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POEMS

OF

WILLIAM COLLINS.

WITH NOTES

SELECTED FROM THE EDITIONS

OF

LANGHORNE, AND MRS. BARBAULD,

AND ORIGINAL;

TOGETHER WITH

DR. JOHNSON'S LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

CORRECTED AND ENLARGED.

BY THE

REV. WILLIAM CROWE,

PUBLIC ORATOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

BATH:

PRINTED FOR E. COLLINGS:

AND MAY BE HAD OF

LONGMAN & CO., HATCHARD & SON, AND C. TILT, LONDON ;

AND OF ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS.

The Notes in the following pages are, first, those of the Author's Edition in 1746; these are without any signature: so likewise are the Notes to the Ode on the Highland Superstitions, which are taken from the Edinburgh publication of that piece. The remaining Notes are either selected from the Editions of Langhorne and Mrs. Barbauld, or are original Notes of the present Editor; and all these are distinguished by the initials of their respective names.

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THE

LIFE OF COLLINS,

BY DR. JOHNSON.

WILLIAM COLLINS was born at Chichester, on the 25th day of December, 1721. His father was a hatter of good reputation. He was in 1733, as Dr. Warton* has kindly informed me, admitted scholar of Winchester College, where he was educated by Dr. Burton.* His English exercises were better than his Latin.

He first courted the notice of the public by some verses "To a Lady Weeping," published in The Gentleman's Magazine.'

* I cannot here pass over the names of these excellent men, without a grateful acknowledgment of my lasting obligation to them. They were my only Schoolmasters in the Latin and Greek languages; and to them I am indebted for my education in Winchester College, during seven years, till the Election in 1764, when I left school; and more fortunate than my master Warton, or his schoolfellow Collins, I succeeded to New College in the year following.-C.

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