Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 1

174 A CRITICAL DISSERTATION ON
mg, it presents the image more complete, shews
us more at one glance, than a feeble imagination
is able to do, by turning its object round and
round into a variety of lights. Tacitus is of all
prose writers the most concise. He has even a
degree of abruptness resembling our author:
yet no writer is more eminent for lively descrip-
tion. When Fingal, after having conquered the
haughty Swaran, proposes to dismiss him with
honour : " Raise to-morrow thy white sails to
" the wind, thou brother of Agandecca !" He
conveys, by thus addressing his enemy, a strong-
er impression of the emotions then passing with-
in his mind, than if whole paragraphs had been
spent in describing the conflict between resent-
ment against Swaran and the tender remem-
brance of his ancient love. No amplification is
needed to give us the most full idea of a hardy
veteran, after the few following words : " His
" shield is marked with the strokes of battle ;
" his red eye despises danger." When Oscar,
left alone, was surrounded by foes, " he stood,"
it is said, " growing in his place, like the flood
" of the narrow vale ;" a happy representation
of one, who, by daring intrepidity in the midst
of danger, seems to increase in his appearance,
and becomes more formidable every moment,
like the sudden rising of the torrent hemmed in
by the valley. And a whole crowd of ideas,