Collins, William

(1721-1759)

   A pre-Romantic poet of many odes, the son of a hatter from Chichester, Sussex, Collins was educated at Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he published his Persian Eclogues (1742). Dr. Samuel Johnson says of him, "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 cheerful." Johnson ends his entry with, "As men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives little pleasure" (DNB). More modern poets have not been so harsh. Suffering from depression, Collins isolated himself at Chichester and died neglected and forgotten by his literary friends. Some of his poems: "A Fidele," "An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland," "Captain Molly," "How Sleep the Brave," "Ode on the Poetical Character," "Ode to Evening," "Ode to Fear," "Ode to Mercy," "Ode to Pity," "Ode to Simplicity," "The Lookout."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets, 1779-1781 (http://www2.hn.psu.edu/Faculty/KKemmerer/poets/preface.htm). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Oxford Book of EighteenthCentury Verse. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1984. The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950. Helen Gardner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1972. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.