COLLIN, HEINRICH JOSEPH VON (I I), Aus trian dramatist, was born in Vienna on Dec. 26, 1771. In i8o5 and in 18°9, when Austria was under the heel of Napoleon, Collin, who was a civil servant, was entrusted with important political missions. He died on July 28, 18ii. His tragedy Regulus (I8or), was written in strict classical form in conformity with French taste. But in his later dramas, Coriolan 0804), the overture to which was composed by Beethoven, Polyxena (18o4), Balboa (1806), Bianca della Porta 0808), he made some attempt to reconcile the pseudo-classic type of tragedy with that of Shake speare and the German romanticists. As a lyric poet (Gedichte, collected 1812), Collin has left a collection of stirring W ehr mannslieder for the fighters in the cause of Austrian freedom, as well as some excellent ballads (Kaiser Max auf der Martinswand, Herzog Leupold vor Solothurn). His younger brother Matthaus von Collin 0779-1824), was in sympathy with the Romantic movement, and, as editor of the Wiener Jahrbiicher fiir Literatur, was a potent force in the literary life of Vienna. His dramas on themes from Austrian national history (Belas Krieg mit dem Vater, 1808, Der Tod Friedrichs des Streitbaren, 1813) may be regarded as the immediate precursors of Grillparzer's historical tragedies.
H. J. von Collin's Gesammelte Werke appeared in 6 vols. (1812-14)• See an excellent monograph by F. Laban (1879) ; also A. Hauffen, Das Drama der klassischen Periode, 11. 2 (1891).
Matthaiis von Collin's Dramatische Dichtungen were published in 4 VO1S. ; his Nachgelassene Schriften, edited by J. von Ham mer, in 2 vols. (1827). A study of his life and work by J. Wihan will be found in Euphorion, Erganzungsheft, v. (19oi).