Background

William Collins was born on 25 December 1721, in Chichester. His father was a prosperous merchant who was twice elected mayor.

Education

In 1733 Collins entered Winchester, intending to study for the clergy. In 1740 he entered Queen's College, Oxford, but soon transferred to Magdalene.

Career

In Winchester William Collins began his lifelong friendship with Joseph Warton and his own poetic career.

In 1739 his short poem "To a Lady Weeping" was published in the Gentleman's Magazine.

While at Oxford, he published his Persian Eclogues (1742), the only one of his works that was highly regarded during his lifetime. Having abandoned his plan to enter the clergy, Collins left Oxford.

With a small inheritance from his mother, in 1744 he settled in London to become a man of letters. Here he frequented the coffee houses and made friends with David Garrick and Samuel Johnson. Among Collins's many projects which came to nothing were a commentary on Aristotle's Poetics and a history of the Renaissance.

In 1746 Collins and Warton planned the joint publication of their odes, but Robert Dodsley, to whom they submitted their manuscript, judged that Collins's work would have little public appeal and published only Warton's. Although Collins's Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects was soon undertaken by another publisher, Dodsley's rejection and the subsequent failure of the Odes mortified Collins deeply.

Collins continued to write and to practice the pictorial technique announced in the Odes. He made literary friendships with James Thomson and with lesser writers such as John Home and Christopher Smart.

His most personal poem, the Ode Occasioned by the Death of Mr. Thomson (1749), was the last of his works published during his lifetime. Shortly after Thomson's death he sent John Home a manuscript of An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, a superb poem which anticipates many of the attitudes of the romantic revival.

About this time Collins received a legacy from his uncle and retired to Chichester to carry out some of his ambitious projects. But he became threatened with insanity and sought relief in a trip abroad. When this failed to restore his health, he was committed to an institution. He was later released to the care of his sister, but he never recovered. Collins died on June 12, 1759.

Achievements

• William Collins excelled in the descriptive or allegorical ode. He also wrote classical odes and elegies and lyrics marked by delicate and pensive melody.
  
  Following his death, his poems were issued in a collected edition by John Langhorne (1765) and slowly gained more recognition, although never without criticism.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Poetical Works of William Collins

    (This collection of literature attempts to compile many of...)

  • The Poetry of William Collins: "Always mistrust a subordinate who never finds fault with his superior."

    (William Collins was born on 25 December 1721 in Chicheste...)

  • Complete Works (|c OET |t Oxford English Texts)

    (A scholarly edition of works by William Collins. The edit...)

  • William Collins: Poet, 1721-59 (Otter Memorial Papers)

Personality

William Collins sank into insanity, with the depression on his lack of success, aggravated by drunkenness. In 1754 was confined to McDonald's Madhouse in Chelsea. From there he moved to the care of a married elder sister in Chichester until his death in 1759.

Quotes from others about the person

• "William Collins was a man with many projects in his head and little money in his pocket".

Connections

Friend:

Joseph Warton

References

• William Collins (Writers & Their Work)
• The poetry of Collins, (British Academy Warton lecture on English poetry)
• The poetry of William Collins (Warton lecture on English poetry ; 1973)