of ftreams, no found of the harp, from the rocks! Come, thou huntrefs of Lutha, fend back his foul to the bard.

I LOOK forward to Lochlin of lakes, to the dark, ridgy bay of U-thórno, where Fingal defcended from ocean, from the roar of winds. Few are the heroes of Morven, in a land unknown!-Starno fent a dweller of Loda, to bid Fingal to the feaft; but the king remembred the past, and all his rage arose.

NOR Gormal's moffy towers, nor Starno shall Fingal behold. Deaths wander, like fhadows, over his fiery foul. Do I forget that beam of

Iniftore. After ftaying a few days at Carric-thura, the refidence of Cathulla, the king fet fail, to return to Scotland; but a violent ftorm arifing, his ships were driven into a bay of Scandinavia, near Gormal, the feat of Starno, king of Lochlin, his avowed enemy. Starno, upon the appearance of ftrangers on his coaft, fummoned together the neighbouring tribes, and advanced, in a hoftile manner, towards the bay of U-thorno, where Fingal had taken fhelter. Upon difcovering who the ftrangers were, and fearing the valour of Fingal, which he had, more than once, experienced before, he refolved to accomplish by treachery, what he was afraid he should fail in by open force. He invited, therefore, Fingal to a feaft, at which he intended to affaffinate him. The king prudently declined to go, and Starno betook himself to arms.- -The fequel of the ftory may be learned from the poem itself.

light, the white-handed daughter * of kings? Go, fon of Loda; his words are but blafts to Fingal: blafts, that, to and fro, roll the thistle, in autumnal vales.

DUTH-MARUNO †, arm of death! Crommaglas, of iron fhields! Struthmor, dweller of battle's wing! Cormar, whofe fhips bound on feas, careless as the courfe of a meteor, on dark ftreaming clouds! Arife, around me, children of heroes, in a land unknown. Let each look on his fhield, like Trenmor, the ruler of battles. "Come down, faid the king, thou dweller be

Agandecca, the daughter of Starno, whom her father killed, on account of her difcovering to Fingal, a plot laid against his life. Her story is related at large, in the third book of Fingal.

+ Duth maruno is a name very famous in tradition. Many of his great actions are handed down, but the poems, which contained the detail of them, are long fince loft. He lived, it is fuppofed, in that part of the north of Scotland, which is over against Orkney. Duth-maruno, Cromma-glas, Struthmor, and Cormar, are mentioned, as attending Comhal, in his laft battle againft the tribe of Morni, in a poem, which is ftill preserved. It is not the work of Offian; the phrafeology betrays it to be a modern compofition. It is fomething like those trivial compofitions, which the Irish bards forged, under the name of Offian, in the fifteenth and fixteenth centuries.-Duthmaruno fignifies, black and steady; Cromma-glas, bending and fwarthy; Struthmor, rearing stream; Cormar, expert at sea.

tween

1

tween the harps. Thou fhalt roll this ftream away, or dwell with me in earth.”

AROUND him they rofe in wrath.-No words came forth: they feized their fpears. Each foul is rolled into itself.-At length the fudden clang is waked, on all their echoing fhields. Each took his hill, by night; at intervals, they darkly food. Unequal bursts the hum of fongs, between the roaring wind-Broad over them rofe the moon.-In his arms, came tall Duthmaruno; he from Croma-charn of rocks, ftern hunter of the boar. In his dark boat he rofe on waves, when Crumthormoth awaked its woods. In the chace he fhone, among his foes:

No fear was thine, Duth-maruno.

SON of Comhal, he said, my steps fhall be forward thro' night. From this fhield I fhall view them, over their gleaming tribes. Starno, of lakes, is before me, and Swaran, the foe of ftrangers. Their words are not in vain, by Loda's ftone of power.-If Duth-maruno returns not, his spouse is lonely, at home, where ineet two roaring ftreams, on Crathmo-craulo's plain. Around are hills, with their woods; the

* Crumthormoth, one of the Orkney or Shetland inlands. The name is not of Galic original. It was subject to its own petty king, who is mentioned in one of Offian's poems.

ocean

ocean is rolling near. My fon looks on screaming fea-fowl, young wanderer of the field. Give the head of a boar to Can-dona *, tell him of

* Cean-daona, head of the people, the fon of Duth-maruno. He became afterwards famous, in the expeditions of Offian, after the death of Fingal. The traditional tales concerning him are very numerous, and, from the epithet, in them, bestowed on him (Candona of boars) it would appear, that he applied himself to that kind of hunting, which his father, in this paragraph, is so anxious to recommend to him. As I have mentioned the traditional tales of the Highlands, it may not be improper here, to give fome account of them. After the expulfion of the bards, from the houses of the chiefs, they being an indolent race of men, owed all their subsistence to the generosity of the vulgar, whom they diverted with repeating the compofitions of their predeceffors, and running up the genealogies of their entertainers to the family of their chiefs. As this fubject was, however, foon exhaufted, they were obliged to have recourse to invention, and form ftories having no foundation in fact which were swallowed, with great credulity, by an ignorant multitude. By frequent repeating, the fable grew upon their hands, and, as each threw in whatever circumftance he thought conducive to raife the admiration of his hearers, the ftory became, at laft, fo devoid of all probability, that even the vulgar themfelves did not believe it. They, however, liked the tales fo well, that the bards found their advantage in turning profeffed tale-makers. They then launched out into the wildest regions of fiction and romance. I firmly believe, there are more ftories of giants, enchanted castles, dwarfs, and palfreys, in the Highlands, than in any country in Europe. Thefe tales, it is certain, like other romantic

of his father's joy, when the briftly strength of I-thorno rolled on his lifted fpear.

NOT forgetting my fathers, faid Fingal, I have bounded over ridgy feas: theirs was the times of danger, in the days of old. Nor gathers darkness on me, before foes, tho' I am young, in my locks.-Chief of Crathmo-craulo, the field of night is mine.

He rushed, in all his arms, wide-bounding over Turthor's ftream, that fent its fullen roar, by night, thro' Gormal's mifty vale.-A moonbeam glittered on a rock; in the midft, ftood a ftately form; a form with floating locks, like Lochlin's white-bofomed maids.-Unequal are her steps, and short: fhe throws a broken fong on wind. At times the toffes her white arms: for grief is in her foul.

compofitions, have many things in them unnatural, and, confequently, difguftful to true tafte, but, I know not how it happens, they command attention more than any other fictions I ever met with.-The extream length of these pieces is very furprifing, fome of them requiring many days to repeat them, but fuch hold they take of the me mory, that few circumftances are ever omitted by those who have received them only from oral tradition: What is more amazing, the very language of the bards is ftill preferved. It is curious to fee, that the defcriptions of magnificence, introduced in these tales, is even fuperior to all the pompous oriental fictions of the kind.

TOR