arms of the Sea, even the Britijh and
Irijh Channels might be navigated in open Skiffs by the Inhabitants of the
Weftern Shores of Britain; but thofe on the German Ocean, may be fup-
pofed to hare known as much of Navigation as the Natives of the oppofite
Continent.
Y V. 81.