a friend, among whose papers it was found by Alexander Carlyle [q. v.] A reference to it as undiscovered in Johnson's 'Life' induced Carlyle to look it up, and by him it was communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is published in their 'Transactions' (vol. i. pt. ii. p. 63, 1788) with some emendations by Carlyle and a passage supplied by Henry Mackenzie. A rival edition was immediately published by an anonymous editor in London with a dedication to the Wartons.
Collins was now failing. Johnson says that it was 'a deficiency rather of his vital than his intellectual powers.' He could talk well, but a few minutes exhausted him. He tried to disperse the ' clouds gathering on his intellects 'by a journey to France, and on his return saw Johnson at Islington. Johnson noticed that Collins's only literary possession was a testament. 'I have but one book,' he said, 'but that is the best.' He appears to have been for a time at a madhouse in Chelsea. Afterwards he lived with his sister Anne, who married a Captain Sempell, and after his death in 1764 a Dr. Durnford, and died in 1789. Elizabeth married Lieutenant Tanner in 1750, and died in 1754 (Gent. Mag. lix. 1056).
A letter of November 1750 (Seward, Anecdotes, Suppl. 123) speaks of an ode upon the music of the Greek theatre which he was then writing, but which has disappeared. He collected a library at Chichester, containing some curious old books, to which there are references in Thomas Warton's 'History of Poetry' (ed. 1840, iii. 80, 244, 386). He stayed a month at Oxford in 1754, when he was too feeble for conversation, but often saw Warton. The Wartons visited him at Chichester the same year. He is mentioned (March 1759) in Goldsmith, in the ' Polite Literature of Europe ' (chap, x.), as 'still alive—happy if insensible of our neglect, not raging at our ingratitude.' Johnson, who inquired tenderly after him in letters to the Wartons in 1754 and 1756, gave the date of his death as 1756, a statement which has misled later writers. He died on 12 June 1759 (Hay, Chichester), and was buried at St. Andrew's Church, as appears from the register, on 15 June 1759 (Dyce, pp. 19, 20). A tablet by Flaxman to his memory was erected in the cathedral in 1795, with a joint inscription by Hayley and John Sargent. An engraving from the only known portrait, at the age of fourteen, is prefixed to Mr. Moy Thomas's edition of his works.
Johnson's affection for Collins is shown in the life. Collins's amiability, and the charm of a conversation enlivened by wide knowledge of French, Spanish, and Italian, as well as the learned languages, are gratefully commemorated by the biographer, whose prejudices prevented any cordial appreciation of the poetical merits of his friend. Collins belonged to the new school, represented in criticism and history by his friends the Wartons, who showed the love of the romantic element in literature which was afterwards to become fashionable. The Wartons could appreciate what they could not rival. Gray, his only equal in contemporary poetry, says (letter to Warton, 27 Dec. 1746) of Collins's and Warton's odes just published : ' Each is the half of a considerable man, and one the counterpart of the other. The first has but little invention, very poetical choice of expression, and a good ear. The second, a fine fancy modelled upon the antique, a bad ear, great variety of words and images, with no choice at all. They both deserve to last some years, but will not.' The singular sweetness and delicate sensibility of Collins have made him a favourite, and poetical writers in particular rather grudge the superior popularity of Gray. The fondness for allegorical personages which he shares with Gray is characteristic of the time, but his poetry was the first distinct utterance of the school which uttered in Warton's essay a public protest against the canons accepted by Pope and his followers. Goldsmith's admiration of the ' Eclogues ' is shown in the passage already cited, where they are said to excel any in our language, and in the introduction to the ' Beauties of English Poetry ' he calls him 'very pretty.' The poems gradually became more popular in the course of the century, as appears from the separate publications by Langhorne and Mrs. Barbauld and their admission into the collections of British poets. Chatterton's contemptuous references to Collins may perhaps refer to an Emmanuel Collins, who published some verses at Bristol in 1762 (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 430, 533). Collins's works, edited by J. Langhorne, with a memoir, appeared in 1765, 1771, and 1781; Mrs. Barbauld's edition in 1797; an edition with notes by Alex. Dyce in 1827; and the Aldine edition, with notes and a memoir by Moy Thomas, in 1858, require special notice.
