"Still is the toiling hand of Care; The panting herds repose: Yet hark, how through the peopled air The insect youth are on the wing, "To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of man : And they that creep, and they that fly, Alike the busy and the gay But flutter through life's little day, In Fortune's varying colors drest; Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, "Methinks I hear in accents low The sportive kind reply: 'Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, On hasty wings thy youth is flown, WILLIAM COLLINS had one of those natures that so often 1720-1756 form a poet: he had a head full of fancies, but an organization too delicate to bear the hard uses of the world. While in college he wrote a series of Oriental Eclogues, which he laughed at himself in later years, saying they might just as appropriately have been called. "Irish Eclogues." After this he wrote and published his Odes, which fell dead from the press. The unhappy poet, disregarded and poor, never recovered from this disappointment. He led a gloomy, morbid life for several years, often in debt, and sometimes in dissipation. Samuel Johnson (the great Dr. Johnson) tells us that once when he went to see the poet, a bailiff was lurking outside his lodgings, ready to arrest him for debt. Yet Collins was a man as profound in learning as he was rich in fancy. Thus the world often uses the men best able to serve it. In the midst of his distress an uncle left him a legacy of two thousand pounds. But it was too late. He showed his bitterness by buying the edition of his Odes which had been published, and putting it into the flames. Not long after, he became insane, so that he was obliged to be shut up in a madhouse. Death came mercifully when he was thirty-six years old, — ten years after he had published his volume of poetry. His Odes are on divers subjects, Pity, Fear, Liberty, Simplicity, etc. The one best known is the Ode to the Passions, which is in almost every poetical collection; that which I like best is on Evening, and I quote it for you. It is a very delicate and tender poem, like the hues of a soft sunset. In those days of artificial poetry there are few poems that can compare with this for natural grace; and some of the lines, as where he speaks of Evening with dewy fingers drawing "the gradual, dusky veil," remind one of Milton's early poems : ODE TO EVENING. If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, oh, pensive Eve, to soothe thy modest ear Thy springs and dying gales, O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed : Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat, His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain, Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return! For when thy folding star, arising, shows Who slept in buds the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, Whose walls more awful nod, By thy religious gleams. Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While Summer loves to sport While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; And rudely rends thy robes : So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And love thy favorite name." The Pleasures of the Imagination, by DR. MARK AKENSIDE, and The Minstrel, by DR. JAMES BEATTIE, 1721-1770 deserve at least a passing mention. The Pleasures of the Imagination is a blank verse poem from which we New York ibrary, Kingsbridge Branch 2933 Kingsbige could cull fine passages, although it is stiff, and dull to read all through. The Minstrel is in Spenserian measure; its hero, Edwin, a youth full of aspiration and good1735-1803 ness, is tutored by an old hermit, who discourses to him on all noble themes. Beattie also wrote that ballad of The Hermit whose opening lines are so familiar<< 'At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove." Beattie published his works as the last quarter of the century began. Before we enter upon a period full of events, I wish to go back a space and trace for you the history of the novel in the eighteenth century. XLIV. ON THE BIRTH OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL; RICHARDSON AND FIELDING. TH `HE novel, which in the present is the most widely read of any kind of book that issues from the printingpress, is really a plant of comparatively recent growth in literature. In my Talks thus far, I have been able to show you very few works of prose fiction. In the sixteenth century there were occasional long and rather tedious romances, among the best of which are Sidney's Arcadia and Lyly's Euphues. In the seventeenth century we have no great work that can be called a novel, unless we should reckon John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in the list. The nearest approach to the prose fiction of the present, previous to the middle of the eighteenth century, is found in De Foe's works, which are nearly all biographical relations, like Robinson Crusoe and Colonel Jack. I think, therefore, the birth of the modern novel of society, reflecting the life, manners, and conversation of the age, is usually dated from the middle of the eighteenth century, when Richardson and Fielding began to write. 1689-1761 The pioneer in the novel of sentiment, which has for its subject the various distresses and moving situations in the lives of a pair of lovers, is SAMUEL RICHARDSON. The first fifty years of his life seem to have been a slow preparation for the work which filled his later years. He was a delicate and rather shy boy, who sought the society of women and girls rather than of boys of his own age. He showed early an ability for letter-writing, and when a boy was largely employed by the young women of his acquaintance in writing their love-letters. In this way, no doubt, the style afterwards used in his novels - all of which are written in the form of letters was first formed. But notwithstanding his early experience with the pen, Richardson was not drawn from the ordinary pursuits of life by it. He was bred a printer, learned his trade thoroughly, and when he had served a seven years' apprenticeship married his master's daughter and went into business for himself, in the good old orthodox style of doing things. He was over fifty years old, in easy circumstances, living in a snug little villa, the fruit of his honest labors, when he began to write his first novel. He says that two publishers, business friends, whom he had often furnished with prefaces and other garnishes to the works he printed for them, asked him why he did not write some letters in the form of a novel, illustrating scenes in real life. They probably saw his talent in that direction, and thought that by means of it they might turn an honest penny for themselves and him. He took their advice, and his first famous novel, Pamela, was the result. Were we to read Pamela to-day, knowing nothing of its history, the excitement and delight it caused on its first appearance would be incredible. While he was writing it he began by reading a little to his wife and a young lady visitor; and after that he says they came every night to his study, saying, "Have you any more of Pamela, Mr. Richardson? We have come to have a little more of Pamela." On its publication the story took every woman's heart by |