Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

on the Poems of Ossian. 91
autliority for fictions fully as extravagant ; and
if Homer be forgiven for making Diomed attack
and wound in battle the gods whom that chief
himself worshipped, Ossian surely is pardonable
for making liis hero superior to the god of a foreign
territory.
Notwithstanding the poetical advantages which
I have ascribed to Ossian's machinery, I acknow-
ledge it would have been much more beautiful and
perfect had the author discovered some knowledge
of a Supreme Being. Although his silence on this
head has been accounted for by the learned and
ingenious translator in a very probable manner,
yet still it must be held a considerable disadvantage
to the poetry. For the most augiist and lofty
ideas that can embellish poetry are derived from
the belief of a divine administration of the universe :
and hence the invocation of a Supreme Being, or
at least of some superior powers who are conceived
as presiding over human affairs, the solemnities of
religious worship, prayers preferred, and assistance
implored on critical occasions, appear with great
dignity in the works of almost all poets as chief
ornaments of their compositions. The absence of
all such religious ideas from Ossian's poetry is a
sensible blank in it ; the more to be regretted, as
we can easily imagine what an illustrious figure
they would have made under the management of
such a genius as his ; and how finely they would
have been adapted to many situations which occur
in his works.
After so particular an examination of Fingal, it
were needless to enter into as full a discussion of
the conduct of Temora, the other epic poem.
Many of the same observations, especially with
regard to the great characteristics of heroic poetry,
apply to both. The high merit, lioweyer, of
Temora, requires that we should not pass it by
without some remarks.