COLLIN S.

W

ILLIAM COLLINS was born at Chichester on the twenty-fifth 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 firft courted the notice of the publick by some verses to a Lady weeping, published in The Gentleman's Magazine.

In 1740, he stood firft in the lift of the scholars to be received in fucceffion at New 'College;

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College; but unhappily there was no vacancy. This was the original misfortune of his life. 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 fuddenly 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 defigned many works; but his great fault was irrefolution, or the frequent calls of immediate neceffity broke his schemes, and fuffered him to pursue no fettled purpose. A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much difpofed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries. He published proposals for a Hiftory of the Revival of Learning; and I have heard him fpeak with great kindness of Leo the Tenth, and with keen refentment of his taftelefs fucceffor. But probably not a page of the History was ever written. He planned feveral tragedies, but he only planned them.

He

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 confiderable, his views extensive, his conversation elegant, and his disposition chearful. 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 occafion recourse was had to the bookfellers, who, on the credit of a tranflation of Ariftotle's Poeticks, which he engaged to write with a large commentary, advanced as much money as enabled him to escape into the country. He fhewed me the guineas fafe in his hand. Soon afterwards his uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenantcolonel, left him about two thousand pounds; a fum which Collins could fcarcely think exhauftible, and which he did not live to exhauft. The guineas were then repaid, and the translation neglected.

But man is not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he fludied to live, felt no evil but poverty, no fooner lived to study than

his life was affailed by more dreadful calamities, disease and insanity.

Having formerly written his character, while perhaps it was yet more diftinctly impreffed upon my memory, I fhall infert it here.

"Mr. Collins was a man of extenfive 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 upon works of fiction, and fubjects of fancy; and, by indulging fome 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 paffive acquiefcence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of inchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repofe by the water-falls of Elyfian gardens.

"This was however the character rather of his inclination than his genius; the gran

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