151 



we consulted maps and other sources of geographical information for 

 this bay. As mountains and headlands, friths, rivers, and bays, are 

 the last places which change their names, even amidst all the revo- 

 lutions of years, the conquests of the sword, and the changes of lan- 

 guage ; how has Moilena had the misfortune to lose its name in a 

 country which still retains its original tongue ?* We can recognize 

 the old district of Reuda (Dat-Riada) in the modern name of 

 Route, in the County of Antrim ; and Macpherson's Innistore in 

 Tory Island, which he has been pleased to transfer to the Orkneys, 

 and his Imiishuna in our own Innishowen, which he would dissever 

 from its native land, and transport to " that part of south Britain 

 which is over against the Irish coast!" But as for the bay of Moilena, 

 we verily believe it is to be found no where but in the terra incog- 

 nita of his own imagination. Walker, in his History of the Irish 

 Bards, (p. 40,) says, that in the County of Donegal, there is a cloud- 

 capt mountain, called Alt Ossoin, around which, according to a 

 learned writer, is the whole scenery so finely described by Macpher- 

 son in his Oisin's Poems ; and to the northward of Lough Derg, are 

 the mountains, caverns, and lakes of Fin." Another author says, 

 that " the traveller, when he finds himself in the vale of Glenariff, 



* Moylena, a plain in Ferakelly, in the King's County, was the scene of a famous 

 pitched battle between Conn of the Hundred Battles and Eugenius Mognuad the Great, of 

 the Hiberian line, king of Munster, in which the latter was defeated and slain. He fell by 

 the hand of Goll, the son of Morna, of the race of Saub, king of Connaught. " There are 

 yet to be seen at this place two hills, in one of which, we are informed, the body of Eugenius 

 was interred, and the corps of Fr<ech the Spaniard, who was also slain there, was entombed 

 in the other."f The celebrated Irish champion, Goll Mac-Morna, is metamorphosed by 

 Macpherson into Gaul, "Fingal's best friend and greatest hero," and, by way of compen- 

 sation; we suppose, for being robbed of his country, and made a Caledonian, compared to 

 the Grecian Ajax.J 



t Ogygia, part iii. c, Ix. J Note at the conclusion of the third book of Fingal. 



