This, amongst many other paffages to be met with in the writings of COLLINS, fhews 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 expreffed, than the image in the laft couplet.

That deception, fometimes 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:

Farewel the youth, whom fighs could not detain,
Whom Zara's breaking heart implor'd in vain!
Yet as thou go'ft, may every blast arise-
Weak and unfelt as thefe rejected fighs!"

But this, perhaps, is rather an artificial prettiness than a real or natural beauty.

The third eclogue beautifully describes in its effects that innocent, and native fimplicity of manners, which in the first, was allowed to constitute the happiness of love. The fultan of Perfia marries a Georgian fhepherdefs, and finds in her embraces that genuine felicity which unperverted nature alone can beftow. The most natural and beautiful parts of this eclogue are those where the fair fultana refers with fo much pleasure to her paftoral amusements, and thofe fcenes of happy innocence, in which she had passed her early years; particularly when upon her first departure,

"Oft as fhe went, fhe backward turn'd her view,

And bade that crook and bleating flock adieu."

This picture of amiable fimplicity reminds one of that paffage, where Proferpine, when carried off by Pluto, regrets the lofs of the flowers fhe had been gathering.

"Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remiffis :

Tantaque fimplicitas puerilibus adfuit annis,
Hæc quoque virgineum movit jactura dolorem."

The beautiful, but unfortunate country, where the scene of the fourth eclogue is laid, had been recently torn in pieces by the depredations of its favage neighbours, when Mr. COLLINS fo affectingly defcribed 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 Circaffia's ruin, while he realizes the scene, and brings the prefent drama before us. Of every circumstance, that could poffibly contribute to the tender effect this pastoral was defigned to produce, the poet has availed himself with the utmost art and addrefs. Thus he prepares the heart to pity the diftreffes of Circaffia, by representing it as the scene of the happieft love.

"In fair Circaffia, where to love inclin'd,

Each fwain was bleft, for every maid was kind."

To give the circumftances of the dialogue a more affecting folemnity, he makes the time midnight, and describes the two fhepherds in the very act of flight from the deftruction that fwept over their country :

"Sad o'er the dews, two brother fhepherds fled,

Where wildering fear and desperate forrow led:"

There is a beauty and propriety in the epithet wildering, which ftrikes us more forcibly, the more we confider it.

The opening of the dialogue is equally happy, natural and unaffected; when one of the fhepherds, weary and overcome with the fatigue of flight, calls upon his companion to review the length of way they had paffed.-This is certainly painting from nature, and the thoughts, however obvious, or deftitute of refinement, are perfectly in character. But as the closest purfuit of nature is the furest way to excellence in general, and to fublimity in particular, in poetical defcription, fo we find that this fimple fuggeftion of the fhepherd is not unattended with magnificence. There is grandeur and variety in the landskip he defcribes :

"And firft review that long-extended plain,

And yon wide groves, already past with pain!
Yon ragged cliff, whofe dangerous path we tried!
And laft, this lofty mountain's weary fide."

There is, in imitative harmony, an act of expreffing a flow and difficult movement by adding to the ufual number of pauses in a verfe. This is obfervable in the line that defcribes the afcent of the mountain :

"And laft this lofty mountain's | weary fide."

H

Here we find the number of paufes, or mufical bars, which in an heroic verfe, is commonly two, increased to three.

The liquid melody, and the numerous sweetness of expreffion in the following defcriptive lines is almost inimitably beautiful:

"Sweet to the fight is Zabran's flowery plain,

And once by nymphs and fhepherds lov'd in vain!
No more the virgins fhall delight to rove
By Sargis' banks, or Irwan's fhady grove;
On Tarkie's mountain catch the cooling gale,
Or breathe the fweets of Aly's flowery vale."

Nevertheless in this delightful landskip there is an obvious fault: there is no distinction between the plain of Zabran and the vale of Aly; they are both flowery, and confequently 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 overfight which those who are accustomed to poetical, or, indeed, to any other fpecies of compofition, know to be very pof fible.

Nothing can be more beautifully conceived, or more pathetically expreffed than the fhepherd's apprehenfions for his fair country-women, expofed to the ravages of the invaders.

"In vain Circafia boafts her fpicy groves,
Forever fam'd for pure and happy loves :
In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair,
Their eye's blue languish, and their golden hair!
Thofe eyes in tears their fruitlefs grief fhall fend;
Thofe hairs the Tartar's cruel hand fhall rend."

There is, certainly, fome very powerful charm in the liquid mel
ody of founds. The editor of these poems could never read, or
hear the following verse repeated without a degree of pleasure
otherwife entirely unaccountable:

"Their eye's blue languish, and their golden hair.”

Such are the Oriental Eclogues, which we leave with the fame kind of anxious pleasure, we feel upon a temporary parting with a beloved friend.

The genius of Collins was capable of every degree of excellence in lyric poetry, and perfectly qualified for that high province of the mufe. Poffeffed of a native ear for all the varieties of harmony and modulation, fufceptible of the finest feelings of tenderness and humanity, but, above all, carried away by that high enthufiafm, which gives to imagination its strongest colouring, he was, at once, capable of foothing the ear with the melody of his numbers, of influencing the paffions by the force of his Pathos, and of gratifying the fancy by the luxury of his defcription.

In confequence of these powers, but more particularly, in confideration of the last, he chofe fuch fubjects for his lyric effays as were most favourable for the indulgence of description and allegory; where he could exercise his powers in moral and perfonal painting; where he could exert his invention in conferring attributes on images or objects already known, and defcribed, by a determinate number of characteristics: where he might give an uncommon eclat 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 fociety of imperfonated beings.

Such, no doubt, were the privileges, which the poet expected, and fuch were the advantages he derived from the defcriptive and allegorical nature of his themes.

It seems to have been the whole industry of our author (and it is, at the fame time, almost all the claim to moral excellence his writings can boaft) to promote the influence of the focial 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 fome readers that he has been more induftrious to cultivate defcription than fentiment; it may be obferved, that his defcriptions themselves are fentimental, and anfwer the whole end of that fpecies of writing, by embellishing every feature of virtue, and by conveying, through the effects of the pencil, the finest moral leffons to the mind. (To be continued.)

POETRY

INFLUENCED BY CHRISTIAN VIRTUE.

At the clofe of our remarks on the Life of Cowper in our FIRST NUMBER, we promised the following paffage, which Mr. HAYLEY extracted from a manufcript of an anonymous writer.

“THE nobleft benefits and delights of poetry can be but rarely produced, because all the requifites for producing them fo very feldom meet. A vivid mind, and happy imitative power, may enable a poet to form glowing pictures of virtue, and almost produce in himself a short lived enthusiasm of goodness ; but although even these transient and factitious movements of mind may serve to produce grand and delightful effufions of poetry, yet when the best of these are compared with the poetic productions of a genuine lover of virtue, a difcerning judgment will scarcely fail to mark the difference. A fimplicity of conception and expreffion-a confcious, and therefore unaffected dignity—an instinctive adherence to fober reason, even amid the highest flights; an uniform juftness and confiftency of thought, a glowing, yet temperate ardour of feeling; a peculiar felicity, both in the choice and combination of terms, by which even the plaineft words acquire the trueft character of eloquence, and which is rarely to be found, except where a fubject is not only intimately known, but cordially loved; these I conceive are the features peculiar to the real votary of virtue, and which muft of course give to his strains a perfection of effect never to be attained by the poet of inferior moral endowments.

TON.

"I believe it will be readily granted, that all these qualities were never more perfectly combined than in the poetry of MILAnd I think too, there will be little doubt, that the next to him in every one of these inftances beyond all comparison, is COWPER. The genius of the latter did certainly not lead him to emulate the fongs of the Seraphim. But though he pursues a lower walk of poetry than his great Master, he appears no lefs the enraptured votary of pure unmixed goodness. Nay, perhaps he may in this one refpect poffefs fome peculiar excellencies, which may make him seem more the Bard of Christianity.”