m 



with an image as pathetic as it is picturesque. There is nothing Uke 

 it in Homer. - 



Graham argues with plausibiHty, that the aspect of external na- 

 ture, and the constitution of the human mind, are every where the 

 same, and that consequently we need not be surprised to meet paral- 

 lelisms of thought and expression in different languages. This, to a 

 certain extent, is admitted. But it is not for some casual coinci- 

 dences, nor " vague similarities," as Doctor Graham is pleased to 

 term Macpherson's plagiarisms, quoted by Mr. Laing, nor on princi- 

 ples like those by which Fluellan identified Macedonia and Mon- 

 mouth, that the English Ossian is accused; but for broad, plain, 

 palpable, and frequent imitation of thought, of diction, and even of 

 singular structure of sentences. There are certain peculiarities of 

 sentiment, of manners, of imagery and expression, which, belonging 

 exclusively to one region, are no more to be expected in another, than 

 rein deer on the sands of the torrid zone, or the elephant in Siberia. 

 Who would not be amazed to hear the epics of Homer rhapsodized 

 by a Celtic bard, or the Canticles of Solomon warbled forth in the 

 songs of Selma ? 



We cannot attribute it to mere casual coincidence, that many of 

 Ossian's similes have not only a general, but a very particular 

 resemblance to those of the greatest poets, though presented to 

 us in various guise, with different appendages, and in different 

 colours. We might pass over the comparison of the two sons of 

 Usnoth, to " two young trees in the valley, growing in a shower," 

 though we can find something like it in Homer ; and Fingal's ques- 

 tion, "stand they like a silent wood?" and "the white-bosomed 

 maids, beholding them above like a grove ;" and again, in the 

 same poem, Carthon, they " stood like a silent grove that lifts its 

 head in Gormal." But what shall we say, when we find the same 



