the cause why blank verse has been successful in the one, and unacceptable in the other. While it pre sented 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 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 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 had met with no such advantages; for Mr. Collins, whose genius and judgment in harmony might have given it so powerful an effect, hath 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 mixed 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 foppery of rhyme;

"Now teach me, maid compos'd,

To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale,
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!"

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:

"For when thy folding-star arising shows

His pale circlet at his warning lamp

The fragrant hours and elves

Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreaths her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet

Prepare thy shadowy car."

In another we behold his strong bias to melancholy: "Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams."

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,

"That from the mountain's sides
Views wild and swelling floods;"

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

and marks o'er all Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil."

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; for 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 knowledge, 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 theory the Platonic doctrines may appear, it is certain that Platonism and Pyrrhonism are allied;

"Farewell the porch, whose roof is seen,
Arch'd with th' enlivening olive's green;
Where Science, prank'd in tissued vest,
By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest,
Come like a bride, so trim array'd,
To wed with Doubt in Plato's shade!"

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, 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 favourite doctrine, or to adhere to some adopted system; but when that enthusiasm, 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 unhospitable 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 knowledge, 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:

"Me too amidst thy band admit,

There where the young-ey'd healthful Wit,
(Whose jewels in his crisped hair

Are plac'd each other's beams to share,
Whom no delights from thee divide)

In laughter loos'd attends thy side."

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

"O Humour, thou whose name is known

To Britain's favour'd isle alone."

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 acknowledges afterwards.

"By old Miletus, &c.

By all you taught the Tuscan maids, &c."

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.

Ir 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 effects 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 :