CONTENTS.
| Page | |
| Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas | [v] |
| An Essay on the Genius and Poems of Collins, by Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart. | [xliii] |
| ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. | |
| Selim; or, The Shepherd’s Moral | [3] |
| Hassan; or, The Camel Driver | [7] |
| Abra; Or, The Georgian Sultana | [11] |
| Agib And Secander; or, The Fugitives | [15] |
| ODES. | |
| To Pity | [21] |
| To Fear | [24] |
| To Simplicity | [28] |
| On the Poetical Character | [31] |
| Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746 | [34] |
| To Mercy | [35] |
| To Liberty | [37] |
| To a Lady, On the Death of Colonel Ross, written in May, 1745 | [44] |
| To Evening | [48] |
| To Peace | [52] |
| The Manners | [54] |
| The Passions | [58] |
| On the Death of Thomson | [63] |
| On the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland; considered as the Subject of Poetry; inscribed to Mr. John Home | [66] |
| An Epistle, addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, on his Edition of Shakespeare’s Works | [78] |
| Dirge in Cymbeline, sung by Guiderus and Arviragus over Fidele, supposed to be dead | [87] |
| Verses written on a Paper which contained a Piece of Bride-cake, given to the Author by a Lady | [89] |
| To Miss Aurelia C–––R, on her Weeping at her Sister’s Wedding | [91] |
| Sonnet | [91] |
| Song. The Sentiments borrowed from Shakespeare | [92] |
| On our late Taste in Music | [94] |
| Observations on the Oriental Eclogues, by Dr. Langhorne | [101] |
| Observations on the Odes, by the same | [118] |
MEMOIR OF COLLINS.
| “A Bard, Who touched the tenderest notes of Pity’s lyre.” Hayley. |
No one can have reflected on the history of genius without being impressed with a melancholy feeling at the obscurity in which the lives of the poets of our country are, with few exceptions, involved. That they lived, and wrote, and died, comprises nearly all that is known of many, and, of others, the few facts which are preserved are often records of privations, or sufferings, or errors. The cause of the lamentable deficiency of materials for literary biography may, without difficulty, be explained. The lives of authors are seldom marked by events of an unusual character; and they rarely leave behind them the most interesting work a writer could compose, and which would embrace nearly all the important facts in his career, a “History of his Books,” containing vi the motives which produced them, the various incidents respecting their progress, and a faithful account of the bitter disappointment, whether the object was fame or profit, or both, which, in most instances, is the result of his labours. Various motives deter men from writing such a volume; for, though quacks and charlatans readily become auto-biographers, and fill their prefaces with their personal concerns, real merit shrinks from such disgusting egotism, and, flying to the opposite extreme, leaves no authentic notice of their struggles, its hopes, or its disappointments. Nor is the history of writers to be expected from their contemporaries; because few will venture to anticipate the judgment of posterity, and mankind are usually so isolated in self, and so jealous of others, that neither time nor inclination admits of their becoming the Boswells of all those whose productions excite admiration.
If these remarks be true, surprise cannot be felt, though there is abundance of cause for regret, that little is known of a poet whose merits were not appreciated until after his decease: whose powers were destroyed by a distressing malady at a period of life when literary exertions begin to be rewarded and stimulated by popular applause.
For the facts contained in the following Memoir of Collins, the author is indebted to the researches of others, as his own, which were vii very extensive, were rewarded by trifling discoveries. Dr. Johnson’s Life is well known; but the praise of collecting every particular which industry and zeal could glean belongs to the Rev. Alexander Dyce, the result of whose inquiries may be found in his notes to Johnson’s Memoir, prefixed to an edition of Collins’s works which he lately edited. Those notices are now, for the first time, wove into a Memoir of Collins; and in leaving it to another to erect a fabric out of the materials which he has collected instead of being himself the architect, Mr. Dyce has evinced a degree of modesty which those who know him must greatly lament.