scholar, became (30 Dec. 1730) assistant to Richard Rawlin at Fetter Lane, and afterwards (28 March 1739) colleague with Edward Bentley at Coggeshall, Essex; he published a volume of sermons (1756), and succeeded Priestley at Needham Market, Suffolk (1758). Latterly he became deranged; his brother, with whom he was not on good terms, secretly provided for his wants.
Farmer published: 1. ‘The Duty of Thanksgiving,’ &c. 1746, 8vo (a sermon, 9 Oct., on the victory at Culloden). 2. ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Design of Christ's Temptation,’ &c., 1761, 8vo. This went through three editions in Farmer's lifetime; the fourth (1805) was edited by Jeremiah Joyce [q. v.]; a fifth appeared in 1822, 12mo. John Mason of Cheshunt claimed Farmer's theory as his own, but Farmer had no difficulty in showing (in his 2nd edit. 1764) a radical distinction between them. 3. ‘A Dissertation on Miracles,’ &c., 1771, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1804, 12mo, edited by Joyce; 3rd edit. 1810, 12mo. A German translation appeared at Berlin, 1777, 8vo. 4. ‘An Examination of the late Mr. Le Moine's Treatise on Miracles,’ 1772, 8vo (occasioned by a series of attacks in the ‘London Magazine,’ charging him with plagiarising from Abraham Le Moine). 5. ‘An Essay on the Demoniacs,’ &c., 1775, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1779, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1805, 12mo, edited by Joyce, with No. 2; 4th edit. (called the third), 1818, 12mo. A German translation appeared at Berlin, 1776, 8vo. 6. ‘Letters to the Rev. Dr. Worthington,’ &c., 1778, 8vo (in reply to ‘An Impartial Inquiry into the case of the Gospel Demoniacs,’ 1777, 8vo, by Richard Worthington, M.D.). 7. ‘The General Prevalence of the Worship of Human Spirits in the Antient Heathen Nations,’ &c., 1783, 8vo. Posthumously (with the ‘Memoirs,’ 1804, 8vo) were printed: 8. ‘A Reply’ to John Fell (1735–1797) [q.v.] , on the subject of No. 7, and nine extracts from ‘An Essay on the Case of Balaam,’ from a transcript made by Michael Dodson [q. v.] Farmer's will enjoined his executors, on pain of losing their legacies, to burn all his manuscripts; he had nearly completed a volume on the demonology of the ancients. He supplied Palmer with some additional particulars of Hugh Owen for the ‘Nonconformist's Memorial’ (1775). Six of his letters to Isaac Toms of Hadleigh, Suffolk, are printed with the ‘Memoirs.’
[Funeral Sermon, by Urwick, 1787 (preached 18 Feb., gives 5 Feb. as the date of his death; Kippis corrects it to 6 Feb. from the probate of his will, but Belsham's Diary also gives 5 Feb.); Biogr. Brit. (Kippis), 1793, v. 664 sq.; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, 1803, iii. 492 sq.; Memoirs, 1804, anonymous, but by Samuel Palmer, and acknowledged as his in Orton's Letters to Diss. Ministers, 1806, ii. 244; Wilson's Diss. Churches, 1808, i. 104, ii. 60, iii. 457; Monthly Repository, 1809, p. 708, 1815, p. 686, 1818, p. 561; Humphrey's Corresp. of P. Doddridge, 1830, iii. 231, 251, 297 sq., iv. 77, 463; Rutt's Mem. of Priestley, 1831, i. 334; Williams's Mem. of Belsham, 1833, pp. 128 sq., 239, 337; Davids's Evang. Nonconf. in Essex, 1863, pp. 364, 628; Hunt's Rel. Thought in Engl. 1873, iii. 249 sq.; Browne's Hist. Congr. Norf. and Suff. 1877, p. 501; Rees's Hist. Prot. Nonconf. in Wales, 1883, p. 281 sq.; Jeremy's Presb. Fund, 1885, pp. 138, 153 sq.; extract from ‘A Register for Births of the Dessenters’ at St. Chad's, Shrewsbury, per the Rev. C. R. Durham.]
FARMER, JOHN (fl. 1591–1601), composer, was a favourite of Edward Vere, seventeenth earl of Oxford, ‘a great favourer of poets (being one himself) and musitians’ (Wood, MS. Notes in Bodleian). To this nobleman he dedicated the two works which he published on his own responsibility. The first of these is a treatise, now exceedingly rare, entitled ‘Divers and sundrie waies of two parts in one, to the number of fortie, uppon one playn song,’ &c. It was printed by Thomas Este [see East, Thomas] in 1591, and consists of what we should now call a series of examples in two-part counterpoint of different orders. The book seems to have attained considerable success, although its fame must have been speedily eclipsed on the appearance of Morley's ‘Introduction’ six years afterwards; for East gave Farmer an important share in the work of harmonising the psalm-tunes for his ‘Whole Book of Psalms,’ published 1592. The thirteen canticles, hymns, &c., which are there prefixed to the psalms proper are all set by Farmer, as well as five of the psalm-tunes themselves. In 1599 appeared ‘The First Set of English Madrigals, to foure Voyces, newly composed by Iohn Farmer, Practitioner in the art of Musicque. Printed at London in Little Saint Helens by William Barley, the assigne of Thomas Morley, and are to be solde at his shoppe in Gratious Streete, Anno Dom. 1599.’ The part-books contain sixteen madrigals in four parts and one in eight, and the author in his preface to the reader claims to have ‘fitly linkt’ his ‘Musicke to number,’ a characteristic which, according to him, had been up to that time confined to Italian composers. This claim Dr. Burney considered that he failed to establish, and certainly, to judge from the madrigal by which he is best known, his feeling for accentuation cannot have been very strong. In Charles Butler's ‘Principles of Musik,’ 1636, Farmer is spoken of as the ‘author of
