After Gray came the renowned Macpherson, representing the very soul of the Celtic genius, and Europe listened surprised as it felt the thrill of the new notes which he struck from the old instrument—the passionate, penetrating regret, the deep melancholy, the sensitiveness to the powers of nature. In his _Ossian_ we are made to feel “the desolation of dusky moors, the solemn brooding of the mists on the mountains, the occasional looking through them of sun by day, of moon and stars by night, the gloom of dark cloudy Bens or cairns, with flashing cataracts, the ocean with its storms.” And when the wind shrieks and the elements do frightful battle, there is the eerie sensation of ghostly presences hovering around the warriors on the hillside or out on the ocean. And through all the sadness of sorrow and the clang of conflict there break gleams of tender light and soothing reflection, as, for example:— Come, thou beam that art lonely, from watching in the night! The squally winds are around thee, from all their echoing hills. Red, over my hundred streams, are the light-covered paths of the dead. They rejoice on the eddying winds, in the season of the night. Dwells there no joy in song, white hand of the harps of Lutha? Awake the voice of the string; roll my soul to me. It is a stream that has failed. Malvina, pour the song. I hear thee from thy darkness in Selma, thou that watchest lonely by night! Why didst thou withhold the song from Ossian’s failing soul? As the falling brook to the ear of the hunter, descending from his storm-covered hill, in a sunbeam rolls the echoing stream, he hears and shakes his dewy locks: such is the voice of Lutha to the friend of the spirits of heroes. My swelling bosom beats high. I look back on the days that are past. Come, thou beam that art lonely, from watching in the night! No wonder these plaintive notes struck the heart of modern times with overpowering emotion, awakening a sympathy with the past, and opening a new avenue of vision into the life of nature. Englishmen especially, who had hitherto beheld the bleak mountains, the moors, and the naked rocks with feeling almost akin to aversion, began to see a hidden beauty and majesty in these sublime and lonely objects. And a passion for nature gradually crept into English poetry. Thomson had made a beginning in this direction with his _Seasons_ as early as 1726–30, but it cannot be said that he quite struck the notes which afterwards so moved and enchanted the readers of Macpherson, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Tennyson.