in our ftrength, flow as a gathered cloud! Then

hall the mighty tremble; the fpear fhall fall i

from the hand of the valiant, We fee the cloud

of death, they will fay, while fhadows fly overzi their face. Fingal will mourn in his age. He thall behold his flying fame. The fteps of his chiefs will ceafe in Morven. The mofs of years w

fhall grow in Selma."

CAIRBAR heard their words, in filence, like the cloud of a shower: 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 broké forth. " Spread the feaft on Moi-lena. Let my hundred bards attend. Thou, red-hair'd, Olla, take the harp of the king. Go to Ofcar chief of fwords. Bid Ofcar to our joy. To-day we f joy. To-day we feaft and hear the fong: to-morrow break the fpears Tell him that I have raised the tomb of Cathol that bards gave his friend to the winds. Tell him that Cairbar has heard of his fame, at the

3

Cathol the fon of Maronnan, or Moran, was murdered for by Cairbar, for his attachment to the family of Cormac He had attended Ofcar to the war of Inis thona, where they con- qì a great friendship for one another. Ofcar, immeditim ately after the death of Cathol, had fent a formal challenge too Cairbar, which he prudently declined, but conceived a fecrets Hatred against Ofcar, and had beforehand contrived to kill him at the feaft, to which he here invites him.

30

ftream

Atream of resounding Carun +. Cathmor ‡ my brother is not here. He is not here with his thoufands, and our arms are weak. Cathmor is foe to ftrife at the feaft! His foul is bright as that fun! But Cairbar muft fight with Ofcar, chiefs of woody Temora! His words for Cathol were many: the wrath of Cairbar burns. He fhall fall on Moi-lena. My fame fhall rife in blood."

THEIR faces brightened round with joy. They spread over Moilena. The feat feaft of thells

is prepared. The fongs of bards arife. The

t He alludes to the battle of Ofcar againft Caros, king of Ships; who is fuppofed to be the fame with Caraufius the ufurper.

Cathmor, great in battle, the son of Borbar-duthul, and brother of Cairbar king of Ireland, had, before the infurrec-~ tion of the Firbolg, paffed over into Inis-huna, fuppofed to be a part of South-Britain, to affift Conmor king of that place against his enemies. Cathmor was successful in the war, but, in the course of it. Conmor was either killed, or died a nas tural death. Cairbar, upon intelligence of the defigns of Fingal to dethrone him, had dispatched a messenger for Cathmor, who returned into Ireland a few days before the opening of the poem.

Cairbar here takes advantage of his brother's abfence, ro perpetrate his ungenerous defigns against Ofcar; for the noble fpirit of Cathmor, had he been prefent, would not have per-1 mitted the laws of that hofpitality, for which he was so res nowned himself, to be violated. The brothers form a contraff: we do not deteft the mean foul of Cairbar more, than we admire the difinterested and generous mind of Cathmor, ads a

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 heaven was in the bofom of Cathmor.edHis towers rofe on the banks of Atha: feven paths led to his halls. Seven chiefs food on the

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 averion to praife; for he is reprefented to dwell in a wood to avoid the thanks of his guefts; which is ftill a higher degree of generofity 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 praise bestowed on him by the people he entertained.

No nation in the world carried hofpitality 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 house shut at all, LEST, as the bards exprefs it, THE STRAN

GER SHOULD COME AND BEHOLD HIS CONTRACTED SOUL.

Some of the chiefs were poffeffed of this hofpitable difpofition › an extravagant degree; and the bards, perhaps upon a private account, never failed to recommend it, in their eulogiums. Cean uia' na dại', 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 inhof pitable 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.

paths,

paths, and called the ftranger to the feaft! But Cathmor dwelt in the wood, to fhun the voice of praife!

،ܪ

OLLA came with his fongs. Ofcar went to Cairbar's feaft. Three hundred warriors ftrode, along Moi-lena of the ftreams. 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 feaft of thells. My fon raised high the fpear of Cormac. "An hundred bards met him with fongs. Cairbar concealed with fmiles the death, that was dark in his soul. The feast is fpread. The thells 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 storm!

1

Far

CAIRBAR rifes in his arms. Darkness ga thers on his brow. The hundred harps ceafe at once. The clang of fhields is heard. diftant on the heath Olla raifed a fong of woe, My fon knew the fign of death; and rifing feized his fpear. "Ofcar," faid the dark-red

his

&

When a chief was determined to kill a perfon already in, power, it was ufual to fignify, that his death was intended, by the found of a fhield ftruck with the blunt end of a spear; at the fame time that a bard at a distance raised the death fong.

Cairbar, « I behold the spear + of Erin. The fpear of Temora* glitters in thy hand, son of woody 1 Morven! It was the pride of an hunbea dred kings. The death of heroes of old. Yield it, fon of Offian, yield it to yield it to car-borne Cairbar!"

7

SHALL I yield," Ofcar replied, "the gift of Erin's injured king: the gift of fair-haired 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 spear of Temora. Nor did he give it to the feeble: neither to the weak in foul. The darknes of thy face is no ftorm to me: nor are thine eyes the flame of death. clanging thield? Tremble I at No Cairbar, frighten the feeble: rock!"

Do I fear thy
Olla's fong

Ofcar is a
sitsed

Cormac, the fon 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 Ire land. su to to.. 1) 3.

Ti mór i', the house of the great king, the name of the royal palace of the fupreme kings of Ireland.

Hundred here is an indefinite number, and is only intended to exprefs a great many. It was probably the hyper bolical 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,

WILT