deur 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 caused harshness 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 description, 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 progress by deviation in quest of mistaken 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 fhould be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almost deftroyed; and long affociation with fortuitous companions will at last relax the strictness of truth, and abate the fervour of fincerity. That this man, wife and virtuous as he was, paffed always unentangled through the snares 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 fadness. He languished fome years under that depreffion of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. Thefe clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to difperfe by travel, and paffed into France; but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned. He was for fome time confined in a house of lunaticks, and afterwards retired to the care of his fifter in Chichester, where death in 1756 came to his relief. 2 st * After "After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him a visit at Iflington, where he was waiting for his fifter, whom he had directed to meet him: there was then nothing of diforder difcernible in his mind by any but himfelf; but he had withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an English Testament, fuch as children carry to the fchool: when his friend took it into his hand, out of curiofity to see what companion a Man of Letters had chofen, I have but one book, fays Collins, but that is the best.” Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tendernefs. He was vifited at Chichester, in his last illnefs, by his learned friends Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he spoke 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 ftitions of the Highlands; which they thought fuperior to his other works, but which no search has yet found. His diforder was not alienation of mind, but general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital than intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgement nor fpirit; but a few minutes exhausted him, fo that he was forced to reft upon the couch, till a fhort ceffation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with his former vigour. The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel soon after his uncle's death; and, with the ufual weakness of men fo difeased, eagerly fnatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and feduce. But his health continually declined, 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 injudiciously felected. He affected the obfolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, feeming to think, with some 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 efteemed who cannot be loved, fo the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives little pleasure. Mr. Collins's first production is added here from the Poetical Calendar : TO MISS AURELIA C--R, ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING: Ceafe, fair Aurelia, ceafe to mourn; You may And feize the treasure you regret. With Love united Hymen ftands,' And foftly whispers to your charms; DYER |