John Eachard
John Eachard | |
---|---|
Born | 1636? |
Died | 7 July 1697 |
Occupation | satirist |
Nationality | English |
John Eachard (1636? – 7 July 1697) was an English
From
In 1670 he had published anonymously a humorous satire entitled The Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy enquired into in a letter to R. L., which excited much attention and provoked several replies, one of them being from
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 Thomas Hobbes in his Mr. Hobbs 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, and John Dryden praised them as highly effective within their own range. Eachard's own sermons, however, were not superior to those he satirized. Jonathan Swift alludes to him as a signal instance of a successful humorist who entirely failed as a serious writer.[3]
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. Arbors English Garner. A Free Enquiry into the Causes of the very great Esteem that the Nonconforming Preachers are generally in with their Followers (1673) has been attributed to Eachard on insufficient grounds.[3]
Notes
- ^ The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk: With Genealogical and ... - Alfred Inigo Suckling - Google Books Retrieved 2016-11-04.
- ^ "Eachard, John (ECRT653J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c d public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Eachard, John". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 789. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the