Thomas Collier

“ In 1698, Collier published his Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage, a book which threw the whole literary world into commotion, but which is now much less read than it deserves. The faults of the work, indeed, are neither few nor small. The dissertations on the Greek and Latin drama do not at all help the argument, and, whatever may have been thought of them by the generation which fancied that Christ Church had refuted Bentley, are such as, in the present day, a scholar of very humble pretensions may venture to pronounce boyish, or rather babyish. ”

“ We shall not be suspected of regarding either the politics or the theology of Collier with partiality; but we believe him to have been as honest and courageous a man as ever lived. We will go further, and say that, though passionate and often wrongheaded, he was a singularly fair controversialist, candid, generous, too high-spirited to take mean advantages even in the most exciting disputes, and pure from all taint of personal malevolence. ”

“ After Hickes's death, Collier was, undoubtedly, the most able man of the party, and continued to be their leader, until the body separated into two sections, in consequence of the controversy respecting the Usages. Collier was prepared to uphold the separation at all hazards: consequently in the year 1716, Henry Gandy and Thomas Brett were consecrated to the episcopal office by Collier, Spinkes, and Hawes. ”

“ In his view, a priest was the highest of human beings, except a bishop. Reverence and submission were due from the best and greatest of the laity to the least respectable of the clergy. However ridiculous a man in holy orders might make himself, it was impiety to laugh at him. So nervously sensitive indeed was Collier on this point that he thought it profane to throw any reflection even on the ministers of false religions. ”

“ At thirty a miner begins to look wan and emaciated, and so does a collier at forty; while the farming labourer continues robust and hearty." [52] John Jones, relieving officer for the Holywell district, states—"Though the children and young persons employed in these works are healthy, still it is observable that they soon get to look old, and they often become asthmatic before they are forty." [53]
In the Forest of Dean, Mr. Thomas Marsh, surgeon, states that "colliers usually become old men at fifty to fifty-five years of age." ”

“ And, from a passage in a contemporary satire, we are inclined to think that among the answers to the Short View was one written, or supposed to be written, by Wycherley. The victory remained with Collier. A great and rapid reform in almost all the departments of our lighter literature was the effect of his labours. A new race of wits and poets arose, who generally treated with reverence the great ties which bind society together, and whose very indecencies were decent when compared with those of the school which flourished during the last forty years of the seventeenth century. ”

“ His notions touching Episcopal government, holy orders, the efficacy of the sacraments, the authority of the Fathers, the guilt of schism, the importance of vestments, ceremonies, and solemn days, differed little from those which are now held by Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman. Towards the close of his life, indeed, Collier took some steps which brought him still nearer to Popery, mixed water with the wine in the Eucharist, made the sign of the cross in confirmation, employed oil in the visitation of the sick, and offered up prayers for the dead. His politics were of a piece with his divinity. ”

“ Had the fact been as he stated it, the defence would be worth very little. For no man acquainted with human nature could think that a sententious couplet would undo all the mischief that five profligate acts had done. But it would have been wise in Congreve to have looked again at his own comedies before he used this argument. Collier did so; and found that the moral of the Old Bachelor, the grave apophthegm which is to be a set-off against all the libertinism of the piece is contained in the following triplet:
“What rugged ways attend the noon of life! ”

“ Sometimes, again, Collier does not sufficiently distinguish between the dramatist and the persons of the drama. Thus he blames Vanbrugh for putting into Lord Foppington’s mouth some contemptuous expressions respecting the Church service; though it is obvious that Vanbrugh could not better express reverence than by making Lord Foppington express contempt. There is also throughout the Short View too strong a display of professional feeling. Collier is not content with claiming for his order an immunity from indiscriminate scurrility ”

“ Collier had written with moderation, and the reply evinces a similar spirit. The writer is anxious to prevent divisions among themselves: and he is apprehensive of danger from the proposed changes. He takes up the four points, in the order, in which they are ranged by Collier.
With respect to the mixture, he contends that it cannot be shewn to be necessary from Scripture, and that the first mention of it occurs not, until one hundred and fifty years after our Lord, by Justin Martyr. ”

“ Whatever meaner spirits might do, Collier was determined not to be led in triumph by the victorious enemies of his order. To the last he would confront, with the authoritative port of an ambassador of heaven, the anger of the powers and principalities of the earth.
In parts Collier was the first man among the nonjurors. In erudition the first place must be assigned to Henry Dodwell, who, for the unpardonable crime of having a small estate in Mayo, had been attainted by the Popish Parliament at Dublin. ”

“ But though outlawed and living in retirement, Collier was not the man to remain silent. Soon after the appearance of Sir John Friend's paper, a Pamphlet was published containing animadversions on that document, taking it in separate paragraphs. [14] In the outset, the writer charges the authorship upon the three Clergymen. He grounds this charge on alleged internal evidence, arid on certain circumstances, which in his opinion, rendered it impossible for Sir John Friend to write it. Sir John said, that the cause for which he suffered, was the cause of God and true religion. ”

“ When a preacher denounces the wicked, his sermons seem to be thrown away because the wicked don't come to church. Collier could not convert his antagonists; he could only make them more timid and careful to avoid giving palpable offence. But he could express the growing sentiment which made the drama an object of general suspicion and dislike, and induced the ablest writers to turn to other methods for winning the favour of a larger public.
The natural result, in fact, was the development of a new kind of literature, which was the most characteristic innovation of the period. ”

“ The whole world lay outside. It opened its mighty arms to him. It spoke of width, of depth, of breadth. It showed him its secrets—hamlets and valleys tucked away in its mighty heart—where a hunted man could hide for ever. It shouted to him to break free—to be free!
Three minutes passed. Collier realized that he was still standing in his place, his heels clamped to the red carpet. He stared at his feet, encased in their tight boots, as though they were objects for curiosity or wonder. Shapeless, unwieldy lumps of leather! Would they never move? ”

“ But a greater than Coleridge, destined to assume a more commanding position, and exercise a still wider power over the minds of his age, arose in Thomas Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched it." ”

“ But Collier did so as far as his light enabled him. He appealed to the popular conviction that the proper object of sense is the sole reality, although he despaired of getting men to give up their belief in its externality, and asserted that nothing but prejudice prevented them from doing so; and there is little doubt that, if it had ever occurred to him, as it did to Berkeley, to explain the genesis of the notion of externality, he would have been more hopeful of commending his theory to the popular mind. ”

“ Collier's better judgment has here given way to his deference for the opinion of his worthy friend; the deviation from the old copy being quite as violent as any that he has ever quarrelled with in others. ”

“ Collier's folio be a real or a pseudo-antique, it is impossible to deny that its executor must have been a clever, as he was certainly a slashing hitter. It cannot, therefore, be wondered that he should sometimes reach the mark: but that these corrections should be received with that blind and superstitious faith, so strangely exacted for them, can scarcely be expected. ”

“ My dear Cottle,
If you delay the press it will give me the opportunity I so much wish, of sending my "Visions of the Maid of Arc" to Wordsworth, who lives [1] not above twenty miles from this place; and to Charles Lamb, whose taste and judgment, I see reason to think more correct and philosophical than my own, which yet I place pretty high. * * *
We arrived safe. Our house is set to rights. We are all—wife, bratling, and self, remarkably well. Mrs. Coleridge likes Stowey, and loves Thomas Poole and his mother, who love her. ”

“ No third supposition can be reasonably maintained. Mr. Knight's view, for example, gives no account of the immense number of coincidences with the conjectural emendations of the commentators. Whichever of the two hypotheses be the true one, I need hardly say that Mr. Collier's name is a sufficient guarantee for all honorable dealing, so far as he is connected with the MS. corrections. ”

“ In spite of all criticism, Collier's own faith in his folio remained unshaken. In a new edition of his annotated Shakespeare, 6 vols. 1858, he adopted most of its manuscript readings, and avowed his conviction that the great majority ' were made not from better manuscripts, still less from unknown printed copies but from the recitations of actors.' While this work was in the press he lost his wife, who : died, aged 70, on 10 Dec. 1857. His patron, the Duke of Devonshire, died soon after, 17 Jan. ”

“ Collier was prepared to meet any number of antagonists, and defended himself in numerous tracts. The Short View was followed by a Defence (1699) , a Second Defence (1700) , and Mr Collier’s Dissuasive from the Playhouse, in a Letter to a Person of Quality (1703) , and a Further Vindication (1708) . The fight lasted in all some ten years; but Collier had right on his side, and triumphed; his position was, moreover, strengthened by the fact that he was known as a Troy and high churchman, and that his attack could not, therefore, be assigned to Puritan rancour against the stage. ”

“ Hopkins turned his face toward the window, and bit his thumb some time, without speaking a word.
"I suppose you will take it unkind," observed Collier, interrupting the silence. "But what could be done in such a case?"
"Talk to me no more about it," replied the disappointed suitor. "I am not the man to break my heart about a foolish damsel. If she pleases to shape her course in this way, I can assure her there is no love lost between us. But after all, Collier, this is a confounded unfriendly job, on your part; and I shall state as much to the church." ”

“ But although Mr Collier speaks thus calmly of his prize we are nevertheless convinced, by the rapidity of his conversion from the old readings to the new, that he, like the rest of us, is liable to be carried a little off his feet by any sudden stroke of prosperity, and is keenly alive (as most people are) to the superior merits of anything that happens to be his own. ”

“ Jeremy Collier's work will now be forgotten, and Mr. Long stands master of the field, but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his predecessor's grave unharmed, even if he will not throw upon it, in passing, a handful of kindly earth. ”

“ Collier was a very vain man who had made his fortune in the South Sea year, and having been originally a merchant, was very fond after he had retired to live upon his fortune, of a great deal of display and parade. ”

“ Collier replied, and managed the point with so much learning, wit, and keenness, that in the opinion of many, he had the better of his antagonists, especially Mr. Congrove, whose comedies it must be owned, though they are admirably written, and the characters strongly marked, are so loose, that they have given great offence: and surely we pay too dear for pleasure, when we have it at the expence of morality. ”

“ No place on earth could be more real and present than Heaven was to the religious collier. Take it from him, and he could do no more work in the dark and dangerous mine; leave it with him, and he was a hero. The colliers had one proud motto, one badge of honour, which each father bequeathed as his most precious possession to his son—this motto was “Bravery;” one stigma of everlasting disgrace which, once earned, nothing could wipe out, “Cowardice.” In the collier’s creed no stone was too heavy to roll away to rescue a brother from danger. ”

“ Collier had public opinion on his side. Men of the stricter sort were especially delighted, and, enraged as they had been at his conduct in the matter of the absolution, many of them considered that this pamphlet atoned even for that crime. Several of the wealthy among them sent him money ”