that of a lion, would make no fcruple of fubftituting, in letters, the fymbols for the ideas they had been used to represent. HERE we plainly see the origin of allegorical expreffion, that it arofe from the ashes of hieroglyphics; and if to the fame cause we should refer that figurative boldness of ftyle and imagery which diftinguish the oriental writings, we fhall, perhaps, conclude more justly, than if we should impute it to the fuperior grandeur of eastern genius. FROM the fame fource with the verbal, we are to derive the fentimental allegory, which is nothing more than a continuation of the metaphorical or symbolical expreffion of the feveral agents in an action, or the different objects in a scene. THE THE latter moft peculiarly comes under the denomination of allegorical imagery; and in this fpecies of allegory we include the imperfonation of paffions, affections, virtues and vices &c. on account of which, principally, the following odes were properly termed by their author, allegorical. WITH refpect to the utility of this figurative writing, the fame arguments that have been advanced in favour of descriptive poetry, will be of weight likewise here. It is, indeed, from impersonation, or, as it is commonly termed, perfonification, that poetical description borrows its chief powers and graces. Without the aid of this, moral and intellectural painting would be flat and unanimated, and even the scenery of material objects would be dull without the introduction of fictitious life, K THESE THESE Obfervations will be molt effectually illuftrated by the fublime and beautiful odes that occafioned them; in those it will appear how happily this allegorical painting, may be executed by the genuine powers of poetical genius, and they will not fail to prove its force and utility by paffing through the imagination to the heart, ODE :..:. ODE TO PITY Y Pella's Bard, a magic name, BY By all the griefs his thought could frame, Receive my humble rite: Long, Pity, let the nations view Thy fky-worn robes of tenderest blue, The propriety of invoking Pity through the mediation of Euripides is obvious.—That admirable poet had the keys of all the tender paffions, and, therefore, could not but stand in the highest esteem with a writer of Mr. COLLINS's fenfibility.-He did, indeed, admire him as much as MILTON profeffedly did, and probably for the fame reasons; but we do not find that he has copied him so closely as the last mentioned poet has fometimes done, and particularly in the opening of SamfonAgonistes, which is an evident imitation of the following paffage in the ΦΟΙΝΙΣΣΑΙ. Η ε παροιθε, θυγατες, ὡς τυφλῷ ποδι εμον, A& III. Sc. I. The "eyes of dewy light" is one of the happieft ftrokes of imagination, and may be rank ed among those expreffions which give us back the image of the mind. Wild ARUN too has heard thy ftrains, Been footh'd with Pity's lute. There firft the wren thy myrtles fhed Suffex, in which county the Arun is a small river, had the honour of giving birth to OTWAY |