years in the family of Sir John Hartopp, at Stoke Newington. Here he was chosen (1698) assistantminister by an Independent congregation, of which four years after he succeeded to the full charge; but bad health soon rendered him unfit for the performance of the heavy labours thus imposed upon him, and in his turn he required the assistance of a joint-pastor. His health continuing to decline, Watts was received in 1712 into the house of a benevolent gentleman of his neighbourhood, Sir Thomas Abney of Abney Park, where he spent all the remainder of his life-thirty-six years. The death of Sir Thomas Abney, eight years after he went to reside with him, made no change in these agreeable arrangements, as the same benevolent patronage was extended to him by the widow, who outlived him a year. While in this retirement, he preached occasionally, but gave the most of his time to study. His treatises on Logic and on the Improvement of the Mind are still highly prized for their cogency of argument and felicity of illustration. Watts also wrote several theological works and volumes of sermons. poetry consists almost wholly of devotional hymns, which, by their simplicity, their unaffected ardour, and their imagery, powerfully arrest the attention of children, and are never forgotten in mature life. In infancy we learn the hymns of Watts, as part of maternal instruction, and in youth his moral and logical treatises impart the germs of correct reasoning and virtuous self-government. The life of this good and useful man terminated on the 25th of November 1748. The Rose. How fair is the rose! what a beautiful flower, The glory of April and May! But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day. Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast, Above all the flowers of the field; His When its leaves are all dead, and its fine colours lost, Still how sweet a perfume it will yield! So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, Though they bloom and look gay like the rose ; Then I'll not be proud of my youth nor my beauty, The Hebrew Bard. Softly the tuneful shepherd leads His ensigns lighten round the sky, Ten thousand cherubs wait his course, But who those frowns of wrath can draw, He spake; the cleaving waters fled, In heaps the frighted billows stand, Here camps, with wide-embattled force, Lo! the great poet shifts the scene, A Summer Evening. How fine has the day been, how bright was the sun, Just such is the Christian; his course he begins, But when he comes nearer to finish his race, EDWARD MOORE. The success of Gay's Fables suggested a volume of Fables for the Female Sex, published in 1744 by EDWARD MOORE (1712–1757). Moore was a native of Abingdon, in Berkshire, son of a dissenting clergyman. He was for some years engaged in the business of a linen-draper, but adopted literature as a more congenial profession. He wrote several plays, and was editor of the series of essays entitled The World. Chesterfield, whom Moore complimented highly in a poem called The Trial of Selim the Persian, wrote no less than twenty-four essays for The World, and interested himself warmly in the fortunes of the amiable poet. The Fables of Moore rank next to those of Gay, but are inferior to them both in choice of subject and in poetical merit. Goldsmith thought that justice had not been done to Moore as a poet: 'It was upon his Fables he [Moore] founded his reputation, but they are by no means his best production. His tragedy of The Gamester is certainly better, and some of his verses are finished with greater care. The following little pastoral has a fine vein of sentiment versified with ease and elegance : The Happy Marriage. How blest has my time been, what joys have I known, Through walks grown with woodbines, as often we stray, Around us our boys and girls frolic and play: How pleasing their sport is! The wanton ones see, To try her sweet temper, ofttimes am I seen, What though on her cheeks the rose loses its hue, Ye shepherds so gay, who make love to ensnare It is an interesting and singular fact in literary history that Moore died while the last number of the collected edition of his periodical, The World, which describes the imaginary death of the author, was passing through the press. WILLIAM OLDYS. Thine's a summer, mine no more, Though repeated to threescore ; ROBERT DODSLEY. ROBERT DODSLEY (1703-1764) was an able and spirited publisher of his day, the friend of literature and of literary men. He projected the Annual Register, in which Burke was engaged, and he was the first to collect and republish the Old English Plays. His Collection of Poems by Several Hands, in six volumes (1758), is a valuable repertory of the minor and short poems of that period. Dodsley wrote an excellent little moral treatise, The Economy of Human Life, which was attributed to Lord Chesterfield; and he was author of some dramatic pieces and poetical effusions. He was always attached to literature, and this, aided by his excellent conduct, raised him from the low condition of a livery-servant, to be one of the most influential and respectable men of the times in which he lived. Pope assisted him with £100 to commence business. Song-The Parting Kiss. Till we meet, shall pant for you. Yet, yet weep not so, my love, Let me kiss that falling tear; All my soul will still be here. All my soul, and all my heart, WILLIAM COLLINS. None of our poets has 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 WILLIAM OLDYS (1696-1761) was a zealous literary antiquary, and Norroy King-at-arms. He wrote a life of Raleigh, and assisted every author or bookseller who required a leaf from his volum-history is brief but painful. William Collins was inous collections. His obscure diligence amassed various interesting particulars of literary history. The following exquisite little Anacreontic was from the pen of Oldys, who occasionally indulged in deep potations of ale, for which he was caricatured by his friend and brother-antiquary, Grose: the son of a respectable tradesman, a hatter, at But wherefore need I wander wide Deserted stream and mute! Collins received a learned education, first as a scholar on the foundation of Winchester College (January 1733), and afterwards as a Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, at which he took his degree of B.A. in November 1743. He quitted the college abruptly, and afterwards visited his maternal uncle, Colonel Martyn, at that time with his regiment in Flanders. On his return to England, Collins intended entering the church, but he soon abandoned this design, and applied himself to literature. While at college he published his Persian Eclogues, afterwards republished with the title of Oriental Eclogues, and next year (1743) his Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his Edition of Shakspeare. Collins, as Johnson remarks, 'had many projects in his head.' He planned several tragedies, and issued Proposals for a History of the Revival of Learning, a work which he never accomplished. He was full of high hopes and magnificent schemes. His learning was extensive, but he wanted steadiness of purpose and application. 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 1748 Collins-who resided some time at Richmond-knew and loved him, and his latest and best editor, Mr W. Moy Thomas, conjectures that Thomson has sketched his friend in one of the stanzas of the Castle of Indolence: * Of all the gentle tenants of the place, When Thomson died, Collins quitted Richmond, and he honoured the memory of his brother-poet 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 At this period, Collins seems to have contemplated a journey to Scotland: The time shall come when I perhaps may tread In the midst of the poet's difficulties and distresses, in 1749 his uncle died, and left him about £2000; 'a sum,' says Johnson, which Collins could scarcely think exhaustible, and which he did not live to exhaust.' He sank into a state of nervous imbecility. All hope and exertion had * Collins's Poetical Works-Aldine Poets, 1858. 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. 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. After five years passed in this melancholy condition, death at length came to his relief, and in 1759-in the thirty-ninth year of his age-his troubled and melancholy career was terminated: it affords one of the most touching examples of accomplished youth and genius, linked to personal calamity, that throws its lights and shades on our literary annals. Southey has remarked, that, though utterly neglected on their first appearance, the Odes of 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 prevents its being generally read. The Eclogues are free from the occasional obscurity and remoteness of conception that in part pervade the Odes, and they charm by their figurative language and descriptions, the simplicity and beauty 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 presented 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 Eclogue II-Hassan; or the Camel-driver. In silent horror, o'er the boundless waste, 'Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, 'Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind, 'Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, 'Cursed be the gold and silver which persuade Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, 'O cease, my fears! All frantic as I go, Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, 'At that dead hour the silent asp shall creep, Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day, 'O hapless youth! for she thy love hath won, The tender Zara! will be most undone. Big swelled my heart, and owned the powerful maid, Say with a kiss, she must not, shall not mourn; He said, and called on Heaven to bless the day When back to Schiraz' walls he bent his way. Ode written in the Beginning of the Year 1746. By fairy hands their knell is rung, Ode to Evening. If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, Thy springs, and dying gales; O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat, His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, To breathe some softened strain, Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale, For when thy folding-star arising shews And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake But when chill blustering winds, or driving rain, That from the mountain's side And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires; The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, So long, sure found beneath the sylvan shed, The Passions, an Ode for Music." When Music, heavenly maid, was young, 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 With woful measures wan Despair, But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair, Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing: While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round, Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound: And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings. O Music! sphere-descended maid, Dirge in Cymbeline. Sung by GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS over FIDELE, supposed to be dead. To fair Fidele's grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring |