Wilder'd and tossing through distempered dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves; when every muse,

And every blooming pleasure, wait without,

To bless the wildly-devious morning walk?

Like others of the illustrious brotherhood, our poet lived for the present, and seldom indulged any anxiety about the future; the consequence was, that his purse was not unfrequently exhausted. On a certain occasion he was surprised by an unexpected visit from Quin, the comedian, whom he had known only by reputation. Puzzled to think what could have induced such a visit, he pressed the question, when Quin replied, "Why, I will tell you. Soon after I had read your Seasons, I took it into my head, that as I had something to leave behind me when I died, I would make my will. Among the rest of my legatees, I set down the author of the Seasons for a hundred pounds: and this day, hearing that you were in this house, I thought I might as well have the pleasure of paying the money myself as order my executors to pay it, when perhaps you might have less need of it; and this, Mr. Thomson, is the object of my visit."

The "poet of the Seasons" did much to improve the poetic taste of his day. Campbell justly remarks: "Habits of early admiration teach us all to look back upon this poet as the favourite companion of our solitary walks, and as the author who has first, or chiefly, reflected back to our minds a heightened and refined sensation of the delight which rural scenery affords us." Thomson's sketches are Claude-like,—full of pastoral beauty and sunshine, Here is a beautiful burst of song, descriptive of summer dawn :—

The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews,

At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east :
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,

White break the clouds away. With quicken'd step
Brown night retires. Young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;

And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps, awkward; while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning, gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy;

And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells;
And from the crowded fold, in order, drives
His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.

After describing the traveller lost in the snow, the tinues :

:

In vain for him the officious wife prepares

The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm;

In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On
The deadly winter seizes, shuts up sense,
And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows a stiffened corpse,

poet
thus con-

every nerve

Stretched out, and bleaching on the northern blast!

As long as human passions shall animate or disturb the world, COLLINS's masterly Ode will doubtless be perused and prized: yet the gifted author suffered from neglect and poverty, and ultimately became the victim of mental disease. Some evil genius seemed to have presided over his destiny, for in early life he fell in love with. a fair damsel, who was born a day before himself, and she refused to respond to his appeals. "Your case is a hard one," said a friend. “It is so indeed,” replied Collins, "for I came into the world a day after the fair." When at Magdalen College, Oxford, he was entertaining a few friends at tea. Hampton, the translator of Polybius, unexpectedly entered, and finding no one disposed to dispute with him, deliberately upset the tea-table, scattering its contents across the room. Collins, although constitutionally somewhat choleric, was so utterly confounded at the unexpected demonstration, that he took no notice of the aggressor, but calmly began picking up the broken pieces of china, mildly quoting this line of Horace :—

"Invenias etiam disjecti membra poeta."

Now for his masterly Ode:

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,
Possest 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 woe!

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.

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, dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound ;

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
Round an holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,

In hollow murmurs died away.