of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be said that at least he preserved the source of action unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure, or casual temptation.

"The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and sadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind which unchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right, without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to disperse by travel, and passed into France: but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned. He was for some time confined in a house of lunatics, and afterwards retired to the care of his sister in Chichester, where death in 1756 came to his relief.

"After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him a visit at Islington,

where he was waiting for his sister, whom he had directed to meet him: there was then nothing of disorder discernible in his mind by any but himself; but he had withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an English Testament, such as children carry to the school: when his friend took it into his hand, out of curiosity to see what companion a man of letters had chosen, I have but one book,' said Collins, but that is the best.'

"Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.

"He was visited at Chichester, in his last illness, by his learned friends Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he spoke with disapprobation of his Oriental Eclogues, as not sufficiently expressive of Asiatic manners, and called them his Irish Eclogues. He shewed them, at the same time, an ode inscribed to Mr. John Hume, on the Superstitions of the Highlands; which they thought superior to his other works.

"His disorder was not alienation of mind, but general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency

rather of his vital than intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit; but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with his former vigour.

"The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel soon after his uncle's death; and, with the usual weakness of men so diseased, eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce. But his health continually declined, and he grew more and more burthensome to himself.

"To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot be loved,

so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise, when it gives little pleasure."

Mr. Collins's first production is added here from the Poetical Calendar:

TO MISS AURELIA C-R,

ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING.

CEASE, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn;
Lament not Hannah's happy state;

You may be happy in your turn,
And seize the treasure you regret.

With Love united Hymen stands,

And softly whispers to your charms; "Meet but your lover in my bands,

"You'll find your sister in his arms,"

A monument of the most exquisite workmanship has been erected by public subscription to Collins. He is finely represented as just recovered from a wild fit of phrensy, to which he was unhappily subject, and in a calm and reclining posture, seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the consolations of the Gospel, while his lyre and one of the first of his poems lie neglected on the ground.

Above are two beautiful figures of Love and Pity entwined in each other's arms. The whole was executed by the ingenious Flaxman, at that time lately returned from Rome; and if any thing can equal the expressive sweetness of the sculpture, it is the following most excellent epitaph, written by Mr. Hayley.

Ye who the merits of the dead revere,

Who hold misfortune's sacred genius dear,
Regard this tomb, where Collins, hapless name,
Solicits kindness with a double claim.

Tho' Nature gave him, and tho' Science taught
The fire of Fancy, and the reach of thought,
Severely doom'd to Penury's extreme,

He pass'd in madd'ning pain life's fev'rish dream,
While rays of genius only serv'd to shew
The thick'ning horror, and exalt his woe.
Ye walls that echo'd to his frantic moan,
Guard the due records of this grateful stone;
Strangers to him, enamour'd of his lays,
This fond memorial to his talents raise.
For this the ashes of a bard require,

Who touch'd the tend'rest notes of Pity's lyre;
Who join'd pure faith to strong poetic powers,
Who, in reviving Reason's lucid hours,

Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest,
And rightly deem'd the book of God the best.