Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 1

114 A CRITICAL DISSERTATION ON
great characteristics of Ossian's poetry are, ten-
derness and sublimity. It breathes nothing of
the gay and cheerful kind; an air of solemnity
and seriousness is diffused over the whole.
Ossian is perhaps the only poet who never re-
laxes, or lets himself down into the light and
amusing strain ; which I readily admit to be
no small disadvantage to him, with the bulk of
readers. He moves perpetually in the high
region of the grand and the pathetic. One key
note is struck at the beginning, and supported
to the end ; nor is any ornament introduced,
but what is perfectly concordant with the
general tone or melody. The events recorded,
are all serious and grave; the sceneiy through-
out, wild and romantic. The extended heath
by the sea shore; the mountain shaded with
mist; the torrent rushing through a solitary
valley ; the scattered oaks, and the tombs of
warriors overgrown with moss; all produce a
solemn attention in the mind, and prepare it
ibr great and extraordinary events. We find
not in Ossian, an imagination that sports itself,
and dresses out gay trifles t(j please the fancy.
His poetry, more perhaps than that of any other
writer, deserves to be styled. The Poetry of the
.Heart. It is a heart penetrated with noble sen-
timents, and with sublime and tender passions ;
a heart that glows, and kindles the fancy ; a