Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

114 Critical Dissertation
amusement to the imagination in tracing- it, n-r
too faint and remote, so as to be apprehended wvth
difficulty ; that they serve either to illustrate the
principal object, and to render the conception of it
more clear and distinct ; or at least, to heighten
and embellish it, by a suitable association of images.
Every country has a scenery peculiar to itself;
and the imagery of a good poet will exhibit it. For
as he copies after nature, his allusions will of course
be taken from those objects which he sees around
him, and which have often struck his fancy. Foi
this reason, in order to judge of the propriety ot
poetical imagery, we ought to be, in some measure,
acquainted with the natural history of the country
where the scene of the poem is laid. The introduction
of foreign images betrays a poet, copying not from
nature, but from other writers. Hence so many
lions, and tigers, and eagles, and serpents, which we
meet with in the similes of modern poets; as if these
animals had acquired some right to a place in poetical
comparisons for ever, because employed by ancient
authors. They employed them with propriety, as
objects generally known in their country ; but they
are absurdly used for illustration by us, who know
them only at second-hand, or by description. To
most readers of modern poetry, it were more to the
purpose to describe lions or tigers by similes taken
from men, than to compare men to lions. Ossian
is very correct in this particular. His imagery is,
without exception, copied from that face of nature
which he saw before his eyes; and by consequence
may be expected to be lively. We meet with no
Grecian or Italian scenery; but with the mists, and
clouds, and storms, of a northern mountainous re-
gion.
No poet abounds more in similes than Ossian.
There are in this collection as many, at least, as in
tl»c whole Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. I am indeed
iiicllDod to think, that the works of both poete are