li 



While she speaks, a mighty warrior appears, riding ovei- 

 the waves, upon a magic steed. Reaching the shore, he 

 rushes forward, and seizes the trembling damsel. A com- 

 bat ensues, between him and the Finian chiefs, iu Avhich 

 he falls; and, immediately after, receives sepulchral ho- 

 nours. The maid continues in the camp. Miss Brooke 

 concludes, from the following passage in the poem, that 

 the story does not end here. 



Woe to the champions of that lovely dame! 

 Woe to the land, to which her beauty camte! 



On these lines, she observes^ in a note, " It is probable, 

 " that this passage alludes to some subsequent conse- 

 " quences of the death of Moira-borb." It may, there- 

 fore, be presumed, that the heroine of this poem was, 

 like the Armida of Tasso,* a deceitful damsel, whose ob- 

 ject was, to seduce some of the Finian chiefs from their 

 duty; and destroy or enervate them, by female Aviles, and 

 the power of enchantment. Indeed, I am inclined to think, 

 that the Italian and the Irish bards drew the materials, of 

 which their respective tales are composed, from the same 

 source. The similitude is certainly striking. That Tasso 

 never saw the Irish tale, is highly probable ;■!• and, if he 

 , B 2 had 



* Gerusal. Liberata, Canto IV. 



t It cannot be safely asserted, that the metrical tales of the Irish were 

 known on the Continent; but it is an undoubted fact, that the Irish bards 

 not only imitated, but sometimes translated, the French and Italian romances. 

 An Irish version of Huon de Courdcaux still exists. It may, however, be 

 supposed, that the translations and imitations, to which I allude, were sub- 

 sequent 



