know that he existed till I found him there, whose mind seems to have had the slightest tincture of religion; and he was hardly in his senses. His name was Collins. He sunk into a state of melancholy, and died young. Not long before his death, he was found at his lodgings in Islington by his biographer, with the New Testament in his hand. He said to Johnson, 'I have but one book, but it is the best.' Of him, therefore, there are some hopes. But from the lives of all the rest there is but one inference to be drawn: that poets are a very worthless, wicked set of people."-Private Corresp. vol. i. p. 315.

Mr. T. Campbell has given us the following admirable remarks on Collins:

"Collins published his Oriental Eclogues while at college, and his lyrical poetry at the age of twentysix. Those works will abide comparison with whatever Milton wrote under the age of thirty. If they have rather less exuberant wealth of genius, they exhibit more exquisite touches of pathos. Like Milton, he leads us into the haunted ground of imagination; like him, he has the rich economy of expression haloed with thought, which by single or few words often hints entire pictures to the imagination.

**** A cloud of obscurity sometimes rests on his highest conceptions, arising from the fineness of his associations, and the daring sweep of his allusions; but the shadow is transitory, and interferes very little with the light of his imagery, or the warmth of his feelings."-Specimens, vol. v. p. 310.

"His characteristics," says Mrs. Barbauld, " are tenderness tinged with melancholy, beautiful imagery, a fondness for allegory and abstract ideas,

purity and chasteness of sentiment, and an exquisite ear for harmony. In his endeavours to embody the fleeting forms of mind, and clothe them with correspondent imagery, he is not unfrequently obscure; but even when obscure, the reader who possesses congenial feelings is not ill pleased to find his faculties put upon the stretch in the search of those sublime ideas which are apt, from their shadowy nature, *** Posto elude the grasp of the mind. **

terity has done him justice, and assigned him an honourable rank among those of our poets who are more distinguished by excellence than by bulk."Essay. p. 6, 7. 49.

Mr. Hazlitt observes of Collins:

"He had that true vivida vis, that genuine inspiration, which alone can give birth to the highest efforts of poetry. He leaves stings in the minds of his readers, certain traces of thought and feelings which never wear out, because nature had left them in his own mind. He is the only one of the minor poets of whom, if he had lived, it cannot be said that he might not have done the greatest things. The germ is there. He is sometimes affected, unmeaning, and obscure; but he also catches rich glimpses of the bowers of paradise, and has lofty aspirations after the highest seats of the muses. With a great deal of tinsel and splendid patchwork, he has not been able to hide the solid sterling ore of genius. In his best works there is an attic simplicity, a pathos and fervour of imagination, which make us the more lament that the efforts of his mind were at first depressed by neglect and pecuniary embarrassments, and at length buried in the gloom of an uncon

querable and fatal malady. ****** I should conceive that Collins had a much greater poetical genius than Gray, he had more of that fine madness which is inseparable from it, of its turbid effervescence, of all that pushes it to the verge of agony or rapture."-Lectures on English Poets, p. 230. 234.

LIST OF THE CHIEF EDITIONS OF THE WORKS OF COLLINS.

1. Persian Eclogues. London, Roberts, 1742 2. Verses humbly addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his edition of Shakspeare's Works, by a gentleman of Oxford. London, folio, Cooper, 1743

3. Odes on several Descriptive and Allegoric Sub

jects, by William Collins.

London, 8vo. Millar, 1747

Langhorne, and other biographers of Collins, state that the odes first appeared in 1746, and the statement is correct; for though the title-page of this edition bears the date 1747, it was published in the December of the preceding year. (See list of books published in December 1746 in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xvi. p. 672.) This edition contains the first twelve odes of the present volume. The Ode to a Lady on the death of Colonel Ross was orif αναγει, a misprint for αναγεισθαι. D.

ginally printed (stanzas seventh and eighth being omitted) in Dodsley's Museum, vol. i. p. 215.

4. An Ode occasioned by the death of Mr. Thomson, by William Collins. London, Manby, 1749 5. Oriental Eclogues, written originally for the Entertainment of the Ladies of Tauris, and now translated.

Ubi primus equis oriens adflavit anhelis.-Virg. Georg. Lib. 1. London, 4to. Payne, 1757

6. The Poetical Works of Mr. William Collins, with Memoirs of the Author; and Observations on his genius and writings, by J. Langhorne.

Son pure i nostri figli

Propagini celesti:

Non spegnera il suo seme.-Guar.

London, 12mo. Becket and Dehondt, 1765

7. The same.

8. The same.

1771

Evans, 1781

9. The Poetical Works of William Collins.

Glasgow, folio, Foulis, 1787 10. An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland; considered as the subject of poetry. Inscribed to Mr. Home, author of Douglas. By Mr. William Collins, author of the Ode on the Passions, etc. Never before printed. Dedicated to the Wartons.

"Mr. Collins showed (the Wartons) in his last illness, an Ode, inscribed to Mr. John Home, on the Superstitions of the Highlands, which they thought superior to his other works, but which no search has yet found." Dr. Johnson's Life of Collins.

London, 4to. Bell, 1788 This ode originally appeared in the first volume

of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. For a further account of both editions, see the Various Notes.

11. The Poetical Works of Mr. William Collins, with a Prefatory Essay by Mrs. Barbauld.

London, 12mo. Cadell and Davies, 1797 12. The Poetical Works of William Collins; enriched with elegant engravings, to which is prefixed a life of the author by Dr. Johnson.

London, 12mo. Harding, 1798 13. The Poetical Works of William Collins, enriched with elegant engravings, to which is prefixed a life of the author by Dr. Johnson; second edition. London, 12mo. Vernor and Hood, Harding, etc. 1800

14. The Poetical Works of William Collins; with the Commentary of Langhorne. To which is prefixed, some account of the Life of Collins, written by Dr. Johnson. Embellished with engravings, from the Designs of Richard Westall, Esq. R. A.

London, 12mo. Sharpe, 1804

15. The Poetical Works of William Collins; with the Life of the Author. London, 12mo. Sharpe, 1811 This is merely Sharpe's edition of 1804, with a newly engraved title-page, and without the plates. Poems by Collins appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, Dodsley's Museum, the different editions of Dodsley's Collection, Fawkes' and Woty's Poetical Calendar, Pearch's Collection, the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, etc.

His collected works have been printed in the British Poets of Johnson, Bell, Anderson, Cooke, Park, Chalmers, Aikin, Whittingham, etc.