Ossian Collection > Fingal

B. VI. An E P I C P O E M. 79
the w.ive with fongs, and ruflied, with joy, throuf^h
tlie foam ot the ocean *.
* It is allowed by the bed critics that an epic poem
ought to end happily. This rule, in its moll material
circLimllances, is oblerved by the three moll; defervedly
celebrated poets, Homer, Virgil, and Milton ; yet, I
know not how it happens, the conchifions of their poems
throw a melancholy damp on the mind. One leaves his
reader at a funeral; another at the untimely death of a
hero; and a third in the folitary fcenes of an unpeopled
world.
Hi oiy AU^lZTT'iV TATyClf"r-/]o-;Qi l-J-ZCiS'if.U.OiO.
' HOMCU.
Such honours liion ro lier hero paid,
And peaceful flept the mighty Heflor's fiiade. Pope.
Ferrum ad'verjo fub peclore condit
Fernjidus. AJ} illi Jolnjuntur frigoye membra,
Fitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata fub umbras.
Virgil.
He rais'd his arm aloft; and at the word
Deep in his bofom drove the fuining fv/ord.
The dreaming blood dillain'd his arm around.
And the difdainful foul came rufliing thro' the wound.
Dryden.
They, hand in hand, with wandering ftep, and How,
Through Eden took their folitary way. Milton.
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