COLLINS, Mortimer, English man of let ters: b. Plymouth, England, 29 June 1827; d. Knowl Hill, 28 July 1876. His father, who was a solicitor, published a volume of verse and seems to have been a good mathematician. His mother was connected with the Mortimers of Dorset. While at school, the boy wrote verse and prose for local newspapers; and began to contribute to Fraser's and Punch. At the age of 22 he married, and settled at Guernsey as mathematical master of Queen Elizabeth's Col lege. This position, which interfered with his literary work, he resigned in 1856, the year after the appearance of his first volume of poems, 'Idyls and During the next 10 years he edited several provincial news papers and contributed extensively to the Lon don press. A strong Tory in politics, he was accounted one of the best at political squibs. His lyrics and epigrams in the Owl were especially well received. In 1860 appeared Songs' and in 1865 his first novel, 'Who is the Heir?' By 1862 he was settled at Knowl Hill, Berkshire, some 30 miles from London, where he passed the rest of his life in unremitting industry. He wrote novels, reviews, sketches of travel and an enormous amount of verse. 'The Marquis and the Mer
chant) (1871) was regarded as his best novel. (The Secret of Long Life) (18'71), a collection of essays, including a notable one on laziness, ran through several editions. Collins was a °well-made man, over six feet in height, with a handsome face and well-shaped head.° Among his numerous friends were Edmund Yates and R. D. Blaclanore. His first wife died in 1867. The next year he married Frances Cotton, who collaborated with him in fiction and published on her own account a novel called a (Broken Lily' (1882). Consult (Mor timer Collins; His Letters and Friendships) (2 vols., London 1877), a scrappy but interesting biography by his widow. To (Pen Sketches by a Vanished Hand from the Papers of the Late Mortimer Collins) (London 1879) Tom Taylor prefixed a memoir. For some of his best pieces, consult also 'Thoughts in my Gardep) (London 1885), collected and edited by E. Yates, and (Attic Salt' (1880), a selection of Collins's epigrams, by F. Kerslake.