was prompted by what he actually felt, for, like Tasso, he was, in some measure, a convert to the imagery he drew; and the beautiful lines in which he describes the Italian, might, with equal propriety, be applied to himself:

Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung.†

His powers, however, in exciting the tender emotions were superior to Tasso's, and, in pathetic simplicity, nothing, perhaps, can exceed his Odes to Pity, on the Death of Colonel Ross, on the Death of Thomson, and his Dirge in Cymbeline, which abound with

+ Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands.

*The beautiful and tender imagery in a stanza of this little dirge The Red-breast oft at evening hours

Shall kindly lend his little aid,

With hoary moss and gathered flowers,

To deck the ground where thou art laid.

has been so much a favorite with the poets that I am tempted to throw a few of their elegant descriptions into the form of a note. In the Anthołogia a somewhat similar idea is thus expressed in the Epitaph on Timon:

Ως επ' εμοι μη δ' ορνις εν ειαρι κεφον ερείδοι

Ixv@.

Nor print the feather'd warbler in the spring

His little footsteps lightly on my grave.

K

WAKEFIELD.

passages that irresistably make their way to the heart.

He who could feel, with so much sensibility, the sorrows and misfortunes of others, and could pour the plaint of woe with such harmonious skill, was soon himself to be an object of extreme compassion. His anxiety and distress,

Horace has a passage of still greater similitude with regard to the wood-pigeon:

Me fabulosæ Vulture in Appulo

Altricis extra limen Apuliæ,

Ludo fatigatumque somno,

Fronde nova puerum palumbes

Texere.

Carm. lib. iii. od. 4.

And we all remember the ballad of our infancy, and which, perhaps,` more immediately gave rise to succeeding imitations:

And Robin Red-breast carefully

Did cover them with leaves.

Shakspeare has in the following lines of his Cymbeline tenderly alluded to this bird, and which certainly suggested to Collins the stanza we have quoted:

-With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor

The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the Raddock would,

With charitable bill, bring thee all this;

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-gown thy corse.

rendered doubly poignant by a very splendid imagination, in the event produced unconquerable melancholy, and occasional fits of frenzy, and, under the pressure of these afflictions, which gradually encreased, perished one of the sweetest of our poets, and who ever approached the lyre with a mind glowing with inspiration.

On the monument lately erected to his memory at Chichester, and executed with

Drayton also thus notices it:

Covering with moss the dead's unclosed eye,

The little Red-breast teacheth charitie.

The Muse of Gray, too, has honoured it with a tribute worthy its tender assiduity:

There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found:
The Red-breast loves to build and warble there,

And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

And lastly Mr. Hole, in his epic romance of Arthur, or the Northern Enchantment, is not excelled by any of his predecessors in commemorating the charitable offices of this favorite:

-Now Cador's corse he view'd,
With hoary moss and faded leaves bestrew'd.
In days of old, not yet did we invade
The harmless tenants of the woodland shade,
The crimson-breasted warbler o'er the slain
While frequent rose his melancholy strain,
With pious care, 'twas all he could, supplied
The funeral rites, by ruthless man denied.

admirable taste by the ingenious Flaxman, the poet is represented as just recovered from a fit of frenzy, and in a calm and reclining posture, seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the consolations of the gospel, while his lyre, and one of the first of his poems lie neglected on the ground. Above are two beautiful figures of Love and Pity intwined in each others arms, and beneath, the following elegant and impressive epitaph from the pen of Mr. Hayley:

Ye who the merits of the dead revere
Who hold misfortune sacred, genius dear,
Regard this tomb, where Collins' hapless name
Solicits kindness with a double claim;

Tho' nature gave him, and tho' Science taught
The Fire of Fancy, and the reach of Thought,
Severely doom'd to penury's extreme,

He pass'd, in madd'ning pain, life's feverish dream;
While rays of genius only serv'd to shew
The thick'ning horror and exalt his woe.
Ye walls that echo'd to his frantic moan,
Guard the due records of this grateful stone;
Strangers to him, enamour'd of his lays,
This fond memorial to his talents raise.
For this the ashes of a bard require,

Who touch'd the tenderest notes of Pity's lyre;
Who join'd pure Faith to strong poetic powers,
Who, in reviving Reason's lucid hours,

Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest,
And rightly deem'd the book of God the best.

The same warm and eager expectations of immortality and fame, associated with similar fervor, and creative energy of genius, and accompanied with still greater ignorance of mankind, led the unhappy Chatterton to suicide. The fairy visions he had drawn were blasted by the hand of poverty and neglect, and conscious of the powers which animated his bosom, and despising that world which had failed to cherish them, and of which he had formed so flattering but so delusive an idea, in a paroxysm of wounded pride, and indignant contempt, beheld in the grave alone a shelter from affliction.

Oh, ill-starr'd Youth, whom Nature form'd in vain, With powers on Pindus' splendid height to reign! Oh dread example of what pangs await

Young genius struggling with maglignant fate! What could the Muse, who fir'd thy infant frame With the rich promise of poetic fame;

Who taught thy hand its magic art to hide,
And mock the insolence of Critic pride;
What could her unavailing cares oppose,
To save her darling from his desperate foes;