Ossian Collection > Morison's edition of the Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

NOTES ON FINGAL.
^ For ere the rifing winds begin to roar,
The working feas advance to wa(h the fhore ;
Soft whifpers run along the leafy wood.
And mountains whittle to the murm'ring flood. Drydem
• The rapid rains, defcending from the hills.
To rolling torrents fwell the creeping rills. Dryden.
BOOK V.
" The fourth day ftill continues. The poet by putting
the narration in the mouth of Connal, who ftiU remained
■with Cuchullin on the fide of Cromla, gives propriety to
the praifes of Fingal. The beginning of this book, in the
original, is one of the moft beautiful parts of the poem.
The verfification is regular and full, and agrees very well
•with the fedate charadler of Connal. No poet has adapted
the cadence of his verfe more to the temper of the fpeaker,
than Offian has done. It is more than probable that the
whole poem was originally defigned to be fung to the harp,
as the verfification is fo various, and fo much fuited to the
different paflions of the human mind.
^ This paffage refernbles one in the twenty-third Iliad,
Clofe lock'd above, their heads and arms are mixt ;
Below their' planted feet at diftance fixt ;
Now to the grafp each manly body bends ;
The humid fweat from ev'ry pore defcends ;
Their bonesrefound with blows: fides, {boulders, thighs.
Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rife. Pope.
« The ftory of Orla is fo beautiful and aflfeding in the
original, that m.any are in poflefiion of it in the north of Scot-
fend, who never heard a fyllable more of the poem. It va-
rie»