justified in privately assuring them of the Divine
forgiveness. But a public remission ought to have been preceded by a
public atonement. The regret of these men, if expressed at all, had been
expressed in secret. The hands of Collier had been laid on them in the
presence of thousands. The inference which his enemies drew from his
conduct was that he did not consider the conspiracy against the life of
William as sinful. But this inference he very vehemently, and, we doubt
not, very sincerely denied.

The storm raged. The bishops put forth a solemn censure of the
absolution. The Attorney-General brought the matter before the Court of
King's Bench. Collier had now made up his mind not to give bail for his
appearance before any court which derived its authority from the
usurper. He accordingly absconded and was outlawed. He survived these
events about thirty years. The prosecution was not pressed; and he was
soon suffered to resume his literary pursuits in quiet. At a later
period, many attempts were made to shake his perverse integrity by
offers of wealth and dignity, but in vain. When he died, towards the end
of the reign of George the First, he was still under the ban of the law.

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. It must also be admitted that his opinions on
ecclesiastical and political affairs, though in themselves absurd and
pernicious, eminently qualified him to be the reformer of our lighter
literature. The libertinism of the press and of the stage was, as we
have said, the effect of a reaction against the Puritan strictness.
Profligacy was, like the oak leaf on the twenty-ninth of May, the badge
of a cavalier and a high churchman. Decency was associated with
conventicles and calves' heads. Grave prelates were too much disposed to
wink at the excesses of a body of zealous and able allies who covered
Roundheads and Presbyterians with ridicule. If a Whig raised his voice
against the impiety and licentiousness of the fashionable writers, his
mouth was instantly stopped by the retort, You are one of those who
groan