PREFACE. OME variations having been introduced, by the editor of this volume, into the text of the "Ode to Evening," and the "Ode to a Lady on the Death of Col. Ross," it may be necessary here to explain his authority for so doing. The "Ode to Evening" first appeared in the little volume of Collins's Odes, published by Millar in December, 1746. The Ode on the death of Col. Ross (first printed in "Dodsley's Museum," in June of that year), was also inserted in the volume referred to. Collins never republished his Odes in an independent form; but these two poems, with considerable variations, were subsequently inserted in the second edition of " Dodsley's Collection," published in 1748. Such variations could not have been introduced by Dodsley without authority; or without calling forth a protest from the author. It has, moreover, been remarked by a recent writer,* that the "Ode to Evening" was reprinted in Collins's lifetime by his intimate friend, Thomas Warton, in the "Union," and that all the variations alluded to were there adopted. It is, therefore, impossible to doubt the authority of Dodsley; although all editors of Collins, as pointed out by the writer alluded to, have hitherto printed from a text arbitrarily com * Athenæum, January 5, 1856. |