s; for, though they are not without merit, it is very doubtful if
they would have lived, even till this time, but for the Odes with which
they are published, notwithstanding the zeal of Dr. Langhorne, who is in
raptures over passages the excellence of which is not very conspicuous.
To give a preference to the Verses to Sir Thomas Hanmer, of which all
that Langhorne could find to say is, "that the versification is easy and
genteel, and the allusions always poetical," and especially to the Ode
addressed to Mr. Home, on the superstition of the Highlands, over the
Eclogues, may possibly be deemed to betray a corrupt taste, since it is
an admission which is, it is believed, made for the first time. In that
Ode, among a hundred other beautiful verses, the following address to
Tasso has seldom been surpassed:

"Prevailing Poet! whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung!
Hence, at each sound, imagination glows!
Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!
Hence, his warm lay with softest sweetness flows!
Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear,
And fills the impassion'd heart, and wins the harmonious ear!"

The picture of the swain drowned in a fen, and the grief of his widow,
possessing every charm which simplicity and tenderness can bestow, and
give to that Ode claims to admiration which, if admitted, have been
hitherto conceded in silence.

From the coincidence between Collins's love of, and addresses to, Music,
his residence at Oxford, and from internal evidence, Some Verses on Our
Late Taste in Music, which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for
1740, and there said to be "by a Gentleman of Oxford," are printed in
this edition of Collins's works, not, however, as positively his, but as
being so likely to be written by him, as to justify their being brought
to the notice of his readers.

A poet, and not to have felt the tender passion, would be a creature
which the world has never yet seen. It is said that Collins was
extremely fond of a young lady who was born the day before him, and who
did not return his affection; and that, punning upon his misfortune, he
observed, "he came into the world a day after the fair." The lady is
supposed to have been Miss Elizabeth Goddard, the intended bride of
Colonel Ross, to whom he addressed his beautiful Ode on the death of
that Officer at the battle of Fontenoy, at which time she was on a visit
to the family of the Earl of Tanke