ciently cultivate fentiment. His poems are the productions of a mind not deficient in fire, nor unfurnifhed with knowledge either of books or life, but somewhat obftructed in its progrefs by deviation in queft of miftaken beauties. "His morals were pure, and his opinions pious; in a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of diffipation, it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almoft deftroyed; and long affociation with fortuitous companions will at laft relax the ftrictness of truth, and abate the fervour of fincerity. That this man, wife and virtuous as he was, paffed always unentangled through the fnares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to affirm; but it may be faid that at leaft he preferved the fource of action unpolluted, that his principles were never fhaken, that his diftinctions of right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of malignity or defign, but proceeded from fome unexpected preffure, or cafual temptation. "The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and fadnefs. He languished fome years under that depreffion of mind which enchains the faculties without deftroying them, and leaves reafon the knowledge of right without the power of purfuing it. Thefe clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to difperfe by travel, and paffed into France; but found himself conftrained to yield to his malady, and returned. He was for fome time confined in a houfe of lunaticks, and afterwards retired retired to the care of his fifter in Chichefter, where death in 1756 came to his relief... "After his return from France, the writer of this character paid him a vifit at Iflington, where he was waiting for his fifter, whom he had directed to meet him there was then nothing of diforder difcernible in his mind by any but himself; but he had withdrawn from ftudy, and travelled with no other book than an English Teftament, fuch as children carry to the fchool: when his friend took it into his hand, out of curiofity to see what companion a Man of Letters had chofen, I have but one book,' faid Collins, but that is the best." Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converfe, and whom I with tenderness. yet remember He was vifited at Chichester, in his last illness, by his learned friends Dr. Warton and his brother; to whom he spoke with difapprobation of his Oriental Eclogues, as not fufficiently expreffive of Afiatick manners, and called them his Irish Eclogues. He fhewed them, at the fame time, an ode infcribed to Mr. John Hume, on the fuperftitions of the Highlands; which they thought fuperior to his other works, but which no fearch has yet found *. His diforder was no alienation of mind, but general laxity and feeblenefs, a deficiency rather of his vital than his intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor fpirit; but a few minutes exhaufted him, fo that he was forced to reft upon * It is printed in the late Collection. R. the the couch, till a fhort ceffation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with his former vigour. The approaches of this dreadful malady he began to feel foon after his uncle's death; and, with the ufual weakness of men fo diseased, eagerly fnatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and feduce. But his health continually declined, and he grew more and more burthenfome to himself. To what I have formerly faid of his writings may be added, that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. He affected the obfolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, feeming to think, with fome later candidates for fame, that not to write profe is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of flow motion, clogged and impeded with clufters of confonants. As men are often efteemed who cannot be loved, fo the poetry of Collins may fometimes extort praise when it gives little pleasure. Mr. Mr. Collins's first production is added here from thePoetical Calendar." TO MISS AURELIA C-R, ON HER WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING. Ceafe, fair Aurelia, ceafe to mourn; You may be happy in your turn, DYER. DYER. JOHN DYER, of whom I have no other account to give than his own Letters, published with Hughes's correfpondence, and the notes added by the editor, have afforded me, was born in 1700, the second fon of Robert Dyer of Aberglafney, in Caermarthenfhire, a folicitor of great capacity and note. He paffed through Westminster school under the care of Dr. Freind, and was then called home to be inftructed in his father's profeffion. But his father died foon, and he took no delight in the study of the law; but, having always amused himself with drawing, refolved to turn painter, and became pupil to Mr. Richardson, an artift then of high reputation, but now better known by his books than by his pictures. Having ftudied awhile under his mafter, 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 |