  Mr. Joseph Warton, now Dr. Warton, head master of Winton school, was at the same time second upon roll; and Mr. Mulso, now [1781] prebendary of the church of Winton, third upon roll. Dallaway’s Sussex, vol. i. p. 185––The arms of the family of Collins are there said to have been, “Azure a griffin segreant or;” but in Sir William Burrell’s MS. Collections for a History of Sussex, in the British Museum, the field is described as being vert. From those manuscripts which are marked “Additional MSS.” Nos. 5697 to 5699, the following notices of the Poet’s family have been extracted.
There are monumental inscriptions in St. Andrew’s Church, Chichester, to the Poet’s father, mother, maternal uncle, Colonel Martyn, and sister, Mrs. Durnford. So much of the will of Colonel Edmund Martyn as relates to the Poet and his sister has been already cited, but the testator’s situation in life and the respectability of his family are best shown by other parts of that document. He describes himself as a lieutenant-colonel in his Majesty’s service, lying sick in the city of Chichester. To his niece Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Napper, of Itchenor in Sussex, he bequeathed 100l. His copyhold estates of the manors of Selsey, and Somerly, in that county, to his nephew, Abraham Martyn, the youngest son of his late only brother, Henry Martyn, and to his servant, John Hipp, he gave his wearing apparel and ten pounds. That these flowers are found in very great abundance in some of the provinces of Persia, see the Modern History of the ingenious Mr. Salmon. C. Euripides, of whom Aristotle pronounces, on a comparison of him with Sophocles, that he was the greater master of the tender passions, ?? t?a????te???. C.
The a?d??, or nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have entertained a peculiar fondness. C. Alluding to that beautiful fragment of AlcÆus:
The Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole species of them should become extinct, they should lose their liberties. C. This tradition is mentioned by several of our old historians. Some naturalists too have endeavoured to support the probability of the fact by arguments drawn from the correspondent disposition of the two opposite coasts. I do not remember that any poetical use has been hitherto made of it. C. There is a tradition in the Isle of Man, that a mermaid becoming enamoured of a young man of extraordinary beauty took an opportunity of meeting him one day as he walked on the shore, and opened her passion to him, but was received with a coldness, occasioned by his horror and surprise at her appearance. This, however, was so misconstrued by the sea lady, that, in revenge for his treatment of her, she punished the whole island by covering it with a mist: so that all who attempted to carry on any commerce with it, either never arrived at it, but wandered up and down the sea, or were on a sudden wrecked upon its cliffs. C. Monsieur Le Sage, author of the incomparable Adventures of Gil Blas de Santillane, who died in Paris in the year 1745. C. A summer hut, built in the high part of the mountains, to tend their flocks in the warm season, when the pasture is fine. Ed. 1788. By young Aurora, Collins undoubtedly meant the first appearance of the northern lights, which happened about the year 1715; at least it is most highly probable, from this peculiar circumstance, that no ancient writer whatever has taken any notice of them, nor even any modern one, previous to the above period. Ed. 1788. A fiery meteor, called by various names, such as Will with the Wisp, Jack with the Lantern, etc. It hovers in the air over marshy and fenny places. Ed. 1788. One of the Hebrides is called the Isle of Pigmies; where it is reported, that several miniature bones of the human species have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there. Icolmkill, one of the Hebrides, where near sixty of the ancient Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are interred. An aquatic bird like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabitants of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist. Ed. 1788. Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scotch poet Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. Barrow, it seems, was at the Edinburgh University, which is in the county of Lothian. Ed. 1788. About the time of Shakespeare, the poet Hardy was in great repute in France. He wrote, according to Fontenelle, six hundred plays. The French poets after him applied themselves in general to the correct improvement of the stage, which was almost totally disregarded by those of our own country, Jonson excepted. It is uncertain where this poem appeared. It was inserted in the Edinburgh edition of the Poets, 1794. A manuscript copy in the collection recently belonging to Mr. Upcott, and now in the British Museum, is headed, “Written by Collins when at Winchester School. From a Manuscript.” Senesino has built a palace near Sienna on an estate which carries the title of a Marquisate, but purchased with English gold. Transcriber Notes Archaic and variable spelling is preserved. Author’s punctuation style is preserved. Quotes in the poetry are sometimes repeated on every line. Poetry line numbers regularized. Footnote 4’s location is approximated. This book includes variations of some lines of poems. These are shown along the right side of the screen. Sections in Greek will yield a transliteration when the pointer is moved over each line, e.g. ???da?. ???p. T. |
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