degree of popularity. He repeats the same image a thousand times, 

 and presents it in every variety of attitude, and in every hue of the 

 prism. The sun, the moon, the stars, meteors, clouds, vapours and 

 mists, wind, light and darkness, grey stones and mossy towers, 

 spears, helmets, and shields, are all confounded together in every 

 page. His poetry resembles the kaleidoscope, an optical toy, which, 

 on every turn presents a new combination of pieces of broken glass, 

 exhibiting, through a lens, a curious variety of shapes and colours, 

 but bearing no similitude to any thing in nature. The mind is at 

 first dazzled and amused with this new species of poetical mosaic, 

 but soon becomes satiated with its constant sameness and inutility. 

 We read whole pages, nay whole poems, and when we have done 

 cannot tell what we have been reading about. We seem to be wrapt 

 in that eternal mist, which must have been the source of Macpher- 

 son's inspiration, the element in which he breathed, and of which his 

 poetical world is composed. , j . 



As the same images and epithets are repeated with a frequency 

 which few would readily credit who have not particularly attended to 

 the subject, it will be necessary to illustrate our position by a few 

 examples. 



u iiiiU 



To begin with his favourite mist : —j^ai rji. . ,, . -.:r) 



" Like the mist of Lano — his robe of mist flew on the wind — like grey and watery 

 mists — stars, each looking faintly through her mist — his friends sit around the king on mist — 

 they are rolled together like mist — Ossian sees the mist that shall receive his ghost — he be- 

 holds the mist that shall form his robe — I see them sitting on mist — mist settles on their four 

 dark hills — ocean's mist — pillars of mist — columns of mist-^day of mist — locks of mist — boars 

 of mist — folds of mist — isle of mist — steeds like wreaths of mist* 



* Macpherson should be called the poet of mist, for no one has known its use better, or 

 employed it more frequently than he. But lest we should not see and appreciate the tasteful 



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