Printed for T. BECKET and P. A. DEHONDT, at MDCCLXV.. MEMOIRS of the AUTHOR. T' 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 task upon the vigilance of reafon; and to bear those faculties with unerring rectitude, or invariable propriety, requires a degree of firmnefs 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 folly, to point with gothic triumph to these exceffes, which are the overflowings of faculties they never enjoyed. Perfectly unconfcious that they are indebted to their ftupidity for the consistency of their conduct, they plume themselves on an imaginary virtue, which has its origin in what is really their disgrace.—Let fuch, if fuch dare approach the fhrine of COLLINS, withdraw to a respectful distance, and, should they A |