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more weight has been laid on it, than it will sustain. Certainly, we are 

 warranted in affirming, that no poet can employ ornaments or images 

 to which he is a total stranger. He who never saw or heard of a 

 lion, could never think of comparing a hero to that formidable animal . 

 But nothing is more common than to borrow imagery and description 

 from foreign sources. Their novelty recommends them, and why not 

 adopt them, as we adopt historical and geographical facts, from the 

 authority of others .'' Homer never saw a Chimaera, nor the monsters 

 that barked around Scylla. But he had heard of them, and placed 

 them among his miracula speciosa. On the supposition that Mac- 

 pherson's Ossian did write the poems ascribed to him, he might have 

 employed Roman imagery, and allusions to Roman history, customs, 

 encampments, marches, battles, not only with manifest propriety, 

 but with great advantage to his credibility. For the heroes whose 

 exploits he sings, and in whose renown he shared, overcame the king 

 of the world, and took spoil from the strangers ! Why does he not 

 dwell on these facts, and tell us the names of some of the Roman 

 captives, for the Celtic heroes were too generous to put all their pri- 

 soners to the sword ? Were they also too generous to wear their 

 arms, to erect trophies of their spears and shields, or to breathe in 

 their songs of triumph a hint of the dismay which would pervade "the 

 eternal city," on hearing of the overthrow of her legions by the victo- 

 rious arms of the Gael ? If "no foreign ornaments are sought after," 

 how did ^'showers of blood — and gates of brass, (See Lathmon, vol. i. 

 p. 273,) — thunders in the bosom of the ground, and earthquakes that 

 shake the green-vallied Erin from sea to sea," find their way into the 

 compositions of the Celtic poet ? Whence the Christian benedictions 

 which he sometimes puts into the mouth of his heroes .'' Whence " the 

 spirit of heaven," and " the vapours of death" — with the apples of 

 gold, the sparkling wine, and the gem-studded cups, that gladdened 

 the kings of the world ? 



