despair; its wild gaiety, and its settled phrenzy; but the poet himself? Yet Collins has left behind no memorial of the wanderings of his alienated mind, but the errors of his life.-At college he published his "Persian Eclogues," as they were first called, to which, when he thought they were not distinctly Persian, he gave the more general title of "Oriental" yet the passage of Hassan, in the desert, is more correct in its scenery, than perhaps the poet himself was aware. The publication was attended with no success; but the first misfortune a poet meets will rarely deter him from incurring more. He suddenly quitted the University, and has been censured for not having consulted his friends when he rashly resolved to live by the pen. But he had no friends! Alive to the name of Author and Poet, the ardent and simple youth imagined that a nobler field of action opened on him in the metropolis, than was presented by the flat uniformity of a collegiate life. To whatever spot the youthful poet flies, that spot seems Parnassus, as civility seems patronage. He wrote his odes for a present supply they were purchased by Millar, and form but a slight pamphlet; yet all the interest of that great bookseller could never introduce them into notice. Not even an idle compliment is recorded to have been sent to the poet. When we now consider that among these odes was one of the most popular in the language, with some of the most exquisitely poetical, two reflections will occur; the difficulty of a young writer, without connections, obtaining the public ear; and the languor of the poetical connoisseurs, which some. times suffers poems, that have not yet grown up to authority, to be buried on the shelf. What the outraged feelings of the poet were, appeared when some time afterwards he became rich enough to express them. Having obtained some fortune by the death of his uncle, he made good to the publisher the deficiency of the unsold odes, and, in his haughty resentment of the public taste, consigned the impression to the flames !-It cannot be doubted, and the recorded facts will demonstrate it, that the poetical disappointments of Collins were secretly preying on his spirit, and repressing his firmest exertions. His mind richly stored with literature, and his soul alive to taste, were ever leaning to the impulse of Nature and study-and thus he projected a "History of the Revival of Learning," and a trans

lation of "Aristotle's Poetics," to be illustrated by a large commentary.-But “his great fault," says Johnson, "was his irresolution; or the frequent calls of immediute necessity broke his schemes, and suffered him to pursue no settled purpose." Collins was, however, not idle, though without application; for, when reproached with idleness by a friend, he showed instantly several sheets of his version of Aristotle, and many embryos of some lives he had engaged to compose for the Biographia Britannica; he never brought either to perfection! What then was this irresolution, but the vacillations of a mind broken and confounded? He had exercised too constantly the highest faculties of fiction, and he had precipitated himself into the dreariness of real life. None but a poet can conceive, for none but a poet can experience, the secret wounds inflicted on a mind made up of romantic fancy and tenderness of emotion, who has staked his happiness on his imagination; and who feels neglect, as ordinary men might the sensation of being let down into a sepulchre, and being buried alive. The mind of Tasso, a brother in fancy to Collins, became disordered by the opposition of the critics, but their perpetual neglect had not injured it less. The elegant Hope of the ancients was represented holding some flowers, the promise of the spring, or some spikes of corn, indicative of approaching harvest-but the Hope of Collins had scattered its seed, and they remained buried in the earth.-To our poor Bard, the oblivion which covered his works appeared to him eternal, as those works now seem to us immortal. He had created Hope, with deep and enthusiastic feeling!

With eyes so fairWhispering promised pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance ha.; And Hope, enchanted, smil'd, and wav'd her golden hair!

What was the true life of Collins, separated from its adventitious circumstances? It was a life of Want, never chequered by Hope, that was striving to elude its own observation by hurrying into some temporary dissipation. But the hours of melancholy and solitude were sure to return; these were marked on the dial of his life, and, when they struck, the gay and lively Collins, like one of his own enchanted beings, as surely relapsed into his natural shape. To the perpetual re

collections of his poetical disappointments are we to attribute this unsettled state of his mind, and the perplexity of his studies. To these he was perpetually reverting, as after a lapse of several years he showed, in burning his ill-fated odes. And what was the result of his literary life? It is known that he returned to his native city of Chichester in a state almost of nakedness, destitute, diseased, and wild in despair, to hide himself in the arms of a sister.-The cloud had long been gathering over his convulsed intellect; and the fortune he acquired on the death of his uncle served only for personal indulgences which rather accelerated his disorder. There were, at times, some awful pauses, in the alienation of his mind-but he had withdrawn it from study. It was in one of these intervals that Thomas Warton told Johnson that when he met Collins travelling, he took up a book the poet carried with him, from curiosity, to see what companion a man of letters had chosen-it was an English Testament. "I have but one book," said Collins, "but that is the best." This circumstance is thus recorded on his tomb.

“He join'd pure faith to strong poetic powers,
And, in reviving Reason's lucid hours,
Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest,
And rightly deem'd the Book of God the best."

Dim religious light.

And, when the choristers chauuted their

anthem, the listening and bewildered poet, carried out of himself by the solemn strains, and his own too susceptible imagination, moaned and shrieked, and awoke a sadness and a terror most affecting in so solemn a place; their friend, their kinsman, and their poet, was before them, an awful image of human misery and ruined genius!"*

The worthy historian of "English Poetry,' 'further relates, that in 1754, Collins was at Oxford, "for change of air and amusement," and staid a month. "I saw him frequently, but he was so weak and low, that he could not bear conversation. Once he walked from his lodgings opposite Christ-church, to Trinitycollege, but supported by his servant. The same year, in September, I and my brother visited him at Chichester, where he lived in the cathedral cloisters, with his sister. The first day he was in high spirits at intervals, but exerted himself so much that he could not see us the second. Here he showed us an Ode to Mr. John Home, on his leaving England for Scotland, in the octave stanza, very long and beginning

Home, thou return'st from Thames!

I remember there was a beautiful description of the spectre of a man drowned in the night, or in the language of the old Scotch superstitions-seized by the angry spirit of the waters, appearing to his wife with pale blue cheeks, &c. Mr. Home has no copy of it. He also showed us another ode, of two or three four-lined stanzas, called the Bell of Arragon; on a tradition that, anciently, just before a king of Spain died, the great bell of the cathedral of Sarragossa, in Arragon, tolled spontaneously. It began thus:

The bell of Arragon, they say, Spontaneous speaks the fatal day, &c Soon afterwards were these lines :—

Whatever dark aërial power,

Commission'd, haunts the gloomy tower. The last stanza consisted of a moral tran sition to his own death and knell, which he called 'some simpler bell."

Dr. Drake observes, " Of this exquisite poet, who, in his genius, and in his per

Calamities of Authors.

sonal fate bears a strong resemblance to the celebrated Tasso, it is greatly to be regretted that the reliques are so few. I must particularly lament the loss of the ode, entitled 'The Bell of Arragon,' which from the four lines preserved in this paper seems to have been written with the poet's wonted power of imagination, and to have closed in a manner strikingly moral and pathetic. I rather wonder that Mr. Warton, who partook much of the romantic bias of Collins, was not induced to fill up the impressive outline." *

The imagined resemblance of Collins to Tasso suggests insertion, in this place, of a poem by Mrs. Hemans.-There is an Italian saying, that "Tasso with his sword and pen was superior to all men."

TASSO AND HIS SISTER.

She sat where, on each wind that sighed,
The citron's breath went by,
While the deep gold of eventide

Burn'd in th' Italian sky.

Her bower was one where day-light's close
Full oft sweet laughter found,

As thence the voice of childhood rose
To the high vineyards round.
But still and thoughtful at her knee,
Her children stood that hour-
Their bursts of song, and dancing glee,
Hush'd as by words of power.
With bright, fix'd, wondering eye, that gaz'd
Up to their mother's face,
With brows through parting ringlets rais'd,
They stood in silent grace.
While she-yet something o'er her look
Of mournfulness,was spread-
Forth from a poet's magic book
The glorious numbers read:

The proud undying lay which pour'd
Its light on evil years;
His of the gifted pen and sword,
The triumph-and the tears.
She read of fair Erminia's flight,
Which Venice once might hear
Sung on her glittering seas, at night,
By many a gondolier;

Of Him she read, who broke the charm
That wrapt the myrtle grove,

Of Godfrey's deeds-of Tancred's arm,
That slew his Paynim-love.

Young cheeks around that bright page glow'd;
Young holy hearts were stirr'd,

And the meek tears of woman flow'd
Fast o'er each burning word;

Dr. Drake's Gleaner.

And sounds of breeze, and fount, and leaf,
Came sweet each pause between,
When a strange voice of sudden grief
Burst on the gentle scene

The mother turn'd—a way-worn man
In pilgrim-garb stood nigh,
of stately mien, yet wild and wan,
Of proud, yet restless eye:
But drops, that would not stay for priae,
From that dark eye gush'd free,
As, pressing his pale brow, he cried-
Forgotten ev'n by thee !"

"Am I so chang'd ?—and yet we two
Oft hand in hand have play'a ;
This brow hath been all bath'd in dew,

From wreaths which thou hast made! We have knelt down, and said one prayer, And sang one vesper strain;

My thoughts are dim with clouds of careTell me those words again?

"Life hath been heavy on my head;

I come, a stricken deer,

Bearing the heart, 'midst crowds that bled,
To bleed in stillness here!"

She gaz'd-till thoughts that long had slept
Shook all her thrilling frame,—
She fell upon his neck, and wept,

And breath'd her Brother's name.

Her Brother's name !-and who was He,
The weary one, th' unknown,
That came, the bitter world to flee,

A stranger to his own?

He was the Bard of gifts divine
To sway the hearts of men:
He of the song for Salem's shrine,
He of the sword and pen.

The misery which results from indulg ing the pleasures of imagination in youth is well expressed in these cautionary lines. Of Fancy's too prevailing power, beware!

Oft has she bright on Life's air morning shone;

Oft easted Hope on Reason's sovereign throne,

Then clos'd the scene, in darkness and despair. Of all her gifts, of all her powers possest,

Let not her flattery win thy youthful ear, Nor vow long faith to such a various guest, False at the last, tho' now perchance full dear;

The casual lover with her charms is blest,
But woe to them her magic bands that wear!
Langhorne.

The subsequent communication, accompanied by a drawing of the carving represented in the engraving

[For the Year Book.]

An escutcheon surmounted by a canopy, on the eastern wall of the old archiepiscopal palace of Croydon, fell down, together with the wall, on the 8th of June last year. In a few days afterwards, the escutcheon having been removed with the rubbish on which it lay, I took the accompanying sketch of it. The wall is reinstated without this ancient ornament. I forward the drawing in the hope that it may find a place in the Year Book.

The arms are party per pale-Dexter division-as: a cross patence, or: between five martlets, or. Sinister quarterly, first and fourth, az: three fleurs-de-lis, or; for France. Second and third, gules: hree lions passant guardant, or; for England. The dexter division bare the arms of Edward the Confessor.

Croydon, April 1831.

G. S. S.

Croydon Palace.

Dr. Ducarel says, the oldest part of Croydon Palace, which is entirely of brick, was one of the earliest brick buildings in the reign of Henry VI. Here, in 1573, archbishop Parker entertained Elizabeth and her court for seven days. Under the commonwealth the palace was let to the Earl of Nottingham at £40 a year; and afterwards to Sir William Brereton, colonel general of the Cheshire forces, who resided in it, and turned the chapel into a kitchen. On the restoration archbishop Juxon repaired and fitted it up; and many of his successors repaired it at a great expense; most of them occasionally resided here except archbishops Secker and Cornwallis. In 1780, after remaining uninhabited for twenty years, it was sold under an act of parliament to Abraham Pitches, Esq., afterwards Sir Abraham Pitches, for £2520, and the proceeds were applied towards the expense of building Westminster Bridge. The chapel is now used for the Sunday school; and, in the week, for the school of in

June 13, 1823, Mr. Robert Bowman of Irthington, near Carlisle, died, at the age of one hundred and eighteen years.

Dr. Barnes published some account of this Cumberland patriarch, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1820. He says his birth-day is not known; and, "as some doubts have been entertained with respect to his age, to put it beyond dispute, I have examined the register of his baptism, in the parish church of Hayton. His name, and place of nativity, as well as the year of baptism, which was 1705, are very legible, but, from his name having been placed at the foot of the page, the month and day are worn out." He was born at Bridgewood- foot, a small farm-house, and hamlet, al out two miles from Irthington, in the month of October, 1705, in the house where his grandfather had resided, and where his father also was born, both of whom were brought up to husbandry. His ancestors were Roman Catholics, and in the early part of his life he professed that religion; but, many years ago, he became a member of the church of England, and was a constant and orderly attendant upon its worship, until prevented by age and infirmity. From early youth he had been a laborious worker, and was at all times healthy and strong, having never taken

• Manning and Bray's Surrey.

medicine, nor been visited with any kind of illness, except the measles when a child, and the hooping-cough when above one hundred years of age. During the course of his long life he was only once intoxicated, which was at a wedding; and he never used tea or coffee, his principal food having been bread, potatoes, hasty pudding, broth, and occasionally a little flesh meat. He scarcely ever tasted ale or spirits, his chief beverage was water; or

milk and water mixed. This abstemiousness arose partly from a dislike to strong liquors, but more from a saving disposi tion, being remarkably careful of his money, and strongly attached to the things of this world. For the same reason, as he himself acknowledged, he never used snuff or tobacco. With these views, his habits of industry, and disregard of personal fatigue, were extraordinary; he having often been up for two or three nights in a week, particularly when bringing home coals or lime. In his younger days he was rather robust, excellent in bodily strength, and was considered a master in the art of wrestling-an exercise to which he was particularly attached. He was of a low stature, being not above five feet five inches in height, with a large chest, well-proportioned limbs, and weighing about twelve stone. His vigor never forsook him till far advanced in life; for, in his hundred and eighth year, he walked to and from Carlisle (sixteen miles), without the help of a staff, to see the workmen lay the foundation stone of Eden bridge. In the same year he actually reaped corn, made hay, worked at hedging, and assisted in all the labors of the field, with, apparently, as much energy as the stoutest of his sons. As might be expected, his education was very limited, but he possessed a considerable share of natural sense, with much self-denial, and passed a life of great regularity and prudence, without troubling himself by much thought or reflection. Ilis memory was very tenacious: he remembered the rebellion in 1715, when he was ten years of age, and witnessed a number of men running away from the danger. In the second rebellion, in the year 1745, he was employed in cutting trenches round Carlisle, but fled from his disagreeable situation as soon as an opportunity afforded for escaping. He did not marry till he was fifty years of age, and his wife lived with him fifty-two years, dying in 1807, aged