in the transcript, but they were evidently not written concurrently with the transcript itself. More remarkable still was a so-called seventeenth-century manuscript of ballads (lot 214, now Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32380). Extracts from this volume, highly interesting in relation to Shakespeare and Marlowe, were published by Collier in 1836 and 1839, but he had never produced it. As had been suspected, it proved to be an artful fraud; real old ballads, already well known, are mixed up with three which have every appearance of being spurious, and the whole collection is written in a manifestly imitative hand (E. M. Thompson in Academy, xxvii. 170, 1885).
To one fatal propensity Collier sacrificed an honourable fame won by genuine services to English literature. Apart from his labours on Shakespeare and the history of the drama, few have done more to rescue the works of less famous writers from undeserved oblivion. His critical judgment, however, was not always equal to his industry, and he was never a particularly accurate editor. Worse than this, the taint of suspicion necessarily rests upon all his work. None of his statements or quotations can be trusted without verifying, and no volume or document that has passed through his hands (e.g. B. M. Egerton MS. 2623) can be too carefully scrutinised. His maltreatment of the collections to which he was given access was an abuse of confidence which nothing can palliate; but in literary matters he was apparently devoid of conscience, and probably he regarded as applicable to all his works the motto from Milton prefixed to the earliest of them, 'I have done in this nothing unworthy of an honest life and studies well employed.' In other respects his character was irreproachable, and he had the reputation of a genial, kind-hearted, and amiable man.
[Private information; Wheatley's Notes on the Life of John Payne Collier, with a complete list of his works, 1884; Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary, 1869; Ingleby's Complete View of the Shakspere Controversy (with a bibliography), 1861 (also see Academy, ix. 313, 1876); Warner's Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Muniments of Dulwich College, 1881.]
COLLIER, ROBERT PORRETT, Lord Monkswell (1817–1886), judge, was the eldest son of Mr. John Collier, a merchant of Plymouth, formerly a member of the Society of Friends and M.P. for that town from 1832 to 1842. Robert Collier was born in 1817, and was educated at the grammar school and other schools at Plymouth till the age of sixteen, when he was placed under the tuition of Mr. Kemp, subsequently rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, London. Thence he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and while there wrote some clever parodies, and published a satirical poem called 'Granta.' Ill-health compelled him to abandon reading for honours and to quit the university, to which he only returned to take the ordinary B.A. degree in 1843. Already a politician, he made some speeches at Launceston in 1841 with a view to contesting the borough in the liberal interest, but did not go to the poll, and he was an active member of the Anti-Cornlaw League and addressed the meetings in Covent Garden Theatre. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in Hilary term 1843, and joined the western circuit and Devonshire, Plymouth, and Devonport sessions. His first important success was a brilliant defence of some Brazilian pirates at Exeter in July 1845; the prisoners were, however, condemned to death, and the judge (Baron Platt) refused to reserve a point of law on which Collier insisted. Collier hurried to London and laid the matter before the home secretary (Sir James Graham) and Sir Robert Peel. Both ministers appear to have been convinced by Collier's argument, and on 5 Aug. it was announced in both houses of parliament that Baron Platt had yielded (Hansard, lxxxii. 1349-50, 1367-8). The subsequent argument before all the judges in London of the point taken at the trial resulted in the grant of a free pardon to Collier's clients. On his next visit to Exeter he had nineteen briefs. Local influence and wide practical knowledge gave him a good practice, and he was an excellent junior. He was appointed recorder of Penzance, and in 1852 he was returned to parliament for Plymouth, and retained the seat till he became a member of the judicial committee of the privy council. Lord Cranworth made him a queen's counsel in 1854. After a keen rivalry with Montague Smith, afterwards a judge, for the foremost place, he obtained the lead of the circuit and kept it for many years. In 1859 he was appointed counsel to the admiralty and judge-advocate of the fleet. It was his opinion in favour of detaining the Confederate rams in the Mersey that Mr. Adams, the American minister, submitted in 1862 to Lord John Russell, and, although too late to prevent the Alabama going to sea, it was afterwards adopted by the law officers of the crown. He had spoken frequently and with good effect in parliament, especially on trade with Russia in 1855, but chiefly on legal topics; and when, on Sir William Atherton's retirement in October 1863, Sir Roundell Palmer became attorney-general, Collier's appointment as solicitor-general in succession to him was somewhat unexpected. He filled
