Page from 'Poems of Ossian - Volume II'

This scene from the poem 'Berrathon' is the frontispiece of the Hugh Campbell’s edition of 'The Poems of Ossian', published in 1840 in Leipzig. 'Berrathon' is one of the poems in the Ossianic cycle, first published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson in the 1760s, and is considered to be the last poem of the narrator-author Ossian. At the poem's end, he predicts his own death.

The image shows a miserable Ossian, playing his harp, as he performs an elegy after the death of Malvina, the lover of his dead son. Having only had Malvina for company, Ossian now finds himself utterly alone: elderly, blind, and with no-one to pass his poems to. Behind him, his music and grief forms an image to depict the events of which he sings.

[Shelfmark ABS.1.76.198]