10 Fingal, an Epic Poem, Froduce between the original and the tranflation. This confideration long deterred the prefent tranflator from the attempt, but his own fcruples were at length over-ruled by the favourable opinion of others. There were many other poems of this kind which are now irretrievably loft, though the ftories of them are well remembered, and fome are still living who have heard them repeated. Those which are now offered to the publick, would in a fhort time have thared the fate of the reft. The genius of the Highlanders has fuffered a great change within a few years, their communication with the rest of the ifland is open, and the introduction of trade and manufactures_has destroyed that leifure, which was formerly dedicated to the hearing and repeating of poems of antient times. The story of the poem is this: tranflated from the Erfe. A battle to the enemy. Connal, the petty king of Togorma, and an intimate friend of Cuchullin, was for retreating till Fingal fhould arrive; but Calmar, the fon of Matha, lord of Lara, a country in Connaught, was for engaging the enemy immediately. -Cuchullin, of himself willing to fight, went into the opinion of Calmar. Marching towards the enemy, he miffed three of his bravest heroes, Fergus, Duchomar, and Caitbbat. Fergus arriving, tells Cuchullin of the B death of the two other chiefs; which introduces the affecting epifcode of Morna, the daughter of Cormac-The army of Cuchullin is defcried at a dif tance by Swaran, who fent the fon of Arno to obferve the motions of the enemy, while he himself ranged his forces in order of battle.-The son of Arno returning to Swaran, describes to him Cuchullen's chariot, and the terrible appearance of that hero. The armies engage, but night coming on leaves the victory undecided. Cuchullin, according to the hofpitality of the times, fends to Swaran a formal invitation to a feaft, by his bard Carril, the fon of Kinfena. -Swaran refuses to come. Carril relates to Cuchullin the story of D Grudar and Braffolis. A party, by Connal's advice, is fent to obferve the enemy; which closes the action of the first day. C Artho, fupreme king of Ireland, dying at Temora, the royal palace of the Irish kings, was fucceeded by Cormac, his fon, a minor, Cuchullen, the fon of Semo, lord of the Ile of Mift, one of the Hebrides, being at that time in Ulfter, and very famous for his great exploits, was, in a convention of the petty kings and heads of tribes affembled for that purpose at Temora, unanimously chofen guardian to the young king.-He had not managed the affairs of Cormac long, when news was brought, that Swaran, the fon of Starno, king of Lochlin, or Scandinavia, intended to invade Ireland. Cuchullin immediately difpatched Munan, the son of Stirmal, an Irish chief, to Fingal, king of thofe Caledonians who inhabited the western coaft of Scotland, to implore his_aid. Fingal, as well from a principle of generofity, as from his connection with F the royal family of Ireland, refolved on an expedition into that country; but before his arrival, the enemy had landed in Ulfer.-Cuchullin in the mean time had gathered the flower of the Irib tribes to Tura, a caftle of Ulfter, and dispatched fcouts along the coaft, to give the moft early intelligence of G the enemy. Such is the fituation of affairs, when the poem opens. B. I. Cuchillin, fitting alone beneath a tree, at the gate of Tura,for the other chiefs had gone on a hunting party to Cromla, a neighbouring hill, is informed of Swaran's landing by Moran, the fon of Fitbill, one of his fcouts. He H convenes the chiefs; a council is held, and difputes run high about giving B. II. The ghost of Crugal, one of the Irish heroes who was killed in battle, appearing to Connal, foretels the defeat of Cuchullin in the next battle; and earnestly advises him to make peace with Swaran. Connal communicates the vifion; but Cuchullin is inflexible from a principle of honour that he would not be the first to fue for peace, and refolved to continue the war. Morning comes; Swaran propofes difhonourable terms to Cuchullen, which are rejected. The battle begins, and is obftinately fought for fome time, until, upon the flight of Grumal, the whole Irish army gave way. Cuchullin and Connal cover their retreat. Carril leads them to a neighbouring hill, whither they are foon followed by Cuchullin himself, who defcribes the fleet of Fingal making towards the coaft; but, night coming on, he loft fight of it again. Cuchullin, dejected after his defeat, attributes his ill fuccefs to the death of Ferda his friend, whom he had killed fome time before. Carril, to thew that ill fuccefs did not always attend those who innocently killed. their friends, introduces the epifcode of Comal and Calvina. B. III. Fingal, an Epic Poem, tranflated from the Erfe. A B. III. Cuchullin, pleafed with Carril's story, infifts with him for more of his fongs. The bard relates the actions of Fingal in Lochlin, and death of Agandecca, the beautiful fister of Swaran. He had fcarce finished when Calmar the fon of Matha, who had advifed the first battle, came wounded from the field, and told them of Swaran's defign to surprise the remains of the Irish army. He himself proposes to withstand fingly the whole force of the enemy, in a narrow pafs, till the Irifh fhould make good their retreat. Cuchullin, touched with the gallant pro- B pofal of Calmar, refolves to accompany him, and orders Carril to carry off the few that remained of the Irish. Morning comes, Calmar dies of his wounds: and, the fhips of the Caledonians appearing, Swaran gives over the purfuit of the Irib, and returns to oppofe C Fingal's landing. Cuchullin afhamed, after his defeat, to appear before Fingal, retires to the cave of Tura. Fingal engages the enemy, puts them to flight; but the coming on of night makes the victory not decifive. The king, who had obferved the gallant behaviour of his grandfon Ofear, gives him advices D concerning his conduct in peace and war. He recommends to him to place the example of his fathers before his eyes, as the best model for his conduct; which introduces the episode concerning Fainafollis, the daughter of the king of Craca, whom Fingal had taken un- E der his protection, in his youth. Fillan and Ofcar are difpatched to obferve the motions of the enemy by night; Gaul, the fon of Morni, defires the command of the army, in the next battle; which Fingal promifes to give him. The fong of the bards closes the third day. B. IV. The action of the poem being fufpended by night, Ofan takes that opportunity to relate his own actions at the lake of Lego, and his courtfhip of Evirallin, who was the mother of Ofcar, and had died fome time before the expedition of Fingal into Ireland. Her ghoft appears to him, and tells him that Ofcar, who had been fent the beginning of the night, to obferve the enemy, was engaged with an advanced party, and almoft overpowered. Offian relieves his fon; and an alarm is given to Fingal of the approach of Swaran. The king rises, calls his army together, and, as he had promifed the preceding night, devolves the command on Gaul the fon of Morni, while he himself, after char ging his fons to behave gallantly and defend his people, retires to a hill, from whence he could have a full view of the battle. The battle joins; the poet relates Ofcar's great actions. But when Ofcar, in conjunction with his father, conquered in one wing, Gaul, who was attacked by Swaran in perfon, was on the point of retreating in the other. Fingal fends Ullin his bard to encourage him with a war fong, but notwithstanding Swaran prevails; and Gaul and his army are obliged to give way. Fingal, defcending from the hill, rallies them again: Savaran defifts from the purfuit, poffeffes himfelf of a rifing ground, reftores the ranks, and waits the approach of Fingal. The king, having encouraged his men, gives the necessary orders, and renews the battle. Cuchullin, who,' with his friend Counal, and Carril his bard, had retired to the grave of Tura, hearing the noife, came to the brow of the hill, which overlooked the field of battle, where he faw Fingal engaged with the enemy. He being hindered by Connal from joining Fingal, who was himself upon the point of obtaining a complete victory, Jends Carril to congratulate that hero on his fuccefs. B. V. In the mean time Fingal and Swaran meet; the combat is defcribed: Swaran is overcome, bound and delivered over as a prifoner to the care of Offian and Gaul the fon of Morni; Fingal, his younger fons, and Ofcar, ftill pursue the enemy. The epifode of Orla a chief of Lochlin, who was mortally wounded in the battle, is introduced. Fingal, touched with the death of Orla, orders the pursuit to be difcontinued; and calling his fons together, he is informed that Ryno, the youngest of them, was killed. He laments his death, hears the story of Lamdarg and Gelchoffa, and returns towards the place where he had left Swaran. Carril, who had been fent by Cuchullin to congratulate Fingal on his victory, comes in the mean time to G Offian. The conversation of the two poets closes the action of the fourth day. F H B. VI. Night comes on. Fingal gives a feaft to his army, at which Swaran is prefent. The king commands Ullin his bard to give the fong of peace; a cuftom always obferved at the end of a war. Ullin relates the actions of Trenmor, great grandfather to Fingal, in Scandinavia, and his marriage with Inibaca, the daughter of a king of Lachlin who was ancestor to Swaran; which 12 Fingal, an Epic Poem, tranflated from the Erfe. which confideration, together with his B C It is remarkable, that in this poem there are no traces of religion, efpecially as the poetical compofitions of other nations are infeparably connected with their Mythology. But this fingularity probably arofe from the known enmity between Fingal and his fon Offian and the Druids, who had op.. pofed the fucceffion of this family to the fupreme magistracy; it might also in fome degree be owing to the myftery in which the Druidical religion was D wrapped up,a circumftance which rendered it unfit for poetical machinery; befides, the antient Scots carried their notions of martial honour to fo extravagant an height, that they thought the merit of their heroes degraded by the introduction of fupernatural affift ance. The following epifode from the book may serve as a fpecimen of the poem of Fingal, as it appears in Mr Macpherson's tranflation: E Where, faid Cuckullin, are my friends in battle? Where the companions of my arm in danger? Where art thou, white-bofomed Cathbat? Where is that F cloud in war, Duchomar*: And haft thou left me, O Fergust, in the day of the storm? Fergus, firft in our joy at the fealt; fon of Roffa! arm of death! comeft thou like a roe from Malmor; like a hart from the ecchoing hills Hail thou fon of Roja! what fhades the foul of war. Four ftones, replied the chief, rise Dubbebomar, a black well shaped man. + Fear-guth, the man of the word; or a commander of an army. Be thou like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bether. SOLOMAN'S fong. This pallage alludes to the manner of buial among the antient Scats. They opened a grave 6 or feet deep: the bottom was lined with fine clay; and on this they laid the body on the grave of Cathbat.-Thefe hands have laid in earth Duchomar, that cloud in war. Cathbat, thou fon of Torman, thou wert a fun-beam on the hill.And thou, O valiant Duchomar, like the mift of marshy Lano, when it fails over the plains of autumn, and brings death to the people. Morna! thou fairest of maids! calm is thy fleep in the cave of the rock. Thou has fallen in darkness like a ftar that shoots athwart the defart, when the traveller is alone, and mourns the tranfient beam. Say, faid Semo's blue-eyed fon, fay, how fell the chiefs of Erin? Fell they by the fons of Lochlin, ftriving in the battle of heroes? Or what confines the chiefs of Cromla to the dark and narrow houfe § ? Cathbat, replied the hero, fell by the fword of Duchomar at the oak of the noify streams. Duchomar came to Tura's cave, and spoke to the lovely Morna, Morna, fairest among women, lovedaughter of Cormac-cairbar. Why in the circle of ftones; in the cave of the rock alone? The ftream murmurs hoarfely. The old tree's groan is in the wind. The lake is troubled before thee, and dark are the clouds of the fky. But thou art like fnow on the heath; and thy hair like the mist of Cromla when it curls on the rocks, and it shines to the beam of the weft.Thy breafts are like two fmooth rocks feen from Branno of the streams. Thy arms like two white pillars in the halls of the mighty Fingal. From whence, the white-armed maid replied, from whence Duchomar the moft gloomy of men? Dark are thy brows and terrible. Red are thy rolling eyes. Does Swaran appear on the fea? What of the foe, Duchomar? From the hill I return, O Morna, from the hill of the dark-brown hinds. Three have I flain with my bended yew. Three with my long bounding dogs of the chace.-Lovely daughter of Cormac, I love thee as my foul.-I have flain one ftately deer for thee.G H of the deceased, and, if a warrior, his sword, and the heads of 12 arrows by his fide. Above they laid another ftratum of clay, in which they placed the horn of a deer, the fymbol of hunting. The whole was covered with a fine mold, and four ftones placed on end to mark the extent of the grave. These are the four ftones alluded to here. The grave. The house appointed for all living. JOB. Muiene or Morxa, a woman beloved by all. Iligh Paper delivered by the Spanish Ambaffador to the E. of E. High was his branchy head; and fleet his feet of wind. Duchomar! calm the maid replied, I love thee not, thou gloomy man. Hard is thy heart of rock, and dark thy terrible brow. But Cathbat, thou fon of Tormant, thou are the love of A Morna. Thou art like a fun-beam on the hill in the day of the gloomy ftorm. Saweft thou the fon of Torman, lovely on the hill of his hinds? Here the daughter of Cormac waits the coming of Catbbat. And long fhall Morna wait, DuchoB mar faid, his blood is on my fword.Long fhall Morna wait for him. He fell at Branno's ftream. High on Cromla I will raife his tomb, daughter of Cormac-caithbar; but fix thy love on Duchomar, his arm is ftrong as a storm. And is the fon of Torman fallen? faid the maid of the tearful eye. Is he fallen on his ecchoing hill; the youth with the breast of fnow? he that was firft in the chace of the hill; 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 Caithbat. 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-caithbar, thou haft flain Duchomar. The fword is cold in my breaft: Morna, I feel it cold. E Give me to Moina|| the maid; Duchomar was the dream of her night. She will raife my tomb; and the hunter fhall 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 fteel; 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 answered to her fighs. From the London Gazette. Translation of a Note delivered to the E. of Egremont, by the Count de Fuentes, December 25, 1761. 13 courier from his court, by whom he is informed, that my Lord Briftol, his Britannic majefty's ambaffador at the court of Madrid, has faid to his Excellency Mr Wall, minifter of ftate, that he had orders to demand a positive and categorical answer to this question, viz. If Spain thinks of allying herfelf with France against England?. -And to declare, at the fame time, that he should take a refufal to his demand, for an aggreffion and declara tion of war, and that he fhould, in confequence, be obliged to retire from the court of Spain. The above minif ter of state anfwered him, that such a ftep could only be fuggefted by the fpirit of haughtinefs, and of difcord, which, for the misfortune of mankind, ftill reigns but too much in the British government; that it was in Cthat very moment that the war was declared, and the king's dignity violently attacked, that he might retire how, or when he fhould think proper. The Count de Fuentes is, in confequence, ordered to leave the court and the dominions of England, and to deDclare to the British king, to the English nation, and to the whole univerfe, that the horrors into which the Spanish and English nations are going to plunge themselves, must be attributed only to the pride, and to the unmeasurable ambition of him who has held the reigns of the government, and who, appears ftill to hold them, although by another hand: That, if his Catholic majefty excufed himself from anfwering on the treaty in question between his Catholic Majefty and his moft Christian Majefty, which is believed to have been figned the 15th of August, and wherein, it is pretended, there are conditions relative to England, he had very good reafons; firft, the king's dignity required him to manifeft his juft refentment of the little management, or, to speak more properly, of the infulting manner with which all the affairs of Spain have been treated duGring Mr Pitt's adminftration, who, finding himself convinced of the juftice which fupported the king in his pretenfions, his ordinary and last anIwer was, That he would not relax in any thing till the Tower of London was taken fword in hand. F HE Count de Fuentes, the Catho- Torman, thunder. This is the true origin of the Jupiter Taramis of the ancients. She alludes to his name-the dark man, Befides, his majesty was much shocked to hear the haughty and imperious tone with which the contents of the treaty were demanded of him: If the respect due to Royal Majesty had been fegarded, Anfwer by the Earl of Egremont. A B 14 regarded, explanations might have been had without any difficulty: The minifters of Spain might have faid frankly to thofe of England, what the Count de Fuentes, by the king's exprefs, order, declares publickly, viz. That the faid treaty is only a convention between the family of Bourbon, wherein there is nothing that has the leaft relation to the prefent war: That there is in it an article for the mutual guaranty of the dominions of the two fovereigns; but it is specified therein, that that guaranty is not to be understood but of the dominions which fhall remain to France after the present war fhall be ended: That, altho' his Catholick Majefty might have had reafon to think himself offended by the irregular manner in which the memorial was returned to M. Buffy, minifter of France, which he had prefented for terminating the differences of Spain and England, at the fame time with the war between this last and France ; he has, however, diffembled, and, from an effect of his love of peace, caused a memorial to be delivered to my Lord Bristol, wherein it is evidently demon- D ftrated, that the step of France, which put the minister Pitt into fo bad humour, did not at all offend either the laws of neutrality, or the fincerity of the two fovereigns from a fresh proof of his pacific fpirit, the king of Spain wrote to the E king of France his coufin, that, if the union of intereft in any manner retarded the peace with England, he confented to feparate himself from it, not to put any obstacle to fo great a happinefs: But it was foon feen that this was only a pretence on the part of the English minifter, for that of France F continuing his negociation without making any mention of Spain, and propofing conditions very advantageous and honourable for England, the minifter Pitt, to the great aftonishment of the univerfe, rejected them with difdain, and fhewed at the fame time G his ill-will against Spain, to the scandal of the fame British council; and unfortunately he has fucceeded but too far in his pernicious defign. : That further, This declaration made, the Count de Fuentes defires his Excellency, my LO Egremont, to prefent his molt paffage of the fea, which feparates them from the continent. Tranflation of the Anfwer delivered to the Count de Fuentes, by the Earl of Egremont, Dec. 31, 1761. HE Earl of Egremont, his Britan of fitate, having received from his Excellency the Count de Feueutes, ambassador of the Catholic King at the court of London, a paper, in which, befides the notification of his re-call, and the de : and of the neceffary paffports to go out of the king's dominions, he has thought proper to enter into what has juft paffed between the two courts, with a view to make that of London appear as the fource of all the misfortunes which may enfue from the rupcture which has happened in order that nobody may be mifled by the declaration which his Excellency has been pleased to make to the king, to the English nation, and to the whole univerfe; notwithstanding the infinuation, as void of foundation as of de. cency, of the fpirit of haughtiness and of difcord, which, his Excellency pretends, reigns in the British government, to the misfortune of mankind and notwithstanding the irregularity and indecency of appealing to the English nation, as if it could be feparated from its king, for whom the moft determined fentiments of love, of duty, and of confidence, are engraved in the hearts of all his fubjects; the faid Earl of Egremont, by his majesty's order, laying afide, in this anfwer, all fpirit of declamation and of harshness, avoiding every offenfive word, which might hurt the dignity of fovereigns, without ftooping to invectives against private perfons, will confine himself to facts with the most scrupulous exactnefs: And it is from this reprefentation of facts that he appeals to all Europe, and to the whole univerfe, for the purity of the king's intentions, and for the fincerity of the wishes his majefty has not ceafed to make, as well as for the moderation he has always fhewed, though in vain, for the maintenance of friendship and good understanding between the British and Spanish nations. The king having received undoubthume respects to his Britannic ma- H ed informations, that the court of Majefty and to obtain for him passports, and all her facilities, for him, his family, and all his retinue to go out of the dominions of Great Britain without any trouble, and to go by the short drid had fecretly contracted engagements with that of Verfailles, which the minifters of France laboured to represent, in all the courts of Europe, as offenfive to Great Britain, and combi |