h an hawthorn shade.
But now dun clouds the welkin 'gan to streak;
And now down dropt the larks and ceased their strain:
They ceased, and with them ceased the shepherd swain."

In 1746 appeared a small volume of odes, fourteen in number, by Joseph
Warton, and another by William Collins.[10] The event is thus noticed by
Gray in a letter to Thomas Wharton: "Have you seen the works of two young
authors, a Mr. Warton and a Mr. Collins, both writers of odes? It is odd
enough, but each is the half of a considerable man, and one the
counterpart of the other. The first has but little invention, very
poetical choice of expression and a good ear. The second, a fine fancy,
modeled upon the antique, a bad ear, a great variety of words and images
with no choice at all. They both deserve to last some years, but will
not." Gray's critical acuteness is not altogether at fault in this
judgment, but half of his prophecy has failed, and his mention of Collins
is singularly inappreciative. The names of Collins and Gray are now
closely associated in literary history, but in life the two men were in
no way connected. Collins and the Wartons, on the other hand, were
personal friends. Joseph Warton and Collins had been schoolfellows at
Winchester, and it was at first intended that their odes, which were
issued in the same month (December), should be published in a volume
together. Warton's collection was immediately successful; but Collins'
was a failure, and the author, in his disappointment, burned the unsold
copies.

The odes of Warton which most nearly resemble Milton are "To Fancy," "To
Solitude," and "To the Nightingale," all in the eight-syllabled couplet.
A single passage will serve as a specimen of their quality:

"Me, Goddess, by the right hand lead
Sometimes through the yellow mead,
Where Joy and white-robed Peace resort
And Venus keeps her festive court:
Where Mirth and Youth each evening meet,
And lightly trip with nimble feet,
Nodding their lily-crowned heads;
Where Laughter rose-lip'd Hebe leads," etc.[11]

Collins' "Ode to Simplicity" is in the stanza of the "Nativity Ode," and
his beautiful "Ode to Evening," in the unrhymed Sapphics which Milton had
employed in his translation of Horace's "Ode to Pyrrha." There are
Miltonic reminiscences like "folding-star," "religious gleams," "play
with the tangles of her hair," and in the closing couplet of the "Ode to
Fear,"