Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/295

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Hooker
289
Hooker

(Bibl. Brit. p. 410). 16. Autograph manuscript in the University Library, Cambridge (Mm. i. 32), containing part of a journal of the parliament at Dublin, 1568; the arms and quarterings of the lords of parliament in England, temp. Edwardi VI, Mariæ, et Elizabethæ; and several collections of the arms of the gentry in England and Ireland. 17. Heraldic collections in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, dated 1575. 18. ‘The Desplayenge of the Gulye Lyon of Berewcke yn Durias, together with his Caveat unto Frauncys, Erle of Bedforde, his Lorde and Patron,’ 1578, 4to, at Woburn. He is also said to have written: 19. A translation of the Epistle of St. Augustine to Dardanus. 20. A translation of Erasmus's ‘Detectio Præstigiarum.’ This and the preceding work he presented to Thomas, earl of Bedford. 21. ‘A Book of Ensigns,’ dedicated to the Earl of Bedford.

John Hooker alias Vowell must be distinguished from John Hooker or Hoker (fl. 1540), poet and dramatist, described as of Maidstone, who became a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1525, and graduated B.A. in 1527, proceeding M.A. in 1535 and B.D. in 1540. He was elected fellow in 1530, and lectured at his college in various subjects, being, according to Tanner, a well-known classical scholar; Leland, in his ‘Cygnea Cantio,’ refers to him as ‘Hocherus nitor artium bonarum.’ A letter of Hooker's, supposed to be addressed to Bullinger, is printed in ‘S. Clementis Epist. duæ cum Epist. singular. Clar. Virorum,’ Lond. 1694. The following works, apparently never published, have been attributed to him:

  1. ‘Piscator; or, the Fisher caught,’ a comedy which Warton thought was written for the students at Magdalen to act.
  2. . ‘An Introduction to Rhetorick.’
  3. ‘Poema de vero Crucifixo.’
  4. ‘Epigrammata Varia.’ Bloxam wrongly attributed to this writer Vowell's ‘Life of Sir Peter Carew.’

[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert); Journal of Archæological Assoc. (1862), xviii. 138–42; Boase's Registrum Collegii Exoniensis, pp. xviii, 202; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornubiensis, pp. 317, 838, 1357; Cat. of MSS. in the Univ. Library, Cambridge, iv. 123; Calendar of the Carew MSS. 1514–74, 1575–88, 1601–3, 1603–1624; Davidson's Bibl. Devoniensis, pp. 20, 21; Visitation of Devon (Harl. Soc.), p. 353; Gough's British Topography, i. 304; Hazlitt's Handbook to Literature, p. 635; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), pp. 896, 2795; Maclean's Life of Sir P. Carew; Moore's Hist. of Devon, ii. 125; Oliver's Hist. of Exeter (1861), pp. 219, 256; Prince's Worthies of Devon, p. 387; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. pp. 405, 410; Todd's Cat. of Lambeth MSS.; Ware's Writers of Ireland (Harris), p. 327; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 138, 713; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 84, 100, 112; Worthy's John Vowell alias Hooker, Some Notes on a MS. at the Heralds' College, 1882; Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. App. pp. 1, 40, 41, 257, 8th Rep. App. p. 581. For John Hooker (d. 1540) see Bloxam's Reg. Magd. Coll. Oxon. iv. 52; Leland's Cygnea Cantio, London, 1545, p. 92; Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry, iii. 84; Gillow's Bibl. Dict. of Eng. Cath. iii. 375; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 213.]

T. C.

HOOKER, RICHARD (1554?–1600), theologian, was born at Heavitree, Exeter, probably in March 1553–4. The original name of the family was Vowell, but in the fifteenth century members of it called themselves Vowell alias Hooker or Hoker, and in the sixteenth century the original name was generally dropped. Hooker's great-grandfather, John Hooker (d. 1493), and his grandfather, Robert Hooker (d. 1537), were both mayors of Exeter, the former in 1490 and the latter in 1529. His father, Roger Vowell alias Hooker, seems to have been in poor circumstances. A sister, Elizabeth, who married one Harvey, is said to have died in September 1663, aged 121 years; she seems to have supplied Fuller with some very incorrect information about her distinguished brother. Richard was educated at Exeter grammar school. His progress there was rapid, and at the solicitation of the schoolmaster, his uncle, John Hooker alias Vowell [q. v.], resolved to provide him with means for a university education. The uncle was intimate with Bishop Jewel, and urged his friend to ‘look favourably’ on his poor nephew. Jewel summoned the lad and his teacher to Salisbury; was impressed by Richard's promise; bestowed an annual pension on his parents, and in 1568 (according to the second edition of Walton's ‘Life’) obtained for him a clerk's place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The president of the college, William Cole (d. 1600) [q. v.], interested himself in the youth. Hooker often journeyed on foot from Oxford to Exeter, and paid on the way several visits to Jewel at Salisbury. Jewel died in September 1571, and his place as Hooker's patron was taken by his friend, Edwin Sandys [q. v.], then bishop of London, who sent his son Edwin (afterwards Sir Edwin) to be Hooker's pupil at Oxford. Sandys and another Oxford pupil, George Cranmer [q. v.], grandnephew of the archbishop, became Hooker's chief friends in after-life. When nearly twenty years old (1573) Hooker was elected a scholar of his college. The statutable limit of age for the admission of scholars was nineteen, but it was permissible according to the founder's statutes to make an exception in case of a candidate of unusual