HOOKER, alias Yowell, John, born in Exeter about [7:11:557]the year 1524, was the second son of Robert Hooker, who in 1529 was mayor of that city. He was instructed in grammar by Dr Moreman, vicar of Menhinit in Cornwall, and thence removed to Oxford, but to what college is uncertain. Having left the university, he travelled through Germany, and resided some time at Cologne, where he kept exercises in law, and probably graduated. He then went to Strasburg, where he studied divinity under the famous Peter Martyr. Having returned to England, he soon afterwards visited France, intending to proceed to Spain and Italy; but he was prevented by a declaration of war. He therefore returned to England, and fixed his residence in his native city, where, having married, he was in 1554 elected chamberlain, being the first person who held that office, and in 1571 represented his fellow-citizens in parliament. He died in the year 1601, and was buried in the cathedral church at Exeter. He wrote, amongst other works, 1. Order and Usage of keeping Parliaments in Ireland; 2. The events of Comets or blazing stars, made upon the sight of the comet Pagonia, which appeared in November and December 1577; 3. An addition to the Chronicles of Ireland from 1546 to 1568, in the second volume of Holinshed’s work; 4. A Description of the city of Exeter, and of the sundry assaults given to the same (Holinshed, Clιτon. vol. iii.); 5. A Book of Ensigns; 6. Translation of the History of the Conquest of Ireland, from the Latin of Giraldus Cambrensis (Holinshed, Chron. vol. ii.); 7. Synopsis Chorograpĥica, or an historical record of the province of Devon, never printed.

Hooker, Richard, a very eminent writer and divine, was born at Heavytree, near Exeter, in the year 1553. Some of his ancestors were mayors of that city, and he was nephew to John Hooker the historian. He was first supported by this uncle at the university of Oxford, with the addition of a small pension from Dr Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, who in 1561 got him admitted as one of the clerks of Corpus Christi College. In 1573 he was elected scholar. In 1577 he took the degree of master of arts, and was admitted a fellow the same year. In July 1579 he was appointed deputy professor of the Hebrew language; and in October the same year he was, for some trivial misdemeanour, expelled the college, but immediately restored. In 1581 he took holy orders; and being appointed to preach at St Paul’s Cross, he went to London, where he was unfortunately drawn into an unhappy marriage with Joan Churchman, the daughter of his hostess. Having thus lost his fellowship, he continued in the utmost distress till the year 1584, when he was presented to the rectory of Drayton Beauchamp in Buckinghamshire. In this retirement he was visited by Mr Edwin Sandys and Mr George Cranmer, his former pupils. They found him, with a Horace in his hand, tending some sheep in the common field, his servant having been ordered home by his Xantippe. Mr Sandys’s representation to his father, of his tutor’s situation, procured the latter the mastership of the Temple. In this situation he met with considerable molestation from one Travers, lecturer of the Temple, and a bigoted puritan, who in the afternoon endeavoured to confute the doctrine delivered in the morning. From a situation so disagreeable he solicited Archbishop Whitgift to remove him to some country retirement, where he might prosecute his studies in tranquillity. Accordingly, in 1591 he obtained the rectory of Boscomb in Wiltshire, together with a prebend in the church of Salisbury, of which he was also made subdean. In 1594 he was presented to the rectory of Bishopsbourne in Kent, where he died in the year 1600. He was buried in his own parish church, where a monument was erected to his memory by William Cooper. His great work on Ecclesiastical Polity, first published in 1594, is a strenuous defence of the English establishment; but it is at the same time remarkable for its liberal views of civil government. In this respect it coincides nearly with the theory of Locke; and, indeed, Hoadley says that the author was “styled the father of the Whigs.” Hooker is beyond all question one of the most dignified and eloquent of our early writers. “I know not,” says Mr Hallam, in his Constitutional History of England, “ whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity.” He was the author of several sermons and tracts. His life, by Isaac Walton, is well known. Dr Garden, bishop of Worcester, published his works in folio, with a life by himself, in 1662. This collection has been several times reprinted, both in folio and in octavo. The last edition, in three vols. 8vo, with Walton’s life prefixed, was published in 1830.