There Collins is represented as sitting in a reclining posture, during a lucid interval of his afflicting malady, with a calm and benign aspect, as if seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the consolations of the Gospel, which lie open before him, whilst his lyre, and “The Ode on the Passions,” as a scroll, are thrown together neglected on the ground. Upon the pediment on the tablet are placed in relief two female figures of Love and Pity, entwined each in the arms of the other; the proper emblems of the genius of his poetry.
Langhorne, who gave an edition of Collins’s poems with all the fervour of a votary, made an observation not perfectly correct:—“It is observable,” he says, “that none of his poems bear the marks of an amorous disposition; and that he is one of those few poets who have sailed to Delphi without touching at Cythera. In the ‘Ode to the Passions,’ Love has been omitted.” There, indeed, Love does not form an important personage; yet, at the close, Love makes his transient appearance with Joy and Mirth—“a gay fantastic round.”
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And, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings. |
It is certain, however, that Collins considered the amatory passion as unfriendly to poetic originality; for he alludes to the whole race of the Provençal poets, by accusing them of only employing
| Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean. |
Collins affected to slight the urchin; for he himself had been once in love, and his wit has preserved the history of his passion; he was attached to a young lady who was born the day before him, and who seems not to have been very poetically tempered, for she did not return his ardour. On that occasion he said “that he came into the world a day after the fair.”
Langhorne composed two sonnets, which seem only preserved in the “Monthly Review,” in which he was a writer, and where he probably inserted them; they bear a particular reference to the misfortunes of our poet. In one he represents Wisdom, in the form of Addison, reclining in “the old and honoured shade of Magdalen,” and thus addressing
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The poor shade of Collins, wandering by; The tear stood trembling in his gentle eye, With modest grief reluctant, while he said— “Sweet bard, belov’d by every muse in vain! With pow’rs, whose fineness wrought their own decay; Ah! wherefore, thoughtless, didst thou yield the rein To fancy’s will, and chase the meteor ray? Ah! why forget thy own Hyblæan strain, Peace rules the breast, where Reason rules the day.” |
The last line is most happily applied; it is a verse by the unfortunate bard himself, which heightens the contrast with his forlorn state! Langhorne has feelingly painted the fatal indulgences of such a character as Collins.