in expectation of a place under government, apparently a situation in the custom house, Collins gave up his business in Fleet Street (Thoresby Correspondence, ii. 359, 363). In 1720 appeared, in two volumes, his 'Baronetage of England, being an Historical Account of Baronets from their first introduction.' In the preface Collins speaks of it as merely an instalment of a projected work, and of the great discouragements which he had met with in compiling it among the rest, the failure of many families to let him see their pedigrees. In a letter of March 1723 (ib. ii. 377) he represents himself as very poor, as still expecting some provision to be made for him by the government, as not intending to publish any more of the ' Baronetage,' and as occupied with the preparation of an enlarged peerage. Of this work a one-volume instalment was issued in 1727, as ' The English Baronage ; or an Historical Account of the Lives and most memorable Actions of our Nobility, with their Descent, Marriages, and Issue.' It was dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole, on whom there is a rather fulsome eulogium in a preliminary address 'to the reader, while a flattering account of the Walpole family is thrust into the fourteenth volume on the strength of the peerage conferred on Walpole's eldest son, Lord Walpole. In 1735 appeared, in three volumes, the first approximately complete edition of Collins's 'Peerage,' with the arms, crests, and supporters of the then existing peers. In compiling it Collins drew largely onDugdale, of whose manuscript corrections of the ' Baronage ' he had become possessed, but he added much multifarious information laboriously collected by himself. A second of this new series of editions (4 vols. 1741) was further distinguished by copious references to authorities. The completed 'English Baronetage,' 5 vols. 1741, is often ascribed to Collins, an error committed even by Sir Egerton Brydges in the preface to his edition of the 'Peerage.' It is more accurately called Wotton's, from the name of the editor, who in the preface, however, acknowledges obligations to Collins for assistance. In the preface to a supplement (2 vols. 1750) to the 1741 edition of the 'Peerage,' Collins complains that he has spent his fortune in researches the results of which he will be unable to publish without help. He contrasts the neglect of himself with the favour shown to Dugdale and Ashmole. In a plaintive letter to the Duke of Newcastle, 3 Feb. 1752 (Nichols, viii. 392), he describes himself as engaged on a new edition of the 'Peerage,' but without funds to pay for a transcriber. At the same time he acknowledges kindness from Lord Granville. In another letter to the Duke of Newcastle (Gent. Mag. liii. 414) Collins represents himself as ' reduced to great straits ' by having to pay for printing of his account of Holles's family, and asks for ' a warrant for some money.' Ultimately he received from the king a pension of 400l. a year, and thus probably was enabled to complete the third of the enlarged editions of his 'Peerage,' 5 vols. in 6, 1756, the last published under his own superintendence. He died in March 1760, and was buried in Battersea Church, 'aged 70,' according to the burial register (Lysons, Environs of London, Supplement, 1811, p. 4), a statement irreconcilable with the date (1682) generally assigned to his birth. The posthumous editions of his ' Peerage ' are : (1) the fourth, 7 vols. 1768 ; (2) the fifth, 8 vols. 1779, edited by B. Long-mate, who in 1784 added a supplementary volume, bringing the work up to date; and (3) the final and standard edition, 'Collins's Peerage of England, Genealogical, Biographical, and Historical, greatly augmented and continued to the Present Time by Sir Egerton Brydges,' 9 vols. 1812. Collins's indefatigable industry and general accuracy are worthy of all praise. In these respects he rivalled Dugdale, on whose method he improved but little. In prosecuting his unrequited, or very tardily requited, labours, on which he expended not only a lifetime but all that he possessed, his only inducement to persevere was, as he himself has said (Preface to the Historical Collections of the Families of Cavendish, &c.), ' an innate desire to preserve the memory of famous men ; ' and his general disinterestedness must be set off against what may often seem adulation of birth and rank. Carlyle, in his rectorial address to the students of Edinburgh University, acknowledged that when writing his ' Cromwell ' he ' got a great deal of help out of poor Collins,' whom he called ' a diligent and dark London bookseller of about a hundred years ago, a very meritorious man,' and whose chief work he pronounced ' a very poor peerage as a work of genius, but an excellent book for diligence and fidelity.' In a letter of 9 Feb. 1752 to theDuke of Newcastle, already quoted, Collins says : ' I have left, in manuscript, an account of my family, my life, and the cruel usage I have undeservedly undergone ; ' but no trace of its survival has been discovered by the writer of this article.
The other works compiled or edited by Collins are: 1. 'The Life of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, published from the original manuscript wrote soon after his Lordship's death, now in the Library of the . . . Earl of Exeter,' 1732, Collins adding memoirs of the Cecil family and other matter. 2. ' Proceedings, Precedents, and Arguments on Claims
