36 



caught the idea, and enriched it with all his wonted power of ampli- 

 fication : 



" His spear, to equal which the tallest pine, 

 Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast. 

 Of some great ammiral, were but a wand." 



Thence it passed into the hands of James Macpherson, Esq. 

 being in the process of transplantation, blasted; and thence into a 

 new version of his Ossian into Gaelic, again to be revivified and re- 

 produced in an English translation, by the Rev. Thomas Ross, with 

 all its leafy honours thick about it, deep-rooted and unscathed " on 

 a mountain cliff." But we are of opinion that it would have been 

 better to let the blasted pine remain unmolested. It forms no unapt 

 similitude to a spear; a fir tree on a mountain cliff, unless it be 

 blasted, conveys none. Those whom all will acknowledge to be 

 genuine poets of nature, never thought of such a comparison. Homer 

 compares the giant's club, or walking staff, not to a tree growing, but 

 to a tree whose growth was past, namely, the mast of a ship. In Virgil 

 it is irunca pinus, a pine maimed of its head and roots; and in Mil- 

 ton, a pine hewn to be a mast, of course stripped of every leafy and 

 branchy incumbrance. The epithet blasted does not necessarily im- 

 ply the idea of weakness, but of denudation. We do not, however, 

 insist on its propriety. All we contend for is, that Macpherson's 

 comparison is more just and natural, than that either in the Gaelic or 

 in Ross's version. 



Macpherson, line 24. i Ross. 



Many, chief of heroes ! I said ! Leader of strangers, numerous 



Many are our hands of war. | Are the impetuous hosts which rise with thee. 



Well art thou named the mighty man ; . j Fierce warriors of most desperate strokes. 



But many mighty men are seen ; Whose swords are sharp in the strife of 



From Tura's wia^iy walls. heroes : 



But more numerous and mighty chiefs, 



JJ \l Surround the windy Tura. 



