fword:-he fell at Branno's Stream." He tells her, however, that high on Cromla he will raife his tomb; and bids her fix her love on him, whofe arm is ftrong as a storm. This circumstance of Duchomar's promifing ro raise the tomb of his murdered rival, is well calculated to footh the grief and refentment of Morna; fuch an act being reprefented, through the whole Poem, as one of the greatest marks of refpect that can be fhewn to the memory of the deceased. "And is the son of Torman fallen? faid the maid of the tearful eye. Is he fallen on his echoing hill, the youth with the breaft of fnow? He that was firft in the chafe, the foe of the ftrangers of the ocean?---Duchomar, thou art dark indeed, and cruel is thy arm to Morna. But give me that fword, my foe; I love the blood of Cathbat."---He gave the fword to her tears; but the pierced his manly breast. He fell, like the bank of a mountain ftream; ftretched out his arm and faid, Daughter of Cormac-cairbar, thou haft flain Duchomar; the fword is cold in my breaft: Morna, I feel it cold. Give me to Moina the maid; Duchomar was the dream of her night. She will raise my tomb, and the hunter fhail fee it and praise me. But draw the fword from my breast, Morna; the fteel is cold.-She came, in all her tears; fhe came, and drew it from his breaft. He pierced her white fide with steel, and spread her fair locks on the ground. Her bursting blood founds from her fide, and her white arm is ftained with red. Rolling in death fhe lay, and Tura's cave anfwer'd to her fighs." The first thought, which would naturally be fuggefted to a man, who had killed a rival preferred to himself, would ́certainly relate to the manner in which he might reconcile that action to the object of his love; for which reason, he would not abruptly tell her that he had murdered him, and directly follicit her love. The natural way would have been to introduce the act with every circumftance that might soften and extenuate its guilt, imputing the rafhness of the deed to the irrefiftible impulfe of his paffion for her, and infinuating that fo ardent an affection deferved a reciprocal return; and that beauty delighted in rewarding the brave. After this he might, with propriety, have mentioned the raifing the tomb of the deceased, as a proof that no malice or resentment against Cathbat entered into the cause of his death. Such an apology had not only been very natural in itself, but would have as naturally fuggefted to Morna the means of disguifing her defign under a plaufible pretext. She might have hence feemed E 3 seemed to acquiefce in his fentiments, refpecting the reward of fuperior valour; and, affecting to renounce her paffion for Cathbat, have asked, with propriety enough, to fee that sword which flew the man, whom he had before thought invincible. But as the paffage is here circumftanced, it was the moft unnatural of all methods of feduction, after calling' Duchomar her foe, to requeft him to give her his fword, because it was ftained with the blood of her lover; a caufe, for which the muft naturally have detefted its fight. The weakeft of men, therefore, could not have been induced to part with his fword on fo groundless a pretext. But, by Morna's proceeding in the manner juft mentioned, that eagerness in lovers, to believe every thing which tends to put them in poffeffion of their wishes, had been cajolled in Duchomar, and would have afforded a probable caufe for complying with her, request; when, taking it in her hand, fhe might have plunged it in his breaft, breaking out at the fame time into fome expreffion of vindictive joy. In like manner Duchomar's contrivance to draw Morna near him, in order to avenge himself, is a very poor one indeed. His defiring her to draw the cold fword from his breaft, is a plea inadequate to the occafion. His pretext to deceive her fhould have been calculated for that recoil of the foul, which generally follows the commiffion of fuch acts of horror. Had he feigned a joy in dying by the hand of her he loved, fince he could not poffefs her living, and implored one last embrace, which the chastest maid might give in pity, though not in love, this might naturally have induced her to approach him. This story, therefore, improbable in its circumftances, is yet more imperfect in the manner of its narration, It is, indeed, in this inftance, as throughout the whole Poem; though the objects of perception are frequently embellished with poetic description, yet the Poet appears to have understood little of the human mind, and of the application of its various faculties in the conduct of mankind, in order to give caufe for, and verifimilitude to, the actions he defcribes. The above story being finifhed, Cuchullin bids his heroes. gather together their tribes; but the poet does not draw them up in any order of battle, place their leaders at their head, or characterize them by different corporeal powers or mental difpofitions. All is general and indiftinct. Very differently has Homer made the Greeks and Trojans take the field, having communicated to the reader the general characteristics even of the common foldiers of both armies. The latter are defcribed defcribed as wafting their spirits in idle prate, as they marched to battle, Τρῶες μεν κλαίγῇ τ' ἐνοπῇ τ ̓ ἴσαν, ὄρνιθες ως the Greeks as referving it by filence, for the fake of affifting each other. Οἱ δ' ἄς ισαν σιγῆ μενεα πνείοντες ̓Αχαιοί Εμ θυμῷ μεμαώτες αλεξέμεν αλλήλοισιν. The noise, made by the coming on of Cuchullin's heroes, induces Swaran to fend forth a fcout, to fee what was approaching. The son of Arno afcends a hill, and immediately returns trembling, and in the utmost amazement; "his eyes rolling wildly round, his heart beating high, and his words faultering, broken and flow." In this fituation, however, he describes the car and horfes of Cuchullin, as minutely as if he had himself been the charioteer for half a century. It is nevertheless clear, as well from the fhortness of his stay, as from the panic with which he was ftruck, that he could not poffibly have attended to fuch particulars. "The car of battle comes, fays he, the rapid car of Cuchullin.— Its fides are emboffed with ftones, and fparkle like the sea round the boat of night. Of polished yew is its beam, and its feat of the fmootheft bone. The fides are replenished with spears, and the bottom is the footftool of heroes. Be fore the right fide of the car is feen the fnorting horfe. The high-maned, broad-breafted, proud, high-leaping ftrong steed of the hill. Loud and refounding is his hoof; the spreading of his mane above is like that stream of smoke on the heath, bright are the fides of the fteed, and his name is Sulin-Sifadda. Before the left fide of the car is feen the [other] fnorting horfe the thin-maned, high-headed, ftrong-hoofed, fleet, bounding fon of the hill: his name is Dufronnal among the ftormy fons of the fword. A thoufand thongs bind the car on high. Hard polished bits fhine in a wreath of foam. Thin thongs, bright-ftudded with gems, bend on the stately necks of the fteeds." Indeed the great object of the son of Arno's fear feems to be the finery of the chariot and prancing horses of Cuchullin; for, in the defcription of that hero himself, there is nothing very martial or terrible. It is true, his "red cheek is like the polifhed yew. The look of his blue-rolling eye is wide beneath the dark arch of his brow. His hair flies. from his head like a flame, as bending forward he wields the fpear; and [he is faid to come] like a ftorm along the streamy vale." In confequence of what he had feen, however, the timid fcout advifes Swaran to fly, and is anfwered much in the E 4 fame fame manner as Cuchullin anfwers the son of Fithill. In this great fimilarity of circumftance and expreffion the fterility of the poet's invention is obvious. What need was there that both scouts fhould be cowards? It had, at least, been with much greater propriety, had the latter concluded that Cuchullin was weak and effeminate, from the magnificent foppery of his car; a foppery, by the way, little confiftent with that penurious fimplicity of manners defcribed in other parts of the poem. The battle begun, the general onfet is well described. "As Autumn's dark ftorms pour from two echoing hills, towards each other approached the heroes.-As two dark ftreams from high rocks meet, and mix and roar on the plain; loud, rough, and dark in battle meet Lochlin and Innis-fail. Chief mixed his ftrokes with chief, and man with man; fteel, clanging, founded on steel, helmets are cleft on high. Blood burfts and fmoaks around.-Strings murmur on the polifhed yews. Darts rufh along the sky. Spears fall like the circles of light, that gild the ftormy face of night. As the troubled noife of the ocean, when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven, fuch is the noife of battle." Many, it is faid, are the falls of the heroes, yet none are mentioned but Sithallin, Ardin, and Trenar; the two first as flain by Swaran, and the last by Cuchullin and even thefe are undiftinguifhed by any act of bravery, particularity of combat, or manner of dying. In the difplay of the firft battle of the Iliad, the chiefs are brought into action, and marked with diftinguishing characteristics. Each engages with fome one of the enemy; no two combat in the fame manner, nor fall by the fame means: and an able painter may defign after the defcription of every hero's engagement, in a manner no other imagination can fo well fupply. In this firft battle of Fingal, neither army is diftinctly drawn up, no two heroes are brought to engage; and all that the most excellent genius for painting could truly delineate from the description is, on one fide, Cuchullin, drawn by two ill-matched horfes in a paultry car, and followed by an unruly mob; and on the other, Swaran on foot, with like attendants. The fine apoftrophe, in which the poet bids the maid of Iniftore lament the death of Trenar, her lover, is capable of great improvement from the circumftances mentioned, of his gray dogs howling at home, and feeing his paffing ghoft; and which the poet neglected to make use of. Had Offian represented her ftruck with a prefentiment of Trenar's death, bewailing his fate from fuch ill-boding appearances, and confirmed therein by the howling of his dogs, both the superftition of the times, and the prevalence of credulity, under fuch circumstances, had been aptly applied, and happily illuftrated. But we must refer the reader for the farther remarks we have to make on this poem, and our account of the other pieces contained in this extraordinary book, to our next Review. K-n-k Elegies of Tyrtaus, tranflated into English Verfe, with Notes, and the original Text. 12mo. Is. 6d. T. Payne. TY YRTEUS was that fine old Grecian, whom the Athenians, in derifion, fent to the Lacedæmonians for their general, when, at the fiege of Meffené, that brave People had confulted the Delphic oracle, and were told, that an Athenian general was neceffary to their fuccefs. In derifion was Tyrtæus fent, for he was a poor bard, maimed, deformed, and blind of one eye; nay, if we may believe the Author of the Lives of the Philofophers, he was looked upon as little better than an idiot. But though, in every refpect, he was apparently unfit for the office of a commander, hiftory, nevertheless, informs us, that, animated by the fpirit-ftirring verses of Tyrtæus, the Spartans carried the town. Among these verses were fuppofed to be the few remaining elegies of the old bard, of which a tranflation is here offered to the public. As to the merit of the elegies themfelves, it is certainly very great, and has faved them from the depredations of time, near three thoufand years. Horace feems to think that Tyrtæus lived and wrote about the time of Homer, and the noble fimplicity of his verfe seems to testify the fame. His poems are, with respect to their measure, pathos, and ease, characteristically elegies; but in many places they rife to the fublime. Ουδέποτε κλεος ἐσθλον ἀπολλυΐαι, εδ' όνομ' άλλο, What, tho' his afhes lie entomb'd, his name Who |