(Richard D. D.), so well known as one of the commentators on Shakespeare, was a man of such pleasing, though singular manners, that we regret the very imperfect account which we must give of his life. One of us, who had the pleasure of being a little known to him, has been so much delighted with the natural ease and pleasantry of his conversation, that we made all the inquiries which we judged requisite to enable us to draw up such a biographical sketch of this agreeable man as might be acceptable to our readers, and not unworthy of his character; but these inquiries were made in vain. Those to whom we applied knew little more of the incidents of his life than what we had previously found in a miscellany, of which the writers seem to consider it as a principle of duty to vilify the character of every person, who, like Dr Farmer, is the friend of order, and the enemy of sudden or rapid innovations. To that miscellany, therefore, we must be beholden for many facts; but we shall certainly copy none of its malevolence.

Dr Farmer was born at Leicester 1735; but what was the station of his father we have not learned. Of his school education he received part, perhaps the whole, in his native town; and from school he was removed to the university of Cambridge, where he devoted himself chiefly to classical learning and the belles lettres. In 1757, he was admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts; in 1760, to that of master of arts; a bachelor of divinity in 1767, and a doctor of divinity in 1775, in which year he was also elected master of Emmanuel on the decease of Dr Richardson, and principal librarian on the decease of Dr Barnardiston.

The disturbances in America having by this time become serious, the university of Cambridge, with numberless other loyal bodies, voted an address to the king, approving of the measures adopted by government to reduce the factious colonists to their duty. The address, however, was not carried unanimously. It was, of course, opposed by JEBB, so well known for his free opinions in politics and religion, and by some others, of whom one man, a member of the caput, carried his opposition so far, as actually to refuse the key of the place which contained the seal necessary on such occasions. In this emergency, Dr Farmer, who was then vice-chancellor, is said to have forced open the door with a fledge-hammer; an exploit which his democratic biographers affect to ridicule, by calling it his courtly zeal, and the occasion of all his subsequent preferences.

If it be indeed true, that he broke the door in pieces with his own hands, his conduct must be acknowledged to have been not very decorous; but if the office which he filled be taken into consideration, we apprehend it would be as difficult to prove that conduct essentially wrong, as to vindicate the obstinate arrogance of him who occasioned it. The seal was the property of the university, of which this outrageous supporter of the bill of rights was but an individual member. The university had resolved that it should be employed for a certain purpose, which it was the duty of the vice-chancellor to carry into effect; and since the seal was refused to him, he had no alternative but to get possession of it by force. We hope, however, that he employed a servant to break the door; and, indeed, as vice chancellor, he must have had so many servants at his command, that it is not conceivable he would wield the fledge hammer himself.

Some time after this, he was made a prebendary of Canterbury, we believe through the recommendation of Lord North, then premier; and it was at Canterbury that the writer of this sketch had the happiness of being introduced to him, and witnessing his hospitality. After enjoying his prebend for several years, he resigned it on being preferred, by the present premier, to a residuaryship of St Paul's; and we have reason to believe, that he declined a bishopric, which was offered to him as a reward for the constitutional principles which he was at pains to propagate, not only in his college, but, as far as his influence went, through the whole university.

It has been said, that the delights of the pipe and the bottle in Emmanuel parlour outweighed, in his estimation, the dazzling splendor of the mitre; but he had other and better reasons for preferring a private to a public station. In early life, at least before he was advanced in years, he had felt the power of love, and had suffered such a disappointment as sunk deep in his mind, and for a time threatened his understanding. From that period, though he retained his faculties entire, he acquired acquired some peculiarities of manner; of which he was so far conscious, as to be sensible that they would hardly become the character of a bishop; being likewise strongly attached to dramatic entertainments, which, if we mistake not, the English bishops never witness, and delighting in clubs, where he could have rational conversation without flate or ceremony of any kind—he very wisely preferred his residencyship to the highest dignity in the church. At the time of his death, which happened in the autumn of 1797, he was a fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, master of Emmanuel college, principal librarian of the public library in the university, one of the canons residuary of St Paul's, chancellor of the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, and prebendary of Worcester.

Though a good classical scholar, Dr Farmer has been celebrated only for that kind of literature which is connected with the English drama, and having a strong predilection for old English writers, he ranked high among the commentators upon Shakespeare. His "Essay upon the Learning of Shakespeare," dedicated to Mr Cradock, the intelligent resident of Gunley-Hall in Leicestershire, has passed through several editions. This essay was, in fact, the first foundation of his fame, which an unconquerable indolence prevented him from carrying to that height to which the exercise of his literary talents could not have failed to raise it. So great indeed was his love of ease, that after having announced for subscriptions a history of Leicestershire, and actually begun to print it, rather than submit to the fatigue of carrying it through the press, he returned the subscriptions, and presented the MSS. and plates to Mr Nichols, the respectable printer of the Gentleman's Magazine, who has since carried on the history with a degree of spirit, ability, and industry, perhaps unprecedented in this department of literature.

Indolence and the love of ease were indeed the Doctor's chief characteristics; and to them, with the disappointment already mentioned, may be attributed a want of propriety in his external appearance, and in the usual forms of behaviour belonging to his station. The prevailing features of his character distinguished themselves by several oddities: There were three things, it was said, which the master of Emmanuel loved, viz., old port, old clothes, and old books; and three things which no one could persuade him to perform, viz., to rise in the morning, to go to bed at night, and to settle an account. When in Cambridge, if an old house were pulled down, the master of Emmanuel was always there in an old blue great coat, and a rusty hat. When in London, he was sure to be found in the same garb at an old book stall, or standing at the corner of a dirty lane, poring through his glasses at an old play bill.

This character is not drawn by a friendly pencil; but it is nevertheless not unjust. His inattention to the common decencies of dress and behaviour was notorious, inasmuch that, in the company of strangers, the eccentricity of his appearance and of his manners made him sometimes be taken for a person half crazed. The writer of this sketch saw him one morning at Canterbury dressed in stockings of unbleached thread, brown breeches, and a wig not worth a shilling; and when a brother prebendary of his, remarkable for elegance of manners, and propriety of dress, put him in mind that they were to attend on the archbishop, Dr Farmer replied, that it had totally escaped him; but he went home, and dressed himself like a clergyman. That he late reading, and occasionally drinking brandy and water, cannot be denied; and it is literally true, that he could not easily be prevailed upon to settle his accounts. His accounts with some of his pupils, when tutor of his college, were never settled to the day of his death; and the young gentlemen not unfrequently took advantage of this unconquerable indolence to borrow of him considerable sums, well knowing that there was little chance of a demand being ever made upon their parents. One gentleman, in particular, told a friend of ours, who was himself a pensioner of Emmanuel, that when he left that college, he was near fifty pounds in debt to Dr Farmer; "a debt (said he) which I would have scrupulously paid, but, after repeated solicitations, I could get no bill from him."

Having been a warm partisan of government during the American war, it will readily be believed that Dr Farmer was the determined enemy of levellers and anarchists. He was such a Whig as those who placed King William on the throne; and of course deemed a violent Tory by our present republicans, of whom, to say the truth, he could hardly speak with temper. By his enemies he is admitted to have been a man of generosity. As he obtained money easily, so he parted with it easily. Whilst he was always ready to relieve distress, his bounty was frequently bestowed on the patronage of learned men and learned publications. He was, accordingly, a favourite with all good men who knew him. In his own college he was adored; in the university he had, for many years, more influence than any other individual; and, with all his eccentricities, his death was a loss to that learned body, which, in the opinion of some of its members, will not soon be made up.