COLLIER, JEREMY (1650-1726). A non-juring English clergyman, born at Stow Qui, or Quire, in Cambridgeshire, September 23, 1650. He went to Cambridge in 1669, took his degree of M.A. in 1676, and entered the ministry. At the revolution of HISS he plunged into the stormy waters of controversy, his ioeman being Gilbert Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury. For a publication of his at this time, entitled The De sertion Discussed (1655), which maintained the invalidity of King William's regal authority and gave offense to the Government, he was sent to where he remained several months. On his release he rushed anew into party conten tions, and distinguished himself by the publi cation of several controversial works. Suspect ed of being a partisan of the Stuarts, he was again arrested in 1692 and imprisoned for a short time in the King's Bench. From this period his life was a perpetual literary strife, the (1-overnment being the principal object of his attack. In 1713 he was consecrated a bishop
among the non-jurors, and was their leading man after the death of Iliekes in 1715. He died in London, April 26, 1726. Collier wrote many books, including the Great Historical, Geograph ical, Genealogical, and Poetical Dictionary (4 vols., 1701), founded on 5loreri'-, and Ecclesias tical 11 istOry of Great Britain to the End of the Reign of Charles II. (2 vols., 1708-14). The best edition of the latter work is by T. Lathbury (9 vols., London, 1852). It is a work of great learning, the first of its kind except Fuller's that had appeared. But the work by which he is best known is his Short of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698). in which he attacked Dryden and Congreve as vig oronsly as D'Urfey, and which had a marvelous success. For his life, consult the Ecclesiastical History, edited by Lathbury (London, 1852).