mpass; an oversight which those who are accustomed
to poetical, or, indeed, to any other species of composition, know to be
very possible.

Nothing can be more beautifully conceived, or more pathetically
expressed, than the shepherd's apprehensions for his fair countrywomen,
exposed to the ravages of the invaders:

"In vain Circassia boasts her spicy groves,
For ever famed for pure and happy loves:
In vain she boasts her fairest of the fair,
Their eyes' blue languish, and their golden hair!
Those eyes in tears their fruitless grief shall send;
Those hairs the Tartar's cruel hand shall rend."

There is certainly some very powerful charm in the liquid melody of
sounds. The editor of these poems could never read or hear the following
verse repeated, without a degree of pleasure otherwise entirely
unaccountable:

"Their eyes' blue languish, and their golden hair."

Such are the Oriental Eclogues, which we leave with the same kind of
anxious pleasure we feel upon a temporary parting with a beloved
friend.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE ODES, DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL.

The genius of Collins was capable of every degree of excellence in lyric
poetry, and perfectly qualified for that high province of the muse.
Possessed of a native ear for all the varieties of harmony and
modulation, susceptible of the finest feelings of tenderness and
humanity, but, above all, carried away by that high enthusiasm which
gives to imagination its strongest colouring, he was at once capable of
soothing the ear with the melody of his numbers, of influencing the
passions by the force of his pathos, and of gratifying the fancy by the
luxury of description.

In consequence of these powers, but, more particularly, in consideration
of the last, he chose such subjects for his lyric essays as were most
favourable for the indulgence of description and allegory; where he
could exercise his powers in moral and personal painting; where he could
exert his invention in conferring new attributes on images or objects
already known, and described by a determinate number of characteristics;
where he might give an uncommon eclat to his figures, by placing them in
happier attitudes, or in more advantageous lights, and introduce new
forms from the moral and intellectual world into the society of
impersonated beings.

Such, no doubt, were the privileges which the poet expected, and such
were the advantages he derived from the descriptive a