WILLIAM 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 Winchester
College, where he was educated by Dr. Burton. His English exercises were
better than his Latin. He first courted the notice of the public by some
verses 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 in
succession at New College, but unhappily there was no vacancy. He became
a Commoner of Queen’s College, probably with a scanty maintenance; but
was, in about half a year, elected a Demy of Magdalen College, where he
continued till he had taken a Bachelor’s degree, and then suddenly left
the University; for what reason I know not that he told.
He now (about 1744) came to London a literary adventurer, with many
projects in his head, and very little money in his pocket. He designed
many works; but his great fault was irresolution; or the frequent calls
of immediate necessity broke his scheme, and suffered him to pursue no
settled purpose. A man doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a
creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation or remote
inquiries. He published proposals for a “History of the Revival of
Learning;” and I have heard him speak with great kindness of Leo X., and
with keen resentment of his tasteless successor. But probably not a page
of his history was ever written. He planned several tragedies, but he
only planned them. He wrote now and then odes and other poems, and did
something, however little. About this time I fell into his company. His
appearance was decent and manly; his knowledge considerable, his views
extensive, his conversation elegant, and his disposition cheerful. By
degrees I gained his confidence; and one day was admitted to him when he
was immured by a bailiff that was prowling in the street. On this
occasion recourse was had to the booksellers, who, on the credit of a
translation of Aristotle’s “Poetics,” which he engaged to write with a
large commentary, advanced as much money as enabled him to escape into
the country. He showed me the guineas safe in his hand. Soon afterwards
his uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenant-colonel, left him about £2000; a sum
which Collins could scarcely think exhaustible, and which he did not live
to exhaust. The guineas were then repaid, and the translation neglected.
But man is not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he studied to
live, felt no evil but poverty, no sooner lived to study than his life
was assailed by more dreadful calamities—disease and insanity.
Having formerly written his character, while perhaps it was yet more
distinctly impressed upon my memory, I shall insert it here.
“Mr. Collins was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorous
faculties. He was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, but with
the Italian, French, and Spanish languages. He had employed his mind
chiefly on works of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by indulging
some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those
flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the
mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions.
He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove
through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of
golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens. This
was, however, the character rather of his inclination than his genius;
the grandeur of wildness, and the novelty of extravagance, were always
desired by him, but not always attained. Yet, as diligence is never
wholly lost, if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and obscurity,
they likewise produced in happier moments sublimity and splendour. This
idea which he had formed of excellence led him to Oriental fictions and
allegorical imagery, and, perhaps, while he was intent upon description,
he did not sufficiently cultivate sentiment. His poems are the
productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished with
knowledge either of books or life, but somewhat obstructed in its
progress by deviation in quest of mistaken beauties.
“His morals were pure, and his opinions pious; in a long continuance of
poverty, and long habits of dissipation, it cannot be expected that any
character should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which
the freedom of agency is almost destroyed; and long association with
fortuitous companions will at last relax the strictness of truth, and
abate the fervour of sincerity. That this man, wise and virtuous as he
was, passed always unentangled through the snares of life, it would be
prejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be said that at least he
preserved the source of action unpolluted, that his principles were never
shaken, that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded,
and that his faults had nothing of malignity or design, but proceeded
from some unexpected pressure, or casual temptation.
“The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and
sadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind which
enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the
knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which
he perceived gathering on his intellect he endeavoured to disperse by
travel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield to
his malady, and returned. He was for some time confined in a house of
lunatics, 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 a
visit at Islington, where he was waiting for his sister, whom he had
directed to meet him. There was then nothing of disorder discernible in
his mind by any but himself; but he had withdrawn from study, and
travelled with no other book than an English Testament, such as children
carry to the school. When his friend took it into his hand, out of
curiosity to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, ‘I have but
one book,’ said Collins, ‘but that is the best.’”
Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and
whom I yet remember with tenderness.
He was visited at Chichester, in his last illness, by his learned friends
Dr. 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 has
yet found. His disorder was no alienation of mind, but general laxity
and feebleness—a deficiency rather of his vital than his intellectual
powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit; but a few
minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till
a short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with
his former vigour. The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to
feel soon after his uncle’s death; and, with the usual weakness of men so
diseased, eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table and
the bottle flatter and seduce. But his health continually declined, and
he grew more and more burthensome to himself.
To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, that his
diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously
selected. He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival:
and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with
some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to
write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded
with clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot be
loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives
little pleasure.
Mr. Collins’s first production is added here from the _Poetical
Calendar_:—
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.’”