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[Illustration: William Collins Ætatis
Quos primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis
Virg.]
_THE_
POETICAL WORKS
OF
WILLIAM COLLINS.
_WITH A MEMOIR._
[Illustration: _Perennis et Fragrans._]
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1865.
CONTENTS.
Page
Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas v
An Essay on the Genius and Poems of Collins, by Sir Egerton
Brydges, Bart. xliii
ORIENTAL ECLOGUES.
Selim; or, The Shepherd's Moral 3
Hassan; or, The Camel Driver 7
Abra; Or, The Georgian Sultana 11
Agib And Secander; or, The Fugitives 15
ODES.
To Pity 21
To Fear 24
To Simplicity 28
On the Poetical Character 31
Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746 34
To Mercy 35
To Liberty 37
To a Lady, On the Death of Colonel Ross, written in May,
1745 44
To Evening 48
To Peace 52
The Manners 54
The Passions 58
On the Death of Thomson 63
On the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland;
considered as the Subject of Poetry; inscribed to Mr.
John Home 66
An Epistle, addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, on his Edition of
Shakespeare's Works 78
Dirge in Cymbeline, sung by Guiderus and Arviragus over
Fidele, supposed to be dead 87
Verses written on a Paper which contained a Piece of
Bride-cake, given to the Author by a Lady 89
To Miss Aurelia C----R, on her Weeping at her Sister's
Wedding 91
Sonnet 91
Song. The Sentiments borrowed from Shakespeare 92
On our late Taste in Music 94
Observations on the Oriental Eclogues, by Dr. Langhorne 101
Observations on the Odes, by the same 118
MEMOIR OF COLLINS.
"A Bard,
Who touched the tenderest notes of Pity's lyre."
HAYLEY.
No one can have reflected on the history of genius without being
impressed with a melancholy feeling at the obscurity in which the lives
of the poets of our country are, with few exceptions, involved. That
they lived, and wrote, and died, comprises nearly all that is known of
many, and, of others, the few facts which are preserved are often
records of privations, or sufferings, or errors. The cause of the
lamentable deficiency of materials for literary biography may, without
difficulty, be explained. The lives of authors are seldom marked by
events of an unusual character; and they rarely leave behind them the
most interesting work a writer could compose, and which would embrace
nearly all the important facts in his career, a "History of his Books,"
containing the motives which produced them, the various incidents
respecting their progress, and a faithful account of the bitter
disappointment, whether the object was fame or profit, or both, which,
in most instances, is the result of his labours. Various motives deter
men from writing such a volume; for, though quacks and charlatans
readily become auto-biographers, and fill their prefaces with their
personal concerns, real merit shrinks from such disgusting egotism, and,
flying to the opposite extreme, leaves no authentic notice of their
struggles, its hopes, or its disappointments. Nor is the history of
writers to be expected from their contemporaries; because few will
venture to anticipate the judgment of posterity, and mankind are usually
so isolated in self, and so jealous of others, that neither time nor
inclination admits of their becoming the Boswells of all those whose
productions excite admiration.
If these remarks be true, surprise cannot be felt, though there is
abundance of cause for regret, that little is known of a poet whose
merits were not appreciated until after his decease: whose powers were
destroyed by a distressing malady at a period of life when literary
exertions begin to be rewarded and stimulated by popular applause.
For the facts contained in the following Memoir of Collins, the author
is indebted to the researches of others, as his own, which were very
extensive, were rewarded by trifling discoveries. Dr. Johnson's Life is
well known; but the praise of collecting every particular which industry
and zeal could glean belongs to the Rev. Alexander Dyce, the result of
whose inquiries may be found in his notes to Johnson's Memoir, prefixed
to an edition of Collins's works which he lately edited. Those notices
are now, for the first time, wove into a Memoir of Collins; and in
leaving it to another to erect a fabric out of the materials which he
has collected instead of being himself the architect, Mr. Dyce has
evinced a degree of modesty which those who know him must greatly
lament.
* * * * *
WILLIAM COLLINS was born at Chichester, on the 25th of December, 1721,
and was baptized in the parish church of St. Peter the Great, alias
Subdeanery in that city, on the first of the following January. He was
the son of William Collins, who was then the Mayor of Chichester, where
he exercised the trade of a hatter, and lived in a respectable manner.
His mother was Elizabeth, the sister of a Colonel Martyn, to whose
bounty the poet was deeply indebted.
Being destined for the church, young Collins was admitted a scholar of
Winchester College on the 19th of January, 1733, where he was educated
by Dr. Burton; and in 1740 he stood first on the list of scholars who
were to be received at New College. No vacancy, however, occurred, and
the circumstance is said by Johnson to have been the original misfortune
of his life. He became a commoner of Queen's,[1] whence, on the 29th of
July, 1741, he was elected a demy of Magdalen College. During his stay
at Queen's he was distinguished for genius and indolence, and the few
exercises which he could be induced to write bear evident marks of both
qualities. He continued at Oxford until he took his bachelor's degree,
and then suddenly left the University, his motive, as he alleged, being
that he missed a fellowship, for which he offered himself; but it has
been assigned to his disgust at the dulness of a college life, and to
his being involved in debt.
On arriving in London, which was either in 1743 or 1744, he became, says
Johnson, "a literary adventurer, with many projects in his head and very
little money in his pocket." Collins was not without some reputation as
an author when he proposed to adopt the most uncertain and deplorable of
all professions, that of literature, for a subsistence. Whilst at
Winchester school he wrote his Eclogues, and had appeared before the
public in some verses addressed to a lady weeping at her sister's
marriage, which were printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, Oct. 1739,
when Collins was in his eighteenth year. In January, 1742, he published
his Eclogues, under the title of "Persian Eclogues;"[2] and, in
December, 1743, his "Verses to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his Edition of
Shakespeare," appeared. To neither did he affix his name, but the latter
was said to be by "a Gentleman of Oxford."
From the time he settled in London, his mind was more occupied with
literary projects than with steady application; nor had poesy, for which
Nature peculiarly designed him, sufficient attractions to chain his
wavering disposition. It is not certain whether his irresolution arose
from the annoyance of importunate debtors, or from an original infirmity
of mind, or from these causes united. A popular writer[3] has defended
Collins from the charge of irresolution, on the ground that it was but
"the vacillations of a mind broken and confounded;" and he urges, that
"he had exercised too constantly the highest faculties of fiction, and
precipitated himself into the dreariness of real life." But this
explanation does not account for the want of steadiness which prevented
Collins from accomplishing the objects he meditated. His mind was
neither "broken nor confounded," nor had he experienced the bitter pangs
of neglect, when with the buoyancy of hope, and a full confidence in his
extraordinary powers, he threw himself on the town, at the age of
twenty-three, intending to live by the exercise of his talents; but his
indecision was then as apparent as at any subsequent period, so that, in
truth, the effect preceded the cause to which it has been assigned.
Mankind are becoming too much accustomed to witness splendid talents and
great firmness of mind united in the same person to partake the mistaken
sympathy which so many writers evince for the follies or vices of
genius; nor will it much longer tolerate the opinion, that the
possession of the finest imagination, or the highest poetic capacity,
must necessarily be accompanied by eccentricity. It may, indeed, be
difficult to convert a poetical temperament into a merchant, or to make
the man who is destined to delight or astonish mankind by his
conceptions, sit quietly over a ledger; but the transition from poetry
to the composition of such works as Collins planned is by no means
unnatural, and the abandonment of his views respecting them must, in
justice to his memory, be attributed to a different cause.
The most probable reason is, that these works were mere speculations to
raise money, and that the idea was not encouraged by the booksellers;
but if, as Johnson, who knew Collins well, asserts, his character wanted
decision and perseverance, these defects may have been constitutional,
and were, perhaps, the germs of the disease which too soon ripened into
the most frightful of human calamities. Endued with a morbid
sensibility, which was as ill calculated to court popularity as to bear
neglect; and wanting that stoical indifference to the opinions of the
many, which ought to render those who are conscious of the value of
their productions satisfied with the approbation of the few; Collins was
too impatient of applause, and too anxious to attain perfection, to be a
voluminous writer. To plan much rather than to execute any thing; to
commence to-day an ode, to-morrow a tragedy, and to turn on the
following morning to a different subject, was the chief occupation of
his life for several years, during which time he destroyed the principal
part of the little that he wrote. To a man nearly pennyless, such a life
must be attended by privations and danger; and he was in the hands of
bailiffs, possibly not for the first time, very shortly before he became
independent by the death of his maternal uncle, Colonel Martyn. The
result proved that his want of firmness and perseverance was natural,
and did not arise from the uncertainty or narrowness of his fortune; for
being rescued from imprisonment, on the credit of a translation of
Aristotle's Poetics, which he engaged to furnish a publisher, a work, it
may be presumed, peculiarly suited to his genius, he no sooner found
himself in the possession of money by the death of his relative, than he
repaid the bookseller, and abandoned the translation for ever.
From the commencement of his career, Collins was, however, an object
for sympathy instead of censure; and though few refuse their compassion
to the confirmed lunatic, it is rare that the dreadful state of
irresolution and misery, which sometimes exist for years before the
fatal catastrophe, receives either pity or indulgence.
In 1747, Collins published his Odes, to the unrivaled splendour of a few
of which he is alone indebted for his fame; but neither fame nor profit
was the immediate result; and the author of the Ode on the Passions had
little reason to expect, from its reception by the public, that it was
destined to live as long as the passions themselves animate or distract
the world.
It is uncertain at what time he undertook to publish a volume of Odes in
conjunction with Joseph Warton, but the intention is placed beyond
dispute by the following letter from Warton to his brother. It is
without a date, but it must have been written before the publication of
Collins's Odes in 1747, and before the appearance of Dodsley's
Museum,[4] as it is evident the Ode to a Lady on the Death of Colonel
Ross, which was inserted in that work, was not then in print.
"DEAR TOM,
"You will wonder to see my name in an advertisement next week, so
I thought I would apprise you of it. The case was this. Collins
met me in Surrey, at Guildford races, when I wrote out for him my
odes, and he likewise communicated some of his to me; and being
both in very high spirits, we took courage, resolved to join our
forces, and to publish them immediately. I flatter myself that I
shall lose no honor by this publication, because I believe these
odes, as they now stand, are infinitely the best things I ever
wrote. You will see a very pretty one of Collins's, on the Death
of Colonel Ross before Tournay. It is addressed to a lady who was
Ross's intimate acquaintance, and who, by the way, is Miss Bett
Goddard. Collins is not to publish the odes unless he gets ten
guineas for them. I returned from Milford last night, where I left
Collins with my mother and sister, and he sets out to-day for
London. I must now tell you, that I have sent him your imitation
of Horace's Blandusian Fountain, to be printed amongst ours, and
which you shall own or not, as you think proper. I would not have
done this without your consent, but because I think it very
poetically and correctly done, and will get you honour. You will
let me know what the Oxford critics say. Adieu, dear Tom,
"I am your most affectionate brother,
"J. WARTON."
Like so many of Collins's projects this was not executed; but the reason
of its failure is unknown.
On the death of Thomson, in August, 1748, Collins wrote an ode to his
memory, which is no less remarkable for its beauty as a composition,
than for its pathetic tenderness as a memorial of a friend.
The Poet's pecuniary difficulties were removed in 1749, by the death of
his maternal uncle, Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Martyn, who, after
bequeathing legacies to some other relations, ordered the residue of his
real and personal estate to be divided between his nephew William
Collins, and his nieces Elizabeth and Anne Collins, and appointed the
said Elizabeth his executrix, who proved her uncle's will on the 30th of
May, 1749. Collins's share was, it is said, about two thousand pounds;
and, as has been already observed, the money came most opportunely: a
greater calamity even than poverty, however, shortly afterwards
counterbalanced his good fortune; but the assertion of the writer in the
Gentleman's Magazine, that his mental aberration arose from his having
squandered this legacy, appears to be unfounded.
One, and but one, letter of Collins's has ever been printed; nor has a
careful inquiry after others been successful. It is of peculiar
interest, as it proves that he wrote an Ode on the Music of the Grecian
Theatre, but which is unfortunately lost. The honour to which he
alludes was the setting his Ode on the Passions to music.
"TO DR. WILLIAM HAYES, PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, OXFORD.
"SIR,
"MR. BLACKSTONE of Winchester some time since informed me of the
honour you had done me at Oxford last summer; for which I return
you my sincere thanks. I have another more perfect copy of the
ode; which, had I known your obliging design, I would have
communicated to you. Inform me by a line, if you should think one
of my better judgment acceptable. In such case I could send you
one written on a nobler subject; and which, though I have been
persuaded to bring it forth in London, I think more calculated for
an audience in the university. The subject is the Music of the
Grecian Theatre; in which I have, I hope naturally, introduced the
various characters with which the chorus was concerned, as
OEdipus, Medea, Electra, Orestes, etc. etc. The composition too is
probably more correct, as I have chosen the ancient tragedies for
my models, and only copied the most affecting passages in them.
"In the mean time, you would greatly oblige me by sending the
score of the last. If you can get it written, I will readily
answer the expense. If you send it with a copy or two of the ode
(as printed at Oxford) to Mr. Clarke, at Winchester, he will
forward it to me here. I am, Sir,
"With great respect,
"Your obliged humble servant,
"WILLIAM COLLINS.
"Chichester, Sussex, November 8, 1750."
"P. S. Mr. Clarke past some days here while Mr. Worgan was with
me; from whose friendship, I hope, he will receive some
advantage."
Soon after this period, the disease which had long threatened to destroy
Collins's intellects assumed a more decided character; but for some time
the unhappy poet was the only person who was sensible of the approaching
calamity. A visit to France was tried in vain; and when Johnson called
upon him, on his return, an incident occurred which proves that Collins
wisely sought for consolation against the coming wreck of his faculties,
from a higher and more certain source than mere human aid. Johnson says,
"he paid him a visit at Islington, where he was then 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.'"
To this circumstance Hayley beautifully alludes in his epitaph on him:
He, "in reviving reason's lucid hours,
Sought on _one_ book his troubled mind to rest,
And rightly deem'd the Book of God the best."
A journey to Bath proved as useless as the one to France; and in 1754,
he went to Oxford for change of air and amusement, where he stayed a
month. It was on this occasion that a friend, whose account of him will
be given at length, saw him in a distressing state of restraint under
the walls of Merton College. From the paucity of information respecting
Collins, the following letters are extremely valuable; and though the
statements are those of his friends, they may be received without
suspicion of partiality, because they are free from the high colouring
by which friendship sometimes perverts truth.
The first of the letters in question was printed in the Gentleman's
Magazine:
"Jan. 20, 1781.
"MR. URBAN,
"WILLIAM COLLINS, the poet, I was intimately acquainted with, from
the time that he came to reside at Oxford. He was the son of a
tradesman in the city of Chichester, I think a hatter; and being
sent very young to Winchester school, was soon distinguished for
his early proficiency, and his turn for elegant composition. About
the year 1740, he came off from that seminary first upon roll,[5]
and was entered a commoner of Queen's college. There, no vacancy
offering for New College, he remained a year or two, and then was
chosen demy of Magdalen college; where, I think, he took a degree.
As he brought with him, for so the whole turn of his conversation
discovered, too high an opinion of his school acquisitions, and a
sovereign contempt for all academic studies and discipline, he
never looked with any complacency on his situation in the
university, but was always complaining of the dulness of a college
life. In short, he threw up his demyship, and, going to London,
commenced a man of the town, spending his time in all the
dissipation of Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and the playhouses; and was
romantic enough to suppose that his superior abilities would draw
the attention of the great world, by means of whom he was to make
his fortune.
"In this pleasurable way of life he soon wasted his little
property, and a considerable legacy left him by a maternal uncle,
a colonel in the army, to whom the nephew made a visit in
Flanders during the war. While on his tour he wrote several
entertaining letters to his Oxford friends, some of which I saw.
In London I met him often, and remember he lodged in a little
house with a Miss Bundy, at the corner of King's-square-court,
Soho, now a warehouse, for a long time together. When poverty
overtook him, poor man, he had too much sensibility of temper to
bear with misfortunes, and so fell into a most deplorable state of
mind. How he got down to Oxford, I do not know; but I myself saw
him under Merton wall, in a very affecting situation, struggling,
and conveyed by force, in the arms of two or three men, towards
the parish of St. Clement, in which was a house that took in such
unhappy objects: and I always understood, that not long after he
died in confinement; but when, or where, or where he was buried, I
never knew.
"Thus was lost to the world this unfortunate person, in the prime
of life, without availing himself of fine abilities, which,
properly improved, must have raised him to the top of any
profession, and have rendered him a blessing to his friends, and
an ornament to his country.
"Without books, or steadiness and resolution to consult them if he
had been possessed of any, he was always planning schemes for
elaborate publications, which were carried no further than the
drawing up proposals for subscriptions, some of which were
published; and in particular, as far as I remember, one for 'a
History of the Darker Ages.'
"He was passionately fond of music; good-natured and affable; warm
in his friendships, and visionary in his pursuits; and, as long as
I knew him, very temperate in his eating and drinking. He was of
moderate stature, of a light and clear complexion, with gray eyes,
so very weak at times as hardly to bear a candle in the room; and
often raising within him apprehensions of blindness.
"With an anecdote respecting him, while he was at Magdalen
College, I shall close my letter. It happened one afternoon, at a
tea visit, that several intelligent friends were assembled at his
rooms to enjoy each other's conversation, when in comes a member
of a certain college,[6] as remarkable at that time for his brutal
disposition as for his good scholarship; who, though he met with a
circle of the most peaceable people in the world, was determined
to quarrel; and, though no man said a word, lifted up his foot and
kicked the tea-table, and all its contents, to the other side of
the room. Our poet, though of a warm temper, was so confounded at
the unexpected downfall, and so astonished at the unmerited
insult, that he took no notice of the aggressor, but getting up
from his chair calmly, he began picking up the slices of bread and
butter, and the fragments of his china, repeating very mildly,
Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetæ.
"I am your very humble servant,
"V."
The next letter was found among the papers of Mr. William Hymers, of
Queen's College, Oxford, who was preparing a new edition of the works of
the poet for publication, when death prevented the completion of his
design.
"Hill Street, Richmond in Surrey, July, 1783.
"SIR,
"Your favour of the 30th June I did not receive till yesterday.
The person who has the care of my house in Bond Street, expecting
me there every day, did not send it to Richmond, or I would have
answered sooner. As you express a wish to know every particular,
however trifling, relating to Mr. William Collins, I will
endeavour, so far as can be done by a letter, to satisfy you.
There are many little anecdotes, which tell well enough in
conversation, but would be tiresome for you to read, or me to
write, so shall pass them over. I had formerly several scraps of
his poetry, which were suddenly written on particular occasions.
These I lent among our acquaintance, who were never civil enough
to return them; and being then engaged in extensive business, I
forgot to ask for them, and they are lost: all I have remaining of
his are about twenty lines, which would require a little history
to be understood, being written on trifling subjects. I have a few
of his letters, the subjects of which are chiefly on business, but
I think there are in them some flights, which strongly mark his
character; for which reason I preserved them. There are so few of
his intimates now living, that I believe I am the only one who can
give a true account of his family and connexions. The principal
part of what I write is from my own knowledge, or what I have
heard from his nearest relations.
"His father was not the manufacturer of hats, but the vender. He
lived in a genteel style at Chichester; and, I think, filled the
office of mayor more than once; he was pompous in his manner; but,
at his death, he left his affairs rather embarrassed. Colonel
Martyn, his wife's brother, greatly assisted his family, and
supported Mr. William Collins at the university, where he stood
for a fellowship, which, to his great mortification, he lost, and
which was his reason for quitting that place, at least that was
his pretext. But he had other reasons: he was in arrears to his
bookseller, his tailor, and other tradesmen. But, I believe, a
desire to partake of the dissipation and gaiety of London was his
principal motive. Colonel Martyn was at this time with his
regiment; and Mr. Payne, a near relation, who had the management
of the colonel's affairs, had likewise a commission to supply the
Collinses with small sums of money. The colonel was the more
sparing in this order, having suffered considerably by Alderman
Collins, who had formerly been his agent, and, forgetting that his
wife's brother's cash was not his own, had applied it to his own
use. When Mr. William Collins came from the university, he called
on his cousin Payne, gaily dressed, and with a feather in his hat;
at which his relation expressed surprise, and told him his
appearance was by no means that of a young man who had not a
single guinea he could call his own. This gave him great offence;
but remembering his sole dependence for subsistence was in the
power of Mr. Payne, he concealed his resentment; yet could not
refrain from speaking freely behind his back, and saying 'he
thought him a d----d dull fellow;' though, indeed, this was an
epithet he was pleased to bestow on every one who did not think as
he would have them. His frequent demands for a supply obliged Mr.
Payne to tell him he must pursue some other line of life, for he
was sure Colonel Martyn would be displeased with him for having
done so much. This resource being stopped, forced him to set about
some work, of which his 'History of the Revival of Learning' was
the first; and for which he printed proposals (one of which I
have), and took the first subscription money from many of his
particular friends: the work was begun, but soon stood still. Both
Dr. Johnson and Mr. Langhorne are mistaken when they say, the
'Translation of Aristotle' was never begun: I know the contrary,
for some progress was made in both, but most in the latter. From
the freedom subsisting between us, we took the liberty of saying
any thing to each other. I one day reproached him with idleness;
when, to convince me my censure was unjust, he showed me many
sheets of his 'Translation of Aristotle,' which he said he had so
fully employed himself about, as to prevent him calling on many of
his friends so frequently as he used to do. Soon after this he
engaged with Mr. Manby, a bookseller on Ludgate Hill, to furnish
him with some Lives for the Biographia Britannica, which Manby was
then publishing. He showed me some of the lives in embryo; but I
do not recollect that any of them came to perfection. To raise a
present subsistence he set about writing his odes; and, having a
general invitation to my house, he frequently passed whole days
there, which he employed in writing them, and as frequently
burning what he had written, after reading them to me: many of
them, which pleased me, I struggled to preserve, but without
effect; for, pretending he would alter them, he got them from me,
and thrust them into the fire. He was an acceptable companion
every where; and, among the gentlemen who loved him for a genius,
I may reckon the Doctors Armstrong, Barrowby, and Hill, Messrs.
Quin, Garrick, and Foote, who frequently took his opinion on their
pieces before they were seen by the public. He was particularly
noticed by the geniuses who frequented the Bedford and Slaughter's
Coffee Houses. From his knowledge of Garrick he had the liberty of
the scenes and green-room, where he made diverting observations on
the vanity and false consequence of that class of people; and his
manner of relating them to his particular friends was extremely
entertaining. In this manner he lived, with and upon his friends,
until the death of Colonel Martyn, who left what fortune he died
possessed of unto him and his two sisters. I fear I cannot be
certain as to dates, but believe he left the university in the
year 43. Some circumstances I recollect, make me almost certain he
was in London that year; but I will not be so certain of the time
he died, which I did not hear of till long after it happened. When
his health and faculties began to decline, he went to France, and
after to Bath, in hope his health might be restored, but without
success. I never saw him after his sister removed him from
M'Donald's madhouse at Chelsea to Chichester, where he soon sunk
into a deplorable state of idiotism, which, when I was told,
shocked me exceedingly; and, even now, the remembrance of a man
for whom I had a particular friendship, and in whose company I
have passed so many pleasant happy hours, gives me a severe shock.
Since it is in consequence of your own request, Sir, that I write
this long farrago, I expect you will overlook all inaccuracies. I
am, Sir,
"Your very humble servant,
"JOHN RAGSDALE.
"Mr. William Hymers, Queen's College, Oxford."
The following communication, by Thomas Warton, was also found among the
papers of Mr. Hymers. A few passages, concerning various readings, are
omitted.
"I often saw Collins in London in 1750. This was before his
illness. He then told me of his intended History of the Revival of
Learning, and proposed a scheme of a review, to be called the
Clarendon Review, and to be printed at the university press, under
the conduct and authority of the university. About Easter, the
next year, I was in London; when, being given over, and supposed
to be dying, he desired to see me, that he might take his last
leave of me; but he grew better; and in the summer he sent me a
letter on some private business, which I have now by me, dated
Chichester, June 9, 1751, written in a fine hand, and without the
least symptom of a disordered or debilitated understanding. In
1754, he came to Oxford for change of air and amusement, where he
stayed a month; I saw him frequently, but he was so weak and low,
that he could not bear conversation. Once he walked from his
lodgings, opposite Christ Church, to Trinity College, but
supported by his servant. The same year, in September, I and my
brother visited him at Chichester, where he lived, in the
cathedral cloisters, with his sister. The first day he was in high
spirits at intervals, but exerted himself so much that he could
not see us the second. Here he showed us an Ode to Mr. John Home,
on his leaving England for Scotland, in the octave stanza, very
long, and beginning,
Home, thou return'st from Thames.
I remember there was a beautiful description of the spectre of a
man drowned in the night, or, in the language of the old Scotch
superstitions, seized by the angry spirit of the waters, appearing
to his wife with pale blue cheek, &c. Mr. Home has no copy of it.
He also showed us another ode, of two or three four-lined stanzas,
called the Bell of Arragon; on a tradition that, anciently, just
before the king of Spain died, the great bell of the cathedral of
Sarragossa, in Arragon, tolled spontaneously. It began thus:
The bell of Arragon, they say,
Spontaneous speaks the fatal day.
Soon afterwards were these lines:
Whatever dark aerial power,
Commission'd, haunts the gloomy tower.
The last stanza consisted of a moral transition to his own death
and knell, which he called 'some simpler bell.' I have seen all
his odes already published in his own handwriting; they had the
marks of repeated correction: he was perpetually changing his
epithets. Dr. Warton, my brother, has a few fragments of some
other odes, but too loose and imperfect for publication, yet
containing traces of high imagery.
"In illustration of what Dr. Johnson has related, that during his
last malady he was a great reader of the Bible, I am favoured with
the following anecdote from the Reverend Mr. Shenton, Vicar of St.
Andrews, at Chichester, by whom Collins was buried: 'Walking in my
vicaral garden one Sunday evening, during Collins's last illness,
I heard a female (the servant, I suppose) reading the Bible in his
chamber. Mr. Collins had been accustomed to rave much, and make
great moanings; but while she was reading, or rather attempting to
read, he was not only silent but attentive likewise, correcting
her mistakes, which indeed were very frequent, through the whole
of the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis.' I have just been
informed, from undoubted authority, that Collins had finished a
Preliminary Dissertation to be prefixed to his History of the
Restoration of Learning, and that it was written with great
judgment, precision, and knowledge of the subject.
"T. W."
The overthrow of Collins's mind was too complete for it to be restored
by variety of scene or the attentions of friendship. Thomas Warton
describes him as being in a weak and low condition, and unable to bear
conversation, when he saw him at Oxford. He was afterwards confined in a
house for the insane at Chelsea; but before September, 1754, he was
removed to Chichester, under the care of his sister, where he was
visited by the two Wartons. At this time his spirits temporarily
rallied; and he adverted with delight to literature, showing his guest
the Ode to Mr. Home on his leaving England for Scotland. During
Collins's illness Johnson was a frequent inquirer after his health, and
those inquiries were made with a degree of feeling which, as he himself
hints, may have partly arisen from the dread he entertained lest he
might be the victim of a similar calamity. The following extracts are
from letters addressed to Joseph Warton:
"March 8, 1754.
"But how little can we venture to exult in any intellectual
powers or literary attainments, when we consider the condition
of poor Collins. I knew him a few years ago, full of hopes and
full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and
strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under
the government of those who lately would not have been able to
comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs. What do
you hear of him? are there hopes of his recovery? or is he to
pass the remainder of his life in misery and degradation?
perhaps with complete consciousness of his calamity."
"December 24, 1754.
"Poor dear Collins! Let me know whether you think it would give
him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his
state, and therefore have it in great commiseration."
"April 15, 1756.
"What becomes of poor dear Collins? I wrote him a letter which he
never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That
man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty
of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more
dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally
liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and
depart, that it may blaze and expire."
In this state of mental darkness did Collins pass the last six or seven
years of his existence, in the house now occupied by Mr. Mason, a
bookseller in Chichester. His malady is described by Johnson as being,
not so much an alienation of mind as a general laxity and feebleness of
his vital, rather than his intellectual, powers; but his disorder seems,
from other authorities, to have been of a more violent nature. As he was
never married, he was indebted for protection and kindness to his
youngest sister; and death, the only hope of the afflicted, came to his
relief on the 12th of June, 1759, in the thirty-ninth year of his age, a
period of life when the fervour of imagination is generally chastened
without being subdued, and when all the mental powers are in their
fullest vigour. He was buried in the church of St. Andrew, at
Chichester, on the 15th of June; and the admiration of the public for
his genius has been manifested by the erection of a monument by Flaxman,
to his memory, in the Cathedral, which is thus described by Mr.
Dallaway, the historian of Sussex:
"Collins is represented as sitting in a reclining posture, during a
lucid interval of the afflicting malady to which he was subject, with a
calm and benign aspect, as if seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the
consolations of the gospel, which appears open on a table before him,
whilst his lyre and one of his best compositions lie neglected on the
ground. Upon the pediment of the table are placed two female ideal
figures in relief, representing love and pity, entwined each in the arms
of the other; the proper emblems of the genius of his poetry." It bears
the following epitaph from the pen of Hayley:
"Ye who the merits of the dead revere,
Who hold misfortune's sacred genius dear,
Regard this tomb, where Collins, hapless name,
Solicits kindness with a double claim.
Though nature gave him, and though science taught
The fire of fancy, and the reach of thought,
Severely doom'd to penury's extreme,
He pass'd in maddening pain life's feverish dream,
While rays of genius only served to show
The thickening horror, and exalt his woe.
Ye walls that echo'd to his frantic moan,
Guard the due records of this grateful stone;
Strangers to him, enamour'd of his lays,
This fond memorial to his talents raise.
For this the ashes of a bard require,
Who touch'd the tenderest notes of pity's lyre;
Who join'd pure faith to strong poetic powers;
Who, in reviving reason's lucid hours,
Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest,
And rightly deem'd the book of God the best."
Collins's character has been portrayed by all his biographers in
very agreeable colours. He was amiable and virtuous, and was as much
courted for his popular manners as for the charms of his conversation.
The associate of Johnson, Armstrong, Hill, Garrick, Quin, Foote, the
two Wartons, and Thomson, and the friend of several of these eminent
men, he must have possessed many of the qualities by which they were
distinguished; for though an adviser may be chosen from a very
different class of persons, genius will only herd with genius.
Johnson has honoured him by saying, that "his morals were pure and
his opinions pious;" and though he hints that his habits were sometimes
at variance with these characteristics, he assigns the aberration to the
temptations of want, and the society into which poverty sometimes
drives the best disposed persons, adding, that he "preserved the
sources 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." A higher eulogium,
from so rigid a moralist, could not be pronounced on a man whose life
was, for many years, unsettled and perplexed; and those only who have
experienced the pressure of pecuniary necessities can be aware of
the difficulty of resisting meanness, or avoiding vice, if not in the
sense in which these terms are usually understood, at least in a sense
to which they may as properly be applied--that of refusing to prostitute
talents to purposes foreign to the conviction and taste of their
possessor.
On this mainly depend the annoyances and dangers of him who seeks a
subsistence from his pen. The opinions which he may be desirous to
express, or the subject he may be capable of illustrating, may not be
popular, and the more important or learned they be, the more likely is
such to be the case. Of course his labours would be rejected by
publishers, who cannot buy what will not sell; hence no alternative
remains but for him to manufacture marketable commodities; and when the
_popular_ taste of the present, as well as of former times, is
remembered, the degradation to which a man of high intellect must often
submit, when he neglects that for which nature and study peculiarly
qualified him, for what is in general demand, may be easily conceived.
It is not requisite to advert to the taste of the age in which we live,
farther than to allude to the class of works which issues from the
bazaars of _fashionable_ publishers, and to ask, when such are alone in
request, what would have been the fate, had they lived in our own times,
of Johnson, Pope, Dryden, Addison, and the other ornaments of the golden
age of literature? But if even in that age the Odes of Collins were too
abstracted from mundane feelings, too rich in imagery, and too strongly
marked by the fervour of inspiration to be generally appreciated, his
chance of being so, by the public generally, is at this moment less; and
the only hope of his obtaining that popularity to which he is
unquestionably entitled, is by placing his works within the reach of
all, and, more especially, by acquainting the multitude with the opinion
entertained of him, by those whose judgments they have the sense to
venerate, since they are sometimes willing to receive, on the credit of
another, that which they have not themselves the discrimination or
feeling to perceive.
An anecdote is related of Collins which, if true, proves that he felt
the neglect with which his Odes were treated with the indignation
natural to an enthusiastic temper. Having purchased the unsold copies of
the first edition from the booksellers, he set fire to them with his own
hand, as if to revenge himself on the apathy and ignorance of the
public.
It is unnecessary to append to the Memoir of Collins many observations
on the character of his poetry, because its peculiar beauties, and the
qualities by which it is distinguished, are described with considerable
force and eloquence by Sir Egerton Brydges, in the Essay prefixed to
this edition. Campbell's remarks on the same subject cannot be
forgotten; and other critics of the highest reputation have concurred in
ascribing to Collins a conception and genius scarcely exceeded by any
English poet. To say that Sir Egerton Brydges's Essay exaggerates the
merit of some of his productions may produce the retort which has been
made to Johnson's criticism, that he was too deficient in feeling to be
capable of appreciating the excellence of the pieces which he censures.
It is not, however, inconsistent with a high respect for Collins, to
ascribe every possible praise to that unrivaled production, the Ode to
the Passions, to feel deeply the beauty, the pathos, and the sublime
conceptions of the Odes to Evening, to Pity, to Simplicity, and a few
others, and yet to be sensible of the occasional obscurity and
imperfections of his imagery in other pieces, to find it difficult to
discover the meaning of some passages, to think the opening of four of
his odes which commence with the common-place invocation of "O thou,"
and the alliteration by which so many lines are disfigured, blemishes
too serious to be forgotten, unless the judgment be drowned in the full
tide of generous and enthusiastic admiration of the great and
extraordinary beauties by which these faults are more than redeemed.
That these defects are to be ascribed to haste it would be uncandid to
deny; but haste is no apology for such faults in productions which
scarcely fill a hundred pages, and which their author had ample
opportunities to remove.
It may also be thought heterodoxy by the band, which, if small in
numbers, is distinguished by taste, feeling, and genius, to concur in
Collins's opinion, when he expressed himself dissatisfied with his
Eclogues; for, though they are not without merit, it is very doubtful if
they would have lived, even till this time, but for the Odes with which
they are published, notwithstanding the zeal of Dr. Langhorne, who is in
raptures over passages the excellence of which is not very conspicuous.
To give a preference to the Verses to Sir Thomas Hanmer, of which all
that Langhorne could find to say is, "that the versification is easy and
genteel, and the allusions always poetical," and especially to the Ode
addressed to Mr. Home, on the superstition of the Highlands, over the
Eclogues, may possibly be deemed to betray a corrupt taste, since it is
an admission which is, it is believed, made for the first time. In that
Ode, among a hundred other beautiful verses, the following address to
Tasso has seldom been surpassed:
"Prevailing Poet! whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung!
Hence, at each sound, imagination glows!
Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!
Hence, his warm lay with softest sweetness flows!
Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear,
And fills the impassion'd heart, and wins the harmonious ear!"
The picture of the swain drowned in a fen, and the grief of his widow,
possessing every charm which simplicity and tenderness can bestow, and
give to that Ode claims to admiration which, if admitted, have been
hitherto conceded in silence.
From the coincidence between Collins's love of, and addresses to, Music,
his residence at Oxford, and from internal evidence, Some Verses on Our
Late Taste in Music, which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for
1740, and there said to be "by a Gentleman of Oxford," are printed in
this edition of Collins's works, not, however, as positively his, but as
being so likely to be written by him, as to justify their being brought
to the notice of his readers.
A poet, and not to have felt the tender passion, would be a creature
which the world has never yet seen. It is said that Collins was
extremely fond of a young lady who was born the day before him, and who
did not return his affection; and that, punning upon his misfortune, he
observed, "he came into the world a day after the fair." The lady is
supposed to have been Miss Elizabeth Goddard, the intended bride of
Colonel Ross, to whom he addressed his beautiful Ode on the death of
that Officer at the battle of Fontenoy, at which time she was on a visit
to the family of the Earl of Tankerville, who then resided at Up-Park,
near Chichester, a place that overlooks the little village of Harting,
mentioned in the Ode.
Collins's person was of the middle size and well formed; of a light
complexion, with gray, weak eyes. His mind was deeply imbued with
classical literature, and he understood the Italian, French, and Spanish
languages. He was well read, and was particularly conversant with early
English writers, and to an ardent love of literature he united, as is
manifest from many of his pieces, a passionate devotion to Music, that
"----Sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid."
His family, which were very respectable, were established at Chichester
in the sixteenth century as tradesmen of the higher order, and his
immediate ancestor was mayor of that city in 1619:[7] his mother's
relations appear to have been of a superior condition in life.[8]
Collins lost his father in 1734, and on the 5th of July, 1744, his
mother died. He was an only son: of his two sisters, Elizabeth, the
eldest, died unmarried, and Anne, the youngest, who took care of him
when he was bereft of reason, married first Mr. Hugh Sempill, who died
in 1762, and secondly the Rev. Dr. Thomas Durnford, and died at
Chichester in November, 1789. Her character is thus described on the
authority of Mr. Park: "The Reverend Mr. Durnford, who resided at
Chichester, and was the son of Dr. Durnford, informed me, in August,
1795, that the sister of Collins loved money to excess, and evinced so
outrageous an aversion to her brother, because he squandered or gave
away to the boys in the cloisters whatever money he had, that she
destroyed, in a paroxysm of resentment, all his papers, and whatever
remained of his enthusiasm for poetry, as far as she could. Mr. Hayley
told me, when I visited him at Eartham, that he had obtained from her a
small drawing by Collins, but it possessed no other value than as a
memorial that the bard had attempted to handle the pencil as well as the
pen."[9] That Mrs. Durnford was indifferent to her brother's fame, is
stated by others, and Sir Egerton Brydges, in his Essay, has made some
just observations on the circumstance.