COLLIER, JEREMY, a learned English nonjuring divine, born at Stow Quai, Cambridgeshire, in 1650, and educated at Caius College, Cambridge. His first appointment was to the small rectory of Ampton, near St Edmund's Bury, Suffolk, which, after six years, he resigned in order to proceed to London, where in 1685 he was made lecturer of Gray's Inn. But the change of government at the revolution soon rendered the public exercise of his function impracticable. He was committed to Newgate for writing in favour of the dethroned monarch; and again on a charge of carrying on a treasonable correspondence with the enemies of the movement; but he was released on both occasions without trial, by the intervention of his friends. So far did he carry his scruples at this period, that he submitted to confinement
rather than make a tacit acknowledgment of the jurisdiction of the court by accepting his liberty upon bail. In the two following years he continued to harass the government by his publications; but for his boldness in granting absolution to Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins at their execution, he was obliged to flee, and for the rest of his life continued under sentence of outlawry. From that time forward he employed his leisure in literary works, which were less political in their tone. In 1698 he published a short treatise in the style of Prynne's famous Histrio-mastix, entitled a Short view of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, which engaged him in a lengthened controversy with Congreve, Vanbrugh, and the other wits of the day. The book abounds in hypercriticism and in useless display of learning, neither intrinsically valuable nor conducive to the argument. Yet, in the words of Mr Macaulay, "when all deductions have been made, great merit must be allowed to the work. There is hardly any book of that time from which it would be possible to select specimens of writing so excellent and so various. To compare Collier with Pascal would, indeed, be absurd; yet we hardly know where, except in the Provincial Letters, we can find mirth so becomingly and harmoniously blended with solemnity as in the Short View. In truth, all the modes of ridicule, from broad fun to polished and antithetical sarcasm, were at Collier's command. On the other hand, he was complete master of the rhetoric of honest indignation. We scarcely know any volume which contains so many bursts of that peculiar eloquence which comes from the heart and goes to the heart. Indeed, the spirit of the book is truly heroic. In order fairly to appreciate it, we must remember the situation in which the writer stood. He was under the frown of power. His name was already a mark for the invectives of one-half of the writers of the age, when, in the cause of good sense, good taste, and good morals, he gave battle to the other half. Strong as his political prejudices were, he seems on this occasion to have laid them entirely aside. He has forgotten that he is a Jacobite, and remembers only that he is a citizen and a Christian. Some of his sharpest censures are directed against poetry which had been hailed with delight by the Tory party, and had inflicted a deep wound on the Whigs. It is inspiring to see how gallantly the solitary outlaw advances to attack enemies formidable separately, and, it might have been thought, irresistible when combined; distributes his swashing blows right and left among Wycherley, Congreve, and Vanbrugh; treads the wretched Tom D'Urfey down in the dirt beneath his feet, and strikes with all his strength full at the towering crest of Dryden. The effect produced by the Short View was immense. The nation was on the side of Collier. The general belief was, that Dryden would take the field against him; and all the wits anticipated a sharp contest between two well-paired combatants. But Dryden's conscience smote him; he stood abashed, like the fallen archangel at the rebuke of Zephon. At a later period he mentioned the Short View in the preface to his Fables. He complained with some asperity of the harshness with which he had been treated, and urged some matters in mitigation; but, on the whole, he frankly acknowledged that he had been justly reprov'd."
Collier afterwards executed a translation of Moreri's Historical and Geographical Dictionary, which appeared in 4 vols. fol., 1701, 1705, 1721. After this he published An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, chiefly of England, in 2 vols. fol., 1708 and 1714. His Essays upon several Moral Subjects, in 3 vols. 8vo, published between 1697 and 1709, display considerable learning, ability, and taste. In 1701 he published a translation of Antoninus's Meditations. His last work was a volume of Practical Discourses, published in 1725. Collier died of the stone, April 26, 1726.