"Son of Fingal," began Mal-orchol, "not forgot shalt thou pass from me. A light shall dwell in thy ship, Oinamorul of slow-rolling eyes. She shall kindle gladness along thy mighty soul. Nor unheeded shall the maid move in Selma through the dwelling of kings."

In the hall I lay in night. Mine eyes were half closed in sleep. Soft music came to mine ears. It was like the rising breeze, that whirls at first the thistle's beard, then flies dark-shadowy over the grass. It was the maid of Fuärfed wild! she raised the nightly song; she knew that my soul was a stream that flowed at pleas ant sounds. "Who looks," she said, "from his rock on ocean's closing mist? His long locks like the raven's wing, are wandering on the blast.-Stately are his steps in grief! The tears are in his eyes! His manly breast is heaving over his bursting soul!

afar, a wanderer in lands unknown.

Retire, I am distant

Though the race of

kings are around me, yet my soul is dark. Why have our fathers been foes, Ton-thormod, love of maids!"

"Soft voice of the

streamy isle," I said, "why dost

thou mourn by night? The race of daring Trenmor are not the dark in soul. Thou shalt not wander by streams unknown, blue-eyed Oina-morul! within this bosom is a voice: it comes not to other ears: it bids Ossian hear the hapless in their hour of woe. Retire, soft singer by night! Ton-thormod shall not mourn on his rock!"

With morning I loosed the king. I gave the longhaired maid. Mal-orchol heard my words in the midst

of his echoing halls. "King of Fuärfed wild, why should

hands of mist to the same shell in Loda.

Forget their

rage, ye warriors! It was the cloud of other years."

Such were the deeds of Ossian, while yet his locks were young; though loveliness, with a robe of beams, clothed the daughter of many isles. We call back, maid of Lutha, the years that have rolled away!

ADDRESS TO THE SUV.

O THOU that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O Sun! thy everlasting light! Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years, the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven, but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls and

lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps like me for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills: the blast of the north is on the plain; the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

HECTOR MACNEILL.

1746-1818.

HECTOR MACNEILL was brought up to a mercantile life, but was unsuccessful in most of his business affairs. He cultivated in secret an attachment to the muses, which at length brought him fame, but not wealth. In 1795 he published his moral tale, "History of Will and Jean." The simple truth and pathos of description evinced in this poem soon rendered it universally popular in Scotland.

After many wanderings in the West Indies and elsewhere, the latter years of the poet were spent in comparative comfort at Edin. burgh, where he enjoyed the refined and literary society of the Scottish capital till an advanced age.