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the most gloomy subjects for her contempla

tion.

Mad nymph.-This epithet is too familiar for the subject.

Shroud. To hide, to conceal.

Haunted. - Visited, frequented, followed. It is in common language chiefly applied to apparitions, or what are generally called ghosts, who are said by the vulgar and the ignorant to wander about at night, near place where people have been murdered.

"Dark power! with meek submitted thought,
Be mine to read the visions old,

Which thy awakening bards have told;
And lest thou meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true.
Ne'er be I found, by thee o'erawed,
On that thrice hallowed eve abroad,
When ghosts, as cottage maids believe,·
Their pebbled beds permitted leave,
And goblins haunt from fire, or fen,
Or mine; or flood, the walks of men."

"Dark, mysterious power! grant that with meekness and submission I may read the visions that thy ancient bards have composed on purpose to awaken terrour. And lest I incur thy displeasure, O Fear, grant that I may believe each strange and improbable

tale, and look upon them as true with a species of reverence and enthusiasm approaching to devotion. Overawed by thee, O Fear, may I never be so rash as to venture out on that sacred evening on which it is said by the rustic cottagers, that ghosts are permitted to leave their stony beds, and that goblins, or apparitions, haunt the walks of men."

The evening, which the poet considers ast devoted to superstitious fear, is that of the 31st of October, and is called Holy or Allhallow eve. In many places it is still celebrated with peculiar ceremonies, tricks of childish superstition, and rustic merriment. Ignorant country people believe that super-" natural voices are heard, and that the ghosts of their friends appear to them, and particularly that the spirits of those persons who. have met with untimely deaths are seen by

men.

From fire, or fen, or mine, or flood.-The poet enumerates the places where fatal accidents. most frequently happen, fires, fens or marshes, mines, and floods.

Submitted.-Humbled and submitting before the power of Fear.

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Awakening.-Awakening the attention and passions of their auditors.

Blasted.-Struck as it were with lightning.

"O thou, whose spirit most possest
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast!
By all that from thy prophet broke,
In thy divine emotions spoke,
Hither again thy fury deal,

Teach me but once like him to feel;
His cypress wreath my meed decree
And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee.”

"O Fear, whose spirit inspired the mind of Shakspeare, I adjure thee by all the emotions which have been excited by that poet, when most under thy influence, to make me feel as he did; make me deserve the cypress wreath, which Shakspeare as a tragic poet has obtained. Give me that great reward, and then, O Fear, I shall dwell with thee, and be thy votary."

Shakspeare's breast.-When Collins addresses Fear, as having filled Shakspeare's imagination, he means, that Shakspeare possessed, above all other poets, the power of moving the passions, and of making his readers feel the emotions of fear whenever he wished to excite them.

Prophet. This perhaps is an allusion to the jewish prophets, who were also poets. The prophecies of Ezekiel and Isaiah are sublimely poetical. It is more probable, however, that the poet alludes to the pythian priestess at Delphi, who always worked herself into something like frenzy before she pronounced her oracles. These oracles were sometimes commands, and sometimes answers, delivered to those who came to inquire into futurity. They were composed in such an ingenious manner, and in such obscure terms, that the interpretation was easily made to suit whatever events might happen. In the History of Greece, and particularly in Herodotus, you will see how constantly the Greeks and Barbarians applied to the oracles of Apollo and Jupiter; and in the Travels of the younger Anacharsis, you may read an account of the manner in which they were conducted, and the temples where their responses were given.

In thy divine emotions spoke.-The construction of this sentence is obscure; it means, I adjure thee by all that broke from thy prophet, and that was spoken by him, in a spirit of emotion similar to thine, O Fear.

Fury-properly means madness; here it means poetic enthusiasm.

Cypress wreath.-The wreath which was the reward of tragic excellence. In the notes on the Penseroso some remarks are made on the word cypress.

Meed.-Recompense.

Collins claims the meed of tragedy, because Fear, to whom he addresses himself, is one of the great sources of tragic pathos. Aristotle says, that the moral end of tragedy is to purify the soul by pity and terrour.

And I, O Fear, will dwell with thee.-This conclusion is imitated from L'Allegro, and 11 Penseroso of Milton.

THE

SPEECHES OF HENRY THE FIFTH

AND THE

CHIEF JUSTICE.

Taken from Act V, Scene III, of Shakspeare's Second Part of King Henry the Fourth.

THOUGH Shakspeare's poetry is the delight and pride of our nation, it is in general too abstruse and difficult for foreigners and children.

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