(1721-1759)
[Illustration: WILLIAM COLLINS]
There is much to inspire regretful sympathy in the short life of William
Collins. He was born at Chichester, and received his education at
Winchester College and at Magdalen College, Oxford. A delicate, bookish
boy, he had every stimulus toward a literary career. With a fine
appreciation of beauty in all forms of art, and a natural talent for
versification, he wrote poems of much promise when very young. His
'Persian Eclogues' appeared when he was only seventeen. Then Collins
showed his impatient spirit and fickleness of purpose by deserting his
work at Oxford and going to London with the intention of authorship. His
head was full of brilliant schemes,--too full; for with him as with most
people, conception was always easier than execution. But finding it far
more difficult to win fame than he anticipated, he had not courage to
persevere, and fell into dissipated, extravagant ways which soon
exhausted his small means.
In 1746 he published the 'Odes, Descriptive and Allegorical,' his most
characteristic work. They were never widely read, and it took the public
some time to appreciate their lyric fervor, their exquisite imagery, and
their musical verse. In spite of occasional obscurities induced by
careless treatment, they are among the finest of English odes. His love
for nature and sympathy with its calmer aspects is very marked. Speaking
of the 'Ode to Evening,' Hazlitt says that "the sounds steal slowly over
the ear like the gradual coming on of evening itself." According to
Swinburne, the 'Odes' do not contain "a single false note." "Its grace
and vigor, its vivid and pliant dexterity of touch," he says of the 'Ode
to the Passions,' "are worthy of their long inheritance of praise."
But the inheritance did not come at once, although Collins has always
received generous praise from fellow poets. His mortified self-love
resented lack of success. With a legacy bequeathed him by an uncle he
bought his book back from the publisher Millar, and the unsold
impressions he burned in "angry despair."
Meantime he went on planning works quite beyond his power of execution.
He advertised 'Proposals for a History of the Revival of Learning,'
which he never wrote. He began several tragedies, but his indolent
genius would not advance beyond devising the plots. As he was always
wasteful and dissipated, he was continually in debt. In spite of his
unusual gifts, he had not the energy and self-control necessary for
adequate literary expression. Dr. Johnson, who admired and tried to
befriend him, found a bailiff prowling around the premises when he went
to call. At his instigation a bookseller advanced money to get Collins
out of London, for which in return he was to translate Aristotle's
'Poetics' and to write a commentary. Probably he never fulfilled the
agreement. Indeed, he had some excuse. "A man doubtful of his dinners,
or trembling at a creditor, is not disposed to abstract meditation or
remote inquiries," comments Dr. Johnson.
Collins was always weak of body, and when still a young man was seized
by mental disease. Weary months of despondency were succeeded by
madness, until he was, as Dr. Wharton describes it, with "every spark of
imagination extinguished, and with only the faint traces of memory and
reason left." Then the unhappy poet was taken to Chichester and cared
for by a sister. There he who had loved music so passionately hated the
cathedral organ in his madness, and when he heard it, howled in
distress.
Among the best examples of his verse, besides the poems already
mentioned, are the 'Dirge to Cymbeline,' 'Ode to Fear,' and the 'Ode on
the Poetical Character,' which Hazlitt calls "the best of all."