nd in a useless display of learning, neither intrinsically
valuable nor conducive to the argument. He had no artistic appreciation
of the subject he discussed, and he mistook cause for effect in
asserting that the decline in public morality was due to the flagrant
indecency of the stage. Yet, in the words of Macaulay, who gives an
admirable account of the discussion in his essay on the comic dramatists
of the Restoration, "when all deductions have been made, great merit
must be allowed to the work." Dryden acknowledged, in the preface to his
_Fables_, the justice of Collier's strictures, though he protested
against the manner of the onslaught;[1] but Congreve made an angry
reply; Vanbrugh and others followed. 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.

From 1701 to 1721 Collier was employed on his _Great Historical,
Geographical, Genealogical and Poetical Dictionary_, founded on, and
partly translated from, Louis Moreri's _Dictionnaire historique_, and in
the compilation and issue of the two volumes folio of his own
_Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain from the first planting of
Christianity to the end of the reign of Charles II_. (1708-1714). The
latter work was attacked by Burnet and others, but the author showed
himself as keen a controversialist as ever. Many attempts were made to
shake his fidelity to the lost cause of the Stuarts, but he continued
indomitable to the end. In 1712 George Hickes was the only survivor of
the nonjuring bishops, and in the next year Collier was consecrated. He
had a share in an attempt made towards union with the Greek Church. He
had a long correspondence with the Eastern authorities, his last letters
on the subject being written in 1725. Collier preferred the version of
the _Book of Common Prayer_ issued in 1549, and regretted that certain
practices and petitions there enjoined were omitted in later editions.
His first tract on the subject, _Reaso