Part 27

In November 1743 Collins was made bachelor of arts, and a few days after taking his degree published his second work, _Verses humbly addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer_. This poem, written in heroic couplets, shows a great advance in individuality, and resembles, in its habit of personifying qualities of the mind, the riper lyrics of its author. For the rest, it is an enthusiastic review of poetry, culminating in a laudation of Shakespeare. It is supposed that he left Oxford abruptly in the summer of 1744 to attend his mother's death-bed, and did not return. He is said to have now visited an uncle in Flanders. His indolence, which had been no less marked at the university than his genius, combined with a fatal irresolution to make it extremely difficult to choose for him a path in life. The army and the church were successively suggested and rejected; and he finally arrived in London, bent on enjoying a small property as an independent man about town. He made the acquaintance of Johnson and others, and was urged by those friends to undertake various important writings--a _History of the Revival of Learning_, several tragedies, and a version of Aristotle's _Poetics_, among others--all of which he began but lacked force of will to continue. He soon squandered his means, plunged, with most disastrous effects, into profligate excesses, and sowed the seed of his untimely misfortune.

It was at this time, however, that he composed his matchless _Odes_--twelve in number--which appeared on the 12th of December 1746, dated 1747. The original project was to have combined them with the odes of Joseph Warton, but the latter proved at that time to be the more marketable article. Collins's little volume fell dead from the press, but it won him the admiration and friendship of the poet Thomson, with whom, until the death of the latter in 1748, he lived on terms of affectionate intimacy. In 1749 Collins was raised beyond the fear of poverty by the death of his uncle, Colonel Martyn, who left him about £2000, and he left London to settle in his native city. He had hardly begun to taste the sweets of a life devoted to literature and quiet, before the weakness of his will began to develop in the direction of insanity, and he hurried abroad to attempt to dispel the gathering gloom by travel. In the interval he had published two short pieces of consummate grace and beauty--the _Elegy on Thomson_, in 1749, and the _Dirge in Cymbeline_, later in the same year. In the beginning of 1750 he composed the _Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands_, which was dedicated to the author of _Douglas_, and not printed till long after the death of Collins, and an _Ode on the Music of the Grecian Theatre_, which no longer exists, and in which English literature probably has sustained a severe loss. With this poem his literary career closes, although he lingered in great misery for nearly nine years. From Gilbert White, who jotted down some pages of invaluable recollections of Collins in 1781, and from other friends, we learn that his madness was occasionally violent, and that he was confined for a time in an asylum at Oxford. But for the most part he resided at Chichester, suffering from extreme debility of body when the mind was clear, and incapable of any regular occupation. Music affected him in a singular manner, and it is recorded that he was wont to slip out into the cathedral cloisters during the services, and moan and howl in horrible accordance with the choir. In this miserable condition he passed out of sight of all his friends, and in 1756 it was supposed, even by Johnson, that he was dead; in point of fact, however, his sufferings did not cease until the 12th of June 1759. No journal or magazine recorded the death of the forgotten poet, though Goldsmith, only two months before, had begun the laudation which was soon to become universal.

No English poet so great as Collins has left behind him so small a bulk of writings. Not more than 1500 lines of his have been handed down to us, but among these not one is slovenly, and few are poor. His odes are the most sculpturesque and faultless in the language. They lack fire, but in charm and precision of diction, exquisite propriety of form, and lofty poetic suggestion they stand unrivalled. The ode named _The Passions_ is the most popular; that _To Evening_ is the classical example of perfect unrhymed verse. In this, and the _Ode to Simplicity_, one seems to be handling an antique vase of matchless delicacy and elegance. In his descriptions of nature it is unquestionable that he owed something to the influence of Thomson. Distinction may be said to be the crowning grace of the style of Collins; its leading peculiarity is the incessant personification of some quality of the character. In the _Ode on Popular Superstitions_ he produced a still nobler work; this poem, the most considerable in size which has been preserved, contains passages which are beyond question unrivalled for rich melancholy fulness in the literature between Milton and Keats.

The life of Collins was written by Dr Johnson; he found an enthusiastic editor in Dr Langhorne in 1765, and in 1858 a kindly biographer in Mr Moy Thomas. (E. G.)

COLLINS, WILLIAM (1787-1847), English painter, son of an Irish picture dealer and man of letters, the author of a _Life of George Morland_, was born in London. He studied under Etty in 1807, and in 1809 exhibited his first pictures of repute--"Boys at Breakfast," and "Boys with a Bird's Nest." In 1815 he was made associate of the Royal Academy, and was elected R. A. in 1820. For the next sixteen years he was a constant exhibitor; his fishermen, shrimp-catchers, boats and nets, stretches of coast and sand, and, above all, his rustic children were universally popular. Then, however, he went abroad on the advice of Wilkie, and for two years (1837-1838) studied the life, manners and scenery of Italy. In 1839 he exhibited the first fruits of this journey; and in 1840, in which year he was appointed librarian to the Academy, he made his first appearance as a painter of history. In 1842 he returned to his early manner and choice of subject, and during the last years of life enjoyed greater popularity than ever. Collins was a good colourist and an excellent draughtsman. His earlier pictures are deficient in breadth and force, but his later work, though also carefully executed, is rich in effects of tone and in broadly painted masses. His biography by his son, W. Wilkie Collins, the novelist, appeared in 1848.

COLLINS, WILLIAM WILKIE (1824-1889), English novelist, elder son of William Collins, R.A., the landscape painter, was born in London on the 8th of January 1824. He was educated at a private school in Highbury, and when only a small boy of twelve was taken by his parents to Italy, where the family lived for three years. On their return to England Wilkie Collins was articled to a firm in the tea trade, but four years later he abandoned that business for the law, and was entered at Lincoln's Inn in 1846, being called to the bar three years later. He found little pleasure in his new career, however; though what he learned in it was exceedingly valuable to him later. On his father's death in 1847 young Collins made his first essay in literature, publishing the _Life of William Collins_, in two volumes, in the following year. In 1850 he put forth his first work of fiction, _Antonina, or the Fall of Rome_, which was clearly inspired by his life in Italy. _Basil_ appeared in 1852, and _Hide and Seek_ in 1854. About this time he made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, and began to contribute to _Household Words_, where _After Dark_ (1856) and _The Dead Secret_ (1857) ran serially. His great success was achieved in 1860 with the publication of _The Woman in White_, which was first printed in _All the Year Round_. From that time he enjoyed as much popularity as any novelist of his day, _No Name_ (1862), _Armadale_ (1866), and _The Moonstone_, a capital detective story (1868), being among his most successful books. After _The New Magdalen_ (1873) his ingenuity became gradually exhausted, and his later stories were little more than faint echoes of earlier successes. He died in Wimpole Street, London, on the 23rd of September 1889. Collins's gift was of the melodramatic order, and while many of his stories made excellent plays, several of them were actually reconstructed from pieces designed originally for stage production. But if his colours were occasionally crude and his methods violent, he was at least a master of situation and effect. His trick of telling a story through the mouths of different characters is sometimes irritatingly disconnected; but it had the merit of giving an air of actual evidence and reality to the elucidation of a mystery. He possessed in the highest degree the gift of absorbing interest; the turns and complexities of his plots are surprisingly ingenious, and many of his characters are not only real, but uncommon. Count Fosco in _The Woman in White_ is perhaps his masterpiece; the character has been imitated again and again, but no imitation has ever attained to the subtlety and humour of the original.

COLLODION (from the Gr. [Greek: kolla], glue), a colourless, viscid fluid, made by dissolving gun-cotton and the other varieties of pyroxylin in a mixture of alcohol and ether. It was discovered in 1846 by Louis Nicolas Ménard in Paris, and independently in 1848 by Dr J. Parkers Maynard in Boston. The quality of collodion differs according to the proportions of alcohol and ether and the nature of the pyroxylin it contains. Collodion in which there is a great excess of ether gives by its evaporation a very tough film; the film left by collodion containing a large quantity of alcohol is soft and easily torn; but in hot climates the presence of an excess of alcohol is an advantage, as it prevents the rapid evaporation of the ether. Under the microscope, the film produced by collodion of good quality appears translucent and colourless. To preserve collodion it should be kept cool and out of the action of the light; iodized collodion that has been discoloured by the development of free iodine may be purified by the immersion in it of a strip of silver foil. For the iodizing of collodion, ammonium bromide and iodide, and the iodides of calcium and cadmium are the agents employed (see PHOTOGRAPHY). Collodion is used in surgery since, when painted on the skin, it rapidly dries and covers the skin with a thin film which contracts as it dries and therefore affords both pressure and protection. Flexible collodion, containing Canada balsam and castor oil, does not crack, but, on the other hand, does not contract. It is therefore of less value. Collodion is applied to small aseptic wounds, to small-pox pustules, and occasionally to the end of the urethra in boys in order to prevent nocturnal incontinence. Collodion and crystals of carbolic acid, taken in equal parts, are useful in relieving toothache due to the presence of a carious cavity. _Vesicating_ or _Blistering Collodion_ contains cantharidin as one of its constituents. The styptic colloid of Richardson is a strong solution of tannin in gun-cotton collodion. Similarly collodion may be impregnated with salicylic acid, carbolic acid, iodine and other substances. Small balloons are manufactured from collodion by coating the interior of glass globes with the liquid; the film when dry is removed from the glass by applying suction to the mouth of the vessel. M. E. Gripon found (_Compt. rend._, 1875) that collodion membranes, like glass, reflect light and polarize it both by refraction and reflection; they also transmit a very much larger proportion of radiant heat, for the study of which they are preferable to mica.

COLLOT D'HERBOIS, JEAN MARIE (1750-1796), French revolutionist, was a Parisian by birth and an actor by profession. After figuring for some years at the principal provincial theatres of France and Holland, he became director of the playhouse at Geneva. He had from the first a share in the revolutionary tumult; but it was not until 1791 that he became a figure of importance. Then, however, by the publication of _L'Almanach du Père Gérard_,[1] a little book setting forth, in homely style, the advantages of a constitutional monarchy, he suddenly acquired great popularity. His renown was soon increased by his active interference on behalf of the Swiss of the Château-Vieux Regiment, condemned to the galleys for mutiny at Nancy. His efforts resulted in their liberation; he went himself to Brest in search of them; and a civic feast was decreed on his behalf and theirs, which gave occasion for one of the few poems published during his life by André Chénier. But his opinions became more and more radical. He was a member of the Commune of Paris on the 10th of August 1792, and was elected deputy for Paris to the Convention, where he was the first to demand the abolition of royalty (on the 21st of September 1792), and he voted the death of Louis XVI. "_sans sursis_." In the struggle between the Mountain and the Girondists he displayed great energy; and after the _coup d'état_ of the 31st of May 1793 he made himself conspicuous by his pitiless pursuit of the defeated party. In June he was made president of the Convention; and in September he was admitted to the Committee of Public Safety, on which he was very active. After having entrusted him with several missions, the Convention sent him, on the 30th of October 1793, to Lyons to punish the revolt of that city. There he introduced the Terror in its most terrible form.

In May 1794 an attempt was made to assassinate Collot; but it only increased his popularity, and this won him the hatred of Robespierre, against whom he took sides on the 9th Thermidor, when he presided over the Convention during a part of the session. During the Thermidorian reaction he was one of the first to be accused of complicity with the fallen leader, but was acquitted. Denounced a second time, he defended himself by pleading that he had acted for the cause of the Revolution, but was condemned with Barère and Billaud-Varenne to transportation to Cayenne (March 1795), where he died early in 1796.

Collot d'Herbois wrote and adapted from the English and Spanish many plays, one of which, _Le Paysan magistrat_, kept the stage for several years. _L'Almanach du Père Gérard_ was reprinted under the title of _Étrennes aux amis de la Constitution française, ou entretiens du Père Gérard avec ses concitoyens_ (Paris, 1792).

See F. A. Aulard, _Les Orateurs de la Législative et de la Convention_ (Paris, 1885-1886), t. ii. pp. 501-512. The principal documents relative to the trial of Collot d'Herbois, Barère and Billaud-Varenne are indicated in Aulard, _Recueil des actes du comité de salut public_, t. i. pp. 5 and 6.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Michel Gérard was a popular Breton peasant deputy (see JACOBINS).

COLLUSION (from Lat. _colludere_, strictly, to play with), a secret agreement or compact for some improper purpose. In judicial proceedings, and particularly in matrimonial causes (see DIVORCE), collusion is a deceitful agreement between two or more persons, or between one of them and a third party, to bring an action against the other in order to obtain a judicial decision, or some remedy which would not have been obtained unless the parties had combined for the purpose or suppressed material facts or otherwise.

COLLYER, ROBERT (1823- ), American Unitarian clergyman, was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, England, on the 8th of December 1823. At the age of eight he was compelled to leave school and support himself by work in a linen factory. He was naturally studious, however, and supplemented his scant schooling by night study. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and for several years worked at this trade at Ilkley. In 1849 he became a local Methodist minister, and in the following year emigrated to the United States, where he obtained employment as a hammer maker at Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. Here he soon began to preach on Sundays while still employed in the factory on week-days. His earnest, rugged, simple style of oratory made him extremely popular, and at once secured for him a wide reputation. His advocacy of anti-slavery principles, then frowned upon by the Methodist authorities, aroused opposition, and eventually resulted in his trial for heresy and the revocation of his licence. He continued, however, as an independent preacher and lecturer, and in 1859, having joined the Unitarian Church, became a missionary of that church in Chicago, Illinois. In 1860 he organized and became pastor of the Unity Church, the second Unitarian church in Chicago. Under his guidance the church grew to be one of the strongest of that denomination in the West, and Mr Collyer himself came to be looked upon as one of the foremost pulpit orators in the country. During the Civil War he was active in the work of the Sanitary Commission. In 1879 he left Chicago and became pastor of the church of the Messiah in New York city, and in 1903 he became pastor emeritus. He published: _Nature and Life_ (1867); _A Man in Earnest: Life of A. H. Conant_ (1868); _The Life That Now is_ (1871); _The Simple Truth_ (1877); _Talks to Young Men: With Asides to Young Women_ (1888); _Things New and Old_ (1893); _Father Taylor_ (1906); and _A History of the Town and Parish of Ilkley_ (with Horsefall Turner, 1886).

COLMAN, SAINT (d. 676), bishop of Lindisfarne, was probably an Irish monk at Iona. Journeying southwards he became bishop of Lindisfarne in 661, and a favoured friend of Oswio, king of Northumbria. He was at the synod of Whitby in 664, when the great dispute between the Roman and the Celtic parties in the church was considered; as spokesman of the latter party he upheld the Celtic usages, but King Oswio decided against him and his cause was lost. After this event Colman and some monks went to Iona and then to Ireland. He settled on the island of Inishbofin, where he built a monastery and where he died on the 8th of August 676.

Colman must be distinguished from St Colman of Cloyne (c. 522-600), an Irish saint, who became a Christian about 570; and also from another Irishman, St Colman Ela (553-610), a kinsman of St Columba. The word Colman is derived from the Latin _columbus_, a dove, and the _Book of Leinster_ mentions 209 saints of this name.

COLMAN, GEORGE (1732-1794), English dramatist and essayist, usually called "the Elder," and sometimes "George the First," to distinguish him from his son, was born in 1732 at Florence, where his father was stationed as resident at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany. Colman's father died within a year of his son's birth, and the boy's education was undertaken by William Pulteney, afterwards Lord Bath, whose wife was Mrs Colman's sister. After attending a private school in Marylebone, he was sent to Westminster School, which he left in due course for Christ Church, Oxford. Here he made the acquaintance of Bonnell Thornton, the parodist, and together they founded _The Connoisseur_ (1754-1756), a periodical which, although it reached its 140th number, "wanted weight," as Johnson said. He left Oxford after taking his degree in 1755, and, having been entered at Lincoln's Inn before his return to London, he was called to the bar in 1757. A friendship formed with David Garrick did not help his career as a barrister, but he continued to practise until the death of Lord Bath, out of respect for his wishes.

In 1760 he produced his first play, _Polly Honeycomb_, which met with great success. In 1761 _The Jealous Wife_, a comedy partly founded on _Tom Jones_, made Colman famous. The death of Lord Bath in 1764 placed him in possession of independent means. In 1765 appeared his metrical translation of the plays of Terence; and in 1766 he produced _The Clandestine Marriage_, jointly with Garrick, whose refusal to take the part of Lord Ogleby led to a quarrel between the two authors. In the next year he purchased a fourth share in the Covent Garden Theatre, a step which is said to have induced General Pulteney to revoke a will by which he had left Colman large estates. The general, who died in that year, did, however, leave him a considerable annuity. Colman was acting manager of Covent Garden for seven years, and during that period he produced several "adapted" plays of Shakespeare. In 1768 he was elected to the Literary Club, then nominally consisting of twelve members. In 1774 he sold his share in the great playhouse, which had involved him in much litigation with his partners, to Leake; and three years later he purchased of Samuel Foote, then broken in health and spirits, the little theatre in the Haymarket. He was attacked with paralysis in 1785; in 1789 his brain became affected, and he died on the 14th of August 1794. Besides the works already cited, Colman was author of adaptations of Beaumont and Fletcher's _Bonduca_, Ben Jonson's _Epicoene_, Milton's _Comus_, and of other plays. He also produced an edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher (1778), a version of the _Ars Poëtica_ of Horace, an excellent translation from the _Mercator_ of Plautus for Bonnell Thornton's edition (1769-1772), some thirty plays, many parodies and occasional pieces. An incomplete edition of his dramatic works was published in 1777 in four volumes.

His son, GEORGE COLMAN (1762-1836), known as "the Younger," English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born on the 21st of October 1762. He passed from Westminster school to Christ Church, Oxford, and King's College, Aberdeen, and was finally entered as a student of law at Lincoln's Inn, London. While in Aberdeen he published a poem satirizing Charles James Fox, called _The Man of the People_; and in 1782 he produced, at his father's playhouse in the Haymarket, his first play, _The Female Dramatist_, for which Smollett's _Roderick Random_ supplied the materials. It was unanimously condemned, but _Two to One_ (1784) was entirely successful. It was followed by _Turk and no Turk_ (1785), a musical comedy; _Inkle and Yarico_ (1787), an opera; _Ways and Means_ (1788); _The Iron Chest_ (1796), taken from William Godwin's _Adventures of Caleb Williams_; _The Poor Gentleman_ (1802); _John Bull, or an Englishman's Fireside_ (1803), his most successful piece; _The Heir at Law_ (1808), which enriched the stage with one immortal character, "Dr Pangloss," and numerous other pieces, many of them adapted from the French.