mple of fame, or, indeed, quite behind the vestibule out of the
way! To see the Swabian enter in, crowned, to a flourish of somewhat
barbarous music, was indeed bad enough, but Mr. MacPherson!

They manage these things rather better in France, _vide passim_ "La
Revue Celtique."

Of the literary value of the bardic literature I fear to write at all,
lest I should not know how to make an end. Rude indeed it is, but
great. Like the central chamber of that huge tumulus [Note: New Grange
anciently Cnobgha, and now also Knowth.] on the Boyne, overarched with
massive unhewn rocks, its very ruggedness strikes an awe which the
orderly arrangement of smaller and more reasonable thoughts, cut smooth
by instruments inherited from classic times, fails so often to inspire.
The labour of the Attic chisel may be seen since its invention in every
other literary workshop of Europe, and seen in every other laboratory of
thought the transmitted divine fire of the Hebrew. The bardic literature
of Erin stands alone, as distinctively and genuinely Irish as the race
itself, or the natural aspects of the island. Rude indeed it is, but
like the hills which its authors tenanted with gods, holding dells
[Note: Those sacred hills will generally be found to have this
character.] of the most perfect beauty, springs of the most touching
pathos. On page 33, Vol. I., will be seen a poem [Note: Publications
of Ossianic Society, page 303, Vol. IV.] by Fionn upon the spring-time,
made, as the old unknown historian says, to prove his poetic powers--a
poem whose antique language relegates it to a period long prior to the
tales of the Leabhar na Huidhre, one which, if we were to meet side
by side with the "Ode to Night," by Alcman, in the Greek anthology, we
would not be surprised; or those lines on page 203, Vol. I., the song of
Cuculain, forsaken by his people, watching the frontier of his country--

"Alone in defence of the Ultonians,
Solitary keeping ward over the province"

or the death [Note: Publications of Ossianic Society, Vol. I.] of Oscar,
on pages 34 and 35, Vol. I., an excerpt condensed from the Battle of
Gabra. Innumerable such tender and thrilling passages.

To all great nations their history presents itself under the aspect
of poetry; a drama exciting pity and terror; an epic with unbroken
continuity, and a wide range of thought, when the intellect is satisfied
with coherence and unity, and the imagination by extent and divers