Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Collins, John (1741-1797)
COLLINS, JOHN (1741–1797), Shakespearean scholar, only son of the Rev. Edward Collins, vicar of St. Erth in Cornwall,who married Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Kendall, canon of Exeter and archdeacon of Totnes, was born, presumably at St. Erth, on 28 Sept. 1741, and was educated at Eton, being in the same remove with George Hardinge, his friend in youth and his generous benefactor in after life. From Eton he proceeded to Queen's College, Oxford, and became on 3 March 1766 a grand-compounder for the degree of B.C.L. Having taken orders in the church of England, he was placed in charge of the parish of Ledbury in Herefordshire. He was endowed with a good person and a clear voice, his manners were cheerful, and his scholarship was praised by his friends, and he could probably have obtained higher preferment; but he had inherited the strong prejudices and keen sensibilities of his father. In 1769 he married his cousin, Mary Kendall, only daughter of Walter Kendall of Pelyn in Lanlivery, who died on 8 Nov. 1781, aged 36, when his health broke down, and the rest of his life was passed in mental anxiety and pecuniary pressure. His old schoolfellow Hardinge, who revived their friendship on a chance visit to Ledbury, befriended him zealously, and Jacob Bryant was another of the old friends who came forward to help him. After many years of trouble Collins died at Penryn in Cornwall in March 1797. The names of his wife and himself, and of four out of the six children who were alive in 1791, are recorded on a monument in Lanlivery church.
Edward Capell [q. v.], the Shakespearean commentator, was a stranger to Collins; but when the cynical George Steevens, in the preface to his edition of Shakespeare, published some characteristic remarks in depreciation of the labours of his rival commentator, an anonymous letter in refutation of the criticisms was published in 1777 by Collins, with the assistance of Hardinge. At this act Capell was highly gratified, and on his death he left Collins, who attended him in his last illness, one of his executors, adding to this recognition of his friendship the gift of a large sum of money, with some of his books and manuscripts. The dying man gave as his reason : 'I am led to this by several considerations, but principally of a promise obtained from him, the discharge of which I leave to his honour and (I am proud to say) his friendship.' Collins thereupon published in 1781 three volumes of collections by Capell, the first two entitled 'Notes and various Readings to Shakespeare,' and the last called 'The School of Shakespeare.' The dedication to Lord Dacre alludes, under the phrase of 'a sudden and most severe stroke of affliction,' to the death of Mrs. Collins. In a collection of Johnsoniana' in the 'European Magazine,' vii. 62 (1785), Collins is dubbed 'a sleep-compelling divine;' his 'Letter to George Hardinge ' is styled 'a heavy half-crown pamphlet,' and Johnson is credited with the criticism of it as 'a great gun without powder or shot,' as well as with some rough remarks on the author's grief at the loss of his wife. These anecdotes were contributed by Steevens himself, and if they are not altogether fictitious, their language is coloured by his brutality. The coarseness of the disposition of Steevens was further displayed in the notes in his own edition of a questionable character, which he fathered on Collins.
[Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 81, 82; Polwhele's Reminiscences, ii. 157–8; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iii. 155, 219, 839–42, vi. 133, viii. 593; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. viii. 531, 533; Polwhele's Traditions and Recollections, i. 82–5, 105–7; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. vi. 412 (1852).]