253 



The word Eas signifies a waterfall, heap, or cataract, where the 

 water is precipitated from an eminence, and of course makes a consi- 

 derable noise; and on this idea ''Mac bohhair na mhoill" is translated 

 by Miss Brooke " deafening son of the heap : " but we have the autho- 

 rity of an ancient Irish manuscript, that the Eas had its name from 

 Ruadh mac Bobhair, who was there accidentally killed by falling 

 from the summit. The Scotch Ossian, however, makes his cataract 

 softly murmur — " the fall of Roya that softly murmurs." 



In the Scotch copy, the pursuer of the lady is called " Dyre 

 horb." In the Irish " Moighre borb" Macpherson differs from 

 both, and calls him " Borbar." Neither the Scotch nor the Irish 

 poem gives any other name for the lady but " Neyn Re heir fa 

 hwne," or " Inghean Righ, thire fo thuinn ;" but Mr. Macpherson 

 has supplied these defects, and christened the distressed damsel 

 " Fainasollis." The Highland Society, in their publication of the 

 " Poems of Ossian in the original Gaelic," have not favoured us with 

 the original episode of " Borbar and Fainasollis," but have pru- 

 dently supplied its place by four lines of * * * * See vol. ii. 

 p. 134. 



The third poem, like the two foregoing, is Irish, and is ascribed, 

 not to Ossian, but to- " Fergus flidh," or " Fergus the poet, the son 

 of Fionn Mac Cubhail, and brother of Ossian. It is on the battle of 

 Gavra, where Oscar, the son of Ossian, was killed, and where the 

 Feinne were so weakened as never to be able to recover their former 

 consequence. There are at least three poems, of considerable anti- 

 quity, in Irish, written on the battle of Gavra, upon which Mr. 

 Macpherson founded his poem of" Temora." The poem now before 

 Us shows, in the second line, that the Feinne were Irish : 



. . "Innis dowin a Em% 



lUe Feyni Errin." 



L L 2 



O 



