92. 



t^iJ^o folds he is almost as partial as to mist. Thus we read of the 



" Moon swimming through its (the vapour's) folds— folded cloud—folded in a storm— 

 folded in his thoughts— /o/rfeti in mist— folds of darkness— /o^rf* of haiile— folds of war." 



.a 

 Deeming darkness an ingredient in the sublime, he is never wea- 

 ried with introducing it ; hence he gives us : 



"Dark streams— rfari'-skirted night— rfarA-eyed kings — dark-red cloud of Loda— (7ar*- 

 rolling years — dark course of streams — dark oak— rfar A:-robed moon— dark wing — ^/ar/r-rolling 

 deep — dark-hrown years — rfarA-bosomed ships — dark-hrov/n side — thy thoughts are dark^ 

 the death that was dark in his soul — dark as the swelling wave of ocean — in the cave he 

 placed me dark — dark rolls the river — who art thou in the darkness — the blast of darkness — 

 the midst of darkness — no darkness travelled over his brows — darkness covered their beauty — 

 thou hast left us in darkness — then the hero sits in darkness — I stood in the darkness of my 

 siT&agih— darkness gathers on his brows — the darkness of his face — he crept in darkness — he 

 passed on in darkness — darkness shall roll on my side — spirits may descend in darkness — he 

 fled to his ships in darkness — a darkness has met him — silence dark ened every face — she shrunk 

 darkened from Fingal — thou art darkened in thy youth — darkened moons — sadness darkened in 

 his hall — the shield half-covered with clouds is like the darkened moon — nor darkened the .king 

 alone — wrath darkened in his soul — darkening years — darkening ]oy — the storms are darkening 

 — ;-the darkening chiefs — what darkens in Connal's soul — the soul of Ossian darkly rose." 



To compensate for so much darkness, we have an equal quantity 

 of light, brightening, glittering, and gleaming : 



" The light of heaven was in the bosom of Cathmor." Quaere, is this a Celtic idea ? 

 Gladness rose a light on her face — the light of steel — a stream of light — her eyes were like 



manner in which he has employed it, he obligingly informs us, in a note to the eighth 

 book of Temora. " Not all the strength of Homer," he says, " could sustain with dig- 

 nity the minutite of a single combat." Therefore, he with more judgment than Homer, 

 throws a column of mist over the combat of Fingal and Cathmor ; and says, " it were 

 well for some poets to have sometimes thrown mist over their single combats." The idea 

 is manifestly taken from the well-known story of the painting of the sacrifice of Iphigenia 

 by Timanthes. The painter having exhausted his power of depicting grief on the attendants, 

 judiciously threw a column of mist, we mean a veil, over the face of Agamemnon, and left 

 the sorrows that overwhelmed the parent to be imagined by the spectator. 



How did the old Celtic bard become acquainted with the painter of Sicyon ? 



