soul! She mourned him in the field of blood "; but still she hoped for his return. Her white bosom is seen from her robe, as the moon from the clouds of night", when its edge heaves white on the view, from the darkness, which covers its orb. Her voice was softer than the harp to raise the song of grief. Her soul was fixed on Grudar. The secret look of her eye was his. "When shalt thou come in thine arms, thou mighty in the war?” 66 Take, Brassolis," Cairbar came and said, "take, Brassolis, this shield of blood. Fix it on high within my hall, the armour of my foe!" Her soft heart beat against her side. Distracted, pale, she flew. She found her youth in all his blood; she died on Cromla's heath. Here "Wherefore, 71 She mourned him in the field of blood.] that field was called the field of blood unto this day." MAT. xxvii. 8. Acтs, i. 19. 72 Her white bosom is seen from her robe, as the moon from the clouds of night.] The remainder of the simile, not inserted in the first editions, "when its edge heaves white on the view, from the darkness which covers its orb," points out the original in THOMSON'S Autumn. Meanwhile the moon, Full orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds, The same simile may be found in the Highlander, vi. 21. 48 rests their dust, Cuthullin 73, these lonely yews sprung from their tombs, and shade them from the storm 74. Fair was Brassolis on the plain ! Stately was Grudar on the hill! The bard shall preserve their names, and send them down to future times!" "Pleasant is thy voice, O Carril," said the blue-eyed chief of Erin. "Pleasant are the words of other times! They are like the calm shower of spring 75; when the sun looks on the wi. 73 Here rests their dust, Cuthullin.] GRAY'S Elegy. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth. 74 These lonely yews shade them from the storm.] In the first editions, "These two lonely yews sprung from their tombs, and to meet on high;" the alteration of which was suggested to the translator by Blair's criticism; that "this sympathy of the trees with the lovers, might be reckoned to border on an Italian conceit." The conceit which the critic reprobates, and the translator has rejected, was not worse than "Grudar like a sunbeam fell;" (in the latter editions, he "fell in his blood;") or, "Erin's torrents shall shew the red foam of the blood of his pride;" (p. 45.) or, another passage, "But ah! why ever lowed the bull? the spotted bull, leaping like snow!" Et vitula tu dignus et hic. But the conceit was adopted from one of the Irish ballads concerning Deirdac, (Macpherson's Darthula); and may be found in many English ballads both of the true, and of the pseud-antique. See Reliques of Ancient Engl. Poetry, iii. 120.---241.; Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ii. 128. 75 The words of other times---are like the calm shower of spring.] HOMER'S Iliad, ii. 222. Και ΕΠΕΑ ΝΙΦΑΔΕΣΣΙΝ εοικότα ΧΕΙΜΕΡΙΗΣΙΝ. field, and the light cloud flies over the hills. O strike the harp in praise of my love! the lonely sun-beam of Dunscaith. Strike the harp in the praise of Bragela; she that I left in the Isle of Mist, the spouse of Semo's son ! Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rock, to find the sails of Cuthullin? The sea is rolling distant far; its white foam deceives thee for my sails. Retire, for it is night, my love 76; the dark "His words like showers of winter snow;" (MACPHERSON'S HOmer, v. i. p. 84.) altered to the calm shower of spring, from a text repeatedly imitated in the sequel. "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the gras..? DEUT. XXXII, 2. "With apostrophes, our 76 Retire, for it is night, my love.] poet abounds. Witness the apostrophe to the maid of Inistore; and that inimitably fine one of Cuthullin to Bragela. He commands the harp to be struck in her praise; and the mention of Bragela's name immediately suggesting a crowd of tender ideas, Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rocks,' he exclaims, to find the sails of Cuthullin? &c. The sea is rolling far distant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my sails." BLAIR. 6 The apostrophe to Bragela is, in fact, a repetition of the apostrophe to the maid of Inistore, both of which are derived from the same apostrophe to Emma, in Hardyknute. "Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rocks, to find the sails of Cuthullin?" "Weep on the rocks of roaring winds. head over the waves!" "The sea is roaring, white foam shall deceive thee for my sails." VOL. I. D Bend thy fair distant far; its winds sing in thy hair. my feasts; think of the Retire to the halls of times that are past. I will not return till the storm of war is ceased. O Connal! speak of war and arms, and send her from my mind. Lovely, with her flowing hair, is the white-bosomed daughter of Sorglan." Connal, slow to speak, replied, "Guard against the race of Ocean. Send thy troop of night abroad, and watch the strength of Swaran. On Norway's coast the widowed dame Before her mate appears. Cease, Emma, cease to hope in vain. "And now, his imagination being wrought up to conceive her as at that moment really in this situation, he becomes afraid of the harm she may receive from the inclemency of the night; and, with an enthusiasm happy and affecting, though beyond the cautious strain of modern poetry, he proceeds to bid her "retire, for it is night, my love; the dark winds sigh in thy hair." BLAIR. Judicious apostrophes, to absent or inanimate objects, are among the most beautiful figures of poetry; but, to desire an object, present only in imagination, to retire from the night. air, or the weather, is the mere affectation of poetical enthusiasm. Let us suppose Ulysses, sitting on the shore of Calypso's isle, to apostrophise Penelope, bidding her retire to her palace from the night air; and we shall soon discover, whether this is an enthusiasm, "happy and affecting beyond the cautious strain of modern poetry," or the sentimental extravagance of a modern romance. Cuthullin! I am for peace, till the race of Selma come ""; till Fingal come, the first of men, and beam, like the sun, on our fields !" The hero struck the shield of alarms, the warriors of the night moved on! The rest lay in the heath of the deer, and slept beneath the dusky wind. The ghosts of the lately dead were near, and swam on the gloomy clouds: and far distant, in the dark silence of Lena, the feeble voices of death were faintly heard. 77 The race of Selma.] "The race of the desart," in the first editions; one of the many proofs, that there was no prototype for the pretended translation. Fingal's residence was at Almhuin, the hill of Allen, in the province of Leinster; (Keating, 271,) which Macpherson has uniformly altered to Albion; but Selma seems to be either a transposition of Salem, or Sailm, in the Irish ballads of Ossian and Phadrich n'en Sailm, Patrick of Psalms, converted into Selma. Neither Selma, the palace of the great Fingal, nor the ancient kingdom or kings of Morven, were ever heard of, or known to exist in Scotland. The plains of Troy, the tomb of Achilles, the Scamander, Simois, and the topographical scenes and descriptions of the Iliad, were at all times familiarly known to the Greeks; and the situation of Selma in Scotland, and of Tura, Cromla, and Lubar, &c. in Ireland, should have been preserved by the same traditions with the poems themselves. But the translator was ignorant of the kingdom of Dalriada, and òf the genuine antiquities of his own country, when he converted Morven, a single parish in Argyleshire, into a kingdom comprehending the north west of Scotland. |