EACHARD, JOHN (1636 ?-1697)

This article appears in Volume V08, Page 789 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DRO-ECG

EACHARD, JOHN (1636 ?-1697) , English divine, was born in Suffolk, and was educated at Catharine

Hall

Cambridge

, of which he became master in 1675 in succession to John Lightfoot. He was created D.D. in 1676 by royal mandate, and was twice (in 1679 and 1695) vice-chancellor of the university. He died on the 7th of July 1697. In 167o he had published anonymously a humorous

satire

SATIRE (Lat. satira, satura; see below)

entitled The Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy enquired into in a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to R. L., which excited much attention and provoked several replies, one of them being from John Owen. These were met by Some Observations, &c., in a second

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to R. L. (1671), written in the same bantering tone as the

original

ORIGINAL

work

WORK

. Eachard attributed the contempt into which the clergy had fallen to their imperfect education, their insufficient incomes, and the want of a true vocation. His descriptions, which were somewhat exaggerated, were largely used by Macaulay in his History of England. He gave amusing illustrations of the absurdity and poverty of the current pulpit oratory of his day, some of them being taken from the sermons of his own father. He attacked the philosophy of Hobbes in his Mr Hobb's State of Nature considered; in a dialogue between Philautus and Timothy (1672), and in his Some Opinions of Mr Hobbs considered in a second dialogue (1673). These were written in their author's chosen vein of light

satire

SATIRE (Lat. satira, satura; see below)

, and Dryden praised them as highly effective within their own range. Eachard's own sermons, however, were not superior to those he satirized. Swift (Works, xii. 279) alludes to him as a signal instance of a successful humorist who entirely failed as a serious writer.
A collected edition of his works in three volumes. with a notice of his life, was published in 1774. The Contempt of the Clergy was reprinted in E.

Arber

ARBER, EDWARD (1836– )

's English Garner. A Free Enquiry into the Causes of the very

great

GREAT

Esteem that the Nonconforming Preachers are generally in with their Followers (1673) has been attributed to Eachard on insufficient grounds.

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