"The wind is up, hark how it howls! methinks A part, omitted in the copy sent to Gray 37, was inserted afterwards from the tragedy of Douglas; "Red came the river down, and loud and oft and the concluding incident is borrowed from Thomson. In Calthon and Colmal, "the sun appears in the west, "after the steps of his brightness have passed behind a "storm; the green hills lift their dewy heads; the blue "streams rejoice in the vale. The aged hero comes forth " on his staff; his grey hair glitters in the beam;" all but the last image of Young's, professedly from Milton. "If chance the radiant sun with farewel sweet, PAR. LOST. "Here, like a shepherd gazing from his hut, Oscar's Soliloquy, when alone in Caros, on the approach of the enemy, is written in emulation of Ulysses' soliloquy in the Iliad, when oppressed by numbers: his voice, “like "the noise of a cave when the sea of Togormo rolls before " it," is transcribed from Milton; 27 Mason's edit. of Gray's Poems and Letters, iv. 61. oct "As when hollow rocks retain "The sound of blustering winds, which all night long "Had raised the sea;" and his ghost, travelling in the light of his steel, i. 195. from Isaiah, "travelling in the greatness of his strength,' lxiii. 1. Our youth is compared in Inis-thona, to the dream of the hunter; from Job, xx. 8. and the Psalmist, xc. 9.; and " ye sons of the chase stand far distant, nor disturb "the dreams of Ossian," i. 202. from the Song of Solomon, iii. 5. But in Berrathon, the generations of men are at once compared, with Horace, to waves, and with Homer, to the annual succession of leaves. "The chiefs of other "times are departed. The sons of future days shall pass "away. Another race shall arise. The people are like the ❝ waves of ocean; like the leaves of woody Morven, they "pass away in the rustling blast, and other leaves lift their "C green heads." Oin περ φύλλων γενεή, τοιήδε καὶ ἀνδρων. Φύλλα ταμέν τ' ανεμος χαμάδις χέει, αλλα δε θ' ύλη "Hæres IL. vi. 146. "Hæredem alterius, velut unda supervenit undam.” "Prima cadunt." HOR. That the same ideas which Pindar, Sophocles, and Euripides were proud to adopt from Homer, and Pope was content to transcribe from Horace, should occur fortuitously, in the same words, to the Celtick bard, is a supposition too gross for the most credulous to believe. muse might betray imitation, the addresses uniformly prefixed to the lesser poems are studiously omitted. Fingal opens abruptly with Cuthullin reclined under Tura's wall, nine centuries before towers or castles were erected in Ireland 38. In the transition to Swaran, it is impossible not to recognize Milton's Satan. "I beheld their chief, tall as a "rock of ice. His spear is a blasted pine. His shield the "rising moon." "His ponderous shield "Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb "At evening." "His spear, to equal which the tallest pine, Even Calmar's hyperbolical rants, "Rise, ye dark winds "of Erin, rise! roar whirlwinds of Lara of hinds: amidst "the tempest let me die, torn in a cloud by angry ghosts of men; if ever chase was sport to me like the battle of "shields;" is derived from Milton's imitation of Virgil: "While we, perhaps, "Designing, or exhorting glorious war, "Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled, "Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey "Of wracking whirlwinds." PAR. LOST, I. "Illum expirantem transfixo pectore flammas EN. I. Instead of the horse litter represented by Blair as set with Scotch pebbles, Cuthullin's car is no obscure imitation 3 O'Conor's Dissert. 81. 174. 2d edit, of Solomon's chariot, Juno's car, and the chariot of the sun. "It bends behind like a wave near a rock; like the golden "mist of the heath. Its sides are embossed with stones, "and sparkle like the sea round the boat of night. Of po"lished yew is its beam, and its seat of the smoothest bone; "the sides are replenished with spears, and the bottom is "the footstool of heroes." In Solomon's bed or chariot, "The bottom thereof is of gold, the covering thereof of "purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the "daughters of Jerusalem." Canticles. "The car behind an arching figure bore, "Aureus axis erat; temo aureus, aurea summæ "Curvatura rotæ, radiorum argenteus ordo. "Per juga Chrysolithi, positæque ex ordine gemmæ, "Clara repercusso reddebant lumina Phœbo." Of polished yew is the beam, is "silver the beam,” and the temo aureus of Ovid; its sides studded with sparkling stones, per juga chrysolithi; but the bottom paved with love, is judiciously converted into the footstool of herocs; and it bends behind, from "the car behind," and, "the bending "concave," like the golden mist, an allusion which the author has since suppressed. The subsequent battle is transcribed indisputably from Pope's Homer. "Like autumn's "dark storms, pouring from two echcing hills, towards each "other approached the heroes. Like two deep streams, "meeting, mixing, and roaring on the plain; loud, rough, "As when the winds ascending by degrees "Cuthullin's sword was like the beam of heaven, when it "pierces the sons of the vale; the people are blasted and fall, "and all the bills are burning around." "And yet its flame unquenched, "Th' unconquerable lightning struggles through"And fires the mountains with redoubled rage. "Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering pine, "Stands a sad shattered trunk, and stretched below, "A lifeless group, the blasted cattle lie.” THOMSON'S SUMMER. Or, "The people are blasted and fall, and all the hills "are burning around." Cuthullin's encounter with Swaran, is copied from Milton's encounter of Satan and Death. Who are those on "Lena's heath, those so gloomy and dark? who are those "like two clouds, and their swords like lightning above "them? The little hils are troubled around; the rocks "tremble with all their moss. Who is it but ocean's son, "and the carborne chief of Erin ?" "Each at the head "Levelled his deadly aim, and such a frown. |