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of the oriental eclogue that has furvived the ruins of time, a happiness for which it is, probably, more indebted to its facred character than to its intrinfick merit. Not that it is by any means deftitute of poetical excellence: like all the eastern poetry, it is bold, wild and unconnected in its figures, allufions and parts, and has all that graceful and magnificent daring which characterifes its metaphorical and comparative imagery.

IN confequence of these peculiarities, fo ill adapted to the frigid genius of the north, Mr. COLLINS could make but little ufe of it as a precedent for his oriental eclogues, and even in his third eclogue, where the fubject is of a fimilar nature, he has chosen rather to follow

the mode of the Doric and the Latian pastoral.

THE scenery and subjects then of the following eclogues alone are Oriental; the style and colouring are purely European; and, for this reason, the author's preface, in which he intimates that he had the originals from a merchant who traded to the Eaft, is omitted, as being now altogether fuperfluous.

WITH regard to the merit of these Eclogues, it may juftly be afferted, that in fimplicity of description and expreffion, in delicacy and foftnefs of numbers, and in natural and unaffected tenderness, they are not to be equalled by any thing of the paftoral kind in the English language.

ECLOGUE I.

HIS eclogue, which is entitled Selim, or

THIS

the Shepherd's Moral, as there is nothing dramatic in the subject, may be thought the leaft entertaining of the four: but it is, by no means, the leaft valuable. The moral precepts which the intelligent fhepherd delivers to his fellow-fwains and the virgins, their companions, are fuch as would infallibly promote the happiness of the pasto

ral life.

In imperfonating the private virtues, the poet has obferved great propriety, and has formed their genealogy with the most perfect judgment, when he reprefents them as the daughters of truth and wisdom.

The characteristics of modesty and chastity are extremely happy and peinturesque :

Come thou, whofe thoughts as limpid fprings

are clear,

To lead the train, fweet modefty appear
With thee be chastity, of all afraid,
Distrusting all, a wife suspicious maid;
Cold is her breast, like flowers that drink
the dew,

A filken veil conceals her from the view.

The two fimiles borrowed from rural objects are not only much in character, but perfectly natural and expreffive. There is, notwithftanding, this defect in the former, that it wants a peculiar propriety; for purity of thought may as well be applied to chastity as to modefty; and from this instance, as well as from a thousand more, we may see the necef

fity of diftinguishing, in characteristic poetry, every object by marks and attributes peculi arly its own.

Ir cannot be objected to this eclogue that it wants both those effential Criteria of the paftoral, love and the drama; for though it partakes not of the latter, the former still retains an interest in it, and that too very material, as it profeffedly confults the virtue and happinefs of the lover, while it informs what are the qualities

that must lead to love,