have written verses have not
been great poets. Were Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Spenser, Shakespeare,
Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Burns, bad men? We know that Milton's character
was great and holy, whatever were his politics: and who could be more
virtuous than Gray, Beattie, Cowper, and Kirke White? And have we not
virtuous poets among the living,--men whose native splendour and
intellectual culture have almost purified them into spirits? Let us
never cease to meditate on the dejected inspiration, which could pour
forth such strains as these:

"With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And from her wild sequester'd seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
And, dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measures stole,
Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay
Round a holy calm diffusing,
Love of peace and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away."

There are those who will think the praises thus bestowed upon Collins
extravagant. It is now sixty years since I became familiar with him;
and I still think of him with unabated admiration. When the calm
judgment of age confirms the passion of youth and boyhood, we cannot be
much mistaken in the merit we ascribe to him who is the object of it.

S. E. B.

ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.

WRITTEN ORIGINALLY FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE LADIES OF TAURIS.

AND NOW TRANSLATED.

----Ubi primus equis Oriens adflavit anhelis.
VIRG.

The First Edition was entitled, "Persian Eclogues, written originally
for the Entertainment of the Ladies of Tauris. And now first translated,
&c.

Quod si non hic tantus fructus ostenderetur, et si ex his studiis
delectatio sola peteretur; tamen, ut opinor, hanc animi
remissionem humanissimam ac liberalissimam judicaretis.

_CIC. pro Arch. Poeta._"

PREFACE.

It is with the writings of mankind, in some measure, as with their
complexions or their dress; each nation hath a peculiarity in all these,
to distinguish it from the rest of the world.

The gravity of the Spaniard, and the levity of the Frenchman, are as
evident in all their productions as in their persons themselves; and the
style of my countrymen is as naturally strong and nervous, as that of an
Arabian or Persian is rich and figurative.