his popularity he quit the London stage. In January 1793, he was amusing Birmingham audiences by his recitations, and in that year he was so far settled in that town as to occupy a house in Great Brook Street, Ashted. By these performances he obtained a 'well-earned easy competency,' and it must have been with some portion of his gains that he acquired an interest with a Mr. Swinney in a newspaper called The Birmingham Chronicle. Many of the poetic effusions of Collins were inspired by local events, and many of them were published in his paper, from the pages of which, as he complains, they were reproduced without acknowledgment. While he was resident in Birmingham his niece, Miss Brent, lived with him. Collins suffered in the spring of 1808 from a severe illness, but his death at Birmingham on 2 May 1808, in his sixty-sixth year, was sudden. Works The best-known of the poems of Collins, most of which are of unusual excellence for the date of their composition, are 'To-morrow,' 'The Golden Days of good Queen Bess,' 'Date obolum Belisario,' and ' Ben Block,' the last of which was printed in 'Notes and Queries' for 17 April 1886, p. 310 ; and the chief merit of his performances lay in the feeling with which he sang his lyric compositions, the 'rare perfection ' of his musical expression being universally acknowledged. The original manuscript of 'The Brush,' formerly in the possession of Thomas Bell and William Pinkerton, is now the property of Mr. Samuel Timmins of Birmingham. It was printed at Newcastle in 1800. In 1804 there was printed at Birmingham a volume of the poems of Collins, with the queer title of 'Scripscrapologia, or Collins's doggerel dish of all sorts. To it is prefixed a portrait of the author, followed by an apostrophe to Mr. Meyler, bookseller and printer in the Grove, Bath. His name is found on the title-pages of two other works: 1. 'Lecture on Heads [by G. A. Stevens] as delivered by Mr. Palmer at the Royalty Theatre. . . . The Golden Days of good Queen Bess, written by Mr. Collins/ n. d. [1787], 12 pages. 2. 'The Theatrical Banquet, or the Actor's Budget. Together with Collins's "Evening Brush." [Compiled] by W. Oxberry,' 1809, 2 vols., the portion belonging to Collins filling pp. 3–44 of vol. ii. Family His wife, who was distinguished for