procure a distinguished place in the lift of thofe fcholars, who are elected upon the foundation of Winchefter, to New College in Oxford. But as there were then no vacancies in that fociety, he was admitted a commoner of Queen's College in the fame univerfity; where he continued till July, 1741, when he was elected a demi of Magdalen College. During his refidence at Queen's, he was at once diftinguished for genius and indolence; his exercises, when he could be prevailed upon to write, bearing the visible characteristics of both. This remifs and inattentive habit might probably arife, in fome measure, from disappointment: he had, no doubt, indulged very high ideas of the academical mode of education, and when he found fcience within the fetters of logic and of Aristotle, it was no wonder if he abated of his diligence to feek her where the fearch was attended with artificial perplexities, and where, at laft, the purfuer would grafp the fhadow for the fubftance. While he was at Magdalen College, he applied himself chiefly to the cultivation of poetry, and wrote the epiftle to Sir Thomas Hanmer, and the Oriental Eclogues, which in the year 1742 were first published under the title of Perfian Eclogues. The fuccefs of these poems was far from being equal to their merit; but to a novice in the purfuit of fame, the leaft encouragement is fufficient: if he does not at once acquire that reputation to which his merit entitles him, he embraces the encomiums of the few, forgives the many, and intends to open their eyes to the ftriking beauties of his next Publication. With prospects fuch as these, Mr. Collins probably indulged his fancy, when, in the year 1743, after having taken the degree of a bachelor of arts, he left the univerfity, and removed to London. To a man of small fortune, a liberal fpirit, and uncertain dependencies, the metropolis is a very dangerous place. Mr. Collins had not been long in town, before he became an instance of the truth of this obfervation. His pecuniary resources were exhausted, and to restore them by the exertion of genius and learning, though he wanted not the power, he had neither steadiness nor industry. His neceffities indeed fometimes carried him as far as a scheme, or a title-page for a book; but whether it were the power of diffipation, or the genius of repofe that interfered, he could proceed no farther. Several books were projected, which he was very able to execute; and he became in idea an historian, a critic, and a dramatic poet by turns. At one time, he determined to write a history of the revival of Letters; at another, to translate and comment upon Ariftotle's Poetics; then he turned his thoughts to the Drama, and proceeded fo far towards a tragedy-as to become acquainted with the manager. Under this unaccountable diffipation, he fuffered the greatest inconveniences. Day fucceeded day, for the fupport of which he had made no provision, and in which he was to subsist either by the long-repeated contributions of a friend, or the generofity of a cafual acquaintance. Yet indolence triumphed at once over want and fhame; and neither the anxieties of poverty, nor the heart-burning of dependence had power to animate refolution to perfeverance. As there is a degree of depravity into which if a man falls, he becomes incapable of attending to any of the ordinary means that recall men to virtue, fo there are some circumitances of indigence fo extremely degrading, that they destroy the influences of shame 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 spirit and refolution enough to publifh his Odes defcriptive and allegorical: but the fale was by no means fuccefsful; and hence it was that the author, conceiving a just indignation against a blind and tastelefs age, burnt the remaining copies, with his own hands. Allegorical and abftracted poetry was above the tafte of those times, as much, or more than it is, of the prefent. It is in the lower walks, the plain and practical paths of the muses 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 circumstances, fo mortifying to every just expectation, when neither his wants were relieved, nor his reputation No. 1. Vol. I. C extended, he found fome confolation in changing the scene, and 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 fcene, 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 haraffed by anxiety, diffipation and diftrefs, that he fell into a nervous disorder, which brought with it an unconquerable depreffion of fpirits, and at length reduced the finest understanding to the moft deplorable childishness. In the first ftages of his diforder, he attempted to relieve himfelf by travel, and paffed into France; but the growing malady obliged him to return; and having continued with fhort intervals,* in this pitiable state till the year 1756, he died in the arms of a fister at Chichester. Mr. Collins was in ftature fomewhat above the middle fize, of a brown complexion, keen, expreffive eyes, and a fixed, sedate afpect, which, from intenfe thinking, had contracted an habitual frown. His proficiency in letters was greater than could have been expected 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 difpofition, 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 music, love is omitted, though it fhould have made a principal figure there. The genius of the paftoral, as well as of every other respectable species of poetry, had its origin in the East, and from thence was tranfplanted by the mufes of Greece; but whether It seems to have been in one of these intervals, that he was visited 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 one book, but that was the best." It was the New Testament in English. from the continent of the Leffer Afia, or from Egypt, which, about the era of the Grecian paftoral, was the hofpitable nurfe of letit is not easy to determine. From the subjects, and the manner of Theocritus, one would incline to the latter opinion, while the hiftory of Bion is in favour of the former. ters, However, though it should still remain a doubt through what channel the paftoral travelled weftward, there is not the leaft fhadow of uncertainty concerning its oriental origin. In those ages, which, guided by facred chronology, from a comparative view of time, we call the early ages, it appears from the most authentic hiftorians, that the chiefs of the people employed themselves in rural exercifes, and that aftronomers and legiflators were at the fame time fhepherds. Thus Strabo informs us, that the hiftory of the creation was communicated to the Egyptians by a Chaldæan fhepherd. From these circumstances, it is evident, not only that fuch fhepherds were capable of all the dignity and elegance peculiar to poetry, but that whatever poetry they attempted, would be of the paftoral kind; would take its fubjects from those scenes of rural fimplicity, in which they were converfant, and, as it was the offspring of Harmony and Nature, would employ the powers it derived from the former to celebrate the beauty and benevolence of the latter. Accordingly we find that the most ancient poems treat of agriculture, aftronomy, and other objects within the rural and natural fyftems. What conftitutes the difference between the Georgic and the Paftoral, is love and the colloquial, or dramatic form of compofition peculiar to the latter: this form of compofition is fometimes difpenfed with, and love and rural imagery alone are thought fufficient to diftinguish the paftoral. The tender paffion, however, feems to be effential to this fpecies of poetry, and is hardly ever excluded from those pieces, that were intended to come under this denomination: even in thofe eclogues of the Amœbean kind, whose only purport is a trial of skill between contending fhepherds, love has its ufual fhare, and the praises of their respective mistresses are the general fubjects of the compet itors, It is to be lamented, that scarce any oriental compofitions of this kind have furvived the ravages of ignorance, tyranny, and time ; we cannot doubt that many fuch have been extant, poffibly as far down as that fatal period, never to be mentioned in the world of letters without horror, when the glorious monuments of human ingenuity perished in the afhes of the Alexandrian library. Those ingenious Greeks, whom we call the parents of pastoral poetry, were probably no more than imitators of imitators, that derived their harmony from higher and remoter fources, and kindled their poetical fires at thofe then unextinguished lamps, which burned within the tombs of oriental genius. It is evident that Homer has availed himself of those magnificent images and defcriptions, fo frequently to be met with in the books of the Old Teftament; and why may not Theocritus, Mofchus and Bion have found their archetypes in other eastern writers, whose names have perished with their works? yet, though it may not be illiberal to admit such a supposition, it would certainly be invidious to conclude what the malignity of cavillers alone could fuggeft with regard to Homer, that they destroyed the fources from which they borrowed, and, as it is fabled of the young of the pelican, drained their fupporters to death. As the feptuagint translation of the Old Teftament was performed at the request, and under the patronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus, it were not to be wondered if Theocritus, who was entertained at that prince's court, had borrowed some part of his pastoral imagery from the poetical paffages of those books. I think it can hardly be doubted, that the Sicilian poet had in his eye certain expreffions of the prophet Isaiah, when he wrote the following lines : Νυν ία μεν φορεοίε βατοι, Φοκεοιτε δ ̓ ἀκανθαι Let vexing brambles the blue violet bear, |