370 



NOVEMBER. 



full, a free, and an unwearied hand. If this be 

 true, it is wonderful ; but I shall choose not to 

 believe it true. I shall choose to think of 

 Ossian as the ancient arid veritable bard, and 

 Macpherson as the fortunate fellow, who found 

 his scattered lays, and who perhaps added links 

 and amendments (to use the word in a parlia- 

 mentary sense) of his own. Whatever be the 

 opinion of fickle fashion, it is a book pre- 

 eminently fitted for the November fire-side: 

 unrivalled in graphic touches which bring the 

 character of the season before you, and serve 

 to touch the heart with an unworldly tender- 

 ness, a boon of no little consequence in these 

 money-getting and artificial days. We have 

 not the Alpine glooms and lonely majesty of 

 Ossian' s hilly land ; but we are now surround- 

 ed by precisely the melancholy images in which 

 he delights. We are in a month of darkness, 

 storms, and mists; of the whirling away of the 

 withered leaves, and the introduction to com- 

 plete winter. Rain, hail, and wind, chase each 

 other over Jhe fields, and amongst the woods in 

 rapid alternations. The flowers are gone ; the 

 long grass stands amongst the woodland thick- 

 ets withered, bleached, and sere; the fern is 



