In 1815, the library of Thomas Park, which had already passed from Park
to Thomas Hill to Longman, was sold. In the catalog of that collection, a
volume of devotional and autobiographical verse written by one Anne
Collins, _Divine Songs and Meditacions_ (1653), was described as "so rare
as to be probably unique."[1] That same year, Longman and his associates
published an anthology of "Old Books in English Literature, Revived,"
edited by Sir Egerton Brydges and entitled _Restituta_. Brydges, who
acknowledged the help of Park in editing the four volume work,[2]
reprinted long passages from the _Songs and Meditacions_. By mid-century,
the book had passed through the possession of James Midgeley, Sir Mark
Masterman Sykes, Thomas Thorpe,[3] and Richard Heber. In 1878, Alexander
Dyce reprinted all but the last stanza of "Another Song exciting to
spirituall Mirth," and some twenty years later, S. Austin Allibone
included reference to Anne Collins in his _Critical Dictionary of English
Literature_. By this time, however, the remaining copy of _Divine Songs
and Meditacions_ seems to have slipped from sight; scholars were a long
time finding it, but in 1924, the "unique" copy bearing the autograph of
Thomas Park was removed from the library at Britwell Court and sold by
Sotheby to A. S. W. Rosenbach, who acted in behalf of Henry E.
Huntington, in whose memorial library it now remains. If a second edition
of the work ever existed, as claimed by Allibone,[4] it has vanished (to
my knowledge, without a further trace); for all practical purposes, Anne
Collins and her _Divine Songs and Meditacions_ are unknown even to
scholars of seventeenth-century literature.
Though it appears that the verses of Anne Collins have been spared
extinction, it is problematic whether they will escape obscurity. Dr.
Johnson and Warton did not mention them. Yet knowledgeable, if lesser,
men found the _Songs and Meditacions_ worth reading. We may infer, for
example, that Thomas Park, who was praised by Southey as the most
distinguished authority on Old-English poetry, admired the _Songs_, for
it seems probable that he recommended to Brydges the passages finally
anthologized in _Restituta_. In any case, for their metrical variety,
spiritual tone, and structural quaintness, Brydges found the _Songs and
Meditacions_ to be of value. Allibone reprinted Brydges' commentary,
implying (at least) that he had no strong quarrel with it; and in our own
century, I. A. Williams, having read the single poem in Dyce, described
the "lilt and diction" of the language as "charming," and called for a
new edition of the work.[5] It may be that a wider knowledge of her
writing would rescue Anne Collins only from oblivion into abuse. But if
that is so, it is only fair to say that she wrote with a full awareness
of her poetic limitations. Referring to herself as "unskilfull," she
claimed to have written only to occupy her mind, and then only that, in
her lingering illness, she might not fall victim to Sloth. Anne Collins
may not have been a Puritan,[6] but her verses are, in several respects,
a form of the diary. To her, questions of aesthetics, at least as we
would normally think of them, were quite irrelevant. She was convinced
that the expression of a dedicated heart was of greater value than a
polished line. Even if that expression were in the form of somewhat
unsteady verses, it would not be without merit: "_Yet for theyr matter, I
suppose they bee / Not worthlesse quite, whilst they with Truth agree._"
We are dependent upon the autobiographical quality of the work for all we
know of its author. She might have been any one of the many Annes who,
during the first half of the seventeenth century, married into or out of
the Collins name (or the name might be a pseudonym). But especially in
the first third of the work, in the prose "To the Reader" and the
metrical "Preface" and "Discourse," we recognize the autobiography of a
woman who was, from early childhood, the chronic victim of disease. In
"The Discourse" (omitted here because of its length and repetitiousness),
she describes the life of one whose hope lay in her adjustment to pain.
Drawing upon the imagery of spiritual autobiography, Anne Collins
describes her youth as a wilderness, her soul as a withered flower. Only
when she takes direction from her sorrow does her soul draw in the rain
of grace. And that regenerating force is the recurrent theme of her
writing, the sole enduring source of peace; the world offered only the
appearance, the "counterfet" of satisfaction. Thus, as Anne Collins
composes her devotional verses, she is impelled by four pious reasons.
These are indicative, not only of how the author justifies her writing
from a poetic point of view, but of how completely she has explained away
all the claims of a world that had once tortured her with longing. First,
all creatures had been ordained to praise God; this, in her songs and
meditations, she attempts to do. Recognizing that her talents are few,
she recalls that even the man with a single talent would be called to
account. Third, she wishes that some kinsman out of interest in her
writing might be encouraged to read the Scriptures. And last, she thinks
of those who will never meet or know her; by reading the _Divine Songs
and Meditacions_, they may look upon "the image of her mind," and from
that learn how God takes pity on even his most lowly servant.
The selections in this reprint have been made in the hope of fairly
representing Anne Collins to the scholarly reader. Within the range of
possibilities, an attempt was made to preserve the proportions in the
original work among the various kinds of writing attempted by the author.
Perhaps deletion of "The Discourse" defeated this purpose. But it was
decided also that no individual poem would be cut. Thus, to have included
the 102 stanzas of "The Discourse" would have required dropping several
more songs and meditations.[7] The poem on the Civil War, like the
paraphrase on the fifth chapter of Ecclesiastes, was eliminated because
its subject matter was not thought representative of the work as a whole.
The notes will direct the reader to parts of Anne Collins' work which may
be found in previous publications.
The Huntington copy of _Divine Songs and Meditacions_ is a small octavo
volume, measuring slightly larger than five by three inches. The pages
have been cropped and the margins have worn away; thus, in some instances
(pp. 50, 56, 68), text has been lost. The original volume is now
sandwiched within protecting leaves of blank paper, and the entire volume
is bound in thick, brown calf. The title page, once detached, has been
backed and cemented to the second leaf, but this repair was made long
before the blank leaves were inserted. The original volume is made up of
52 leaves; the first gathering consists of four, the remaining six of
eight leaves. There are 102 pages of text.
This material is reproduced by permission of the Librarian of The
Huntington Library.
Stanley Stewart
University of California, Riverside