-, II 



COLLINS. 



wai Colliai in exception to the common lot. Having 

 no rrguUr employ rocnt, he had DO regular income. When 

 prvtwd by the proiprct of wint, he reiolvrd on diligence, 

 but when the preuure was removed, hit resolutions were 

 forgot. Amid thit fluctuation, instead of writing a his- 

 tory of the revival of letter*, of which he frequently talk- 

 ed, or entering on various dramatic work*, which were 

 among the number of hit projects, he contented himself 

 with the production of a few Ode, which he seems to 

 bare composed for recreation rather than emolument. 

 The*c Ode, however, abound in excellencies, to which 

 genius alone could give existence ; and justify a belief, 

 that the uniform tranquillity derived from easy circum- 

 stances, it lets propitious to the loftier flights of imagina- 

 tion, than the transient elasticity of spirits, which the 

 Hidden suspension of disquiet has a natural tendency to 

 produce. Professional writers in a great city, are gene- 

 rally addicted to conviv.aluy. Requiring a relaxation 

 from labour, they prefer thoie evening clubs, where they 

 meet with persona who arc in a condition similar to their 

 own, and by whom (hat colloquial power which they de- 

 rive from rheir endowments, their acqu.rements, and their 

 mode of life, in both excited and admired. In these as- 

 semblies of contemporary wits, Collins became acquaint- 

 ed with Johnson, who, says the poet, was of " a decent 

 and manly appearance, his knowledge considerable, his 

 views extensive, hia conversation elegant, and his disposi- 

 tion cheerful." It was natural that a sympathy should 

 rise between such minds as those of Collins and John- 

 ton, while both were equally depressed by pecuniary dif- 

 ficulties, and elevated by a consciousness of superiority 

 to the wealthy crowd who permitted them to starve, but 

 over all of whom they knew themselves destined to rise, 

 by the interest they were to create, and the renown they 

 were to obtain. They accordingly grew into habits of 

 such confidential intimacy, that, when the poet was skulk- 

 ing from an officer on the watch to arrest him, Johnson, 

 whom he knew to be in no great security from a similar 

 humiliation, was readily admitted to his retreat. From 

 this embarrassment, he was relieved by a small sum which 

 the booksellers were persuaded to advance, on his pro- 

 mise of writing for them a translation of Aristotle's Fo- 

 ctici, with a commentary. He then retired to the coun- 

 try, but soon after returned to town, on succeeding to a 

 legacy of 2000, which had been left him by an uncle, 

 and out of which he immediately relieved himself of his 

 debt to the booksellers. This succession, to one who 

 had been so long accustomed to indigence, appeared an 

 inexhaustible fortune ; but Providence did not permit him 

 to enjoy it, for as he improved in circumstances, he decli- 

 ned in health. The malady into which he sunk, is described 

 by Johnson as a species of insanity ; but this description 

 is afterwards qualified by a more minute detail of its symp- 

 toms, from which we are left to conclude, that it waa ra- 

 ther nervous debility than mental derangement. " His 

 ditorder," says the biographer, " was not alienation of 

 mind, but general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency ra- 

 ther of his vital than intellectual powers. What he spoke 

 wanted neither judgment nor spirit ; but a few minutes 

 exhausted him, so tliat he was forced to rest upon the 

 couch, till a short cessation restored hit powers, and he 

 was again able to talk with his former vigour. The ap- 

 proaches of this dreadful malady he began -to feel soon 

 after his uncle's death ; and with the usual eagerness of 

 men so diseased, eagerly snatched that temporary relief 

 with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce. 

 But his health continually declined, and he grew more 

 and more burthcnsome to himnelf." When Collins per- 

 ceived this partial failure of his faculties, fora conscious- 



nets of his case teems to have been its most distressing 

 effect, he wat advised to travel, that he might divert his ' 

 mind from pondering on its own decay. He therefore 

 went to France, but at the experiment did not tucccrd, 

 he speedily returned, and was for some time confined in a 

 madhouse. He afterwards put himself under the care of 

 a sister in Chichester, where he died at the early age of 30. 

 It is pleasing to learn from his illustrious friend, that, 

 amid all his afflictions, no fretfulness of spirit impelled 

 him to abandon the endeavour of soothing them by reli- 

 gion. When Johnson visited him on his return from 

 France, and found a New Testament in his hand, " I 

 have only one book," said Collins, but that is the 

 best." He was buried in the cathedral of Chichester. 



Of men who, like Collins, hare led a life of adversity, 

 it is proper to judge with indulgence. Many whose lot 

 has been smooth and easy, like tempers which have never 

 been tried, enjoy a favour and reputation which, in harsh- 

 er circumstances, they would soon have forfeited ; and 

 he whose aberrations of conduct were few, when his vir- 

 tue could produce no temporal advantage, may obtain 

 credit for the superior rectitude he would have exhibited, 

 had he been encouraged by a prospect of its usual re- 

 wards. Collins in his better days, does not seem to have 

 exceeded the dissipation of his lettered associates ; and 

 the attic orgies, which were graced by the wisdom, and 

 guarded by the virtue, of a Johnson, could be no matter 

 of serious reproach. If the horrors of mind in which he 

 was afterwards plunged, drove him to indulgences of a 

 less venial description, the anguish of the disease may 

 plead some pardon for the desperate remedy, by which 

 he solicited its momentary abatement ; and it is no slen- 

 der praise, that for his practical errors he never sought 

 theoretical apologies, but preserved the soundness of his 

 principles, under the strongest temptations to quiet self 

 reproof by relaxing them. 



The genius of Collins may be classed among those of 

 the higher order. Like Gray, he has left few produc- 

 tions, yet by these we may calculate the powers from 

 which they proceeded, as by a small segment we can 

 measure the dimensions of the whole circle. In the ef- 

 fusions of Collins we find every thing surveyed with the 

 eye, and touched by the hand of a poet. He does not, 

 like most of the polished versifiers who immediately pre- 

 ceded him, present elegant imitations of nature, under 

 those aspects, in which she must appear to all observers. 

 He views her through the prism of a glowing imagina- 

 tion, and transfers to her the colours which that faculty 

 supplies. A common artist may be abundantly dextrous 

 in his portrait of visible forms, but it is only a master, 

 like Lorraine, who can enrich his landscape with hues 

 which ate drawn from his own ideal stores of beauty, 

 which are characteristic of himself alone, and whicli 

 stamp on his works the impression of original genius. 

 Collins appears entitled to similar praise. Even in his 

 Oriental Eclogues, though juvenile productions, which 

 his maturer taste is said to have despised, the warmth of 

 scenery which they display, and the tropical lassitude 

 which they seem to breathe, shew the early vivacity of his 

 conceptions ; while his Odes excel in a peculiar richness 

 of personification, and in the creations of a generative 

 fancy, which impregnates all its objects with life and in- 

 tellect. It must be acknowledged, inded, that ho some- 

 times carries his favourite style to excess, and continues 

 to crowd the scene with visionary beings, or, in his own 

 words, ' with all the shadowy tribes of mind," till, by 

 losing their distinctness, they lose their interest. His 

 ideas, too, are occasionally so remote from that ordinary 

 tram of thought, to which the resources of ordinary Ian- 



Cellini. 



