While horror fills the region vaft,

Rheumatic tortures Eurus brings,

Pregnant with agues flies the northern blaft,
And clouds drop quartans from their flagging wings.
Doft thou explore Sabrina's fountful fource,
Where huge Plinlimmon's hoary height ascends :
Then downward mark her vagrant course,

Till mix'd with clouds the landscape ends?
Doft thou revere the hallow'd foil

Where druids old fepulchred lie

Or up cold Snowden's craggy fummits toil,
And mufe on ancient favage liberty?
Ill fuit fuch walks with bleak autumnal air,
Say, can November yield the joys of May?
When Jove deforms the blafted year,
Can Wallia boast a chearful day?

The town expects thee.Hark, around,

New chariots rattle with awak'ning found,
And croud the levees, and befiege the court.
The patriot, kindling as his wars enfue,
Now fires his foul with liberty and fame,

Marshals his threat'ning tropes anew,
And gives his hoarded thunders aim.
Now feats their abfent lords deplore,
Neglected villas empty ftand,
Capacious Gro'venor gathers all its store,
And mighty London fwallows up the land.

See

See sportive Vanity her flights begin,
See new-blown Folly's plenteous harvests rise,
See mimick beauties dye their skin,
And harlots roll their venal eyes.
Fashions are fet, and fops return,

And young coquettes in arms appear;
Dreaming of conqueft, how their bosoms burn,
Trick'd in the new fantastry of the year.
Fly then away, nor fcorn to bear a part
In this gay scene of folly amply fpread:
Follies well us'd refine the heart,
And pleasures clear the ftudious head;
By grateful interchange of mirth

The toils of study sweeter grow,
As varying feafons recommend the earth,
Nor does Apollo always bend his bow.

AN

ΑΝ

EPISTLE

ADDRESS'D TO

Sir THOMAS HANMER,

On his EDITION of

SHAKESPEAR'S Works.

SIR,

WHI

By Mr. WILLIAM COLLINS.

HILE born to bring the Mufe's happier days,
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays:

While nurs'd by you fhe fees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwither'd o'er his honour'd tomb:

Excufe her doubts, if yet she fears to tell

What fecret transports in her bofom fwell:

With conscious awe fhe hears the critic's fame,

And blushing hides her wreath at Shakespear's name.

Hard

Hard was the lot those injur'd strains endur'd,
Unown'd by Science, and by years obfcur'd:
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing fighs confefs'd
A fixt despair in ev'ry tuneful breast.

Not with more grief th' afflicted swains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When ling'ring frofts the ruin'd feats invade
Where Peace reforted, and the Graces play'd.
Each rifing art by just gradation moves,
Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves:
The Muse alone unequal dealt her
And grac'd with noblest pomp her earliest stage.
Preferv'd thro' time, the speaking scenes impart
Each changeful wifh of Phædra's tortur'd heart:
Or paint the curse, that mark'd the *Theban's reign,
A bed incestuous, and a father flain.

rage,

With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow,

Trace the fad tale, and own another's woe.
To Rome remov'd, with wit secure to please,
The Comic fifters kept their native ease.
With jealous fear declining Greece beheld
Her own Menander's art almost excell'd!
But ev'ry Mufe effay'd to raise in vain
Some labour'd rival of her Tragic strain;
Ilyffus' laurels, tho' transferr'd with toil,

Droop'd their fair leaves, nor knew th' unfriendly foil.

VOL. IV.

E

* The Edipus of Sophocles.

As

As arts expir'd, refiftless Dulness rose;
Goths, priefts, or Vandals,-all were Learning's foes.
Till* Julius firft recall'd each exil'd maid,

And Cofmo own'd them in th' Etrurian fhade:
Then deeply fkill'd in love's engaging theme,
The foft Provencial pafs'd to Arno's stream:
With graceful ease the wanton lyre he ftrung,
Sweet flow'd the lays-but love was all he fung.
The gay description could not fail to move;
For, led by nature, all are friends to love.

But heav'n, ftill various in its works, decreed
The perfect boaft of time fhould laft fucceed.
The beauteous union must appear at length,
Of Tuscan fancy, and Athenian strength:
One greater Mufe Eliza's reign adorn,
And ev❜n a Shakespear to her fame be born!
Yet ah! fo bright her morning's op'ning ray,
In vain our Britain hop'd an equal day!
No fecond growth the western ifle could bear,
At once exhausted with too rich a year.
Too nicely Johnson knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almost lost in art.
Of fofter mold the gentle Fletcher came,
The next in order, as the next in name.
With pleas'd attention 'midft his scenes we find
Each glowing thought, that warms the female mind;

* Julius II. the immediate predeceffor of Leo X.

Each