bably written by Langhorne. Langhorne was not deficient himself in
poetical genius, but is principally remembered by a single beautiful
stanza, "Cold on Canadian hills," &c. From the time of Langhorne's first
edition, Collins became a popular poet; a miniature edition appeared
soon after that of Langhorne; and as long as I can remember books, which
goes back at least to the year 1770, Collins's poems were almost
universally on the lips of readers of English poetry. That Cowper, in
1784, should speak of him as "a poet of no great fame," proves nothing,
since Cowper's long seclusion from the world had made him utterly
ignorant of contemporary literature. The negative inference, from the
omission of Beattie, is not of much weight. I cannot recollect the date
of the article in the Monthly Review; but, as it appears that Collins
survived till 1759, I suspect it was before Collins's death. It was in
September, 1754, that the Wartons visited him at Chichester: in that
year he paid a visit to Oxford, when it appears that he was suffering
under exhausture, not alienation, of mind.

The critics, and, among the rest, Mrs. Barbauld and Campbell, have
ascribed to him "frequent obscurity;" this is unjust,--his general
characteristic is lucidness and transparency: he is never obscure,
unless in the Ode to Liberty, and, perhaps, in a few passages of the Ode
on the Manners. Campbell's criticism is, otherwise, worthy of this
beautiful poet, whom he praises with congenial spirit. When Hazlitt
speaks of the "tinsel and splendid patchwork" of Collins, "mixed with
the solid, sterling ore of his genius," he speaks of a base material not
to be found there. In Collins there is no tinsel or patchwork, one of
his excellencies is, that the whole of every piece is of one web; there
are no joinings or meaner threads. There is no height to which Collins
might not have risen, had he lived long, had his mind continued sound,
and had he persevered in exercising his genius. Campbell remarks that,
at the same age, Milton had written nothing which could eclipse his
productions.

Of the two communications regarding Collins, to which I have already
alluded, one anonymous, the other by a Mr. John Ragsdale, I must say
something more. The first, signed V., appeared in the Gentleman's
Magazine, with the date of the 20th Jan. 1781. I well remember its
publication, and with what eagerness I read it. I suspect it was at the
very crisis of the appearance of the las