The Poetical Works of William Collins; With a Memoir Part 2

"----Sphere-descended maid, Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid."

His family, which were very respectable, were established at Chichester in the sixteenth century as tradesmen of the higher order, and his immediate ancestor was mayor of that city in 1619:[7] his mother's relations appear to have been of a superior condition in life.[8]

Collins lost his father in 1734, and on the 5th of July, 1744, his mother died. He was an only son: of his two sisters, Elizabeth, the eldest, died unmarried, and Anne, the youngest, who took care of him when he was bereft of reason, married first Mr. Hugh Sempill, who died in 1762, and secondly the Rev. Dr. Thomas Durnford, and died at Chichester in November, 1789. Her character is thus described on the authority of Mr. Park: "The Reverend Mr. Durnford, who resided at Chichester, and was the son of Dr. Durnford, informed me, in August, 1795, that the sister of Collins loved money to excess, and evinced so outrageous an aversion to her brother, because he squandered or gave away to the boys in the cloisters whatever money he had, that she destroyed, in a paroxysm of resentment, all his papers, and whatever remained of his enthusiasm for poetry, as far as she could. Mr. Hayley told me, when I visited him at Eartham, that he had obtained from her a small drawing by Collins, but it possessed no other value than as a memorial that the bard had attempted to handle the pencil as well as the pen."[9] That Mrs. Durnford was indifferent to her brother's fame, is stated by others, and Sir Egerton Brydges, in his Essay, has made some just observations on the circ.u.mstance.

This Memoir must not be closed without an expression of acknowledgment to the Bishop of Hereford, to the President of Magdalen College, to H.

Gabell, Esq., and to I. Sanden, Esq., of Chichester, for the desire which they were so good as to manifest that this account of Collins might be more satisfactory than it is; and if his admirers consider that his present biographer has not done sufficient justice to his memory, an antidote to the injury will be found in the fervent and unqualified admiration which Sir Egerton Brydges has evinced for his genius.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 21st March, 1740.

[2] Afterwards republished with the t.i.tle of "Oriental Eclogues."

[3] D'Israeli, in his "Calamities of Authors," vol. ii. p. 201.

[4] June 7th, 1746.

[5] Mr. Joseph Warton, now Dr. Warton, head master of Winton school, was at the same time second upon roll; and Mr. Mulso, now [1781]

prebendary of the church of Winton, third upon roll.

[6] Hampton, the translator of Polybius.

[7] Dallaway's Suss.e.x, vol. i. p. 185--The arms of the family of Collins are there said to have been, "Azure a griffin segreant or;" but in Sir William Burrell's MS. Collections for a History of Suss.e.x, in the British Museum, the field is described as being vert. From those ma.n.u.scripts which are marked "Additional MSS."

Nos. 5697 to 5699, the following notices of the Poet's family have been extracted.

REGISTER OF ST. ANDREW'S, CHICHESTER.

BAPTISM.

Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. George Collins, 8th October, 1763.

BURIALS.

Mrs. Elizabeth Collins [the poet's mother], 6th July, 1744.

William Collins, Gent. [the Poet], 15th June, 1759.

REGISTER OF ST. PETER THE GREAT, CHICHESTER.

BAPTISMS.

Charles, son of Roger Collins, 8th February, 1645.

George, son of Mr. George Collins, 28th December, 1647.

Humphrey, son of Mr. Richard Collins, 20th Dec. 1648.

George, son of Mr. George Collins, 7th September, 1651.

Christian, daughter of Mr. Richard Collins, 1st Sept. 1652.

John, son of Mr. Richard Collins, senior, 13th Dec. 1652.

Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Richard Collins, sen. 16th May, 1656.

Joan, daughter of Mr. Richard Collins, jun. 12th Dec. 1656.

Judith, daughter of Mr. Collins, Vicar Choral, 17th April, 1667.

Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. William Collins, 6th March, 1704.

MARRIAGES.

Mr. Charles Collins and Mrs. Elizabeth Cardiff, 14th April, 1696.

BURIALS.

---- wife of Mr. William Collins, 10th December, 1650.

Susan, wife of Mr. Richard Collins, 3rd December, 1657.

Mr. George Collins, 10th January, 1669.

Mrs. Collins of St. Olave's Parish, 19th July, 1696.

There are monumental inscriptions in St. Andrew's Church, Chichester, to the Poet's father, mother, maternal uncle, Colonel Martyn, and sister, Mrs. Durnford.

[8] So much of the will of Colonel Edmund Martyn as relates to the Poet and his sister has been already cited, but the testator's situation in life and the respectability of his family are best shown by other parts of that doc.u.ment. He describes himself as a lieutenant-colonel in his Majesty's service, lying sick in the city of Chichester. To his niece Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Napper, of Itchenor in Suss.e.x, he bequeathed 100_l._ His copyhold estates of the manors of Selsey, and Somerly, in that county, to his nephew, Abraham Martyn, the youngest son of his late only brother, Henry Martyn, and to his servant, John Hipp, he gave his wearing apparel and ten pounds.

[9] Dyce's edition of Collins, 1827, p. 39.

AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND POEMS OF COLLINS.

BY SIR EGERTON BRYDGES, BART.

Collins is the founder of a new school of poetry, of a high cla.s.s. It is true that, unless Buckhurst and Spenser had gone before him, he could not have written as he has done; yet he is an inventor very distinct from both. He calls his odes descriptive and allegorical; and this characterises them truly, but too generally. The personification of abstract qualities had never been so happily executed before; the pure spirituality of the conception, the elegance and force of the language, the harmony and variety of the numbers, were all executed with a felicity which none before or since have reached. That these poems did not at once captivate the public attention cannot be accounted for by any cause hitherto a.s.signed. We may not wonder that the mult.i.tude did not at once perceive their full beauties; but that, among readers of taste and learning, there should not have been found a sufficient number to set the example of admiration, is very extraordinary. In addition to all their other high merits, the mere novelty of thought and manner were sufficient to excite immediate notice. Nor was there any thing in Collins's station or character to create prejudices against the probability that beautiful effusions of genius might be struck out by his hand. His education at the college of Winchester, his fame at Oxford, his a.s.sociates in London, all were fair preludes to the production of beautiful poetry. Indeed, he had already produced beautiful poetry in his Oriental Eclogues, four years before his Odes appeared. These were, it is admitted, of a different cast from his Odes, and of a gentleness and chast.i.ty of thought and diction, which he himself was conscious, some years afterwards, did not very well represent the gorgeousness of eastern composition.

It was a crisis when there was a fair opening for new candidates for the laurel. The uniformity of Pope's style began already to pall upon the public ear. Thomson was indolent, and Young eccentric; Gray had not yet appeared on the stage; and Akenside's metaphysical subject and diffuse style were not calculated to engross the general taste. Johnson had taken possession of the field of satire, but there are too many readers of enthusiastic mind to be satisfied with satire. The pedantry and uncouthness of Walter Harte had precluded him from ever being a favourite with the public; Shenstone had not yet risen into fame; and Lyttelton was engrossed by politics. When, therefore, Collins's Odes appeared, all speculation would have antic.i.p.ated that they must have been successful. But we must recollect that they did not excite the admiration of Johnson; and that Gray did not read them with that unqualified approval which his native taste would have inspired. This singularity must be accounted for by other causes than their want of merit.

The disappointment of Collins was so keen and deep, that he not only burned the unsold copies with his own hand, but soon fell into a melancholy which ended in insanity. Many persons have affected to comment on this result with an unfeeling ignorance of human nature, and, more especially, of fervid genius. It is, undoubtedly, highly dangerous to give the entire reins to imagination; the discipline of a constant exercise of reason is not only salutary, but necessary. But one can easily conceive how the indulgence of that state of mind which produced Collins's Odes could end in an entire overthrow of the intellect, when embittered by a defect of the princ.i.p.al objects of his worldly ambition.

He is said to have been puffed up by a vanity which prompted him to expect that all eyes would be upon him, and all voices lifted in his praise. Such was the conception of a vulgar observer of the human character. Why should it have been vanity that prompted this hope? It was a consciousness of merit, of those brilliant powers which produced the Ode to the Pa.s.sions! was ever a voice content which sung to those who would not hear, which was condemned

"To waste its sweetness on the desert air?"

Spenser's power of personification is copious beyond example; but it is seldom sufficiently select; rich as it is in imagination, it too commonly wants taste and delicacy; it has the fault of coa.r.s.eness, which Burke's images in prose two centuries afterwards, sometimes fell into.

But Collins's images are as pure, and of as exquisite delicacy, as they are spiritual. They are not human beings invested with some of the attributes of angels, but the whole figure is purely angelic, and of a higher order of creation; in this they are distinct even from the admirable personifications of Gray, because they are less earthly. The Ode to the Pa.s.sions is, by universal consent, the n.o.blest of Collins's productions, because it exhibits a much more extended invention, not of one pa.s.sion only, but of all the pa.s.sions combined, acting, according to the powers of each, to one end. The execution, also, is the happiest, each particular pa.s.sion is drawn with inimitable force and compression.

Let us take only FEAR and DESPAIR, each dashed out in four lines, of which every word is like inspiration. Beautiful as Spenser is, and sometimes sublime, yet he redoubles his touches too much, and often introduces some coa.r.s.e feature or expression, which destroys the spell.

Spenser, indeed, has other merits of splendid and inexhaustible invention, which render it impossible to put Collins on a par with him: but we must not estimate merit by mere quant.i.ty: if a poet produces but one short piece, which is perfect, he must be placed according to its quality. And surely there is not a single figure in Collins's Ode to the Pa.s.sions which is not perfect, both in conception and language. He has had many imitators, but no one has ever approached him in his own department.

The Ode to Evening is, perhaps, the next in point of merit. It is quite of a different cast; it is descriptive of natural scenery; and such a scene of enchanting repose was never exhibited by Claude, or any other among the happiest of painters. Though a mere verbal description can never rival a fine picture in a mere address to the material part of our nature, yet it far eclipses it with those who have the endowment of a brilliant fancy, because it gratifies their taste, selection, and sentiment. Delightful, therefore, as it is to look upon a Claude, it is more delightful to look upon this description. It is vain to attempt to a.n.a.lyse the charm of this Ode; it is so subtle, that it escapes a.n.a.lysis. Its harmony is so perfect, that it requires no rhyme: the objects are so happily chosen, and the simple epithets convey ideas and feelings so congenial to each other, as to throw the reader into the very mood over which the personified being so beautifully designed presides. No other poem on the same subject has the same magic. It a.s.suredly suggested some images and a tone of expression to Gray in his Elegy.

The Ode on the Poetical Character is here and there a little involved and obscure; but its general conception is magnificent, and beaming that spirit of inventive enthusiasm, which alone can cherish the poet's powers, and bring forth the due fruits. Collins never touched the lyre but he was borne away by the inspiration under which he laboured. The Dirge in Cymbeline, the lines on Thomson, and the Ode on Colonel Ross breathe such a beautiful simplicity of pathos, and yet are so highly poetical and graceful in every thought and tone, that, exquisitely polished as they are, and without one superfluous or one prosaic word, they never once betray the artifices of composition. The extreme transparency of the words and thoughts would induce a vulgar reader to consider them trite, while they are the expression of a genius so refined as to be all essence of spirit. In Gray, excellent as he is, we continually encounter the marks of labour and effort, and occasional crudeness, which shows that effort had not always succeeded, such as "iron hand and torturing hour;" but nothing of this kind occurs in the princ.i.p.al poems of Collins. There is a fire of mind which supersedes labour, and produces what labour cannot. It has been said that Collins is neither sublime nor pathetic; but only ingenious and fanciful. The truth is, that he was cast in the very mould of sublimity and pathos. He lived in an atmosphere above the earth, and breathed only in a visionary world. He was conversant with nothing else, and this must have been the secret by which he produced compositions so entirely spiritual. He who has daily intercourse with the world, and feels the vulgar human pa.s.sions, cannot be in a humour to write poems which do not partake of earthly coa.r.s.eness.

It may be asked, _cui bono?_ what is the moral use of such poems as these? Whatever refines the intellect improves the heart; whatever augments and fortifies the spiritual part of our nature raises us in the rank of created beings. And what poems are more calculated to refine our intellect, and increase our spirituality, than the poems of Collins? To embody, in a brilliant manner, the most beautiful abstractions, to put them into action, and to add to them splendour, harmony, strength, and purity of language, is to complete a task as admirable for its use and its delight, as it is difficult to be executed. No one can receive the intellectual gratification which such works are capable of producing without being the better for it. The understanding was never yet roused to the conception of such pure and abstract thinking without an elevation of the whole nature of the being so roused. The expression of subtle and evanescent ideas, carried to its perfection, is among the very n.o.blest and most exalted studies with which the human mind can be conversant.

It has been the fas.h.i.+on of our own age to beat out works into twentyfold and fiftyfold the size of those of Collins. I do not quarrel with that fas.h.i.+on; each fas.h.i.+on has its use: and my own taste induces me to perceive the value and many attractions of long narrative poems, full of human pa.s.sions and practical wisdom. The matter is more desirable than the workmans.h.i.+p; and much of occasional carelessness in the language may be forgiven, for fertility of natural and just thought and interest of story. But this in no degree diminishes the value of those gems, which, though of the smallest size, comprehend perfections of every kind. It is easier to work upon a large field than a small one,--one where is