ODE TO PITY.

The propriety of invoking Pity through the mediati­on of Euripides is obvious.—That admirable poet had the keys of all the tender passions, and, therefor, could not but stand in the highest esleem with a wri­ter of Mr. COLLIN'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 [...].

[Page 106] 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.’

Suffex, in which country the Arun is a small river, had the honour of giving birth to OTWAY as well as to COLLINS. Both these poets 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. C—who had often determined to apply himself to dramatic poetry, 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 Shakespear:

In the construction of this nervous ode the author has shewn 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 influences of the pow­er he invokes:

The editor of these poems has met with nothing in the same species of poetry, either in his own, or in [Page 108] any other language, equal, in all respects, to the fol­lowing description of Danger.

It is impossible to contemplate the image conveyed in the two last verses without these emotions of terror it was intended to excite. It has, moreover, the entire advantage of novelty to recommend it; sor 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 Cataline in the ninth AEneid:

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.

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 ail 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.

‘On that thrice hallow'd eve, etc.’ [Page 110] 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.

This allegorical imagery of the honey'd 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 [Page 112] of Polynices will be a monument of this so long as poetry shall last.

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.

In these lines the writings of the Provencial poets are principally alluded to, in which, simplicity is gene­rally sacrificed to the rapsodies of romantic love.

ODE On the Poetical Character.

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 abstratcted 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 similiarity of taste and sentiment, are enabled to penetrate the high mysterics 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 conser it.

As the subject of this ode is uncommon, so are the style and expression highly metaphorical and abstract­ed; [Page 114] thus the sun is called "the rich-hair'd youth of morn," the ideas are termed "the shadowy tribes of mind," etc. We are struck with the propriety of this mode of expression here, and it assords us new proofs of the analogy that subsists between language and sentiment.

NOTHING can be more lostily 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 wild­wood appearances, of which the great poet was so en­thusiastically fond:

ODE, Written in the Year, MDCCXLVI.
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 sormer in memo­ry of those heroes who fell in defence of their coun­try, the latter to excite sentiments of compassion in savour of those unhappy and deluded wretches who became a sacrifice to public justice.

THE language and imagery of both are very beau­tiful, but the seene 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 naturaily brought to view in the opening of the poem.

There is something extremely bold in this imagery of the locks of the Spartan youths, and greatly superior to that deseription Jocasta gives us of the hair of Po­lynices:

This alludes to a fragment of Alcaeus still remaining, in which the poet celebrates Harmodius and Aristogi­ton, [Page 117] 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 republics of Italy naturally engage his attention.—Florence, in­deed, only to be lamented on the 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 1400 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.

In these lines the poet alludes to those ravages in the state of Genoa, occasioned by the unhappy divisions of the Guelphs and Gibelines.

For an account of the celebrated event referred to in these verses, see Voltaire's Epistle to the King of Prussia.

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. Deformeaux, in his Abrége Chro­nologique de l' Histoire d'Espagne, thus describes the sufferings of the Flemings. "Le Duc d' Albe ache­voit de réduire les Flamands au désespoir. Aprés avoir inondé les echafauts du sang le plus noble et le plus précieux, il fasoit construire des citadelles en di­vers [Page 119] endroits, et vouloit établir l' Alcavala, ce tribute onéreux qui avoit été longtems en usage parmi les Espagnols."

Abreg. Chron. Tom. IV.

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 CHARLES ROSS in the Action at Fontenoy.
Written MAY, MDCCXLV.

THE iambic kind of numbers, in which this ode is conceived, seems as 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 an uniformity of complaint. It is needless to observe that this ode is replete with harmony, spirit, 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 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 with 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 [Page 122] 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 has 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 mixt 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 soppery of rhyme;

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:

In another we behold his strong bias to melancholy:

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,

And, through the whole, his invariable attachment to the expression of painting;

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; sor 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 know­lege, 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 the theory the Platonic doctrines may appear, it is certain that Platonism and Pyrrhonism are nearly al­lied:

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, [Page 126] 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 adopted system; but when that enhusiasm, 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 knowlege 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:

Nothing could be more expressive of wit, which con­sists in a happy collision of comparative and relative [Page 127] images, than this reciprocal reflection of light from the disposition of the jewels.

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 acknowleges afterwards.

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:

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:

[Page 130] In what an exalted light does the above stanza place this great master of 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 smil'd, and wav'd her golden hair.’

The descriptions of joy, jealousy and revenge are ex­cellent, though not equally so; those of melancholy and chearfulness 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.