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COLLINS 



Holland ; and in 1718 he was made treasurer for 

 the county of Essex. In 1724 appeared his Grounds 

 and Reasons of the Christian Religion. The con- 

 tention that no fair interpretation of the Old 

 Testament prophecies will secure a correspondence 

 between them and their alleged fulfilment in the 

 New Testament, created a violent controversy, 

 and called forth no fewer than thirty-five replies. 

 Two years later he defended himself in his Scheme 

 of Literal Prophecy ; and in 1727 he published his 

 last work, the Scheme of Literal Prophecy Con- 

 sidered. Collins died 13th December 1729. 



Collins, MORTIMER, a versatile writer, was 

 born the son of a solicitor at Plymouth, June 29, 

 1827. He was educated at private schools, and 

 held for some years a mathematical mastership in 

 Guernsey, which he resigned in 1856 to devote him- 

 self entirely to literature. He settled at Knowl 

 Hill in Berkshire, and kept up an incessant activity 

 in the varied forms of articles on current politics, 

 novels, and playful verses until his death, 28th 

 July 1876. His physical was equal to his mental 

 vigour : he was tall and remarkably strong, an 

 athlete, a lover of dogs, flowers, and outdoor-life. 

 His old-world Toryism and hatred of irrever- 

 ence and irreligion, his humour, his wonderful 

 facility in extemporising clever verse, his chess- 

 playing, not to say his mathematics, made him a 

 delightful companion, and endeared him to such 

 friends as R. H. Home, Frederick Locker, Edmund 

 Yates, and R. D. Blackmore. His volumes of verse 

 were -Summer Songs (1860), Idyls and Rhymes 

 (1865), and The Inn of Strange Meetings (1871). 

 Of his numerous novels the chief are Sweet Anne 

 Page (1868); The Marquis and Merchant (1871); 

 Two Plunges for a Pearl (1872); Mr Carington, 

 by ' Robert Turner Cotton ' ( 1873) ; Transmigration 

 ( 1874) ; From Midnight to Midnight ( 1875) ; and A 

 Fight with Fortune ( 1876 ). His second wife, who 

 died March 17, 1885, collaborated with him in 

 Frances (1874), Sweet and Twenty (1875), and in 

 two novels published posthumously, The Village 

 Comedy (1876) and You Play me False (1878); 

 and wrote alone A Broken Lily ( 1882 ). One of his 

 most popular books was The Secret of Long Life 

 ( 1871 ), a collection of essays at first published 

 anonymously. The pious affection of his friends 

 kept his memory green by editing from his papers 

 Pen Sketches by a vanished Hand, by Tom Taylor, 

 (1879); Attic Salt, a selection of epigrammatic 

 sayings from all his books, by F. Kerslake (1880) ; 

 and Thoughts in My Garden, by E. Yates (1882). 

 See his wife's account of his Life (1877), and his 

 Select Poetical Works (1886). 



CollillS, WILLIAM, a distinguished English 

 poet, was born at Chichester, 25th December 1721. 

 His father was a hatter in that town, of which he 

 was several times mayor. Collins received the 

 rudiments of his education at the prebendal school 

 of his native town. At the age of twelve he was 

 sent to Winchester School, where he remained seven 

 years. While there he wrote his Oriental Eclogues, 

 which in his own day, and for a considerable period 

 afterwards, were the most popular of his produc- 

 tions. He was himself convinced that this pre- 

 ference was misplaced, and the world has long 

 since come round to his opinion. In 1741 he 

 proceeded to Oxford, where he was distinguished 

 by 'his genius and indolence.' Having taken the 

 degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1743, he shortly after- 

 wards left the university for reasons which are not 

 accurately known. His private means being but 

 slender, he obtained the title to a curacy, but was dis- 

 suaded from entering the church. As his only other 

 alternative, he took up his residence in London, and 

 sought to make a living by literature, a profession 

 for which he was utterly unfitted by his desultory 



ways and uncertain health. He now fell into> 

 what are vaguely described as 'irregular habits,' 

 and was at times reduced to the greatest straits. 

 On one occasion Dr Johnson rescued him from the 

 hands of bailiffs by obtaining an advance from a. 

 bookseller on the promise of Collins to translate 

 the Poetics of Aristotle. It was during this period, 

 however, that he wrote his Odes, upon which his 

 fame as a poet now rests. They attracted no 

 notice at the time of their publication, and they 

 were little valued even by such contemporaries as 

 Gray and Dr Johnson. By the death or an uncle 

 in 1749, Collins inherited the sum of 2000, which 

 enabled him to retire to Chichester, and apparently 

 to pursue a regular course of study. It was about 

 this time that he met Home, the author of Douglas, 

 to whom he addressed his Ode on the Popular 

 Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, a poem 

 in which, according to Mr Russell Lowell, ' the 

 whole Romantic School is foreshadowed.' The ode 

 was first published in the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh (1788). Before 1753, Collins 

 felt the approaches of the mental disease to which 

 he finally succumbed, and sought relief in a visit to- 

 France. On his return he gradually became worse, 

 and in 1753 his reason completely gave way. He 

 lived for six years longer in this state, though 

 with lucid intervals. He died on 12th June 1759, 

 so unknown to fame that no newspaper or magazine 

 of the day has any notice of his death. 



Collins, like Gray, holds a middle position be- 

 tween the school of Pope and the school of Words- 

 worth. In his maturer work he is almost completely 

 free from the so-called ' poetic diction ' of the 18th 

 century. He has not the passionate feeling for 

 nature of later poets, but his feeling is at least 

 real and not conventional. In respect of natural 

 poetic gifts, Coleridge, and Mrs Browning, and 

 other high authorities, place him above his con- 

 temporary, Gray. His choice of subjects, however, 

 and his subtler modes of treatment, debar him from 

 the popularity of the author of the Elegy. His 

 most highly finished ode is that To Evening, which, 

 is unsurpassed for exquisiteness of tone and diction. 

 The ode entitled The Passions has merits of a differ- 

 ent order, but evinces genius of even wider scope. 

 The allegorical character of this ode and its com- 

 panion pieces, To Liberty, To Mercy, and To Pity, 

 removes them from direct human sympathy. That 

 Collins was capable of simplicity and pathos, how- 

 ever, is shown by his two most popular poems, On 

 the Death of the Poet Thomson, and his lines begin- 

 ning ' How sleep the brave. ' 



Collins, WILLIAM, R.A., landscape and figure 

 painter, was born in London, September 8, 1788, of 

 a Wicklow family. In 1807 he entered the Royal 

 Academy as a student, and in the same year he 

 exhibited two small landscapes. In 1812 his 'Sale 

 of the Pet Lamb ' was sold for 140 guineas, and 

 from this time his pictures became popular. He 

 exhibited 169 works, of which the best Known are 

 the ' Black berry Gatherers ' and ' The Birdcatchers ' 

 (1814), which gained his associateship ; 'Scene on 

 the Coast of Norfolk' (1815), now at Windsor; 

 ' The Fisherman's Departure ' ( 1826), ' As Happy as 

 a King' ( 1836), and 'Early Morning' (1846). Collins, 

 was elected R.A. in 1820. He studied and sketched 

 in Italy in 1836-38, and in 1839 sent to the Acad- 

 emy several Italian subjects. Two pictures on 

 sacred subjects (1840-41) were not particularly 

 successful, and he wisely fell back on his green 

 fields, his sea- beaches, his rustics, and his children 

 at their games. A visit to the Shetland Islands 

 in 1842 supplied materials for the illustrations of 

 Scott's Pirate. Collins died in London, February 

 17, 1847. See his Life (1848) by his elder son, 

 William Wilkie Collins. His second son, CHARLES 

 ALLSTON COLLINS ( 1828-73), in early life painted 



