About this time I fell into his company. His appearance was decent and' manly; his knowledge confiderable, his views extenfive, his converfation ele gant, and his difpofition 'chearful. By degrees I gained his confidence; and one day was admitted to him when he was immured by a bailiff, that was prowling in the ftreet." On this occafion recourfe was had to the bookfellers, who, on the credit of a tranflation of Ariftotle's Poeticks, which he engaged to white with a large commentary, advanced as much money as enabled him to efcape into the country. He fhewed me the guineas fafe in his hand. Soon af-' terwards his uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenant-colonel, left him about two thou fand fand pounds; a fum which Collins could fcarcely think exhauftible, and which he did not live to exhauft. The guineas 10 24.0 But man is not born for happinefs. Collins, who, while he fludied to live, felt no evil but poverty, no fooner lived to fudy than his life was affailed by more dreadful calamities, difeafe and infanity. Having formerly written his character, while perhaps it was yet more diftinctly impreffed upon my memory, I fhall infert it here. "Mr. Collins was a man of extenfive literature, and of vigorous faculties. He was acquainted not only with the learned tongues, A 3 tongues, but with the Italian, French, and Spanish languages. He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction, and fubjects of faney; and by indulging fome peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with thofe flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a paffive acquiefcence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of inchantment, to gaze on the magnifi cence of golden palaces, to repofe by the water-falls of Elyfian gardens. "This was however the character rather of his inclination than his genius; the grandeur of wildnefs, and the novel ty of extravagance, were always defired by him, but were not always attained. Yet as diligence is never wholly loft; if his efforts fometimes caused harshness and obfcurity, they likewife produced in happier moments fublimity and fplendour. This idea which he had formed of excellence, led him to oriental fictions and allegorical imagery; and perhaps, while he was intent upon defcription, he did not fufficiently cultivate fentiment. His poems are the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnished with knowledge either of books or life, but fomewhat obftructed in its progrefs by deviation in queft of miftaken beauties. I "His morals were pure, and his opinions pious in a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of diffipation, it cannot be expected that any character fhould be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almoft deftroyed; and long affociation with fortuitous companions will at last relax the ftrictnefs of truth, and abate the fervour of fincerity. That this man, wife and virtuous as he was, paffed always unentangled through the fnares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be faid that at least he preferved the fource of action unpolluted, that his principles were never fhaken, that his diftinctions of right and wrong were never con founded, |