The praise of his friends round the Oxford tea-tables turned him into a consistent prevaricator. “To-morrow I will write! To-morrow shall see my epoch-making poem. To-morrow!” But to-morrow came and was passed in equal idleness and futilities. “Wait till I get to London. Ah, then!” He was convinced that he had but to arrive in the metropolis to be the centre of a storm of praise and admiration. The praise and adulation poured upon him by his fellow Undergraduates convinced him that his wit and genius would make a brilliant success in London, and win him a fortune. But it was not to be. His weakness and lack of resolve and initiative had triumphed. He became an _habitué_ of coffee-houses, and formed acquaintances with actors, wasting his time at stage doors. He soon dissipated his money, and became badly in debt. The schemes for work by which to win fame and retrieve his fortunes died at their birth, and nothing was carried through. There cannot be definitely laid at Oxford’s door the accusation of being the root of the insanity which subsequently developed in him. But it was undoubtedly the fault of Oxford that he lost so soon the power over his will which he possessed before his Undergraduate days. Such a man as Collins needed the control of a guiding hand, some strong man whose influence would have acted as a spur, and whose example would have led to regular hours and serious work. Oxford, however, provided no such man. The appointed tutor, who must have been a person gross in mind and body, took no trouble with his charge, exercised no care, left him, indeed, to his own resources. With him lies the blame for Collins’ madness. By leaving him to follow the loose example of the Undergraduates of the time, who acted upon the caprice of the moment whether for good or evil, that tutor withheld, however unconsciously, the support for which the fragile mind of Collins craved. Consequently, under the evil influence of eighteenth-century Oxford, the holds upon his will which kept Collins within the bounds of sanity were gradually loosened, until at length, a few years after his going down, his reason entirely left him, and he who should have been one of the world’s greatest poets was lost. * * * * * In a room on the second floor over the gateway at Pembroke Dr Johnson lived during his Undergraduate career. A large-browed, unusual looking lad, whose clothes were even then ill-fitting and badly cut, he came up at the age of nineteen under the protecting wing of his father; was duly introduced to his tutor, and moved in, reverently and tenderly, the only household gods that he possessed--his books.