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on the Poems of Ossian. 85
parted heroes ft-equent the fields of their former
fame. " They rest together m their caves, and
talk of mortal men. Their songs are of other
worlds. They come sometimes to the ear of rest,
and raise their feeble voice." All this presents to
us much the same set of ideas, concerning spirits,
as we find in theeleventhbookof the Odyssey, where
Ulysses visits the regions of the dead ; and in the
twenty-third book of the Iliad, the ghost of Patro-
clus, after appearing to Achilles, vanishes precisely
like one of Ossian 's, emitting a shrill feeble cry,
and melting away like smoke.
But though Homer's and Ossian's ideas concern-
ing ghosts were of the same nature, we cannot but
observe, that Ossian's ghosts are drawn with much
stronger and livelier colours than those of Homer.
Ossian describes ghosts with all the particularity
of one who had seen and conversed with them, and
whose imagination was full of the impression they
had left upon it. He calls up those awful and tre-
mendous ideas which the
Simulacra modis pallentia miiis
are fitted to raise in the human mind ; and which,
in Shakspeare's style, " harrow up the soul."
Crugal's ghost, in particular, in the beginning of
the second book of Fingal, may vie with any ap-
pearance of this kind, described by any epic or
tragic poet whatever. Most poets would have
contented themselves with telling us, that he re-
sembled in every particular, the living Crugal;
that his form and dress Avere the same, only his
face more pale and sad ; and that he bore the mark
of the wound by which he fell. But Ossian sets
before our eyes a spirit from the invisible world,
distinguished by all those features which a strong
astonished imagination would give to a ghost.
•' A dark red stream of fire comes down from the
hill. Crugal sat upon the bear.ij he that lately