COLLINS.
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ILLIAM COLLINS was born at Chichester, on the 25th day of December,about 1720. His father was a hatter of good reputation. He was in 1733,as Dr. Warton has kindly informed me, admitted scholar of WinchesterCollege, where he was educated by Dr. Burton. His English exercises werebetter than his Latin. He first courted the notice of the public by someverses to a “Lady weeping,” published in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_(January, 1739). In 1740 he stood first in the list of the scholars to be received insuccession at New College, but unhappily there was no vacancy. He becamea Commoner of Queen’s College, probably with a scanty maintenance; butwas, in about half a year, elected a Demy of Magdalen College, where hecontinued till he had taken a Bachelor’s degree, and then suddenly leftthe University; for what reason I know not that he told. He now (about 1744) came to London a literary adventurer, with manyprojects in his head, and very little money in his pocket. He designedmany works; but his great fault was irresolution; or the frequent callsof immediate necessity broke his scheme, and suffered him to pursue nosettled purpose. A man doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at acreditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation or remoteinquiries. He published proposals for a “History of the Revival ofLearning;” and I have heard him speak with great kindness of Leo X., andwith keen resentment of his tasteless successor. But probably not a pageof his history was ever written. He planned several tragedies, but heonly planned them. He wrote now and then odes and other poems, and didsomething, however little. About this time I fell into his company. Hisappearance was decent and manly; his knowledge considerable, his viewsextensive, his conversation elegant, and his disposition cheerful. Bydegrees I gained his confidence; and one day was admitted to him when hewas immured by a bailiff that was prowling in the street. On thisoccasion recourse was had to the booksellers, who, on the credit of atranslation of Aristotle’s “Poetics,” which he engaged to write with alarge commentary, advanced as much money as enabled him to escape intothe country. He showed me the guineas safe in his hand. Soon afterwardshis uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenant-colonel, left him about £2000; a sumwhich Collins could scarcely think exhaustible, and which he did not liveto exhaust. The guineas were then repaid, and the translation neglected.But man is not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he studied tolive, felt no evil but poverty, no sooner lived to study than his lifewas assailed by more dreadful calamities—disease and insanity. Having formerly written his character, while perhaps it was yet moredistinctly impressed upon my memory, I shall insert it here. “Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorousfaculties. He was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, but withthe Italian, French, and Spanish languages. He had employed his mindchiefly on works of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by indulgingsome peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with thoseflights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which themind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions.He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rovethrough the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence ofgolden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens. Thiswas, however, the character rather of his inclination than his genius;the grandeur of wildness, and the novelty of extravagance, were alwaysdesired by him, but not always attained. Yet, as diligence is neverwholly lost, if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and obscurity,they likewise produced in happier moments sublimity and splendour. Thisidea which he had formed of excellence led him to Oriental fictions andallegorical imagery, and, perhaps, while he was intent upon description,he did not sufficiently cultivate sentiment. His poems are theproductions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished withknowledge either of books or life, but somewhat obstructed in itsprogress by deviation in quest of mistaken beauties. “His morals were pure, and his opinions pious; in a long continuance ofpoverty, and long habits of dissipation, it cannot be expected that anycharacter should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by whichthe freedom of agency is almost destroyed; and long association withfortuitous companions will at last relax the strictness of truth, andabate the fervour of sincerity. That this man, wise and virtuous as hewas, passed always unentangled through the snares of life, it would beprejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be said that at least hepreserved the source of action unpolluted, that his principles were nevershaken, that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded,and that his faults had nothing of malignity or design, but proceededfrom some unexpected pressure, or casual temptation. “The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity andsadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind whichenchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason theknowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds whichhe perceived gathering on his intellect he endeavoured to disperse bytravel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield tohis malady, and returned. He was for some time confined in a house oflunatics, and afterwards retired to the care of his sister in Chichester,where death, in 1756, came to his relief. “After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him avisit at Islington, where he was waiting for his sister, whom he haddirected to meet him. There was then nothing of disorder discernible inhis mind by any but himself; but he had withdrawn from study, andtravelled with no other book than an English Testament, such as childrencarry to the school. When his friend took it into his hand, out ofcuriosity to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, ‘I have butone book,’ said Collins, ‘but that is the best.’” Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, andwhom I yet remember with tenderness. He was visited at Chichester, in his last illness, by his learned friendsDr. Warton and his brother, to whom he spoke with disapprobation of his“Oriental Eclogues,” as not sufficiently expressive of Asiatic manners,and called them his “Irish Eclogues.” He showed them, at the same time,an ode inscribed to Mr. John Home, on the superstitions of the Highlands,which they thought superior to his other works, but which no search hasyet found. His disorder was no alienation of mind, but general laxityand feebleness—a deficiency rather of his vital than his intellectualpowers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit; but a fewminutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, tilla short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk withhis former vigour. The approaches of this dreadful malady he began tofeel soon after his uncle’s death; and, with the usual weakness of men sodiseased, eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table andthe bottle flatter and seduce. But his health continually declined, andhe grew more and more burthensome to himself. To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, that hisdiction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciouslyselected. He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival:and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, withsome later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly towrite poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impededwith clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot beloved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it giveslittle pleasure. Mr. Collins’s first production is added here from the _PoeticalCalendar_:— TO MISS AURELIA C—R,ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER’S WEDDING. “Cease, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn;Lament not Hannah’s happy state;You may be happy in your turn,And seize the treasure you regret.With Love united Hymen stands,And softly whispers to your charms,‘Meet but your lover in my bands,You’ll find your sister in his arms.’”
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