William Collins
born Dec. 25, 1721, Chichester, Sussex, Eng.
died June 12, 1759, Chichester
pre-Romantic English poet whose lyrical odes
adhered to Neoclassical forms but were Romantic
in theme and feeling. Though his literary career
was brief and his output slender, he is
considered one of the finest English lyric poets
of the 18th century.
He was educated at Winchester College, where he
formed one of the most stable and fruitful
relationships of his unstable life: his
friendship with the poet and critic Joseph
Warton. When only 17, under the influence of
Pope’s Pastorals, he composed his four Persian
Eclogues (1742; 2nd ed., Oriental Eclogues,
1757), the only one of his works to be esteemed
in his lifetime. In 1744 he published his verse
Epistle: Addrest to Sir Thomas Hanmer on his
Edition of Shakespeare’s Works, containing his
exquisite “Dirge from Cymbeline.”
Collins graduated from Magdalen College,
Oxford (1743), and went to London in 1744. An
inheritance, supplemented by an allowance from
his uncle, enabled him to live as a
man-about-town. He made friends with Dr.
Johnson, who expressed respect for his talents
and, later, concern for his fate. By 1746
extravagance and dissipation had put Collins
deeply in debt. He agreed to collaborate with
Warton on a volume of odes. The two men’s poems
eventually appeared separately that December
(the title page of Collins’ Odes being dated
1747). Warton’s collection was well received,
but Collins’ Odes on Several Descriptive and
Allegorical Subjects was barely noticed. Though
disappointed, Collins continued to perfect the
style exemplified in his “Ode to Simplicity.”
In 1749 Collins’ uncle died, leaving him
enough money to extricate himself from debt. In
the next few months he wrote his “Ode on the
Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of
Scotland,” which anticipates many of the
attitudes and interests of the Romantic poets.
Threatened after 1751 by mental illness and
physical debility, which he tried to cure by
travel, Collins was confined in a mental asylum
in 1754. Released to the care of his sister, he
survived wretchedly in Chichester for five more
years, neglected and forgotten by his literary
friends, who believed him dead. His work,
however, became influential and admired after
his death.
The standard edition of his poems, The Poems
of Thomas Gray, William Collins, Oliver
Goldsmith (1976), was edited by Roger Lonsdale.
