See Kippis, _Biographia Britannica_; G. Lechler, _Geschichte des englischen Deismus_ (1841); J. Hunt, _Religious Thought in England_, ii. (1871); Leslie Stephen, _English Thought in the 18th Century_, i. (1881); A. W. Benn, _Hist. of English Rationalism in the 19th Century_ (London, 1906), vol. i. ch. iii.; J. M. Robertson, _Short History of Freethought_ (London, 1906); and Deism.
COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON (1848-1908), English literary critic, was born on the 26th of March 1848 at Bourton on the Water, Gloucestershire. From King Edward's school, Birmingham, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1872, and at once devoted himself to a literary career, as journalist, essayist and lecturer. His first book was a study of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1874), and later he edited various classical English writers, and published volumes on _Bolingbroke and Voltaire in England_ (1886), a _Study of English Literature_ (1891), a study of _Dean Swift_ (1893), _Essays and Studies_ (1895), _Ephemera Critica_ (1901), _Essays in Poetry and Criticism_ (1905), and _Rousseau and Voltaire_ (1908), his original essays being sharply controversial in tone, but full of knowledge. In 1904 he became professor of English literature at Birmingham University. For many years he was a prominent University Extension lecturer, and a constant contributor to the principal reviews. On the 15th of September 1908 he was found dead in a ditch near Lowestoft, at which place he had been staying with a doctor for the benefit of his health. The circumstances necessitated the holding of an inquest, the verdict being that of "accidental death."
COLLINS, MORTIMER (1827-1876), English writer, was born at Plymouth, where his father, Francis Collins, was a solicitor, on the 29th of June 1827. He was educated at a private school, and after some years spent as mathematical master at Queen Elizabeth's College, Guernsey, he went to London, where he devoted himself to journalism in the Conservative interest. In 1855 he published his _Idyls and Rhymes_; and in 1865 appeared his first story, _Who is the Heir?_ A second volume of lyrics, _The Inn of Strange Meetings_, was issued in 1871; and in 1872 he produced his longest and best sustained poem, _The British Birds, a communication from the Ghost of Aristophanes_. He also wrote several capital novels, the best of which is perhaps _Sweet Anne Page_ (1868). Some of his lyrics, in their light grace, their sparkling wit, their airy philosophy, are equal to anything of their kind in modern English. On his second marriage in 1868 he settled at Knowl Hill, Berkshire. Collins was an athlete, an excellent pedestrian, and an enthusiastic lover of country life; and from this time he rarely left his home for a day. Conservative in his political and literary tastes, an ardent upholder of Church and State, he was yet a hater of convention; and his many and very varied gifts endeared him to a large circle of friends. He died on the 28th of July 1876.