HOOPER, John, bishop of Worcester, and a martyr in the Protestant cause, was born in Somersetshire, and educated at Oxford, probably in Merton College. In 1518 he took the degree of bachelor of arts, and afterwards became a Cistertian monk; but at length, disliking his fraternity, he returned to Oxford, and there became infected with Lutheranism. In 1539 he was made chaplain and house-steward, to Sir John Arundel, who afterwards suffered with the protector in the reign of Edward VI. But that very Catholic knight, as Wood calls him, discovering his chaplain to be a heretic, Hooper was obliged to leave the kingdom. After continuing some time in France, he returned to England, and lived with a gentleman called Seintlow; but being again discovered, he escaped in the habit of a sailor to Ireland, whence he embarked for the Continent, and fixed his abode in Switzerland. When King Edward came to the crown, Hooper returned once more to his native country. By his old patron Sir John Arundel’s interest with the Earl of Warwick, he was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester in 1550; and two years after he was nominated to the see of Worcester, which he held in commendam with the former. But Queen Mary had scarcely ascended the throne, when Bishop Hooper was imprisoned, tried, and, not choosing to recant, condemned to the flames. He suffered death at Gloucester, on the th of February 1554, being then nearly sixty years of age. He was an avowed enemy to the church of Rome, and not perfectly reconciled to what he thought remnants of popery in the church of England. In the former reign he had been one of Bonner’s accusers, a circumstance which sufficiently accounts for his being made one of Queen Mary’s first victims. He was a person of good parts and learning.

Hooper, George, an eminent English divine, was born at Grimley, Worcestershire, on the 18th of November 1640. Having been instructed in grammar and classical learning, first at St Paul’s, and afterwards at Westminster School, where he was a king’s scholar, he was thence elected, 1657, to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degrees at the regular periods, and distinguished himself by his knowledge in philosophy, mathematics, Greek and Roman antiquities, and the oriental languages. In 1677 he was appointed almoner to the Princess of Orange, and went over to Holland, where he resided about a year, and then returned. In 1680 he is said to have been offered the divinity professorship at Oxford, which, however, was conferred on Dr Jane. In 1685 he attended the Duke of Monmouth in the Tower, and had much free conversation with that unfortunate nobleman, to whom, in his last moments, Hooper administered the consolations of religion. In 1691 he succeeded Dr Sharp in the deanery of Canterbury; in 1698 he was appointed preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester; and in 1701 he was chosen prolocutor of the Lower House of Convocation. In May 1703 he was nominated to the bishopric of St Asaph; and in March following he was translated to the bishopric of Bath and Wells, over which he presided during the long period of twenty-three years and a half. Bishop Hooper died at Berkley, Somersetshire, whither he had been accustomed occasionally to retire, on the 6th of September 1727, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. Besides some sermons, he published several works in his lifetime, and left a number of manuscripts, some of which he permitted to be printed. The following is a catalogue of both, viz. 1. The Church of England free from the imputation of Popery, 1682; 2. Discussion of the Controversy between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, concerning the Infallible Guide; 3. The Parson’s case under the Land-tax, 1689; 4. A Discourse concerning Lent, 1694; 5. A Calculation of the credibility of Human Testimony, Phil. Trans, for October 1699; 6. New Danger of Presbytery,* 1737; 7. Marks of a Defenceless Cause; 8. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Lower House of Convocation from February 1700 to June 1701; 9. De Valentinianorum Haeresi conjecturae, quibus illius Origo ex Aegyptiaca Theologia deducitur, 1711; 10. An Inquiry into the State of the Ancient Measures, 1721; 11. De Patriarchae Jacobi Benedictione Conjecturae. Among the manuscripts above mentioned, are a Latin sermon, and a Latin tract on Divorce. A beautiful edition of the works of Hooper was printed at Oxford, 1757, in folio, under the superintendence of Dr Hunt, professor of Hebrew, (a.)