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JOHN PAYNE COLLIER (1789–1883)

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 690 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHN PAYNE COLLIER (1789–1883)  ,
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English Shakespearian critic, was born in
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London, on the 11th of
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January 1789 . His
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father, John Dyer Collier (1762–1825), was a successful journalist, and his connexion with the press obtained for his son a position on the
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Morning Chronicle as leader writer, dramatic critic and reporter, which continued till 1847; he was also for some time a reporter for The Times . He was summoned before the House of
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Commons in 1819 for giving an incorrect report of a speech by Joseph Hume . He entered the
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Middle Temple in 1811, but was not called to the bar until 1829 . The delay was partly due to his indiscretion in
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publishing the Criticisms on the Bar (1819) by " Amicus Curiae." His leisure was given to the study of Shakespeare and the early English drama . After some minor publications he produced in 1825–1827 a new edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, and in 1833 a supplementary
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volume entitled Five Old Plays . In 1831 appeared his
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History of English Dramatic
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Poetry and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration, a badly arranged, but valuable
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work . It obtained for him the
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post of librarian to the duke of Devonshire, and, subsequently, access to the chief collections of early English literature throughout the
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kingdom, especially to the treasures of
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Bridgwater House . These opportunities were unhappily misused to effect a series of
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literary fabrications, which may be charitably, and perhaps not unjustly, attributed to literary monomania, but of which it is difficult to speak with
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patience, so completely did they for a long time bewilder the chronology of Shakespeare's writings, and such suspicion have they thrown upon MS. evidence in general . After New Facts, New Particulars and Further Particulars respecting Shakespeare had appeared and passed muster, Collier produced (1852) the famous Perkins Folio, a copy of the second folio (1632), so called from a name written on the title-page . On this
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book were numerous MS. emendations of Shakespeare said by Collier to be from the hand of " an old corrector." He published these corrections as Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare (1852), and boldly incorporated them in his edition (1853) of Shakespeare . Their authenticity was disputed by S .

W .

Singer in The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated (1853) and by E . A . Brae in Literary Cookery (18J5) on
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internal evidence; and when in 1859 the folio was submitted by its owner, the duke of Devonshire, to experts at the
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British Museum, the emendations were incontestably proved to be forgeries of
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modern date . Collier was exposed by Mr Nicholas Hamilton in his Inquiry (1860) . The point whether he was deceiver or deceived was
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left undecided, but the falsifications of which he was unquestionably guilty among the
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MSS. at
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Dulwich College have left little doubt respecting it . He had produced the
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Memoirs of
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Edward Alleyn for the Shakespeare Society in 1841 . He followed up this volume with the Alleyn Papers (1843) and the
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Diary of P . Henslowe (1845) . He forged the name of Shakespeare in a genuine letter at Dulwich, and the
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spurious entries in Alleyn's Diary were proved to be by Collier's hand when the sale of his library in 1884 gave access to a transcript he had made of the Diary with interlineations corresponding with the Dulwich forgeries . No statement of his can be accepted without verification, and no
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manuscript he has handled without careful examination, but he did much useful work . He compiled a valuable Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language (1865); he reprinted a
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great number of early English tracts of extreme rarity, and rendered good service to the numerous antiquarian societies with which he was connected, especially in the
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editions he produced for the Camden Society and the Percy Society .

His Old

Man's Diary (1871-1872) is an interesting record, though even here the taint of fabrication is not absent . Unfortunately what he did amiss is more striking to the
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imagination than what he did aright, and he will be chiefly remembered by it . He died at Maiden-head, where he had long resided, on the 17th of September 1883 . For an account of the discussion raised by Collier's emendations see C.M . Ingleby.,
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Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy (1861) .

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Additional information and Comments

There are two views on John Payne Collier. The opinion argued by Arthur and Janet Freeman in their two volume study "John Payne Collier Scholarship & Forgery in the Nineteenth Century" (Yale 2004)argues that he was a forger. It is surprisingly warm towards their subject whi they have studied in depth for some twenty years. Arthur Freeman is the author of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies entry on Collier - which is very much briefer than the long two volume book - although the Freemans book is readable and clearly argued. The other view presented in "Fortune & Men's Eyes - The Career of John Payne Collier" (OUP 1982)by Dewey Ganzel finds Collier not guilty and points at other s who basically framed him. The Freeman's are unfair to Ganzel throughout their book and deal with most of his points in footnotes. There is a website from the Marlowe Society which reviews the Freeman book and suggests it lacks scientific weight. There are comparisons of Collier's handwriting which do appear to indicate he was not a forger. I should say that John Payne Collier is my gt gt grandfather but I consider the case against him not proven.
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