Memorial to William Collins

Monument by John Flaxman.

See http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/93f41c13.html

The text under this relief reads

THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY A VOLUNTARY SUBSCRIPTION
IN HONOR OF WILLIAM COLLINS
WHO WAS BORN IN THIS CITY MDCCXXI
AND DIED IN A HOUSE ADJOINING TO THE CLOISTERS
OF THIS CHURCH MDCCLIX

The epitaph on the memorial (which appears below) was written by Hayley and his friend John Sargent:

On Collins the Poet

Ye who the merits of the dead revere,
Who hold misfortune sacred, Genius dear,Regard this tomb, where Collins, hapless name
Solicits kindness, with a double claim
Though nature gave him, and though science taught
The fire of fancy, and the reach of thought,
Severely doom’d to penury’s extreme
He pass’d in madd’ning pain life’s fev’rish dream
While rays of genius only serv’d to show
The thick’ning horror, and exalt his woe
Ye wall that echo’d to his frantic moan
Guard the due records of this grateful stone;
Strangers to him, enamour’d of his lays,
This fond memorial to his talents raise.
For this the ashes of the bard require
Who touch’d the tend’rest notes of Pity’s lyre;
Who join’d pure faith to strong poetic powers,
Who, in reviving reason’s lucid hours,
Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest;
And rightly deem’d the book of God the best.”

Chichester Cathedral