pennyless, such a life
must be attended by privations and danger; and he was in the hands of
bailiffs, possibly not for the first time, very shortly before he became
independent by the death of his maternal uncle, Colonel Martyn. The
result proved that his want of firmness and perseverance was natural,
and did not arise from the uncertainty or narrowness of his fortune; for
being rescued from imprisonment, on the credit of a translation of
Aristotle's Poetics, which he engaged to furnish a publisher, a work, it
may be presumed, peculiarly suited to his genius, he no sooner found
himself in the possession of money by the death of his relative, than he
repaid the bookseller, and abandoned the translation for ever.

From the commencement of his career, Collins was, however, an object
for sympathy instead of censure; and though few refuse their compassion
to the confirmed lunatic, it is rare that the dreadful state of
irresolution and misery, which sometimes exist for years before the
fatal catastrophe, receives either pity or indulgence.

In 1747, Collins published his Odes, to the unrivaled splendour of a few
of which he is alone indebted for his fame; but neither fame nor profit
was the immediate result; and the author of the Ode on the Passions had
little reason to expect, from its reception by the public, that it was
destined to live as long as the passions themselves animate or distract
the world.

It is uncertain at what time he undertook to publish a volume of Odes in
conjunction with Joseph Warton, but the intention is placed beyond
dispute by the following letter from Warton to his brother. It is
without a date, but it must have been written before the publication of
Collins's Odes in 1747, and before the appearance of Dodsley's
Museum,[4] as it is evident the Ode to a Lady on the Death of Colonel
Ross, which was inserted in that work, was not then in print.

"DEAR TOM,

"You will wonder to see my name in an advertisement next week, so
I thought I would apprise you of it. The case was this. Collins
met me in Surrey, at Guildford races, when I wrote out for him my
odes, and he likewise communicated some of his to me; and being
both in very high spirits, we took courage, resolved to join our
forces, and to publish them immediately. I flatter myself that I
shall lose no honor by this publication, because I believe these
odes, as they now stand, are infinitely the best things I ever
wrote. Yo