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

a68 A DISSERTATION CONCERNIi^G
have afterwards been numbered in Albion, and the heroes
of Fion fhould no more be named."
The next poem that falls under our obfervation is Cath-
cabhra, or, The Death ofOfcar. This piece is founded on
the fame ftory which we have in the firft book of Temora,
So little thought the author of Cath-cabbra of making Of-
car his countryman, that, in the courfe of two hundred
lines, of which the poems confifts, he put the following ex-
prelTiori thiice in the mouth of the hero :
■ Albion an fa d' roina m'arch. —
Albion where I luas born and bred.
The poem contains almoft all the incidents in the firfl book
of Temora. In one circumftance the bard differs materially
from Offian. Ofcar, after he was mortally wounded b^,
Cairbar, was earned by his people to a neighbouring hill,
which commanded a profped of the fea. A fleet appeared
at a diftance, and the hero exclaims with joy,
Loingeas mo fliean-athair at' an
'S lad a tiachd le cabhair chug«in,
O Albin na n' ioma ftuagh.
« It is the fleet of my grandfather, coming with aid to our
■field, from Albion of inany waves!" The teflimony o^
this bard is fufficient to confute the idle fidions of Keating
and O'Flaherty ; fori though he is far from being ancient^
it is proTjable, he flouriflied a full century before thefe hif-
torians. He appears, however, to have been a' much bet-*
ter Chriftian than chronologer ; for F'ton, though he is pla-
ced two centuries before St Patrick,' very devoutly recom-
mends the foul of his grandfon to his Redeemer.
Ditan a Gbarlbh Mac-Starn is another Irifli poem in high
repiitie. The grandeur of its images, and its propriety of
fentiment, might have induced me to give a tranflation of
it, had not I fome expedtations of feeing it in the colledioii
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