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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 inmediate neceffity broke his fchemes, and fuffered him to purfue 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 speak with great kindness of Leo the Tenth, and with keen refentment of his taftelefs fucceffor. But probably not a page of the Hiftory was ever written. He planned feveral tragedies, but he only planned them. He wrote now-and-then odes and other poems, and did fomething, however little.

About this time I fell into his company. His appearance was decent and manly; his knowledge confiderable, his views extensive, his converfation elegant, and his difpofition 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 ftreet. On this occafion recourfe was had to the book fellers, 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 lieutenant-colonel, left him about two thoufand pounds; a fum which Collins.. could fcarcely think exhauftible, and which he did not live to exhaust. The guineas were then repaid, and the tranflation neglected.

But

But man is not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he studied to live, felt no evil but poverty, no fooner lived to fudy than his life was affailed by more dreadful calamities, difeafe and infanity.

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 subjects of fancy; and, by indulging fome peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pafs 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 monfters; 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 grandeur of wildness, and the novelty of extravagance, were always defired by him, but were not always attained. Yet as diligence is never wholly loft; if his efforts fometimes caufed harfhnefs and obfcurity, they likewife produced in happier moments fublimity and fplendour. This idea which he had formed of excellence, led him to oriental fictions and allegorical imagery; and perhaps, while he was intent upon defcription, he did not fufficiently cultivate fentiment. His poems are the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished

with knowledge either of books or life, but fomewhat obftructed in its progrefs by deviation in queft of miftaken beauties.

"His morals were pure, and his opinions pious: in a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of diffipation, it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almost destroyed ; and long affociation with fortuitous companions will at laft relax the ftrictnefs of truth, and abate the fervour of fincerity. That this man, wife and virtuous as he was, paffed always unentangled through the fnares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to. affirm; but it may be faid that at least he preferved the fource of action unpolluted, that his principles were never fhaken, that his diftinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of malignity or defign, but proceeded from fome unexpected preffure, or cafual temptation.

"The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and fadnefs. He languished fome years under that depreffion of mind which enchains the fa-. culties without destroying them, and leaves reafon the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to difperfe by travel, and paffed into France; but found himself conftrained to yield to his malady, and returned. He was for fome time confined in a houfe of lunaticks, and afterwards retired to the care of his fifter in Chichefter, where death in 1756 came to his relief.

"After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him a vifit at Iflington, where he was

waiting

waiting for his fifter, whom he had directed to meet him there was then nothing of diforder difcernible in his mind by any but himself; but he had withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an English Teftament, fuch as children carry to the school: when his friend took it into his hand, out of euriofity to fee what companion a Man of Letters had chofen, I have but one book, faid Collins, but that is the best."

Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converfe, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.

He was vifited at Chichester, in his laft illness, by his learned friends Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he fpoke with difapprobation of his Oriental Eclogues, as not fufficiently expreffive of Afiatick manners, and called them his Irish Eclogues. He fhewed them, at the fame time, an ode inscribed to Mr. John Hume, on the fuperftitions of the Highlands; which they thought fuperior to his other works, but which no fearch has yet found.

His diforder was not alienation of mind, but gencral laxity and feeblenefs, a deficiency rather of his vital than intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgement nor fpirit; but a few minutes exhaufted him, fo that he was forced to reft upon the couch, till a fhort ceffation reftored his powers, and he was again able to talk with his former vigour.

The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel foon after his uncle's death; and, with the ufual weakness of men fo difeafed, eagerly fnatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and feduce. But his health continually declined,

clined, and he grew more and more burthenfome to himself.

To what I have formerly faid of his writings may be added, that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudicioufly felected. He affected the obfolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with fome later candidates for fame, that not to write profe is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of flow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of confonants. As men are often ef teemed who cannot be loved, fo the poetry of Collins may fometimes extort praise when it gives little pleafure.

Mr. Collins's first production is added here from the Poetical Calendar.

TO MISS AURELIA CR,

ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING.

Ceafe, fair Aurelia, ceafe to mourn;

Lament not Hannah's happy flate;

You may be happy in your turn,
And feize the treafure you regret.

With Love united Hymen ftands,
And foftly whispers to your charms;
"Meet but your lover in my bands,
"You'll find your fifter in his arms.”

VOL. IV.

P

DYER.

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