[1] Michel Gérard was a popular Breton peasant deputy (see [Jacobins]).
COLLUSION (from Lat. colludere, strictly, to play with), a secret agreement or compact for some improper purpose. In judicial proceedings, and particularly in matrimonial causes (see [Divorce]), collusion is a deceitful agreement between two or more persons, or between one of them and a third party, to bring an action against the other in order to obtain a judicial decision, or some remedy which would not have been obtained unless the parties had combined for the purpose or suppressed material facts or otherwise.
COLLYER, ROBERT (1823- ), American Unitarian clergyman, was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, England, on the 8th of December 1823. At the age of eight he was compelled to leave school and support himself by work in a linen factory. He was naturally studious, however, and supplemented his scant schooling by night study. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and for several years worked at this trade at Ilkley. In 1849 he became a local Methodist minister, and in the following year emigrated to the United States, where he obtained employment as a hammer maker at Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. Here he soon began to preach on Sundays while still employed in the factory on week-days. His earnest, rugged, simple style of oratory made him extremely popular, and at once secured for him a wide reputation. His advocacy of anti-slavery principles, then frowned upon by the Methodist authorities, aroused opposition, and eventually resulted in his trial for heresy and the revocation of his licence. He continued, however, as an independent preacher and lecturer, and in 1859, having joined the Unitarian Church, became a missionary of that church in Chicago, Illinois. In 1860 he organized and became pastor of the Unity Church, the second Unitarian church in Chicago. Under his guidance the church grew to be one of the strongest of that denomination in the West, and Mr Collyer himself came to be looked upon as one of the foremost pulpit orators in the country. During the Civil War he was active in the work of the Sanitary Commission. In 1879 he left Chicago and became pastor of the church of the Messiah in New York city, and in 1903 he became pastor emeritus. He published: Nature and Life (1867); A Man in Earnest: Life of A. H. Conant (1868); The Life That Now is (1871); The Simple Truth (1877); Talks to Young Men: With Asides to Young Women (1888); Things New and Old (1893); Father Taylor (1906); and A History of the Town and Parish of Ilkley (with Horsefall Turner, 1886).
COLMAN, SAINT (d. 676), bishop of Lindisfarne, was probably an Irish monk at Iona. Journeying southwards he became bishop of Lindisfarne in 661, and a favoured friend of Oswio, king of Northumbria. He was at the synod of Whitby in 664, when the great dispute between the Roman and the Celtic parties in the church was considered; as spokesman of the latter party he upheld the Celtic usages, but King Oswio decided against him and his cause was lost. After this event Colman and some monks went to Iona and then to Ireland. He settled on the island of Inishbofin, where he built a monastery and where he died on the 8th of August 676.
Colman must be distinguished from St Colman of Cloyne (c. 522-600), an Irish saint, who became a Christian about 570; and also from another Irishman, St Colman Ela (553-610), a kinsman of St Columba. The word Colman is derived from the Latin columbus, a dove, and the Book of Leinster mentions 209 saints of this name.
COLMAN, GEORGE (1732-1794), English dramatist and essayist, usually called “the Elder,” and sometimes “George the First,” to distinguish him from his son, was born in 1732 at Florence, where his father was stationed as resident at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany. Colman’s father died within a year of his son’s birth, and the boy’s education was undertaken by William Pulteney, afterwards Lord Bath, whose wife was Mrs Colman’s sister. After attending a private school in Marylebone, he was sent to Westminster School, which he left in due course for Christ Church, Oxford. Here he made the acquaintance of Bonnell Thornton, the parodist, and together they founded The Connoisseur (1754-1756), a periodical which, although it reached its 140th number, “wanted weight,” as Johnson said. He left Oxford after taking his degree in 1755, and, having been entered at Lincoln’s Inn before his return to London, he was called to the bar in 1757. A friendship formed with David Garrick did not help his career as a barrister, but he continued to practise until the death of Lord Bath, out of respect for his wishes.