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: You, happy birds! by Nature's simple laws And love and song is all your pleasing care: 1 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! I just may cast my careless eyes TO THE REV. MR. MURDOCH, RECTOR OF STRADDISHALL, IN SUFFOLK, 1738. THUS safely low, my friend, thou canst not fall: AMBROSE PHILIPS. AMBROSE PHILIPS, a poet and miscellaneous who found his own juvenile pastorals undervalued, writer, was born in 1671, claiming his descent from sent to the same paper a comparison between his an ancient Leicestershire family. He received his and those of Philips, in which he ironically gave education at St. John's College, Cambridge; and, the preference to the latter. The irony was not attaching himself to the Whig party, he published, detected till it encountered the critical eye of Adin 1700, an epitome of Hacket's life of Archbishop dison; and the consequence was, that it ruined the Williams, by which he obtained an introduction to reputation of Philips as a composer of pastoral. 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 the lottery. In 1718, he was the editor of a periverses, descriptive of that capital, which are re- odical paper, called "The Freethinker." In 1724, garded as his best performance; and these, together he accompanied to Ireland his friend Dr. Boulter, with two translations from Sappho's writings, created archbishop of Armagh, to whom he acted stand pre-eminent in his works of this class. In as secretary. He afterwards represented the county 1712 he made his appearance as a dramatic writer, of Armagh in parliament; and the places of secrein 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. tary 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 A storm now fell upon him relatively to his pas- Minister of State, and which became known by the torals, owing to an exaggerated compliment from ludicrous appellation of namby-pamby, are easy and Tickell, who, in a paper of the Guardian, had made sprightly, but with a kind of infantile air, which the true pastoral pipe descend in succession from fixed upon them the above name. Theocritus to Virgil, Spenser, and Philips. Pope,| TO THE EARL OF DORSET. Copenhagen, March 9, 1709. No gentle breathing breeze prepares the spring, The starving wolves along the main sea prowl, And yet but lately have I seen, ev'n here, The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield, The frighted birds the rattling branches shun, The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends, And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees: Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious meads: While here enchanted gardens to him rise, The birds, dismiss'd, (while you remain,) What frenzy in my bosom rag'd, And by what care to be assung'd? What gentle youth I would allure, Whom in my artful toils secure? Who does thy tender heart subdue, Tell me, my Sappho, tell me who? Though now he shuns thy longing arms, Though now he freeze, he soon shall burn, And be thy victim in his turn. 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. BLEST as the immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee, And hears and sees thee all the while Softly speak, and sweetly smile. 'Twas this deprived my soul of rest, My bosom glow'd; the subtle flame In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd, 2S2 WILLIAM COLLINS. WILLIAM COLLINS, a distinguished modern poet, of disorder in his mind, perceptible to any but himwas born at Chichester, in 1720 or 1721, where his self. He was reading the New Testament. ** I father exercised the trade of a hatter. He received have but one book," said he, "but it is the best.” his education at Winchester College, whence he en- He was finally consigned to the care of his sister, in tered as a commoner of Queen's College, Oxford. whose arms he finished his short and melancholy In 1741, he procured his election into Magdalen course, in the year 1756. 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 vigor 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 characterized 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. his expressions, and his skill in embodying ideal The Colonel dying soon after, left Collins a legacy creations. He had much of the mysticism of poetry, of 2000, a sum which raised him to temporary and sometimes became obscure by aiming at imopulence; but he now soon became incapable of pressions stronger than he had clear and well-defin'd every mental exertion. Dreadful depression of ideas to support. Had his life been prolonged, and spirits was an occasional attendant on his malady, with life had he enjoyed that ease which is necessary for which he had no remedy but the bottle. It was for the undisturbed exercise of the faculties, he about this time, that it was thought proper to con- would probably have risen far above most of his fine him in a receptacle of lunatics. Dr. Johnson contemporaries." paid him a visit at Islington, when there was nothing Come, Pity, come, by Fancy's aid, There Picture's toil shall well relate, O'er mortal bliss prevail : The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand, And, sighing, prompt her tender hand With each disastrous tale. There let me oft, retir'd by day, Allow'd with thee to dwell: There waste the mournful lamp of night, Till, Virgin, thou again delight To hear a British shell! ODE TO FEAR. THOU, to whom the world unknown With all its shadowy shapes is shown; Who see'st 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! EPODE. In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice Yet he, the bard* who first invok'd thy name, For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame, * Eschylus. 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, O thou, whose spirit most possest 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. |
