Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 1

THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 125
admired. Ossian certainly shews no less art in
aggrandizing Fingal. Nothing could be more
happily imagined for this purpose than the whole
management of the last battle, wherein Gaul
the son of Morni, had besought Fingal to retire,
and to leave to him and his other chiefs the ho-
nour of the day. The generosity of the king
in agreeing to this proposal ; the majesty with
which he retreats to the hill, from whence he
was to behold the engagement, attended by his
bards, and waving the lightning of his sword ;
his perceiving the chiefs overpowered by num
hers, but from unwillingness to deprive them
of the glory of victory by coming in person to
their assistance, first sending UUin, the bard, to
animate their courage; and at last, when the
danger becomes more pressing, his rising in his
might, and interposing, like a divinity, to decide
the doubtful fate of the day; are all circum-
stances contrived with so much art as plainly
discover the Celtic bards to have been not un-
practised in heroic poetry.
The story which is the foundation of the
Iliad, is in itself as simple as that of Fingal. A
quarrel arises between Achilles and Agamemnon
concerning a female slave ; on which Achilles,
apprehendmg himself to be injured, withdraws
his assistance from the rest of the Greeks. The
Greeks fall into great distress, and beseech him