Other critics have pointed out a similar indistinctness in the human actors, no less than in the landscape features of "Fingal" and "Temora." They have no dramatic individuality, but are all alike, and all extremely shadowy. "Poor, moaning, monotonous MacPherson" is Carlyle's alliterative description of the translator of "Ossian"; and it must be confessed that, in spite of the deep poetic feeling which pervades these writings, and the undeniable beauty of single passages, they have damnable iteration. The burden of their song is a burden in every sense. Mr. Malcolm Laing, one of MacPherson's most persistent adversaries, who published "Notes and Illustrations to Ossian" in 1805, essayed to show, by a minute analysis of the language, that the whole thing was a fabrication, made up from Homer, Milton, the English Bible, and other sources. Thus he compared MacPherson's "Like the darkened moon when she moves, a dim circle, through heaven, and dreadful change is expected by men," with Milton's "Or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs." Laing's method proves too much and might be applied with like results to almost any literary work. And, in general, it is hazardous to draw hard and fast conclusions from internal evidence of the sort just reviewed. Taken altogether, these objections do leave a strong bias upon the mind, and were one to pronounce upon the genuineness of MacPherson's "Ossian," as a whole, from impressions of tone and style, it might be guessed that whatever element of true ancient poetry it contains, it had been thoroughly steeped in modern sentiment before it was put before the public. But remembering Beowulf and the Norse mythology, one might hesitate to say that the songs of primitive, heroic ages are always insensible to the sublime in nature; or to admit that melancholy is a Celtic monopoly.