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

OF POEMS. 327
cient name ; though it be likewise probable that a poet of
a later age may have purposely mentioned the Picts and
Sora, to give an air of antiquity to his imitation.
" Truagh nach igcriocha Cruithneach
Na bhf ian fa fuilteach dòrrdha
Do thuitis a òig luthmhair
No igcrich shulchair na Sorcha."
p. 270. 1. 17-20.
Which Miss Brooke translates,
" Why was it not in Sora's barbarous lands
My lovely Conloch fell ?
Or by fierce Pictjsh chiefs, whose ruthless bands
Would joy the cruel tale to tell :
Whose souls are train'd all pity to subdue ;
Whose savage eyes unmov'd that form could view."
p. 23.
It is observable, that the three last lines of the English
are not warranted, in the least, by the original of the ele-
gant translator, of which a close trauslation is as follows :
" Alas, that it was not in the land of Picts, -of the bloody
and fierce Fingalians, that thou didst fall, active youth, or
in the gloomy land of Sorm .'" Yet she may have very pro-
perly considered them as the best that could be imagined
for the purpose of rounding off her stanza.
But, whatever may have been the name or sera of the
authors of Miss Brooke's Conloch, they are not to be
confounded with the composer of Kennedy's edition, which,
though defective in some parts, and corrupted in others,
is couched in a style that far exceeds it in strain, inci-
dent, and diction, and bears the genuine stamp of an early
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