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+Project Gutenberg's The Poetical Works of William Collins, by William Collins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Poetical Works of William Collins
+       With a Memoir
+
+Author: William Collins
+
+Commentator: Sir Harris Nicolas
+             Sir Egerton Brydges
+
+Release Date: August 31, 2009 [EBook #29879]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS--WILLIAM COLLINS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Katherine Ward, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: William Collins   Ætatis
+
+  Quos primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis
+                                     Virg.]
+
+
+
+
+  _THE_
+  POETICAL WORKS
+  OF
+  WILLIAM COLLINS.
+
+  _WITH A MEMOIR._
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Perennis et Fragrans._]
+
+
+
+
+  BOSTON:
+  LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+  1865.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+                                                                  Page
+  Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas                                       v
+  An Essay on the Genius and Poems of Collins, by Sir Egerton
+      Brydges, Bart.                                             xliii
+
+          ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.
+  Selim; or, The Shepherd's Moral                                    3
+  Hassan; or, The Camel Driver                                       7
+  Abra; Or, The Georgian Sultana                                    11
+  Agib And Secander; or, The Fugitives                              15
+
+          ODES.
+  To Pity                                                           21
+  To Fear                                                           24
+  To Simplicity                                                     28
+  On the Poetical Character                                         31
+  Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746                         34
+  To Mercy                                                          35
+  To Liberty                                                        37
+  To a Lady, On the Death of Colonel Ross, written in May,
+      1745                                                          44
+  To Evening                                                        48
+  To Peace                                                          52
+  The Manners                                                       54
+  The Passions                                                      58
+  On the Death of Thomson                                           63
+  On the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland;
+      considered as the Subject of Poetry; inscribed to Mr.
+      John Home                                                     66
+  An Epistle, addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, on his Edition of
+      Shakespeare's Works                                           78
+  Dirge in Cymbeline, sung by Guiderus and Arviragus over
+      Fidele, supposed to be dead                                   87
+  Verses written on a Paper which contained a Piece of
+      Bride-cake, given to the Author by a Lady                     89
+  To Miss Aurelia C----R, on her Weeping at her Sister's
+      Wedding                                                       91
+  Sonnet                                                            91
+  Song. The Sentiments borrowed from Shakespeare                    92
+  On our late Taste in Music                                        94
+
+  Observations on the Oriental Eclogues, by Dr. Langhorne          101
+  Observations on the Odes, by the same                            118
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIR OF COLLINS.
+
+                                      "A Bard,
+  Who touched the tenderest notes of Pity's lyre."
+                                         HAYLEY.
+
+
+No one can have reflected on the history of genius without being
+impressed with a melancholy feeling at the obscurity in which the lives
+of the poets of our country are, with few exceptions, involved. That
+they lived, and wrote, and died, comprises nearly all that is known of
+many, and, of others, the few facts which are preserved are often
+records of privations, or sufferings, or errors. The cause of the
+lamentable deficiency of materials for literary biography may, without
+difficulty, be explained. The lives of authors are seldom marked by
+events of an unusual character; and they rarely leave behind them the
+most interesting work a writer could compose, and which would embrace
+nearly all the important facts in his career, a "History of his Books,"
+containing the motives which produced them, the various incidents
+respecting their progress, and a faithful account of the bitter
+disappointment, whether the object was fame or profit, or both, which,
+in most instances, is the result of his labours. Various motives deter
+men from writing such a volume; for, though quacks and charlatans
+readily become auto-biographers, and fill their prefaces with their
+personal concerns, real merit shrinks from such disgusting egotism, and,
+flying to the opposite extreme, leaves no authentic notice of their
+struggles, its hopes, or its disappointments. Nor is the history of
+writers to be expected from their contemporaries; because few will
+venture to anticipate the judgment of posterity, and mankind are usually
+so isolated in self, and so jealous of others, that neither time nor
+inclination admits of their becoming the Boswells of all those whose
+productions excite admiration.
+
+If these remarks be true, surprise cannot be felt, though there is
+abundance of cause for regret, that little is known of a poet whose
+merits were not appreciated until after his decease: whose powers were
+destroyed by a distressing malady at a period of life when literary
+exertions begin to be rewarded and stimulated by popular applause.
+
+For the facts contained in the following Memoir of Collins, the author
+is indebted to the researches of others, as his own, which were very
+extensive, were rewarded by trifling discoveries. Dr. Johnson's Life is
+well known; but the praise of collecting every particular which industry
+and zeal could glean belongs to the Rev. Alexander Dyce, the result of
+whose inquiries may be found in his notes to Johnson's Memoir, prefixed
+to an edition of Collins's works which he lately edited. Those notices
+are now, for the first time, wove into a Memoir of Collins; and in
+leaving it to another to erect a fabric out of the materials which he
+has collected instead of being himself the architect, Mr. Dyce has
+evinced a degree of modesty which those who know him must greatly
+lament.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM COLLINS was born at Chichester, on the 25th of December, 1721,
+and was baptized in the parish church of St. Peter the Great, alias
+Subdeanery in that city, on the first of the following January. He was
+the son of William Collins, who was then the Mayor of Chichester, where
+he exercised the trade of a hatter, and lived in a respectable manner.
+His mother was Elizabeth, the sister of a Colonel Martyn, to whose
+bounty the poet was deeply indebted.
+
+Being destined for the church, young Collins was admitted a scholar of
+Winchester College on the 19th of January, 1733, where he was educated
+by Dr. Burton; and in 1740 he stood first on the list of scholars who
+were to be received at New College. No vacancy, however, occurred, and
+the circumstance is said by Johnson to have been the original misfortune
+of his life. He became a commoner of Queen's,[1] whence, on the 29th of
+July, 1741, he was elected a demy of Magdalen College. During his stay
+at Queen's he was distinguished for genius and indolence, and the few
+exercises which he could be induced to write bear evident marks of both
+qualities. He continued at Oxford until he took his bachelor's degree,
+and then suddenly left the University, his motive, as he alleged, being
+that he missed a fellowship, for which he offered himself; but it has
+been assigned to his disgust at the dulness of a college life, and to
+his being involved in debt.
+
+On arriving in London, which was either in 1743 or 1744, he became, says
+Johnson, "a literary adventurer, with many projects in his head and very
+little money in his pocket." Collins was not without some reputation as
+an author when he proposed to adopt the most uncertain and deplorable of
+all professions, that of literature, for a subsistence. Whilst at
+Winchester school he wrote his Eclogues, and had appeared before the
+public in some verses addressed to a lady weeping at her sister's
+marriage, which were printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, Oct. 1739,
+when Collins was in his eighteenth year. In January, 1742, he published
+his Eclogues, under the title of "Persian Eclogues;"[2] and, in
+December, 1743, his "Verses to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his Edition of
+Shakespeare," appeared. To neither did he affix his name, but the latter
+was said to be by "a Gentleman of Oxford."
+
+From the time he settled in London, his mind was more occupied with
+literary projects than with steady application; nor had poesy, for which
+Nature peculiarly designed him, sufficient attractions to chain his
+wavering disposition. It is not certain whether his irresolution arose
+from the annoyance of importunate debtors, or from an original infirmity
+of mind, or from these causes united. A popular writer[3] has defended
+Collins from the charge of irresolution, on the ground that it was but
+"the vacillations of a mind broken and confounded;" and he urges, that
+"he had exercised too constantly the highest faculties of fiction, and
+precipitated himself into the dreariness of real life." But this
+explanation does not account for the want of steadiness which prevented
+Collins from accomplishing the objects he meditated. His mind was
+neither "broken nor confounded," nor had he experienced the bitter pangs
+of neglect, when with the buoyancy of hope, and a full confidence in his
+extraordinary powers, he threw himself on the town, at the age of
+twenty-three, intending to live by the exercise of his talents; but his
+indecision was then as apparent as at any subsequent period, so that, in
+truth, the effect preceded the cause to which it has been assigned.
+
+Mankind are becoming too much accustomed to witness splendid talents and
+great firmness of mind united in the same person to partake the mistaken
+sympathy which so many writers evince for the follies or vices of
+genius; nor will it much longer tolerate the opinion, that the
+possession of the finest imagination, or the highest poetic capacity,
+must necessarily be accompanied by eccentricity. It may, indeed, be
+difficult to convert a poetical temperament into a merchant, or to make
+the man who is destined to delight or astonish mankind by his
+conceptions, sit quietly over a ledger; but the transition from poetry
+to the composition of such works as Collins planned is by no means
+unnatural, and the abandonment of his views respecting them must, in
+justice to his memory, be attributed to a different cause.
+
+The most probable reason is, that these works were mere speculations to
+raise money, and that the idea was not encouraged by the booksellers;
+but if, as Johnson, who knew Collins well, asserts, his character wanted
+decision and perseverance, these defects may have been constitutional,
+and were, perhaps, the germs of the disease which too soon ripened into
+the most frightful of human calamities. Endued with a morbid
+sensibility, which was as ill calculated to court popularity as to bear
+neglect; and wanting that stoical indifference to the opinions of the
+many, which ought to render those who are conscious of the value of
+their productions satisfied with the approbation of the few; Collins was
+too impatient of applause, and too anxious to attain perfection, to be a
+voluminous writer. To plan much rather than to execute any thing; to
+commence to-day an ode, to-morrow a tragedy, and to turn on the
+following morning to a different subject, was the chief occupation of
+his life for several years, during which time he destroyed the principal
+part of the little that he wrote. To a man nearly pennyless, such a life
+must be attended by privations and danger; and he was in the hands of
+bailiffs, possibly not for the first time, very shortly before he became
+independent by the death of his maternal uncle, Colonel Martyn. The
+result proved that his want of firmness and perseverance was natural,
+and did not arise from the uncertainty or narrowness of his fortune; for
+being rescued from imprisonment, on the credit of a translation of
+Aristotle's Poetics, which he engaged to furnish a publisher, a work, it
+may be presumed, peculiarly suited to his genius, he no sooner found
+himself in the possession of money by the death of his relative, than he
+repaid the bookseller, and abandoned the translation for ever.
+
+From the commencement of his career, Collins was, however, an object
+for sympathy instead of censure; and though few refuse their compassion
+to the confirmed lunatic, it is rare that the dreadful state of
+irresolution and misery, which sometimes exist for years before the
+fatal catastrophe, receives either pity or indulgence.
+
+In 1747, Collins published his Odes, to the unrivaled splendour of a few
+of which he is alone indebted for his fame; but neither fame nor profit
+was the immediate result; and the author of the Ode on the Passions had
+little reason to expect, from its reception by the public, that it was
+destined to live as long as the passions themselves animate or distract
+the world.
+
+It is uncertain at what time he undertook to publish a volume of Odes in
+conjunction with Joseph Warton, but the intention is placed beyond
+dispute by the following letter from Warton to his brother. It is
+without a date, but it must have been written before the publication of
+Collins's Odes in 1747, and before the appearance of Dodsley's
+Museum,[4] as it is evident the Ode to a Lady on the Death of Colonel
+Ross, which was inserted in that work, was not then in print.
+
+  "DEAR TOM,
+
+  "You will wonder to see my name in an advertisement next week, so
+  I thought I would apprise you of it. The case was this. Collins
+  met me in Surrey, at Guildford races, when I wrote out for him my
+  odes, and he likewise communicated some of his to me; and being
+  both in very high spirits, we took courage, resolved to join our
+  forces, and to publish them immediately. I flatter myself that I
+  shall lose no honor by this publication, because I believe these
+  odes, as they now stand, are infinitely the best things I ever
+  wrote. You will see a very pretty one of Collins's, on the Death
+  of Colonel Ross before Tournay. It is addressed to a lady who was
+  Ross's intimate acquaintance, and who, by the way, is Miss Bett
+  Goddard. Collins is not to publish the odes unless he gets ten
+  guineas for them. I returned from Milford last night, where I left
+  Collins with my mother and sister, and he sets out to-day for
+  London. I must now tell you, that I have sent him your imitation
+  of Horace's Blandusian Fountain, to be printed amongst ours, and
+  which you shall own or not, as you think proper. I would not have
+  done this without your consent, but because I think it very
+  poetically and correctly done, and will get you honour. You will
+  let me know what the Oxford critics say. Adieu, dear Tom,
+
+  "I am your most affectionate brother,
+  "J. WARTON."
+
+Like so many of Collins's projects this was not executed; but the reason
+of its failure is unknown.
+
+On the death of Thomson, in August, 1748, Collins wrote an ode to his
+memory, which is no less remarkable for its beauty as a composition,
+than for its pathetic tenderness as a memorial of a friend.
+
+The Poet's pecuniary difficulties were removed in 1749, by the death of
+his maternal uncle, Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Martyn, who, after
+bequeathing legacies to some other relations, ordered the residue of his
+real and personal estate to be divided between his nephew William
+Collins, and his nieces Elizabeth and Anne Collins, and appointed the
+said Elizabeth his executrix, who proved her uncle's will on the 30th of
+May, 1749. Collins's share was, it is said, about two thousand pounds;
+and, as has been already observed, the money came most opportunely: a
+greater calamity even than poverty, however, shortly afterwards
+counterbalanced his good fortune; but the assertion of the writer in the
+Gentleman's Magazine, that his mental aberration arose from his having
+squandered this legacy, appears to be unfounded.
+
+One, and but one, letter of Collins's has ever been printed; nor has a
+careful inquiry after others been successful. It is of peculiar
+interest, as it proves that he wrote an Ode on the Music of the Grecian
+Theatre, but which is unfortunately lost. The honour to which he
+alludes was the setting his Ode on the Passions to music.
+
+  "TO DR. WILLIAM HAYES, PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, OXFORD.
+
+  "SIR,
+
+  "MR. BLACKSTONE of Winchester some time since informed me of the
+  honour you had done me at Oxford last summer; for which I return
+  you my sincere thanks. I have another more perfect copy of the
+  ode; which, had I known your obliging design, I would have
+  communicated to you. Inform me by a line, if you should think one
+  of my better judgment acceptable. In such case I could send you
+  one written on a nobler subject; and which, though I have been
+  persuaded to bring it forth in London, I think more calculated for
+  an audience in the university. The subject is the Music of the
+  Grecian Theatre; in which I have, I hope naturally, introduced the
+  various characters with which the chorus was concerned, as
+  Œdipus, Medea, Electra, Orestes, etc. etc. The composition too is
+  probably more correct, as I have chosen the ancient tragedies for
+  my models, and only copied the most affecting passages in them.
+
+  "In the mean time, you would greatly oblige me by sending the
+  score of the last. If you can get it written, I will readily
+  answer the expense. If you send it with a copy or two of the ode
+  (as printed at Oxford) to Mr. Clarke, at Winchester, he will
+  forward it to me here. I am, Sir,
+
+  "With great respect,
+  "Your obliged humble servant,
+  "WILLIAM COLLINS.
+
+  "Chichester, Sussex, November 8, 1750."
+
+  "P. S. Mr. Clarke past some days here while Mr. Worgan was with
+  me; from whose friendship, I hope, he will receive some
+  advantage."
+
+Soon after this period, the disease which had long threatened to destroy
+Collins's intellects assumed a more decided character; but for some time
+the unhappy poet was the only person who was sensible of the approaching
+calamity. A visit to France was tried in vain; and when Johnson called
+upon him, on his return, an incident occurred which proves that Collins
+wisely sought for consolation against the coming wreck of his faculties,
+from a higher and more certain source than mere human aid. Johnson says,
+"he paid him a visit at Islington, where he was then waiting for his
+sister, whom he had directed to meet him: there was then nothing of
+disorder discernible in his mind by any but himself; but he had
+withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an English
+Testament, such as children carry to the school: when his friend took
+it into his hand, out of curiosity to see what companion a man of
+letters had chosen, 'I have but one book,' said Collins, 'but that is
+the best.'"
+
+To this circumstance Hayley beautifully alludes in his epitaph on him:
+
+  He, "in reviving reason's lucid hours,
+  Sought on _one_ book his troubled mind to rest,
+  And rightly deem'd the Book of God the best."
+
+A journey to Bath proved as useless as the one to France; and in 1754,
+he went to Oxford for change of air and amusement, where he stayed a
+month. It was on this occasion that a friend, whose account of him will
+be given at length, saw him in a distressing state of restraint under
+the walls of Merton College. From the paucity of information respecting
+Collins, the following letters are extremely valuable; and though the
+statements are those of his friends, they may be received without
+suspicion of partiality, because they are free from the high colouring
+by which friendship sometimes perverts truth.
+
+The first of the letters in question was printed in the Gentleman's
+Magazine:
+
+  "Jan. 20, 1781.
+
+  "MR. URBAN,
+
+  "WILLIAM COLLINS, the poet, I was intimately acquainted with, from
+  the time that he came to reside at Oxford. He was the son of a
+  tradesman in the city of Chichester, I think a hatter; and being
+  sent very young to Winchester school, was soon distinguished for
+  his early proficiency, and his turn for elegant composition. About
+  the year 1740, he came off from that seminary first upon roll,[5]
+  and was entered a commoner of Queen's college. There, no vacancy
+  offering for New College, he remained a year or two, and then was
+  chosen demy of Magdalen college; where, I think, he took a degree.
+  As he brought with him, for so the whole turn of his conversation
+  discovered, too high an opinion of his school acquisitions, and a
+  sovereign contempt for all academic studies and discipline, he
+  never looked with any complacency on his situation in the
+  university, but was always complaining of the dulness of a college
+  life. In short, he threw up his demyship, and, going to London,
+  commenced a man of the town, spending his time in all the
+  dissipation of Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and the playhouses; and was
+  romantic enough to suppose that his superior abilities would draw
+  the attention of the great world, by means of whom he was to make
+  his fortune.
+
+  "In this pleasurable way of life he soon wasted his little
+  property, and a considerable legacy left him by a maternal uncle,
+  a colonel in the army, to whom the nephew made a visit in
+  Flanders during the war. While on his tour he wrote several
+  entertaining letters to his Oxford friends, some of which I saw.
+  In London I met him often, and remember he lodged in a little
+  house with a Miss Bundy, at the corner of King's-square-court,
+  Soho, now a warehouse, for a long time together. When poverty
+  overtook him, poor man, he had too much sensibility of temper to
+  bear with misfortunes, and so fell into a most deplorable state of
+  mind. How he got down to Oxford, I do not know; but I myself saw
+  him under Merton wall, in a very affecting situation, struggling,
+  and conveyed by force, in the arms of two or three men, towards
+  the parish of St. Clement, in which was a house that took in such
+  unhappy objects: and I always understood, that not long after he
+  died in confinement; but when, or where, or where he was buried, I
+  never knew.
+
+  "Thus was lost to the world this unfortunate person, in the prime
+  of life, without availing himself of fine abilities, which,
+  properly improved, must have raised him to the top of any
+  profession, and have rendered him a blessing to his friends, and
+  an ornament to his country.
+
+  "Without books, or steadiness and resolution to consult them if he
+  had been possessed of any, he was always planning schemes for
+  elaborate publications, which were carried no further than the
+  drawing up proposals for subscriptions, some of which were
+  published; and in particular, as far as I remember, one for 'a
+  History of the Darker Ages.'
+
+  "He was passionately fond of music; good-natured and affable; warm
+  in his friendships, and visionary in his pursuits; and, as long as
+  I knew him, very temperate in his eating and drinking. He was of
+  moderate stature, of a light and clear complexion, with gray eyes,
+  so very weak at times as hardly to bear a candle in the room; and
+  often raising within him apprehensions of blindness.
+
+  "With an anecdote respecting him, while he was at Magdalen
+  College, I shall close my letter. It happened one afternoon, at a
+  tea visit, that several intelligent friends were assembled at his
+  rooms to enjoy each other's conversation, when in comes a member
+  of a certain college,[6] as remarkable at that time for his brutal
+  disposition as for his good scholarship; who, though he met with a
+  circle of the most peaceable people in the world, was determined
+  to quarrel; and, though no man said a word, lifted up his foot and
+  kicked the tea-table, and all its contents, to the other side of
+  the room. Our poet, though of a warm temper, was so confounded at
+  the unexpected downfall, and so astonished at the unmerited
+  insult, that he took no notice of the aggressor, but getting up
+  from his chair calmly, he began picking up the slices of bread and
+  butter, and the fragments of his china, repeating very mildly,
+
+    Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetæ.
+
+  "I am your very humble servant,
+  "V."
+
+The next letter was found among the papers of Mr. William Hymers, of
+Queen's College, Oxford, who was preparing a new edition of the works of
+the poet for publication, when death prevented the completion of his
+design.
+
+  "Hill Street, Richmond in Surrey, July, 1783.
+
+  "SIR,
+
+  "Your favour of the 30th June I did not receive till yesterday.
+  The person who has the care of my house in Bond Street, expecting
+  me there every day, did not send it to Richmond, or I would have
+  answered sooner. As you express a wish to know every particular,
+  however trifling, relating to Mr. William Collins, I will
+  endeavour, so far as can be done by a letter, to satisfy you.
+  There are many little anecdotes, which tell well enough in
+  conversation, but would be tiresome for you to read, or me to
+  write, so shall pass them over. I had formerly several scraps of
+  his poetry, which were suddenly written on particular occasions.
+  These I lent among our acquaintance, who were never civil enough
+  to return them; and being then engaged in extensive business, I
+  forgot to ask for them, and they are lost: all I have remaining of
+  his are about twenty lines, which would require a little history
+  to be understood, being written on trifling subjects. I have a few
+  of his letters, the subjects of which are chiefly on business, but
+  I think there are in them some flights, which strongly mark his
+  character; for which reason I preserved them. There are so few of
+  his intimates now living, that I believe I am the only one who can
+  give a true account of his family and connexions. The principal
+  part of what I write is from my own knowledge, or what I have
+  heard from his nearest relations.
+
+  "His father was not the manufacturer of hats, but the vender. He
+  lived in a genteel style at Chichester; and, I think, filled the
+  office of mayor more than once; he was pompous in his manner; but,
+  at his death, he left his affairs rather embarrassed. Colonel
+  Martyn, his wife's brother, greatly assisted his family, and
+  supported Mr. William Collins at the university, where he stood
+  for a fellowship, which, to his great mortification, he lost, and
+  which was his reason for quitting that place, at least that was
+  his pretext. But he had other reasons: he was in arrears to his
+  bookseller, his tailor, and other tradesmen. But, I believe, a
+  desire to partake of the dissipation and gaiety of London was his
+  principal motive. Colonel Martyn was at this time with his
+  regiment; and Mr. Payne, a near relation, who had the management
+  of the colonel's affairs, had likewise a commission to supply the
+  Collinses with small sums of money. The colonel was the more
+  sparing in this order, having suffered considerably by Alderman
+  Collins, who had formerly been his agent, and, forgetting that his
+  wife's brother's cash was not his own, had applied it to his own
+  use. When Mr. William Collins came from the university, he called
+  on his cousin Payne, gaily dressed, and with a feather in his hat;
+  at which his relation expressed surprise, and told him his
+  appearance was by no means that of a young man who had not a
+  single guinea he could call his own. This gave him great offence;
+  but remembering his sole dependence for subsistence was in the
+  power of Mr. Payne, he concealed his resentment; yet could not
+  refrain from speaking freely behind his back, and saying 'he
+  thought him a d----d dull fellow;' though, indeed, this was an
+  epithet he was pleased to bestow on every one who did not think as
+  he would have them. His frequent demands for a supply obliged Mr.
+  Payne to tell him he must pursue some other line of life, for he
+  was sure Colonel Martyn would be displeased with him for having
+  done so much. This resource being stopped, forced him to set about
+  some work, of which his 'History of the Revival of Learning' was
+  the first; and for which he printed proposals (one of which I
+  have), and took the first subscription money from many of his
+  particular friends: the work was begun, but soon stood still. Both
+  Dr. Johnson and Mr. Langhorne are mistaken when they say, the
+  'Translation of Aristotle' was never begun: I know the contrary,
+  for some progress was made in both, but most in the latter. From
+  the freedom subsisting between us, we took the liberty of saying
+  any thing to each other. I one day reproached him with idleness;
+  when, to convince me my censure was unjust, he showed me many
+  sheets of his 'Translation of Aristotle,' which he said he had so
+  fully employed himself about, as to prevent him calling on many of
+  his friends so frequently as he used to do. Soon after this he
+  engaged with Mr. Manby, a bookseller on Ludgate Hill, to furnish
+  him with some Lives for the Biographia Britannica, which Manby was
+  then publishing. He showed me some of the lives in embryo; but I
+  do not recollect that any of them came to perfection. To raise a
+  present subsistence he set about writing his odes; and, having a
+  general invitation to my house, he frequently passed whole days
+  there, which he employed in writing them, and as frequently
+  burning what he had written, after reading them to me: many of
+  them, which pleased me, I struggled to preserve, but without
+  effect; for, pretending he would alter them, he got them from me,
+  and thrust them into the fire. He was an acceptable companion
+  every where; and, among the gentlemen who loved him for a genius,
+  I may reckon the Doctors Armstrong, Barrowby, and Hill, Messrs.
+  Quin, Garrick, and Foote, who frequently took his opinion on their
+  pieces before they were seen by the public. He was particularly
+  noticed by the geniuses who frequented the Bedford and Slaughter's
+  Coffee Houses. From his knowledge of Garrick he had the liberty of
+  the scenes and green-room, where he made diverting observations on
+  the vanity and false consequence of that class of people; and his
+  manner of relating them to his particular friends was extremely
+  entertaining. In this manner he lived, with and upon his friends,
+  until the death of Colonel Martyn, who left what fortune he died
+  possessed of unto him and his two sisters. I fear I cannot be
+  certain as to dates, but believe he left the university in the
+  year 43. Some circumstances I recollect, make me almost certain he
+  was in London that year; but I will not be so certain of the time
+  he died, which I did not hear of till long after it happened. When
+  his health and faculties began to decline, he went to France, and
+  after to Bath, in hope his health might be restored, but without
+  success. I never saw him after his sister removed him from
+  M'Donald's madhouse at Chelsea to Chichester, where he soon sunk
+  into a deplorable state of idiotism, which, when I was told,
+  shocked me exceedingly; and, even now, the remembrance of a man
+  for whom I had a particular friendship, and in whose company I
+  have passed so many pleasant happy hours, gives me a severe shock.
+  Since it is in consequence of your own request, Sir, that I write
+  this long farrago, I expect you will overlook all inaccuracies. I
+  am, Sir,
+
+  "Your very humble servant,
+  "JOHN RAGSDALE.
+
+  "Mr. William Hymers, Queen's College, Oxford."
+
+The following communication, by Thomas Warton, was also found among the
+papers of Mr. Hymers. A few passages, concerning various readings, are
+omitted.
+
+  "I often saw Collins in London in 1750. This was before his
+  illness. He then told me of his intended History of the Revival of
+  Learning, and proposed a scheme of a review, to be called the
+  Clarendon Review, and to be printed at the university press, under
+  the conduct and authority of the university. About Easter, the
+  next year, I was in London; when, being given over, and supposed
+  to be dying, he desired to see me, that he might take his last
+  leave of me; but he grew better; and in the summer he sent me a
+  letter on some private business, which I have now by me, dated
+  Chichester, June 9, 1751, written in a fine hand, and without the
+  least symptom of a disordered or debilitated understanding. In
+  1754, he came to Oxford for change of air and amusement, where he
+  stayed a month; I saw him frequently, but he was so weak and low,
+  that he could not bear conversation. Once he walked from his
+  lodgings, opposite Christ Church, to Trinity College, but
+  supported by his servant. The same year, in September, I and my
+  brother visited him at Chichester, where he lived, in the
+  cathedral cloisters, with his sister. The first day he was in high
+  spirits at intervals, but exerted himself so much that he could
+  not see us the second. Here he showed us an Ode to Mr. John Home,
+  on his leaving England for Scotland, in the octave stanza, very
+  long, and beginning,
+
+    Home, thou return'st from Thames.
+
+  I remember there was a beautiful description of the spectre of a
+  man drowned in the night, or, in the language of the old Scotch
+  superstitions, seized by the angry spirit of the waters, appearing
+  to his wife with pale blue cheek, &c. Mr. Home has no copy of it.
+  He also showed us another ode, of two or three four-lined stanzas,
+  called the Bell of Arragon; on a tradition that, anciently, just
+  before the king of Spain died, the great bell of the cathedral of
+  Sarragossa, in Arragon, tolled spontaneously. It began thus:
+
+    The bell of Arragon, they say,
+    Spontaneous speaks the fatal day.
+
+  Soon afterwards were these lines:
+
+    Whatever dark aerial power,
+    Commission'd, haunts the gloomy tower.
+
+  The last stanza consisted of a moral transition to his own death
+  and knell, which he called 'some simpler bell.' I have seen all
+  his odes already published in his own handwriting; they had the
+  marks of repeated correction: he was perpetually changing his
+  epithets. Dr. Warton, my brother, has a few fragments of some
+  other odes, but too loose and imperfect for publication, yet
+  containing traces of high imagery.
+
+  "In illustration of what Dr. Johnson has related, that during his
+  last malady he was a great reader of the Bible, I am favoured with
+  the following anecdote from the Reverend Mr. Shenton, Vicar of St.
+  Andrews, at Chichester, by whom Collins was buried: 'Walking in my
+  vicaral garden one Sunday evening, during Collins's last illness,
+  I heard a female (the servant, I suppose) reading the Bible in his
+  chamber. Mr. Collins had been accustomed to rave much, and make
+  great moanings; but while she was reading, or rather attempting to
+  read, he was not only silent but attentive likewise, correcting
+  her mistakes, which indeed were very frequent, through the whole
+  of the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis.' I have just been
+  informed, from undoubted authority, that Collins had finished a
+  Preliminary Dissertation to be prefixed to his History of the
+  Restoration of Learning, and that it was written with great
+  judgment, precision, and knowledge of the subject.
+
+  "T. W."
+
+The overthrow of Collins's mind was too complete for it to be restored
+by variety of scene or the attentions of friendship. Thomas Warton
+describes him as being in a weak and low condition, and unable to bear
+conversation, when he saw him at Oxford. He was afterwards confined in a
+house for the insane at Chelsea; but before September, 1754, he was
+removed to Chichester, under the care of his sister, where he was
+visited by the two Wartons. At this time his spirits temporarily
+rallied; and he adverted with delight to literature, showing his guest
+the Ode to Mr. Home on his leaving England for Scotland. During
+Collins's illness Johnson was a frequent inquirer after his health, and
+those inquiries were made with a degree of feeling which, as he himself
+hints, may have partly arisen from the dread he entertained lest he
+might be the victim of a similar calamity. The following extracts are
+from letters addressed to Joseph Warton:
+
+  "March 8, 1754.
+
+  "But how little can we venture to exult in any intellectual
+  powers or literary attainments, when we consider the condition
+  of poor Collins. I knew him a few years ago, full of hopes and
+  full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and
+  strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under
+  the government of those who lately would not have been able to
+  comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs. What do
+  you hear of him? are there hopes of his recovery? or is he to
+  pass the remainder of his life in misery and degradation?
+  perhaps with complete consciousness of his calamity."
+
+  "December 24, 1754.
+
+  "Poor dear Collins! Let me know whether you think it would give
+  him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his
+  state, and therefore have it in great commiseration."
+
+  "April 15, 1756.
+
+  "What becomes of poor dear Collins? I wrote him a letter which he
+  never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That
+  man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty
+  of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more
+  dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally
+  liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and
+  depart, that it may blaze and expire."
+
+In this state of mental darkness did Collins pass the last six or seven
+years of his existence, in the house now occupied by Mr. Mason, a
+bookseller in Chichester. His malady is described by Johnson as being,
+not so much an alienation of mind as a general laxity and feebleness of
+his vital, rather than his intellectual, powers; but his disorder seems,
+from other authorities, to have been of a more violent nature. As he was
+never married, he was indebted for protection and kindness to his
+youngest sister; and death, the only hope of the afflicted, came to his
+relief on the 12th of June, 1759, in the thirty-ninth year of his age, a
+period of life when the fervour of imagination is generally chastened
+without being subdued, and when all the mental powers are in their
+fullest vigour. He was buried in the church of St. Andrew, at
+Chichester, on the 15th of June; and the admiration of the public for
+his genius has been manifested by the erection of a monument by Flaxman,
+to his memory, in the Cathedral, which is thus described by Mr.
+Dallaway, the historian of Sussex:
+
+"Collins is represented as sitting in a reclining posture, during a
+lucid interval of the afflicting malady to which he was subject, with a
+calm and benign aspect, as if seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the
+consolations of the gospel, which appears open on a table before him,
+whilst his lyre and one of his best compositions lie neglected on the
+ground. Upon the pediment of the table are placed two female ideal
+figures in relief, representing love and pity, entwined each in the arms
+of the other; the proper emblems of the genius of his poetry." It bears
+the following epitaph from the pen of Hayley:
+
+  "Ye who the merits of the dead revere,
+  Who hold misfortune's sacred genius dear,
+  Regard this tomb, where Collins, hapless name,
+  Solicits kindness with a double claim.
+  Though nature gave him, and though science taught
+  The fire of fancy, and the reach of thought,
+  Severely doom'd to penury's extreme,
+  He pass'd in maddening pain life's feverish dream,
+  While rays of genius only served to show
+  The thickening horror, and exalt his woe.
+  Ye walls that echo'd to his frantic moan,
+  Guard the due records of this grateful stone;
+  Strangers to him, enamour'd of his lays,
+  This fond memorial to his talents raise.
+  For this the ashes of a bard require,
+  Who touch'd the tenderest notes of pity's lyre;
+  Who join'd pure faith to strong poetic powers;
+  Who, in reviving reason's lucid hours,
+  Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest,
+  And rightly deem'd the book of God the best."
+
+Collins's character has been portrayed by all his biographers in
+very agreeable colours. He was amiable and virtuous, and was as much
+courted for his popular manners as for the charms of his conversation.
+The associate of Johnson, Armstrong, Hill, Garrick, Quin, Foote, the
+two Wartons, and Thomson, and the friend of several of these eminent
+men, he must have possessed many of the qualities by which they were
+distinguished; for though an adviser may be chosen from a very
+different class of persons, genius will only herd with genius.
+Johnson has honoured him by saying, that "his morals were pure and
+his opinions pious;" and though he hints that his habits were sometimes
+at variance with these characteristics, he assigns the aberration to the
+temptations of want, and the society into which poverty sometimes
+drives the best disposed persons, adding, that he "preserved the
+sources of action unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken,
+that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and
+that his faults had nothing of malignity or design, but proceeded from
+some unexpected pressure or casual temptation." A higher eulogium,
+from so rigid a moralist, could not be pronounced on a man whose life
+was, for many years, unsettled and perplexed; and those only who have
+experienced the pressure of pecuniary necessities can be aware of
+the difficulty of resisting meanness, or avoiding vice, if not in the
+sense in which these terms are usually understood, at least in a sense
+to which they may as properly be applied--that of refusing to prostitute
+talents to purposes foreign to the conviction and taste of their
+possessor.
+
+On this mainly depend the annoyances and dangers of him who seeks a
+subsistence from his pen. The opinions which he may be desirous to
+express, or the subject he may be capable of illustrating, may not be
+popular, and the more important or learned they be, the more likely is
+such to be the case. Of course his labours would be rejected by
+publishers, who cannot buy what will not sell; hence no alternative
+remains but for him to manufacture marketable commodities; and when the
+_popular_ taste of the present, as well as of former times, is
+remembered, the degradation to which a man of high intellect must often
+submit, when he neglects that for which nature and study peculiarly
+qualified him, for what is in general demand, may be easily conceived.
+It is not requisite to advert to the taste of the age in which we live,
+farther than to allude to the class of works which issues from the
+bazaars of _fashionable_ publishers, and to ask, when such are alone in
+request, what would have been the fate, had they lived in our own times,
+of Johnson, Pope, Dryden, Addison, and the other ornaments of the golden
+age of literature? But if even in that age the Odes of Collins were too
+abstracted from mundane feelings, too rich in imagery, and too strongly
+marked by the fervour of inspiration to be generally appreciated, his
+chance of being so, by the public generally, is at this moment less; and
+the only hope of his obtaining that popularity to which he is
+unquestionably entitled, is by placing his works within the reach of
+all, and, more especially, by acquainting the multitude with the opinion
+entertained of him, by those whose judgments they have the sense to
+venerate, since they are sometimes willing to receive, on the credit of
+another, that which they have not themselves the discrimination or
+feeling to perceive.
+
+An anecdote is related of Collins which, if true, proves that he felt
+the neglect with which his Odes were treated with the indignation
+natural to an enthusiastic temper. Having purchased the unsold copies of
+the first edition from the booksellers, he set fire to them with his own
+hand, as if to revenge himself on the apathy and ignorance of the
+public.
+
+It is unnecessary to append to the Memoir of Collins many observations
+on the character of his poetry, because its peculiar beauties, and the
+qualities by which it is distinguished, are described with considerable
+force and eloquence by Sir Egerton Brydges, in the Essay prefixed to
+this edition. Campbell's remarks on the same subject cannot be
+forgotten; and other critics of the highest reputation have concurred in
+ascribing to Collins a conception and genius scarcely exceeded by any
+English poet. To say that Sir Egerton Brydges's Essay exaggerates the
+merit of some of his productions may produce the retort which has been
+made to Johnson's criticism, that he was too deficient in feeling to be
+capable of appreciating the excellence of the pieces which he censures.
+It is not, however, inconsistent with a high respect for Collins, to
+ascribe every possible praise to that unrivaled production, the Ode to
+the Passions, to feel deeply the beauty, the pathos, and the sublime
+conceptions of the Odes to Evening, to Pity, to Simplicity, and a few
+others, and yet to be sensible of the occasional obscurity and
+imperfections of his imagery in other pieces, to find it difficult to
+discover the meaning of some passages, to think the opening of four of
+his odes which commence with the common-place invocation of "O thou,"
+and the alliteration by which so many lines are disfigured, blemishes
+too serious to be forgotten, unless the judgment be drowned in the full
+tide of generous and enthusiastic admiration of the great and
+extraordinary beauties by which these faults are more than redeemed.
+
+That these defects are to be ascribed to haste it would be uncandid to
+deny; but haste is no apology for such faults in productions which
+scarcely fill a hundred pages, and which their author had ample
+opportunities to remove.
+
+It may also be thought heterodoxy by the band, which, if small in
+numbers, is distinguished by taste, feeling, and genius, to concur in
+Collins's opinion, when he expressed himself dissatisfied with his
+Eclogues; for, though they are not without merit, it is very doubtful if
+they would have lived, even till this time, but for the Odes with which
+they are published, notwithstanding the zeal of Dr. Langhorne, who is in
+raptures over passages the excellence of which is not very conspicuous.
+To give a preference to the Verses to Sir Thomas Hanmer, of which all
+that Langhorne could find to say is, "that the versification is easy and
+genteel, and the allusions always poetical," and especially to the Ode
+addressed to Mr. Home, on the superstition of the Highlands, over the
+Eclogues, may possibly be deemed to betray a corrupt taste, since it is
+an admission which is, it is believed, made for the first time. In that
+Ode, among a hundred other beautiful verses, the following address to
+Tasso has seldom been surpassed:
+
+  "Prevailing Poet! whose undoubting mind
+  Believed the magic wonders which he sung!
+  Hence, at each sound, imagination glows!
+  Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!
+  Hence, his warm lay with softest sweetness flows!
+  Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear,
+  And fills the impassion'd heart, and wins the harmonious ear!"
+
+The picture of the swain drowned in a fen, and the grief of his widow,
+possessing every charm which simplicity and tenderness can bestow, and
+give to that Ode claims to admiration which, if admitted, have been
+hitherto conceded in silence.
+
+From the coincidence between Collins's love of, and addresses to, Music,
+his residence at Oxford, and from internal evidence, Some Verses on Our
+Late Taste in Music, which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for
+1740, and there said to be "by a Gentleman of Oxford," are printed in
+this edition of Collins's works, not, however, as positively his, but as
+being so likely to be written by him, as to justify their being brought
+to the notice of his readers.
+
+A poet, and not to have felt the tender passion, would be a creature
+which the world has never yet seen. It is said that Collins was
+extremely fond of a young lady who was born the day before him, and who
+did not return his affection; and that, punning upon his misfortune, he
+observed, "he came into the world a day after the fair." The lady is
+supposed to have been Miss Elizabeth Goddard, the intended bride of
+Colonel Ross, to whom he addressed his beautiful Ode on the death of
+that Officer at the battle of Fontenoy, at which time she was on a visit
+to the family of the Earl of Tankerville, who then resided at Up-Park,
+near Chichester, a place that overlooks the little village of Harting,
+mentioned in the Ode.
+
+Collins's person was of the middle size and well formed; of a light
+complexion, with gray, weak eyes. His mind was deeply imbued with
+classical literature, and he understood the Italian, French, and Spanish
+languages. He was well read, and was particularly conversant with early
+English writers, and to an ardent love of literature he united, as is
+manifest from many of his pieces, a passionate devotion to Music, that
+
+  "----Sphere-descended maid,
+  Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid."
+
+His family, which were very respectable, were established at Chichester
+in the sixteenth century as tradesmen of the higher order, and his
+immediate ancestor was mayor of that city in 1619:[7] his mother's
+relations appear to have been of a superior condition in life.[8]
+Collins lost his father in 1734, and on the 5th of July, 1744, his
+mother died. He was an only son: of his two sisters, Elizabeth, the
+eldest, died unmarried, and Anne, the youngest, who took care of him
+when he was bereft of reason, married first Mr. Hugh Sempill, who died
+in 1762, and secondly the Rev. Dr. Thomas Durnford, and died at
+Chichester in November, 1789. Her character is thus described on the
+authority of Mr. Park: "The Reverend Mr. Durnford, who resided at
+Chichester, and was the son of Dr. Durnford, informed me, in August,
+1795, that the sister of Collins loved money to excess, and evinced so
+outrageous an aversion to her brother, because he squandered or gave
+away to the boys in the cloisters whatever money he had, that she
+destroyed, in a paroxysm of resentment, all his papers, and whatever
+remained of his enthusiasm for poetry, as far as she could. Mr. Hayley
+told me, when I visited him at Eartham, that he had obtained from her a
+small drawing by Collins, but it possessed no other value than as a
+memorial that the bard had attempted to handle the pencil as well as the
+pen."[9] That Mrs. Durnford was indifferent to her brother's fame, is
+stated by others, and Sir Egerton Brydges, in his Essay, has made some
+just observations on the circumstance.
+
+This Memoir must not be closed without an expression of acknowledgment
+to the Bishop of Hereford, to the President of Magdalen College, to H.
+Gabell, Esq., and to I. Sanden, Esq., of Chichester, for the desire
+which they were so good as to manifest that this account of Collins
+might be more satisfactory than it is; and if his admirers consider that
+his present biographer has not done sufficient justice to his memory, an
+antidote to the injury will be found in the fervent and unqualified
+admiration which Sir Egerton Brydges has evinced for his genius.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+   [1] 21st March, 1740.
+
+   [2] Afterwards republished with the title of "Oriental Eclogues."
+
+   [3] D'Israeli, in his "Calamities of Authors," vol. ii. p. 201.
+
+   [4] June 7th, 1746.
+
+   [5] Mr. Joseph Warton, now Dr. Warton, head master of Winton school,
+       was at the same time second upon roll; and Mr. Mulso, now [1781]
+       prebendary of the church of Winton, third upon roll.
+
+   [6] Hampton, the translator of Polybius.
+
+   [7] Dallaway's Sussex, vol. i. p. 185--The arms of the family of
+       Collins are there said to have been, "Azure a griffin segreant
+       or;" but in Sir William Burrell's MS. Collections for a History
+       of Sussex, in the British Museum, the field is described as being
+       vert. From those manuscripts which are marked "Additional MSS."
+       Nos. 5697 to 5699, the following notices of the Poet's family
+       have been extracted.
+
+         REGISTER OF ST. ANDREW'S, CHICHESTER.
+
+         BAPTISM.
+
+         Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. George Collins, 8th October, 1763.
+
+         BURIALS.
+
+         Mrs. Elizabeth Collins [the poet's mother], 6th July, 1744.
+         William Collins, Gent. [the Poet], 15th June, 1759.
+
+         REGISTER OF ST. PETER THE GREAT, CHICHESTER.
+
+         BAPTISMS.
+
+         Charles, son of Roger Collins, 8th February, 1645.
+         George, son of Mr. George Collins, 28th December, 1647.
+         Humphrey, son of Mr. Richard Collins, 20th Dec. 1648.
+         George, son of Mr. George Collins, 7th September, 1651.
+         Christian, daughter of Mr. Richard Collins, 1st Sept. 1652.
+         John, son of Mr. Richard Collins, senior, 13th Dec. 1652.
+         Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Richard Collins, sen. 16th May, 1656.
+         Joan, daughter of Mr. Richard Collins, jun. 12th Dec. 1656.
+         Judith, daughter of Mr. Collins, Vicar Choral, 17th April, 1667.
+         Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. William Collins, 6th March, 1704.
+
+         MARRIAGES.
+
+         Mr. Charles Collins and Mrs. Elizabeth Cardiff, 14th April, 1696.
+
+         BURIALS.
+
+         ---- wife of Mr. William Collins, 10th December, 1650.
+         Susan, wife of Mr. Richard Collins, 3rd December, 1657.
+         Mr. George Collins, 10th January, 1669.
+         Mrs. Collins of St. Olave's Parish, 19th July, 1696.
+
+       There are monumental inscriptions in St. Andrew's Church,
+       Chichester, to the Poet's father, mother, maternal uncle, Colonel
+       Martyn, and sister, Mrs. Durnford.
+
+   [8] So much of the will of Colonel Edmund Martyn as relates to the Poet
+       and his sister has been already cited, but the testator's
+       situation in life and the respectability of his family are best
+       shown by other parts of that document. He describes himself as a
+       lieutenant-colonel in his Majesty's service, lying sick in the
+       city of Chichester. To his niece Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas
+       Napper, of Itchenor in Sussex, he bequeathed 100_l._ His copyhold
+       estates of the manors of Selsey, and Somerly, in that county, to
+       his nephew, Abraham Martyn, the youngest son of his late only
+       brother, Henry Martyn, and to his servant, John Hipp, he gave his
+       wearing apparel and ten pounds.
+
+   [9] Dyce's edition of Collins, 1827, p. 39.
+
+
+
+
+AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND POEMS OF COLLINS.
+
+  BY SIR EGERTON BRYDGES,
+  BART.
+
+
+Collins is the founder of a new school of poetry, of a high class. It is
+true that, unless Buckhurst and Spenser had gone before him, he could
+not have written as he has done; yet he is an inventor very distinct
+from both. He calls his odes descriptive and allegorical; and this
+characterises them truly, but too generally. The personification of
+abstract qualities had never been so happily executed before; the pure
+spirituality of the conception, the elegance and force of the language,
+the harmony and variety of the numbers, were all executed with a
+felicity which none before or since have reached. That these poems did
+not at once captivate the public attention cannot be accounted for by
+any cause hitherto assigned. We may not wonder that the multitude did
+not at once perceive their full beauties; but that, among readers of
+taste and learning, there should not have been found a sufficient number
+to set the example of admiration, is very extraordinary. In addition to
+all their other high merits, the mere novelty of thought and manner were
+sufficient to excite immediate notice. Nor was there any thing in
+Collins's station or character to create prejudices against the
+probability that beautiful effusions of genius might be struck out by
+his hand. His education at the college of Winchester, his fame at
+Oxford, his associates in London, all were fair preludes to the
+production of beautiful poetry. Indeed, he had already produced
+beautiful poetry in his Oriental Eclogues, four years before his Odes
+appeared. These were, it is admitted, of a different cast from his Odes,
+and of a gentleness and chastity of thought and diction, which he
+himself was conscious, some years afterwards, did not very well
+represent the gorgeousness of eastern composition.
+
+It was a crisis when there was a fair opening for new candidates for the
+laurel. The uniformity of Pope's style began already to pall upon the
+public ear. Thomson was indolent, and Young eccentric; Gray had not yet
+appeared on the stage; and Akenside's metaphysical subject and diffuse
+style were not calculated to engross the general taste. Johnson had
+taken possession of the field of satire, but there are too many readers
+of enthusiastic mind to be satisfied with satire. The pedantry and
+uncouthness of Walter Harte had precluded him from ever being a
+favourite with the public; Shenstone had not yet risen into fame; and
+Lyttelton was engrossed by politics. When, therefore, Collins's Odes
+appeared, all speculation would have anticipated that they must have
+been successful. But we must recollect that they did not excite the
+admiration of Johnson; and that Gray did not read them with that
+unqualified approval which his native taste would have inspired. This
+singularity must be accounted for by other causes than their want of
+merit.
+
+The disappointment of Collins was so keen and deep, that he not only
+burned the unsold copies with his own hand, but soon fell into a
+melancholy which ended in insanity. Many persons have affected to
+comment on this result with an unfeeling ignorance of human nature, and,
+more especially, of fervid genius. It is, undoubtedly, highly dangerous
+to give the entire reins to imagination; the discipline of a constant
+exercise of reason is not only salutary, but necessary. But one can
+easily conceive how the indulgence of that state of mind which produced
+Collins's Odes could end in an entire overthrow of the intellect, when
+embittered by a defect of the principal objects of his worldly ambition.
+He is said to have been puffed up by a vanity which prompted him to
+expect that all eyes would be upon him, and all voices lifted in his
+praise. Such was the conception of a vulgar observer of the human
+character. Why should it have been vanity that prompted this hope? It
+was a consciousness of merit, of those brilliant powers which produced
+the Ode to the Passions! was ever a voice content which sung to those
+who would not hear, which was condemned
+
+  "To waste its sweetness on the desert air?"
+
+Spenser's power of personification is copious beyond example; but it is
+seldom sufficiently select; rich as it is in imagination, it too
+commonly wants taste and delicacy; it has the fault of coarseness, which
+Burke's images in prose two centuries afterwards, sometimes fell into.
+But Collins's images are as pure, and of as exquisite delicacy, as they
+are spiritual. They are not human beings invested with some of the
+attributes of angels, but the whole figure is purely angelic, and of a
+higher order of creation; in this they are distinct even from the
+admirable personifications of Gray, because they are less earthly. The
+Ode to the Passions is, by universal consent, the noblest of Collins's
+productions, because it exhibits a much more extended invention, not of
+one passion only, but of all the passions combined, acting, according to
+the powers of each, to one end. The execution, also, is the happiest,
+each particular passion is drawn with inimitable force and compression.
+Let us take only FEAR and DESPAIR, each dashed out in four lines, of
+which every word is like inspiration. Beautiful as Spenser is, and
+sometimes sublime, yet he redoubles his touches too much, and often
+introduces some coarse feature or expression, which destroys the spell.
+Spenser, indeed, has other merits of splendid and inexhaustible
+invention, which render it impossible to put Collins on a par with him:
+but we must not estimate merit by mere quantity: if a poet produces but
+one short piece, which is perfect, he must be placed according to its
+quality. And surely there is not a single figure in Collins's Ode to the
+Passions which is not perfect, both in conception and language. He has
+had many imitators, but no one has ever approached him in his own
+department.
+
+The Ode to Evening is, perhaps, the next in point of merit. It is quite
+of a different cast; it is descriptive of natural scenery; and such a
+scene of enchanting repose was never exhibited by Claude, or any other
+among the happiest of painters. Though a mere verbal description can
+never rival a fine picture in a mere address to the material part of our
+nature, yet it far eclipses it with those who have the endowment of a
+brilliant fancy, because it gratifies their taste, selection, and
+sentiment. Delightful, therefore, as it is to look upon a Claude, it is
+more delightful to look upon this description. It is vain to attempt to
+analyse the charm of this Ode; it is so subtle, that it escapes
+analysis. Its harmony is so perfect, that it requires no rhyme: the
+objects are so happily chosen, and the simple epithets convey ideas and
+feelings so congenial to each other, as to throw the reader into the
+very mood over which the personified being so beautifully designed
+presides. No other poem on the same subject has the same magic. It
+assuredly suggested some images and a tone of expression to Gray in his
+Elegy.
+
+The Ode on the Poetical Character is here and there a little involved
+and obscure; but its general conception is magnificent, and beaming that
+spirit of inventive enthusiasm, which alone can cherish the poet's
+powers, and bring forth the due fruits. Collins never touched the lyre
+but he was borne away by the inspiration under which he laboured. The
+Dirge in Cymbeline, the lines on Thomson, and the Ode on Colonel Ross
+breathe such a beautiful simplicity of pathos, and yet are so highly
+poetical and graceful in every thought and tone, that, exquisitely
+polished as they are, and without one superfluous or one prosaic word,
+they never once betray the artifices of composition. The extreme
+transparency of the words and thoughts would induce a vulgar reader to
+consider them trite, while they are the expression of a genius so
+refined as to be all essence of spirit. In Gray, excellent as he is, we
+continually encounter the marks of labour and effort, and occasional
+crudeness, which shows that effort had not always succeeded, such as
+"iron hand and torturing hour;" but nothing of this kind occurs in the
+principal poems of Collins. There is a fire of mind which supersedes
+labour, and produces what labour cannot. It has been said that Collins
+is neither sublime nor pathetic; but only ingenious and fanciful. The
+truth is, that he was cast in the very mould of sublimity and pathos. He
+lived in an atmosphere above the earth, and breathed only in a visionary
+world. He was conversant with nothing else, and this must have been the
+secret by which he produced compositions so entirely spiritual. He who
+has daily intercourse with the world, and feels the vulgar human
+passions, cannot be in a humour to write poems which do not partake of
+earthly coarseness.
+
+It may be asked, _cui bono?_ what is the moral use of such poems as
+these? Whatever refines the intellect improves the heart; whatever
+augments and fortifies the spiritual part of our nature raises us in the
+rank of created beings. And what poems are more calculated to refine our
+intellect, and increase our spirituality, than the poems of Collins? To
+embody, in a brilliant manner, the most beautiful abstractions, to put
+them into action, and to add to them splendour, harmony, strength, and
+purity of language, is to complete a task as admirable for its use and
+its delight, as it is difficult to be executed. No one can receive the
+intellectual gratification which such works are capable of producing
+without being the better for it. The understanding was never yet roused
+to the conception of such pure and abstract thinking without an
+elevation of the whole nature of the being so roused. The expression of
+subtle and evanescent ideas, carried to its perfection, is among the
+very noblest and most exalted studies with which the human mind can be
+conversant.
+
+It has been the fashion of our own age to beat out works into twentyfold
+and fiftyfold the size of those of Collins. I do not quarrel with that
+fashion; each fashion has its use: and my own taste induces me to
+perceive the value and many attractions of long narrative poems, full of
+human passions and practical wisdom. The matter is more desirable than
+the workmanship; and much of occasional carelessness in the language may
+be forgiven, for fertility of natural and just thought and interest of
+story. But this in no degree diminishes the value of those gems, which,
+though of the smallest size, comprehend perfections of every kind. It is
+easier to work upon a large field than a small one,--one where is
+
+  "Ample room and verge enough
+  The characters of hell to trace."
+
+But these diffuse productions are not calculated to give the same sort
+of pleasure as the gems. How difficult was the path chosen by Collins
+is sufficiently proved by the want of success of all who have entered
+the same walk: Gray's was not the same, as I shall endeavour presently
+to show. In the miscellany of Dodsley and other collectors will be found
+numerous attempts at Allegorical Odes: they are almost all nauseous
+failures--without originality or distinctness of conception; bald in
+their language, lame in their numbers, and repulsive from their
+insipidity of ideas.
+
+Gray's personifications can scarcely be called allegorical, they have so
+much of humanity about them. He dealt in all the noble and melancholy
+feelings of the human heart: he never for one moment forgot to be a
+moralist: he was constantly under the influence of powerful sympathy for
+the miseries of man's life; and wrote from the overflow of his bosom
+rather than of his imagination. It is true that his imagination
+presented the pictures to him; but it was his heart which impelled him
+to speak. Take the Ode on the Prospect of Eton College; there is not one
+word which did not break from the bottom of his heart. The multitude
+cannot enter into the visionary world of Collins: all who have a spark
+of virtuous human feelings can sympathize with Gray. It is impossible to
+deny that of these two beautiful poets Gray is the most instructive as a
+moralist; but Gray is not so original as Collins, not so inventive, not
+so perfect in his language, and has not so much the fire and flow of
+inspiration.
+
+When Collins is spoken of as one of the _minor_ poets, it is a sad
+misapplication of the term. Unless he be minor because the number and
+size of his poems is small, no one is less a minor poet. In him every
+word is poetry, and poetry either sublime or pathetic. He does not rise
+to the sublimity of Milton or Dante, or reach the graceful tenderness of
+Petrarch; but he has a visionary invention of his own, to which there is
+no rival. As long as the language lasts, every richly gifted and richly
+cultivated mind will read him with intense and wondering rapture; and
+will not cease to entertain the conviction, from his example, if from no
+other, that true poetry of the higher orders is real inspiration.
+
+It will occur to many readers, on perusing these passages of exalted
+praise, that Johnson has spoken of Collins in a very different manner.
+Almost fifty years have elapsed since Johnson's final criticism on him
+appeared in his Lives of the Poets. It disgusted me so much at the time,
+and the disgust continued so violent, that for a long period it blinded
+me to all his stupendous merits, because it evinced not only bad taste
+but unamiable feelings. I cannot yet either justify it, or account for
+it. He speaks of Collins having sought for splendour without attaining
+it--of clogging his lines with consonants, and of mistaking inversion of
+language for poetry. Not one of these faults belongs to Collins. In
+almost all his poems the words follow their natural order, and are
+mellifluous beyond those of almost any other verse writer. If the
+Passions are not described with splendour, there is no such thing as
+splendour. If the beauties which he sought and attained are unnatural
+and extravagant, then the tests of correctness and good taste which have
+been hitherto set up must be abandoned.
+
+This severe criticism is the more extraordinary because Johnson
+professed a warm personal friendship for Collins; he professes
+admiration of his talents, learning, and taste, as well as of his
+disposition and heart, and speaks of his afflicting ill health with a
+passionate tenderness which has seldom been equalled in beauty, pathos,
+and force of language. That he could love him personally with such
+fondness, but be blind to his splendid and unrivaled genius, is utterly
+beyond my power to account for. Who can say that Johnson wanted taste
+when we read his sublime and acute criticisms on Milton, Dryden, and
+Pope? Was it that he roused all the faculties of his judgment when he
+spoke of these great men of past times; yet, that when he descended to
+his contemporaries, he indulged his feelings rather than his intellect,
+and suffered himself to be overcome by the evil passions of envy and
+contempt? His natural taste was, probably, not the best; when his
+criticisms were perfect he had tasked his intellect rather than his
+feelings. He was a man of general wisdom and undoubted genius, but not a
+very nice scholar, and he prided himself upon his every-day sense, his
+practical knowledge, rather than those visionary musings which he
+thought a dangerous indulgence of imagination. He could not put the
+compositions of Collins among the mere curiosities of literature, but he
+permitted himself to depreciate habits of mental excursion which he had
+not himself cultivated.
+
+It was not till more than twenty years after Collins's death that his
+Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands was recovered. The two Wartons
+had seen it, and spoke highly of it to Johnson and others. About 1781,
+or 1782, a copy was found among the papers of Dr. Carlysle, with a chasm
+of two or three stanzas. The public deemed it equal to the expectations
+which had been raised of it; for my part I will confess that I was
+always deeply disappointed at it. There are in it occasional traces of
+Collins's genius and several good lines--but none grand--none of that
+felicitous flow and inspired vigour which mark the Ode to the Passions
+and other of his lyrics--none of that happy personification of abstract
+conceptions which is the characteristic of his genius. The majority of
+the lines lag and move heavily, and do not seem to me to rise much
+above mediocrity in the expression. The subject was attractive, and
+might have afforded space for the wild excursions of Collins's creative
+powers. As to the edition of Bell, in which it is pretended that the
+lost stanzas have been recovered, I have no more doubt that they are
+_spurious_ than that I did not write them myself: I will not dwell upon
+this subject, but only mention that it is quite impossible Collins could
+write "_Fate_ gave the _fatal_ blow," and "bowing to Freedom's _yoke_;"
+and such a line as
+
+  "In the first year of the first George's reign," &c.
+
+There is not one line among these interpolated stanzas which it is
+possible that Collins could have written.
+
+Mr. Ragdale relates that Collins was in the habit of writing numerous
+fragments, and then throwing them into the flames. Jackson, of Exeter,
+says the same of John Bampfylde. A sensitive mind is scarce ever
+satisfied with the reception it meets, when, in first heat of
+composition, it hopes to delight some listener, to which it first
+communicates its new effusions. It almost always considers itself to be
+"damn'd by faint praise." I have known fervid authors who, if they read
+or communicated a piece before it was finished, never went on with it.
+They thought it became blown upon, and turned from it with coldness,
+disgust, and despair. Yet the hearer is commonly not in fault: who can
+satisfy the warm hopes of aspiring and restless genius?
+
+The Wartons have expressed themselves with praise and affection of
+Collins, but not, I think, with the entire admiration which was due to
+him. Joseph Warton was a good-natured and generous-minded man, but
+something of rivalry lurked in his bosom; and the fraternal partiality
+of Thomas Warton had the same effect. The younger brother seems to have
+thought that Joseph's genius was equal to that of Collins. Gray had the
+critical acumen to discern the difference; but still he in no degree
+does justice to Collins. He accuses him of want of taste and selection,
+which is a surprising charge; and the more so, because Gray did not
+disdain to borrow from him. Gray's fault was an affected fastidiousness,
+as appears by the slighting manner in which he speaks of Thomson's
+Castle of Indolence on its first appearance, as well as of Akenside's
+Pleasures of Imagination, and Shenstone's Elegies. That Gray had
+exquisite taste, and was a perfect scholar, no one can doubt.
+
+Collins lived thirteen years after the publication of his Odes. It does
+not appear that he produced any thing after this publication. How soon
+his grand mental malady extinguished his literary powers, I do not
+exactly know, nor is it recorded, whether any part of it arose from
+bodily disorders. Medical men have never agreed regarding this most
+deplorable of human afflictions. In Collins's case it probably arose
+from the mind. On such an intellectual temperament the extinction of the
+visions which Hope had painted to him seems to have been sufficient to
+produce that derangement, which first enfeebled, and then perverted and
+annihilated his faculties. The account given by Johnson is different
+from that supplied by Mr. Ragdale and another anonymous communication.
+
+He had, perhaps, lucid intervals in which he discovered nothing but
+weakness and exhaustion. But he appears to have sometimes had fits of
+violence and despair. It seems that he was an enthusiastic admirer of
+Shakespeare, and a great reader of black letter books. It may be
+inferred that his studies were not entirely given up during his malady;
+but it is a subject of great wonder and regret that the Wartons, the
+intimate friends both of his better and darker days, have left no
+particular memorials of him. He had a sister, lately, if not still,
+living, from whom, though of a very uncongenial nature, something might
+surely have been gathered. But there is a familiarity which, by
+destroying admiration, destroys the perception of what will interest
+others. There are few of our poets of rare genius, of whose private life
+and character much is known. Little is known of Spenser, Shakespeare,
+and Milton: not much even of Thomson. More is known of Gray by the
+medium of his beautiful letters; but when Southey, Wordsworth, and Scott
+are gone, posterity will know every particular of them; and, even now,
+know much which fills them with delight and admiration. But let us know
+something in good time, also of the new candidates for poetical fame!
+
+If the life of a poet is not in accordance with his song, it may be
+suspected that the song itself is not genuine. Who can be a poet, and
+yet be a worldling in his passions and habits? An artificial poet is a
+disgusting dealer in trifles: nothing but the predominance of strong and
+unstimulated feeling will give that inspiration without which it is
+worse than an empty sound. When the passion is factitious, the
+excitement has always an immoral tendency; but the delineation of real
+and amiable sentiments calls up a sympathy in other bosoms which thus
+confirms and fixes them where they would otherwise die away. The memory
+may preserve what is artificial, but, when it becomes stale, it turns to
+offensiveness, and thus breeds an alienation from literature itself.
+
+That Collins has continued to increase in fame as years have passed
+away, is the most decisive of all proofs that his poems have the pure
+and sterling merit which began to be ascribed to them soon after his
+death. M. Bonstetten tells me that Gray died without a suspicion of the
+high rank he was thereafter to hold in the annals of British genius?
+What did poor Collins think when he submitted his sublime odes to the
+flames? He must have had fits of confidence, even then, in himself; but
+intermixed with gloom and despair, and curses of the wretched doom of
+his birth! Is it sufficient that a man should wrap himself up in
+himself, and be content if the poetry creates itself and expires in his
+own heart? We strike the lyre to excite sympathy, and, if no one will
+hear, will any one not feel that he strikes in vain; and that the talent
+given us is useless, and even painful? But who can be assured that he
+has the talent if no one acknowledges it? To have it, and not to be
+assured that we have it, is a restless fire that burns to consume us.
+
+Let no one envy the endowments, if he looks at the fate, of poets. Let
+him contemplate Spenser, Denham, Rochester, Otway, Collins, Chatterton,
+Burns, Kirke White, Bloomfield, Shelley, Keats, and Byron, besides those
+of foreign countries! Perhaps Collins was the most unhappy of all; as he
+was assuredly one of the most inspired and most amiable.
+
+  "In woful measures wan Despair--
+    Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled,
+  A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
+    'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild."
+
+Langhorne's edition of Collins first appeared in 1765, accompanied by
+observations which have been generally appended to subsequent editions.
+These observations have commonly borne the character of feebleness and
+affectation; they have a sort of pedantic prettiness, which is somewhat
+repulsive, but they do not want ingenuity, or justness of criticism.
+Part of them, at least, had previously appeared in the Monthly Review,
+probably written by Langhorne. Langhorne was not deficient himself in
+poetical genius, but is principally remembered by a single beautiful
+stanza, "Cold on Canadian hills," &c. From the time of Langhorne's first
+edition, Collins became a popular poet; a miniature edition appeared
+soon after that of Langhorne; and as long as I can remember books, which
+goes back at least to the year 1770, Collins's poems were almost
+universally on the lips of readers of English poetry. That Cowper, in
+1784, should speak of him as "a poet of no great fame," proves nothing,
+since Cowper's long seclusion from the world had made him utterly
+ignorant of contemporary literature. The negative inference, from the
+omission of Beattie, is not of much weight. I cannot recollect the date
+of the article in the Monthly Review; but, as it appears that Collins
+survived till 1759, I suspect it was before Collins's death. It was in
+September, 1754, that the Wartons visited him at Chichester: in that
+year he paid a visit to Oxford, when it appears that he was suffering
+under exhausture, not alienation, of mind.
+
+The critics, and, among the rest, Mrs. Barbauld and Campbell, have
+ascribed to him "frequent obscurity;" this is unjust,--his general
+characteristic is lucidness and transparency: he is never obscure,
+unless in the Ode to Liberty, and, perhaps, in a few passages of the Ode
+on the Manners. Campbell's criticism is, otherwise, worthy of this
+beautiful poet, whom he praises with congenial spirit. When Hazlitt
+speaks of the "tinsel and splendid patchwork" of Collins, "mixed with
+the solid, sterling ore of his genius," he speaks of a base material not
+to be found there. In Collins there is no tinsel or patchwork, one of
+his excellencies is, that the whole of every piece is of one web; there
+are no joinings or meaner threads. There is no height to which Collins
+might not have risen, had he lived long, had his mind continued sound,
+and had he persevered in exercising his genius. Campbell remarks that,
+at the same age, Milton had written nothing which could eclipse his
+productions.
+
+Of the two communications regarding Collins, to which I have already
+alluded, one anonymous, the other by a Mr. John Ragsdale, I must say
+something more. The first, signed V., appeared in the Gentleman's
+Magazine, with the date of the 20th Jan. 1781. I well remember its
+publication, and with what eagerness I read it. I suspect it was at the
+very crisis of the appearance of the last portion of Johnson's Lives,
+but possibly a year earlier. I perused it with a mixture of delight,
+melancholy, and disgust; the first passage which struck me was this: "As
+he brought with him [to Oxford], for so the whole tone of his
+conversation discovered, too high an opinion of his school acquisitions
+and a sovereign contempt for all academic studies and discipline, he
+never looked with any complacency on his situation in the University,
+but was always complaining of the dulness of a college life. In short,
+he threw up his demyship, and going to London, commenced a man of the
+town, spending his time in all the dissipation of Ranelagh, Vauxhall,
+and the playhouses; and was romantic enough to suppose that his superior
+abilities would draw the attention of the great world, by means of whom
+he was to make his fortune," &c., &c.--"Thus was lost to the world this
+unfortunate person, in the prime of life, without availing himself of
+fine abilities, which, if properly improved, must have raised him to the
+top of any profession, and have rendered him a blessing to his friends,
+and an ornament to his country."
+
+The vulgarity and narrow-mindedness of this last paragraph filled me
+with indignation and contempt. In a selfish point of view Collins
+might, unquestionably, have done better by binding himself to the
+trammels of a profession; but would he have been more an honor to his
+friends and an ornament to his country? Are the fruits of genius he has
+left behind no ornament or use to his country? Professional men, for the
+most part, live for themselves, and not for the world. Who now remembers
+Lord Camden, Lord Thurlow, Lord Rosslyn, Lord Kenyon, Lord Ellenborough,
+or a hundred episcopal or medical characters, all rich and famous in
+their day?
+
+The character of his person and habits we read with deep interest. "He
+was passionately fond of music, good-natured, and affable, warm in his
+friendships, and visionary in his pursuits; and, as long as I knew him,
+very temperate in his eating and drinking. He was of a moderate stature,
+of a light and clear complexion, with gray eyes, so very weak at times
+as hardly to bear a candle in the room, and often raising within him
+apprehensions of blindness."
+
+The letter from Mr. John Ragsdale is addressed to Mr. William Hymers,
+Queen's College, Oxford, dated "Hill Street, Richmond, in Surrey, July,
+1783." He appears to have been a tradesman in Bond Street; and he
+surveyed the character of Collins (with whom he was familiar) with a
+tradesman's eye. He reproached the poet with idleness, not because he
+was lingering and losing his time on the road to fame, but because he
+omitted to get money by his pen. "To raise a present subsistence," says
+Ragsdale, "he set about writing his Odes; and having a general
+invitation to my house, he frequently passed whole days there, which he
+employed in writing them, and as frequently burning what he had written
+after he had read them to me: many of them, which pleased me, I
+struggled to preserve, but without effect; for, pretending he would
+alter them, he got them from me, and thrust them into the fire." That he
+wrote the Odes to gain a present subsistence is but the tradesman's
+mistaken comment.
+
+Gray was about four years older than Collins, and he survived him twelve
+years; he appears to have spent these years in gloominess and spleen;
+but we know not what intense pleasures he received from his solitary
+studies, from the improvement of his mind, from that exquisite taste and
+increasing erudition of which every day added to the stores. The
+enthusiasm of Collins was more active and adventurous, and his erudition
+probably more acute. Timidity and fastidiousness were great defects in
+Gray; they kept down his invention, and made him resort to the wealth of
+others, when he could better have relied upon himself. But as to
+borrowing expressions and simple materials, no genius ever did
+otherwise; it is the new and happy combination in which lies the
+invention. It may be doubted which are now most popular, the Odes of
+Collins or of Gray. On the one hand, what is most abstract is least
+calculated for the general reader; on the other hand, the variety of
+learned allusions in Gray renders the style and thoughts of his most
+celebrated Odes less simple, less direct, and less easily comprehended
+at once; but then his deep morality, the touching strokes which go
+immediately to the heart, his sensibility to the common sorrows of human
+life, his powerful reflection of the sentiments which "come home to
+every one's business and bosom," form an attraction which perhaps turns
+the scale in his favour. Of both these sublime poets the correctness of
+composition renders the writings a national good.
+
+The French Revolution, which affected and partly reversed the minds of
+all Europe, produced a new era in our literature. There was good as well
+as evil in the new force thus infused into the human intellect. Our
+poetry had generally become tame and trite; a sort of languid mechanism
+had brought it into contempt; it was very little read, and still less
+esteemed. This might be not merely the effect, but also the cause of a
+deficiency of striking genius in the candidates for the laurel. Collins
+and Gray were dead; Mason had hung up the lyre; and Thomas Warton was
+then thought too laboured and quaint; Hayley had succeeded beyond
+expectation by a return to moral and didactic poetry at a moment when
+the public was satiated by vile imitations of lyrical and descriptive
+composition; but Cowper gave a new impulse to the curiosity of poetical
+readers, by a natural train of thought and the unlaboured effusions of
+genuine feeling. There is no doubt that a fearful regard to models
+stifles all force and preeminent merit. The burst of the French
+Revolution set the faculties of all young persons free. It was dangerous
+to secondary talents, and only led them into extravagances and
+absurdities. To Wordsworth, Southey, Scott, it was the removal of a
+weight, which would have hid the fire of their genius. But the
+exuberance of their inexhaustible minds in no degree lessens the value
+of the more reserved models of excellence of a tamer age. The contrast
+of their varied attractions supplies the reader with opposite kinds of
+merit, which delight and improve the more by this very opposition.
+
+Authors seldom estimate each other rightly in their lifetimes. The race
+of poets, of whom the last died with the century, had little friendship,
+or even acquaintance among themselves; or rather, they broke into little
+sets of two and three, which narrowed their opinions and their hearts;
+Gray and Mason, Johnson and the two Wartons, Cowper and Hayley, Darwin
+and Miss Seward; but Shenstone, Beattie, Akenside, Burns, Mrs. Carter,
+Mrs. Smith, &c. stood alone. This is not desirable. Innumerable
+advantages spring from frank and generous communication. Collins and
+Gray had not the most remote personal knowledge of each other. Gray
+never mentions Dr. Sneyd Davies, a poet and an Etonian, nearly
+contemporary; nor Nicholas Hardinge, a scholar and a poet also. Mundy,
+the author of Needwood Forest, passed a long life in the country,
+totally removed from poets and literati, except the small coterie of
+Miss Seward, at Litchfield. The lives of poets would be the most amusing
+of all biography, if the materials were less scanty: it is strange that
+so few of them have left any ample records of themselves; of many not
+even a letter or fragment of memorials is preserved. None of Cowley's
+letters, a mode of composition in which he is said to have eminently
+excelled, have come down to us. Of Prior, Tickell, Thomson, Young, Dyer,
+Akenside, the Wartons, there are few of any importance known to be in
+existence. Those of Hayley, which Dr. J. Johnson has brought forward,
+are not of the interest which might have been expected. Mrs. Carter's
+are excellent, and many of Beattie's amusing and amiable: it had been
+well for Miss Seward if most of hers had been consigned to the flames.
+Those of Charlotte Smith it has not been thought prudent to give to the
+public. The greater part of those of Lord Byron, which Moore has
+hitherto put forth, had better have been spared: they are written in
+false taste, and are under a factitious character: in general, the prose
+style of poets is admirable;--it was not Lord Byron's excellence. We
+have no specimens of the prose of Collins: it is grievous that he did
+not execute his project of The History of the Revival of Literature, or
+of the Lives for the Biographia Britannica, which he undertook. Poets of
+research are, of all authors, best qualified to write biography with
+sagacity and eloquence; they see into the human heart, and detect its
+most secret movements; and if there be a class of literature more
+amusing and more instructive than another, it is well written
+biography.
+
+We have a few poets who have not possessed erudition; for genius will
+overcome all deficiencies of art and labour, such as Shakespeare,
+Chatterton, Burns, and Bloomfield: but it cannot be questioned that
+erudition is a mighty aid. Milton could never have been what he was
+without profound and laborious erudition. Another necessary knowledge is
+the knowledge of the human heart, which no industry and learning will
+give. It is an intuitive gift, which mainly depends on an acute and
+correct imagination, and a sympathetic sensibility of the human
+passions. Among the innumerable rich endowments of Shakespeare this was
+the first; it was the predominant brilliance of his knowledge which
+gave him correctness of description, sentiment, and observation, and
+clearness, force, and eloquence of language.
+
+Collins had only reached the age of twenty-six when his Odes were
+published: what inconceivable power would the maturity of age have given
+him? It is lamentable that he had no familiar friend and companion from
+that period capable of apprehending and remembering his conversations.
+In his lucid intervals he must have said many wise, many learned, and
+many brilliant things; perhaps his very disease, in its vacillation
+between light and darkness, may have struck out many unexpected and
+surprising beauties, which common attendants were utterly incapable of
+appreciating. The flushes of the mind under the unnatural impulses of
+malady are sometimes inimitably splendid. His reason, at times, was
+sound, for his reason was fervid to the last. But it is said that his
+shrieks sometimes resounded through the cathedral cloisters of
+Chichester till the horror of those who heard him was insupportable.
+
+All these speculations may appear tedious to those whose curiosity is
+confined to facts: but new facts regarding Collins are not to be had:
+and what are facts unless they are accompanied by reflections,
+conclusions, and sentiments? The use of facts is to teach us to think,
+to judge, and to feel: and facts, regarding men of genius, are valuable
+in enabling us to contemplate how far the gifts of high intellect
+contribute to our happiness, or afford guides for the rest of mankind;
+in what respects they have the possessors upon an equality with the herd
+of the people; and where they expose them to temptations from which
+others are free. For these purposes the ill fated Collins is a
+melancholy illustration: the Muse had touched the lips of his infancy,
+and infused her spirit into him; she had given him a piercing
+understanding, and an amiable disposition and temper; she enabled him to
+come forth with poetry of the first class, in the earliest bloom of
+youth; and to deserve, if not to win, the envied laurel, which millions
+have reached at in vain! What seeming glories and blessings were these!
+Yet to how few was so much misery dispensed as to this once envied
+being! May we not hope that his spirit now has its mighty reward?
+
+Let it not be denied that there is high virtue in the culture of the
+mind, when directed to pure and elevated objects, and accustoming itself
+to travel in lofty paths! The mind cannot attain the necessary
+refinement, nor have its sight cleared of the film of earthly grossness,
+unless the heart throws off the dregs of coarser feeling, and keeps its
+wings afloat on a lighter and airier atmosphere. It may be said, that
+there have been bad men who have been great poets: but this position
+remains to be proved. The dissolute men who have written verses have not
+been great poets. Were Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Spenser, Shakespeare,
+Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Burns, bad men? We know that Milton's character
+was great and holy, whatever were his politics: and who could be more
+virtuous than Gray, Beattie, Cowper, and Kirke White? And have we not
+virtuous poets among the living,--men whose native splendour and
+intellectual culture have almost purified them into spirits? Let us
+never cease to meditate on the dejected inspiration, which could pour
+forth such strains as these:
+
+    "With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
+    Pale Melancholy sat retired;
+    And from her wild sequester'd seat,
+    In notes by distance made more sweet,
+  Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
+    And, dashing soft from rocks around,
+    Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
+  Through glades and glooms the mingled measures stole,
+    Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay
+    Round a holy calm diffusing,
+    Love of peace and lonely musing,
+    In hollow murmurs died away."
+
+There are those who will think the praises thus bestowed upon Collins
+extravagant. It is now sixty years since I became familiar with him;
+and I still think of him with unabated admiration. When the calm
+judgment of age confirms the passion of youth and boyhood, we cannot be
+much mistaken in the merit we ascribe to him who is the object of it.
+
+S. E. B.
+
+
+
+
+ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.
+
+WRITTEN ORIGINALLY FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE LADIES OF TAURIS.
+
+AND NOW TRANSLATED.
+
+  ----Ubi primus equis Oriens adflavit anhelis.
+                                              VIRG.
+
+
+
+
+The First Edition was entitled, "Persian Eclogues, written originally
+for the Entertainment of the Ladies of Tauris. And now first translated,
+&c.
+
+  Quod si non hic tantus fructus ostenderetur, et si ex his studiis
+  delectatio sola peteretur; tamen, ut opinor, hanc animi
+  remissionem humanissimam ac liberalissimam judicaretis.
+
+  _CIC. pro Arch. Poeta._"
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is with the writings of mankind, in some measure, as with their
+complexions or their dress; each nation hath a peculiarity in all these,
+to distinguish it from the rest of the world.
+
+The gravity of the Spaniard, and the levity of the Frenchman, are as
+evident in all their productions as in their persons themselves; and the
+style of my countrymen is as naturally strong and nervous, as that of an
+Arabian or Persian is rich and figurative.
+
+There is an elegancy and wildness of thought which recommends all
+their compositions; and our geniuses are as much too cold for the
+entertainment of such sentiments, as our climate is for their fruits
+and spices. If any of these beauties are to be found in the following
+Eclogues, I hope my reader will consider them as an argument of their
+being original. I received them at the hands of a merchant, who had
+made it his business to enrich himself with the learning, as well as the
+silks and carpets of the Persians. The little information I could
+gather concerning their author, was, that his name was Abdallah, and
+that he was a native of Tauris.
+
+It was in that city that he died of a distemper fatal in those parts,
+whilst he was engaged in celebrating the victories of his favourite
+monarch, the great Abbas.[10] As to the Eclogues themselves, they give a
+very just view of the miseries and inconveniences, as well as the
+felicities, that attend one of the finest countries in the East.
+
+The time of writing them was probably in the beginning of Sha Sultan
+Hosseyn's reign, the successor of Sefi or Solyman the Second.
+
+Whatever defects, as, I doubt not, there will be many, fall under the
+reader's observation, I hope his candour will incline him to make the
+following reflection:
+
+That the works of Orientals contain many peculiarities, and that,
+through defect of language, few European translators can do them
+justice.
+
+
+
+
+ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.
+
+
+ECLOGUE I.
+
+SELIM; OR, THE SHEPHERD'S MORAL.
+
+  SCENE, A valley near Bagdat.
+  TIME, The morning.
+
+
+  'Ye Persian maids, attend your poet's lays,
+  And hear how shepherds pass their golden days.
+  Not all are blest, whom fortune's hand sustains
+  With wealth in courts, nor all that haunt the plains:
+  Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell;                    5
+  'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.'
+
+    Thus Selim sung, by sacred Truth inspired;
+  Nor praise, but such as Truth bestow'd, desired:
+  Wise in himself, his meaning songs convey'd
+  Informing morals to the shepherd maid;                            10
+  Or taught the swains that surest bliss to find,
+  What groves nor streams bestow, a virtuous mind.
+
+    When sweet and blushing, like a virgin bride,
+  The radiant morn resumed her orient pride;
+  When wanton gales along the valleys play,                         15
+  Breathe on each flower, and bear their sweets away;
+  By Tigris' wandering waves he sat, and sung
+  This useful lesson for the fair and young.
+
+    'Ye Persian dames,' he said, 'to you belong--
+  Well may they please--the morals of my song:                      20
+  No fairer maids, I trust, than you are found,
+  Graced with soft arts, the peopled world around!
+  The morn that lights you, to your loves supplies
+  Each gentler ray delicious to your eyes:
+  For you those flowers her fragrant hands bestow;                  25
+  And yours the love that kings delight to know.
+  Yet think not these, all beauteous as they are,
+  The best kind blessings heaven can grant the fair!
+  Who trust alone in beauty's feeble ray
+  Boast but the worth[11] Balsora's pearls display:                 30
+  Drawn from the deep we own their surface bright,
+  But, dark within, they drink no lustrous light:
+  Such are the maids, and such the charms they boast,
+  By sense unaided, or to virtue lost.
+  Self-flattering sex! your hearts believe in vain                  35
+  That love shall blind, when once he fires, the swain;
+  Or hope a lover by your faults to win,
+  As spots on ermine beautify the skin:
+  Who seeks secure to rule, be first her care
+  Each softer virtue that adorns the fair;                          40
+  Each tender passion man delights to find,
+  The loved perfections of a female mind!
+
+    'Blest were the days when Wisdom held her reign,
+  And shepherds sought her on the silent plain!
+  With Truth she wedded in the secret grove,                        45
+  Immortal Truth, and daughters bless'd their love.
+  O haste, fair maids! ye Virtues, come away!
+  Sweet Peace and Plenty lead you on your way!
+  The balmy shrub, for you shall love our shore,
+  By Ind excell'd, or Araby, no more.                               50
+
+    'Lost to our fields, for so the fates ordain,
+  The dear deserters shall return again.
+  Come thou, whose thoughts as limpid springs are clear,
+  To lead the train, sweet Modesty, appear:
+  Here make thy court amidst our rural scene,                       55
+  And shepherd girls shall own thee for their queen:
+  With thee be Chastity, of all afraid,
+  Distrusting all, a wise suspicious maid,
+  But man the most:--not more the mountain doe
+  Holds the swift falcon for her deadly foe.                        60
+  Cold is her breast, like flowers that drink the dew;
+  A silken veil conceals her from the view.
+  No wild desires amidst thy train be known;
+  But Faith, whose heart is fix'd on one alone:
+  Desponding Meekness, with her downcast eyes,                      65
+  And friendly Pity, full of tender sighs;
+  And Love the last: by these your hearts approve;
+  These are the virtues that must lead to love.'
+
+    Thus sung the swain; and ancient legends say
+  The maids of Bagdat verified the lay:                             70
+  Dear to the plains, the Virtues came along,
+  The shepherds loved, and Selim bless'd his song.
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+   8. No praise the youth, but hers alone desired:
+
+  13. When sweet and odorous, like an eastern bride,
+
+  30. Balsora's pearls have more of worth than they:
+
+  31. Drawn from the deep, they sparkle to the sight,
+      And all-unconscious shoot a lustrous light:
+
+  46. The fair-eyed Truth, and daughters bless'd their love.
+
+  53. O come, thou Modesty, as they decree,
+      The rose may then improve her blush by thee.
+
+  69. Thus sung the swain, and eastern legends say
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [10] In the Persian tongue, Abbas signifieth "the father of the
+       people."
+
+  [11] The gulf of that name, famous for the pearl fishery.
+
+
+
+
+ECLOGUE II.
+
+HASSAN; OR, THE CAMEL DRIVER.
+
+  SCENE, The desert.
+  TIME, Midday.
+
+
+  In silent horror o'er the boundless waste
+  The driver Hassan with his camels past:
+  One cruise of water on his back he bore,
+  And his light scrip contain'd a scanty store;
+  A fan of painted feathers in his hand,                             5
+  To guard his shaded face from scorching sand.
+  The sultry sun had gain'd the middle sky,
+  And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh;
+  The beasts with pain their dusty way pursue;
+  Shrill roar'd the winds, and dreary was the view!                 10
+  With desperate sorrow wild, the affrighted man
+  Thrice sigh'd, thrice struck his breast, and thus began:
+    'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
+    'When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'
+
+    'Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind,                     15
+  The thirst, or pinching hunger, that I find!
+  Bethink thee, Hassan, where shall thirst assuage,
+  When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage?
+  Soon shall this scrip its precious load resign;
+  Then what but tears and hunger shall be thine?                    20
+
+    'Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear
+  In all my griefs a more than equal share!
+  Here, where no springs in murmurs break away,
+  Or moss-crown'd fountains mitigate the day,
+  In vain ye hope the green delights to know,                       25
+  Which plains more blest, or verdant vales bestow:
+  Here rocks alone, and tasteless sands, are found,
+  And faint and sickly winds for ever howl around.
+    'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
+    'When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'                 30
+
+    'Curst be the gold and silver which persuade
+  Weak men to follow far fatiguing trade!
+  The lily peace outshines the silver store,
+  And life is dearer than the golden ore:
+  Yet money tempts us o'er the desert brown,                        35
+  To every distant mart and wealthy town.
+  Full oft we tempt the land, and oft the sea;
+  And are we only yet repaid by thee?
+  Ah! why was ruin so attractive made?
+  Or why fond man so easily betray'd?                               40
+  Why heed we not, whilst mad we haste along,
+  The gentle voice of peace, or pleasure's song?
+  Or wherefore think the flowery mountain's side,
+  The fountain's murmurs, and the valley's pride,
+  Why think we these less pleasing to behold                        45
+  Than dreary deserts, if they lead to gold?
+    'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
+    'When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'
+
+    'O cease, my fears!--all frantic as I go,
+  When thought creates unnumber'd scenes of woe,                    50
+  What if the lion in his rage I meet!--
+  Oft in the dust I view his printed feet:
+  And, fearful! oft, when day's declining light
+  Yields her pale empire to the mourner night,
+  By hunger roused, he scours the groaning plain,                   55
+  Gaunt wolves and sullen tigers in his train:
+  Before them Death with shrieks directs their way,
+  Fills the wild yell, and leads them to their prey.
+    'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
+    'When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'                 60
+
+    'At that dead hour the silent asp shall creep,
+  If aught of rest I find, upon my sleep:
+  Or some swoln serpent twist his scales around,
+  And wake to anguish with a burning wound.
+  Thrice happy they, the wise contented poor,                       65
+  From lust of wealth, and dread of death secure!
+  They tempt no deserts, and no griefs they find;
+  Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind.
+    'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
+    'When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'                 70
+
+    'O hapless youth!--for she thy love hath won,
+  The tender Zara will be most undone!
+  Big swell'd my heart, and own'd the powerful maid,
+  When fast she dropt her tears, as thus she said:
+  "Farewell the youth whom sighs could not detain;                  75
+  Whom Zara's breaking heart implored in vain!
+  Yet, as thou go'st, may every blast arise
+  Weak and unfelt, as these rejected sighs!
+  Safe o'er the wild, no perils mayst thou see,
+  No griefs endure, nor weep, false youth, like me."                80
+  O let me safely to the fair return,
+  Say, with a kiss, she must not, shall not mourn;
+  O! let me teach my heart to lose its fears,
+  Recall'd by Wisdom's voice, and Zara's tears.'
+
+    He said, and call'd on heaven to bless the day,                 85
+  When back to Schiraz' walls he bent his way.
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+   1. In silent horror o'er the desert waste
+
+  83. Go teach my heart to lose its painful fears.
+
+
+
+
+ECLOGUE III.
+
+ABRA; OR, THE GEORGIAN SULTANA.
+
+  SCENE, A forest.
+  TIME, The evening.
+
+
+  In Georgia's land, where Tefflis' towers are seen,
+  In distant view, along the level green,
+  While evening dews enrich the glittering glade,
+  And the tall forests cast a longer shade,
+  What time 'tis sweet o'er fields of rice to stray,                 5
+  Or scent the breathing maize at setting day;
+  Amidst the maids of Zagen's peaceful grove,
+  Emyra sung the pleasing cares of love.
+
+    Of Abra first began the tender strain,
+  Who led her youth with flocks upon the plain.                     10
+  At morn she came those willing flocks to lead,
+  Where lilies rear them in the watery mead;
+  From early dawn the livelong hours she told,
+  Till late at silent eve she penn'd the fold.
+  Deep in the grove, beneath the secret shade,                      15
+  A various wreath of odorous flowers she made:
+  Gay-motley'd[12] pinks and sweet jonquils she chose,
+  The violet blue that on the moss-bank grows;
+  All sweet to sense, the flaunting rose was there;
+  The finish'd chaplet well adorn'd her hair.                       20
+
+    Great Abbas chanced that fated morn to stray,
+  By love conducted from the chase away;
+  Among the vocal vales he heard her song,
+  And sought, the vales and echoing groves among;
+  At length he found, and woo'd the rural maid;                     25
+  She knew the monarch, and with fear obey'd.
+    'Be every youth like royal Abbas moved,
+    'And every Georgian maid like Abra loved!'
+
+    The royal lover bore her from the plain;
+  Yet still her crook and bleating flock remain:                    30
+  Oft, as she went, she backward turn'd her view,
+  And bade that crook and bleating flock adieu.
+  Fair, happy maid! to other scenes remove,
+  To richer scenes of golden power and love!
+  Go leave the simple pipe and shepherd's strain;                   35
+  With love delight thee, and with Abbas reign!
+    'Be every youth like royal Abbas moved,
+    'And every Georgian maid like Abra loved!'
+
+    Yet, 'midst the blaze of courts, she fix'd her love
+  On the cool fountain, or the shady grove;                         40
+  Still, with the shepherd's innocence, her mind
+  To the sweet vale, and flowery mead, inclined;
+  And oft as spring renew'd the plains with flowers,
+  Breathed his soft gales, and led the fragrant hours,
+  With sure return she sought the sylvan scene,                     45
+  The breezy mountains, and the forests green.
+  Her maids around her moved, a duteous band!
+  Each bore a crook, all rural, in her hand:
+  Some simple lay, of flocks and herds, they sung;
+  With joy the mountain and the forest rung.                        50
+    'Be every youth like royal Abbas moved,
+    'And every Georgian maid like Abra loved!'
+
+    And oft the royal lover left the care
+  And thorns of state, attendant on the fair;
+  Oft to the shades and low-roof'd cots retired,                    55
+  Or sought the vale where first his heart was fired:
+  A russet mantle, like a swain, he wore,
+  And thought of crowns, and busy courts, no more.
+    'Be every youth like royal Abbas moved,
+    'And every Georgian maid like Abra loved!'                      60
+
+    Blest was the life that royal Abbas led:
+  Sweet was his love, and innocent his bed.
+  What if in wealth the noble maid excel?
+  The simple shepherd girl can love as well.
+  Let those who rule on Persia's jewel'd throne                     65
+  Be famed for love, and gentlest love alone;
+  Or wreathe, like Abbas, full of fair renown,
+  The lover's myrtle with the warrior's crown.
+  O happy days! the maids around her say;
+  O haste, profuse of blessings, haste away!                        70
+    'Be every youth like royal Abbas moved,
+    'And every Georgian maid like Abra loved!'
+
+
+VARIATION.
+
+  Verses 5 and 6 were inserted in the second edition.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [12] That these flowers are found in very great abundance in some of the
+       provinces of Persia, see the Modern History of the ingenious Mr.
+       Salmon. C.
+
+
+
+
+ECLOGUE IV.
+
+AGIB AND SECANDER; OR, THE FUGITIVES.
+
+  SCENE, A mountain in Circassia.
+  TIME, Midnight.
+
+
+  In fair Circassia, where, to love inclined,
+  Each swain was blest, for every maid was kind;
+  At that still hour, when awful midnight reigns,
+  And none, but wretches, haunt the twilight plains;
+  What time the moon had hung her lamp on high,                      5
+  And past in radiance through the cloudless sky;
+  Sad, o'er the dews, two brother shepherds fled,
+  Where wildering fear and desperate sorrow led:
+  Fast as they press'd their flight, behind them lay
+  Wide ravaged plains, and valleys stole away:                      10
+  Along the mountain's bending sides they ran,
+  Till, faint and weak, Secander thus began.
+
+
+          SECANDER.
+
+    O stay thee, Agib, for my feet deny,
+  No longer friendly to my life, to fly.
+  Friend of my heart, O turn thee and survey!                       15
+  Trace our sad flight through all its length of way
+  And first review that long extended plain,
+  And yon wide groves, already past with pain!
+  Yon ragged cliff, whose dangerous path we tried!
+  And, last, this lofty mountain's weary side!                      20
+
+
+          AGIB.
+
+    Weak as thou art, yet, hapless, must thou know
+  The toils of flight, or some severer woe!
+  Still, as I haste, the Tartar shouts behind,
+  And shrieks and sorrows load the saddening wind:
+  In rage of heart, with ruin in his hand,                          25
+  He blasts our harvests, and deforms our land.
+  Yon citron grove, whence first in fear we came,
+  Droops its fair honors to the conquering flame:
+  Far fly the swains, like us, in deep despair,
+  And leave to ruffian bands their fleecy care.                     30
+
+
+          SECANDER.
+
+    Unhappy land, whose blessings tempt the sword,
+  In vain, unheard, thou call'st thy Persian lord!
+  In vain thou court'st him, helpless, to thine aid,
+  To shield the shepherd, and protect the maid!
+  Far off, in thoughtless indolence resign'd,                       35
+  Soft dreams of love and pleasure soothe his mind:
+  'Midst fair sultanas lost in idle joy,
+  No wars alarm him, and no fears annoy.
+
+
+          AGIB.
+
+    Yet these green hills, in summer's sultry heat,
+  Have lent the monarch oft a cool retreat.                         40
+  Sweet to the sight is Zabran's flowery plain,
+  And once by maids and shepherds loved in vain!
+  No more the virgins shall delight to rove
+  By Sargis' banks, or Irwan's shady grove;
+  On Tarkie's mountain catch the cooling gale,                      45
+  Or breathe the sweets of Aly's flowery vale:
+  Fair scenes! but, ah! no more with peace possest,
+  With ease alluring, and with plenty blest!
+  No more the shepherds' whitening tents appear,
+  Nor the kind products of a bounteous year;                        50
+  No more the date, with snowy blossoms crown'd!
+  But ruin spreads her baleful fires around.
+
+
+          SECANDER.
+
+    In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves,
+  For ever famed for pure and happy loves:
+  In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair,                       55
+  Their eyes' blue languish, and their golden hair!
+  Those eyes in tears their fruitless grief must send;
+  Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand shall rend.
+
+
+          AGIB.
+
+    Ye Georgian swains, that piteous learn from far
+  Circassia's ruin, and the waste of war;                           60
+  Some weightier arms than crooks and staves prepare,
+  To shield your harvests, and defend your fair:
+  The Turk and Tartar like designs pursue,
+  Fix'd to destroy, and steadfast to undo.
+  Wild as his land, in native deserts bred,                         65
+  By lust incited, or by malice led,
+  The villain Arab, as he prowls for prey,
+  Oft marks with blood and wasting flames the way;
+  Yet none so cruel as the Tartar foe,
+  To death inured, and nurst in scenes of woe.                      70
+
+    He said; when loud along the vale was heard
+  A shriller shriek, and nearer fires appear'd:
+  The affrighted shepherds, through the dews of night,
+  Wide o'er the moonlight hills renew'd their flight.
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+  49. No more the shepherds' whitening seats appear,
+
+  51. No more the dale, with snowy blossoms crown'd!
+
+
+END OF THE ECLOGUES.
+
+
+
+
+ODES
+
+ON SEVERAL DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL SUBJECTS.
+
+  Ειην εὑρυσιεπης αναγεισθαι
+  Προσφορος εν Μοισαν διφρω:
+  Τολμα δε και αμφιλαφης δυναμις
+  Εσποιτο.
+                Πινδαρ. Ολυμπ. Θ.
+
+  ~Eiên heurysiepês anageisthai
+  Prosphoros en Moisan diphrô:
+  Tolma de kai amphilaphês dynamis
+  Espoito.~
+              ~Pindar. Olymp. Th.~
+
+
+ODES.
+
+
+ODE TO PITY.
+
+
+  O thou, the friend of man, assign'd
+  With balmy hands his wounds to bind,
+    And charm his frantic woe:
+  When first Distress, with dagger keen,
+  Broke forth to waste his destined scene,                           5
+    His wild unsated foe!
+
+  By Pella's[13] bard, a magic name,
+  By all the griefs his thought could frame,
+    Receive my humble rite:
+  Long, Pity, let the nations view                                  10
+  The sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,
+    And eyes of dewy light!
+
+  But wherefore need I wander wide
+  To old Ilissus' distant side,
+    Deserted stream, and mute?                                      15
+  Wild Arun[14] too has heard thy strains,
+  And Echo, 'midst my native plains,
+    Been soothed by Pity's lute.
+
+  There first the wren thy myrtles shed
+  On gentlest Otway's infant head,                                  20
+    To him thy cell was shown;
+  And while he sung the female heart,
+  With youth's soft notes unspoil'd by art,
+    Thy turtles mix'd their own.
+
+  Come, Pity, come, by Fancy's aid,                                 25
+  E'en now my thoughts, relenting maid,
+    Thy temple's pride design:
+  Its southern site, its truth complete,
+  Shall raise a wild enthusiast heat
+    In all who view the shrine.                                     30
+
+  There Picture's toils shall well relate
+  How chance, or hard involving fate,
+    O'er mortal bliss prevail:
+  The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand,
+  And sighing prompt her tender hand,                               35
+    With each disastrous tale.
+
+  There let me oft, retired by day,
+  In dreams of passion melt away,
+    Allow'd with thee to dwell:
+  There waste the mournful lamp of night,                           40
+  Till, Virgin, thou again delight
+    To hear a British shell!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [13] Euripides, of whom Aristotle pronounces, on a comparison of him
+       with Sophocles, that he was the greater master of the tender
+       passions, ην τραγικωτερος ~ên tragikôteros~. C.
+
+  [14] The river Arun runs by the village of Trotton in Sussex, where
+       Otway had his birth.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO FEAR.
+
+
+  Thou, to whom the world unknown,
+  With all its shadowy shapes, is shown;
+  Who seest, appall'd, the unreal scene,
+  While Fancy lifts the veil between:
+    Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear!                                        5
+    I see, I see thee near.
+  I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
+  Like thee I start; like thee disorder'd fly.
+  For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
+  Danger, whose limbs of giant mould                                10
+  What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
+  Who stalks his round, an hideous form,
+  Howling amidst the midnight storm;
+  Or throws him on the ridgy steep
+  Of some loose hanging rock to sleep:                              15
+  And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
+  Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind:
+  And those, the fiends, who, near allied,
+  O'er Nature's wounds, and wrecks, preside;
+  Whilst Vengeance, in the lurid air,                               20
+  Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare:
+  On whom that ravening[15] brood of Fate,
+  Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait:
+  Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
+  And look not madly wild, like thee!                               25
+
+
+          EPODE.
+
+  In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice,
+    The grief-full Muse addrest her infant tongue;
+  The maids and matrons, on her awful voice,
+    Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung.
+
+  Yet he, the bard[16] who first invoked thy name,                  30
+    Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel:
+  For not alone he nursed the poet's flame,
+    But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel.
+
+  But who is he whom later garlands grace,
+    Who left a while o'er Hybla's dews to rove,                     35
+  With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace,
+    Where thou and furies shared the baleful grove?
+
+  Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, the incestuous[17] queen
+    Sigh'd the sad call[18] her son and husband heard,
+  When once alone it broke the silent scene,                        40
+    And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd.
+
+  O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart:
+    Thy withering power inspired each mournful line:
+  Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part,
+    Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!                    45
+
+
+          ANTISTROPHE.
+
+  Thou who such weary lengths hast past,
+  Where wilt thou rest, mad Nymph, at last?
+  Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,
+  Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell?
+      Or, in some hollow'd seat,                                    50
+      'Gainst which the big waves beat,
+  Hear drowning seamen's cries, in tempests brought?
+  Dark power, with shuddering meek submitted thought,
+  Be mine to read the visions old
+  Which thy awakening bards have told:                              55
+  And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
+  Hold each strange tale devoutly true;
+  Ne'er be I found, by thee o'erawed,
+  In that thrice hallow'd eve, abroad,
+  When ghosts, as cottage maids believe,                            60
+  Their pebbled beds permitted leave;
+  And goblins haunt, from fire, or fen,
+  Or mine, or flood, the walks of men!
+
+    O thou, whose spirit most possest
+  The sacred seat of Shakespeare's breast!                          65
+  By all that from thy prophet broke,
+  In thy divine emotions spoke;
+  Hither again thy fury deal,
+  Teach me but once like him to feel:
+  His cypress wreath my meed decree,                                70
+  And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [15] Alluding to the Κυνας αφυκτους ~Kynas aphyktous~ of Sophocles.
+       See the Electra. C.
+
+  [16] Æschylus. C.
+
+  [17] Jocasta. C.
+
+  [18] ουδ’ ετ’ ωρωρει βοη,
+       Ην μεν σιωπη; φθεγμα δ’ εξαιφνης τινος
+       Θωυξεν αυτον, ὡστε παντας ορθιας
+       Στησαι φοβω δεισαντας εξαιφνης τριχας.
+
+       ~----oud' et' ôrôrei boê,
+       Ên men siôpê; phthegma d' exaiphnês tinos
+       Thôuxen auton, hôste pantas orthias
+       Stêsai phobô deisantas exaiphnês trichas.~
+
+       See the Œdip. Colon. of Sophocles. C.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO SIMPLICITY.
+
+
+    O thou, by Nature taught
+    To breathe her genuine thought,
+  In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;
+    Who first, on mountains wild,
+    In Fancy, loveliest child,                                       5
+  Thy babe, or Pleasure's, nursed the powers of song!
+
+    Thou, who, with hermit heart,
+    Disdain'st the wealth of art,
+  And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall;
+    But com'st a decent maid,                                       10
+    In attic robe array'd,
+  O chaste, unboastful Nymph, to thee I call!
+
+    By all the honey'd store
+    On Hybla's thymy shore;
+  By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear;                      15
+    By her[19] whose lovelorn woe,
+    In evening musings slow,
+  Soothed sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:
+
+    By old Cephisus deep,
+    Who spread his wavy sweep,                                      20
+  In warbled wanderings, round thy green retreat;
+    On whose enamel'd side,
+    When holy Freedom died,
+  No equal haunt allured thy future feet.
+
+    O sister meek of Truth,                                         25
+    To my admiring youth,
+  Thy sober aid and native charms infuse!
+    The flowers that sweetest breathe,
+    Though Beauty cull'd the wreath,
+  Still ask thy hand to range their order'd hues.                   30
+
+    While Rome could none esteem
+    But virtue's patriot theme,
+  You lov'd her hills, and led her laureat band:
+    But staid to sing alone
+    To one distinguish'd throne;                                    35
+  And turn'd thy face, and fled her alter'd land.
+
+    No more, in hall or bower,
+    The Passions own thy power,
+  Love, only Love her forceless numbers mean:
+    For thou hast left her shrine;                                  40
+    Nor olive more, nor vine,
+  Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.
+
+    Though taste, though genius, bless
+    To some divine excess,
+  Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole;                 45
+    What each, what all supply,
+    May court, may charm, our eye;
+  Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!
+
+    Of these let others ask,
+    To aid some mighty task,                                        50
+  I only seek to find thy temperate vale;
+    Where oft my reed might sound
+    To maids and shepherds round,
+  And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [19] The αηδων ~aêdôn~, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to
+       have entertained a peculiar fondness. C.
+
+
+
+
+ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.
+
+
+  As once,--if, not with light regard,
+  I read aright that gifted bard,
+  --Him whose school above the rest
+  His loveliest elfin queen has blest;--
+  One, only one, unrival'd[20] fair,                                 5
+  Might hope the magic girdle wear,
+  At solemn turney hung on high,
+  The wish of each love-darting eye;
+
+  --Lo! to each other nymph, in turn, applied,
+    As if, in air unseen, some hovering hand,                       10
+  Some chaste and angel friend to virgin fame,
+    With whisper'd spell had burst the starting band,
+  It left unblest her loathed dishonour'd side;
+    Happier, hopeless Fair, if never
+    Her baffled hand, with vain endeavour,                          15
+  Had touch'd that fatal zone to her denied!
+  Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,
+    To whom, prepared and bathed in heaven,
+    The cest of amplest power is given:
+    To few the godlike gift assigns,                                20
+    To gird their blest prophetic loins,
+  And gaze her visions wild, and feel unmix'd her flame!
+
+  The band, as fairy legends say,
+  Was wove on that creating day,
+  When He, who call'd with thought to birth                         25
+  Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,
+  And dress'd with springs and forests tall,
+  And pour'd the main engirting all,
+  Long by the loved enthusiast woo'd,
+  Himself in some diviner mood,                                     30
+  Retiring, sat with her alone,
+  And placed her on his sapphire throne;
+  The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
+  Seraphic wires were heard to sound,
+  Now sublimest triumph swelling,                                   35
+  Now on love and mercy dwelling;
+  And she, from out the veiling cloud,
+  Breathed her magic notes aloud:
+  And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,
+  And all thy subject life was born!                                40
+  The dangerous passions kept aloof,
+  Far from the sainted growing woof:
+  But near it sat ecstatic Wonder,
+  Listening the deep applauding thunder;
+  And Truth, in sunny vest array'd,                                 45
+  By whose the tarsel's eyes were made;
+  All the shadowy tribes of mind,
+  In braided dance, their murmurs join'd,
+  And all the bright uncounted powers
+  Who feed on heaven's ambrosial flowers.                           50
+  --Where is the bard whose soul can now
+  Its high presuming hopes avow?
+  Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
+  This hallow'd work for him design'd?
+
+  High on some cliff, to heaven up-piled,                           55
+  Of rude access, of prospect wild,
+  Where, tangled round the jealous steep,
+  Strange shades o'erbrow the valleys deep,
+  And holy Genii guard the rock,
+  Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock,                           60
+  While on its rich ambitious head,
+  An Eden, like his own, lies spread:
+  I view that oak, the fancied glades among,
+  By which, as Milton lay, his evening ear,
+  From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew,                      65
+  Nigh sphered in heaven, its native strains could hear;
+  On which that ancient trump he reach'd was hung:
+    Thither oft, his glory greeting,
+    From Waller's myrtle shades retreating,
+  With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue,                      70
+  My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue;
+    In vain--Such bliss to one alone,
+    Of all the sons of soul, was known;
+    And Heaven, and Fancy, kindred powers,
+  Have now o'erturn'd the inspiring bowers;                         75
+  Or curtain'd close such scene from every future view.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [20] Florimel. See Spenser, Leg. 4th. C.
+
+
+
+
+ODE,
+
+WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746.
+
+
+  How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
+  By all their country's wishes bless'd!
+  When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
+  Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
+  She there shall dress a sweeter sod                                5
+  Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
+
+  By fairy hands their knell is rung;
+  By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
+  There Honour comes, a pilgrim-gray,
+  To bless the turf that wraps their clay;                          10
+  And Freedom shall awhile repair,
+  To dwell a weeping hermit there!
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+   5. She then shall dress a sweeter sod
+
+   7. By hands unseen the knell is rung;
+
+   8. By fairy forms their dirge is sung;
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO MERCY.
+
+
+          STROPHE.
+
+    O Thou, who sitt'st a smiling bride
+    By Valour's arm'd and awful side,
+  Gentlest of sky-born forms, and best adored;
+    Who oft with songs, divine to hear,
+    Winn'st from his fatal grasp the spear,                          5
+  And hidest in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword!
+    Thou who, amidst the deathful field,
+    By godlike chiefs alone beheld,
+  Oft with thy bosom bare art found,
+  Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground:                   10
+    See, Mercy, see, with pure and loaded hands,
+    Before thy shrine my country's genius stands,
+  And decks thy altar still, though pierced with many a wound.
+
+
+          ANTISTROPHE.
+
+    When he whom even our joys provoke,
+    The fiend of nature join'd his yoke,                            15
+  And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey;
+    Thy form, from out thy sweet abode,
+    O'ertook him on his blasted road,
+  And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away.
+    I see recoil his sable steeds,                                  20
+    That bore him swift to salvage deeds,
+  Thy tender melting eyes they own;
+  O maid, for all thy love to Britain shown,
+    Where Justice bars her iron tower,
+    To thee we build a roseate bower;                               25
+  Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne!
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO LIBERTY.
+
+
+          STROPHE.
+
+    Who shall awake the Spartan fife,
+    And call in solemn sounds to life,
+  The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
+    Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,
+  At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,                    5
+    Applauding Freedom loved of old to view?
+  What new Alcæus,[21] fancy-blest,
+  Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,
+    At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing,
+  (What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd?)                      10
+    Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,
+  It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound!
+        O goddess, in that feeling hour,
+      When most its sounds would court thy ears,
+        Let not my shell's misguided power[22]                      15
+      E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.
+  No, Freedom, no, I will not tell
+  How Rome, before thy weeping face,
+  With heaviest sound, a giant-statue, fell,
+  Push'd by a wild and artless race                                 20
+  From off its wide ambitious base,
+  When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke,
+    And all the blended work of strength and grace,
+    With many a rude repeated stroke,
+  And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke.           25
+
+
+          EPODE.
+
+  Yet, even where'er the least appear'd,
+  The admiring world thy hand revered;
+  Still, 'midst the scatter'd states around,
+  Some remnants of her strength were found;
+  They saw, by what escaped the storm,                              30
+  How wondrous rose her perfect form;
+  How in the great, the labour'd whole,
+  Each mighty master pour'd his soul!
+  For sunny Florence, seat of art,
+  Beneath her vines preserved a part,                               35
+  Till they,[23] whom Science loved to name,
+  (O who could fear it?) quench'd her flame.
+  And lo, an humbler relic laid
+  In jealous Pisa's olive shade!
+  See small Marino[24] joins the theme,                             40
+  Though least, not last in thy esteem:
+  Strike, louder strike the ennobling strings
+  To those,[25] whose merchant sons were kings;
+  To him,[26] who, deck'd with pearly pride,
+  In Adria weds his green-hair'd bride;                             45
+  Hail, port of glory, wealth, and pleasure,
+  Ne'er let me change this Lydian measure:
+  Nor e'er her former pride relate,
+  To sad Liguria's[27] bleeding state.
+  Ah no! more pleased thy haunts I seek,                            50
+  On wild Helvetia's[28] mountains bleak:
+  (Where, when the favour'd of thy choice,
+  The daring archer heard thy voice;
+  Forth from his eyrie roused in dread,
+  The ravening eagle northward fled:)                               55
+  Or dwell in willow'd meads more near,
+  With those to whom thy stork[29] is dear:
+  Those whom the rod of Alva bruised,
+  Whose crown a British queen[30] refused!
+  The magic works, thou feel'st the strains,                        60
+  One holier name alone remains;
+  The perfect spell shall then avail,
+  Hail, nymph, adored by Britain, hail!
+
+
+          ANTISTROPHE.
+
+  Beyond the measure vast of thought,
+  The works the wizard time has wrought!                            65
+    The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story,
+  Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand,[31]
+    No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary,
+  He pass'd with unwet feet through all our land.
+    To the blown Baltic then, they say,                             70
+    The wild waves found another way,
+  Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding;
+    Till all the banded west at once 'gan rise,
+  A wide wild storm even nature's self confounding,
+    Withering her giant sons with strange uncouth surprise.         75
+      This pillar'd earth so firm and wide,
+        By winds and inward labours torn,
+      In thunders dread was push'd aside,
+        And down the shouldering billows borne.
+  And see, like gems, her laughing train,                           80
+    The little isles on every side,
+  Mona,[32] once hid from those who search the main,
+    Where thousand elfin shapes abide,
+  And Wight who checks the westering tide,
+    For thee consenting heaven has each bestow'd,                   85
+  A fair attendant on her sovereign pride:
+    To thee this blest divorce she owed,
+  For thou hast made her vales thy loved, thy last abode!
+
+
+          SECOND EPODE.
+
+  Then too, 'tis said, an hoary pile,
+  'Midst the green navel of our isle,                               90
+  Thy shrine in some religious wood,
+  O soul-enforcing goddess, stood!
+  There oft the painted native's feet
+  Were wont thy form celestial meet:
+  Though now with hopeless toil we trace                            95
+  Time's backward rolls, to find its place;
+  Whether the fiery-tresséd Dane,
+  Or Roman's self o'erturn'd the fane,
+  Or in what heaven-left age it fell,
+  'Twere hard for modern song to tell.                             100
+  Yet still, if Truth those beams infuse,
+  Which guide at once, and charm the Muse,
+  Beyond yon braided clouds that lie,
+  Paving the light embroider'd sky,
+  Amidst the bright pavilion'd plains,                             105
+  The beauteous model still remains.
+  There, happier than in islands blest,
+  Or bowers by spring or Hebe drest,
+  The chiefs who fill our Albion's story,
+  In warlike weeds, retired in glory,                              110
+  Hear their consorted Druids sing
+  Their triumphs to the immortal string.
+    How may the poet now unfold
+  What never tongue or numbers told?
+  How learn delighted, and amazed,                                 115
+  What hands unknown that fabric raised?
+  Even now before his favour'd eyes,
+  In gothic pride, it seems to rise!
+  Yet Græcia's graceful orders join,
+  Majestic through the mix'd design:                               120
+  The secret builder knew to choose
+  Each sphere-found gem of richest hues;
+  Whate'er heaven's purer mould contains,
+  When nearer suns emblaze its veins;
+  There on the walls the patriot's sight                           125
+  May ever hang with fresh delight,
+  And, graved with some prophetic rage,
+  Read Albion's fame through every age.
+    Ye forms divine, ye laureat band,
+  That near her inmost altar stand!                                130
+  Now soothe her to her blissful train
+  Blithe Concord's social form to gain;
+  Concord, whose myrtle wand can steep
+  Even Anger's bloodshot eyes in sleep;
+  Before whose breathing bosom's balm                              135
+  Rage drops his steel, and storms grow calm:
+  Her let our sires and matrons hoar
+  Welcome to Briton's ravaged shore;
+  Our youths, enamour'd of the fair,
+  Play with the tangles of her hair,                               140
+  Till, in one loud applauding sound,
+  The nations shout to her around,
+  O how supremely art thou blest,
+  Thou, lady--thou shalt rule the west!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [21] Alluding to that beautiful fragment of Alcæus:
+
+       Εν μυρτου κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω,
+       Hωσπερ Ἁρμοδιος κ’ Αριστογειτων,
+       Ὁτε τον τυραννον κτανετην.
+       Ισονομους τ’ Αθηνας εποιησατην.
+       Φιλταθ’ Ἁρμοδι’ ου τι που τεθνηκας,
+       Νησοις δ’ εν μακαρων σε φασιν ειναι,
+       Ἱνα περ ποδωκης Αχιλευς,
+       Τυδειδην τε φασιν Διομηδεα.
+       Εν μυρτου κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω,
+       Ωσπερ Ἁρμοδιος κ’ Αριστογειτων,
+       Ὁτ’ Αθηναιης εν Θυσιαις
+       Ανδρα τυραννον Ἱππαρχον εκαινετην.
+       Αει σφων κλεος εσσεται κατ’ αιαν,
+       Φιλταθ’ Ἁρμοδιε, κ’ Αριστογειτων,
+       Ὁτι τον τυραννον κτανετον,
+       Ισονομους τ’ Αθηνας εποιησατον.
+
+       ~En myrtou kladi to xiphos phorêsô,
+       Hôsper Harmodios k' Aristogeitôn,
+       Hote ton tyrannon ktanetên.
+       Isonomous t' Athênas epoiêsatên.
+       Philtath' Harmodi' ou ti pou tethnêkas,
+       Nêsois d' en makarôn se phasin einai,
+       Hina per podôkês Achileus,
+       Tydeidên te phasin Diomêdea.
+       En myrtou kladi to xiphos phorêsô,
+       Ôsper Harmodios k' Aristogeitôn,
+       Hot' Athênaiês en Thysiais
+       Andra tyrannon Hipparchon ekainetên.
+       Aei sphôn kleos essetai kat' aian,
+       Philtath' Harmodie, k' Aristogeitôn,
+       Hoti ton tyrannon ktaneton,
+       Isonomous t' Athênas epoiêsaton.~
+
+  [22] Μη μη ταυτα λεγωμες, ἁ δακρυον ηγαγε Δηοι.
+                 Callimach. Ὑμνος εις Δημητρα. C.
+
+       ~Mê mê tauta legômes, ha dakryon êgage Dêoi.~
+                 Callimach. ~Hymnos eis Dêmêtra~. C.
+
+  [23] The family of the Medici. C.
+
+  [24] The little republic of San Marino. C.
+
+  [25] The Venetians. C.
+
+  [26] The Doge of Venice. C.
+
+  [27] Genoa. C.
+
+  [28] Switzerland. C.
+
+  [29] The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those
+       who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in
+       almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague, of the
+       arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are
+       said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole
+       species of them should become extinct, they should lose their
+       liberties. C.
+
+  [30] Queen Elizabeth. C.
+
+  [31] This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some
+       naturalists too have endeavoured to support the probability of
+       the fact by arguments drawn from the correspondent disposition of
+       the two opposite coasts. I do not remember that any poetical use
+       has been hitherto made of it. C.
+
+  [32] There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a mermaid becoming
+       enamoured of a young man of extraordinary beauty took an
+       opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on the shore, and
+       opened her passion to him, but was received with a coldness,
+       occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This,
+       however, was so misconstrued by the sea lady, that, in revenge
+       for his treatment of her, she punished the whole island by
+       covering it with a mist: so that all who attempted to carry on
+       any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up
+       and down the sea, or were on a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs.
+       C.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO A LADY,
+
+ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL ROSS, IN THE ACTION OF FONTENOY.
+
+Written in May, 1745.
+
+
+  While, lost to all his former mirth,
+  Britannia's genius bends to earth,
+      And mourns the fatal day:
+  While stain'd with blood he strives to tear
+  Unseemly from his sea-green hair                                   5
+      The wreaths of cheerful May:
+
+  The thoughts which musing Pity pays,
+  And fond Remembrance loves to raise,
+      Your faithful hours attend;
+  Still Fancy, to herself unkind,                                   10
+  Awakes to grief the soften'd mind,
+      And points the bleeding friend.
+
+  By rapid Scheld's descending wave
+  His country's vows shall bless the grave,
+      Where'er the youth is laid:                                   15
+  That sacred spot the village hind
+  With every sweetest turf shall bind,
+      And Peace protect the shade.
+
+  Blest youth, regardful of thy doom,
+  Aërial hands shall build thy tomb,                                20
+      With shadowy trophies crown'd;
+  Whilst Honour bathed in tears shall rove
+  To sigh thy name through every grove,
+      And call his heroes round.
+
+  The warlike dead of every age,                                    25
+  Who fill the fair recording page,
+      Shall leave their sainted rest;
+  And, half reclining on his spear,
+  Each wondering chief by turns appear,
+      To hail the blooming guest:                                   30
+
+  Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield,
+  Shall crowd from Cressy's laurel'd field,
+      And gaze with fix'd delight;
+  Again for Britain's wrongs they feel,
+  Again they snatch the gleamy steel,                               35
+      And wish the avenging fight.
+
+  But lo, where, sunk in deep despair,
+  Her garments torn, her bosom bare,
+      Impatient Freedom lies!
+  Her matted tresses madly spread,                                  40
+  To every sod, which wraps the dead,
+      She turns her joyless eyes.
+
+  Ne'er shall she leave that lowly ground
+  Till notes of triumph bursting round
+      Proclaim her reign restored:                                  45
+  Till William seek the sad retreat,
+  And, bleeding at her sacred feet,
+      Present the sated sword.
+
+  If, weak to soothe so soft a heart,
+  These pictured glories nought impart,                             50
+      To dry thy constant tear:
+  If, yet, in Sorrow's distant eye,
+  Exposed and pale thou see'st him lie,
+      Wild War insulting near:
+
+  Where'er from time thou court'st relief,                          55
+  The Muse shall still, with social grief,
+      Her gentlest promise keep;
+  Even humbled Harting's cottaged vale[33]
+  Shall learn the sad repeated tale,
+      And bid her shepherds weep.                                   60
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+   4. While sunk in grief he strives to tear
+
+  19. E'en now regardful of his doom
+      Applauding Honour haunts his tomb,
+          With shadowy trophies crown'd:
+      Whilst Freedom's form beside her roves,
+      Majestic through the twilight groves,
+          And calls her heroes round.
+
+  19. O'er him, whose doom thy virtues grieve,
+      Aërial forms shall sit at eve,
+          And bend the pensive head;
+      And, fallen to save his injured land,
+      Imperial Honour's awful hand
+          Shall point his lonely bed.
+
+  31. Old Edward's sons, untaught to yield,
+
+  49. If, drawn by all a lover's art,
+
+  58. Even humble Harting's cottaged vale
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [33] Harting, a village adjoining the parish of Trotton, and about two
+       miles distant from it.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO EVENING.
+
+
+  If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
+  May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
+      Like thy own brawling springs,
+      Thy springs, and dying gales;
+
+  O Nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair'd sun                  5
+  Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
+      With brede ethereal wove,
+      O'erhang his wavy bed:
+
+  Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
+  With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;               10
+      Or where the beetle winds
+      His small but sullen horn,
+
+  As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
+  Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
+      Now teach me, maid composed,                                  15
+      To breathe some soften'd strain,
+
+  Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
+  May not unseemly with its stillness suit;
+      As, musing slow, I hail
+      Thy genial loved return!                                      20
+
+  For when thy folding-star arising shows
+  His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
+      The fragrant Hours, and Elves
+      Who slept in buds the day,
+
+  And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,               25
+  And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
+      The pensive Pleasures sweet,
+      Prepare thy shadowy car.
+
+  Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;
+  Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,                       30
+      Whose walls more awful nod
+      By thy religious gleams.
+
+  Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
+  Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
+      That, from the mountain's side,                               35
+      Views wilds, and swelling floods,
+
+  And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires;
+  And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
+      Thy dewy fingers draw
+      The gradual dusky veil.                                       40
+
+  While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
+  And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
+      While Summer loves to sport
+      Beneath thy lingering light;
+
+  While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;                    45
+  Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
+      Affrights thy shrinking train,
+      And rudely rends thy robes;
+
+  So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
+  Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,                  50
+      Thy gentlest influence own,
+      And love thy favourite name!
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver
+   2. May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,
+
+   3. Like thy own solemn springs,
+
+   9. While air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat
+
+  24. Who slept in flowers the day,
+
+  29. Then lead, calm vot'ress, where some sheety lake
+      Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow'd pile,
+
+  31.     Or upland fallows grey,
+          Reflect its last cool gleam.
+
+  33. But when chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
+      Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut,
+
+  49. So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed,
+      Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp'd Health,
+          Thy gentlest influence own,
+          And hymn thy favourite name!
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO PEACE.
+
+
+  O thou, who bad'st thy turtles bear
+  Swift from his grasp thy golden hair,
+    And sought'st thy native skies;
+  When War, by vultures drawn from far,
+  To Britain bent his iron car,                                      5
+    And bade his storms arise!
+
+  Tired of his rude tyrannic sway,
+  Our youth shall fix some festive day,
+    His sullen shrines to burn:
+  But thou who hear'st the turning spheres,                         10
+  What sounds may charm thy partial ears,
+    And gain thy blest return!
+
+  O Peace, thy injured robes up-bind!
+  O rise! and leave not one behind
+    Of all thy beamy train;                                         15
+  The British Lion, goddess sweet,
+  Lies stretch'd on earth to kiss thy feet,
+    And own thy holier reign.
+
+  Let others court thy transient smile,
+  But come to grace thy western isle,                               20
+    By warlike Honour led;
+  And, while around her ports rejoice,
+  While all her sons adore thy choice,
+    With him for ever wed!
+
+
+
+
+THE MANNERS.
+
+AN ODE.
+
+
+  Farewell, for clearer ken design'd,
+  The dim-discover'd tracts of mind;
+  Truths which, from action's paths retired,
+  My silent search in vain required!
+  No more my sail that deep explores;                                5
+  No more I search those magic shores;
+  What regions part the world of soul,
+  Or whence thy streams, Opinion, roll:
+  If e'er I round such fairy field,
+  Some power impart the spear and shield,                           10
+  At which the wizard Passions fly;
+  By which the giant Follies die!
+
+    Farewell the porch whose roof is seen
+  Arch'd with the enlivening olive's green:
+  Where Science, prank'd in tissued vest,                           15
+  By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest,
+  Comes, like a bride, so trim array'd,
+  To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade!
+
+    Youth of the quick uncheated sight,
+  Thy walks, Observance, more invite!                               20
+  O thou who lovest that ampler range,
+  Where life's wide prospects round thee change,
+  And, with her mingling sons allied,
+  Throw'st the prattling page aside,
+  To me, in converse sweet, impart                                  25
+  To read in man the native heart;
+  To learn, where Science sure is found,
+  From Nature as she lives around;
+  And, gazing oft her mirror true,
+  By turns each shifting image view!                                30
+  Till meddling Art's officious lore
+  Reverse the lessons taught before;
+  Alluring from a safer rule,
+  To dream in her enchanted school:
+  Thou, Heaven, whate'er of great we boast,                         35
+  Hast blest this social science most.
+
+    Retiring hence to thoughtful cell,
+  As Fancy breathes her potent spell,
+  Not vain she finds the charmful task,
+  In pageant quaint, in motley mask;                                40
+  Behold, before her musing eyes,
+  The countless Manners round her rise;
+  While, ever varying as they pass,
+  To some Contempt applies her glass:
+  With these the white-robed maids combine;                         45
+  And those the laughing satyrs join!
+  But who is he whom now she views,
+  In robe of wild contending hues?
+  Thou by the Passions nursed, I greet
+  The comic sock that binds thy feet!                               50
+  O Humour, thou whose name is known
+  To Britain's favour'd isle alone:
+  Me too amidst thy band admit;
+  There where the young-eyed healthful Wit,
+  (Whose jewels in his crispéd hair                                 55
+  Are placed each other's beams to share;
+  Whom no delights from thee divide)
+  In laughter loosed, attends thy side.
+
+    By old Miletus,[34] who so long
+  Has ceased his love-inwoven song;                                 60
+  By all you taught the Tuscan maids,
+  In changed Italia's modern shades;
+  By him[35] whose knight's distinguish'd name
+  Refined a nation's lust of fame;
+  Whose tales e'en now, with echoes sweet,                          65
+  Castilia's Moorish hills repeat;
+  Or him[36] whom Seine's blue nymphs deplore,
+  In watchet weeds on Gallia's shore;
+  Who drew the sad Sicilian maid,
+  By virtues in her sire betray'd.                                  70
+
+    O Nature boon, from whom proceed
+  Each forceful thought, each prompted deed;
+  If but from thee I hope to feel,
+  On all my heart imprint thy seal!
+  Let some retreating cynic find                                    75
+  Those oft-turn'd scrolls I leave behind:
+  The Sports and I this hour agree,
+  To rove thy scene-full world with thee!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [34] Alluding to the Milesian tales, some of the earliest romances. C.
+
+  [35] Cervantes. C.
+
+  [36] Monsieur Le Sage, author of the incomparable Adventures of Gil Blas
+       de Santillane, who died in Paris in the year 1745. C.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSIONS.
+
+AN ODE FOR MUSIC.
+
+Performed at Oxford, with Hayes's music, in 1750.
+
+
+  When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
+  While yet in early Greece she sung,
+  The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
+  Throng'd around her magic cell,
+  Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,                             5
+  Possest beyond the Muse's painting:
+  By turns they felt the glowing mind
+  Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined;
+  Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
+  Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,                                 10
+  From the supporting myrtles round
+  They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
+  And, as they oft had heard apart
+  Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
+  Each (for Madness ruled the hour)                                 15
+  Would prove his own expressive power.
+
+  First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
+    Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
+  And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
+    E'en at the sound himself had made.                             20
+
+  Next Anger rush'd; his eyes on fire,
+    In lightnings own'd his secret stings:
+  In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
+    And swept with hurried hand the strings.
+
+  With woful measures wan Despair                                   25
+    Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
+  A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
+    'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.
+
+  But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
+    What was thy delighted measure?                                 30
+  Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,
+    And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
+  Still would her touch the strain prolong;
+    And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
+  She call'd on Echo still, through all the song;                   35
+    And, where her sweetest theme she chose,
+    A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
+  And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
+  And longer had she sung;--but, with a frown,
+      Revenge impatient rose:                                       40
+  He threw his blood-stain'd sword, in thunder, down;
+      And, with a withering look,
+    The war-denouncing trumpet took,
+  And blew a blast so loud and dread,
+  Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!                       45
+      And, ever and anon, he beat
+      The doubling drum, with furious heat;
+  And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
+      Dejected Pity, at his side,
+      Her soul-subduing voice applied,                              50
+    Yet still he kept his wild unalter'd mein,
+  While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his head.
+    Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix'd;
+      Sad proof of thy distressful state;
+    Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd;                 55
+      And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate.
+
+  With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
+  Pale Melancholy sate retired;
+  And, from her wild sequester'd seat,
+  In notes by distance made more sweet,                             60
+  Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
+    And, dashing soft from rocks around,
+    Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
+  Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
+    Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,                  65
+      Round an holy calm diffusing,
+      Love of Peace, and lonely musing,
+    In hollow murmurs died away.
+
+  But O! how alter'd was its sprightlier tone,
+  When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,                     70
+    Her bow across her shoulder flung,
+    Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,
+  Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
+    The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known!
+  The oak-crown'd Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,             75
+    Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen,
+    Peeping from forth their alleys green:
+  Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;
+    And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.
+  Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:                                   80
+  He, with viny crown advancing,
+    First to the lively pipe his hand addrest;
+  But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
+    Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best;
+  They would have thought who heard the strain                      85
+    They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
+    Amidst the festal sounding shades,
+  To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
+  While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings,
+    Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:                   90
+    Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
+    And he, amidst his frolic play,
+    As if he would the charming air repay,
+  Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.
+
+  O Music! sphere-descended maid,                                   95
+  Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
+  Why, goddess! why, to us denied,
+  Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
+  As, in that loved Athenian bower,
+  You learn'd an all commanding power,                             100
+  Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endear'd,
+  Can well recall what then it heard;
+  Where is thy native simple heart,
+  Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
+  Arise, as in that elder time,                                    105
+  Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
+  Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
+  Fill thy recording Sister's page--
+  'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
+  Thy humblest reed could more prevail,                            110
+  Had more of strength, diviner rage,
+  Than all which charms this laggard age;
+  E'en all at once together found,
+  Cecilia's mingled world of sound--
+  O bid our vain endeavours cease;                                 115
+  Revive the just designs of Greece:
+  Return in all thy simple state!
+  Confirm the tales her sons relate!
+
+
+VARIATION.
+
+  Ver.
+  30.   What was thy delightful measure?
+
+
+
+
+ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON.
+
+THE SCENE IS SUPPOSED TO LIE ON THE THAMES NEAR RICHMOND.
+
+
+  In yonder grave a Druid lies,
+    Where slowly winds the stealing wave;
+  The year's best sweets shall duteous rise
+    To deck its poet's sylvan grave.
+
+  In yon deep bed of whispering reeds                                5
+    His airy harp[37] shall now be laid,
+  That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds,
+    May love through life the soothing shade.
+
+  Then maids and youths shall linger here,
+    And while its sounds at distance swell,                         10
+  Shall sadly seem in pity's ear
+    To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.
+
+  Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore
+    When Thames in summer wreaths is drest,
+  And oft suspend the dashing oar,                                  15
+    To bid his gentle spirit rest!
+
+  And oft, as ease and health retire
+    To breezy lawn, or forest deep,
+  The friend shall view yon whitening[38] spire
+    And 'mid the varied landscape weep.                             20
+
+  But thou, who own'st that earthy bed,
+    Ah! what will every dirge avail;
+  Or tears, which love and pity shed,
+    That mourn beneath the gliding sail?
+
+  Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye                           25
+    Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near?
+  With him, sweet bard, may fancy die,
+    And joy desert the blooming year.
+
+  But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide
+    No sedge-crown'd sisters now attend,                            30
+  Now waft me from the green hill's side,
+    Whose cold turf hides the buried friend!
+
+  And see, the fairy valleys fade;
+    Dun night has veil'd the solemn view!
+  Yet once again, dear parted shade,                                35
+    Meek Nature's Child, again adieu!
+
+  The genial meads,[39] assign'd to bless
+    Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom;
+  Their hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress,
+    With simple hands, thy rural tomb.                              40
+
+  Long, long, thy stone and pointed clay
+    Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes:
+  O! vales and wild woods, shall he say,
+    In yonder grave your Druid lies!
+
+
+VARIATION.
+
+  Ver.
+  21. But thou who own'st that earthly bed,
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [37] The harp of Æolus, of which see a description in the Castle of
+       Indolence. C.
+
+  [38] Richmond Church, in which Thomson was buried. C.
+
+  [39] Mr. Thomson resided in the neighbourhood of Richmond some time
+       before his death.
+
+
+
+
+ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND;
+
+CONSIDERED AS THE SUBJECT OF POETRY; INSCRIBED TO MR. JOHN HOME.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  Home, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long
+    Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay,
+    'Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,
+  Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.[40]
+  Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth[41]                        5
+    Whom, long endear'd, thou leavest by Levant's side;
+  Together let us wish him lasting truth,
+    And joy untainted with his destined bride.
+  Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
+    My short-lived bliss, forget my social name;                    10
+  But think, far off, how, on the southern coast,
+    I met thy friendship with an equal flame!
+  Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, where every vale
+    Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand:
+  To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail;                    15
+    Thou need'st but take thy pencil to thy hand,
+  And paint what all believe, who own thy genial land.
+
+
+  II.
+
+  There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;
+    'Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet;
+    Where still, 'tis said, the fairy people meet,                  20
+  Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill;
+  There, each trim lass, that skims the milky store,
+    To the swart tribes their creamy bowls allots;
+  By night they sip it round the cottage door,
+    While airy minstrels warble jocund notes.                       25
+  There, every herd, by sad experience, knows
+    How, wing'd with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
+  When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes,
+    Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie.
+  Such airy beings awe the untutor'd swain:                         30
+    Nor thou, though learn'd, his homelier thoughts neglect;
+  Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain;
+    These are the themes of simple, sure effect,
+  That add new conquests to her boundless reign,
+    And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding strain.       35
+
+
+  III.
+
+  E'en yet preserved, how often mayst thou hear,
+    Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
+    Taught by the father, to his listening son,
+  Strange lays, whose power had charm'd a Spenser's ear.
+  At every pause, before thy mind possest,                          40
+    Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,
+  With uncouth lyres, in many-colour'd vest,
+    Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown'd:
+  Whether thou bidst the well taught hind repeat
+    The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave,             45
+  When every shrieking maid her bosom beat,
+    And strew'd with choicest herbs his scented grave!
+  Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel,[42]
+    Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms;
+  When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel,                    50
+    The sturdy clans pour'd forth their brawny swarms,
+  And hostile brothers met, to prove each other's arms.
+
+
+  IV.
+
+  'Tis thine to sing, how, framing hideous spells,
+    In Sky's lone isle, the gifted wizard seer,
+    Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate's fell spear,               55
+  Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells:
+    How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
+  With their own visions oft astonish'd droop,
+    When, o'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss,
+  They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop.                       60
+    Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,
+  Their destined glance some fated youth descry,
+    Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,
+  And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.
+    For them the viewless forms of air obey;                        65
+  Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair:
+    They know what spirit brews the stormful day,
+  And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare
+  To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.
+
+
+  V.
+
+  To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray,                      70
+    Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow!
+    The seer, in Sky, shriek'd as the blood did flow,
+  When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay!
+  As Boreas threw his young Aurora[43] forth,
+    In the first year of the first George's reign,                  75
+  And battles raged in welkin of the North,
+    They mourn'd in air, fell, fell Rebellion slain!
+  And as, of late, they joy'd in Preston's fight,
+    Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crown'd!
+  They raved! divining, through their second sight,[44]             80
+    Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown'd!
+  Illustrious William![45] Britain's guardian name!
+    One William saved us from a tyrant's stroke;
+  He, for a sceptre, gain'd heroic fame,
+    But thou, more glorious, Slavery's chain hast broke,            85
+  To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom's yoke!
+
+
+  VI.
+
+  These, too, thou'lt sing! for well thy magic muse
+    Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur soar;
+    Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more!
+  Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne'er lose;                90
+    Let not dank Will[46] mislead you to the heath;
+  Dancing in mirky night, o'er fen and lake,
+    He glows, to draw you downward to your death,
+  In his bewitch'd, low, marshy, willow brake!
+  What though far off, from some dark dell espied,                  95
+    His glimmering mazes cheer the excursive sight,
+  Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside,
+    Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light;
+  For watchful, lurking, 'mid the unrustling reed,
+    At those mirk hours the wily monster lies,                     100
+  And listens oft to hear the passing steed,
+    And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes,
+  If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise.
+
+
+  VII.
+
+  Ah, luckless swain, o'er all unblest, indeed!
+    Whom late bewilder'd in the dank, dark fen,                    105
+    Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then!
+  To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:
+    On him, enraged, the fiend, in angry mood,
+  Shall never look with pity's kind concern,
+    But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood                 110
+  O'er its drown'd banks, forbidding all return!
+    Or, if he meditate his wish'd escape,
+  To some dim hill, that seems uprising near,
+    To his faint eye the grim and grisly shape,
+  In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear.                      115
+    Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise,
+  Pour'd sudden forth from every swelling source!
+    What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs?
+  His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly force,
+  And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse!       120
+
+
+  VIII.
+
+  For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,
+    Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
+  For him in vain at to-fall of the day,
+    His babes shall linger at the unclosing gate!
+  Ah, ne'er shall he return! Alone, if night                       125
+    Her travel'd limbs in broken slumbers steep,
+  With drooping willows drest, his mournful sprite
+    Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep:
+  Then he, perhaps, with moist and watery hand,
+    Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek,               130
+  And with his blue swoln face before her stand,
+    And, shivering cold, these piteous accents speak:
+  "Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue,
+    At dawn or dusk, industrious as before;
+  Nor e'er of me one helpless thought renew,                       135
+    While I lie weltering on the osier'd shore,
+  Drown'd by the Kelpie's[47] wrath, nor e'er shall aid thee more!"
+
+
+  IX.
+
+  Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill
+    Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring
+    From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing                140
+  Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,
+    To that hoar pile[48] which still its ruins shows:
+  In whose small vaults a pigmy folk is found,
+    Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows,
+  And culls them, wondering, from the hallow'd ground!             145
+  Or thither,[49] where, beneath the showery west,
+    The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid;
+  Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,
+    No slaves revere them, and no wars invade:
+  Yet frequent now, at midnight's solemn hour,                     150
+    The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold,
+  And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power,
+    In pageant robes, and wreath'd with sheeny gold,
+  And on their twilight tombs aërial council hold.
+
+
+  X.
+
+  But, oh, o'er all, forget not Kilda's race,                      155
+    On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides,
+    Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides.
+  Go! just, as they, their blameless manners trace!
+    Then to my ear transmit some gentle song,
+  Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain,                  160
+    Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along,
+  And all their prospect but the wintry main.
+    With sparing temperance, at the needful time,
+  They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest,
+    Along the Atlantic rock, undreading climb,                     165
+  And of its eggs despoil the solan's[50] nest.
+    Thus, blest in primal innocence, they live
+  Sufficed, and happy with that frugal fare
+    Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give.
+  Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare;                  170
+    Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!
+
+
+  XI.
+
+  Nor need'st thou blush that such false themes engage
+    Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest;
+    For not alone they touch the village breast,
+  But fill'd, in elder time, the historic page.                    175
+    There, Shakespeare's self, with every garland crown'd,
+  Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen,
+    In musing hour; his wayward sisters found,
+  And with their terrors drest the magic scene.
+    From them he sung, when, 'mid his bold design,                 180
+  Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast!
+    The shadowy kings of Banquo's fated line
+  Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass'd.
+    Proceed! nor quit the tales which, simply told,
+  Could once so well my answering bosom pierce;                    185
+    Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colours bold,
+  The native legends of thy land rehearse;
+  To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy powerful verse.
+
+
+  XII.
+
+  In scenes like these, which, daring to depart
+    From sober truth, are still to nature true,                    190
+  And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view,
+  The heroic muse employ'd her Tasso's art!
+    How have I trembled, when, at Tancred's stroke,
+  Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd!
+    When each live plant with mortal accents spoke,                195
+  And the wild blast upheaved the vanish'd sword!
+    How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind,
+  To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung!
+    Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind
+  Believed the magic wonders which he sung!                        200
+    Hence, at each sound, imagination glows!
+  Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!
+    Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows!
+  Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear,
+  And fills the impassion'd heart, and wins the harmonious ear!    205
+
+
+  XIII.
+
+  All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail!
+  Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away,
+    Are by smooth Annan[51] fill'd or pastoral Tay,[51]
+  Or Don's[51] romantic springs at distance hail!
+  The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread                  210
+    Your lowly glens, o'erhung with spreading broom;
+  Or, o'er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led;
+    Or, o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom!
+  Then will I dress once more the faded bower,
+    Where Jonson[52] sat in Drummond's classic shade;              215
+  Or crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower,
+    And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid!
+  Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore
+    The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains,[53] attend!--
+  Where'er Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor,                    220
+    To him I lose, your kind protection lend,
+  And, touch'd with love like mine, preserve my absent friend!
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+   44. Whether thou bidst the well taught hind relate
+
+   51. The sturdy clans pour'd forth their bony swarms,
+
+   56. Or in the gloom of Uist's dark forest dwells:
+
+   58. With their own visions oft afflicted droop,
+
+   66. Their bidding mark, and at their beck repair:
+
+  100. At those sad hours the wily monster lies;
+
+  111. O'er its drowned bank, forbidding all return!
+
+  124. His babes shall linger at the cottage gate!
+
+  127. With dropping willows drest, his mournful sprite
+
+  130. Shall seem to press her cold and shuddering cheek,
+
+  133. Proceed, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue,
+
+  135. Nor e'er of me one hapless thought renew,
+
+  138. Unbounded is thy range; with varied stile
+
+  164. They drain the sainted spring; or, hunger-prest,
+
+  193. How have I trembled, when, at Tancred's side,
+         Like him I stalk'd, and all his passions felt;
+       When charm'd by Ismen, through the forest wide,
+         Bark'd in each plant a talking spirit dwelt!
+
+  201.   Hence, sure to charm, his early numbers flow,
+       Though strong, yet sweet----
+       Though faithful, sweet; though strong, of simple kind.
+         Hence, with each theme, he bids the bosom glow,
+       While his warm lays an easy passage find,
+       Pour'd through each inmost nerve, and lull the harmonious ear.
+
+  204. Melting it flows, pure, numerous, strong, and clear,
+
+  216. Or crop from Tiviot's dale each--
+
+  220. Where'er he dwell, on hill, or lowly muir,
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [40] How truly did Collins predict Home's tragic powers!
+
+  [41] A gentleman of the name of Barrow, who introduced Home to Collins.
+       Ed. 1788.
+
+  [42] A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend
+       their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine. Ed.
+       1788.
+
+  [43] By young Aurora, Collins undoubtedly meant the first appearance of
+       the northern lights, which happened about the year 1715; at least
+       it is most highly probable, from this peculiar circumstance, that
+       no ancient writer whatever has taken any notice of them, nor even
+       any modern one, previous to the above period. Ed. 1788.
+
+  [44] Second sight is the term that is used for the divination of the
+       highlanders. Ed. 1788.
+
+  [45] The late Duke of Cumberland, who defeated the Pretender at the
+       battle of Culloden. Ed. 1788.
+
+  [46] A fiery meteor, called by various names, such as Will with the
+       Wisp, Jack with the Lantern, etc. It hovers in the air over
+       marshy and fenny places. Ed. 1788.
+
+  [47] The water fiend.
+
+  [48] One of the Hebrides is called the Isle of Pigmies; where it is
+       reported, that several miniature bones of the human species have
+       been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there.
+
+  [49] Icolmkill, one of the Hebrides, where near sixty of the ancient
+       Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are interred.
+
+  [50] An aquatic bird like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabitants
+       of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist. Ed.
+       1788.
+
+  [51] Three rivers in Scotland. Ed. 1788.
+
+  [52] Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scotch poet
+       Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of
+       Edinburgh.
+
+  [53] Barrow, it seems, was at the Edinburgh University, which is in the
+       county of Lothian. Ed. 1788.
+
+
+
+
+AN EPISTLE,
+
+ADDRESSED TO SIR THOMAS HANMER, ON HIS EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS.
+
+
+    SIR,
+  A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays,
+  While nursed by you she sees her myrtles bloom,
+  Green and unwither'd o'er his honour'd tomb;
+  Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell                        5
+  What secret transports in her bosom swell:
+  With conscious awe she hears the critic's fame,
+  And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespeare's name.
+  Hard was the lot those injured strains endured,
+  Unown'd by Science, and by years obscured:                        10
+  Fair Fancy wept; and echoing sighs confess'd
+  A fix'd despair in every tuneful breast.
+  Not with more grief the afflicted swains appear,
+  When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
+  When lingering frosts the ruin'd seats invade                     15
+  Where Peace resorted, and the Graces play'd.
+
+    Each rising art by just gradation moves,
+  Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves:
+  The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage,
+  And graced with noblest pomp her earliest stage.                  20
+  Preserved through time, the speaking scenes impart
+  Each changeful wish of Phædra's tortured heart;
+  Or paint the curse that mark'd the Theban's[54] reign,
+  A bed incestuous, and a father slain.
+  With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow,                      25
+  Trace the sad tale, and own another's woe.
+
+    To Rome removed, with wit secure to please,
+  The comic Sisters kept their native ease:
+  With jealous fear, declining Greece beheld
+  Her own Menander's art almost excell'd;                           30
+  But every Muse essay'd to raise in vain
+  Some labour'd rival of her tragic strain:
+  Ilissus' laurels, though transferr'd with toil,
+  Droop'd their fair leaves, nor knew the unfriendly soil.
+    As Arts expired, resistless Dulness rose;                       35
+  Goths, Priests, or Vandals,--all were Learning's foes.
+  Till Julius[55] first recall'd each exiled maid,
+  And Cosmo own'd them in the Etrurian shade:
+  Then, deeply skill'd in love's engaging theme,
+  The soft Provençal pass'd to Arno's stream:                       40
+  With graceful ease the wanton lyre he strung;
+  Sweet flow'd the lays--but love was all he sung.
+  The gay description could not fail to move,
+  For, led by nature, all are friends to love.
+
+    But Heaven, still various in its works, decreed                 45
+  The perfect boast of time should last succeed.
+  The beauteous union must appear at length,
+  Of Tuscan fancy, and Athenian strength:
+  One greater Muse Eliza's reign adorn,
+  And e'en a Shakespeare to her fame be born!                       50
+
+    Yet ah! so bright her morning's opening ray,
+  In vain our Britain hoped an equal day!
+  No second growth the western isle could bear,
+  At once exhausted with too rich a year.
+  Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part;                         55
+  Nature in him was almost lost in art.
+  Of softer mould the gentle Fletcher came,
+  The next in order, as the next in name;
+  With pleased attention, 'midst his scenes we find
+  Each glowing thought that warms the female mind;                  60
+  Each melting sigh, and every tender tear;
+  The lover's wishes, and the virgin's fear.
+  His every strain[56] the Smiles and Graces own;
+  But stronger Shakespeare felt for man alone:
+  Drawn by his pen, our ruder passions stand                        65
+  The unrival'd picture of his early hand.
+
+    With[57] gradual steps and slow, exacter France
+  Saw Art's fair empire o'er her shores advance:
+  By length of toil a bright perfection knew,
+  Correctly bold, and just in all she drew:                         70
+  Till late Corneille, with Lucan's[58] spirit fired,
+  Breathed the free strain, as Rome and he inspired:
+  And classic judgment gain'd to sweet Racine
+  The temperate strength of Maro's chaster line.
+
+    But wilder far the British laurel spread,                       75
+  And wreaths less artful crown our poet's head.
+  Yet he alone to every scene could give
+  The historian's truth, and bid the manners live.
+  Waked at his call I view, with glad surprise,
+  Majestic forms of mighty monarchs rise.                           80
+  There Henry's trumpets spread their loud alarms,
+  And laurel'd Conquest waits her hero's arms.
+  Here gentler Edward claims a pitying sigh,
+  Scarce born to honours, and so soon to die!
+  Yet shall thy throne, unhappy infant, bring                       85
+  No beam of comfort to the guilty king:
+  The time[59] shall come when Glo'ster's heart shall bleed,
+  In life's last hours, with horror of the deed;
+  When dreary visions shall at last present
+  Thy vengeful image in the midnight tent:                          90
+  Thy hand unseen the secret death shall bear,
+  Blunt the weak sword, and break the oppressive spear!
+
+    Where'er we turn, by Fancy charm'd, we find
+  Some sweet illusion of the cheated mind.
+  Oft, wild of wing, she calls the soul to rove                     95
+  With humbler nature, in the rural grove;
+  Where swains contented own the quiet scene,
+  And twilight fairies tread the circled green:
+  Dress'd by her hand, the woods and valleys smile,
+  And Spring diffusive decks the enchanted isle.                   100
+
+    O, more than all in powerful genius blest,
+  Come, take thine empire o'er the willing breast!
+  Whate'er the wounds this youthful heart shall feel,
+  Thy songs support me, and thy morals heal!
+  There every thought the poet's warmth may raise,                 105
+  There native music dwells in all the lays.
+  O might some verse with happiest skill persuade
+  Expressive Picture to adopt thine aid!
+  What wondrous draughts might rise from every page!
+  What other Raphaels charm a distant age!                         110
+
+    Methinks e'en now I view some free design,
+  Where breathing Nature lives in every line:
+  Chaste and subdued the modest lights decay,
+  Steal into shades, and mildly melt away.
+  And see where Anthony,[60] in tears approved,                    115
+  Guards the pale relics of the chief he loved:
+  O'er the cold corse the warrior seems to bend,
+  Deep sunk in grief, and mourns his murder'd friend!
+  Still as they press, he calls on all around,
+  Lifts the torn robe, and points the bleeding wound.              120
+
+    But who[61] is he, whose brows exalted bear
+  A wrath impatient, and a fiercer air?
+  Awake to all that injured worth can feel,
+  On his own Rome he turns the avenging steel;
+  Yet shall not war's insatiate fury fall                          125
+  (So heaven ordains it) on the destined wall.
+  See the fond mother, 'midst the plaintive train,
+  Hung on his knees, and prostrate on the plain!
+  Touch'd to the soul, in vain he strives to hide
+  The son's affection, in the Roman's pride:                       130
+  O'er all the man conflicting passions rise;
+  Rage grasps the sword, while Pity melts the eyes.
+
+    Thus generous Critic, as thy Bard inspires,
+  The sister Arts shall nurse their drooping fires;
+  Each from his scenes her stores alternate bring,                 135
+  Blend the fair tints, or wake the vocal string:
+  Those sibyl leaves, the sport of every wind,
+  (For poets ever were a careless kind,)
+  By thee disposed, no farther toil demand,
+  But, just to Nature, own thy forming hand.                       140
+
+    So spread o'er Greece, the harmonious whole unknown,
+  E'en Homer's numbers charm'd by parts alone.
+  Their own Ulysses scarce had wander'd more,
+  By winds and waters cast on every shore:
+  When, raised by fate, some former Hanmer join'd                  145
+  Each beauteous image of the boundless mind;
+  And bade, like thee, his Athens ever claim
+  A fond alliance with the Poet's name.
+
+  Oxford, Dec. 3,
+      1743.
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+    1. While, own'd by you, with smiles the Muse surveys
+       The expected triumph of her sweetest lays:
+       While, stretch'd at ease, she boasts your guardian aid,
+       Secure, and happy in her sylvan shade:
+       Excuse her fears, who scarce a verse bestows,
+       In just remembrance of the debt she owes;
+       With conscious, &c.
+
+    9. Long slighted Fancy with a mother's care
+       Wept o'er his works, and felt the last despair:
+       Torn from her head, she saw the roses fall,
+       By all deserted, though admired by all:
+
+  near And "Oh!" she cried, "shall Science still resign
+   11  Whate'er is Nature's, and whate'er is mine?
+   to  Shall Taste and Art but show a cold regard,
+   22. And scornful Pride reject the unletter'd bard?
+       Ye myrtled nymphs, who own my gentle reign,
+       Tune the sweet lyre, and grace my airy train,
+       If, where ye rove, your searching eyes have known
+       One perfect mind, which judgment calls its own;
+       There every breast its fondest hopes must bend,
+       And every Muse with tears await her friend."
+       'Twas then fair Isis from her stream arose,
+       In kind compassion of her sister's woes.
+       'Twas then she promised to the mourning maid
+       The immortal honours which thy hands have paid:
+       "My best loved son," she said, "shall yet restore
+       Thy ruin'd sweets, and Fancy weep no more."
+       Each rising art by slow gradation moves;
+       Toil builds, &c.
+
+   25. Line after line our pitying eyes o'erflow,
+
+   27. To Rome removed, with equal power to please,
+
+   35. When Rome herself, her envied glories dead,
+       No more imperial, stoop'd her conquer'd head;
+       Luxuriant Florence chose a softer theme,
+       While all was peace, by Arno's silver stream.
+       With sweeter notes the Etrurian vales complain'd,
+       And arts reviving told a Cosmo reign'd.
+       Their wanton lyres the bards of Provence strung,
+       Sweet flow'd the lays, but love was all they sung.
+       The gay, &c.
+
+   45. But Heaven, still rising in its works, decreed
+
+   63. His every strain the Loves and Graces own;
+
+   71. Till late Corneille from epick Lucan brought
+       The full expression, and the Roman thought:
+
+  101.   O, blest in all that genius gives to charm,
+       Whose morals mend us, and whose passions warm!
+       Oft let my youth attend thy various page,
+       Where rich invention rules the unbounded stage:
+       There every scene the poet's warmth may raise,
+       And melting music find the softest lays:
+       O, might the Muse with equal ease persuade
+       Expressive Picture to adopt thine aid!
+       Some powerful Raphael should again appear,
+       And arts consenting fix their empire here.
+
+  111.   Methinks e'en now I view some fair design,
+       Where breathing Nature lives in every line;
+       Chaste and subdued, the modest colours lie,
+       In fair proportion to the approving eye:
+       And see where Anthony lamenting stands,
+       In fixt distress, and spreads his pleading hands:
+       O'er the pale corse the warrior seems to bend,
+
+  122. A rage impatient, and a fiercer air?
+       E'en now his thoughts with eager vengeance doom
+       The last sad ruin of ungrateful Rome.
+       Till, slow advancing o'er the tented plain,
+       In sable weeds, appear the kindred train:
+       The frantic mother leads their wild despair,
+       Beats her swoln breast, and rends her silver hair;
+       And see, he yields! the tears unbidden start,
+       And conscious nature claims the unwilling heart!
+       O'er all the man conflicting passions rise;
+
+  136. Spread the fair tints, or wake the vocal string:
+
+  146. Each beauteous image of the tuneful mind;
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [54] The Œdipus of Sophocles.
+
+  [55] Julius the Second, the immediate predecessor of Leo the Tenth.
+
+  [56] Their characters are thus distinguished by Mr. Dryden.
+
+  [57] About the time of Shakespeare, the poet Hardy was in great repute
+       in France. He wrote, according to Fontenelle, six hundred plays.
+       The French poets after him applied themselves in general to the
+       correct improvement of the stage, which was almost totally
+       disregarded by those of our own country, Jonson excepted.
+
+  [58] The favourite author of the elder Corneille.
+
+  [59] Turno tempus erit, magno cum optaverit emptum
+       Intactum Pallanta, etc.
+                                               VIRG.
+
+  [60] See the tragedy of Julius Cæsar.
+
+  [61] Coriolanus. See Mr. Spence's Dialogue on the Odyssey.
+
+
+
+
+DIRGE IN CYMBELINE,
+
+SUNG BY GUIDERUS AND ARVIRAGUS OVER FIDELE, SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD.
+
+
+  To fair Fidele's grassy tomb
+    Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
+  Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,
+    And rifle all the breathing spring.
+
+  No wailing ghost shall dare appear                                 5
+    To vex with shrieks this quiet grove;
+  But shepherd lads assemble here,
+    And melting virgins own their love.
+
+  No wither'd witch shall here be seen;
+    No goblins lead their nightly crew:                             10
+  The female fays shall haunt the green,
+    And dress thy grave with pearly dew!
+
+  The redbreast oft, at evening hours,
+    Shall kindly lend his little aid,
+  With hoary moss, and gather'd flowers,                            15
+    To deck the ground where thou art laid.
+
+  When howling winds, and beating rain,
+    In tempests shake the sylvan cell;
+  Or 'midst the chase, on every plain,
+    The tender thought on thee shall dwell;                         20
+
+  Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
+    For thee the tear be duly shed;
+  Beloved till life can charm no more,
+    And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead.
+
+
+VARIATIONS.
+
+  Ver.
+   1. To fair Pastora's grassy tomb
+
+   7. But shepherd swains assemble here,
+
+  11. But female fays shall haunt the green,
+
+  12. And dress thy bed with pearly dew!
+
+  17. When chiding winds, and beating rain,
+        In tempest shake the sylvan cell;
+      Or 'midst the flocks, on every plain,
+
+  21. Each lovely scene shall thee restore;
+
+  23. Beloved till life could charm no more,
+
+
+
+
+VERSES
+
+WRITTEN ON A PAPER WHICH CONTAINED A PIECE OF BRIDE-CAKE, GIVEN TO THE
+AUTHOR BY A LADY.
+
+
+  Ye curious hands, that, hid from vulgar eyes,
+    By search profane shall find this hallow'd cake,
+  With virtue's awe forbear the sacred prize,
+    Nor dare a theft, for love and pity's sake!
+
+  This precious relic, form'd by magic power,                        5
+    Beneath her shepherd's haunted pillow laid,
+  Was meant by love to charm the silent hour,
+    The secret present of a matchless maid.
+
+  The Cyprian queen, at Hymen's fond request,
+    Each nice ingredient chose with happiest art;                   10
+  Fears, sighs, and wishes of the enamour'd breast,
+    And pains that please, are mix'd in every part.
+
+  With rosy hand the spicy fruit she brought,
+    From Paphian hills, and fair Cythera's isle;
+  And temper'd sweet with these the melting thought,                15
+    The kiss ambrosial, and the yielding smile.
+
+  Ambiguous looks, that scorn and yet relent,
+    Denials mild, and firm unalter'd truth;
+  Reluctant pride, and amorous faint consent,
+    And meeting ardours, and exulting youth.                        20
+
+  Sleep, wayward God! hath sworn, while these remain,
+    With flattering dreams to dry his nightly tear,
+  And cheerful Hope, so oft invoked in vain,
+    With fairy songs shall soothe his pensive ear.
+
+  If, bound by vows to Friendship's gentle side,                    25
+    And fond of soul, thou hop'st an equal grace,
+  If youth or maid thy joys and griefs divide,
+    O, much entreated, leave this fatal place!
+
+  Sweet Peace, who long hath shunn'd my plaintive day,
+    Consents at length to bring me short delight,                   30
+  Thy careless steps may scare her doves away,
+    And Grief with raven note usurp the night.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS AURELIA C----R,
+
+ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING.
+
+
+  Cease, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn,
+    Lament not Hannah's happy state;
+  You may be happy in your turn,
+    And seize the treasure you regret.
+
+  With Love united Hymen stands,                                     5
+    And softly whispers to your charms,
+  "Meet but your lover in my bands,
+    You'll find your sister in his arms."
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+  When Phœbe form'd a wanton smile,
+    My soul! it reach'd not here:
+  Strange, that thy peace, thou trembler, flies
+    Before a rising tear!
+  From 'midst the drops, my love is born,                            5
+    That o'er those eyelids rove:
+  Thus issued from a teeming wave
+    The fabled queen of love.
+
+
+
+
+SONG.
+
+THE SENTIMENTS BORROWED FROM SHAKESPEARE.[62]
+
+
+  Young Damon of the vale is dead,
+    Ye lowly hamlets, moan;
+  A dewy turf lies o'er his head,
+    And at his feet a stone.
+
+  His shroud, which Death's cold damps destroy,                      5
+    Of snow-white threads was made:
+  All mourn'd to see so sweet a boy
+    In earth for ever laid.
+
+  Pale pansies o'er his corpse were placed,
+    Which, pluck'd before their time,                               10
+  Bestrew'd the boy, like him to waste
+    And wither in their prime.
+
+  But will he ne'er return, whose tongue
+    Could tune the rural lay?
+  Ah, no! his bell of peace is rung,                                15
+    His lips are cold as clay.
+
+  They bore him out at twilight hour,
+    The youth who loved so well:
+  Ah, me! how many a true love shower
+    Of kind remembrance fell!                                       20
+
+  Each maid was woe--but Lucy chief,
+    Her grief o'er all was tried;
+  Within his grave she dropp'd in grief,
+    And o'er her loved one died.
+
+
+VARIATION.
+
+  Ver.
+   2. Ye lowland hamlets, moan;
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [62] It is uncertain where this poem appeared. It was inserted in the
+       Edinburgh edition of the Poets, 1794. A manuscript copy in the
+       collection recently belonging to Mr. Upcott, and now in the
+       British Museum, is headed, "Written by Collins when at Winchester
+       School. From a Manuscript."
+
+
+
+
+ON OUR LATE TASTE IN MUSIC.[[63]]
+
+  ----Quid vocis modulamen inane juvabat
+  Verborum sensusque vacans numerique loquacis?
+                                            MILTON.
+
+
+  Britons! away with the degenerate pack!
+  Waft, western winds! the foreign spoilers back!
+  Enough has been in wild amusements spent,
+  Let British verse and harmony content!
+  No music once could charm you like your own,                       5
+  Then tuneful Robinson,[64] and Tofts were known;
+  Then Purcell touched the strings, while numbers hung
+  Attentive to the sounds--and blest the song!
+  E'en gentle Weldon taught us manly notes,
+  Beyond the enervate thrills of Roman throats!                     10
+  Notes, foreign luxury could ne'er inspire,
+  That animate the soul, and swell the lyre!
+  That mend, and not emasculate our hearts,
+  And teach the love of freedom and of arts.
+    Nor yet, while guardian Phœbus gilds our isle,                 15
+  Does heaven averse await the muses' toil;
+  Cherish but once our worth of native race,
+  The sister-arts shall soon display their face!
+  Even half discouraged through the gloom they strive,
+  Smile at neglect, and o'er oblivion live.                         20
+  See Handel, careless of a foreign fame,
+  Fix on our shore, and boast a Briton's name:
+  While, placed marmoric in the vocal grove,[65]
+  He guides the measures listening throngs approve.
+  Mark silence at the voice of Arne confess'd,                      25
+  Soft as the sweet enchantress rules the breast;
+  As when transported Venice lent an ear,
+  Camilla's charms to view, and accents hear![66]
+  So while she varies the impassion'd song,
+  Alternate motions on the bosom throng!                            30
+  As heavenly Milton[67] guides her magic voice,
+  And virtue thus convey'd allures the choice.
+    Discard soft nonsense in a slavish tongue,
+  The strain insipid, and the thought unknown;
+  From truth and nature form the unerring test;                     35
+  Be what is manly, chaste, and good the best!
+  'Tis not to ape the songsters of the groves,
+  Through all the quiverings of their wanton loves;
+  'Tis not the enfeebled thrill, or warbled shake,
+  The heart can strengthen, or the soul awake!                      40
+  But where the force of energy is found
+  When the sense rises on the wings of sound;
+  When reason, with the charms of music twined,
+  Through the enraptured ear informs the mind;
+  Bids generous love or soft compassion glow,                       45
+  And forms a tuneful Paradise below!
+    Oh Britons! if the honour still you boast,
+  No longer purchase follies at such cost!
+  No longer let unmeaning sounds invite
+  To visionary scenes of false delight:                             50
+  When, shame to sense! we see the hero's rage
+  Lisp'd on the tongue, and danced along the stage!
+  Or hear in eunuch sounds a hero squeak,
+  While kingdoms rise or fall upon a shake!
+  Let them at home to slavery's painted train,                      55
+  With siren art, repeat the pleasing strain:
+  While we, like wise Ulysses, close our ear
+  To songs which liberty forbids to hear!
+  Keep, guardian gales, the infectious guests away,
+  To charm where priests direct, and slaves obey.                   60
+  Madrid, or wanton Rome, be their delight;
+  There they may warble as their poets write.
+  The temper of our isle, though cold, is clear;
+  And such our genius, noble though severe.
+  Our Shakespeare scorn'd the trifling rules of art,                65
+  But knew to conquer and surprise the heart!
+  In magic chains the captive thought to bind,
+  And fathom all the depths of human kind!
+    Too long, our shame, the prostituted herd
+  Our sense have bubbled, and our wealth have shared.               70
+  Too long the favourites of our vulgar great
+  Have bask'd in luxury, and lived in state!
+  In Tuscan wilds now let them villas rear[68]
+  Ennobled by the charity we spare.
+  There let them warble in the tainted breeze,                      75
+  Or sing like widow'd orphans to the trees:
+  There let them chant their incoherent dreams,
+  Where howls Charybdis, and where Scylla screams!
+  Or where Avernus, from his darksome round,
+  May echo to the winds the blasted sound!                          80
+    As fair Alcyone,[69] with anguish press'd,
+  Broods o'er the British main with tuneful breast,
+  Beneath the white-brow'd cliff protected sings,
+  Or skims the azure plain with painted wings!
+  Grateful, like her, to nature, and as just,                       85
+  In our domestic blessings let us trust;
+  Keep for our sons fair learning's honour'd prize,
+  Till the world own the worth they now despise!
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [63] See Memoir, p. xxxviii.
+
+  [64] Now Countess-dowager of Peterborough.
+
+  [65] Vauxhall.
+
+  [66] Vide the Spectator's Letters from Camilla, vol. vi.
+
+  [67] Milton's Comus lately revived.
+
+  [68] Senesino has built a palace near Sienna on an estate which carries
+       the title of a Marquisate, but purchased with English gold.
+
+  [69] The king-fisher.
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIENTAL ECLOGUES AND ODES.
+
+BY DR. LANGHORNE.
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.
+
+
+The genius of the pastoral, as well as of every other respectable
+species of poetry, had its origin in the east, and from thence was
+transplanted by the muses of Greece; but whether from the continent of
+the Lesser Asia, or from Egypt, which, about the era of the Grecian
+pastoral, was the hospitable nurse of letters, it is not easy to
+determine. From the subjects, and the manner of Theocritus, one would
+incline to the latter opinion, while the history of Bion is in favour of
+the former.
+
+However, though it should still remain a doubt through what channel the
+pastoral traveled westward, there is not the least shadow of uncertainty
+concerning its oriental origin.
+
+In those ages which, guided by sacred chronology, from a comparative
+view of time, we call the early ages, it appears, from the most
+authentic historians, that the chiefs of the people employed themselves
+in rural exercises, and that astronomers and legislators were at the
+same time shepherds. Thus Strabo informs us, that the history of the
+creation was communicated to the Egyptians by a Chaldean shepherd.
+
+From these circumstances it is evident, not only that such shepherds
+were capable of all the dignity and elegance peculiar to poetry, but
+that whatever poetry they attempted would be of the pastoral kind; would
+take its subjects from those scenes of rural simplicity in which they
+were conversant, and, as it was the offspring of harmony and nature,
+would employ the powers it derived from the former, to celebrate the
+beauty and benevolence of the latter.
+
+Accordingly we find that the most ancient poems treat of agriculture,
+astronomy, and other objects within the rural and natural systems.
+
+What constitutes the difference between the georgic and the pastoral,
+is love and the colloquial or dramatic form of composition peculiar to
+the latter; this form of composition is sometimes dispensed with, and
+love and rural imagery alone are thought sufficient to distinguish
+the pastoral. The tender passion, however, seems to be essential to
+this species of poetry, and is hardly ever excluded from those
+pieces that were intended to come under this denomination: even in
+those eclogues of the Amœbean kind, whose only purport is a trial of
+skill between contending shepherds, love has its usual share, and
+the praises of their respective mistresses are the general subjects of
+the competitors.
+
+It is to be lamented, that scarce any oriental compositions of this kind
+have survived the ravages of ignorance, tyranny, and time; we cannot
+doubt that many such have been extant, possibly as far down as that
+fatal period, never to be mentioned in the world of letters without
+horror, when the glorious monuments of human ingenuity perished in the
+ashes of the Alexandrian library.
+
+Those ingenious Greeks, whom we call the parents of pastoral poetry,
+were, probably, no more than imitators, of imitators that derived their
+harmony from higher and remoter sources, and kindled their poetical
+fires at those then unextinguished lamps which burned within the tombs
+of oriental genius.
+
+It is evident that Homer has availed himself of those magnificent images
+and descriptions so frequently to be met with in the books of the Old
+Testament; and why may not Theocritus, Moschus, and Bion have found
+their archetypes in other eastern writers, whose names have perished
+with their works? yet, though it may not be illiberal to admit such a
+supposition, it would certainly be invidious to conclude, what the
+malignity of cavillers alone could suggest with regard to Homer, that
+they destroyed the sources from which they borrowed, and, as it is
+fabled of the young of the pelican, drained their supporters to death.
+
+As the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament was performed at the
+request, and under the patronage, of Ptolemy Philadelphus, it were not
+to be wondered if Theocritus, who was entertained at that prince's
+court, had borrowed some part of his pastoral imagery from the poetical
+passages of those books. I think it can hardly be doubted that the
+Sicilian poet had in his eye certain expressions of the prophet Isaiah,
+when he wrote the following lines:
+
+  Νυν ια μεν φορεοιτε βατοι, φορεοιτε δ’ ακανθαι.
+  Ἁ δε καλα Ναρκισσος επ’ αρκευθοισι κομασαι;
+  Παντα δ’ εναλλα γενοιτο, και ἁ πιτυς οχνας ενεικαι
+  –––και τως κυνας ὡλαφος ἑλκοι.
+
+  ~Nyn ia men phoreoite batoi, phoreoite d' akanthai.
+  Ha de kala Narkissos ep' arkeuthoisi komasai;
+  Panta d' enalla genoito, kai ha pitus ochnas eneikai
+  ----kai tôs kynas hôlaphos helkoi.~
+
+  Let vexing brambles the blue violet bear,
+  On the rude thorn Narcissus dress his hair,
+  All, all reversed--The pine with pears be crown'd,
+  And the bold deer shall drag the trembling hound.
+
+The cause, indeed, of these phenomena is very different in the Greek
+from what it is in the Hebrew poet; the former employing them on the
+death, the latter on the birth, of an important person: but the marks of
+imitation are nevertheless obvious.
+
+It might, however, be expected, that if Theocritus had borrowed at all
+from the sacred writers, the celebrated pastoral epithalamium of
+Solomon, so much within his own walk of poetry, would not certainly
+have escaped his notice. His epithalamium on the marriage of Helena,
+moreover, gave him an open field for imitation; therefore, if he has any
+obligations to the royal bard, we may expect to find them there. The
+very opening of the poem is in the spirit of the Hebrew song:
+
+  Ουτω δη πρωιζα κατεδραθες, ω φιλε γαμβρε;
+
+  ~Houtô dê prôiza katedrathes, ô phile gambre;~
+
+The colour of imitation is still stronger in the following passage:
+
+  Αως αντελλοισα καλον διεφαινε προσωπον,
+  Ποτνια νυξ ἁτε, λευκον εαρ χειμωνος ανεντος;
+  Hωδε και ἁ χρυσεα Ἑλενα διεφαινετ’ εν αμιν,
+  Πιειρα μεγαλα ἁτ’ ανεδραμε κοσμος αρουρα.
+  Hη καπω κυπαρισσος, η ἁρματι Θεσσαλος ἱππος.
+
+  ~Aôs antelloisa kalon diephaine prosôpon,
+  Potnia nyx hate, leukon ear cheimônos anentos?
+  Hôde kai ha chrysea Helena diephainet' en amin,
+  Pieira megala hat' anedrame kosmos aroura.
+  Hê kapô kyparissos, ê harmati Thessalos hippos.~
+
+This description of Helen is infinitely above the style and figure of
+the Sicilian pastoral: "She is like the rising of the golden morning,
+when the night departeth, and when the winter is over and gone. She
+resembleth the cypress in the garden, the horse in the chariots of
+Thessaly." These figures plainly declare their origin; and others,
+equally imitative, might be pointed out in the same idyllium.
+
+This beautiful and luxuriant marriage pastoral of Solomon is the only
+perfect form of the oriental eclogue that has survived the ruins of
+time; a happiness for which it is, probably, more indebted to its
+sacred character than to its intrinsic merit. Not that it is by any
+means destitute of poetical excellence: like all the eastern poetry, it
+is bold, wild, and unconnected in its figures, allusions, and parts, and
+has all that graceful and magnificent daring which characterizes its
+metaphorical and comparative imagery.
+
+In consequence of these peculiarities, so ill adapted to the frigid
+genius of the north, Mr. Collins could make but little use of it as a
+precedent for his Oriental Eclogues; and even in his third eclogue,
+where the subject is of a similar nature, he has chosen rather to follow
+the mode of the Doric and the Latian pastoral.
+
+The scenery and subjects then of the foregoing eclogues alone are
+oriental; the style and colouring are purely European; and, for this
+reason, the author's preface, in which he intimates that he had the
+originals from a merchant who traded to the east, is omitted, as being
+now altogether superfluous.[70]
+
+With regard to the merit of these eclogues, it may justly be asserted,
+that in simplicity of description and expression, in delicacy and
+softness of numbers, and in natural and unaffected tenderness, they are
+not to be equaled by any thing of the pastoral kind in the English
+language.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [70] In the present edition the preface is restored.
+
+
+
+
+ECLOGUE I.
+
+
+This eclogue, which is entitled Selim, or the Shepherd's Moral, as
+there is nothing dramatic in the subject, may be thought the least
+entertaining of the four: but it is by no means the least valuable.
+The moral precepts which the intelligent shepherd delivers to his
+fellow-swains, and the virgins their companions, are such as would
+infallibly promote the happiness of the pastoral life.
+
+In impersonating the private virtues, the poet has observed great
+propriety, and has formed their genealogy with the most perfect
+judgment, when he represents them as the daughters of truth and wisdom.
+
+The characteristics of modesty and chastity are extremely happy and
+_peinturesque_:
+
+  "Come thou, whose thoughts as limpid springs are clear,
+  To lead the train, sweet Modesty, appear;
+  With thee be Chastity, of all afraid,
+  Distrusting all, a wise, suspicious maid;
+  Cold is her breast, like flowers that drink the dew;
+  A silken veil conceals her from the view."
+
+The two similes borrowed from rural objects are not only much in
+character, but perfectly natural and expressive. There is,
+notwithstanding, this defect in the former, that it wants a peculiar
+propriety; for purity of thought may as well be applied to chastity as
+to modesty; and from this instance, as well as from a thousand more, we
+may see the necessity of distinguishing, in characteristic poetry, every
+object by marks and attributes peculiarly its own.
+
+It cannot be objected to this eclogue, that it wants both those
+essential criteria of the pastoral, love and the drama; for though it
+partakes not of the latter, the former still retains an interest in it,
+and that too very material, as it professedly consults the virtue and
+happiness of the lover, while it informs what are the qualities
+
+  ----that must lead to love.
+
+
+
+
+ECLOGUE II.
+
+
+All the advantages that any species of poetry can derive from the
+novelty of the subject and scenery, this eclogue possesses. The
+route of a camel-driver is a scene that scarce could exist in the
+imagination of a European, and of its attendant distresses he could
+have no idea.--These are very happily and minutely painted by our
+descriptive poet. What sublime simplicity of expression! what
+nervous plainness in the opening of the poem!
+
+  "In silent horror o'er the boundless waste
+  The driver Hassan with his camels past."
+
+The magic pencil of the poet brings the whole scene before us at once,
+as it were by enchantment; and in this single couplet we feel all the
+effect that arises from the terrible wildness of a region unenlivened by
+the habitations of men. The verses that describe so minutely the
+camel-driver's little provisions have a touching influence on the
+imagination, and prepare the reader to enter more feelingly into his
+future apprehensions of distress:
+
+  "Bethink thee, Hassan, where shall thirst assuage,
+  When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage!"
+
+It is difficult to say whether his apostrophe to the "mute companions of
+his toils" is more to be admired for the elegance and beauty of the
+poetical imagery, or for the tenderness and humanity of the sentiment.
+He who can read it without being affected, will do his heart no
+injustice if he concludes it to be destitute of sensibility:
+
+  "Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear
+  In all my griefs a more than equal share!
+  Here, where no springs in murmurs break away,
+  Or moss-crown'd fountains mitigate the day,
+  In vain ye hope the green delights to know,
+  Which plains more blest, or verdant vales, bestow:
+  Here rocks alone and tasteless sands are found,
+  And faint and sickly winds for ever howl around."
+
+Yet in these beautiful lines there is a slight error, which writers of
+the greatest genius very frequently fall into.--It will be needless to
+observe to the accurate reader, that in the fifth and sixth verses there
+is a verbal pleonasm where the poet speaks of the _green_ delights of
+_verdant_ vales. There is an oversight of the same kind in the Manners,
+an Ode, where the poet says,
+
+  "----Seine's blue nymphs deplore
+  In watchet weeds----."
+
+This fault is indeed a common one, but to a reader of taste it is
+nevertheless disgustful; and it is mentioned here, as the error of a man
+of genius and judgment, that men of genius and judgment may guard
+against it.
+
+Mr. Collins speaks like a true poet, as well in sentiment as expression,
+when, with regard to the thirst of wealth, he says,
+
+  "Why heed we not, while mad we haste along,
+  The gentle voice of Peace, or Pleasure's song?
+  Or wherefore think the flowery mountain's side,
+  The fountain's murmurs, and the valley's pride,
+  Why think we these less pleasing to behold,
+  Than dreary deserts, if they lead to gold?"
+
+But however just these sentiments may appear to those who have not
+revolted from nature and simplicity, had the author proclaimed them in
+Lombard Street, or Cheapside, he would not have been complimented with
+the understanding of the bellman.--A striking proof, that our own
+particular ideas of happiness regulate our opinions concerning the sense
+and wisdom of others!
+
+It is impossible to take leave of this most beautiful eclogue, without
+paying the tribute of admiration so justly due to the following nervous
+lines:
+
+  "What if the lion in his rage I meet!----
+  Oft in the dust I view his printed feet:
+  And, fearful! oft, when day's declining light
+  Yields her pale empire to the mourner night,
+  By hunger roused, he scours the groaning plain,
+  Gaunt wolves and sullen tigers in his train:
+  Before them death with shrieks directs their way,
+  Fills the wild yell, and leads them to their prey."
+
+This, amongst many other passages to be met with in the writings of
+Collins, shows that his genius was perfectly capable of the grand and
+magnificent in description, notwithstanding what a learned writer has
+advanced to the contrary. Nothing, certainly, could be more greatly
+conceived, or more adequately expressed, than the image in the last
+couplet.
+
+The deception, sometimes used in rhetoric and poetry, which presents us
+with an object or sentiment contrary to what we expected, is here
+introduced to the greatest advantage:
+
+  "Farewell the youth, whom sighs could not detain,
+  Whom Zara's breaking heart implored in vain!
+  Yet, as thou go'st, may every blast arise----
+  Weak and unfelt as these rejected sighs!"
+
+But this, perhaps, is rather an artificial prettiness, than a real or
+natural beauty.
+
+
+
+
+ECLOGUE III.
+
+
+That innocence, and native simplicity of manners, which, in the first
+eclogue, was allowed to constitute the happiness of love, is here
+beautifully described in its effects. The sultan of Persia marries a
+Georgian shepherdess, and finds in her embraces that genuine felicity
+which unperverted nature alone can bestow. The most natural and
+beautiful parts of this eclogue are those where the fair sultana refers
+with so much pleasure to her pastoral amusements, and those scenes of
+happy innocence in which she had passed her early years; particularly
+when, upon her first departure,
+
+  "Oft as she went, she backward turned her view,
+  And bade that crook and bleating flock adieu."
+
+This picture of amiable simplicity reminds one of that passage where
+Proserpine, when carried off by Pluto, regrets the loss of the flowers
+she has been gathering:
+
+  "Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remissis:
+  Tantaque simplicitas puerilibus adfuit annis,
+  Hæc quoque virgineum movit jactura dolorem."
+
+
+
+
+ECLOGUE IV.
+
+
+The beautiful but unfortunate country where the scene of this pathetic
+eclogue is laid, had been recently torn in pieces by the depredations of
+its savage neighbours, when Mr. Collins so affectingly described its
+misfortunes. This ingenious man had not only a pencil to portray, but a
+heart to feel for the miseries of mankind; and it is with the utmost
+tenderness and humanity he enters into the narrative of Circassia's
+ruin, while he realizes the scene, and brings the present drama before
+us. Of every circumstance that could possibly contribute to the tender
+effect this pastoral was designed to produce, the poet has availed
+himself with the utmost art and address. Thus he prepares the heart to
+pity the distresses of Circassia, by representing it as the scene of the
+happiest love:
+
+  "In fair Circassia, where, to love inclined,
+  Each swain was blest, for every maid was kind."
+
+To give the circumstance of the dialogue a more affecting solemnity, he
+makes the time midnight, and describes the two shepherds in the very
+act of flight from the destruction that swept over their country:
+
+  "Sad o'er the dews, two brother shepherds fled,
+  Where wildering fear and desperate sorrow led."
+
+There is a beauty and propriety in the epithet wildering, which strikes
+us more forcibly, the more we consider it.
+
+The opening of the dialogue is equally happy, natural, and unaffected;
+when one of the shepherds, weary and overcome with the fatigue of
+flight, calls upon his companion to review the length of way they had
+passed. This is certainly painting from nature, and the thoughts,
+however obvious, or destitute of refinement, are perfectly in character.
+But as the closest pursuit of nature is the surest way to excellence in
+general, and to sublimity in particular, in poetical description, so we
+find that this simple suggestion of the shepherd is not unattended with
+magnificence. There is a grandeur and variety in the landscape he
+describes:
+
+  "And first review that long extended plain,
+  And yon wide groves, already past with pain!
+  Yon ragged cliff, whose dangerous path we tried!
+  And, last, this lofty mountain's weary side!"
+
+There is, in imitative harmony, an act of expressing a slow and
+difficult movement by adding to the usual number of pauses in a verse.
+This is observable in the line that describes the ascent of the
+mountain:
+
+  And last || this lofty mountain's || weary side ||.
+
+Here we find the number of pauses, or musical bars, which, in an heroic
+verse, is commonly two, increased to three.
+
+The liquid melody, and the numerous sweetness of expression, in the
+following descriptive lines, is almost inimitably beautiful:
+
+  "Sweet to the sight is Zabran's flowery plain,
+  And once by nymphs and shepherds loved in vain!
+  No more the virgins shall delight to rove
+  By Sargis' banks, or Irwan's shady grove;
+  On Tarkie's mountain catch the cooling gale,
+  Or breathe the sweets of Aly's flowery vale."
+
+Nevertheless, in this delightful landscape there is an obvious fault;
+there is no distinction between the plain of Zabran and the vale of Aly;
+they are both flowery, and consequently undiversified. This could not
+proceed from the poet's want of judgment, but from inattention: it had
+not occurred to him that he had employed the epithet flowery twice
+within so short a compass; an oversight which those who are accustomed
+to poetical, or, indeed, to any other species of composition, know to be
+very possible.
+
+Nothing can be more beautifully conceived, or more pathetically
+expressed, than the shepherd's apprehensions for his fair countrywomen,
+exposed to the ravages of the invaders:
+
+  "In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves,
+  For ever famed for pure and happy loves:
+  In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair,
+  Their eyes' blue languish, and their golden hair!
+  Those eyes in tears their fruitless grief shall send;
+  Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand shall rend."
+
+There is certainly some very powerful charm in the liquid melody of
+sounds. The editor of these poems could never read or hear the following
+verse repeated, without a degree of pleasure otherwise entirely
+unaccountable:
+
+  "Their eyes' blue languish, and their golden hair."
+
+Such are the Oriental Eclogues, which we leave with the same kind of
+anxious pleasure we feel upon a temporary parting with a beloved
+friend.
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS
+
+ON THE ODES, DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL.
+
+
+The genius of Collins was capable of every degree of excellence in lyric
+poetry, and perfectly qualified for that high province of the muse.
+Possessed of a native ear for all the varieties of harmony and
+modulation, susceptible of the finest feelings of tenderness and
+humanity, but, above all, carried away by that high enthusiasm which
+gives to imagination its strongest colouring, he was at once capable of
+soothing the ear with the melody of his numbers, of influencing the
+passions by the force of his pathos, and of gratifying the fancy by the
+luxury of description.
+
+In consequence of these powers, but, more particularly, in consideration
+of the last, he chose such subjects for his lyric essays as were most
+favourable for the indulgence of description and allegory; where he
+could exercise his powers in moral and personal painting; where he could
+exert his invention in conferring new attributes on images or objects
+already known, and described by a determinate number of characteristics;
+where he might give an uncommon éclat to his figures, by placing them in
+happier attitudes, or in more advantageous lights, and introduce new
+forms from the moral and intellectual world into the society of
+impersonated beings.
+
+Such, no doubt, were the privileges which the poet expected, and such
+were the advantages he derived from the descriptive and allegorical
+nature of his themes.
+
+It seems to have been the whole industry of our author, (and it is, at
+the same time, almost all the claim to moral excellence his writings can
+boast,) to promote the influence of the social virtues, by painting them
+in the fairest and happiest lights.
+
+  "Melior fieri tuendo"
+
+would be no improper motto to his poems in general; but of his lyric
+poems it seems to be the whole moral tendency and effect. If, therefore,
+it should appear to some readers, that he has been more industrious to
+cultivate description than sentiment, it may be observed, that his
+descriptions themselves are sentimental, and answer the whole end of
+that species of writing, by embellishing every feature of virtue, and by
+conveying, through the effects of the pencil, the finest moral lessons
+to the mind.
+
+Horace speaks of the fidelity of the ear in preference to the
+uncertainty of the eye; but if the mind receives conviction, it is
+certainly of very little importance through what medium, or by which of
+the senses it is conveyed. The impressions left on the imagination may
+possibly be thought less durable than the deposits of the memory, but it
+may very well admit of a question, whether a conclusion of reason, or an
+impression of imagination, will soonest make it sway to the heart. A
+moral precept, conveyed in words, is only an account of truth in its
+effects; a moral picture is truth exemplified; and which is most likely
+to gain upon the affections, it may not be difficult to determine.
+
+This, however, must be allowed, that those works approach the nearest to
+perfection which unite these powers and advantages; which at once
+influence the imagination, and engage the memory; the former by the
+force of animated and striking description, the latter by a brief, but
+harmonious conveyance of precept: thus, while the heart is influenced
+through the operation of the passions or the fancy, the effect, which
+might otherwise have been transient, is secured by the coöperating power
+of the memory, which treasures up in a short aphorism the moral of the
+scene.
+
+This is a good reason, and this, perhaps, is the only reason that can be
+given, why our dramatic performances should generally end with a chain
+of couplets. In these the moral of the whole piece is usually conveyed;
+and that assistance which the memory borrows from rhyme, as it was
+probably the original cause of it, gives it usefulness and propriety
+even there.
+
+After these apologies for the descriptive turn of the following odes,
+something remains to be said on the origin and use of allegory in
+poetical composition.
+
+By this we are not to understand the trope in the schools, which is
+defined aliud verbis, aliud sensu ostendere; and of which Quintilian
+says, usus est, ut tristia dicamus melioribus verbis, aut bonæ rei
+gratia quædam contrariis significemus, &c. It is not the verbal, but the
+sentimental allegory, not allegorical expression (which, indeed, might
+come under the term of metaphor), but allegorical imagery, that is here
+in question.
+
+When we endeavour to trace this species of figurative sentiment to its
+origin, we find it coeval with literature itself. It is generally
+agreed, that the most ancient productions are poetical; and it is
+certain that the most ancient poems abound with allegorical imagery.
+
+If, then, it be allowed that the first literary productions were
+poetical; we shall have little or no difficulty in discovering the
+origin of allegory.
+
+At the birth of letters, in the transition from hieroglyphical to
+literal expression, it is not to be wondered if the custom of
+expressing ideas by personal images, which had so long prevailed, should
+still retain its influence on the mind, though the use of letters had
+rendered the practical application of it superfluous. Those who had been
+accustomed to express strength by the image of an elephant, swiftness by
+that of a panther, and courage by that of a lion, would make no scruple
+of substituting, in letters, the symbols for the ideas they had been
+used to represent.
+
+Here we plainly see the origin of allegorical expression, that it arose
+from the ashes of hieroglyphics; and if to the same cause we should
+refer that figurative boldness of style and imagery which distinguish
+the oriental writings, we shall, perhaps, conclude more justly, than if
+we should impute it to the superior grandeur of eastern genius.
+
+From the same source with the verbal, we are to derive the sentimental
+allegory, which is nothing more than a continuation of the metaphorical
+or symbolical expression of the several agents in an action, or the
+different objects in a scene.
+
+The latter most peculiarly comes under the denomination of allegorical
+imagery; and in this species of allegory, we include the impersonation
+of passions, affections, virtues, and vices, &c. on account of which,
+principally, the following odes were properly termed, by their author,
+allegorical.
+
+With respect to the utility of this figurative writing, the same
+arguments that have been advanced in favour of descriptive poetry will
+be of weight likewise here. It is, indeed, from impersonation, or, as it
+is commonly termed, personification, that poetical description borrows
+its chief powers and graces. Without the aid of this, moral and
+intellectual painting would be flat and unanimated, and even the scenery
+of material objects would be dull, without the introduction of
+fictitious life.
+
+These observations will be most effectually illustrated by the sublime
+and beautiful odes that occasioned them; in those it will appear how
+happily this allegorical painting may be executed by the genuine powers
+of poetical genius, and they will not fail to prove its force and
+utility by passing through the imagination to the heart.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO PITY.
+
+
+  "By Pella's bard, a magic name,
+  By all the griefs his thoughts could frame,
+    Receive my humble rite:
+  Long, Pity, let the nations view
+  Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,
+    And eyes of dewy light!"
+
+The propriety of invoking Pity, through the mediation of Euripides, is
+obvious.--That admirable poet had the keys of all the tender passions,
+and therefore could not but stand in the highest esteem with a writer of
+Mr. Collins's sensibility.--He did, indeed, admire him as much as Milton
+professedly did, and probably for the same reasons; but we do not find
+that he has copied him so closely as the last mentioned poet has
+sometimes done, and particularly in the opening of Samson Agonistes,
+which is an evident imitation of the following passage in the
+Phœnissæ:
+
+  Hηγου παροιθε, θυγατερ, ὡς τυφλω ποδι
+  Οφθαλμος ει συ, ναυτιλοισιν αστρον ὡς;
+  Δευρ’ εις το λευρον πεδον ιχνος τιθεις’ εμον,
+  Προβαινε––––
+                                 Act. III. Sc. I.
+
+  ~Hêgou paroithe, thygater, hôs typhlô podi
+  Ophthalmos ei su, nautiloisin astron hôs?
+  Deur' eis to leuron pedon ichnos titheis' emon,
+  Probaine------~
+                                 Act. III. Sc. I.
+
+The "eyes of dewy light" is one of the happiest strokes of imagination,
+and may be ranked among those expressions which
+
+  "--give us back the image of the mind."
+
+  "Wild Arun too has heard thy strains,
+  And Echo, 'midst my native plains,
+    Been soothed by Pity's lute."
+
+  "There first the wren thy myrtles shed
+  On gentlest Otway's infant head."
+
+Sussex, in which county the Arun is a small river, had the honour of
+giving birth to Otway as well as to Collins: both these pœts,
+unhappily, became the objects of that pity by which their writings are
+distinguished. There was a similitude in their genius and in their
+sufferings. There was a resemblance in the misfortunes and in the
+dissipation of their lives; and the circumstances of their death cannot
+be remembered without pain.
+
+The thought of painting in the temple of Pity the history of human
+misfortunes, and of drawing the scenes from the tragic muse, is very
+happy, and in every respect worthy the imagination of Collins.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO FEAR.
+
+
+Mr. Collins, who had often determined to apply himself to dramatic
+pœtry, seems here, with the same view, to have addressed one of the
+principal powers of the drama, and to implore that mighty influence she
+had given to the genius of Shakespeare:
+
+  "Hither again thy fury deal,
+  Teach me but once like him to feel:
+  His cypress wreath my meed decree,
+  And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee!"
+
+In the construction of this nervous ode, the author has shown equal
+power of judgment and imagination. Nothing can be more striking than the
+violent and abrupt abbreviation of the measure in the fifth and sixth
+verses, when he feels the strong influence of the power he invokes:
+
+  "Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear!
+  I see, I see thee near."
+
+The editor of these poems has met with nothing in the same species of
+poetry, either in his own, or in any other language, equal, in all
+respects, to the following description of Danger:
+
+
+  "Danger whose limbs of giant mould
+  What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
+  Who stalks his round, an hideous form,
+  Howling amidst the midnight storm,
+  Or throws him on the ridgy steep
+  Of some loose hanging rock to sleep."
+
+It is impossible to contemplate the image conveyed in the two last
+verses, without those emotions of terror it was intended to excite. It
+has, moreover, the entire advantage of novelty to recommend it; for
+there is too much originality in all the circumstances, to suppose that
+the author had in his eye that description of the penal situation of
+Catiline in the ninth Æneid:
+
+  "------Te, Catilina, minaci
+  Pendentem scopulo."
+
+The archetype of the English poet's idea was in Nature, and, probably,
+to her alone he was indebted for the thought. From her, likewise, he
+derived that magnificence of conception, that horrible grandeur of
+imagery, displayed in the following lines:
+
+  "And those, the fiends, who, near allied,
+  O'er Nature's wounds and wrecks preside;
+  While Vengeance in the lurid air
+  Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare:
+  On whom that ravening brood of fate,
+  Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait."
+
+That nutritive enthusiasm, which cherishes the seeds of poetry, and
+which is, indeed, the only soil wherein they will grow to perfection,
+lays open the mind to all the influences of fiction. A passion for
+whatever is greatly wild or magnificent in the works of nature seduces
+the imagination to attend to all that is extravagant, however unnatural.
+Milton was notoriously fond of high romance and gothic diableries; and
+Collins, who in genius and enthusiasm bore no very distant resemblance
+to Milton, was wholly carried away by the same attachments.
+
+  "Be mine to read the visions old,
+  Which thy awakening bards have told:
+  And, lest thou meet my blasted view,
+  Hold each strange tale devoutly true."
+
+  "On that thrice hallow'd eve," &c.
+
+There is an old traditionary superstition, that on St. Mark's eve, the
+forms of all such persons as shall die within the ensuing year make
+their solemn entry into the churches of their respective parishes, as
+St. Patrick swam over the Channel, without their heads.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO SIMPLICITY.
+
+
+The measure of the ancient ballad seems to have been made choice of for
+this ode, on account of the subject; and it has, indeed, an air of
+simplicity, not altogether unaffecting:
+
+    "By all the honey'd store
+    On Hybla's thymy shore,
+  By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear,
+    By her whose lovelorn woe,
+    In evening musings slow,
+    Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear."
+
+This allegorical imagery of the honeyed store, the blooms, and mingled
+murmurs of Hybla, alluding to the sweetness and beauty of the Attic
+poetry, has the finest and the happiest effect: yet, possibly, it will
+bear a question, whether the ancient Greek tragedians had a general
+claim to simplicity in any thing more than the plans of their drama.
+Their language, at least, was infinitely metaphorical; yet it must be
+owned that they justly copied nature and the passions, and so far,
+certainly, they were entitled to the palm of true simplicity; the
+following most beautiful speech of Polynices will be a monument of
+this, so long as poetry shall last:
+
+  ––––––πολυδακρυς δ’ αφικομην
+  Χρονιος ιδων μελαθρα, και βωμους θεων,
+  Γυμνασια θ’ οισιν ενετραφην, Διρκης, θ’ ὑδωρ,
+  Hων ου δικαιως απελαθεις, ξενην πολιν
+  Ναιω, δι’ οσσων ναμ εχων δακρυρῥοουν.
+  Αλλ’ εκ γαρ αλγους αλγος αυ, σε δερκομαι
+  Καρα ξυρηκες, και πεπλους μελαγχιμους
+  Εχουσαν.
+                         Eurip. Phœniss. ver. 369.
+
+  ~--------polydakrys d' aphikomên
+  Chronios idôn melathra, kai bômous theôn,
+  Gymnasia th' oisin enetraphên, Dirkês, th' hydôr,
+  Hôn ou dikaiôs apelatheis, xenên polin
+  Naiô, di' ossôn nam echôn dakryrrhooun.
+  All' ek gar algous algos au, se derkomai
+  Kara xyrêkes, kai peplous melanchimous
+  Echousan.~
+                         Eurip. Phœniss. ver. 369.
+
+  22 "But staid to sing alone
+  33 To one distinguish'd throne."
+
+The poet cuts off the prevalence of simplicity among the Romans with the
+reign of Augustus; and, indeed, it did not continue much longer, most of
+the compositions, after that date, giving into false and artificial
+ornament.
+
+    "No more, in hall or bower,
+    The passions own thy power,
+  Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean."
+
+In these lines the writings of the Provençal poets are principally
+alluded to, in which simplicity is generally sacrificed to the
+rhapsodies of romantic love.
+
+
+
+
+ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.
+
+  Procul! O! procul este profani!
+
+
+This ode is so infinitely abstracted and replete with high enthusiasm,
+that it will find few readers capable of entering into the spirit of it,
+or of relishing its beauties. There is a style of sentiment as utterly
+unintelligible to common capacities, as if the subject were treated in
+an unknown language; and it is on the same account that abstracted
+poetry will never have many admirers.
+
+The authors of such poems must be content with the approbation of those
+heaven-favoured geniuses, who, by a similarity of taste and sentiment,
+are enabled to penetrate the high mysteries of inspired fancy, and to
+pursue the loftiest flights of enthusiastic imagination. Nevertheless,
+the praise of the distinguished few is certainly preferable to the
+applause of the undiscerning million; for all praise is valuable in
+proportion to the judgment of those who confer it.
+
+As the subject of this ode is uncommon, so are the style and expression
+highly metaphorical and abstracted: thus the sun is called "the
+rich-hair'd youth of morn," the ideas are termed "the shadowy tribes of
+mind," &c. We are struck with the propriety of this mode of expression
+here, and it affords us new proofs of the analogy that subsists between
+language and sentiment.
+
+Nothing can be more loftily imagined than the creation of the cestus of
+Fancy in this ode: the allegorical imagery is rich and sublime: and the
+observation, that the dangerous passions kept aloof during the
+operation, is founded on the strictest philosophical truth: for poetical
+fancy can exist only in minds that are perfectly serene, and in some
+measure abstracted from the influences of sense.
+
+The scene of Milton's "inspiring hour" is perfectly in character, and
+described with all those wild-wood appearances of which the great poet
+was so enthusiastically fond:
+
+  "I view that oak, the fancied glades among,
+  By which as Milton lay, his evening ear,
+  Nigh sphered in heaven, its native strains could hear."
+
+
+
+
+ODE,
+
+WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746.
+
+
+ODE TO MERCY.
+
+
+The Ode written in 1746, and the Ode to Mercy, seem to have been written
+on the same occasion, viz. the late rebellion; the former in memory of
+those heroes who fell in defence of their country, the latter to excite
+sentiments of compassion in favour of those unhappy and deluded wretches
+who became a sacrifice to public justice.
+
+The language and imagery of both are very beautiful; but the scene and
+figures described, in the strophe of the Ode to Mercy, are exquisitely
+striking, and would afford a painter one of the finest subjects in the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO LIBERTY.
+
+
+The ancient states of Greece, perhaps the only ones in which a perfect
+model of liberty ever existed, are naturally brought to view in the
+opening of the poem:
+
+  "Who shall awake the Spartan fife,
+  And call in solemn sounds to life,
+  The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
+  Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue."
+
+There is something extremely bold in this imagery of the locks of the
+Spartan youths, and greatly superior to that description Jocasta gives
+us of the hair of Polynices:
+
+  Βοστρυχων τε κυανοχρωτα χαιτας
+  Πλοκαμον––––
+
+  ~Bostrychôn te kyanochrôta chaitas
+  Plokamon------~
+
+  "What new Alcæus, fancy-blest,
+  Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest," &c.
+
+This alludes to a fragment of Alcæus still remaining, in which the poet
+celebrates Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew the tyrant Hipparchus,
+and thereby restored the liberty of Athens.
+
+The fall of Rome is here most nervously described in one line
+
+  "With heaviest sound, a giant statue, fell."
+
+The thought seems altogether new, and the imitative harmony in the
+structure of the verse is admirable.
+
+After bewailing the ruin of ancient liberty, the poet considers the
+influence it has retained, or still retains, among the moderns; and here
+the free republics of Italy naturally engage his attention.--Florence,
+indeed, only to be lamented on account of losing its liberty under those
+patrons of letters, the Medicean family; the jealous Pisa, justly so
+called, in respect to its long impatience and regret under the same
+yoke; and the small Marino, which, however unrespectable with regard to
+power or extent of territory, has, at least, this distinction to boast,
+that it has preserved its liberty longer than any other state, ancient
+or modern, having, without any revolution, retained its present mode of
+government near fourteen hundred years. Moreover the patron saint who
+founded it, and from whom it takes its name, deserves this poetical
+record, as he is, perhaps, the only saint that ever contributed to the
+establishment of freedom.
+
+  "Nor e'er her former pride relate
+  To sad Liguria's bleeding state."
+
+In these lines the poet alludes to those ravages in the state of Genoa,
+occasioned by the unhappy divisions of the Guelphs and Gibelines.
+
+  "----When the favour'd of thy choice,
+  The daring archer heard thy voice."
+
+For an account of the celebrated event referred to in these verses, see
+Voltaire's Epistle to the King of Prussia.
+
+  "Those whom the rod of Alva bruised,
+  Whose crown a British queen refused!"
+
+The Flemings were so dreadfully oppressed by this sanguinary general of
+Philip the Second, that they offered their sovereignty to Elizabeth;
+but, happily for her subjects, she had policy and magnanimity enough to
+refuse it. Desormeaux, in his Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire
+d'Espagne, thus describes the sufferings of the Flemings: "Le duc d'Albe
+achevoit de réduire les Flamands au désespoir. Après avoir inondé les
+échafauds du sang le plus noble et le plus précieux, il faisoit
+construire des citadelles en divers endroits, et vouloit établir
+l'Alcavala, ce tribute onéreux qui avoit été longtems en usage parmi les
+Espagnols."--_Abrég. Chron. tom. iv._
+
+              "------Mona,
+  Where thousand elfin shapes abide."
+
+Mona is properly the Roman name of the Isle of Anglesey, anciently so
+famous for its Druids; but sometimes, as in this place, it is given to
+the Isle of Man. Both these isles still retain much of the genius of
+superstition, and are now the only places where there is the least
+chance of finding a fairy.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO A LADY,
+
+ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL ROSS, IN THE ACTION OF FONTENOY.
+
+
+The iambic kind of numbers in which this ode is conceived seems as well
+calculated for tender and plaintive subjects, as for those where
+strength or rapidity is required.--This, perhaps, is owing to the
+repetition of the strain in the same stanza; for sorrow rejects variety,
+and affects a uniformity of complaint. It is needless to observe, that
+this ode is replete with harmony, spirit, and pathos; and there surely
+appears no reason why the seventh and eighth stanzas should be omitted
+in that copy printed in Dodsley's Collection of Poems.
+
+
+
+
+ODE TO EVENING.
+
+
+The blank ode has for some time solicited admission into the English
+poetry; but its efforts, hitherto, seem to have been in vain, at least
+its reception has been no more than partial. It remains a question,
+then, whether there is not something in the nature of blank verse less
+adapted to the lyric than to the heroic measure, since, though it has
+been generally received in the latter, it is yet unadopted in the
+former. In order to discover this, we are to consider the different
+modes of these different species of poetry. That of the heroic is
+uniform; that of the lyric is various; and in these circumstances of
+uniformity and variety probably lies the cause why blank verse has been
+successful in the one, and unacceptable in the other. While it presented
+itself only in one form, it was familiarized to the ear by custom; but
+where it was obliged to assume the different shapes of the lyric muse,
+it seemed still a stranger of uncouth figure, was received rather with
+curiosity than pleasure, and entertained without that ease or
+satisfaction which acquaintance and familiarity produce.--Moreover, the
+heroic blank verse obtained a sanction of infinite importance to its
+general reception, when it was adopted by one of the greatest poets the
+world ever produced, and was made the vehicle of the noblest poem that
+ever was written. When this poem at length extorted that applause which
+ignorance and prejudice had united to withhold, the versification soon
+found its imitators, and became more generally successful than even in
+those countries from whence it was imported. But lyric blank verse had
+met with no such advantages; for Mr. Collins, whose genius and judgment
+in harmony might have given it so powerful an effect, has left us but
+one specimen of it in the Ode to Evening.
+
+In the choice of his measure he seems to have had in his eye Horace's
+Ode to Pyrrha; for this ode bears the nearest resemblance to that mixed
+kind of the asclepiad and pherecratic verse; and that resemblance in
+some degree reconciles us to the want of rhyme, while it reminds us of
+those great masters of antiquity, whose works had no need of this
+whimsical jingle of sounds.
+
+From the following passage one might be induced to think that the poet
+had it in view to render his subject and his versification suitable to
+each other on this occasion, and that, when he addressed himself to the
+sober power of Evening, he had thought proper to lay aside the foppery
+of rhyme:
+
+    "Now teach me, maid composed,
+    To breathe some soften'd strain,
+  Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
+  May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
+    As, musing slow, I hail
+    Thy genial loved return!"
+
+But whatever were the numbers or the versification of this ode,
+the imagery and enthusiasm it contains could not fail of rendering
+it delightful. No other of Mr. Collins's odes is more generally
+characteristic of his genius. In one place we discover his passion
+for visionary beings:
+
+  "For when thy folding-star arising shows
+  His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
+    The fragrant Hours, and Elves
+    Who slept in buds the day,
+
+  And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
+  And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
+    The pensive Pleasures sweet,
+    Prepare thy shadowy car."
+
+In another we behold his strong bias to melancholy:
+
+  "Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
+  Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
+    Whose walls more awful nod
+    By thy religious gleams."
+
+Then appears his taste for what is wildly grand and magnificent in
+nature; when, prevented by storms from enjoying his evening walk, he
+wishes for a situation,
+
+  "That from the mountain's side
+  Views wilds and swelling floods;"
+
+And through the whole, his invariable attachment to the expression of
+painting:
+
+  "----and marks o'er all
+  Thy dewy fingers draw
+  The gradual dusky veil."
+
+It might be a sufficient encomium on this beautiful ode to observe, that
+it has been particularly admired by a lady to whom nature has given the
+most perfect principles of taste. She has not even complained of the
+want of rhyme in it; a circumstance by no means unfavourable to the
+cause of lyric blank verse; for surely, if a fair reader can endure an
+ode without bells and chimes, the masculine genius may dispense with
+them.
+
+
+
+
+THE MANNERS.
+
+AN ODE.
+
+
+From the subject and sentiments of this ode, it seems not improbable
+that the author wrote it about the time when he left the university;
+when, weary with the pursuit of academical studies, he no longer
+confined himself to the search of theoretical knowledge, but commenced
+the scholar of humanity, to study nature in her works, and man in
+society.
+
+The following farewell to Science exhibits a very just as well as
+striking picture: for however exalted in theory the Platonic doctrines
+may appear, it is certain that Platonism and Pyrrhonism are nearly
+allied:
+
+  "Farewell the porch, whose roof is seen,
+  Arch'd with the enlivening olive's green:
+  Where Science, prank'd in tissued vest,
+  By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest,
+  Comes like a bride, so trim array'd,
+  To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade!"
+
+When the mind goes in pursuit of visionary systems, it is not far
+from the regions of doubt; and the greater its capacity to think
+abstractedly, to reason and refine, the more it will be exposed to,
+and bewildered in, uncertainty.--From an enthusiastic warmth of
+temper, indeed, we may for a while be encouraged to persist in some
+favourite doctrine, or to adhere to some adopted system; but when that
+enthusiasm, which is founded on the vivacity of the passions,
+gradually cools and dies away with them, the opinions it supported
+drop from us, and we are thrown upon the inhospitable shore of
+doubt.--A striking proof of the necessity of some moral rule of wisdom
+and virtue, and some system of happiness established by unerring
+knowledge, and unlimited power.
+
+In the poet's address to Humour in this ode there is one image of
+singular beauty and propriety. The ornaments in the hair of Wit are of
+such a nature, and disposed in such a manner, as to be perfectly
+symbolical and characteristic:
+
+  "Me too amidst thy band admit,
+  There where the young-eyed healthful Wit,
+  (Whose jewels in his crisped hair
+  Are placed each other's beams to share,
+  Whom no delights from thee divide)
+  In laughter loosed, attends thy side."
+
+Nothing could be more expressive of wit, which consists in a happy
+collision of comparative and relative images, than this reciprocal
+reflection of light from the disposition of the jewels.
+
+  "O Humour, thou whose name is known
+  To Britain's favour'd isle alone."
+
+The author could only mean to apply this to the time when he wrote,
+since other nations had produced works of great humour, as he himself
+acknowledges afterwards.
+
+  "By old Miletus," &c.
+  "By all you taught the Tuscan maids," &c.
+
+The Milesian and Tuscan romances were by no means distinguished for
+humour; but as they were the models of that species of writing in which
+humour was afterwards employed, they are, probably for that reason only,
+mentioned here.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSIONS.
+
+AN ODE FOR MUSIC.
+
+
+If the music which was composed for this ode had equal merit with the
+ode itself, it must have been the most excellent performance of the kind
+in which poetry and music have, in modern times, united. Other pieces of
+the same nature have derived their greatest reputation from the
+perfection of the music that accompanied them, having in themselves
+little more merit than that of an ordinary ballad: but in this we have
+the whole soul and power of poetry--expression that, even without the
+aid of music, strikes to the heart; and imagery of power enough to
+transport the attention, without the forceful alliance of corresponding
+sounds! what, then, must have been the effect of these united!
+
+It is very observable, that though the measure is the same, in which the
+musical efforts of Fear, Anger, and Despair are described, yet, by the
+variation of the cadence, the character and operation of each is
+strongly expressed: thus particularly of Despair:
+
+  "With woful measures wan Despair--
+    Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled,
+  A solemn, strange, and mingled air,
+    'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild."
+
+He must be a very unskilful composer who could not catch the power of
+imitative harmony from these lines!
+
+The picture of Hope that follows this is beautiful almost beyond
+imitation. By the united powers of imagery and harmony, that delightful
+being is exhibited with all the charms and graces that pleasure and
+fancy have appropriated to her:
+
+  Relegat, qui semel percurrit;
+  Qui nunquam legit, legat.
+
+  "But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
+    What was thy delighted measure!
+  Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,
+    And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
+  Still would her touch the strain prolong,
+    And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
+  She call'd on Echo still through all the song;
+    And where her sweetest theme she chose,
+    A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
+  And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair."
+
+In what an exalted light does the above stanza place this great master
+of poetical imagery and harmony! what varied sweetness of numbers! what
+delicacy of judgment and expression! how characteristically does Hope
+prolong her strain, repeat her soothing closes, call upon her associate
+Echo for the same purposes, and display every pleasing grace peculiar to
+her!
+
+  "And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair."
+
+  Legat, qui nunquam legit;
+  Qui semel percurrit, relegat.
+
+The descriptions of Joy, Jealousy, and Revenge are excellent, though not
+equally so. Those of Melancholy and Cheerfulness are superior to every
+thing of the kind; and, upon the whole, there may be very little hazard
+in asserting, that this is the finest ode in the English language.
+
+
+
+
+AN EPISTLE
+
+TO SIR THOMAS HANMER, ON HIS EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS.
+
+
+This poem was written by our author at the university, about the time
+when Sir Thomas Hanmer's pompous edition of Shakespeare was printed at
+Oxford. If it has not so much merit as the rest of his poems, it has
+still more than the subject deserves. The versification is easy and
+genteel, and the allusions always poetical. The character of the poet
+Fletcher in particular is very justly drawn in this epistle.
+
+
+
+
+DIRGE IN CYMBELINE.
+
+ODE ON THE DEATH OF THOMSON.
+
+
+Mr. Collins had skill to complain. Of that mournful melody, and those
+tender images, which are the distinguishing excellencies of such pieces
+as bewail departed friendship, or beauty, he was an almost unequaled
+master. He knew perfectly to exhibit such circumstances, peculiar to the
+objects, as awaken the influences of pity; and while, from his own great
+sensibility, he felt what he wrote, he naturally addressed himself to
+the feelings of others.
+
+To read such lines as the following, all-beautiful and tender as they
+are, without corresponding emotions of pity, is surely impossible:
+
+    "The tender thought on thee shall dwell;
+  Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
+    For thee the tear be duly shed;
+  Beloved till life can charm no more,
+    And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead."
+
+The Ode on the Death of Thomson seems to have been written in an
+excursion to Richmond by water. The rural scenery has a proper effect in
+an ode to the memory of a poet, much of whose merit lay in descriptions
+of the same kind; and the appellations of "Druid," and "meek Nature's
+child," are happily characteristic. For the better understanding of this
+ode, it is necessary to remember, that Mr. Thomson lies buried in the
+church of Richmond.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber Notes
+
+Archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
+
+Author's punctuation style is preserved. Quotes in the poetry are
+sometimes repeated on every line, as in the original.
+
+Poetry line numbers regularized.
+
+Footnote 4's location is approximated.
+
+Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
+
+Greek transliterations are surrounded by ~tildes~ and follow the
+original Greek characters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of William Collins, by 
+William Collins
+
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