Jeremy Collier

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Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) was a theatre critic and Non-juror bishop and theologian. Born September 23, 1650 in Cambridgeshire, he was educated at Cambridge, receiving the BA (1673) and MA (1676). A supporter of James II, he likely refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary after the Glorious Revolution. In the years following the Revolution he wrote a series of tracts questioning the new legitimacy of the new monarchs and the deprival of the Non-juror bishops. In 1713 he was consecrated a Non-juror bishop by George Hickes and two Scottish bishops, Archibald Campbell and James Gadderar.

In the history of English drama, Collier is known for his attack on the comedy of the 1690s in his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), which draws for its ammunition mostly on the plays of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh.

[edit] Further Reading

• Eric Salmon, "Collier, Jeremy," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2005).
• R.D. Cornwall, Visible and Apostolic: The Constitution of the Church in High Church Anglican and Non-Juror Thought, (University of Delaware Press, 1993).