LIFE OF HOOKER
Frontispiece.—The portrait here given is from Hooker's monument in Bishopsbourne Church.
Text, etc.—The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker was first published in small octavo in 1665. The second edition was prefixed to the Ecclesiastical Polity of 1666, folio, and again in 1676 and 1682. It was also included in Walton's collection of 1670. A valuable essay on Hooker by Dean Church is prefixed to the Clarendon Press edition of the first book of Ecclesiastical Polity, 1876.
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3. at this time of my age. He says at p. 4 that he was "past the seventy of his age."
5. John Hales. See vol. i. p. 193, note.
7. He was born, etc. "Probably in March, 1553-54," says the Dict. of Nat. Biography.
8. a school-boy. He was educated at Exeter grammar school.
14. the Bishop said to him. Cf. chap. iii. of the Vicar of Wakefield, where this anecdote is referred to. Indeed Hooker is there alleged to have been the "great ancestor" of George Primrose.
23. elemented. See note to vol. i. p. 53.
26. I cannot learn the pretended cause. It seems probable that the views of Hooker and his friends had offended Barfoot, who was a zealous Puritan.
17. he entered into Sacred Orders. About 1581.
30. her conditions, personal qualities, manners. Recent investigations tend to show that honest Izaak's account is prejudiced, as Hooker in his will makes his "wel-beloved wife" sole executrix and residuary legatee, and his father-in-law was one of the overseers. Nevertheless Wood calls her "a clownish, silly woman, and withal a mere Xanthippe."
58. The forenoon … Geneva. The speaker was Fuller, but the quotation is not quite textual.
70. and behold God's blessings. Cf. p. 33.
71. corps, endowment. "When the corps of the profit or benefice is but one the title can be but one man's" (Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, v. lxxx, § 11).
94. Judicious Hooker. This is the first application to Hooker of this time-honoured epithet. Sir W. Cowper was the grandfather of William, first Earl Cowper. The monument was erected in 1635.
97. one of his elder daughters. I.e. Cicely.
97. both died before they were marriageable. Alice died unmarried in 1649; but Jane (or Jone) married Edward Nethersole at Bishopsbourne, 23rd March 1600.
99. dead in her bed. In March 1601.
108, regiment, regimen, regulation, management. Cf. Bacon's essay "Of Regiment of Health."
121. in devise, in contemplation.