Much has been said of the state of insanity to which the author of the
_Ode to the Passions_ was ultimately reduced; or rather, as Dr. Johnson
happily describes it, “a depression of mind which enchains the faculties
without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right,
without the power of pursuing it.” What Johnson has further said on this
melancholy subject, shows perhaps more nature and feeling than anything
he ever wrote; and yet it is remarkable that among the causes to which
the poet’s malady was ascribed, he never hints at the most exciting of
the whole. He tells us how Collins “loved fairies, genii, giants, and
monsters;” how he “delighted to roam through the meanders of
enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by
the waterfalls of Elysian gardens.” But never does he seem to have
imagined how natural it was for a mind of such a temperament to give an
Eve to the Paradise of his Creation. Johnson, in truth, though, as he
tells us, he gained the confidence of Collins, was not just the man into
whose ear a lover would choose to pour his secrets. The fact was,
Collins was greatly attached to a young lady who did not return his
passion; and there seems to be little doubt, that to the consequent
disappointment, preying on his mind, was due much of that abandonment of
soul which marked the close of his career. The object of his passion was
born the day before him; and to this circumstance, in one of his
brighter moments, he made a most happy allusion. A friend remarking to
the luckless lover, that his was a hard case, Collins replied, “It is
so, indeed; for I came into the world _a day after the fair_.”