Ossian Collection > Critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

/12 A CRITICAL DISSERTATION
armed againfl fynipatlietic forrow. As Fingal hail nvO occafion of
appearing in the adtion cf this poem, OHian makes a very artful
tranfition from his narration, to what was paffing in the halls of
Sehna, Tiie found heard there on the firings of his harp, the con-
cern which Fingal fliows on hearing it, and the invocation of the
ghofts of their fathers, to receive the Heroes falling in a di0ant land,
are introduced with great beauty of imagination to increafe the fo-
lemnity, and to diverfify the fcenery of the poem.
Carric-thura is full of the moft fublime dignity ; and has this ad-
vantage of being more chearful in the fiibjed:, and more happy in
the cataflrophe than moft of the other poems : Though tempered
at the fame time with epifodes in that ftrain of tender melancholy,
which feems to have been the great delight of Offian and the Bards of
his age. Lathmon is peculiarly diftinguiflied, by high generofitv of
fentiment. This is carried fo far, particularly in the refufal of
Gaul, on one fide, to take the advantage of a fleeping foej and of
Lathmon, on the other, to overpower by numbers the two young
warriors, as to recall into one's mind the manners of Chivalry ;
fome refemblance to which may perhaps be fuggefted by other
incidents in this colledlion , of Poems. Chivalry, however,
took rife in an age and country too remote from thofe of
Ollian to admit the fufpicion that the one could have borrowed
any thing from the other. So far as Chivalry had any real
exiftence, the fame military enthufiafm, which gave birth to
it in the feudal times, might, in the days of Offian, that is, in the
infancy of a rifing ftate, through the operation of the fame caufe,
very naturally produce effedts of the fame kind on the minds and
manners of men. So far as Chivalry was an ideal fyftem exifting
only in romance, it will not be thought furprlfing, when we refiedt
on the account before given of the Celtic Bards, that this ima-
ginary refinement of heroic manners fhould be found among them,
as much, at leafl, as among the T'robadores, or flroUing Proven9al
Bards, in the loth or i ith century; whofe fongs, it is faid, firfl
gave rife to thofe romantic ideas of heroifm, which for fo long a
time enchanted Europe -}-. Offian's heroes have all the gallantry
t Vid. Huetius de originc fabularum Romanenfmm.
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