HOOKER, RICHARD, was born at Heavytree, near Exeter, about 1553, accordiug to Walton, or about Easter, 1554, according to Wood. By the kindness of his uncle, John Hooker, chamberlain of Exeter, he obtained a better education at school than his parents could have afforded ; and he was afterwards introduced by thu same relative to the notice of Bishop Jewel, who procured him in 1567 a clerkship in Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In December 1573 he became a scholar of that college, and a fellow and master of arts in 1577. Iu 1579 he was appointed lecturer on Hebrew in the university, and in October of the same year he was expelled his college, with Dr. John Ileyuolde and three other fellows, but restored the same month. In about two years he took orders, and was appointed to preach at Paul's Cross. On this occasion he lodged with Mr. John Churchman, whose daughter Joan he married in the following year. "This lady," !Beak Walton says, him neither beauty nor portion." His fellow ship being vacated by his marriage, he was presented to the living of Drayton-Beauchamp, in Bucks, by John Cherry, Esq., in 1594. Hero he received a visit from an old pupil, Edward Sandye, who took pity on his poverty, and obtained from his father, the Archbishop of York, a promise of preferment for him. Through the archbishop's influence he was appointed Master of the Temple in 1595. Here he became engaged in a coutroversy on church discipline and some points of doctrine with Walter Travers, afternoon lecturer at the Temple, who had been ordaiued by the Presbytery at Antwerp, and held most of the opinions of the divines of Geneva. Travers being silenced by Archbishop Whitgift, appealed to the privy-council, but without sue cees. His petition to the council was published, and answered by Hooker. Travers had many adherents in the Temple, and it was theit opposition, according to Izaak Walton, which induced Hooker to commence his work on the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.' Finding that he had not leisure at the Temple to complete that work, be applied to Whitgift for removal to a more quiet station, and was accordingly presented to the living of Boscombe in Wiltshire in '1591.
On the 17th of July in the same year he was made a prebendary of Salisbury. At Boscombe he finished four books of the 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' which were published in 1594. On the 7th of July 1595 he was presented by the queen to the living of Bishopsbourne in Kent, which he held till his death, on the 2nd of November 1600. He was interred in the church at Bishopsbourne, where a monument was afterwards erected to his memory by Sir William Cowper.
Hooker's manner was grave even in childhood ; the mildness of his temper was proved by his moderation in controversy ; and his piety and learning procured him the general esteem of his contemporaries. His great work is his defence of the constitution and discipline of the Church of England, in eight books, under the title of 'The Lawn of Ecclesiastical Polity.' This work obtained during the author's lifetime the praise of a pope (Clement VIII.) and a king (James I.), and has ever since been looked upon as one of the chief bulwarks of the Church of England and of ecclesiastical establishments in general. As a work of solid learning, profound reasoning, and breadth and sustained dignity of style, it is indeed beyond praise ; but the common objection is a just one, that Hooker's reasoning is too frequently that of an advocate. The publication of the first four books has been mentioned above; the fifth was published in 1597. Ho completed the lest three books, but they were not published till several years after his death. The account which Walton gives of the mutilation of the list three books is very improbable, and little doubt can be entertained of their authenticity, though they are certainly probably not in the condition in which be left them.
Besides the ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' Hooker left some tracts and sermons. The latest and best editions of his works are those printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford.