she complies with the wishes of the monarch; but, like Proserpine in the valley of Enna, looks back

with fond regret on the peaceful scenes of her happy life;

"Oft as she went, she turn'd her backward view, "And bade that crook and bleating flock adieu."

A pretty incident is added, that she makes an annual visit to the place of her former habitation; and persuades her royal lover to accompany her in a rural festival, in which they lay aside the pomp of the court for the garb and simple fare of the surrounding shepherds. As the narrative is put into the mouth of another Georgian maiden, who relates it among her companions, there should have been some return to her at the close of the piece, without which we are apt to forget that Emyra and not the Poet is the narrator.

AGIB AND SECANDER is in every respect the most finished of these Pastorals. It is the only one which is in dialogue. It is full of lively description, and mixes the sweetness of the Pastoral with the

keener sensations of the Drama or the Epic. The opening is natural, and immediately interests us in the fate of the speakers. The subject is new, interesting, and strictly belonging to the life of shepherds in those countries, which are unhappily exposed to the incursions of bordering tribes of freebooters. Two Circassian shepherds flying from the sudden attack of a horde of Tartars, pursue their journey by midnight for some time, "Where wildering fear and desperate sorrow led;" after a while, one of them, exhausted by the length of the way, intreats the other to stop, on which a dialogue ensues, descriptive of the miseries of the inhabitants. At length they descry the approach of the enemy.

66 loud along the vale was heard

"A shriller shriek, and nearer fires appear'd." This naturally puts an end to the dialogue; they rise and continue their flight. Circassia has the reputation of producing the most beautiful women of the east. This gives the Poet a favorable opportu

nity of contrasting the soft scenes of innocence, love and pleasure, with the affecting ones of wasted harvests, citron groves destroyed, villages in flames, and all the destructive ravages of predatory war. The two following lines are uncommonly musical, and have an indescribable charm in their versification,

"In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair,

"Their eyes' blue languish and their golden hair.” He adds

"Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand shall rend." With equal truth of penciling does he mark "the villain Arab prowling for his prey."

Some feeble or unmeaning epithets might be pointed out in this and in the other Eclogues; and other marks may be perceived of a juvenile poet; but on the whole, they may be considered as spirited sketches of a new kind of Pastoral, which is susceptible of unlimited variety and improvement.

The reputation of COLLINS is chiefly built upon his Odes. These were published in the year 1746. They are intitled ODES DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLE

GORICAL.

Allegorical they certainly are, so far

as that term may be applied to the personification of abstract ideas, though figurative would perhaps have been a more proper term: but they do not seem to have an equal claim to the epithet descriptive; by which we generally understand a delineation of some portion of real nature. Few of the Odes of COLLINS are of this cast, which indeed does not belong so properly to the nature of the Ode; but they are in the high spirit of pure Poetry.

Their

beginning is commonly abrupt and bold; often a

spirited apostrophe:

"Thou to whom the world unknown

"With all its shadowy shapes is shewn!"

Sometimes it is in the interrogative;

"Who shall awake the Spartan fife?"

The language is highly figurative, sometimes obscure! the measure is various; the versification in general easy and flowing, and in many passages wrought up to all the harmony the English language is capable of exhibiting.

The first of these compositions, TO PITY, is chiefly remarkable for the sweetness and tenderness congenial to the subject. Pity is represented as being sent into the world to bind the wounds and sooth the sorrows of man,

"When first Distress with dagger keen

"Broke forth to waste his destin'd scene."

The eyes of dewy light is an expression peculiarly happy; but the personification of Distress does not seem equally accurate, since Distress is commonly used for the sensation felt by the person afflicted, not for misfortune itself. The mention of OTWAY, born as well as COLLINS, near the Arun, probably suggested to his melancholy and indignant mind an analogy in their fates, which he has forborne to express. They both of them were the objects of pity, from that circumstance in which a liberal mind would least wish to become so, pecuniary distress. The idea of building a temple to Pity, on the walls of which should be painted a variety of

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