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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 WILLIAM COLLINS WILLIAM COLLINS 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.
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