Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

IX.] SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. 2^^
Dark is Du-chomar in his wrath ;
Bloody to me is thy hand ;
Mine enemy thou art, but reach me the sword —
Dear to me is Cabad and his blood." '
He gives her the sword, she plunges it in his breast.
Falling, he entreats her to draw the sword from his
wound. As she approaches he slays her.
One of the standing arguments used by Dr. Johnson
and others to prove that MacPherson's Ossimi was a
shameless imposture, was the generosity of heart, the
nobility of nature, and the refined and delicate senti-
ment, attributed in these poems to Fingal and his com-
rades ; if they lived when they were said to have lived,
they must, it was alleged, have been ferocious savages.
This, no doubt, was a natural objection. But one
fact is worth a world of such hypotheses. Here is
the description of Finn, as it is found in one of the
fragments of Ossianic song, about which no doubt can
be raised, for it has been preserved in the book of the
Dean of Lismore, and that was written about A.D. 1520.
The fragment when thus written down by the Dean was
attributed to Ossian, who then was reckoned a poet of
unknown antiquity. The following is the bare literal
translation of it :
' Both poet and chief,
Braver than kings,
Firm chief of the Feinne,
Lord of all lands.
Foremost always,
T