not account for the want of steadiness which prevented
Collins from accomplishing the objects he meditated. His mind was
neither "broken nor confounded," nor had he experienced the bitter pangs
of neglect, when with the buoyancy of hope, and a full confidence in his
extraordinary powers, he threw himself on the town, at the age of
twenty-three, intending to live by the exercise of his talents; but his
indecision was then as apparent as at any subsequent period, so that, in
truth, the effect preceded the cause to which it has been assigned.

Mankind are becoming too much accustomed to witness splendid talents and
great firmness of mind united in the same person to partake the mistaken
sympathy which so many writers evince for the follies or vices of
genius; nor will it much longer tolerate the opinion, that the
possession of the finest imagination, or the highest poetic capacity,
must necessarily be accompanied by eccentricity. It may, indeed, be
difficult to convert a poetical temperament into a merchant, or to make
the man who is destined to delight or astonish mankind by his
conceptions, sit quietly over a ledger; but the transition from poetry
to the composition of such works as Collins planned is by no means
unnatural, and the abandonment of his views respecting them must, in
justice to his memory, be attributed to a different cause.

The most probable reason is, that these works were mere speculations to
raise money, and that the idea was not encouraged by the booksellers;
but if, as Johnson, who knew Collins well, asserts, his character wanted
decision and perseverance, these defects may have been constitutional,
and were, perhaps, the germs of the disease which too soon ripened into
the most frightful of human calamities. Endued with a morbid
sensibility, which was as ill calculated to court popularity as to bear
neglect; and wanting that stoical indifference to the opinions of the
many, which ought to render those who are conscious of the value of
their productions satisfied with the approbation of the few; Collins was
too impatient of applause, and too anxious to attain perfection, to be a
voluminous writer. To plan much rather than to execute any thing; to
commence to-day an ode, to-morrow a tragedy, and to turn on the
following morning to a different subject, was the chief occupation of
his life for several years, during which time he destroyed the principal
part of the little that he wrote. To a man nearly