William Collins was born on 25 December 1721 in Chichester, Sussex. William was educated at Winchester and Magdalen College Oxford and whilst there in 1742 published the Persian Ecologues. After graduating in 1743 and unable to obtain a fellowship he decided on a literary career. In 1747 he published his collection of Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects on which his subsequent reputation was to rest. These poems are laced with strong emotive descriptions and a personal relationship to the subject allowed by the ode form. At the time they gained little notice which was...