nks Ossian, as we now possess
him, no poet; and alleges, that if these compositions had been the good
things so many people have thought them, they would, in some way or
other, have breathed their spirit over the poetical genius of the land.
Who knows that they may not do so yet? The time may not have come. But
must all true poetry necessarily create imitation, and a school of
imitators? One sees no reason why it must. Besides, the life which the
poetry of Ossian celebrates, has utterly passed away; and the poetry
itself, good, bad, or indifferent, is so very peculiar, that to imitate
it at all you must almost transcribe it. That, for a good many years,
was often done, but naturally inspired any other feeling than delight or
admiration. But the simple question is, Do the poems of Ossian delight
greatly and widely? We think they do. Nor can we believe that they would
not still delight such a poet as Mr Wordsworth. What dreariness
overspreads them all! What a melancholy spirit shrouds all his heroes,
passing before us on the cloud, after all their battles have been
fought, and their tombs raised on the hill! The very picture of the old
blind Hero-bard himself, often attended by the weeping virgins whom war
has made desolate, is always touching, often sublime. The desert is
peopled with lamenting mortals, and the mists that wrap them with
ghosts, whose remembrances of this life are all dirge and elegy. True,
that the images are few and endlessly reiterated; but that, we suspect,
is the case with all poetry composed not in a philosophic age. The great
and constant appearances of nature suffice, in their simplicity, for all
its purposes. The poet seeks not to vary their character, and his
hearers are willing to be charmed over and over again by the same
strains. We believe that the poetry of Ossian would be destroyed by any
greater distinctness or variety of imagery. And if, indeed, Fingal lived
and Ossian sung, we must believe that the old bard was blind; and we
suspect that in such an age, such a man would, in his blindness, think
dreamily indeed of the torrents, and lakes, and heaths, and clouds, and
mountains, moons and stars, which he had leapt, swam, walked, climbed,
and gazed on in the days of his rejoicing youth. Then has he no
tenderness--no pathos--no beauty? Alas for thousands of hearts and souls
if it be even so! For then are many of their holiest dreams worthless
all, and divinest melancholy a mere complaint of th