stand by the side of Hooker among the grandest monuments of polemical divinity in the language. Anthony Wood's description of Field's personal character, his vast learning and astonishing memory, his peaceable disposition and amiable qualities, will be found the 'Athenae.' It is well known that Field and Hooker were on terms of the greatest friendship, which was probably brought about by Dr. Spencer, their common friend, for Hooker was older than Field by eight years, and had left the university before Field came there. Dr. Spencer was the dear friend and fellow-pupil of Hooker, and edited his works.
In 1604 Field published a sermon on St. Jude v. 3, preached before the king at Windsor, and shortly before his death had written a great part of a work entitled 'A View of the Controversies in Religion, which in these last times have caused the Lamentable Divisions in the Christian World.' This was never completed, but the preface is printed in his 'Life', by his son, Nathaniel Field, rector of Stourton, Wiltshire, and published by John Le Neve, author of the 'Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae,' in 1716. From a copy of this life, interleaved with manuscript additions from the author's rough draft by the editor (Le Neve), and some notes by Bishop White Kennett (which copy is now in the British Museum), Gough drew up the 'Life of Field,' which was printed in vol. vi. pt. i. of the new edition of the 'Biographia Britannica.' Of that volume a manuscript note in the Bodleian copy says, 'Of this part I know but of one copy existing.' Chalmers, in his 'Biographical Dictionary',' transcribed the article. We have little to add but that King James, with his own hand, inserted Field's name as one of the fellows of Chelsea College, and on hearing of his death, expressed his regret in the words, 'I should have done more for that man.' Of Field's sons, Nathaniel was prebendary of Chichester and rector of Stourton. Richard was M.D. and died single, and was buried in St. Bride's Church, 1696. Giles died in 1629, aged 21, and is buried in New College Chapel.
[Wood's Athenae Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 181-6; Life, edited by Le Neve; Gough 's Life in Biog. Brit]
FIELD, RICHARD (fl. 1579–1624), printer and stationer, was the son of ‘Henry ffeilde of Stratford uppon Aven in the countye of Warwick, tanner’ (Arber, Transcript, ii. 93), whose goods and chattels John Shakespeare, the father of the poet, was employed with two others to value on 21 Aug. 1592 (Shakespeare, ed. J. P. Collier, 1858, i. 112–13). Field was apprenticed to George Bishop, stationer and printer, for seven years from 29 Sept. 1579. The first six years were to be served with Thomas Vautrollier, and the seventh with Bishop (Transcript, ii. 93). The term of apprenticeship expired in 1586. He was made free of the Stationers' Company on 6 Feb. 1586–7, and in 1588 married, says Ames, ‘Jakin [Jacqueline], the daughter of Vautrollier’ (Typographical Antiquities, ed. Herbert, ii. 1252), whom he succeeded in his house ‘in the Black Friers, neer Ludgate,’ using the same devices and sometimes printing the same copies. Collier quotes the marriage register as ‘R. Field to Jacklin Vautrillian,’ 12 Jan. 1588 (Memoirs of Actors in Shakespeare's Plays, 1846, p. 223). It is stated, however, in a list of master printers included in the ‘Stationers' Registers’ (Transcript, iii. 702), that Field married the widow of Vautrollier and succeeded him in 1590. He took his first apprentice on 3 Nov. 1589, followed by others, among them his younger brother, Jasper (ib. ii. 165, 179, 199, 230). The first entry to him in the ‘Registers’ is for ‘a booke in French, intitled: “Le politique reformé”’ (sic) (ib. ii. 511), on 24 Dec. 1588, of which he also issued an English translation. In 1589 he printed Puttenham's ‘Arte of English Poesie’ and a handsome edition, in a ‘neat brevier Italic,’ of ‘P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoseon libri xv.,’ ‘impensis Johannis Harrisoni,’ a bookseller with whom he had many subsequent transactions. He was fined 10s. on 12 May for printing a book contrary to order, and on 3 Nov. 1589 for keeping an apprentice unpresented (ib. ii. 860–1). Sole license for the first edition of Harington's translation of ‘Orlando Furioso’ was granted to him on 6 Feb. 1592 (Cal. State Papers, Eliz. 1591–4, p. 179). In 1595 he produced his fine edition of North's ‘Plutarch,’ reprinted by him in 1603 and 1610–12. He came on the livery of the Stationers' Company on 1 July 1598. From an entry in the ‘Registers’ on 4 June 1599 he seems to have been at that time among the unprivileged printers (Transcript, iii. 678). He was chosen renter on 26 March 1604, and on 17 June 1605 paid 40l. instead of serving the office. On 11 June 1604 he was called to be assistant (ib. ii. 837, 840, iv. 29). He was several times warden and master in 1620. Two presses were worked by him on 9 May 1615 (ib. iii. 699).
The last book known to bear his imprint is Camden's ‘Annales, traduites en langue françoise par P. de Bellegent,’ 1624, 4to. On some Spanish books his name appears as Ricardo del Campo. During thirty-six years Field printed many important books, but he is chiefly interesting as the fellow-townsman
