[From the Vanity of Human Wishes.]

Let observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;
Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,
Where wavering man, betrayed by venturous pride,
To tread the dreary paths without a guide;
As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude,
Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good.
How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice,
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice.
How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed,
When vengeance listens to the fool's request.
Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart,
Each gift of nature, and each grace of art,
With fatal heat impetuous courage glows,
With fatal sweetness elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the speaker's powerful breath,
And restless fire precipitates on death.

But scarce observed, the knowing and the bold,
Fall in the general massacre of gold;
Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfined,
And crowds with crimes the records of mankind;
For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws,
For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws;
Wealth heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys,
The dangers gather as the treasures rise.

Let history tell where rival kings command, And dubious title shakes the maddened land; When statutes glean the refuse of the sword, How much more safe the vassal than the lord; Low skulks the hind beneath the rage of power, And leaves the wealthy traitor in the Tower, Untouched his cottage, and his slumbers sound, Though confiscation's vultures hover round.

*

*

Unnumbered suppliants crowd preferment's gate, Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great; Delusive fortune hears the incessant call, They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. On every stage, the foes of peace attend, Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their end. Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman's door Pours in the morning worshipper no more; For growing names the weekly scribbler lies, To growing wealth the dedicator flies; From every room descends the painted face, That hung the bright palladium of the place, And smoked in kitchens, or in auctions sold, To better features yields the frame of gold; For now no more we trace in every line Heroic worth, benevolence divine; The form distorted justifies the fall, And detestation rids the indignant wall.

But will not Britain hear the last appeal,

Sign her foes' doom, or guard her favourites' zeal! Through freedom's sons no more remonstrance rings, Degrading nobles and controlling kings;

And ask no questions but the price of votes;
With weekly libels and septennial ale,
Their wish is full to riot and to rail.

In full-blown dignity, see Wolsey stand,
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand:
To him the church, the realm, their powers consign;
Through him the rays of regal bounty shine;
Turned by his nod the stream of honour flows,
His smile alone security bestows:
Still to new heights his restless wishes tower;
Claim leads to claim, and power advances power;
Till conquest unresisted ceased to please,
And rights submitted, left him none to seize.
At length his sovereign frowns-the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate:
Where'er he turns he meets a stranger's eye,
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly;
Now drops at once the pride of awful state,
The golden canopy, the glittering plate,
The regal palace, the luxurious board,
The liveried army, and the menial lord.
With age, with cares, with maladies oppressed,
He seeks the refuge of monastic rest.

Grief aids disease, remembered folly stings,
And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings.

Speak thou, whose thoughts at humble peace repine,
Shall Wolsey's wealth, with Wolsey's end be thine?
Or liv'st thou now, with safer pride content,
The wisest Justice on the banks of Trent?
For why did Wolsey near the steeps of fate,
On weak foundations raise the enormous weight?
Why, but to sink beneath misfortune's blow,
With louder ruin to the gulfs below.

What gave great Villiers to the assassin's knife,
And fixed disease on Harley's closing life?
What murdered Wentworth, and what exiled Hyde,
By kings protected, and to kings allied?
What, but their wish indulged in courts to shine,
And power too great to keep, or to resign!

The festal blazes, the triumphal show,
The ravished standard, and the captive foe,
The senate's thanks, the gazettes pompous tale,
With force resistless o'er the brave prevail.
Such bribes the rapid Greek o'er Asia whirled,
For such the steady Romans shook the world;
For such in distant lands the Britons shine,
And stain with blood the Danube or the Rhine;
This power has praise, that virtue scarce can warm,
Till fame supplies the universal charm.
Yet reason frowns on war's unequal game,
Where wasted nations raise a single name,

And mortgaged states their grandsires wreaths regret,
From age to age in everlasting debt;

Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey
To rust on medals, or on stones decay.

On what foundations stands the warrior's pride,
How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide;
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,

No dangers fright him, and no labours tire;
O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain,
Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain.
No joys to him pacific sceptres yield,
War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;
Behold surrounding kings their power combine,
And one capitulate, and one resign;

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain ;
'Think nothing gained,' he cries, 'till nought remain,
On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,
And all be mine beneath the polar sky.'
The march begins in military state,

And nations on his eye suspended wait;
Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
And winter barricades the realms of frost;
He comes, nor want, nor cold, his course delay;
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day:

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.1 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?
Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,
No cries invoke the mercies of the skies?
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 chrace.
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

honoured his memory with an Ode, which is certainly one of the finest elegiac productions in the language. Among his friends was also Home, the author of Douglas,' to whom he addressed an Ode, which was found unfinished after his death, on the Superstitions of the Highlands. He loved to dwell on these dim and visionary objects, and the compliment he pays to Tasso, may be applied equally to himself

Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung. At this period, Collins seems to have contemplated a journey to Scotland

The time shall come when I perhaps may tread Your lowly glens o'erhung with spreading broom; Or o'er your stretching heaths by Fancy led; Or o'er your mountains creep in awful gloom! Then will I dress once more the faded flower, Where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade; Or crop from Teviotdale each lyric flower, And mourn on Yarrow's banks where Willy's laid. In the midst of the poet's difficulties and distresses, his uncle died and left him £2000; 'a sum,' says Johnson, which Collins could scarcely think exhaustible, and which he did not live to exhaust.' He repaid Millar the bookseller the loss sustained by the publication of his Odes;' and buying up the remaining copies, committed them all to the flames. He became still more irregular in his habits, and sank into a state of nervous imbecility. All hope and exertion had fled. Johnson met him one day, carrying with him as he travelled an English Testament. I have but one book,' said Collins, but it is the best. In his latter days he was tended by his sister in Chichester; but it was necessary at one time to confine him in a lunatic asylum. He used, when at liberty, to wander day and night among the aisles and cloisters of Chichester cathedral, accompanying the music with loud sobs and moans. Death at length came to his relief, and in 1756-at the early age of thirty-six, ten years after the publication of his immortal works-his troubled and melancholy career was terminated: it affords one of the most touching examples of accomplished youth and genius, linked to personal humiliation and calamity, that throws its lights and shades on our literary annals.

Collins, in the course of one generation, without any adventitious aid to bring them into notice, were acknowledged to be the best of their kind in the language. Silently and imperceptibly they had risen by their own buoyancy, and their power was felt by every reader who had any true poetic feeling.' This popularity seems still to be on the increase, though the want of human interest and of action in Collins's poetry prevent its being generally read. The Eclogues' are free from the occasional obscurity and remoteness of conception that in part rative language and descriptions, the simplicity and pervade the Odes,' and they charm by their figubeauty of their dialogues and sentiments, and their musical versification. The desert scene in Hassan, the Camel Driver, is a finished picture-impressive and even appalling in its reality. The Ode on the Passions, and that on Evening, are the finest of his lyrical works. The former is a magnificent gallery of allegorical paintings; and the poetical diction is equally rich with the conception. No poet has made more use of metaphors and personification. He has individualised even metaphysical pursuits, which he terms the shadowy tribes of Mind.' Pity is pres nted with eyes of dewy light' -a felicitous epithet; and Danger is described with the boldness and distinctness of sculpture

Danger, whose limbs of giant mould
What mortal eye can fixed behold?
Who stalks his round, a hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep.

Eclogue II-Hassan; or the Camel Driver.
Scene-The Desert. Time-Mid-day.
In silent horror, o'er the boundless waste,
The driver Hassan with his camels past;
One cruise of water on his back he bore,
And his light scrip contained a scanty store;
A fan of painted feathers in his hand,
To guard his shaded face from scorching sand.
The sultry sun had gained the middle sky,
And not a tree and not a herb was nigh;
The beasts with pain their dusty way pursue,
Shrill roared the winds, and dreary was the view!
With desperate sorrow wild, the affrighted man
Thrice sighed, thrice struck his breast, and thus began
'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!'
Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind,
The thirst or pinching hunger that I find!
Bethink thee, Hassan! where shall thirst assuage,
When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage?
Soon shall this scrip its precious load resign,
Then what but tears and hunger shall be thine?

Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear In all my griefs a more than equal share! Here, where no springs in murmurs break away, Or moss-crowned fountains mitigate the day, In vain ye hope the green delight to know, Which plains more blessed or verdant vales bestow, Here rocks alone and tasteless sands are found, And faint and sickly winds for ever howl around. 'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!' Cursed be the gold and silver which persuade Weak men to follow far fatiguing trade! The lily peace outshines the silver store, And life is dearer than the golden ore; Yet money tempts us o'er the desert brown, To every distant mart and wealthy town. Full oft we tempt the land, and oft the sea; And are we only yet repaid by thee t