d at Ipswich free school, over which his father presided, and at
Caius College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1673 and M.A. in 1676. He
acted for a short time as a private chaplain, but was appointed in 1679
to the small rectory of Ampton, near Bury St Edmunds, and in 1685 he was
made lecturer of Gray's Inn.

At the Revolution he was committed to Newgate for writing in favour of
James II. a tract entitled _The Desertion discuss'd in a Letter to a
Country Gentleman_ (1688), in answer to Bishop Burnet's defence of King
William's position. He was released after some months of imprisonment,
without trial, by the intervention of his friends. In the two following
years he continued to harass the government by his publications: and in
1692 he was again in prison under suspicion of treasonable
correspondence with James. His scruples forbade him to acknowledge the
jurisdiction of the court by accepting bail, but he was soon released.
But in 1696 for his boldness in granting absolution on the scaffold to
Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns, who had attempted the
assassination of William, he was obliged to flee, and for the rest of
his life continued under sentence of outlawry.

When the storm had blown over he returned to London, and employed his
leisure in works which were less political in their tone. In 1697
appeared the first volume of his _Essays on Several Moral Subjects_, to
which a second was added in 1705, and a third in 1709. The first series
contained six essays, the most notable being that "On the office of a
Chaplain," which throws much light on the position of a large section of
the clergy at that time. Collier deprecated the extent of the authority
assumed by the patron and the servility of the poorer clergy.

In 1698 Collier produced his famous _Short View of the Immorality and
Profaneness of the English Stage..._. He dealt with the immodesty of the
contemporary stage, supporting his contentions by a long series of
references attesting the comparative decency of Latin and Greek drama;
with the profane language indulged in by the players; the abuse of the
clergy common in the drama; the encouragement of vice by representing
the vicious characters as admirable and successful; and finally he
supported his general position by the analysis of particular plays,
Dryden's _Amphitryon_, Vanbrugh's _Relapse_ and D'Urfey's _Don Quixote_.
The Book abounds in hypercriticism, particularly in the imputation of
profanity; a