The Poetical Works of William Collins; With a MemoirCollins, William
General
The Poetical Works of William Collins; With a Memoir
Collins, William
Poetry
That innocence, and native simplicity of manners, which, in the first
eclogue, was allowed to constitute the happiness of love, is here
beautifully described in its effects. The sultan of Persia marries a
Georgian shepherdess, and finds in her embraces that genuine felicity
which unperverted nature alone can bestow. The most natural and
beautiful parts of this eclogue are those where the fair sultana refers
with so much pleasure to her pastoral amusements, and those scenes of
happy innocence in which she had passed her early years; particularly
when, upon her first departure,
"Oft as she went, she backward turned her view,
And bade that crook and bleating flock adieu."
This picture of amiable simplicity reminds one of that passage where
Proserpine, when carried off by Pluto, regrets the loss of the flowers
she has been gathering:
"Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remissis:
Tantaque simplicitas puerilibus adfuit annis,
Hæc quoque virgineum movit jactura dolorem."
ECLOGUE IV.
The beautiful but unfortunate country where the scene of this pathetic
eclogue is laid, had been recently torn in pieces by the depredations of
its savage neighbours, when Mr. Collins so affectingly described its
misfortunes. This ingenious man had not only a pencil to portray, but a
heart to feel for the miseries of mankind; and it is with the utmost
tenderness and humanity he enters into the narrative of Circassia's
ruin, while he realizes the scene, and brings the present drama before
us. Of every circumstance that could possibly contribute to the tender
effect this pastoral was designed to produce, the poet has availed
himself with the utmost art and address. Thus he prepares the heart to
pity the distresses of Circassia, by representing it as the scene of the
happiest love:
"In fair Circassia, where, to love inclined,
Each swain was blest, for every maid was kind."
To give the circumstance of the dialogue a more affecting solemnity, he
makes the time midnight, and describes the two shepherds in the very
act of flight from the destruction that swept over their country:
"Sad o'er the dews, two brother shepherds fled,
Where wildering fear and desperate sorrow led."
There is a beauty and propriety in the epithet wildering, which strikes
us more forcibly, the more we consider it.
The opening of the dialogue is equally happy, natural, and unaffected;
when one of the shepherds, weary and overcome with the fatigue of
flight, calls upon his companion to review the length of way they had
passed. This is certainly painting from nature, and the thoughts,
however obvious, or destitute of refinement, are perfectly in character.
But as the closest pursuit of nature is the surest way to excellence in
general, and to sublimity in particular, in poetical description, so we
find that this simple suggestion of the shepherd is not unattended with
magnificence. There is a grandeur and variety in the landscape he
describes:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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