On the silent flank of hoary Bens—
The loch, unruffled, far away,
Calm and blue on the floor of the glens[1].
As a final sample of the Ossianic landscape, with its kaleidoscopic play of atmospheric effect, answering to the changes of human feeling, let me cite some lines from 'Fingal':—
Morna, most lovely among women,
Why by thyself in the circle of stones,
In hollow of the rock on the hill alone?
Rivers are sounding around thee;
The aged tree is moaning in the wind;
Turmoil is on yonder loch;
Clouds darken round the tops of Cairns [mountains];
Thyself art like snow on the hill—.
Thy waving hair like mist of Cromla,
Curling upward on the Ben,
'Neath gleaming of the sun from the west;
Thy soft bosom like the white rock
On bank of Brano of white streams[2].
Though Macpherson roused the interest of the world in the rugged scenery and boisterous climates of the west, it was some time before any other writer followed his lead among the highlands of this country. It is singular to reflect that though the mountain-world, more than any other part of the land, appeals to the imagination, by revealing all that is most impressive in form and colour, and all that is most vigorous in the elemental warfare of nature, it was the last part of the terrestrial surface to meet with due appreciation. Little more than a century has passed since men began to visit the Scottish Highlands for the pleasure of
