314 



COLLEGIANTS COLLOREDO. 



niciit have all a voice in the decision of measures, so 

 Umt each branch of government is carried on by col- 

 legium, not by a single president. This system lias 

 both great advantages and disadvantages. 



COLLEGIANTS. See Rheinberghers. 



COLLIFLOWER. See Cabbage. 



OOLLIN, HENRY JOSEPH VON, born at Vienna, in 

 1772, was the son of a physician. He rose, by de- 

 grees, to an important place in the financial depart- 

 ment of the Austrian government. He sacrificed his 

 feeble health, and even his favourite inclination for 

 l>oetry, to the duties of his office, in which he labour- 

 ed with an assiduity that at length put an end to his 

 life. He died of a nervous fever in 1811. Having 

 laid a wager with a friend to write a tragedy within 

 six weeks, he produced his first drama, Regulus, the 

 plan of which he had arranged before. It was fol- 

 lowed by Coriolanus, Polyxena. Balbea, Bianco, delta 

 Porta, Meeon, and De Horatier und Curia tier. A se- 

 lection of his smaller poems appeared in Vienna, af- 

 ter his death, with fragments of his epic poem Ru- 

 dolf von Habsburg. His works are characterized by 

 a spirit nourished on the ancient classics, and by a 

 vigorous simplicity. They are sometimes, however, 

 rather frigid and stiff. They are not very finished 

 productions. A complete edition appeared in Vien- 

 na, 1814, 6vols. 



COLLIN, MATTHEPS VON, brother of the preced- 

 ing, in 1808, became professor of aesthetics and phi- 

 losopy at Cracow. In 1815, he was appointed tutor 

 of the duke of Reichstadt (son of Napoleon). He 

 died in 1824. As a dramatic poet, he ranks below 

 his brother. In 1813, he was editor of the Literary 

 Gazette of Vienna, and, in 1818, of the Vienna An- 

 nals of Literature (JViener Jahrbucher der Literatur). 



COLLIN D'HARLEVILLE, JEAN FaANgois, a 

 French dramatist, was born in 1750, at Maintenon, 

 near Chartres. He abandoned the profession of 

 the law, and enriched the French stage with cha- 

 racter-pieces, as ^Inconstant, L'Optimiste, Les Cha- 

 teaux en Espagne, Monsieur de Crac dans son petit 

 Castel, Les Artistes. In his earliest pieces, he wrote 

 by rule, but subsequently followed the bent of his 

 own genius. In his best piece, the Vieux Celibataire, 

 lie returned, however, to the established principles 

 of the French theatre. In general, his comedies are 

 blamed as deficient in humour, and his comic charac- 

 ters as wanting in individual traits. In his allegori- 

 cal poem, Melpomene et Thalie, we find natural ease 

 combined with sentimental philosophy, but often 

 prosaic verses. He died in 1806. 



COLLINGWOOD, CUTHBERT, first baron; a dis- 

 tinguished naval commander, was born at Newcastle- 

 upon-Tyne, in 1748, and educated at the same school 

 with the ex-chancellor Eldon, under Mr MoLses. He 

 entered the royal navy in 1761, and in the action of 

 June 1, 1794, was flag-captain on board the Prince, 

 commanded by admiral Bowyer. In 1797, he com- 

 manded the Excellent during the battle off cape St 

 Vincent, on the 14th of February in that year, and 

 having, in 1799, been made rear-admiral of the white, 

 was promoted, in 1801, to the red. In 1804, being 

 then vice-admiral of the blue, he assisted in the 

 blockade of Brest harbour ; but his most distinguish- 

 ed service was the part he bore in the great victory 

 of Trafalgar, in which his gallant manner of bring- 

 ing his ship into action, and the skill and resolution 

 with which he fought her, excited the personal ad- 

 miration of Nelson himself, upon whose lamented 

 fall, the command of the fleet devolved upon him as 

 the senior officer. In this critical situation, admiral 

 Collingwood evinced a degree of promptitude and 

 nautical skill, combined with prudence, which tend- 

 >d much to the preservation of the captured vessels, 

 ninl prov<;d his judgment as a commander to be not 



inferior to his courage. For his valuable services on 

 this and other occasions, he was promoted to be 

 vice-admiral of the red, continued in his command of 

 the fleet, and elevated to a barony. His death took 

 place while cruising off Minorca, in the Ville de 

 Paris, on the 7th of March, 1810. His remains were 

 carried to England, and deposited in St Paul's, near 

 those of his friend Nelson. Collingwood appears to 

 have been a model of a naval officer. He was dis- 

 tinguished for zeal, courage, humanity, circumspec- 

 tion, and strictness of discipline. Though hardly any 

 man had more experience in the governing of sailors, 

 he was an enemy to flogging. His letters to his 

 children are full of excellent sentiments and judicious 

 advice. Every young naval officer shoidd be fami- 

 liar with the Public and Private Correspondence of 

 the Vice-Admiral Collingwood, with Memoirs of liis 

 Life, (8vo, 3d edition, London, 1828). 



COLLINS, WILLIAM, a distinguished English 

 poet, was born in 1720 or 1721, at Chichester, where 

 his father was a hatter. He was educated at Win- 

 chester school and at Oxford. While at college, he 

 wrote his Oriental Eclogues, which were printed in 

 1742. Their success was moderate, and, in 1744, 

 the author went to London as a literary adventurer. 

 In 1746, he gave his Odes, Descriptive and Alle- 

 gorical, to the public ; but the sale did not pay for 

 die printing, and the indignant and sensitive poet 

 burned all the unsold copies. Yet among these odes 

 were many pieces which at present rank with the 

 finest lyrics in the language. Pecuniary distress fol- 

 lowed this disappointment; and, aided by the ad 

 vance of a few guineas from the booksellers for an 

 intended translation of the Poetics of Aristotle, he 

 was enabled to escape into the country, whence he 

 found means to pay a visit to his uncle, colonel Mar- 

 tin, then with the British army in Germany. The 

 death of this relation, who bequeathed him a legacy 

 of j2000, raised him to comparative affluence ; and 

 he immediately returned the booksellers their ad- 

 vance, being reduced, by nervous debility, to an ut- 

 ter incapability of any species of mental exertion. 

 Originally too laxly strung, disappointment, distress, 

 and irregularity had completely disarranged his 

 nervous system. Dreadful depression of spirits fol- 

 lowed, for which he had no better remedy than the 

 fatal one of the bottle. Although he did not suffer 

 from absolute alienation of mind, it was thought best 

 to confine him in a lunatic asylum ; but, finally, he 

 was consigned to the care of a sister, in whose arms 

 he terminated his brief and melancholy career, in 

 1756. Collins, by his taste and attainments, appears 

 to have been peculiarly adapted for the higher walks 

 of poetry. His odes, from which he derives his chief 

 poetical fame, notwithstanding the disparaging re- 

 marks of doctor Johnson, are now almost universally 

 regarded as the first productions of the kind in the 

 English language for vigour of conception, boldness 

 ana variety of personification, and genuine warmth of 

 feeling. The originality of Collins consists, not in 

 his sentiments, but in the highly figurative garb in 

 which he clothes abstract ideas, in the felicity of his 

 expressions, and in his skill in embodying ideal crea- 

 tions. His chief defect is an occasional mysticism. 

 His temperament was, in the strictest meaning of the 

 word, poetical ; and had he existed under happier 

 circumstances, and enjoyed the undisturbed exercise 

 of his faculties, he would probably have surpassed 

 most, if not all, of his contemporaries, during the 

 very prosaic period which immediately followed the 

 death of Pope. 



COLLOREDO ; one of the most illustrious fa- 

 milies in Austria, originally from Friuli. The mem- 

 bers of one branch, Colloredo Mansfeld, have been, 

 since 1763, princes of the empire. To the family of 



