Ossian Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

120 REPORT ON tHB
The heroes gave a hundred turns of ftrengtli,
By the border of the fea, oiTthe fmooth white beach,
The blaft of their noftrils was heard acrofs the hillocks a
And the noife of their feet in the ftruggle.
Conal was thrown down by the mighty,
Who bound him, without a wound like the reft.
Arduous was the deed he atchieved
On the fhore of the dark-coloured ocean.'
Conal lends for Cuchullin to oppofe the victorious
ftranger, whole progrefs to the combat is defcribed
with the fame fublime and terrible imagery which
is given in Macpherfoir's translation of the Death of
Cuchullin. *
' R'.iiclh e liar le tartar uarnhan,
*S fuaimneaeh arm mar Spiorad Lodda,
Sgaoile gioraig is crith chatha
Fea an rathaid gu grad chòrag.
Mar
* The fame paffage is found almoft verbatim in Smith's Ma-
ftox. ' This paffage,' fays Dr Smith, in a note on that poem,
(Scan Dana, p. 262.) 'is much admired in the original, and is
therefore inferted for the fake of fuch as may underlland it.'
Such ftriking paffages. which, from the imprefllon they make,
are in the mouth of every reciter, are often thus transferred from
one poem to another, when they are applicable to the ftory or
fituation. The fituation of Fingal in the poem of Manos is cer-
tainly better fuited to this poetical defcription of the terror.; of
his march, than that of Cuchullin in this poem of Conloclu
The fubjecl: of this paffage is remarkable, as the Spirit of Lodz,
rias been a caufe of difpute among the inquirers into the authen-
'AW of the poems of Ofl:ut; :