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Pindar says of Pelops that he came alone in the dark to the White Sea;' and West,

'Near the billow-beaten side

Of the foam-besilver'd main,
Darkling, and alone, he stood','

which, however, is less exuberant than the former passage.

A work of this kind must in a minute examination discover many imperfections, but West's version, so far as I have considered it, appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities 3.

His Institution of the Garter (1742)* is written with sufficient knowledge of the manners that prevailed in the age to which it is referred, and with great elegance of diction; but, for want of a process of events, neither knowledge nor elegance preserve the reader from weariness.

14 His Imitations of Spenser' are very successfully performed, both with respect to the metre, the language, and the fiction; and being engaged at once by the excellence of the sentiments and the artifice of the copy the mind has two amusements together. But such compositions are not to be reckoned among the great achievements of intellect, because their effect is local and temporary; they appeal not to reason or passion, but to memory, and presuppose an accidental or artificial state of mind. An Imitation of Spenser is nothing to a reader, however acute, by whom Spenser has never been perused. Works of this

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Gray wrote to Richard West from Florence on July 16, 1740:-'Now I talk of verses, Mr. Walpole and I have frequently wondered you should never mention a certain imitation of Spenser, published last year by a namesake of yours, with which we are all enraptured and enmarvailed.' Letters, i. 78.

'West began a school half Greek, half Gothick, which was followed by Mason, Gray and Warton, and is to be traced in Akenside and Collins.' SOUTHEY, Specimens, Preface, p. 32.

'The poems of West had the merit of chaste and manly diction, but they were cold, and, if I may so express it, only dead-coloured.' COLERIDGE, Biog. Lit. 1847, i. 23.

kind may deserve praise, as proofs of great industry and great nicety of observation; but the highest praise, the praise of genius, they cannot claim. The noblest beauties of art are those of which the effect is co-extended with rational nature, or at least with the whole circle of polished life; what is less than this can be only pretty, the plaything of fashion and the amusement of a day1.

THERE is in The Adventurer a paper of verses given to 15 one of the authors as Mr. West's, and supposed to have been written by him3. It should not be concealed, however, that it is printed with Mr. Jago's name in Dodsley's Collection*, and is mentioned as his in a letter of Shenstone's". Perhaps West gave it without naming the author, and Hawkesworth, receiving it from him, thought it his; for his he thought it, as he told me, and as he tells the publick.

1 For Imitations see ante, POPE, 372.

2

[Elegy on a Blackbird in No. 37.] 3 In the first edition, the sentence continues:-' which, having been left out by the compilers, it is proper to insert here.' It is inserted at the end of the Life. It certainly is not West's.

4 A Collection of Poems in Six

Volumes. By Several Hands. 2nd ed. 1758, iv. 315.

Richard Jago, a school-fellow and friend of Shenstone's, matriculated at University College, Oxford, on Oct. 30, 1732. Alumni Oxon. See post, SHENSTONE, 3 n.

5 Shenstone's Works, 1791, iii. 242. The editor of The Adventurer. Boswell's Johnson, i. 234.

1

2

COLLINS

I

WILLIAM COLLINS was born at Chichester on the

twenty-fifth of December, about 1720. His father was a hatter of good reputation3. He was in 1733, as Dr. Warton has kindly informed me, admitted scholar of Winchester College, where he was educated by Dr. Burton'. His English exercises were better than his Latin.

He first courted the notice of the publick by some verses To a Lady weeping, published in The Gentleman's Magazine. 8 In 1740 he stood first in the list of the scholars to be received in succession at New College; but unhappily there was no vacancy'. This was the original misfortune of his life. He became a Commoner of Queen's College, probably with a scanty maintenance; but was in about half a year elected a Demy of Magdalen College, where he continued till he had taken a Bachelor's degree, and then suddenly left the University; for what reason I know not that he told9.

I In The Poetical Calendar, xii. 107, there is a brief memoir of Collins, reprinted in Gent. Mag. 1764, p. 23, which Johnson perhaps used.

2

1721. Collins's Poems, ed. Moy Thomas, Preface, p. 9.

3 He was thrice Mayor. Ib. 4 Johnson, in his Dictionary, does not give scholar in the sense he uses it here-one who had his education and maintenance free. He gives scholarship.

5 Warton and Collins were schoolfellows. Warton succeeded Burton as head master.

Oct. 1739, p. 545, under the title of Sonnet. It is not included in Eng. Poets. It is given in Thomas's Collins, p. 100, and in John. Letters, ii. 131 n. See post, COLLINS, 18.

' Winchester College and New College, Oxford, formed two parts of one great foundation. 'The seventy Fellows and Scholars of New College are elected from the College of Win

chester, where an election is held annually to supply the vacancies which may happen in the course of the ensuing year!' Oxford Univ. Cal. 1833, p. 207. No one could be examined after his nineteenth birthday. See ante, BROOME, I; SOMERVILE, 2; post, YOUNG, 5.

He matriculated at Queen's on March 22, 1739-40. aged 18. 'Remaining still at Winchester he was elected in the summer of 1740, and placed first upon the Roll for New College, but no vacancy occurring during the year he became superannuated. On July 29, 1741, he was admitted a Demy of Magdalen. In 1743 he took his B.A. degree, and in 1744 he resigned his Demyship.' Bloxam's Reg. of Mag. Coll. vi. 254. For Demy see ante, ADDISON, 8.

9

According to Gilbert White, who had known him at Oxford, 'he had a sovereign contempt for all academic studies and discipline, and was always

He now (about 1744) came to London a literary adventurer, 4 with many projects in his head, and very little money in his pocket'. He designed many works, but his great fault was irresolution, or the frequent calls of immediate necessity broke his schemes, and suffered him to pursue no settled purpose 2. A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation or remote enquiries 3. He published proposals for a History of the Revival of Learning, and I have heard him speak with great kindness of Leo the Tenth, and with keen resentment of his tasteless successor 5. But probably not a page of the History was ever written. He planned several tragedies, but he only planned them. He wrote now and then odes and other poems, and did something, however little.

complaining of the dulness of a college life. Going to London, he commenced a man of the town. He soon wasted his little property.' Thomas's Collins, Preface, p. 31.

Eight years after Collins left Magdalen Gibbon entered, and took note of the Fellows, with 'their dull and deep potations,' and the Demies, those 'poor scholars, whose ambition aspired to the peaceful honour of a Fellowship.' Memoirs, p. 58.

Johnson describes himself as he had come to London seven years earlier. Boswell's Johnson, i. 101. Collins had inherited a small property which he sold. Thomas's Collins, Preface, pp. 16, 18.

2 Mulso wrote to White on Sept. 7, 1745-Collins has been some time returned from Flanders in order to put on the gown as I hear, and get a chaplaincy in a regiment. Don't laugh. . . . This will be the second acquaintance of mine who becomes the thing he most derides.' R. HoltWhite's Life of Gilbert White, i. 41.

3 For Johnson impransus see Boswell's Johnson, i. 137.

His History was to include the pontificates of Julius II and Leo X. Poet. Cal. xii. 109. According to T. Warton he finished the Preliminary Dissertation. Thomas's Collins, Preface, p. 43. J. Warton refers to this book in his Essay on Pope, i. 186.

J. Mulso wrote to Gilbert White on

July 18, 1744:-'I saw Collins in town; he is entirely an author, and hardly speaks out of rule. I hope his subscriptions go on well in Oxford.' Life of White, i. 38. 'His subscriptions did not answer his expectations.' Gent. Mag. 1764, p. 23.

Johnson projected a work under the same title. Boswell's Johnson, iv. 382.

5 Adrian VI, preceptor of Charles V. 'He was indeed no inconsiderable proficient in those frivolous sciences which during several centuries assumed the name of philosophy. . . . But he was without any tincture of taste or elegance.' ROBERTSON, Hist. of Charles V, 1802, ii. 27.

'À sa mort on écrivit sur la porte de son médecin :-Au libérateur de la patrie.' VOLTAIRE, Euvres, xxii. 16.

Of Leo's predecessor, Julius II, and of his great-grandfather, Cosmo de Medici, Collins wrote:

'As Arts expired, resistless dulness rose;

Goths, priests, or Vandals, -all were learning's foes;

Till Julius first recalled each exiled
maid,

And Cosmo owned them in the
Etrurian shade.'

Epistle to Hanmer, 1. 35.

In Gent. Mag. 1742, p. 56, are announced 'Persian Eclogues, price 6d.,' and ib. 1746, p. 672,‘Odes on several descriptive and allegoric subjects. By W. Collins, price 1s.; Odes

5

I

About this time I fell into his company. His appearance was decent and manly; his knowledge considerable, 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 occasion recourse was had to the booksellers, who, on the credit of a translation of Aristotle's Poeticks, which he engaged to write with a large commentary, advanced as much money as enabled him to escape into the country. He shewed me the guineas safe in his hand. Soon afterwards his uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenant-colonel 3, left him about two thousand

on several subjects. By Jos. Warton, B.A., price 1s. 6d. Of the Persian Eclogues the British Museum has no copy. [They were republished in 1757 as Oriental Eclogues. Thomas's Collins, Pref. pp. 15, 46; post, COLLINS, 14.] Warton wrote:-'Collins is not to publish the Odes unless he gets ten guineas for them.' Wooll's Warton, p. 15.

Gray wrote in Dec. 1746:-' Have you seen the works of two young authors, a Mr. Warton and a Mr. Collins, both writers of Odes? It is odd enough, but each is the half of a considerable man, and one the counterpart of the other. The first has but little invention, very poetical choice of expression, and a good ear; the second a fine fancy modelled upon the antique, a bad ear, great variety of words, and images with no choice at all. They both deserve to last some years, but will not.' Letters, i. 153.

Of Collins's Eclogues 500 copies were printed, and of his Odes 1,000. Thomas's Collins, Preface, pp. 16, 22.

I

In what sense does Johnson use decent? He defines it as 'becoming; fit; suitable.' Mr. Thomas thinks that here it means 'graceful.' Collins's Poems, Preface, p. 49. That is more than Johnson meant. In The Deserted Village, l. 12,

'The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill'

was not likely to have been graceful. When Pope said 'Secker is decent' (Epil. Sat. ii. 71) he meant that his conduct is not unbecoming a bishop. So Collins's appearance was 'becom

ing'-according to the modern phrase 'that of a gentleman'-the reverse of the appearance of Johnson and of many of his brother authors.

2

Johnson probably was the gobetween, as he was when he sold The Vicar of Wakefield for Goldsmith when arrested for debt. Boswell's Johnson, i. 416.

3'Edmund Martin, Esq., Lieut.Col. of the King's Reg. of Foot' died on April 18, 1749. Gent. Mag. 1749, p. 188. [He had been wounded in the action of the Val in Flanders in 1747 when in command of Wolfe's Regiment of Foot, i.e. the 8th Regt., sometimes called the King's Own. Soon after he returned to England, where he died at Chichester in the house of Collins's sisters. Collins's Poems, ed. Moy Thomas, Preface, pp. 15, 24.]

Dr. Warton in a note on The Dunciad, iv. 560—

'Wash Bladen white, and expiate Hays's stain,'

says: Colonel Martin Bladen was uncle to my dear friend Mr. Collins the Poet, to whom he left an estate, which he did not get possession of till his faculties were deranged. I remember Collins told me that Bladen had given to Voltaire all that account of Camoens inserted in his Essay on the Epic Poets of all Nations [Euvres, viii. 385]. Warton's Pope's Works, v. 281.

[Mr. Moy Thomas (Collins's Poems, p. 26), in reference to Warton's note, says that the name of Collins's uncle was simply Martin, and not Martin

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