COLET, JOHN (1467-1519).--Scholar and theologian, was _b._ in London, the _s._ of a wealthy citizen, who was twice Lord Mayor. The only survivor of a family of 22, he went to Oxf. and Paris, and thence to Italy, where he learned Greek. He entered the Church, and held many preferments, including the Deanery of St. Paul's. He continued to follow out his studies, devoting himself chiefly to St. Paul's epistles. He was outspoken against the corruptions of the Church, and would have been called to account but for the protection of Archbishop Warham. He devoted his great fortune to founding and endowing St. Paul's School. Among his works are a treatise on the Sacraments and various devotional writings. It is rather for his learning and his attitude to the advancement of knowledge than for his own writings that he has a place in the history of English literature. COLLIER, JEREMY (1650-1726).--Church historian and controversialist, _b._ at Stow, Cambridgeshire, _ed._ at Ipswich and Camb., entered the Church, and became Rector of Ampton, Suffolk, lecturer of Gray's Inn, London, and ultimately a nonjuring bishop. He was a man of war from his youth, and was engaged in controversies almost until his death. His first important one was with Gilbert Burnet, and led to his being imprisoned in Newgate. He was, however, a man of real learning. His chief writings are his _Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain_ (1708-1714), and especially his _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_ (1699), on account of which he was attacked by Congreve and Farquhar, for whom, however, he showed himself more than a match. The work materially helped towards the subsequent purification of the stage. COLLINS, JOHN (_d._ 1808).--Actor and writer, was a staymaker, but took to the stage, on which he was fairly successful. He also gave humorous entertainments and _pub._ _Scripscrapologia_, a book of verses. He is worthy of mention for the little piece, _To-morrow_, beginning "In the downhill of life when I find I'm declining," characterised by Palgrave as "a truly noble poem." COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON (1848-1908).--Writer on literature and critic, _b._ in Gloucestershire, and _ed._ at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Oxf., became in 1894 Prof. of English Literature at Birmingham. He wrote books on _Sir J. Reynolds_ (1874), _Voltaire in England_ (1886), _Illustrations of Tennyson_ (1891), and also on Swift and Shakespeare, various collections of essays, _Essays and Studies_ (1895), and _Studies in Poetry and Criticism_ (1905), etc., and he issued ed. of the works of C. Tourneur, Greene, Dryden, Herbert of Cherbury, etc.