the less varied and more continuously sentimental form of poetry that commended itself to his taste is really an improvement, we do not mean in course of time, but simply in comparison.
We venture to think there are two principles with regard to Macpherson’s Ossianic poetry that cannot well be contested. The first is that much of the sentimentality in it is fine. This seems sufficiently proved by the welcome given to it in Europe generally. The second is that along with this fine sentimentality there is too much monotony. Blair himself, Macpherson’s great defender, admits the want of variety of events and the sameness of character in Macpherson’s Ossian. He claims for it great excellence only with regard to sentiment. We are following most closely the criticism of Dr. Blair in the principles we have laid down. In his critical Dissertation on Ossian, he compares Ossian with Homer, but says: “The Greek has in several points a manifest superiority: he introduces a greater variety of incidents, he possesses a larger compass of ideas, has more diversity in his characters, and a much deeper knowledge of human nature.” Later on he declares, on the other hand, that “with regard to dignity of sentiment, the preeminence must clearly be given to Ossian.”
In the Irish ballads the sentimentality that occurs is of the same kind as that of Macpherson’s Ossian. We have seen how Macpherson himself praised the Irish bards when they dealt with sentiment in odes and elegies. The sentimentality in the Ossianic ballads is, as the reader will shortly see, of a kind that must be recognised as akin to what Macpherson brought forward in his own Ossian; and no doubt also to what he tells us he admired in the short Irish poems. Now if what is brought in to diversify this is contemptible, as Macpherson maintains, no doubt it is merely a debasement—we do not mean in the historical, but in the literary sense. If, on the contrary, it is something that possesses considerable literary merit, the Irish ballads are all the better for containing it.
We need scarcely say that we, who have defended the episode of the hydra against Dr. Joyce, are going to defend the varied life-pictures of our Ossianic poems against Macpherson. And now we rejoice to say we shall have Dr. Joyce on our side, or to speak properly—we have spoken very improperly indeed, and we ask pardon—we shall be contending under the standard that has been set up by Dr. Joyce. It is he, no other, that has truly brought forward the claims of Irish literature to possess not only poetry, but compositions that as complete works have real literary merit. This is the second and crowning step in the vindication of that literature. The first step was effectually taken—whether we like to acknowledge it or not—by Macpherson himself; he with his Ossian—which even according to him was only the undebased model of Irish poems—made the world generally admit that there were no doubt snatches of poetry to be found in the old lays of Ireland.
Farther than this, up to the present day, people had not advanced. Lord Macaulay is a most curious instance of the work really done by Macpherson’s Ossian. He overflowed with contempt for Macpherson; he loved to hold him up to ridicule. But when, at the commencement of his history, he undertakes to tell of Spenser’s views with regard to Irish poetry, it really seems to be Macpherson’s objections that he puts forward, though not applied exactly as Macpherson would have wished. Spenser takes great trouble to explain at length the beauty of an Irish poem. He then makes his stupid Eudoxus ask the clever Irenæus whether the Irish “have any art in their compositions,” and makes Irenæus answer, “Yea, truly,” at once, and then goes on to explain, first, that Irish poems “savoured of sweet wit and good invention;” secondly, that they “skilled not of the goodly ornaments of poetry;” and thirdly, that nevertheless they had “good grace and comeliness” for they were “sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness to them.” The goodly ornaments of poetry, as contradistinguished from natural device, means, doubtless, the artificial style of the Spenserian age in England. We cannot seriously maintain
