"MY DEAR SIR, -I have yet to thank you for the very great pleasure I received "Among the poets whom I have happened from your Observations on the Criminal Law to know, I have been struck in more than of England. On every point which you have one instance, with the unaccountable disparity there touched upon, your reasonings carried between their general talents, and the occa- complete conviction to my mind; and howsional inspirations of their more favored moever unsuccessful they may have been in acments. But all the faculties of Burn's mind complishing your object in Parliament, I am were as far as I could judge, equally vigor- satisfied that they must have produced a very ous; and his predilection for poetry was strong impression on public opinion. I hope rather the result of his own enthusiastic and that nothing will discourage you from the impassioned temper, than of a genius exclu- prosecution of your arduous undertaking, in sively adapted to that species of composition. which you cannot fail to be seconded by the From his conversation, I should have pro- good wishes of every man of common hunounced him to be fitted to excel in what- manity, whose understanding is not altoever walk of ambition he had chosen to ex-gether blinded by professional or by political prejudices.

From The Athenæum. figures, the speech, the glow, glory, and gor

The Poetical Works of William Collins.geousness of the East. It was otherwise (Bell & Daldy).

with Collins. He, too, read,—read dry, dusty, priggish, and " ingenious Mr. Salmon,"and he retained so little of what was Asiatio in his imagination, that he himself called his eclogues Irish eclogues.

THE title-page of this attractive volume makes no promise of a biography, but we are bound to state that what Mr. Moy Thomas, the Editor, modestly styles a "Memoir," is in reality a biography of considera- The " Eclogues were not published till ble merit, both for its agreeable style, and its after Collins had entered Magdalen College additional details of hitherto unknown pas- as a demy. From 1741 to 1744, the period sages in the career of a man whose struggles of his Oxford residence, he wrote a little, and whose fate render him next in interest to studied a little, took a B.A. degree, indulged Chatterton. Mr. Thomas' " Memoir opens in a good deal of lotus-eating, and kept up with a correction, and places the date of the his acquaintance with his early friends the poet's birth, at Chichester, "on Christmas Wartons, with Hampton and Whitehead, and Day, 1721." Johnson's "Life" gives the Gilbert White, the delightful historian of date of the birth exactly one year earlier; Selborne, from whose pen, as it now appears, but Mr. Thomas shows that the error arose came the interesting account of Collins pubfrom forgetting that the date of Collins' bap-lished in the Gentlemen's Magazine under tism in the church register, "1721, 1 Janua- the signature "V." He repaired, now fathry," referred to the ecclesiastical year ending on the 24th of March. The hatters son and future poet was, in fact, christened on what we should call New Year's Day, 1722.

erless and motherless, to a military uncle in Flanders, who pronounced him too indolent even for the army. The uncle here referred to was Lieut.-Col. Edmund Martin, as stated by Johnson. Poor Collins, too indolent for the army, then turned towards the Church, only to be turned from it, so easily are indolent people led away from their own purposes, by the famous inventor of "Hardham's Mixture," the well-to-do snuff shopkeeper, in Fleet Street.

Thereupon followed that brief career of some dozen years, which is so delicately touched upon by Johnson, who barely hints at the faults of his friend, while he insists on his virtues, weeps over his struggles, apologizes for his short-comings, emblazons his merits, and criticizes him with a glorious impartiality and unquestionable truth. Of all that the literary struggler-half-starved today, hard-drinking on the morrow, feasting, fasting, toiling, idling, revelling, repenting, running after princes, or hiding from bailiffs

Johnson passes from Collins' birth to his school career at Winchester; but Mr. Thomas notices the tradition that his hero was previously at the Prebendal School, in his native town; and he also records the fact of his having been intended for the Church. At Winchester he had as humbly born, and a still more humbly connected lad than himself for a schoolfellow, Whitehead; and also Joseph Warton and Hampton,-all bearing names subsequently known to fame. The head-master of the period was Dr. Burton, who had portraits taken of his favorite gentleman-pupils; but the boys named above were mere foundation boys, and the Doctor would not condescend to hang their counterfeit presentments on his walls. The portrait of Collins, at the age of fourteen, prefixed to this volume, if it be a vera effigies, shows that the boy was a remarkably handsome—of all that Collins wrote ere his active ingentleman-like fellow. He was already a writer of verses; and three years later he wrote his "Oriental Eclogues," a work in which there is nothing Eastern but the proper names. Of local color there is not the slightest tint. When Moore sat down to read books on the Eastern subjects, in order to qualify himself for "Lalla Rookh," the snows of a Derbyshire winter could not drive from his mind's eye the roses, the scents, the landscape hues, the scenery, the

tellect made wreck, before death mercifully laid his finger on him, his "Odes" will be the longest remembered. Within the memory of the most of us, his "Ode on the Passions" was a favorite piece recited by actors on their benefit nights. In this speciality, it beat "Bucks, have at ye all!" which was equally a favorite with a public, who perhaps did not so much appreciate the language of Collins as the acting of the player who embodied each passion, and in the presence of

an eager and delighted "half-price" just | coarse, and who had probably only patronadded to the earlier audience, staggered ized men of letters as a ground of distinction across the stage in Fear; or looked like from the unlettered character of the King, his father, quarrelled with his friend Lyttel scathing Anger, or hung his head in Despair, or waved the imaginary golden hair of Hope, to Thomson, Mallet, and West were meanly ton, the patron of Thomson. The pensions or assumed the withering scowl of impatient withdrawn, and any hope which Collins may Revenge, or the downcast gaze of dejected have had of favor vanished. A greater Pity, or, in short, called down the thunders trouble befel them. In August, 1748, Thomof the house. The "Ode on the Passions" son caught a fever and died suddenly, and is a grand picture; but grand as it is, it will Collins quitted Richmond. Soon afterwards never work the exquisite charm wrought on he painted that tender and beautiful tribute the mind by the rhymeless "Ode to Even- of Thomson,' which he inscribed to Lyttel to the poet's memory, the Ode on the Death ing," one of the most graceful, soft, tender, ton, and published, in folio, in June of the airy pieces that ever fell from the pen or following year." heart of a poet

"Collins' Odes [says Mr. Thomas] have always been the favorite of poets; and they won for him, perhaps, even then, the praises he prized most. He formed an acquaintance with Thomson, and soon after took a lodging at Richmond, where Thomson resided, in the midst of that little knot of men of genius who enjoyed the precarious patronage of Frederick Prince of Wales. Mallet, and Quinn, and Armstrong, and Collins's publisher, Millar, were of that roystering company who were accustomed to hold jovial meetings at the Castle,' until long after sober hours. Thomson appears to have been very intimate with Collins. He informed him that he took the hint of his Seasons from the titles to the four Pastorals of Pope. Warton was introduced by Colins to Thomson, who discussed learnedly' with him on the Greek tragedies. Early in 1748, Thomson published the Castle of Indolence,' his last and most poetical work, the opening of which contained, avowedly, sketches of his associates. Among these is a portrait for which no satisfactory claim has been established, and which may well have been intended for Collins, who is described by Langhorne as being of "a fixed, sedate aspect," and whose habit of indulging in splendid projects must have been notorious among his friends:

"Of all the gentle tenants of the place,

There was a man of special grave remark;
A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face,
Pensive, not sad, in thought involved, not
dark.

Of the “Oriental Eclogues," Mr. Thomas thus speaks:

66

They have much of the rich and peculiar diction of Collins. He is said, on more than one authority, to have expressed his dissatisfaction with them, by calling them his Irish Eclogues:' but in this he no doubt simply referred to some remarkable blunders in his first edition. By a fiction in the preface, the Eclogues are stated to have been written in Persian by Abdallah, a native of Tauris; but before the poet had reached the end of his first Eclogue, he had so far forgotten his assumed character as to write the line: "When sweet and oderous, like an eastern bride;'

and again:

Altogether, Mr. Thomas ranks Collins high, and gives good reasons for most of his praise. On the death of Collins he remarks, adding another correction of Johnson's erroneous chronology:

"He died at Chichester, in the arms of his sister, on the 12th of June, 1759, and in the thirty-ninth year of his age. Such,' says Johnson, was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.' The world from which he had retired had already forgotten him. The neglected author of the "Persian Eclogues," says Goldsmith, in his Enquiry into the State of Learning,' which, however inaccurate, excel any in our language, is still alive; happy if insensible of The raise of Goldsmith had not then the our neglect, not raging at our ingratitude.'

1759."

value in men's eyes which it afterwards pos- Andrew, at Chichester, on the 15th of June, sessed but it is doubtful if Collins ever read this token of his future fame. Goldsmith's 'Essay' was not published until April, 1759 -two months only before Collins's decease. No newspaper or magazine of the time records the poet's death: so little trace had his later years left in the minds of his most intimate friends, that Johnson, who consulted with the Wartons, when writing his Memoir of Collins,' describes his death as having taken place in 1756, three years before the fact. He was buried in the Church of St.

As an editor, Mr. Thomas has done his work excellently; and the text of Collins has had all his care and respect. In this circumstance also, this volume contrasts favorably with the old Aldine editions of English poets, that of Young especially, which abounds with absurd misprints. The correctness of Mr. Thomas's edition of Collins renders us impatient for Mr. Bruce's “Cowper " and Mr. Thoms's "Pope."

A GERMAN KITCHEN.-One morning, being | blame of negligence and untidiness of the Engup unusually early, and having mistaken the lish mistress is often laid on the shoulders of hour, I made a sortie from my room to see how her cook, who would have been a good, and the world was getting on, and why Yettchen clean, and trustworthy servant, had her emhad not brought me my coffee; for I had for-ployer only performed her share of duty, by gotten to wind up my watch, and had, there- keeping her up to a diligent performance of her fore, no clue for discovering the hour of the task, and encouraging her by approval, when day. I knocked gently at the door of the room commendation was deserved. I will not go so adjoining my own. All was still; so, receiv- far as to say that these people are consistently ing no answer, I ventured to raise the latch, clean; but I never saw an exception, in the and peeped in. It was the kitchen. Nobody case of culinary utensils or kitchen apparatus. was to be seen; so I advanced a step or two, But I shall now have to relate a contradiction for the purpose of making discoveries as to to this statement, on one occasion, by saying any peculiarities in domestic economy or bouse- that, having peeped into everything in the hold arrangements. The stove was placed in neighborhood of the stove, I went towards the one corner of the room, and resembled a bright further end of the apartment, when I perceived steel table; it was circular, and about three feet a pair of dark eyes staring at me out of the and a-half in diameter. In this were four or great chest. I uttered an Oh!" and started, five holes, made to receive different-sized copper when the head was raised, having a close, vessels, with covers, and a kettle of the same knitted night-cap on, and the smiling face of material, for water. The fuel was laid into this Yettchen greeted me, as she made a sign to me stove underneath, and thus the whole apparatus to be quiet. I then perceived that she was lying was heated, with little expense of coal, cinders in her bed, which was made in a large, deep or coke, either of which are in frequent use. chest, which, when the lid was down, served as The arrangement for cooking, with its beauti- the kitchen table, during the day. Before I had fully bright stove and stewpans, free from all recovered from my astonishment, she had appearance of dust and blacks, looked quite a jumped into the middle of the boarded floor, ladylike business; and no wonder that the Ger- in her blue print night-dress-the material which, man ladies occupy themselves with the direct- I afterwards found was frequently used for ing and overlooking the dressing of their din-night gear by very respectable people, both for ners. Soups and vegetables are stewed in these dainty saucepans, and the roasting, or braten, as they call it, is only performed by placing the meat or poultry in the bottom of one of them, with sufficient butter to prevent its burning. It remains thus until the underside is a nice brown, when it is turned and basted, and so on, until each part is well dressed. I saw, some time after, a brace of partridges cooked in this manner, and they looked quite as tempting as when roasted before the fire. The mistress' constant, presence in these kitchens has a wonderful and almost fascinating effect on the cleanliness, and state of excellent neatness and preservation, in which everything is found in their kitchens-a matter worthy of imitation at home, where the

themselves and their children, because it saved washing. Yettchen's bed consisted of loose straw in a sacking, a wadded colored old quilt next it, and a plumeau, or feather bed, as a covering; and, besides the colored pillow, there was nothing more-no sheets, no blankets-in fact, nothing white, or which could show use, was to be seen. As the girl got out of it, so she shut it up, until she should again seek repose within its narrow precincts. I observed two strong looking springs fixed into the wall behind the chest, which tightly held back the lid of the box when in use, lest the story of the Old Oak Chest should be enacted over again, in the person of poor Yettchen.-Sibella Jones.