♦ 203 



may have been ornamented with bosses of metal, but that these 

 bosses could give to wicker or leather the extraordinary power of 

 making it sound so audibly as to alarm a whole country, with all its 

 tribes, was reserved for the modern Ossian and his father, Mr. Mac- 

 pherson, to discover. 



V. Sards conducting Armies. 



The celebrating of the great actions of heroes was always known 

 to be a principal part of the duties of the bards ; but it was not gene- 

 rally known that the leading of armies formed any part of the duties 

 imposed on them. Ossian, however, leads us to wonderful discove- 

 ries, and we find Carril, an aged bard, leading off from the field of 

 battle, a beaten army, while Cuchullin and Connel remain to cover 

 the retreat. — Fingal, B. II. p.31. o. ed. 



Let the assertors of the authenticity of Ossian take all the advan- 

 tages that this " internal proof" affords them. 



VI. Praying fijr the Souls of the Dead. 



Mr. Macpherson assured us in his Dissertation, n. ed. p,\0, 

 that there are no traces of religion to be found in the poems of 

 Ossian; but in making this assertion, he must, surely, have over- 

 looked the devotion with which the bard and his heroes in many 

 places, like true Romanists, pray for the repose of the souls of theij- 

 deceased friends, in the following pious ejaculations : " Peace to the 

 souls of the heroes." — Fingal, B. I. p. 11. o. ed. " Blest be thy soul, 

 thou king of swords." — Fingal, B. III. p. 51. a. ed. " Blest be thy 

 soul, O king of Lora." — Battle of Lor a, p. 362, n. ed. " Blest be 

 thy soul in death, O chief of shady Cromla." — Death of Cuchullin, 



VOL. XVI. E E 



