Excerpt from The Poetical Works: With a Memoir William collins was born at Chichester, on the 25th Of December, 17 21, and was bap tized in the parish church of St. Peter the Great, alias Subdeanery In that city, on the first Of the following January. He was the son Of William Collins, who was then the Mayor of Chichester, where he exercised the trade of a hatter, and lived in a respectable manner. His mother was Elizabeth, the Sister of a Colonel Martin, to whose bounty the poet was deeply indebted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.