Date guishing excellencies of such pieces as bewail departed friendship, or beauty, he was an almost unequalled master. He knew perfectly to exhibit fuch circumftances, peculiar to the objects, as awaken the influences of pity; and while, from his own great sensibility, he felt what he wrote, he naturally addressed himself to the feelings of others. To read fuch lines as the following, all beautiful and tender as they are, without corresponding emotions of pity, is furely impoffible: "The tender thought on thee fhall dwell, Each lonely scene shall thee reftore, For thee the tear be duly fhed; Belov'd, till life can charm no more; And mourn'd, 'till Pity's felf be dead." The Ode on the Death of Thomfon feems to have been written in an excurfion to Richmond by water. The rural fcenery has a proper effect in an ode to the memory of a poet, much of whose merit lay in descriptions of the fame kind, and the appellations of "Druid," and "meek Nature's child," are happily characteristic. For the better understanding of this ode, it is neceffary to remember, that Mr. Thomfon lies buried in the church of Richmond, CON Dirge in Cymbeline. Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomfon. Verses written on a Paper, which contained a General Obfervations on the Oriental Eclogues. 280 281 283 285 290 Ode to a Lady, on the Death of Col. Dirge in Cymbeline. ibid. Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomfon. ibid. END OF COLLINS'S POEMS. |