Ye walls that echoed to his frantic moan,
Guard the due record of this grateful stone:
Strangers to him, enamour'd of his lays,
This fond memorial of his talents raise.
A voluntary subscription raised the monument to Collins. The genius of
Flaxman has thrown out on the eloquent marble all that fancy would
consecrate; the tomb is itself a poem.
There Collins is represented as sitting in a reclining posture, during
a lucid interval of his afflicting malady, with a calm and benign
aspect, as if seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the consolations
of the Gospel, which lie open before him, whilst his lyre, and "The
Ode on the Passions," as a scroll, are thrown together neglected on
the ground. Upon the pediment on the tablet are placed in relief two
female figures of LOVE and PITY, entwined each in the arms of the
other; the proper emblems of the genius of his poetry.
Langhorne, who gave an edition of Collins's poems with all the fervour
of a votary, made an observation not perfectly correct:--"It is
observable," he says, "that none of his poems bear the marks of an
amorous disposition; and that he is one of those few poets who have
sailed to Delphi without touching at Cythera. In the 'Ode to the
Passions,' _Love_ has been omitted." There, indeed, Love does not form
an important personage; yet, at the close, _Love_ makes his transient
appearance with _Joy_ and _Mirth_--"a gay fantastic round."
And, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.
It is certain, however, that Collins considered the amatory passion as
unfriendly to poetic originality; for he alludes to the whole race of
the Provencal poets, by accusing them of only employing
Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean.
Collins affected to slight the urchin; for he himself had been once in
love, and his wit has preserved the history of his passion; he was
attached to a young lady who was born the day before him, and who
seems not to have been very poetically tempered, for she did not
return his ardour. On that occasion he said "that he came into the
world _a day after the fair_."
Langhorne composed two sonnets, which seem only preserved in the
"Monthly Review," in which he was a writer, and where he probably
inserted them; they bear a particular reference to the misfortunes of
our poet. In one he represents Wisdom, in the form of Addison,
reclining in "the old and honoured shade of Magdalen," and thus
addressing
The poor shade of Collins, wandering by;
The tear stood trembling in his gentle eye,
With modest grief reluctant, while he said--
"Sweet bard, belov'd by every muse in vain!
With pow'rs, whose fineness wrought their own decay;
Ah! wherefore, thoughtless, didst thou yield the rein
To fancy's will, and chase the meteor ray?
Ah! why forget thy own Hyblaean strain,
Peace rules the breast, where Reason rules the day."
The last line is most happily applied; it is a verse by the
unfortunate bard himself, which heightens the contrast with his
forlorn state! Langhorne has feelingly painted the fatal indulgences
of such a character as Collins.
Of fancy's too prevailing power beware!
Oft has she bright on life's fair morning shone;
Oft seated Hope on Reason's sovereign throne,
Then closed the scene, in darkness and despair.
Of all her gifts, of all her powers possest,
Let not her flattery win thy youthful ear,
Nor vow long faith to such a various guest,
False at the last, tho' now perchance full dear;
The casual lover with her charms is blest,
But woe to them her magic bands that wear!
The criticism of Johnson on the poetry of Collins, that "as men are
often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may
sometimes extort praise when it gives little pleasure," might
almost have been furnished by the lumbering pen of old Dennis. But
Collins from the poetical never _extorts_ praise, for it is given
_spontaneously_; he is much _more loved_ than _esteemed_, for he
does not give _little pleasure_. Johnson, too, describes his
"lines as of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of
consonants." Even this verbal criticism, though it appeals to the
eye, and not to the ear, is false criticism, since Collins is
certainly the most musical of poets. How could that lyrist be harsh
in his diction, who almost draws tears from our eyes, while his
melodious lines and picturing epithets are remembered by his readers?
He is devoured with as much enthusiasm by one party as he is
imperfectly relished by the other.
Johnson has given two characters of this poet; the one composed at a
period when that great critic was still susceptible of the seduction
of the imagination; but even in this portrait, though some features of
the poet are impressively drawn, the likeness is incomplete, for there
is not even a slight indication of the chief feature in Collins's
genius, his tenderness and delicacy of emotion, and his fresh and
picturesque creative strokes. Nature had denied to Johnson's robust
intellect the perception of these poetic qualities. He was but a
stately ox in the fields of Parnassus, not the animal of nature. Many
years afterwards, during his poetical biography, that long Lent of
criticism, in which he mortified our poetical feeling by accommodating
his to the populace of critics--so faint were former recollections,
and so imperfect were even those feelings which once he seemed to have
possessed--that he could then do nothing but write on Collins with
much less warmth than he has written on Blackmore. Johnson is, indeed,
the first of critics, when his powerful logic investigates objects
submitted to reason; but great sense is not always combined with
delicacy of taste; and there is in poetry a province which Aristotle
himself may never have entered.