Collins, William (1721–1759)

English poet. His Persian Eclogues four short effusions in heroic couplets published anonymously in 1742, were followed in 1746 by his Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects, 12 lyric poems which include ‘Ode To Evening’ and ‘The Passions’. The ‘Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands’, written in 1749, is an important poem in the early Romantic movement.

Collins was born in Chichester, Sussex, and studied at Oxford University. After graduating in 1743 he went to London, where he became friends with the poet James Thomson and the lexicographer Samuel Johnson.

His other works are Verses address'd to Sir Thomas Hanmer (1743), Ode on the Death of Thomson (1749), Dirge in Cymbeline (1749), and the unfinished Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands (written in 1749, printed in 1788).