John Earle (c. 1601 – 17 November 1665) was an English cleric, author and translator, who was chaplain to Charles II. Towards the end of his life he was Bishop of Worcester and then Salisbury.
Life
He was born at York, but the exact date is unknown. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, but moved to Merton, where he obtained a fellowship. In 1631 he was proctor and also chaplain to Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university, which led in 1639 to incumbency of the rectory of Bishopston[1] in Wiltshire.[2]
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, in his Life, wrote "Dr Earle was a man of great piety and devotion, a most eloquent and powerful preacher, and of a conversation so pleasant and delightful, so very innocent, and so very facetious, that no man’s company was more desired and loved. No man was more negligent in his dress and habit and mien, no man more wary and cultivated in his behaviour and discourse. He was very dear to the Lord Falkland, with whom he spent as much time as he could make his own."[2]
Works
Earle's chief title to remembrance is his witty and humorous work, Microcosmographie, or a Peece of the World discovered, in Essayes and Characters, which throws light on the manners of the time. First published anonymously in 1628, it became very popular, and ran through ten editions in the lifetime of the author. The style is quaint and epigrammatic: "A university dunner is a gentlemen follower cheaply purchased, for his own money has hyr'd him." Several reprints of the book have been issued since the author's death; and in 1671 a French translation by James Dymocke appeared with the title of Le Vice ridicule.[2]
Earle was employed by Charles II to make the Latin translation of the Eikon Basilike, published in 1649. A similar translation of Richard Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity was accidentally destroyed.[2]
Notes
^Baggs, A. P.; Critall, Elizabeth; Freeman, Jane; Stevenson, Janet H. (1980). "Parishes: Bishopstone". In Crowley, D. A. (ed.). A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 11. Victoria County History. University of London. pp. 3–19. Retrieved 12 January 2022 – via British History Online.