Full in the passage of the vale, above, A sable, silent, solemn forest stood; Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow. A pleasing land of drowsy-head1 it was, The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease, The doors, that knew no shrill alarming bell, So that each spacious room was one full-swelling bed. (1) Drowsy-head-or drowsy-hed, as Spenser spells it-drowsiness. (2) Villain-perhaps from the Latin vilis, mean, contemptible, though some derive it from villanus, a countryman-in the original sense, a farm-servant, or, as here, a servant in general. And everywhere huge covered tables stood, Fair ranged the dishes rose, and thick the glasses played. The rooms with costly tapestry were hung, Poured forth at large the sweetly-tortured heart; Or, sighing tender passion, swelled the gale, And taught charmed Echo to resound their smart, While flocks, woods, streams, around, repose and peace impart. Those pleased the most, where, by a cunning hand, What time Dan1 Abraham left the Chaldee land, Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls, (1) Dan-or Don, a corruption of the Latin dominus, a lord—a title of respect and honour, equivalent to, Sir. Whate'er Lorraine' light-touched with softening hue, Or savage Rosa2 dashed, or learned Poussin3 drew. Each sound, too, here to languishment inclined, At distance rising, oft by small degrees, A certain music, never known before, Ah, me! what hand can touch the string so fine? Such sweet, such sad, such solemn airs divine, Now rising love they fanned; now pleasing dole They breathed, in tender musings, through the heart; (1) Lorraine-Claude Lorraine, generally called Claude, an eminent French landscape painter, whose main characteristic was, perhaps, the "softening hue" cast over his pictures, which fuses down all inequality and roughness, and leaves only the graceful and beautiful behind. (2) Savage Rosa-Salvator Rosa, an Italian painter, famed for depicting the wild and the terrible in nature. (3) Learned Poussin-Nicholas Poussin, a very distinguished French painter, whose profound acquaintance with the principles of his art justly claims for him the epithet" learned." (4) A certain music, &c.-Here follows a description of the Æolian harp. (5) Diapason-See note 2, p. 159. (6) Dole-melancholy. Such the gay splendour, the luxurious state Held their bright court, where was of ladies store;1 And music lent new gladness to the morning air. Near the pavilions where we slept, still ran Yet the least entrance found they none at all; COLLINS. PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-William Collins was born in 1721, at Chichester. His early education at Winchester school, under Dr. Burton, prepared him for the collegiate course which he commenced in 1740, at Oxford. In 1743 or 1744 he came to London, "a literary adventurer," says Dr. Johnson, "with many projects in his head, and very little money in his pocket." Indolence and irresolution paralysed his eminent powers, and often reduced him to a pitiable state of helplessness and want. He was, moreover, disappointed in the reception given by the public to the works which he did finish and send forth, and morbidly judged that he had "fallen on evil tongues and evil times." The result of these combined causes was his relapse into a state of imbecility, occasionally interrupted by paroxysms of frenzy, which lasted until his death, in 1756, at his native town. (1) Of ladies store-An expression borrowed from Milton. See p. 309. (2) Mell or mall-from the Latin malleus, a hammer-to bruise, crash. PRINCIPAL WORKS-Collins' poems are all of moderate compass and of the lyrical form. The most admired are the odes entitled, "To Fear," "On the Poetical Character," "To Liberty," "To Evening," "The Passions," "On the Death of Thomson," and "On the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland." CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE.-"Collins had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens." A cloud of obscurity sometimes rests on his highest conceptions, arising from the fineness of his associations, and the daring sweep of his allusions; but the shadow is transitory, and interferes very little with the light of his imagery, or the warmth of his feeling. The absence of even this speck of mysticism from his 'Ode on the Passions' is perhaps the happy circumstance that secured its unbounded popularity. "His genius loved to breathe rather in the preternatural and ideal element of poetry, than in the atmosphere of imitation, which lies closest to real life and his notions of poetical excellence, whatever vows he might address to the manners, were still tending to the vast, the undefinable, and the abstract. Certainly, however, he carried sensibility and tenderness into the highest regions of abstracted thought: his enthusiasm spreads a glow even amongst the shadowy tribes of mind,' and his allegory is as sensible to the heart as it is visible to the fancy."2 (1) Dr. Johnson. "Lives of the Poets." |