William Collins

The son of a hatter, William Collins was friends with Joseph Warton and William Whitehead at Winchester (1733-40) where he composed his first published poems, the Persian Eclogues. He entered Queen's College Oxford in 1740 (B.A. 1744) and seems to have planned a career as a poet. Collins was an early admirer of Elizabethan poetry; Thomas Warton refers to a lost collection black-letter treasures. Removing to London Collins attracted the attention and encouragement of James Thomson and Samuel Johnson. In 1749 he received a timely inheritance, only to be stricken with a debilitating disease that left him incapable of writing.

TEXT RECORDS:

1738On Hercules.
1742Eclogue the First. Selim; or, the Shepherd's Moral.
1742Eclogue the Fourth. Agib and Secander; or, the Fugitives.
1742Eclogue the Second. Hassan; or, the Camel-driver.
1742Eclogue the Third. Abra; or, the Georgian Sultana.
1742Persian Eclogues: The Preface.
1745Ode to a Lady, on the Death of Col. Charles Ross, in the Action of Fontenoy. Written May, 1745.
1745 ca.[Lines Addressed to a Friend about to visit Italy.]
1746Ode on the Poetical Character.
1746Ode to Evening.
1746Ode to Fear.
1746Ode to Liberty.
1746Ode to Mercy.
1746Ode to Peace.
1746Ode to Pity.
1746Ode to Simplicity.
1746Ode, written in the Beginning of the Year 1746. [How Sleep the Brave.]
1746The Manners. An Ode.
1746The Passions. An Ode for Music.
1747Of the essential Excellencies in Poetry.
1749An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands.
1749Ode occasion'd by the Death of Mr. Thomson.
1749Superstitions Ode: The London Text.

PUBLICATIONS:

Persian eclogues, written for originally for the entertainment of the ladies of Taurus and now first translated. 1742.
Verses humbly address'd to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his edition of Shakespear's works, by a gentleman of Oxford. 1743.
Odes on several descriptive and allegorical subjects. 1746.
Ode occasion'd by the death of Mr. Thomson. 1749.
The passions, an ode. 1750.
Poetical works, ed. John Langhorne. 1765.
An ode on the popular superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, considered as the subject of poetry. 1788.
Poetical works, ed. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, 1797.
Poetical works, ed. by Alexander Dyce. 1827.
Poetical works of Goldsmith, Collins, and T. Warton, ed. G. Gilfillan. 1854.
Poetical works, ed. W. Moy Thomas. 1858.
Poems, ed. W. C. Bronson. 1898.
Poetical works of Gray and Collins, ed. Austin Lane Poole. 1917.
Poems, ed. Edmund Blunden. 1929.
Drafts and fragments of verse, ed. J. S. Cunningham. 1956.
Poems of Gray, Collins, and Goldsmith, ed. R. Lonsdale. 1969.
Works, ed. Richard Wendorf and Charles Ryskamp. 1979.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Winchester College
Queen's College Oxford
Bachelor of Arts

poet

The Museum

Dr. John Armstrong
George Colman
John Gilbert Cooper
David Garrick
John Home
Samuel Johnson
David Mallet
James Thomson
Rev. Joseph Warton
Rev. Thomas Warton

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); Life by James Hampton in Poetical Calender (1763) vol. 12; "Some Account of the Life and Writings of William Collins" [from Poetical Calendar] Gentleman's Magazine 34 (January 1764) 23-24; John Langhorne, life in Collins, Poems (1765); "Life of the celebrated Mr. Collins" [by Langhorne] Lloyd's Evening Post (27 March 1765) 290-91; "Memoirs of Collins" British Magazine 6 (March 1765) 139-42 [from Langhorne]; Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); "Life of Mr. Collins [from Poetical Calendar] Oxford Magazine 11 (January 1774) 19-20; Bell's Poets of Great Britain (1776-82); Samuel Johnson, Life in Works of the English Poets (1779-81); Gilbert White, "Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, the Poet" Gentleman's Magazine 51 (January 1781) 11-12; John Scott of Amwell, "On Collins's Oriental Eclogues" in Critical Essays (1785); Bell's Fugitive Poetry (1789-97); Thomas Clio Rickman, "Dialogue in the Shades between Churchill and Collins" European Magazine 24 (1793) 345; Roach's Beauties of the Poets (1794); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); "Hayley and Collins" The Oracle (3 September 1795); William Seward, "Drossiana: William Collins" European Magazine 28 (October, December 1795) 236, 377; T. D., "On the Comparative Merit of Dryden's Ode on Alexander and Collins's on the Passions" European Magazine 28 (July 1795) 17-20; Anna Laetitia Barbauld, ed, Collins, Works (1797); Nathan Drake, "On the Frenzy of Tasso and Collins" in his Literary Hours (1798); George Knox, "Remarks on Collins's Ode on the Passions" Edinburgh Magazine or Literary Miscellany NS 17 (March 1801) 206-10; "William Collins" [memoir and notes from Langhorne] Monthly Anthology [Boston] 1 (November 1803-April 1804); Thomas Enort Smith, "Stanza of Collins ["To Evening"] Preserved" European Magazine 44 (December 1803) 428; Orielensis, "Various Readings of Collins" European Magazine 43 (March 1803) 183; Samuel Egerton Brydges, "Collins's Odes" Censura Literaria 5 (1805) 353-55, 6 (1808) 90-94, 389-91; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); "Some Particulars of Collins" European Magazine 51 (March 1807) 167; Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); "On the Allegorical Style of Collins; with a Comparison of it with that of Sackville" Censura Literaria 9 (1809) 414-23; Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); "William Collins, the Poet" European Magazine 60 (August 1811) 208-09 [portrait]; "Collins's Ode on the Passions" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 7 (June 1812) 543-45; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Isaac D'Israeli, "Disappointments disordering the Intellect" in Calamities of Literature (1812); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); "Interesting Particulars of the Poet Collins" Literary Gazette (5 May 1821) 281-82; Henry Francis Cary, "On Gray's Opinion of Collins" London Magazine 4 (July 1821) 13-16; "Collins and Gray" Edinburgh Magazine NS 15 (September 1824) 345-46; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Collins's Ode on the Passions" European Magazine 87 (May 1825) 419-21; George B. Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Mark Anthony Lower, The Worthies of Sussex: Biographical Sketches (1865); Thomas S. Perry, "Gray, Collins and Beattie" Atlantic Monthly 46 (1880); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Alan D. McKillop, "The Romanticism of William Collins" Studies in Philology 20 (1923) 1-16; Iolo Williams, Seven Bibliographies (1924); H. W. Garrod, William Collins (1928); A. S. P. Woodhouse, "Imitations of the Ode to Evening" TLS (30 May 1929) 436; Edward G. Ainsworth, Poor Collins, His Life, his Art, His Influence (1937); Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942); Lucyle Werkmeister, "Collins and the London Daily Press, 1788-1798" Notes and Queries 210 (1965) 225-27; P. L. Carver, The Life of a Poet (1967); Earl. R. Wasserman, "Collins's Ode on the Poetical Character" ELH 34 (1967) 92-115; Arthur Johnston, "The Poetry of William Collins" Proceedings of the British Academy 59 (1973) 321-40; Paul S. Sherwin, Precious Bane: Collins and the Miltonic Legacy (1977); Butt, OHEL (1979); Richard Wendorf, William Collins and Eighteenth-Century English Poetry (1981); Spenser Encyclopedia, "Collins" (1990) 177; Howard Weinbrot, "William Collins and the Mid-Century Ode" in Context, Influence, and Mid-Eighteenth-Century Poetry, ed. Weinbrot and Price (1990) 3-39; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for William Collins:

1.	1746  Thomas Gray to Thomas Wharton, 27 December 1746; Works, ed. Gosse (1895) 2:159-60.
2.	1746  Joseph Warton to Thomas Warton, 1746; Wooll, Biographical Memoirs of Joseph Warton (1806) 14-15n.
3.	1754  Samuel Johnson to Joseph Warton, 8 March 1754; Wooll, Biographical Memoirs of Joseph Warton (1806) 219.
4.	1764  John Langhorne, Review of Collins in Poetical Calendar; The Monthly Review 30 (January 1764) 20-21.
5.	1765  Anonymous, in "To the Lyric Muse" Scots Magazine 27 (February 1765) 102.
6.	1768  G. B., "An Ode, to the Memory of Mr. Collins" Newcastle Chronicle (17 December 1768).
7.	1770  James Beattie to William Forbes, 4 May 1770; Forbes, Life and Writings of James Beattie (1806) 1:159.
8.	1772  Anonymous, in "Catalogue of the most celebrated Writers" Letters concerning the present State of England (1772) 351-53.
9.	1773  Anonymous, in "Verses on some late English Poets" Scots Magazine 35 (September 1773) 486.
10.	1773  Danos, in "Verses on some late English Poets" Scots Magazine 35 (September 1773) 486.
11.	1779  Vicesimus Knox, in Essays Moral and Literary (1779) 2:178.
12.	1781  William Preston, in "Epistle to a young Gentleman" 1781; Poems (1793) 1:180-81.
13.	1782  John Scott of Amwell, "Stanzas written at Medhurst, in Sussex, on the Author's return from Chichester, where he had attempted in vain to find the Burial-place of Collins" Poetical Works (1782) 323-25.
14.	1782  William Bagshaw Stevens, in "Retirement" Poems (1782) 20.
15.	1784  William Cowper to Rev. John Newton, 19 March 1784; Southey, Life and Works of Cowper (1835-37) 5:11.
16.	1785  Samuel Egerton Brydges, "To Evening" Sonnets and other Poems (1785) 9.
17.	1785 ca.  Susanna Blamire, "On Collins's Ode on the Passions, as recited by Mrs. Esten" 1785 ca.; in Blamire, Poetical Works (1842) 125-27.
18.	1786  Anonymous, "Sonnet. To Evening" General Evening Post (26 August 1786).
19.	1786  T. J. [Thomas Chalkley James?], "On Reading the Odes of Collins" Columbian Magazine [Philadelphia] 1 (October 1786) 92.
20.	1788  Oswald, "Fragment, written at the Grave of the inspired Collins, at Chichester" Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (9 October 1788).
21.	1789  Anonymous, in The Grove of Fancy (1789) 37-38.
22.	1789  Anonymous, "Ode to the River Arun" Poems by Camisis (1789) 22-23.
23.	1791  Anonymous, "Lines inscribed in Collins's Works, sent to two Ladies" European Magazine 19 (February 1791) 152.
24.	1792  Thomas Dermody, "Sonnet, to the Memory of Collins" Poems: consisting of Essays, Lyric, Elegiac, &c. (1792) 85.
25.	1793  Thomas Clio Rickman, "Dialogue in the Shades between Churchill and Collins" European Magazine 24 (November 1793) 345.
26.	1794  Robert Alves, in Sketches of a History of Literature (1794) 251-52.
27.	1794  Thomas Clubbs, "Dirge, to the Memory of Collins" St. James's Chronicle (11 January 1794).
28.	1795  William Hayley, Collins's Epitaph; The Courier (1 September 1795).
29.	1795  William Seward, "Drossiana: William Collins" European Magazine 28 (October, December 1795) 236, 377.
30.	1795  Robert Anderson, in Works of the British Poets (1795) 9:514-15, 518.
31.	1796 ca.  William Hayley to William Roscoe, 1796 ca.; Life of William Roscoe (1833) 1:225n.
32.	1796  C. D., "Inscription attempted for the Monument of Collins in Chichester Cathedral" Bath Herald (10 September 1796).
33.	1797  Thomas Enort Smith, "Lines on Collins the Chichester Bard" European Magazine 32 (December 1797) 413-14 & n.
34.	1798  Nathan Drake, in Literary Hours (1798; 1800) 1:66-67.
35.	1798  Edward Gardner, in "Miss Seward, Dr. Darwin, Gray, and Collins" Miscellanies, in Prose and Verse (1798) 1:169-76.
36.	1800  Nathan Drake, "On the Government Imagination; on the Frenzy of Tasso and Colins" Literary Hours (1800) 1:51-72.
37.	1801  Leigh Hunt, "The Shade of Collins. An Ode" Morning Chronicle (3 October 1801).
38.	1805  Henry Boyd, in "On some MSS Poems by Miss Stewart" Boyd, The Woodman's Tale (1805) 235.
39.	1805  Samuel Egerton Brydges, "Collins's Odes, Descriptive and Allegorical" Censura Literaria 1 (1805) 353-55.
40.	1806  John Aikin, in Letters to a Young Lady (1806) 200-01.
41.	1807  Robert Southey, in Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) 2:247-48.
42.	1808  Anne Grant, in "On Reading MSS Poems ... by a Young Lady" The Highlander (1808) 232-33.
43.	1809  Anonymous, "On Miss Smith's Recital of Collins's Ode on the Passions" Walker's Hibernian Magazine (February 1810) 90.
44.	1810 ca.  Thomas Park, MS note, 1810 ca.; Poems of William Collins, ed. Walter C. Bronson (1898) xxix-xxxn.
45.	1810  Elijah Waring, "Lines, composed on paying a visit to the tomb of Collins, in Chichester Cathedral" Poetical Magazine 3 (1810) 252-54.
46.	1810  William Hersee, "Ode written by Moonlight, in the City of Chichester" Poems Rural and Domestic (1810) 151-52.
47.	1812  G., "Collins's Ode on the Passions" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 7 (June 1812) 543-45.
48.	1813  Walter Scott, in The Bridal of Triermaine (1813); Strachey, Poets on Poets (1894) 208.
49.	1813  Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen, "Ode to the Memory of Collins" Poems by Three Friends (1813) 68-74.
50.	1813  Anonymous, in "Genius. Pronounced before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at their last Anniversary" General Repository and Review [Cambridge MA] 4 (October 1813) 383.
51.	1815  Lord Byron to Leigh Hunt, November 1815; Letters and Journals, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1898-1901) 3:247-48.
52.	1815  William Wordsworth, in Essay, Supplementary to the Preface (1815) in Prose, ed. Grosart (1876) 2:120.
53.	1816  E. Walgrave, "The Tomb of Collins, in Chichester Cathedral" The Monthly Magazine 42 (December 1816) 429-30.
54.	1818  William Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English Poets (1818; 1909) 154.
55.	1819  Anonymous, "The Hive: Collins the Poet" European Magazine 76 (August 1819) 121.
56.	1821  R. T., "Ode to the Genius of Collins" Imperial Magazine [Liverpool] 3 (May 1821) 442.
57.	1822  Anonymous, "Authors: William Collins" Eccentricities of Literature and Life [Boston] 1 (1822) 254.
58.	1822  Chandos Leigh, "To the Memory of Collins" Leigh, The View, and other Poems (1822) 85-87.
59.	1823  Leigh Hunt, "Among my Books," 1823; The Indicator (1845) 2:148-49.
60.	1823  Rev. Charles Burton, in The Bardiad; a Poem (1823) pp. 24, 154-57n.
61.	1824  William Hazlitt, in Select British Poets (1824); Works, ed. Howe (1932) 9:240.
62.	1824  Anonymous, "Collins and Gray" Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany NS 15 (September 1824) 345-46.
63.	1825 ca.  Henry Mackenzie, Anecdotes and Egotisms, 1825 ca.; ed. Thompson (1927) 165-66.
64.	1825  Thomas Stott, "To the Memory of W. Collins, Esq." The Songs of Deardra (1825) 15-21.
65.	1826  Richard Ryan, "Collins" Poetry and Poets: being a Collection of the choicest Anecdotes relative to the Poets of every Age and Nation (1826) 2:249-51.
66.	1828  Edward Smedley to H. Hawkins, 28 March 1828; Poems of the late Rev. Edward Smedley (1837) 306.
67.	1829  William Wordsworth to Alexander Dyce, 12 January 1829; Letters of the Wordsworth Family, ed. Knight (1907) 2:358.
68.	1829  Anna Brownell Jameson, "Poetical Old Bachelors" Loves of the Poets (1829; 1857) 479-80.
69.	1830  Charles Crocker, in "The Lavant" The Vale of Obscurity (1830) 53-55.
70.	1830  George Barrell Cheever, in Studies in Poetry ... A copious Collection of Elegant Extracts (1830) 141-43.
71.	1830  The Harrovian [Robert Aris Willmott], in "The Minor Greek Poets" Fraser's Magazine 2 (August 1830) 57-58.
72.	1833  James Montgomery, in Lectures on General Literature, Poetry, &c. (1833) 111.
73.	1835  Robert Southey, in Life and Works of Cowper (1835-37) 2:153.
74.	1880  Algernon Charles Swinburne, in The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880) 3:278-81.
75.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 188.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for William Collins:

1.	1763  James Hampton and Samuel Johnson, "Some Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Collins" in Poetical Calendar (1763) 12:107-12
2.	1765  John Langhorne, Memoir in William Collins, Poetical Works (1765) i-xv.
3.	1779  Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1779-81); ed. Hill (1905) 3:334-42.
4.	1781  Gilbert White, "Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, the Poet" Gentleman's Magazine 51 (January 1781) 11-12.
5.	1782  Isaac Reed, in Dodsley, A Collection of Poems (1782) 1:352-53n.
6.	1782  Thomas Warton, Memoir of Collins addressed to William Hymers, 1782-83; in The Gleaner (1811) 4:474-79.
7.	1783  John Ragsdale to William Hymers, "Particulars of Mr. William Collins, the Poet," 1783; Monthly Magazine 21 (July 1806) 494-95.
8.	1808  Samuel Jackson Pratt, in Cabinet of the Muses (1808) 4:236-37.
9.	1812  Isaac D'Israeli, "Disappointments Disordering the Intellect" in Calamities of Authors (1812); Works (1881) 5:178-86.
10.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 10:74-79.
11.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 429-30.
12.	1820  John Aikin, in Select Works of the British Poets (1820) 502.
13.	1832  William Clarke and Robert Shelton Mackenzie, in The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain (1832-34) 3:344-45.
14.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 2:30-31.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1746  John Milton:   William Collins, in "Ode on the Poetical Character" Odes (1746) 17-18.
2.	1747  David Mallet:   William Collins?, in "The Essential Excellencies in Poetry" The Museum: or the Literary and Historical Register 3 (1747) 285-86.
3.	1747  John Milton:   William Collins?, in "On the Essential Excellencies of Poetry" The Museum: or the Literary and Historical Register 3 (1747) 284.
4.	1749  Edward Fairfax:   William Collins, in "Superstitions Ode" 1749; European Magazine 13 (April 1788) 245.
5.	1749  James Thomson:   William Collins, Ode occasion'd by the Death of Mr. Thomson (1749) 5-8.