"This was, however, the character rather of his inci nation than his genius; the grandeur of wildness, and t novelty of extravagance, were always desired by him, he not always attained. Yet, as diligence is never wa lost, if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and ob scurity, they likewise produced, in happier moments, sublimity and splendour. This idea which he had formed excellence, led him to oriental fictions and allegorical ima gery, and, perhaps, while he was intent upon description. he did not sufficiently cultivate sentiment. His poems & the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfunished with knowledge either of books or life, but some what obstructed in its progress by deviation in quest mistaken beauties.

"His morals were pure, and his opinions pious; in long continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipatio it cannot be expected that any character should be exact uniform. There is a degree of want, by which the freedan of agency is almost destroyed; and long association with fortuitous companions will, at last, relax the strictness truth, and abate the fervour of sincerity. That this man wise and virtuous as he was, passed always unentangle through the snares of life, it would be prejudice and tem rity to affirm; but it may be said that at least he preserved the source of action unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of ma lignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure, or casual temptation.

"The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and sadness. He languished some years under that depression of mind which enchains the faculties with out destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endea voured to disperse by travel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and re turned. He was, for some time, confined in a house of

aticks, and afterwards retired to the care of his sister -Chichester, where death, in 1756, came to his reliefs. "After his return from France, the writer of this chater paid him a visit at Islington, where he was waiting his sister, whom he had directed to meet him: there is then nothing of disorder discernible in his mind by y but himself; but he had withdrawn from study, and avelled with no other book than an English testament, ich as children carry to the school: when his friend took into his hand, out of curiosity, to see what companion a an of letters had chosen, I have but one book,' said Collins, but that is the best.""

Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once deighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenlerness.

He was visited at Chichester, in his last illness, by his learned friends, Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he spoke with disapprobation of his Oriental Eclogues, as not sufficiently expressive of Asiatick manners, and called them his Irish Eclogues. He showed them, at the same time, an ode inscribed to Mr. John Hume, on the superstitions of the Highlands; which they thought superiour to his other works, but which no search has yet found'.

His disorder was not alienation of mind, but general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital than intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit; but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with his former vigour.

The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel soon after his uncle's death; and, with the usual weakness of men so diseased, eagerly snatched that temporary relief, with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce.

• A monument of exquisite workmanship, by Flaxman, is erected in Chichester to Collins's memory.

It is printed in the late collection.

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DYER.

IN DYER, of whom I have no other account to give n his own letters, published with Hughes's correspondce, and the notes added by the editor, have afforded ́, was born in 1700, the second son of Robert Dyer, of ›erglasney, in Caermarthenshire, a solicitor of great cacity and note.

He passed through Westminster school under the care Dr. Freind, and was then called home to be instructed his father's profession. But his father died soon, and e took no delight in the study of the law; but having ways amused himself with drawing, resolved to turn ainter, and became pupil to Mr. Richardson, an artist hen of high reputation, but now better known by his books - han by his pictures.

Having studied awhile under his master, he became, as he tells his friend, an itinerant painter, and wandered about South Wales, and the parts adjacent; but he mingled poetry with painting, and, about 1727, printed Grongar Hill in Lewis's Miscellany.

Being, probably, unsatisfied with his own proficiency, he, like other painters, travelled to Italy; and coming back in 1740, published the Ruins of Rome.

If his poem was written soon after his return, he did not make much use of his acquisitions in painting, whatever they might be; for decline of health and love of study determined him to the church. He, therefore, entered into orders; and, it seems, married, about the same time, a lady of the name of " Ensor, whose grandmother," says he, "was a Shakespeare, descended from a brother of every body's Shakespeare;" by her, in 1756, he had a son and three daughters living.

His ecclesiastical provision was, for a long time, but slender. His first patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741,