The Works of Ossian, the Son of Fingal (Volume 4) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1783. Excerpt: ....which critics require as the proper termination of the Epic work, u Thus they pasted the night in k song, and brought back the morning with joy. - Fingal arose on the heath; and shook his glitn tering spear in his hand. He moved first to- wards the plains of Lena; and we followed like - a ridge of fire. Spread the fail, faid the King of - Morven, and catch the winds that pour from - Lena. We rose on the wave with songs; and - rushedwithjoy through the foam of the ocean -.--So much for the unity and general conduct of the Epic action in Fingal. Withregard to thatproperty of the subject which Aristotle requires that it should be feigned not historical, he must not be understood so strictly, as if he meant to exclude all subjects which have any foundation in truth. For such exclusion would both be unreasonable in itself; and what is more, would be contrary to the practice of Homer, who is known to have founded his Iliad on historical facts concerning the war of Troy, which was famous throughout all Greece. Aristotle means no more, than that it is the business of a poet not to be a mere annalist of facts, but to embellish truth with beautiful, probable, and useful fictions; to copy nature, as he himself explains it, like painters, who preserve a likeness, but exhibit their objects more grand and beautiful than they are in-reality. That Offian has followed this course, and building upon true history, has sussiciently adorned it with poetical fiction for aggrandizing his characters and facts, -will not, I believe, be questioned by most readers. At the fame time, the foundation which those facts and characters had in truth, and the share which the poet himself had in the tranfactions which he records, must be considered as no sm..