Marshall; a replica made for Mr. Hogarth, the art dealer, was engraved in ‘Finden's Gallery of Modern British Art.’ Two years later appeared ‘Sunday Morning,’ scraped in mezzotint by S. W. Reynolds; and ‘As Happy as a King,’ representing children swinging on a gate in a wood, now in the National Gallery, and engraved by G. Finden and C. Cousen. A repetition of the picture, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, is now in the Vernon Collection, South Kensington Museum. Mr. Wilkie Collins tells us that the subject of the picture was suggested to his father by the story of the country boy whose ideal of kingly happiness was swinging upon a gate all day long and eating fat bacon. In the month of September 1836 he left London for Italy, remaining there until 1838. During these two years he occupied himself unremittingly in advancing his knowledge of painting, but he caught a severe illness by sketching at Sorrento in the noonday sun. On the advice of his friend Wilkie he returned home and began several pictures from Italian life. The Royal Academy of 1839 contained the first produce of his continental tour, such as ‘Poor Travellers at the door of a Capuchin Convent near Vico, Bay of Naples,’ ‘A Scene near Subiaco,’ &c. These were followed in 1840–1 by two subjects taken from sacred history, ‘Our Saviour with the Doctors in the Temple,’ and ‘The Two Disciples at Emmaus.’ Collins now resided at 85 Oxford Terrace, and removed in 1843 to a larger house, 1 Devonport Street, Hyde Park Gardens. In 1840 he was appointed librarian to the Royal Academy, but finding its duties more onerous than he could conscientiously discharge, he resigned the office in 1842. In 1840 he visited Germany, and in 1842 the Shetland Islands, his tour in the latter place being productive of a series of illustrations to Sir Walter Scott's ‘Pirate,’ which were published in the Waverley edition of that fiction. In 1846 his ‘Early Morning’ was exhibited. Mr. Ruskin says of it: ‘I have never seen the oppression of sunlight in a clear, lurid, rainy atmosphere more perfectly or faithfully rendered, and the various portions of reflected and scattered light are all studied with equal truth and solemn feeling.’ Collins sketched in water-colour some of his works; in this style ‘The Rat-catcher’ and ‘Landing Fish’ are in the British Museum, and at the South Kensington Museum ‘A Street in Naples’ and ‘Kentish Peasant Girls.’ He also etched several plates, most of which, presented by Mrs. Collins, are in the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, besides a folio volume containing choice impressions of engravings after him. Collins died from disease of the heart, terminating in dropsy, in Devonport Street, on 17 Feb. 1847, and was buried in the cemetery of the church of St. Mary, Paddington, where a handsome monument, in the form of a cross, was erected to his memory by his widow. He left two sons, William Wilkie Collins, the novelist, and Charles Allston Collins [q.v.] Collins exhibited altogether 124 pictures at the Royal Academy, and forty-five at the British Institution. One of his last works was commenced at Torquay in 1845.
[Memoirs of the Life of William Collins; R.A., by William Wilkie Collins, 2 vols. London, 1848, 8vo; Athenæum, 20 Feb. 1847, p. 200.]
COLLINS, WILLIAM LUCAS (1817–1887), miscellaneous writer, was educated at Jesus College, Oxford (B.A. 1838, M.A. 1841). He became curate of Great Houghton, Northamptonshire (1835-1862), and of Brayfield, Northamptonshire (1862-3), rector of Cheriton, Glamorganshire, vicar of Kilsby (1867-1873), and rector of Lowick, both in Northamptonshire (1873-87). With the last-named benefice he held the vicarage of Slipton, to which he was presented in 1876; and he was also an honorary canon of Peterborough. He died at Lowick on 24 March 1887.
Collins was editor of 'Ancient Classics for English Readers,' and wrote for the series the volumes on Homer's 'Iliad,' Homer's 'Odyssey,' Aristophanes, Lucian, Virgil, Plautus, Terence, Cicero, Livy, and Thucydides. His other works are:
- 'The Luck of Ladysmede,' London, 1860, 8vo.
- 'The Education Question,' London, 1863, 8vo.
- 'Etoniana Ancient and Modern; being notes of the History and Traditions of Eton College,' London, 1866, 8vo.
- 'The Public Schools: Winchester, Westminster, Shrewsbury. Harrow, Rugby: notes of their History and Traditions,' London, 1867, 8vo.
- 'Montaigne,' in Mrs. Oliphant's 'Foreign Classics for English Readers,' 1870.
- 'Butler,' a biography and an analysis of his works, in Dr. William Knight's 'Philosophical Classics for English Readers,' 1881.
- 'La Fontaine and other French Fabulists,' in 'Foreign Classics.' 1882.
[Times, 28 March 1887; Crockford's Clerical Directory (1887): Blackwood's Mag., May 1887; Academy, 2 April 1887, p. 236.]
COLLINSON, JAMES (1825?–1881), painter, born at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, about 1825, was the son of a bookseller. He entered the Royal Academy School, and was also a fellow-student with Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He did not give much
