MUDGE, ZACHARIAH (1694–1769), divine, was born at Exeter, of humble parentage, in 1694. His immediate ancestry has not been traced, but the family of Mugge or Mudge, though undistinguished, was of very old standing in Devonshire. A branch migrated to New England in the seventeenth century, and has borne many vigorous offshoots (see Alfred Mudge, Memorial of the Mudge Family in America, Boston, 1868). After attending Exeter grammar school Zachary was sent in 1710 to the nonconformist academy of Joseph Hallett III [q. v.] When still among his lesson-books he fell violently in love with a certain Mary Fox, whose refusal to give serious attention to his protestations drove him in despair to take the road for London, but he returned to Exeter after three weeks of severe experiences. In 1711 one George Trosse, whose high estimate of Zachary's abilities had led him to pay for his schooling, died, and left the young man half of his library. This included a number of Hebrew works, which gave Mudge an incentive to study that language. About 1713 he left Hallett's, and became second master in the school of John Reynolds, vicar of St. Thomas the Apostle in Exeter. John Reynolds's son Samuel, master of Exeter grammar school, was the father of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Mudge soon became the intimate friend of three generations of the family. In 1714 he married his former love, Mary Fox. In the winter of 1717–18 he left Exeter to become master of Bideford grammar school. While at Bideford he entered into a long correspondence with Bishop Weston of Exeter on the doctrines of the established church, which resulted in his relinquishing his purpose of joining the nonconformist ministry and joining the church of England. At the same time he remitted 50l. to the West of England Nonconformist Association to indemnify his former co-religionists for the expenses of his education. He was ordained deacon in the church of England on 21 Sept. 1729, and priest on the following day. In December of the same year he was instituted to the living of Abbotsham, near Bideford, on the presentation of Lord-chancellor King, and in August 1732 he obtained the valuable living of St. Andrew's, Plymouth. Mudge appears to have been virtually a deist, and his sound common sense and serenity of mind harmonised well with the unemotional form of religion that was dominant in his day. Boswell describes him as ‘idolised in the west both for his excellence as a preacher and the uniform perfect propriety of his private conduct.’ His sermons, though described by Dr. Johnson as too widely suggestive to be ‘practical,’ were greatly esteemed for fifty years after his death, were favourite reading with Lord Chatham, and were long prescribed for theological students at Oxford. He published a selection of them in 1739. One on ‘The Origin and Obligations of Government’ was reprinted by Edmund Burke in the form of a pamphlet in 1793, as being the best antidote against Jacobin principles. Another, separately published in 1731, was entitled ‘Liberty: a Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter, Exon, on Thursday, 16 Sept. 1731, before the Gentlemen educated in the Free School at Exeter under the Rev. Mr. Reynolds.’ It contained some reflections upon the nonconformists, which were answered in ‘Fate and Force, or Mr. Mudge's Liberty set in a true Light,’ London, 1732. According to John Fox (1693–1763) [q. v.], Mudge ‘had a great measure of contempt for all our [nonconformist] great men, both divines and philosophers; he allowed them indeed to be honest, but then he said they saw but a little way.’
Mudge was made a prebendary of Exeter in 1736. In 1744 he issued a work for which he had long been preparing, ‘An Essay towards a New English Version of the Book of Psalms from the original Hebrew,’ London, 1744, 4to. The translation is conservative of the old phraseology, and the rendering of particular psalms is often very happy. The punctuation was novel, the notes ‘more ingenious than solid;’ the conjectures as to the authorship of individual psalms are for the time enlightened. In 1759, after the last mason's work had been completed on the Eddystone lighthouse, and ‘Laus Deo’ cut upon the last stone set over the door of the lantern, Smeaton conducted Mudge, his old friend, to the summit of his ‘tower of the winds.’ There in the lantern, upon Mudge's lead, the pair ‘raised their voices in praise to God, and joined together in singing the grand Old Hundredth Psalm, as a thanksgiving for the successful conclusion of this arduous undertaking.’
Smeaton was only one of a number of distinguished friends by whom Mudge was greatly esteemed. Johnson was introduced to him by Reynolds in 1762. Edmund Burke, when informing Malone that it was to Mudge that Reynolds owed his disposition to generalise and ‘his first rudiments of speculation,’ goes on to say: ‘I myself have seen Mr. Mudge at Sir Joshua's house. He was a learned and venerable old man, and, as I
