Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

116 Critical Dissertation
Ossian, who wrote from the immediate impulse of
poetical enthusiasm, aud without much preparation
of study or labour. Fertile as Homer's imagination
is acknowledged to be, who does not know how
often his lions and bulls, and flocks of sheep, recur
with little or no variation; nay, sometimes in the
very same words? The objection made to Ossian
is, however, founded, in a great measure, upon a
mistake. It has been supposed by inattentive
readers, that wherever the moon, the cloud, or the
thunder, returns in a simile, it is the same simile,
and the same moon, or cloud, or thunder, which
they had met with a few pages before. Whereas
very often the similes are widc4y different. The
object, whence they are taken, is indeed in substance
the same; but the image is new; for the appearance
of the object is changed; it is presented to the fancy
in another attitude; and clothed with new circum-
stances, to make it suit the different illustrations
for which it is employed. In this lies Ossian 's great
art; in so happily varying the form of the few natural
appearances with which he was acquainted, as to
make them correspond to a great many different
objects.
Let us take for one instance the moon, which is
very frequently introduced into his comparisons; as
in northern climates, where the nights are long, the
moon is a greater object of attention than in the
climate of Homer ; and let iis view how much our
poet has diversified its appearance. The shield of
a warrior is like ' ' the darkened moon when it
moves a dun circle through the heavens." The
face of a ghost, wan and pale, is like " the beam of
the setting moon." And a different appearance of
a ghost, thin and indistinct, is like " the new moon
seen through the gathered mist, when the sky pours
down its flaky snow, and the world is silent and
dark;" or, in a different form still, is like "the
watery beam of the moon, when it rushes from be-