to Cambridge, and admitted of CatharineHall about 1693, under the tuition of Dr Long, (afterwards Bishop of Norwich); where taking his degrees in arts at the usual periods, he was in the interim elected into a fellowship of his college, and foon after he had attained to the canonical age, entered into priefts' orders. He was appointed Master of the Temple, November 28. 1704, in the fourth of Queen Anne, upon the refignation of his father. Such a station at fuch an age, to a man of ordinary parts, would rather have brought contempt with it than refpect; and indeed great prejudices arofe against him on the fcore of his youth, on his firft defignation to this office, but a fhort trial of his abilities entirely removed them his parts and judgment were ripe, and his knowledge was far beyond his years: he was duly fenfible of the importance of his ftation, and was the more diligent in improving the great talents that Nature had given him, that he might not be wanting in any accomplishment that was neceffary to fill it with dignity. His ambition was equal to his parts, and he would have thought it an indignity to have been the fecond in any character in which he chofe to appear. Young therefore as he was, when he firft

:

appeared in the character of a public preacher, he foon furpaffed the most eminent preachers of those times, in folidity of matter, in ftrength of reasoning, and true pulpit eloquence. In the mean time he entered into a marriage, in 1707, with Mrs Judith Fountaine, defcended from a good family in Yorkshire, in whom he was very happy all his life. He had a little before commenced D. D. and upon the refignation of Sir William Dawes, promoted to the archbishopric of York, Dr Sherlock fucceeded him in the mastership of Catharine-Hall in 1714. Having obtained the deanry of Chichester in 1716, and not long after it, he made his first appearance in print, being at the head of the controversy against Dr Hoadly, then Bishop of Bangor, during which he published. a great number of pieces, one of the principal whereof was entitled, A vindication of the Corporation and Test acts, in anfwer to the Bishop of Bangor's reasons for the repeal of them; to which is added a fecond part,concerning the religion of oaths, 1718, 8vo. The Bishop of Bangor answered it in 1719, to which our Dean replied the fame year in a fmall pamphlet, wherein he sets forth The true meaning and intention of the Corporation and Teft acts afferted. About three years after

this came out Mr Collins's difcourfe of the grounds and reasons of the Christian religion, wherein he endeavours to fix the evidence of it chiefly, if not folely, upon the prophecies of the Old Teftament, and then explains thofe prophecies in fuch a manner, as that they may feem to have no better a foundation than the divinations among the Heathens, "Who learned (fays he) that art in fchools, or under difcipline, as the Jews did prophecy in fchools and colleges of the prophets." This work occafioned a great number of pieces to be written upon the subject of prophecy; and though our Dean did not enter directly into the controverfy, yet he took an opportunity of communicating his fentiments in Six Difcourfes delivered at the Temple Church, in April and May 1724, which he printed the following year under this title, The ufe and intent of Prophecy, in the feveral ages of the world, 1725, 8vo; where we have a regular feries of prophecies deduced through their faveral ages from the beginning, and prefented to us in a connected view, together with the various degrees of light diftinctly marked, which were fucceffively communicated in fuch a manner, as to anfwer the great ends of religion, and the defigns of Providence, till the great

events to which they pointed should receive their accomplishment. In 1728 the Dean was promoted to the Bishopric of Bangor, in which he fucceeded Dr Hoadly, as he did alfo in that of Salisbury in 1738; and in both these ftations he made fuch a diftinguished figure, that, upon the death of Archbishop Potter in 1747, he was offered the following year to be fet at the head of the church, in the archbishopric of Canterbury, which, however, he thought beft to decline, on account of the ill ftate of his health at that juncture; but recovering the next year, 1749, he accepted a translation to the See of London, void by the demife of Dr Gibson, Upon this promotion he had fome difference with Dr Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury, about his Grace's right to an option, which, however, was at length compromised. Notwithstanding his advancement to all these dignities, he still continued to hold the maftership of the Temple; he was fo much beloved and esteemed by both thofe honourable focieties, as rendered the poft very agreeable to him, and he was greatly urged by the members not to leave them. He therefore continued there till midfummer 1753, and, after his refignation, addreffed a kind letter of acknowledgment for their extraordinary,

favours fhewn to him during the courfe of his relation to them, the duties of which his infirmities had rendered him unable to perform. His infirmities, in truth, began to affect him very much, and though for three or four years he applied himself to business, and made one general visitation of his diocese in perfon, yet he was then vifited with a very terrible illness, which deprived him first almost of the ufe of his limbs, and of his fpeech, infomuch that he could not be understood but by those who were conftantly about him: yet still the powers of his underftanding continued in their full vigour, and under this weak ftate of body in which he lay many years, he revised, corrected, and published a volume of his fermons in 1753, which were followed by three volumes more in 1755*, 8vo; which befides the excel

Original characters are rarely to be found in any clafs or profeffion of men; original writers of any order are but few, and feweft of all perhaps amongst the writers of fermons. It is natural for a young preacher to take fome writer of name and character as his model for compofition, or he falls infenfibly into an imitation of those writers who happen to fuit beft with his taste and judgent; he borrows their matter, copies their method and manner, and works their spirit, fentiments, and language into his own compofitions; and, in general, he that reads the best writers, and takes them for his pattern in writing, pursues the most promifing method of becoming a good writer himself. But a true genius always ftands on his own ground; his air, dress,