the author of the *Ecclesiastical Polity*, was born in 1553 or 1554 at Heavy-tree, near Exeter, in the county of Devon. At the school of his native town he gave such assurance of "pregnant parts" that his teacher, taking an interest in his destiny, persuaded his uncle, John Hooker, a wealthy man, and the chamberlain of Exeter, to supply him with the means of completing his education at the university. A small allowance from this relative, a little similar aid from the famous John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, and a clerkship in Corpus Christi College, carried the young student comfortably through his academic career at Oxford. In 1573 he was admitted one of the twenty scholars of the Foundation, and four years later a fellow of the college. In 1579 he was appointed Hebrew lecturer to the university; but after discharging the duties of this office for three months, he, along with four other fellows of his college, was expelled by the vice-president. The grounds for this tyrannical act are unknown; but they must have been quite untenable, for in less than a month the ejected members were all restored. After an interval of three years Hooker took orders, and was appointed to preach at St Paul's Cross, London. On reaching the metropolis he repaired to the house of a Mr Churchman. This man's wife succeeded in persuading the young divine that "he was a man of a tender constitution; and that it was best for him to have a wife that might prove a nurse to him—such a one as might both prolong his life, and make it more comfortable; and such a one she could and would provide for him if he thought fit to marry." The guileless and unsuspecting minister agreed to abide by her choice, which fell upon her own daughter, Joan; and in the following year Hooker married her, "though," as Walton says, "she brought him neither beauty nor portion, and though her conditions were too like that wife's which is by Solomon compared to a dripping-house." She turned out a "silly, clownish woman, and withal a mere Xantippe."

In 1584, on resigning his fellowship after his marriage, he was appointed to the living of Drayton-Beauchamp, in Buckinghamshire. During his incumbency of that parish two of his old pupils, Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer, took a journey to see their tutor. They found him, as old Izaak says, "with a book in his hand—it was the Odes of Horace—he being then, like humble and innocent Abel, tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field, which he told his pupils he was forced to do then, for that his servant was gone home to dine and assist his wife to do some necessary household business. But when his servant returned and released him, then his two pupils attended him unto his house, where their best entertainment was his quiet company, which was presently denied them; for Richard was called to rock the cradle; and the rest of their welcome was so like this, that they said but till next morning, which was time enough to discover and pity their tutor's condition; and they having in that time rejoiced in the remembrance, and then paraphrased on many of the innocent recreations of their younger days, and other like diversions, and thereby given him as much present comfort as they were able, they were forced to leave him to the company of his wife Joan, and seek themselves a quieter lodging for next night. But at their parting from him, Mr Cranmer said, "Good tutor, I am sorry your lot is fallen in no better ground as to your parsonage; and more sorry that your wife proves not a more comfortable companion, after you have wearied yourself in your restless studies." To whom the good man replied, "My dear George, if saints have usually a double share in the miseries of this life, I that am none, ought not to repine at what my wise Creator hath appointed for me; but labour—as indeed I do daily—to submit mine to his will, and possess my soul in patience and peace." The Edwin Sandys here mentioned was a son of the Archbishop of York, and through the influence of this prelate Hooker was, in 1585, promoted to the mastership of the Temple in London, being then in his thirty-fourth year. On entering upon the duties of his new office he found that the afternoon lectureship was held by Walter Travers, a man of learning, ability, and personal worth, who had been ordained by the Presbytery of Antwerp, and was a vehement upholder of many of the doctrines of Calvin. These he advocated in his evening sermons; and in his zeal for their promotion carried on a warm correspondence with the leading reformers in Scotland and Geneva. Hooker, whose attachment to the English Church was no less ardent and sincere, soon found himself, much against his will, involved in a controversy with his colleague, giving occasion to a wit to observe that "the forenoon sermons spoke Canterbury, and the afternoon Geneva." The controversy at length threatened such evil consequences, that an interdict was laid on Traver's preaching by Archbishop Whitgift. Travers appealed, and petitioned the Privy Council, but without success. He then published his petition, and found many powerful adherents both in the Temple and elsewhere. Hooker made an able reply, which made him many friends among the upholders of the establishment; but "that he might unbeguile and win those of Mr Traver's judgment, he designed to write a sober deliberate treatise of the Church's power to make canons for the use of ceremonies, and by law to impose an obedience to them, as upon her children; and this he proposed to do in Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. To carry out this great plan in the peace and quiet which he could not find in the city, he begged to be translated to some country parsonage, and in 1591 was appointed to the living of Boscum, or Boscombe, in the diocese of Sarum in Wiltshire. In this rural retreat he completed the first four books of his *Ecclesiastical Polity*, which he published in 1594. In the following year he was transferred from Boscombe to Bishop's Bourne, near Canterbury, in Kent, where he remained till his death, Nov. 2, 1600. A few days before his death his house was broken into and robbed. When informed of the fact he only asked, "Are my books and written papers safe?" Being told that they were, he merely replied, "Then it matters not; for no other loss can trouble me." He lived to see the fifth book of his *Polity* through the press, but the remaining three were not published till 1647—nearly half a century after the author's death. In his personal character Hooker was one of the most amiable men whose names adorn the annals of the national church. Even in his youth he was remarked for the grave calmness and dignified modesty of his demeanour. The genuine mildness of his temper was proved in his controversy with the Nonconformists. His resigned and humble piety was memorable in an age that had many bright examples of that virtue to boast of.

Hooker's *Ecclesiastical Polity* marks an era in the history of English literature, to which he rendered services that have been amply acknowledged by critics of all shades of religious belief. Its literary merits are attested by Hallam, who says, that "Hooker not only opened the mine but explored the depths of our native eloquence. So stately and graceful is the march of his periods, so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned phrase, that I know not whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced more passages worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity. If we compare the first book of the Ecclesiastical Polity with what perhaps bears most resemblance to it of anything extant, the treatise of Cicero, De Legibus, it will appear somewhat perhaps inferior, through the imperfection of our language, which with all its force and dignity does not equal the Latin in either of these qualities, and certainly more tedious and diffuse in some of its reasonings, but by no means less high-toned in sentiment or less bright in fancy, and far more comprehensive and profound in the foundations of its philosophy." The substance of Hooker's argument is given under the head Episcopacy.