Thoughts on the Origin and Descent of the Gael: With an Account of the Picts, Caledonians, and Scots; and Observations Relative to the Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian

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For A. Constable and Company, 1814 - 456 pages
 

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Page 365 - His spear, to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand.
Page 365 - Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall One day upon our heads; while we perhaps, Designing or exhorting glorious war, Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled Each on his rock transfixed...
Page 359 - Carncklhura,) about thirty years ago, from an old man in Glenlyon. I took it and several other fragments (now, I fear, irrecoverably lost,) from the man's mouth. He had learnt them in his youth, from people in the same glen, which •must have been long before Macpherson was born.
Page 317 - I live in a place," he writes, " where I have the pleasure of frequently hearing justice done to your dissertation, but never heard it mentioned in a company, where some one person or other did not express his doubts with regard to the authenticity of the poems which are its subject, and I often hear them totally rejected with disdain and indignation, as a palpable and most impudent forgery. This opinion has, indeed, become very prevalent among the men of letters in London ; and I can foresee, that...
Page 317 - ... often hear them totally rejected with disdain and indignation, as a palpable and most impudent forgery. This opinion has, indeed, become very prevalent among the men of letters in London; and I can foresee, that in a few years the poems, if they continue to stand on their present footing, will be thrown aside, and will fall into final oblivion. 'The absurd pride and caprice of Macpherson himself, who scorns...
Page 301 - had been bred in England, and married an English princess. Her retinue were all English. English, in consequence, would become the language of that court. The courtiers would carry it to their respective homes ; their domestics would be ambitious to speak the language of their masters ; and thus it would be gradually introduced into every fashionable circle...
Page 365 - Amid the tempest let me die, torn, in a cloud, by angry ghosts of men; amid the tempest let Calmar die, if ever chase was sport to him, so much as the battle of shields!"
Page 209 - Caledonians kept possession uf the rising ground, extending their ranks as wide as possible to present a formidable show of battle. Their first line was ranged on the plain, the rest in a gradual ascent on the acclivity of the hill. The intermediate space between both armies was filled with the charioteers and cavalry of the Britons, rushing to ami fro in wild career, and traversing the plain with noise and tumult.
Page 365 - Fergus! in the day of the storm? Fergus, first in our joy at the feast ! son of Rossa ! arm of death! comest thou like a roe from Malmor? Like a hart from thy echoing hills? Hail, thou son of Rossa! what shades the soul of war?

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