But if, at first, her virgin fear Should start at love's suspected name, With that of friendship soothe her earTrue love and friendship are the same. SONG. FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove An unrelenting foe to love, And when we meet a mutual heart, Come in between, and bid us part? Bid us sigh on from day to day, But busy, busy, still art thou, For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer, ODE. O NIGHTINGALE, best poet of the grove, O lend that strain, sweet nightingale, to me! 'Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate : I love a maid who all my bosom charms, Yet lose my days without this lovely mate; Inhuman Fortune keeps her from my arms. You, happy birds! by Nature's simple laws And love and song is all your pleasing care: But we, vain slaves of interest and of pride, And hence, in vain I languish for my bride; HYMN ON SOLITUDE. HAIL, mildly pleasing Solitude, Companion of the wise and good, But, from whose holy, piercing eye, The herd of fools and villains fly. Oh! how I love with thee to walk, And listen to thy whisper'd talk, Which innocence and truth imparts, And melts the most obdurate hearts. A thousand shapes you wear with ease, Thine is the balmy breath of morn, Descending angels bless thy train, Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell! TO THE REV. MR. MURDOCH, RECTOR OF STRADDISHALL, IN Suffolk, 1738. THUS safely low, my friend, thou canst not fall: Here reigns a deep tranquillity o'er all; No noise, no care, no vanity, no strife; Men, woods, and fields, all breathe untroubled life. Then keep each passion down, however dear; Trust me the tender are the most severe. Guard, while 'tis thine, thy philosophic ease, And ask no joy but that of virtuous peace; That bids defiance to the storms of Fate, High bliss is only for a higher state. AMBROSE PHILIPS. AMBROSE PHILIPS, a poet and miscellaneous valued, sent to the same paper a comparison be tween his and those of Philips, in which he ironically gave the preference to the latter. The irony was not detected till it encountered the critical eye of Addison; and the consequence was, that it ruined the reputation of Philips as a composer of pastoral. the lottery. writer, was born in 1671, claiming his descent from an ancient Leicestershire family. He received his education at St. John's College, Cambridge; and, attaching himself to the Whig party, he published, in 1700, an epitome of Hacket's life of Archbishop Williams, by which he obtained an introduction to Addison and Steele. Soon after, he made an at- When the accession of George I. brought the tempt in pastoral poetry, which, for a time, brought Whigs again into power, Philips was made a Westhim into celebrity. In 1709, being then at Copen-minster justice, and, soon after, a commissioner for hagen, he addressed to the Earl of Dorset some verses, descriptive of that capital, which are regarded as his best performance; and these, together with two translations from Sappho's writings, stand pre-eminent in his works of this class. In 1712 he made his appearance as a dramatic writer, in the tragedy of "The Distrest Mother," acted at Drury-lane with great applause, and still considered as a stock play. It cannot, indeed, claim the merit of originality, being closely copied from Racine's "Andromacque;" but it is well written, and skilfully adapted to the English stage. A storm now fell upon him relatively to his pastorals, owing to an exaggerated compliment from Tickell, who, in a paper of the Guardian, had made the true pastoral pipe descend in succession from Theocritus to Virgil, Spenser, and Philips. Pope, who found his own juvenile pastorals under In 1718, he was the editor of a pe riodical paper, called "The Freethinker." In 1724, he accompanied to Ireland his friend Dr. Boulter, created archbishop of Armagh, to whom he acted as secretary. He afterwards represented the county of Armagh in parliament; and the places of secretary to the Lord Chancellor, and Judge of the Prerogative Court, were also conferred upon him. He returned to England in 1748, and died in the following year, at the age of seventy-eight. The verses which he composed, not only to young ladies in the nursery, but to Walpole when Minister of State, and which became known by the ludicrous appellation of namby-pamby, are easy and sprightly, but with a kind of infantile air, which fixed upon them the above name. TO THE EARL OF DORSET. Copenhagen, March 9. 1709. No gentle breathing breeze prepares the spring, The starving wolves along the main sea prowl, There solid billows of enormous size, And yet but lately have I seen, ev'n here, The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield, The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine, The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends, And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees: The birds, dismiss'd, (while you remain,) What phrenzy in my bosom rag'd, Though now he shuns thy longing arms, Though now he freeze, he soon shall burn, Celestial visitant, once more A HYMN TO VENUS, FROM THE GREEK OF SAPPHO. O VENUS, beauty of the skies, If ever thou hast kindly heard Thou once didst leave almighty Jove, A FRAGMENT OF SAPPHO. 'Twas this deprived my soul of rest, My bosom glow'd; the subtle flame In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd, Kk S WILLIAM COLLINS. WILLIAM COLLINS, a distinguished modern poet, of disorder in his mind, perceptible to any but him self. He was reading the New Testament. "I have but one book," said he, "but it is the best." He was finally consigned to the care of his sister, in whose arms he finished his short and melancholy course, in the year 1756. was born at Chichester, in 1720 or 1721, where his father exercised the trade of a hatter. He received his education at Winchester College, whence he entered as a commoner of Queen's College, Oxford. In 1741, he procured his election into Magdalen college as a demy; and it was here that he wrote It is from his Odes, that Collins derives his chief his poetical" Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer," poetical fame; and in compensation for the neglect and his "Oriental Eclogues;" of both which with which they were treated at their first appearpieces the success was but moderate. In 1744, he ance, they are now almost universally regarded as came to London as a literary adventurer, and va- the first productions of the kind in our language rious were the projects which he formed in this with respect to vigour of conception, boldness and capacity. In 1746, however, he ventured to lay variety of personification, and genuine warmth of before the public a volume of " Odes, Descriptive feeling. They are well characterised in an essay and Allegorical;" but so callous was the national prefixed to his works in an ornamented edition pubtaste at this time, that their sale did not pay for the lished by Cadell and Davies, with which we shall printing. Collins, whose spirit was high, returned conclude this article. "He will be acknowledged to the bookseller his copy-money, burnt all the un- (says the author) to possess imagination, sweetness, sold copies, and as soon as it lay in his power, in- bold and figurative language. His numbers dwell demnified him for his small loss; yet among these on the ear, and easily fix themselves in the memory. odes, were many pieces which now rank among the His vein of sentiment is by turns tender and lofty, finest lyric compositions in the language. After always tinged with a degree of melancholy, but not this mortification, he obtained from the booksellers possessing any claim to originality. His originality a small sum for an intended translation of Aristotle's consists in his manner, in the highly figurative garb Poetics, and paid a visit to an uncle, Lieutenant-in which he clothes abstract ideas, in the felicity of colonel Martin, then with the army in Germany. The Colonel dying soon after, left Collins a legacy of 2000l., a sum which raised him to temporary opulence; but he now soon became incapable of every mental exertion. Dreadful depression of spirits was an occasional attendant on his malady, for which he had no remedy but the bottle. It was about this time, that it was thought proper to confine him in a receptacle of lunatics. Dr. Johnson paid him a visit at Islington, when there was nothing his expressions, and his skill in embodying ideal creations. He had much of the mysticism of poetry, and sometimes became obscure by aiming at impressions stronger than he had clear and well-defined ideas to support. Had his life been prolonged, and with life had he enjoyed that ease which is necessary for the undisturbed exercise of the faculties, be would probably have risen far above most of his contemporaries." Come, Pity, come, by Fancy's aid, Its southern site, its truth complete, There Picture's toil shall well relate, The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand, There let me oft, retir'd by day, There waste the mournful lamp of night, To hear a British shell! ODE TO FEAR. THOU, to whom the world unknown Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear! I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye! EPODE In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice, Yet he, the bard* who first invok'd thy name, But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel. But who is he, whom later garlands grace, Wrapt in thy cloudy veil th' incestuous queen †, Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard, When once alone it broke the silent scene, And he the wretch of Thebes no more appear'd. O Fear! I know thee by my throbbing heart, 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, '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, And, lest thou meet my blasted view, His cypress wreath my meed decree, And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee! ODE. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod, Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By Fairy hands their knell is rung, + Jocasta. |