The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,
And shows his miseries in distant lands;
Condemned a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.
But did not chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound,
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;

He left the name, at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.*

All times their scenes of pompous woes afford,
From Persia's tyrant, to Bavaria's lord.
In gay hostility and barbarous pride,
With half mankind embattled at his side,
Great Xerxes came to seize the certain prey,
And starves exhausted regions in his way;
Attendant flattery counts his myriads o'er,
Till counted myriads soothe his pride no more;
Fresh praise is tried till madness fires the mind,
The waves he lashes, and enchains the wind;
New powers are claimed, new powers are still
bestowed,

Till rude resistance lops the spreading god;
The daring Greeks deride the martial show,
And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe;
The insulted sea with humbler thoughts he gains,
A single skiff to speed his flight remains;

The encumbered oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast
Through purple billows and a floating host.

Enlarge my life with multitude of days,

In health, and sickness, thus the suppliant prays;
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know,
That life protracted, is protracted wo.
Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy,
And shuts up all the passages of joy:

In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour,
The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flower;
With listless eyes the dotard views the store,
He views and wonders that they please no more;
Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines,
And luxury with sighs her slave resigns.
Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain,
Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain:

No sounds, alas! would touch the impervious ear,
Though dancing mountains witnessed Orpheus near;

To show how admirably Johnson has imitated this part of Juvenal, applying to the modern hero, Charles XII., what the Roman satirist directed against Hannibal, we subjoin a literal version of the words of Juvenal:-'Weigh Hannibalhow many pounds' weight will you find in that consummate general? This is the man whom Africa, washed by the Moorish sea, and stretching to the warm Nile, cannot contain. Again, in addition to Ethiopia, and other elephant-breeding countries, Spain is added to his empire. He jumps over the Pyrenees: in vain nature opposed to him the Alps with their snows; he severed the rocks, and rent the mountains with vinegar. Now he reaches Italy, yet he determines to go farther: "Nothing is done," says he, "unless with our Punic soldiers we break down their gates, and I plant my standard in the midst of Saburra (street). O what a figure, and what a fine picture he would make, the one-eyed general, carried by the Getulian brute! What, after all, was the end of it? Alas for glory! this very man is routed, and flies headlong into banishment, and there the great and wonderful commander sits like a poor dependent at the palace door of a king, till it please the Bithynian tyrant to awake. That life, which had so long disturbed all human affairs, was brought to an end, not by swords, nor stones, nor darts, but by that redresser of Canna, and avenger of the blood that had been shed-a ring. Go, madman; hurry over the savage Alps, to please the schoolboys, and become their subject of declamation!"'

1 It will be recollected that Hannibal, to prevent his falling into the hands of the Romans, swallowed poison, which he carried in a ring on his finger.

Nor lute nor lyre his feeble powers attend,
Nor sweeter music of a virtuous friend,
But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue,
Perversely grave, or positively wrong.

The still returning tale, and lingering jest,
Perplex the fawning niece, and pampered guest.
While growing hopes scarce awe the gathering

sneer,

And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear;

The watchful guests still hint the last offence,
The daughter's petulance, the son's expense,
Improve his heady rage with treacherous skill,
And mould his passions till they make his will.
Unnumbered maladies his joints invade,
Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade;
But unextinguished avarice still remains,
And dreaded losses aggravate his pains;
He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands,
His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands;
Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.

But grant the virtues of a temperate prime,
Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime;
An age that melts with unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away;
Whose peaceful day benevolence endears,
Whose night congratulating conscience cheers;
The general favourite as the general friend;
Such age there is, and who shall wish its end?

Yet even on this her load misfortune flings,
To press the weary minutes' flagging wings;
New sorrow rises as the day returns,
A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns.
Now kindred merit fills the sable bier,
Now lacerated friendship claims a tear.
Year chases year, decay pursues decay,
Still drops some joy from withering life away;
New forms arise, and different views engage,
Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage,
Till pitying nature signs the last release,
And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.

But few there are whom hours like these await,
Who set unclouded in the gulfs of fate.
From Lydia's monarch should the search descend,
By Solon cautioned to regard his end.
In life's last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise?
From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
Where, then, shall hope and fear their objects
find?

Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind?
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
No cries invoke the mercies of the skies?
Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,
Inquirer, cease; petitions yet remain,
Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
Safe in his power, whose eyes discern afar
The secret ambush of a specious prayer.
Implore his aid, in his decisions rest,
Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best.
Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires,
And strong devotion to the skies aspires,
Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resigned;
For love, which scarce collective man can fill;
For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill;
For faith, that, panting for a happier seat,
Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat:
These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain,
These goods he grants, who grants the power to gain;
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.

Prologue spoken by Mr Garrick, at the opening of the
Theatre in Drury Lane, in 1747.

When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes
First reared the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose;
Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting time toiled after him in vain:
His powerful strokes presiding truth impressed,
And unresisted passion stormed the breast.

Then Jonson came, instructed from the school,
To please in method, and invent by rule;
His studious patience and laborious art,
By regular approach essayed the heart:
Cold approbation gave the lingering bays,

For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise.
A mortal born, he met the general doom,
But left, like Egypt's kings, a lasting tomb.

The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame,
Nor wished for Jonson's art, or Shakspeare's flame;
Themselves they studied, as they felt they writ,
Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit.
Vice always found a sympathetic friend;
They pleased their age, and did not aim to mend.
Yet bards like these aspired to lasting praise,
And proudly hoped to pimp in future days:
Their cause was general, their supports were strong,
Their slaves were willing, and their reign was long;
Till shame regained the post that sense betrayed,
And virtue called oblivion to her aid.

Then crushed by rules, and weakened as refined,
For years the power of Tragedy declined:
From bard to bard the frigid caution crept,
Till declamation roared, whilst passion slept;
Yet still did virtue deign the stage to tread;
Philosophy remained, though nature fled.
But forced at length her ancient reign to quit,
She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of wit:
Exulting folly hailed the joyful day,
And Pantomime and song confirmed her sway.
But who the coming changes can presage,
And mark the future periods of the stage?
Perhaps, if skill could distant times explore,
New Behns, new D'Urfeys, yet remain in store;
Perhaps, where Lear has raved, and Hamlet died,
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride;

Perhaps (for who can guess the effects of chance?)
Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance.

Hard is his lot, that, here by fortune placed,
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
With every meteor of caprice must play,
And chase the new-blown bubble of the day.
Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice;
The drama's laws the drama's patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.
Then prompt no more the follies you decry,
As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die;
'Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence
Of rescued nature and reviving sense;

To chase the charms of sound, the pomp of show,
For useful mirth and solitary wo,
Bid Scenic Virtue form the rising age,
And Truth diffuse her radiance from the stage.

On the Death of Dr Robert Levett-1782.

Condemned to hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,

Our social comforts drop away.

Well tried through many a varying year, See Levett to the grave descend, Officious, innocent, sincere,

Of every friendless name the friend.

Yet still he fills affection's eye, Obscurely wise and coarsely kind; Nor, lettered arrogance, deny

Thy praise to merit unrefined.

When fainting nature called for aid,
And hovering death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy displayed

The power of art without the show.
In misery's darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless anguish poured his groan,
And lonely want retired to die.
No summons mocked by chill delay,
No petty gain disdained by pride;
The modest wants of every day

The toil of every day supplied.
His virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found

The single talent well employed.
The busy day-the peaceful night,
Unfelt, uncounted, glided by;

His frame was firm-his powers were bright,
Though now his eightieth year was nigh.
Then with no fiery throbbing pain,

No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.

WILLIAM COLLINS.

None of our poets have lived more under the 'skiey influences' of imagination than that exquisite but ill-fated bard, COLLINS. His works are imbued with a fine ethereal fancy and purity of taste; and though, like the poems of Gray, they are small in number and amount, they are rich in vivid imagery and beautiful description. His history is brief but painful. William Collins was the son of a respectable tradesman, a hatter, at Chichester, where he was born on Christmas day, 1720. In his Ode to Pity,' the poet alludes to his native plains,' which are bounded by the South Down hills, and to the small river Arun, one of the streams of Sussex, near which Otway, also, was born.

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old Ilissus' distant side?

Deserted stream and mute!

Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains,
And Echo 'midst my native plains

Been soothed by Pity's lute.

Collins received a learned education, in which he was aided by pecuniary assistance from his uncle, Colonel Martin, stationed with his regiment in Flanders. While at Magdalen college, Oxford, he published his Oriental Eclogues, which, to the disgrace of the university and the literary public, were wholly neglected. Meeting shortly afterwards with some repulse or indignity at the university, he suddenly quitted Oxford, and repaired to London, full of high hopes and magnificent schemes. His learning was extensive, but he wanted steadiness of purpose and application. Two years afterwards, in 1746, he published his Odes, which were purchased by Millar the bookseller, but failed to attract attention. Collins sunk under the disappointment, and became still more indolent and dissipated. The fine promise of his youth, his ardour and ambition, melted away under this baneful and depressing influence. Once again, however, he strung his lyre with poetical enthusiasm. Thomson died in 1747: Collins seems to have known and loved him, and he

Ah! why was ruin so attractive made,
Or why fond man so easily betrayed?
Why heed we not, while mad we haste along,
The gentle voice of Peace, or Pleasure's song?
Or wherefore think the flowery mountain's side,
The fountain's murmurs, and the valley's pride;
Why think we these less pleasing to behold
Than dreary deserts, if they lead to gold?
'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'

O cease, my fears! All frantic as I go,
When thought creates unnumbered scenes of wo,
What if the lion in his rage I meet!
Oft in the dust I view his printed feet;
And fearful oft, when Day's declining light
Yields her pale empire to the mourner Night,
By hunger roused he scours the groaning plain,
Gaunt wolves and sullen tigers in his train;
Before them Death with shrieks directs their way,
Fills the wild yell, and leads them to their prey.
'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'

At that dead hour the silent asp shall creep,
If aught of rest I find, upon my sleep;
Or some swoln serpent twist his scales around,
And wake to anguish with a burning wound.
Thrice happy they, the wise contented poor,
From lust of wealth and dread of death secure!
They tempt no deserts, and no griefs they find;
Peace rules the day where reason rules the mind.
'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'
O hapless youth! for she thy love hath won,
The tender Zara! will be most undone.
Big swelled my heart, and owned the powerful maid,
When fast she dropped her tears, as thus she said:
Farewell the youth whom sighs could not detain,

Whom Zara's breaking heart implored in vain!
Yet as thou go'st, may every blast arise
Weak and unfelt as these rejected sighs;
Safe o'er the wild no perils may'st thou see,

No griefs endure, nor weep, false youth! like me.'
'O! let me safely to the fair return,
Say with a kiss, she must not, shall not mourn;
O! let me teach my heart to lose its fears,
Recalled by Wisdom's voice and Zara's tears.'

He said, and called on Heaven to bless the day
When back to Schiraz' walls he bent his way.

Ode Written in the Year 1746.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest?
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod,
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.

Ode to Evening.

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

Oh nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat, With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut

That from the mountain's side
Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light:

While sallow autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,
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 favourite name!

Ode on the Passions.

When Music, heavenly maid! was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell;
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round,
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, for madness ruled the hour,
Would prove his own expressive power.
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords, bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
Even at the sound himself had made.
Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire
In lightnings owned his secret stings;
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair,
Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, oh Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all the song;
And where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden
hair:

And longer had she sung, but with a frown
Revenge impatient rose;

He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,
And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of wo;
And ever and anon he beat

The double drum with furious heat;

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity at his side

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed;
Sad proof of thy distressful state;

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed, And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired,

And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;
And clashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels joined the sound;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole:

Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay,
Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.

But oh! how altered was its sprightly tone,
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,
Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,
The hunter's call, to Fawn and Dryad known;
The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen,
Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green;
Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

Oh Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid,
Why, goddess! why to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that loved Athenian bower,
You learn an all-commanding power;
Thy mimic soul, oh nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders in that godlike age
Fill thy recording sister's page;
"Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
Even all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound.
Oh! bid your vain endeavours cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state;
Confirm the tales her sons relate.

Ode to Liberty.

STROPHE.

Who shall awake the Spartan fife,
And call in solemn sounds to life,
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue.

At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding,
Applauding freedom loved of old to view?
What new Alceus, fancy-blessed,

Shall sing the sword, in myrtles dressed,

At wisdom's shrine a while its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renowned?)

Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,
It leaped in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound!
Oh goddess, in that feeling hour,

When most its sounds would court thy ears,
Let not my shell's misguided power,
E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.

No, freedom, no; I will not tell

How Rome, before thy face,

With heaviest sound, a giant statue fell,
Pushed by a wild and artless race

From off its wide ambitious base,

When time his northern sons of spoil awoke,

And all the blended work of strength and grace, With many a rude repeated stroke,

And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke.

EPODE.

Yet, even where'er the least appeared,
The admiring world thy hand revered;
Still 'midst the scattered states around,
Some remnants of her strength were found;

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed;
But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing:
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth, a gay fantastic round,
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound:
And he, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

How wondrous rose her perfect form;
How in the great, the laboured whole,
Each mighty master poured his soul;
For sunny Florence, seat of art,
Beneath her vines preserved a part,
Till they, whom science loved to name,
(Oh, who could fear it?) quenched her flame.
And, lo, a humbler relic laid

In jealous Pisa's olive shade!

See small Marino joins the theme,
Though least, not last in thy esteem;
Strike, louder strike the ennobling strings
To those whose merchants' sons were kings;
To him, who, decked with pearly pride,
In Adria weds his green-haired bride:

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