dered still more remote from common apprehension by the figurative phrase in which they are clothed. All that is properly Lyric Poetry is of this kind. It depends for effect on the harmony of the verse, which must be modulated with the nicest care; and on a felicity of expression, rather than a fullness of thought. An Epic Poem may be compared to a piece of massy plate finely wrought; it is intrinsically valuable, though its value is much increased by the work bestowed upon it. An Ode, like a delicate piece of silver filligree, receives in a manner all its value from the art and curiosity of the workmanship. Hence Lyric Poetry will very seldom bear translation, which is a kind of melting-down of a Poem, and reducing it to the sterling value of the matter contained in it. Who can read the greatest part of the Odes of HORACE in any translation that has yet appeared? and who, but a native of France, reads, what a na

tive of France reads with rapture, the Odes of JEAN BAPTISTE ROUSSEAU?-Nor can this species of

Â!

Poetry, though most answering to SHAKESPEAR'S definition, as it gives to airy nothing alocal habitation and a name, ever be popular. The substratum, if I may so express myself, or subject matter, which every composition must have, is, in a Poem of this kind, so extremely slender, that it requires not only art, but a certain artifice of construction, to work it up into a beautiful piece; and to judge of or relish such a composition requires a practised ear, and a taste formed by elegant reading. MOLIERE, it is said, used to submit his Comedies to the criticism of an old woman; but the most beautiful Ode will only please those who, by being long conversant with the best models of Poetry in a polished age, have acquired a scientific and perhaps, in some degree, a factitious taste.

COLLINS, amongst our English Authors, has cultivated the Lyric Muse with peculiar felicity; his works are small in bulk, but highly finished; and have deservedly gained him a respectable rank amongst qur minor Poets. His characteristics are tenderness,

tinged with melancholy, beautiful imagery, à fondness for allegory and abstract ideas, purity and chasteness of sentiment, and an exquisite ear for harmony. In his endeavours to embody the fleeting forms of mind, and clothe them with correspondent imagery, he is not unfrequently obscure; but even when obscure, the reader, who possesses congenial feelings, is not ill pleased to find his faculties put upon the stretch in the search of those sublime ideas, which are apt, from their shadowy nature, to elude the grasp of the mind.

COLLINS has written but little, and is said, probably with truth, to have been inclined to indolence; but it is likewise true that the man of fine imagination who draws his productions from the stores of his own mind, ought to have large allowance made before this accusation is fixed upon him. A real Poet must always appear indolent to the man of the world. The alacrity and method of business is not to be expected in his occupation. His mind works in silence, and exhausts itself with the various emotions which

it cherishes, while to a common eye it appears fixed in stupid apathy. The Poet requires long intervals of ease and leisure; his imagination should be fed with novelty, and his ear soothed by praise. But it was not the fortune of COLLINS to meet with that notice which his productions have since obtained ; and after he had published his beautiful Odes, indignant and disappointed at the slowness of the sale; he is said to have burnt the remaining copies with his own hands. His end was unhappy; his mind, abandoned to inaction, preyed upon itself, and he fell into that malady most humiliating to a being possessed of rational powers.

The Epistle to Sir THOMAS HANMER seems to have been the first of our author's productions. As the subject is historical, rather than fanciful, it has less of the peculiar manner of COLLINS than any other of his Poems. In a slight, but neatly executed sketch, he traces the state of the Drama through the writers of other countries; and with a partiality,

in which the other nations of Europe. seem almost to acquiesce, gives the palm to the Englishman's idol, SHAKESPEAR, after whom,

"No second growth the western isle could bear, "At once exhausted with too rich a year.”

It is probable that our Poet, who was then a student at the university, knew nothing at that time of MASSINGER; otherwise, when he distinguishes SHAKESPEAR from FLETCHER, by the strength and masculine turn of his Drama, he could nothave omitted one who came so near him in those characteristic qualities. It is remarkable, that in this piece, the plan which has since been carried into execution through the spirit and liberality of Mr. BOYDELL, that of a gallery of paintings to illustrate the pieces of our great Dramatist, is here first proposed to the public. The subjects are particularly pointed out, Coriolanus reluctantly yielding

Rage grasps the sword, while pity melts the eyes."