Ossian Collection > Fingal of Ossian

Book IV. F I N G A L. 289
And fwoln to Torrents down their echoing Hills
With Rage impetuous burft the roaring Rills.
510 Such was the Noife and Tumult of the Fight,
When overthrown we put the Foe to Flight.
Why fighs the Dame? Let Lochlins Maids complain.
That Day the People of their Land were flain ;
Our bloody Swords wav'd o'er them as they fled,
515 And ftrew'd the Heath with ghaftly Heaps of Dead.
But what avails the melancholy Thought,
That I in Battle then the foremofi: fought ;
Since
The Waves on Heaps are dajh'd againft the Shore.,
And now the Woods, and now the Billows roar.
Dryden.
The Tone of Mind produced by the Image of Jupiter, throwing down
huge Mountains with his Thunderbolts, (which is hyperbolically fublime,
and even above any Thing Qffian fays on the Subjed) is fo difcordant to
the Idea of Winds growling and Rains pouring down, which immediately
follows, that Virgil has been cenfured for letting the Mind of the Reader
fall by too fudden a Tranfition •, a Fault often attending a ftrained Eleva-
tion, it being fomewhat difficult, after fuch a Flight, to defcend fweedy
and eafily to the ordinary Strain of the Subject. See Elements of Criticifm.
Chap. IV. Grandeur and Sublimity.
P p V. 523.