nd other of his lyrics--none of that happy personification of abstract
conceptions which is the characteristic of his genius. The majority of
the lines lag and move heavily, and do not seem to me to rise much
above mediocrity in the expression. The subject was attractive, and
might have afforded space for the wild excursions of Collins's creative
powers. As to the edition of Bell, in which it is pretended that the
lost stanzas have been recovered, I have no more doubt that they are
_spurious_ than that I did not write them myself: I will not dwell upon
this subject, but only mention that it is quite impossible Collins could
write "_Fate_ gave the _fatal_ blow," and "bowing to Freedom's _yoke_;"
and such a line as

"In the first year of the first George's reign," &c.

There is not one line among these interpolated stanzas which it is
possible that Collins could have written.

Mr. Ragdale relates that Collins was in the habit of writing numerous
fragments, and then throwing them into the flames. Jackson, of Exeter,
says the same of John Bampfylde. A sensitive mind is scarce ever
satisfied with the reception it meets, when, in first heat of
composition, it hopes to delight some listener, to which it first
communicates its new effusions. It almost always considers itself to be
"damn'd by faint praise." I have known fervid authors who, if they read
or communicated a piece before it was finished, never went on with it.
They thought it became blown upon, and turned from it with coldness,
disgust, and despair. Yet the hearer is commonly not in fault: who can
satisfy the warm hopes of aspiring and restless genius?

The Wartons have expressed themselves with praise and affection of
Collins, but not, I think, with the entire admiration which was due to
him. Joseph Warton was a good-natured and generous-minded man, but
something of rivalry lurked in his bosom; and the fraternal partiality
of Thomas Warton had the same effect. The younger brother seems to have
thought that Joseph's genius was equal to that of Collins. Gray had the
critical acumen to discern the difference; but still he in no degree
does justice to Collins. He accuses him of want of taste and selection,
which is a surprising charge; and the more so, because Gray did not
disdain to borrow from him. Gray's fault was an affected fastidiousness,
as appears by the slighting manner in which he speaks of Thomson's
Castle of Indolence on its first appearance, as well as