Ode to Evening, Ode to Peace, The Manners. An Ode. The Paffions. An Ode for Mufie, Ode, written in the Year 1746, 81 An Epiftle to Sir Thomas Hanmer, on his MEMOIRS OF THE AUTH THERE HOR. HE enthusiasm of poetry, like that of religion, has frequently a powerful influence on the conduct of life, and either throws it into the retreat of uniform obfcurity, or marks it with irregularities that lead to mifery and difquiet. The gifts of imagination bring the heaviest talk upon the vigilance of reafon; and to bear thofe faculties with unerring rectitude, or invariable propriety, requires a degree of firmness and of cool attention, which doth not always attend the higher gifts of the mind. Yet, difficult as nature herself seems to have rendered the task of regularity to genius, it is the fupreme confolation of dulnefs and of folly, to point with gothic triumph to thofe exceffes, which are the overflowings of faculties they never enjoyed. Perfectly unconscious that they are indebted to their ftupidity for the confiftency of their conduct, they plume themselves on an imaginary virtue, which has its origin in what is really their difgrace.-Let fuch, if fuch dare approach the fhrine of COLLINS, withdraw to a respectful distance, and, fhould they behold the ruins of genius, or the weakness of an exalted mind, let them be taught to lament that nature has 9 |