Collins' "Odes" also fit within the context of a movement towards the renewal of the genre, although in this case it was largely formal and showed in his preference for pindarics and occasionally dispensing with rhyme. Here he was in the company of Thomas Gray, Mark Akenside, and his Winchester schoolfellow Joseph Warton. At first Collins intended his "Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects" (1747) to be jointly published with Warton's "Odes on Various Subjects" (1746) until Warton’s publisher refused the proposal. Following their appearance, Gray commented in a letter that each poet "is the half of a considerable Man, & one the Counter-part of the other. has but little Invention, very poetical choice of Expression, & a very good Ear; [Collins a fine Fancy, model'd upon the Antique, a bad Ear, a great variety of Words & Images, with no Choice at all. They both deserve to last some years, but will not." Moreover, their new manner and stylistic excess lent themselves to burlesque parody, and one soon followed from a university miscellany in the shape of an "Ode to Horror: In the Allegoric Descriptive, Alliterative, Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical Style". Rumour had it even then that the culprit was Warton’s brother Thomas, and his name was coupled with it in later reprintings.