Soon afterwards were these lines:

Whatever dark aerial power,
Commission'd, haunts the gloomy tower.

The last stanza consisted of a moral transition to his own death
and knell, which he called 'some simpler bell.' I have seen all
his odes already published in his own handwriting; they had the
marks of repeated correction: he was perpetually changing his
epithets. Dr. Warton, my brother, has a few fragments of some
other odes, but too loose and imperfect for publication, yet
containing traces of high imagery.

"In illustration of what Dr. Johnson has related, that during his
last malady he was a great reader of the Bible, I am favoured with
the following anecdote from the Reverend Mr. Shenton, Vicar of St.
Andrews, at Chichester, by whom Collins was buried: 'Walking in my
vicaral garden one Sunday evening, during Collins's last illness,
I heard a female (the servant, I suppose) reading the Bible in his
chamber. Mr. Collins had been accustomed to rave much, and make
great moanings; but while she was reading, or rather attempting to
read, he was not only silent but attentive likewise, correcting
her mistakes, which indeed were very frequent, through the whole
of the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis.' I have just been
informed, from undoubted authority, that Collins had finished a
Preliminary Dissertation to be prefixed to his History of the
Restoration of Learning, and that it was written with great
judgment, precision, and knowledge of the subject.

"T. W."

The overthrow of Collins's mind was too complete for it to be restored
by variety of scene or the attentions of friendship. Thomas Warton
describes him as being in a weak and low condition, and unable to bear
conversation, when he saw him at Oxford. He was afterwards confined in a
house for the insane at Chelsea; but before September, 1754, he was
removed to Chichester, under the care of his sister, where he was
visited by the two Wartons. At this time his spirits temporarily
rallied; and he adverted with delight to literature, showing his guest
the Ode to Mr. Home on his leaving England for Scotland. During
Collins's illness Johnson was a frequent inquirer after his health, and
those inquiries were made with a degree of feeling which, as he himself
hints, may have partly arisen from the dread he entertained lest he
might be the victim of a similar calamity. The following extracts are
from letters address