Author: Collins, William
Biography:
COLLINS, William (1721-59: ODNB)
A prior poet whose Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands was written in about 1750 but not published until 1788. He was the youngest child and only son of William Collins (d 1734), a haberdasher of hats who was twice mayor of Chichester, Sussex, and his wife Elizabeth Martin or Martyn (d 1744). His parents had married in Earnley, Sussex, on 13 Feb. 1703. William Collins was born on 25 Dec. 1721 and was baptised at St. Peter the Great, Chichester, on 1 Jan. 1722. He entered Winchester College in 1734 and there first met the poet Joseph Warton and began composing verse. He matriculated at Queen’s College, Oxford, on 22 Mar. 1740 and in July of the same year migrated to Magdalen College when he was awarded a demyship (a Magdalen scholarship). He graduated BA in 1743. His Persian Eclogues, which he had begun writing at Winchester, were published in 1742 and by 1744 Collins had moved to London where he met other writers including Samuel Johnson who later included an account of Collins in Lives of the English Poets. Johnson admired his character and his verse—with reservations—but he described Collins’s great fault as irresolution or a want of settled purpose. It may have been this which prevented him from completing works such as his “History of the Revival of Learning.” His income came from property inherited through his mother and several uncles. Collins suffered increasingly from depression and for a time he was confined to a madhouse in Chelsea. His sister Anne had him released and took him to Chichester with her in 1754. A revised second edition of his Eclogues was published in 1757 as Oriental Eclogues. He died in Chichester on 12 June 1759 and was buried in St. Andrew’s on 15 June. A memorial to him was placed in the cathedral in 1795. Despite his slender output, admiration for his verse had grown during his lifetime and after his death his work proved increasingly influential. (ODNB 10 Apr. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 10 Apr. 2024; Samuel Johnson, “William Collins,” in Lives of the English Poets)
Other Names:
- Collins