Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/384

 scholar of Winchester on 19 Jan. 1733. In the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1734, p. 167, is mentioned a poem by 'W. Collins' on the royal nuptials, but the poem is lost and the identification uncertain. It is said that he wrote poetry at twelve, one line being remembered— And every Gradus flapped his leathern wing (European Mag. xxviii. 377). At Winchester he was a schoolfellow of Joseph Warton, ever afterwards his friend. While at school he published a copy of verses to ' Miss Aurelia C—r ' in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for January 1739. Three poems, sent by him, W 7 arton, and another school-fellow, appeared in the same magazine in October 1739, and a complimentary notice of them in the following number is attributed by Wooll to Johnson. He was first on the roll for New College; but no vacancy occurring he and Warton were both super-annuated. On 21 March 1740 he was entered as a commoner at Queen's College, Oxford, and on 29 July 1741 he was elected to a demyship at Magdalene, possibly through the influence of William Payne, a cousin, who was fellow of the college. Joseph Warton was at Oriel, where Gilbert White of Selborne, an old pupil of Warton's father, was also a student. White became intimate with Collins, and his recollections are given in a letter to the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for 1781 (p. 11). From this and the letter of another friend, John Ragsdale, it appears that Collins was at this time fond of dissipation and contemptuous of academical pedants and college discipline. In January 1742 he published his 'Persian Eclogues,' republished as ' Oriental Eclogues ' in 1757. Woodfall printed five hundred of these in December 1741, and a thousand of the odes in December 1746 (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xi. 408). His ' verses humbly addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his edition of Shakespeare by a gentleman of Oxford,' were dated 3 Dec. 1743. He graduated as B.A. on 18 Nov. 1743, and soon afterwards left Oxford, having, according to some reports, got into debt. His father had died in 1734, and on his mother's death, 6 July 1744, he inherited a small property, with which he soon parted. It was probably at this time that he visited his uncle, Lieutenant-colonel Martin of the 8th regiment, then quartered in Flanders. His uncle, we are told, thought him 'too indolent even for the army,' and consequently recommended the church. He obtained a title to a curacy from a clergyman near Chichester, but was dissuaded from taking orders by a tobacconist named Hardman, and came to London to try literature. He now proposed to bring out a volume of odes in conjunction with his friend Joseph Warton. He was not to publish unless he could obtain ten guineas for them. Collins's odes appeared in December 1746 (1747 is on the title-page). Warton's volume appeared separately at the same time, and reached a second edition. Collins was less successful, and it is said by Langhorne that he afterwards burnt the unsold copies in disgust. The ode on the death of Colonel Ross had appeared in Dodsley's ' Museum ' in June 1746. This ode, the ode to ' Evening/ and ' How sleep the brave ' appeared again in Dodsley's ' Museum ' (vol. iv. 1749), with variations in the two first, the authenticity of which has been disputed, but which are probably due to Collins himself (see Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. 237, 3rd ser. xi. 350, 371). Meanwhile he issued proposals for a history of the revival of learning. A reference in the first volume of Warton s ' Essay on Pope ' (note to Essay on Criticism, 1. 47) seems to show that some hopes were entertained by his friends so late as 1756 of the completion of this undertaking. He planned, but, according to Johnson, 'only planned,' tragedies, and indulged in schemes for many works. Johnson, who made his acquaintance about this time, found him in lodgings which were watched by a bailiff 'prowling in the street.' He obtained an advance from a bookseller on the strength of a projected translation of Aristotle's 'Poetics,' and 'escaped into the country.' He became intimate in the literary circles of the day, knowing Armstrong, Quin, Garrick, and Foote, and forming a special friendship with Thomson. He was frequently at the house of a Mr. Ragsdale, Thomson's neighbour at Richmond. After Thomson's death he wrote the beautiful ode published by Manby in June 1749. The dirge to ' Cymbeline ' appeared in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for October 1749. Collins's uncle, Colonel Martin, had been severely wounded at the battle of Val in Flanders, and returned to England in 1747, where he died in 1749. His fortune of about 7,000 was divided between his nephew and nieces, Collins receiving about 2,000l. He repaid the advance made for his proposed translation of Aristotle, and also (unless there is some confusion) the sum paid by Millar for his odes. In the autumn of 1749 he met John Home, the author of 'Douglas,' at Winchester, where they were visiting a common friend, an officer named Barrow, who died in America during the following war. To Home Collins gave an imperfect copy of the ' Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands.' Home gave it to