and seduce. But his health continually declined, and he grew more and more burthensome to himself.

To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose, is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort · praise when it gives little pleasure.

Mr. Collins' first production is added here from the "Poetical Calendar:"

TO MISS AURELIA C - R,

ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING.

CEASE, fair Aurelia! cease to mourn!
Lament not Hannah's happy state;

You may be happy in your turn,
And seize the treasure you regret.

With Love united Hymen stands,

And softly whispers to your charms; "Meet but your lover in my bands,

You'll find your sister in his arms."

A monument of the most exquisite workmanship has been erected to Collins in the Chichester Cathedral, by public subscription. He is finely represented as just recovered from a wild fit of phrensy, to which he was unhappily subject, 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 entwined in each other's arms; while beneath is the following inscription:

THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY A VOLUNTARY SUBSCRIPTION
IN HONOR OF WILLIAM COLLINS

WHO WAS BORN IN THIS CITY MDCCXXI

AND DIED IN A HOUSE ADJOINING TO THE CLOYSTERS

OF THIS CHURCH MDCCLVI

The whole was executed by the ingenious Flaxman, at
that time lately returned from Rome; and if any thing can
equal the expressive sweetness of the sculpture, it is the
following most excellent epitaph, written by Mr. Hayley:
Ye who the merits of the dead revere,
Who hold misfortune's 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 fev'rish dream,
While rays of genius only serv'd to show
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 tend'rest 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.

B

ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.