they destroy the influences of fhame itself; and most spirits are apt to fink, under their oppreffion, into a fullen and unambitious defpondence. HOWEVER this might be with regard. to Mr. Collins, we find that, in the year 1746, he had fpirit and refolution enough to publifh his Odes defcriptive and allegorical. Mr. MILLAR, a bookfeller in the ftrand, and a favourer of genius, when once it has made its way. to fame, published them ON THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT.-He happened, indeed, to be in the right not to publish them on his own; for the fale was by. no means fuccefsful; and hence it was that the author, conceiving a juft indignation against a blind and tasteless age, burnt burnt the remaining copies with his own hands. ALLEGORICAL and abftracted poetry was above the taste of thofe times, as much, or more than it is of the present. It is in the lower walks, the plain and practical paths of the mufes only that the generality of men can be entertained. The higher efforts of imagination are above their capacity; and it is no wonder therefore, if the Odes defcriptive and allegorical met with few admirers. UNDER thefe circumftances, fo mortifying to every juft expectation, when neither his wants were relieved, nor his reputation extended, he found fome confolation in changing the fcene, and vifiting vifiting his uncle, colonel MARTIN, who was, at that time, with our army in Flanders. Soon after his arrival, the colonel died, and left him a confiderable fortune. HERE, then, we should hope to behold him happy; poffeffed of independence, and removed from every scene, and every monument of his former mifery. But, fortune had delayed her favours till they were not worth receiving. His faculties had been fo long harraffed by anxiety, diffipation, and distress, that he fell into a nervous disorder, which brought with it an unconquerable depreffion of spirits, and at length reduced the finest understanding to the most deplorable childishness. In the first fta ges ges of his disorder he attempted to relieve himself by travel, and paffed into France; but the growing malady obliged him to return; and having continued, with short intervals *, in this pitiable state till the year 1756, he died in the arms of a fifter at Colchester. MR. Collins was, in ftature, fomewhat above the middle fize; of a brown complexion, keen, expreffive eyes, and a fixed, fedate afpect, which from intenfe thinking, had contracted an habitual frown. His proficiency in letters was greater than could have been ex It seems to have been in one of thefe intervals, that he was vifited by an ingenious friend, who tells us, he found him with a book in his hand, and being asked what it was, he answered, that he had but cne book, but that was the beft." It was the New Teftament in English. pected pected from his years. He was skilled in the learned languages, and acquainted with the Italian, French and Spanish.It is obfervable that none of his poems bear the marks of an amorous disposition, and that he is one of those few poets, who have failed to Delphi, without touching at Cythera. The allufions of this kind that appear in his Oriental Eclogues were indifpenfable in that fpecies of poetry; and it is very remarkable that in his Paffions, an ode for mufic, love is omitted, though it should have made a principal figure there. ORI |