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Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,

He gain'd from Heav'n ('t was all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.

WILLIAM COLLINS.

Born 1721-Died 1756.

COLLINS was educated at Oxford University; and while at college he published a poetical epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer, and his Oriental Eclogues—both of them far superior to any poetry, which had appeared for many years. In 1744, he went to London as a literary adventurer, and formed various literary projects, which irresolution or immediate want hindered him from accomplishing. In 1746, he published a volumes of odes, now esteemed the finest lyrical productions in the English language, but which, at that time, found so few admirers, that their sale was not sufficient to pay for the printing. Collins, in the indignation with which he viewed their cold reception, burned all the remaining copies, and restored to the publisher the money he had received for the manuscript. Not long afterwards a legacy of two thousand pounds was left him by an uncle, which kept him in opulence during the remainder of his life.

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This period was not long, and was clouded by a fearful depression of spirits, which at times amounted to actual madness. "Collins," says Johnson, "who, while he studied to live, felt no evil but poverty, no sooner lived to study, than his life was assailed by more dreadful calamities, disease and insanity." Dr. Johnson visited him but a short time before his death, at an interval when the melancholy disorder of his mind was visible to no one but himself; found him "withdrawn from

place. The lines, however are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation.

There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

study, and 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."" He died at the age of thirtyfive.

All that Collins ever wrote, exhibits a poetical genius of the highest and purest order. Campbell's remarks upon this exquisite poet, are written in a strain of refined and discriminating criticism, equally rare and delightful.

"Collins published his Oriental Eclogues while at college, and his lyrical poetry at the age of twenty-six. These works will abide comparison with whatever Milton wrote under the age of thirty. If they have rather less exuberant wealth of genius, they exhibit more exquisite touches of pathos. Like Milton, he leads us into the haunted ground of imagination; like him he has the rich economy of expression halved with thought, which, by single or few words, often hints entire pictures to the imagination. In what short and simple terms, for instance, does he open a wide and majestic landscape to the mind, such as we might view from Benlomond or Snowden, when he speaks of the hut,

'That from some mountain's side

Views wilds and swelling floods.'

And in the line, 'Where faint and sickly winds forever howl around,' he does not merely seem to describe the sultry desert, but brings it home to the senses.

"A cloud of obscurity sometimes rests on his highest conceptions, arising from the fineness of his associations, and the daring sweep of his allusions; but the shadow is transitory, and interferes very little with the light of his imagery, or the warmth of his feelings. The absence of even this speck of mysticism from his Öde on the Passions, is perhaps the happy circumstance that secured its unbounded popularity. Nothing is commonplace in Collins. The Pastoral Eclogue, which is insipid in all other English hands, assumes in his, a touching interest and a picturesque air of novelty.

"Had he lived to enjoy and adorn existence, it is not easy to conceive his sensitive spirit and harmonious ear descending to mediocrity in any path of poetry; yet it may be doubted if his mind had not a passion for the visionary and remote forms of imagination, too strong and exclusive for the general purposes of the drama. His genius loved to breathe, rather in the preternatural and ideal element of poetry, than in the atmosphere of imitation, which lies closest to real life; and his notions of poetical excellence, whatever vows he might address to the manners, were still attending to the vast, the undefinable, and the abstract. Certainly, however, he carried sensibility and tenderness into the highest regions of abstracted thought: his enthusiasm spreads a glow even amongst 'the shadowy tribes of mind,' and his allegory is as sensible to the heart, as it is visible to the fancy."

The moral character of Collins's poetry is as pure as his fancy is elevated. It could hardly have been farther removed from every thing like earthliness or sensuality, if the subjects, which exercised his genius, had been even exclusively devotional.

SELIM, OR THE SHEPHERD'S MORAL; AN ORIENTAL ECLogue.

YE Persian maids, attend your poet's lays,

And hear how shepherds pass their golden days.
Not all are bless'd whom Fortune's hand sustains.
With wealth in courts; nor all that haunt the plains:
Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell;
"T is virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.

Thus Selim sung, by sacred Truth inspir'd:
Nor praise, but such as Truth bestow'd, desir'd:
Wise in himself, his meaning songs convey'd
In forming morals to the shepherd maid;
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 resum'd her orient pride;
When wanton gales along the valleys play,
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:
No fairer maids, I trust, than you are found,
Grac'd 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;
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 Bassora's pearls display:
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
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;
Each tender passion man delights to find;
The lov'd perfections of a female mind!

"Bless'd were the days when Wisdom held her reign,
And shepherds sought her on the silent plain;
With Truth she wedded in the secret grove,
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.

"Lost to our fields, for so the fates ordain, The dear deserter 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,

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.

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,
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:
Dear to the plains, the Virtues came along;
The shepherds lov'd; and Selim bless'd his song.

ODE TO FEAR.

THOU, to whom the world unknown
With all its shadowy shapes is shown;
Who seest appall'd th' unreal scene,
While fancy lifts the veil between:
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!

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

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:
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind:
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, expos'd and bare :
On whom that ravening brood of fate,
Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait.
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild, like thee?

ANTISTROPHE.

Thou who such weary lengths hast past,
Where will thou rest, mad nymph, at last?
Say, wilt thou shroud in haunted cell,
Where gloomy rape and murder dwell?
Or in some hollow seat,

'Gainst which the big waves beat,

Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempest brought! Dark power, with shuddering meek submitted thought, 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!
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'eraw'd,
In that thrice-hallow'd eve abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage maids believe,
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 Shakspeare's breast!
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,
And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee!

ODE TO EVENING.

Ir aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

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