CELT AND SAXON. 153 



beginning to end. One of MacPherson's acknowledged 

 pieces, entitled the Cave, which may be found in a well- 

 known critique on Laing's Ossian, by Sir Walter Scott 

 (see Edin. Review, No. 13), and MacColl's address to 

 Loch Lomond, are of this sort of picture-gallery class. 

 We have nothing quite like them in the poetry of the 

 Lowlands, where natural imagery is made to hold a sub- 

 ordinate place to sentiment and narrative, and where 

 description at its best serves but to mark the scene on 

 which some reflection is grounded or in which some 

 action is performed. Perhaps of all our Saxon poets, 

 Professor Wilson approaches nearest in this respect to a 

 Celtic one.' 



