86 



for the royal palace which the Highland Society has presented to us 

 in the verses of some Ossianic school-master, " versihus a quodam 

 Ludimagistro compositis" as Doctor O'Conor remarks. He further 

 observes, that if Fingal, when he slew the six thousand and one deer, 

 had not the good fortune of ^neas, to see the citadel of Carthage, 

 with its rising walls, and the temple of Juno, of which "on brazen 

 steps the marbled threshold rose," he beheld a royal palace of supe- 

 rior magnificence, indicative of all the wealth of Pygmalion. 



Fosgailear an grianan corr 

 Bha ar a thugha le cloimh ian, 

 Bha comlaichean ris do'n or bhuidh 

 Agus ursanan fo f hiundrain. 



The chamber so highly prized is opened. 

 It was covered above with the down of birds, 

 Its doors were yellow with gold, 

 And the side posts were of polished bone. 



Rep. High. Soc. pp. 236, 237. 



Doctor O'Conor's translation follows : 



" Aperitur Regia magnifica 



Cujus laqueare coopertum plumis avium ! 



Portse ejus aurofulvo caelatae 



Et postes ex ossibus limatis ! 



inversely to a chest, is peculiar to the English ; the wing of a house or of an army, is adopted 

 from the Latin ; the wings of the morning and of the winds, from Scripture. But that 

 Ossian anticipating the English idiom (term,) should employ cliadh a basket, literally the 

 same with cista, for the human chest, will be believed only by those who are already per- 

 suaded that the rustling wing of the blast preceded the translation of the Psalms into Earse." 

 Doctor Graham flatly contradicts Mr. Laing, and says, that cliadh is neither literally nor 

 metaphorically the same with Cista. Who shall decide ? our Latin dictionaries render cista 

 a chest, a basket, a maund, (i. e. a great basket,) a panniei'; and our Irish render cliiidh a bas- 

 ket, a cage, the trunk of a man or beast. There is evidently then some similarity between the 

 terms ; the last meaning of the Irish word is clearly metaphorical, but whether its application 

 in this sense be borrowed or original, we shall not affirm. But we feel pretty confident that 

 " $hlighe ghlais mhoir na h-oidhch," is a novel idea in the Gaelic language. The only idea we 

 apprehend, which it would convey to a hero of the times of old, would be that of one of the 

 conchs employed at the nightly feast of shells. ' ■ 



