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 conversation elegant, and his disposition 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 street. On this occafion recourfe was had to the bookfellers, 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 lieutenantcolonel, left him about two thousand pounds; a fum which Collins could fcarcely think exhauftible, and which he did not live to exhaust. The guineas were then repaid, and the translation neglected.

But man is not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he ftudied to live, felt no evil but poverty, no fooner lived to study than

his life was affailed by more dreadful calamities, disease 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 fubjects of fancy; and, by indulging fome peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a paffive acquiefcence 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 repose by the water-falls of Elysian gardens.

"This was however the character rather of his inclination than his genius; the

gran

deur

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 obstructed 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 destroyed; 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, Y 4 paffed

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 preserved the fource of action unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken, 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 casual temptation.

"The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and sadness. 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. These 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

"After

"After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him a vifit 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 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 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 tenderness.

He was visited at Chichefter, in his laft illnefs, by his learned friends Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he spoke with disapprobation 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 infcribed to Mr. John Hume, on the fuperftitions