Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 1

ON THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. CXT
theless diversified in a sensible and striking man-
ner. Foidath. for instance, the general of Cath-
mor, exhibits the perfect picture of a savage chief-
tain: bold and daring, but presumptuous, cruel,
and overbearing. He is distinguished on his first
appearance as the friend of the tyrant Cairbar ;
" His stride is haughty; his red eye rolls in
'• wrath." In his person and whole deportment
he is contrasted with the mild and wise Hidalla,
another leader of the same army, on whose huma-
nity and gentleness he looks with great contempt.
He professealy delights in strife and blood. He
insults over the fallen. He is imperious in his
counsels, and factious vhen they are not followed.
He is unrelenting in all his schemes of revenge,
even to the length of denying the funeral song to
the dead; which, from the injury thereby done to
their ghosts, was, in those days considered as the
greatest barbarity. Fierce to the last, he com-
forts himself in his dying moments v.ith thinking
that his ghost shall often leave its blast to rejoice
over the graves of those he had slain. Yet Ossian,
ever prone to the pathetic, has contrived to throw
into his account of the death, even of this man,
some tender circumstances ; by the moving de-
scription of his daughter Dardulena, the last of his
race.
The character of Foidath tends much to exalt
that of Cathmor, the chief commander, which is
distinguished by the most humane virtues. He
abhors all fraud and cruelty, is famous for his
hospitality to strangers; open to every generous
sentiment, and to every soft and compassionate
feeling. He is so amiable as to divide the reader's
attachment between him and the hero of the poem 5