{\b William Collins}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 25 December 1721

{\b Date of Death}.: 12 June 1759

{\b Works}.

Persian Eclogues  (1742), Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands  
(1749; published posthumously 1788), Odes on Several Descriptive and 
Allegorical Subjects  (1746), 'Ode: Written in the Beginning of the Year 
1746'. First collected edition of his work by John Langhorne (1765).

{\b Featured Works}.

'Ode to Evening', 'Ode Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746', 'The 
Passions', 'In the Downhill of Life'.

{\b General Comment}.

William Collins was born at Chichester and was educated at Winchester College 
and at Magdalen College, Oxford. His Persian Eclogues  (1742) were published 
anonymously when he was seventeen. Coming up to London from Oxford he tried to 
establish himself as an author. He published Odes on Several Descriptive and 
Allegorical Subjects  (1746) with his friend Joseph Warton whilst in London. 
The volume did not do well, and when his father died in 1744, Collins was left 
in debt and without a job. He got to know Dr Johnson who arranged an advance 
for him to write a translation of Aristotle's Poetics. However, when an uncle 
died leaving him £2000, Collins abandoned the project and paid his debts. 
After this he travelled for a while, but fits of depression became more 
serious and debilitating. He broke down completely on a journey in France in 
1750, and died insane at the age of 38 in his sister's house in Chichester.

The poet Thomas Gray commented favourably on Collins's work, and as the 
century progressed, he gained in reputation. Some of his finest odes as said 
to be 'Ode to Evening' and 'Dirge in Cymbeline'. His last know poem is Ode on 
the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands , written in 1749.  His sister 
destroyed his manuscripts after his death. The Complete Works  are edited by 
Richard Wendorf and Charles Ryskamp for the Oxford English Texts Series (1978).