in our ftrength, flow as a gathered cloud! Then fhall the mighty tremble; the fpear fhall fall from the hand of the valiant. We fee the cloud of death, they will fay, while fhadows fly over their face. Fingal will mourn in his age. He shall behold his flying fame. The fteps of his chiefs will ceafe in Morven. The mofs of years fhall grow in Selma."

Cairbar heard their words, in filence, like the cloud of a fhower: it ftands dark on Cromla, till the lightning bursts its fide. The valley gleams with heaven's flame; the fpirits of the ftorm rejoice. So ftood the filent king of Temora; at length his words broke forth. "6 Spread the feast on Moi-lena. Let my hundred bards attend. Thou red-haired Olla, take the harp of the king. Go to Ofcar chief of fwords. Bid Ofcar to our joy. To-day we feast and hear the fong to-morrow break the fpears! Tell him that I have raised the tomb of Catiol; that bards gave his friend to

* Cathol the son of Maronnan, or Moran, was murdered by Cairbar, for his attachment to the family of Cormac. He had attended Ofcar to the war of Inisthona, where they contracted a great friendship for one another. Ofcar, immediately after the death of Cathol, had fent a formal challenge to Cairbar, which he prudently declined, but conceived a fecret hatred against Ofcar, and had beforehand contrived to kill him at the feaft, to which he here invites him.

the

the winds. Tell him that Cairbar has heard of his fame, at the ftream of refounding Carun *. Cathmor† my brother is not here. He is not here with his thoufands, and our arms are weak. Cathmor is a foe to ftrife at the feaft! His foul is bright as that fun! But Cairbar must fight with Oscar, chiefs of woody Temora! His words for Cathol were many: the wrath of Cairbar burns. He fhall fall on Moilena. My fame shall rife in blood.”

Their faces brightened round with joy. They spread over Moi-lena. The feast of

* He alludes to the battle of Ofcar against Caros, king of fhips; who is fuppofed to be the fame with Caraufius the ufurper.

+ Cathmor, great in battle, the fon of Borbar-duthul, and brother of Cairbar king of Ireland, had, before the infurrection of the Firbolg, paffed over into Inis-buna, supposed to be a part of South Britain, to affift Conmor king of that place against his enemies. Cathmor was fuccessful in the war, but, in the courfe of it, Conmor was either killed, or died a natural death. Cairbar, upon intelligence of the defigns of Fingal to dethrone him, had dispatched a meffenger for Cathmor, who returned into Ireland a few days before the opening of the poem.

Cairbar here takes advantage of his brother's abfence, to perpetrate his ungenerous defigns againft Ofear; for the noble spirit of Cathmor, had he been prefent, would not have permitted the laws of that hofpitality, for which he was fo renowned himself, to be violated. The brothers form a contraft: we do not deteft the mean foul of Cairbar more, than we admire the difinterested and generous mind of Cathmor,

fhells

fhells is prepared. The fongs of bards arife. The chiefs of Selma heard their joy *. We thought that mighty Cathmor came. Cathmor the friend of ftrangers! the brother of red-haired Cairbar. Their fouls were not the fame. The light of

Fingal's army heard the joy that was in Cairbar's camp. The character given of Cathmor is agreeable to the times. Some, through oftentation, were hofpitable; and others fell naturally into a custom handed down from their ancestors. But what marks ftrongly the character of Cathmor, is his averfion to praife; for he is représented to dwell in a wood to avoid the thanks of his guests; which is ftill a higher degree of generosity than that of Axylus in Homer; for the poet does not fay, but the good man might, at the head of his own table, have heard with pleasure the praife beftowed on him by the people he entertained,

No nation in the world carried hospitality to a greater length than the ancient Scots. It was even infamous, for many ages, in a man of condition, to have the door of his houfe fhut at all, LEST, as the bards exprefs it,

THE STRANGER SHOULD COME AND BEHOLD HIS

CONTRACTED SOUL. Some of the chiefs were poffeffed of this hofpitable difpofition to an extravagant degree; and the bards, perhaps upon a private account, never failed to recommend it, in their eulogiums. Cean uia' na dai' or the point to which all the roads of the ftrangers lead, was an invariable epithet given by them to the chiefs; on the contrary, they diftinguished the inhofpitable by the title of the cloud which the ftrangers foun This laft however was fo uncommon, that in all the old poems I have ever met with, I found but one man branded with this ignominious appellation; and that, perhaps, only founded upon a private quarrel, which fubfifted between him and the patron of the bard, who wrote the poem.

heaven was in the bosom of Cathmor. His towers rofe on the banks of Atha; feven paths led to his halls. Seven chiefs flood on the paths, and called the ftranger to the feaft! But Cathmor dwelt in the wood, to fhun the voice of praise !

Olla came with his fongs. Ofcar went to Cairbar's feaft. Three hundred warriors ftrode along Moi-lena of the streams. The grey dogs bounded on the heath: Their howling reached afar. Fingal faw the departing hero. The foul of the king was fad. He dreaded Cairbar's gloomy thoughts, amid the feast of shells. raised high the spear of Cormac. dred bards met him with fongs. concealed, with fmiles, the death that was dark in his foul. The feaft is fpread. The fhells refound. Joy brightens the face of the hoft. But it was like the parting beam of the fun, when he is to hide his red head in a ftorm!

My fon An hunCairbar

Cairbar rifes in his arms. Darkness gathers on his brow. The hundred harps cease at once. * The clang of fhields is heard. Far diftant on the heath Olla raised

* When a chief was determined to kill a person already in his power, it was usual to fignify that his death was intended, by the found of a fhield ftruck with the blunt end of a spear; at the same time that a þard at a distance raised the death fong, 7

a fong

a fong of woe. My fon knew the sign of death; and rifing feized his fpear. "Ofcar," faid the dark-red Cairbar," I behold the spear* of Erin. The spear of Temora glitters in thy hand, fon of woody Morven ! It was the pride of an hundred kings. The death of heroes of old. Yield it, fon of Offian, yield it to car-borne Cairbar !" "Shall I yield," Ofcar replied, the gift of Erin's injured king: the gift of fairhaired Cormac, when Ofcar fcattered his foes? I came to Cormac's halls of joy, when Swaran fled from Fingal. Gladness rofe in the face of youth. He gave the fpear of Temora. Nor did he give it to the feeble: neither to the weak in foul. The darkness of thy face is no ftorm to me: nor are thine eyes the flame of death. Do I fear thy clanging fhield? Tremble I at Olla's fong? No: Cairbar, frighten the feeble; Ofcar is a rock!"

Wilt thou not yield the fpear?" re

* Cormac, the son of Arth, had given the fpear, which is here the foundation of the quarrel, to Ofcar, when he came to congratulate him upon Swaran's being expelled from Ireland.

+Ti' mór-i', the house of the great king, the name of the royal palace of the fupreme kings of Ireland. 1st Hundred here is an indefinite number, and is only intended to exprefs a great many. It was probably the hyperbolical phrafes of bards that gave the first hint to the Irish Senachies to place the origin of their monarchy in fo remote a period as they have done.... Dienst

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