William Collins

WILLIAM COLLINS

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Collins HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1721

December 25, Monday (Old Style): William Collins was born at Chichester, England, a son of a hatter. He would be educated at Chichester, at Winchester, and at Magdalen College of Oxford University.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

William Collins “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1740

March: William Collins was admitted as a commoner of Queen’s College of Oxford University, although he would not immediately travel to that venue of learning.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Collins HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1741

July: William Collins obtained a demyship at Magdalen College of Oxford University, and traveled to Oxford.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Collins HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1742

January: William Collins’s PERSIAN ECLOGUES. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1743

November: William Collins received the degree of B.A. at Magdalen College of Oxford University. A few days later his VERSES appeared, addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1744

Summer: William Collins apparently left Magdalen College of Oxford University abruptly to attend at the death-bed of his mother. He would not return and would eventually show up in London, attempting to lead the life of a literary gentleman.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Collins HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1746

December 12, Friday (Old Style): William Collins’s ODES ON SEVERAL DESCRIPTIVE AND ALLEGORICAL SUBJECTS, containing “Ode Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746” and “Ode to Evening.” “Ode to Evening,” by William Collins If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs, and dying gales, O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O’erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises ’midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain, Whose numbers stealing through thy dark’ning vale May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return! For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge And sheds the fresh’ning dew, and lovelier still, The pensive pleasures sweet Prepare thy shadowy car. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, Or find some ruin ’midst its dreary dells, Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blust’ring winds or driving rain Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut That from the mountain’s side Views wilds and swelling floods And hamlets brown and dim-discovered spires, And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all Thy dewy fingers draw The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve; While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light; While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train And rudely rends thy robes; HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall fancy, friendship, science, smiling peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And love thy favourite name! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1747

William Collins’s ODES, including “Ode to Evening” and “The Passions. An Ode for Music.”

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

William Collins “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1748

August 27, Saturday (Old Style): James Thomson died in Richmond, England. His friend William Collins would author a beautiful commemorative ode. “But who can paint like Nature? Can imagination boast, amid its gay creation, hues like hers?” “For life is but a dream whose shapes return, some frequently, some seldom, some by night and some by day.” “Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise, of health.” “I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?” “I think a bishop who doesn't give offence to anyone is probably not a good bishop.” “Ingratitude is treason to mankind.” “More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.” “Peace is the happy natural state of man; war is corruption and disgrace.” “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves.” “Statues and pictures and verse may be grand, But they are not the Life for which they stand.” “That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.” “The world rolls round forever like a mill; it grinds out death and life and good and ill; it has no purpose, heart or mind or will.” “’Tis easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1749

William Collins’s “Ode on the Death of Thomson.”

ODE ON THE DEATH OF MR. THOMSON.

THE SCENE OF THE FOLLOWING STANZAS IS SUPPOSED TO LIE

ON THE THAMES, NEAR RICHMOND. IN yonder grave a Druid lies, Where slowly winds the stealing wave!; The year’s best sweets shall duteous rise, To deck its Poet’s sylvan grave! In yon deep bed of whispering reeds His airy harp shall now be laid; That he whose heart in sorrow bleeds May love through life the soothing shade. Then maids and youths shall linger here; And, while its sounds at distance swell, Shall sadly seem in Pity’s ear To hear the woodland pilgrim’s knell.

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore, When Thames in summer wreaths is drest; And oft suspend the dashing oar, To bid his gentle spirit rest! And, oft as ease and health retire To breezy lawn, or forest deep, The friend shall view yon whitening spire, HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

And, ’mid the varied landscape weep. But thou who own’st that earthly bed, Ah! what will every dirge avail! Or tears which Love and Pity shed, That mourn beneath the gliding sail! Yet lives there one whose heedless eye Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near! With him, sweet Bard, may fancy die; And Joy desert the blooming year. But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide No sedge-crown’d sister now attend, Now waft me from the green hill’s side Whose cold turf hides the buried friend! And see the fairy valleys fade; Dun Night has veil’d the solemn view! Yet once again, dear parted shade, Meek Nature’s Child, again adieu! The genial meads, assign’d to bless Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom; Their hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress, With simple hands, thy rural tomb.

Long, long thy stone and pointed clay Shall melt the musing Briton’s eyes; O! vales and wild woods, shall he say In yonder grave your Druid lies! HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1750

At the beginning of the year William Collins prepared his “Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands,” that would be for many years lost sight of but would eventually be discovered by Dr. Alexander Carlyle. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1759

June 12, Tuesday: William Collins died in Chichester, the place of his birth. He had spent the final years of his life in madness, occasionally violent, occasionally in asylum, forgotten by his friends a number of whom presumed him already to be deceased, occasionally slipping into the back of a cathedral during services and moaning and howling in empathy with the choir.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

William Collins “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1810

Alexander Chalmers’s THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER; INCLUDING THE SERIES EDITED WITH PREFACES, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY DR.SAMUEL JOHNSON: AND THE MOST APPROVED TRANSLATIONS, a revised and expanded version of Dr. Johnson’s 1779-1781 LIVES OF THE POETS, began to come across the London presses of C. Wittingham. It would amount to 21 volumes and the printing would require until 1814 to be complete. According to the Preface, this massive thingie was “a work professing to be a Body of the Standard English Poets”1:

1. When the massive collection would come finally to be reviewed in July 1814, the reviewer would, on the basis of Chalmers’s selection of poems and poets, broadly denounce this editor as incompetent. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

PERUSE VOLUME I PERUSE VOLUME III PERUSE VOLUME IV PERUSE VOLUME V PERUSE VOLUME VI PERUSE VOLUME VII PERUSE VOLUME VIII PERUSE VOLUME IX PERUSE VOLUME X PERUSE VOLUME XI PERUSE VOLUME XII PERUSE VOLUME XIII PERUSE VOLUME XIV PERUSE VOLUME XV PERUSE VOLUME XVI PERUSE VOLUME XVII PERUSE VOLUME XVIII PERUSE VOLUME XIX PERUSE VOLUME XX PERUSE VOLUME XXI HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

WALDEN: Breed’s hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant’s Gondibert, that winter that I labored FIRE with a lethargy, –which, by the way, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the PEOPLE OF consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers’ collection of English WALDEN poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. We thought it was far south over the woods, –we who had run to fires before,– barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. “It’s Baker’s barn,” cried one. “It is the Codman Place,” affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted “Concord to the rescue!” Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure, and rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through speaking trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations which the world has witness, including Bascom’s shop, and, between ourselves we thought that, were we there in season with our “tub”, and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universal one into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any mischief, –returned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert, I would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul’s powder, –“but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder.”

INSURANCE NARCOLEPSY ALEXANDER CHALMERS BASCOM & COLE HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

THE ENGLISH POETS: Joseph Addison, Akenside; Armstrong; Beattie; Francis Beaumont; Sir J. Beaumont; Blacklock; Blackmore; Robert Blair; Boyse; Brome; Brooke; Broome; Sir Thomas Browne; Charles Butler; George Gordon, Lord Byron; Cambridge; Thomas Carew; Cartwright; Cawthorne; Chatterton; Geoffrey Chaucer; Churchill; William Collins; William Congreve; Cooper; Corbett; Charles Cotton; Dr. Cotton; Abraham Cowley; William Cowper; Crashaw; Cunningham; Daniel; William Davenant; Davies; Sir John Denham; Dodsley; John Donne; Dorset; Michael Drayton; Sir William Drummond; John Dryden; Duke; Dyer; Falconer; Fawkes; Fenton; Giles Fletcher; John Fletcher; Garth; Gascoigne; Gay; Glover; Goldsmith; Gower; Grainger; Thomas Gray; Green; William Habington; Halifax; William Hall; Hammond; Harte; Hughes; Jago; Jenyns; Dr. Samuel Johnson; Jones; Ben Jonson; King; Langhorne; Lansdowne; Lloyd; Logan; Lovibond; Lyttelton; Mallett; Mason; William Julias Mickle; John Milton; Thomas Moore; Otway; Parnell; A. Phillips; J. Phillips; Pitt; Pomfret; Alexander Pope; Prior; Rochester; Roscommon; Rowe; Savage; Sir Walter Scott; William Shakespeare; Sheffield; Shenstone; Sherburne; Skelton; Smart; Smith; Somerville; Edmund Spenser; Sprat; Stepney; Stirling; Suckling; Surrey; Jonathan Swift; James Thomson; W. Thomson; Tickell; Turberville; Waller; Walsh; Warner; J. Warton; T. Warton; Watts; West; P. Whitehead; W. Whitehead; Wilkie; Wyatt; Yalden; Arthur Young. TRANSLATIONS: Alexander Pope’s Iliad & Odyssey; John Dryden’s Virgil & Juvenal; Pitt’s Aeneid & Vida; Francis’ Horace; Rowe’s Lucan; Grainger’s Albius Tibullus; Fawkes’ Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius, Coluthus, Anacreon, Sappho, Bion and Moschus, Museus; Garth’s Ovid; Lewis’ Statius; Cooke’s Hesiod; Hoole’s Ariosto & Tasso; William Julias Mickle’s Lusiad. COMMENTARY: William Julias Mickle’s “Inquiry into the Religion Tenets and Philosophy of the Bramins,” which Thoreau encountered in 1841 in Volume 21 (pages 713-33). HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1841

During approximately this year Henry Thoreau made entries in his 1st Commonplace Book in regard to poems by William Collins, which he was perusing in the pages of Volume 13 of Alexander Chalmers’s THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER:

— “Eclogue II. Hassan; or the Camel-Driver” (which would appear in EXCURSIONS 139-140) — “Oriental Eclogues” — “Ode to Evening” — “Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomas” — “Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands; Considered as the Subject of Poetry”2 PERUSE VOLUME XIII WILLIAM COLLINS

We also discover a copy of Jasper Heywood’s “Looke on Yon Leafe” in these pages, although we do not know from what source Thoreau copied (it is not in A PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVICES).

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

2. It should give us pause, that here we find Thoreau consulting Volume 13, a volume which we have no record of his having checked out from the library — clearly the extant record of the books Thoreau consulted, despite its impressiveness, must be merely partial. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1854

George Gilfillan (ed.): THE POETICAL WORKS OF GOLDSMITH, COLLINS, AND T. WARTON, in LIBRARY EDITION OF THE BRITISH POETS. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

1861

October: Charles Dickens offered a series of public readings of GREAT EXPECTATIONS in smaller cities in England.

In this work, Mr. Wopsle is made to recite William Collins’s ode “The Passions. An Ode for Music.” WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Throng’d around her magic cell Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, Possest beyond the Muse’s painting, By turns they felt the glowing mind Disturb’d, delighted, raised, refined: ’Till once, ’tis said, when all were fired, Fill’d with fury, rapt, inspired, From the supporting myrtles round They snatch’d her instruments of sound, And, as they oft had heard apart Sweet lessons of her forceful art, Each, for Madness ruled the hour, Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewilder’d laid, And back recoil’d, he knew not why, E’en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rush’d, his eyes on fire, In lightnings own’d his secret stings; In one rude clash he struck the lyre And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woeful measures wan Despair, Low sullen sounds, his grief beguiled; A solemn, strange, and mingled air, ’Twas sad by fits, by starts ’twas wild.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair, What was thy delighted measure? Still it whisper’d promised pleasure And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail! Still would her touch the strain prolong: And from the rocks, the woods, the vale She call’d on Echo still through all the song; And, where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair;—

And longer had she sung:—but with a frown Revenge impatient rose: He threw his blood-stain’d sword in thunder down; And with a withering look The war-denouncing trumpet took And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne’er prophetic sounds so full of woe! And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And, though sometimes, each dreary pause between, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Dejected Pity at his side Her soul-subduing voice applied, Yet still he kept his wild unalter’d mien, While each strain’d ball of sight seem’d bursting from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fix’d: Sad proof of thy distressful state! Of differing themes the veering song was mix’d; And now it courted Love, now raving call’d on Hate.

With eyes up-raised, as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sat retired; And from her wild sequester’d seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, Pour’d through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And dashing soft from rocks around Bubbling runnels join’d the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or, o’er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Round an holy calm diffusing, Love of peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how alter’d was its sprightlier tone When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung, Her buskins gemm’d with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, The hunter’s call to Faun and Dryad known! The oak-crown’d Sisters and their chaste-eyed Queen, Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen Peeping from forth their alleys green: Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy’s ecstatic trial: He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addrest: But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best: They would have thought who heard the strain They saw, in Tempe’s vale, her native maids Amidst the festal-sounding shades To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as his flying fingers kiss’d the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round: Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid, Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom’s aid! Why, goddess, why, to us denied, Lay’st thou thy ancient lyre aside? As in that loved Athenian bower You learn’d an all-commanding power, Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear’d! Can well recall what then it heard. Where is thy native simple heart Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art? Arise, as in that elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! Thy wonders, in that god-like age, Fill thy recording Sister’s page;— HDT WHAT? INDEX

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’Tis said, and I believe the tale, Thy humblest reed could more prevail Had more of strength, diviner rage, Than all which charms this laggard age, E’en all at once together found Cecilia’s mingled world of sound:— O bid our vain endeavours cease: Revive the just designs of Greece: Return in all thy simple state! Confirm the tales her sons relate!

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Collins HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: June 23, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.