COLLINS’s MONUMENT.
A Monument of most exquisite workmanship has been lately erected at Chichester, by public subscription, to the memory of the poet Collins, who was a native of that city, and died in a house adjoining to the Cloisters. He is finely represented, as just recovering from a wild fit of phrenzy, to which he was unhappily subject, and in a calm and reclining posture seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the divine consolations of the Gospel; while his lyre, and one of the first of his poems, lie neglected on the ground. Above are two beautiful figures of Love and Pity, entwined in each other’s arms. The whole is executed by the ingenious Mr. Flaxman, lately returned from Rome. The following elegant epitaph is written by Mr. Hayley—
“Ye who the merits of the dead revere,
Who hold Misfortunes sacred, Genius dear;
Regard this tomb, where Collins, hapless name!
Solicits kindness with a double claim.
Though Nature gave him, and though Science taught,
The fire of Fancy, and the reach of Thought;
Severely doom’d to Penury’s extreme,
He pass’d in madd’ning pain, Life’s fev’rish dream;
While rays of Genius only serv’d to show
The thick’ning horror, and exalt his woe.
Ye walls that echo’d to his frantic moan,
Guard the due records of this graceful stone!
Strangers to him, enamour’d of his lays,
This fond memorial to his talents raise;
For this the ashes of a Bard require,
Who touch’d the tend’rest notes of Pity’s lyre:
Who join’d pure faith to strong poetic powers;
Who, in reviving Reason’s lucid hours,
Sought on one boo, his troubled mind to rest,
And rightly deem’d—the Book of God the best.”