Terror's black clouds, and to thy gladden'd view Disclose the realms of Everlasting Light! 1. 2. Everlasting Light-When this Remonstrance to Cowper was written, its author only knew him in his publications. Mr Hayley's Biography of that unfortunate man softens, by excited pity, the indignation which had arisen from the ungenerous passages reprobated here;-but the delineation of Cowper's character, and the records of his life, compared with the illiberal censures which disgrace the interesting and beautiful pages of the TASK, teach us, more than ever, to deplore the dire Calvinistic principles, which ruined his peace, and which could so freeze and narrow a heart, which Nature had made warm and expansive. They taught him to anathematize for departed genius, sublimer and more extensive than his own, Shakespear and Handel, that praise for the magnificent talents they had cultivated, which his published letters prove him to have been desirous to obtain for his own poetry. March 1806. CRUGAL's GHOST, APPEARING TO CONNAL, FROM OSSIAN.* LULL'd by the dashing of the mountain stream, Brave CONNAL lies. A stone with moss o'erspread, *This, and the ensuing version, are not calculated for the admirers of Ossian. Those who have a true taste for him, in the simple grandeur of the translation in solemn prose, will think, with the author of this Miscellany, that the most sonorous rhyme and best constructed measure cannot improve his poetic charms. But there are people of genius, who have fervent taste for lyric excellence, that consider poetry, divested of measure, as bombastic prose. Influenced by that prejudice, they perceive neither grandeur nor beauty in the awful and striking imagery of the old Bard. The author of the above paraphrase, convinced that the songs of Ossian contain poetic matter, potent to elevate and render beautiful, any mode of composition, here tries the effect of that, in which Pope has given us a still more ancient Bard than Ossian. The passages very well bear being detached, and form in themselves a per At distance from the Chiefs he seeks repose; Shrill as the winds o'er heathy Lena sweep, He hears the voice of night assail his sleep; And waking, marks a gleam of dusky red Glide down the hill, and reach his mossy bed. Young CRUGAL's semblance hovers in the ray, Fall'n in the slaughter of that deathful day. His face, is like the moon in shrouding rains; His robes, the clouds, that rise from marshy plains ; Gleam, like decaying flames, his eyes around, And dart upon his breast the livid wound! As mortal visitant, with life-blood warm, The dauntless chief accosts the shadowy form. "Fam'd on the hill of Deer, what chance has led "The valiant Crugal to my mossy bed? "Ah! why so pale ?-that never knew'st to yield, "Son of the hill, and breaker of the shield!" fect whole. She thinks the ghosts of CRUGAL, and CỤCNULLIN, vie in sublime and mournful grace with those of PATROCLUS and of HECTOR-with that of MARGARET in the exquisite ballad, and almost with the SPIRIT, in the Book of JOB, which passed before the eyes of Eliphaz, amid the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men. The airy head low bending, as in grief, One dim hand stretch'd o'er the recumbent chief, A wailful sound the bloodless lips exhale, Thin as the reedy Lego's rising gale. "Wide o'er its native hills my ghost has stray'd, "But my pale corse on Ullin's shore is laid. "No more wilt thou with CRUGAL commune kind, “Or on the heath his lonely steps shalt find; "My trackless feet through fields of air have past, "Light as high Cromla's ever-whistling blast. "But, O! my warning voice may Connal mark! "I see the cloud of death descending dark; "O'er Lena's plain it hovers !-Erin's hosts "Must fall!-fly, Connal, from the field of ghosts!" He sighs!—and, like the darken'd moon, retires Amid his whistling blast, and meteor fires. Stay," cries the valiant Connal, "Crugal stay, "Son of the windy hill, and meteor-ray ! "What mountain-cave has thy pale corse possest? "What green cliff blossoms o'er thy house of rest? "Shall not thy voice in wintry storms arise? "Shall we not hear it in the torrent's noise, Rising he moves, with rapid step, and light, His armour ringing to the blast of night; Speeds to the heroes, slumbering on the field, And o'er CUCHULLIN strikes the clanging shield. "Why, (says the ruler of the car,) why come "The steps of Connal through the midnight-gloom? Against the alarming sound my spear might turn, "And his slain friend the rash Cuchullin mourn." 66 'Rever'd CUCHULLIN, Chief of deathless fame, late rest the ghost of Crugal came. • To my • Dim through his form the midnight stars appear'd, And like a distant stream his voice I heard. "Upon my startled ear it slowly broke, ' And of the dark and narrow dwelling spoke, 'For this he glided o'er the marshy heath, 'The voice of woe, the messenger of death!For peace, or truce, O chief of Dunsaick, try, 'Or o'er the heath of Lena instant fly.' Then, gravely smiling, with intrepid air, Replies the dauntless ruler of the war. "He spoke to us of death's impending storm, "Though stars dim twinkled thro' his misty form!— "Connal, the rising gales, that murmur'd near, "From Lena's cavern rush'd upon thine ear; |