was
derived by tradition, and if so, from whom; or whether it was the result
of practical experiment in his own generation, is foreign for the moment
to our present inquiry. But that it was relied upon as an endowment of
the most gifted heroes; that it was exercised by them in extremity, as
if to subdue nature from whom they had borrowed it, and to wrest the
very power of destruction out of her hand; and that such practical
conquest was sometimes achieved by them, or is said to have been
achieved by them, is just as certain as that Macpherson's translation is
before us now. What we refer to more especially for the present, is the
secret of extracting or discharging electricity from the atmosphere by
mechanical means--by the thrust of a spear, or of a sword, into the
bosom of the low-hanging cloud, or lurid vapour, and so dislodging the
imaginary spirit of evil by which they were supposed to be tenanted.
Only the very best, and bravest, and wisest could prevail in such
conflict with nature; but they did prevail, according to Ossian; and the
weapons of their warfare, and the mode of their assault, were precisely
similar to what an experimentalist in electricity might employ at the
present day, or to what the Egyptians employed in the days of Moses. We
shall not now go further back in the prosecution of this inquiry, but
would seriously recommend the reader who has any difficulty on the
subject to compare, at his leisure, the work of Moses on the top of
Mount Sinai and elsewhere, with an Egyptian "rod" in his hand, and the
exploits of Fingal in conflict with the Spirit of Loda on the heights of
Hoy, with a sword in his hand. There might have been a far-derived and
long traditional secret connection between the two, most edifying, or at
least most curious, to investigate; or they might both have resulted
from that sort of intuition which only the most gifted of any nation
enjoy independently, re-appearing again in Franklin, and now
familiarised to the world. Let those who doubt, or who differ on this
point, satisfy themselves. What we are now concerned to maintain and
prove is, that the fact is more than once described by Ossian, in
circumstances, in situations, and with instrumentalities, which render
the allegation of it at least indubitable. In the case above referred
to, for example, Fingal, challenged and assaulted in a thunderstorm by
the Spirit of Loda, encounters his antagonist with a sword, on the very
verge of a cl