35 



It is evident that the two passages cannot be from a common 



original. 



Macpherson, line 18. 



" I beheld their chief," says Moran, 



" Tall as a glittering rock. 



His spear is a blasted pine. 



His shield the rising moon ! 



He sat on the shore ! 



Like a cloud of mist on the silent hill !" 



Ross» 



" I beheld their chief," said Moran, 



" Their hero is like a rock. 



His spear like a fir on the mountain cliff. 



Like the rising moon his shield. 



He sat upon a rock on the shore. 



Like the mist on yonder hill." 



Mr. Ross is terribly severe on Macpherson for giving his lines as a 

 translation of Ossian. For there is no such epithet as glittering in the 

 original ; and what he says of the spear is " ridiculously absurd ; for 

 it absolutely constitutes the spear a blasted pine; and no poet of real 

 genius would compare the spear of a hero to a blasted tree, which 

 conveys the idea of weakness, not of strength. * « « * 'j^j^g 

 true poet of nature knew better things, and the image which he pre- 

 sents to the mind is one of the most picturesque, sublime, and beau- 

 tiful, in the whole compass of nature." 



Notwithstanding this " most sublime, and beautiful, and pictu- 

 resque" panegyric, we are still so deficient in taste, as to prefer the 

 old version to the new. If the hero were like a rock for firmness or 

 strength, or any other quality, being clothed in mail he was like a 

 glittering rock,* unless his armour had contracted rust from the salt 

 sea spray, and this is not mentioned. The original of the compari- 

 son of a spear to a pine, is to be found in the club of Polyphemus, 

 which Homer equals to the mast of a ship, otraov ^' i<^ov vrjog, 

 Oddy. ix. 322. Virgil terms it a truncated pine. Trunca manum 

 pinus regit, et vestigia firmat. — ^En. iii. 659. Our own great poet 



* In the first edition, the hero was tall as a rock of ICB, but this being found too frigid a 

 comparison, it was changed to a flittering rock. 



r 2 



