RICHARD CLARKE
Dr. Clarke is spoken of as a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge; and as a very learned clergyman and eminent preacher. He was Vicar of Minster and Monkton in Thanet, and one of the six preachers of the cathedral church in Canterbury. He died in 1634. Three years after his death, a folio volume of his learned sermons was published. But alas for "folios" and 'learned sermons" in these days. When people look on such a thing, they are ready to exclaim, like Robert Hall, at the sight of Dr. Gill's voluminous Commentary," What a continent of mud?
JOHN LAIFIELD
Dr. Laifield was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Rector of the Church of St. Clement's, Dane's, in London. Of him it is said, "that being skilled in architecture, his judgment was much relied on for the fabric of the tabernacle and temple." He died at his rectory in 1617. Few things are more difficult, than the giving of architectural details in such a manner as to be intelligible to the unprofessional reader.
ROBERT TIGHE
This name, in all the printed lists of the Translators, has been misspelled Leigh. It should be Teigh or Tjghe.* Dr. Tighe was born at Deeping, Lincoinshire; and was educated partly at Oxford, and partly at Cambridge. He was Archdeacon of Middlesex and Vicar of the Church of All Hallows, Barking, London. He is characterized as "an excellent textuary and profound linguist." Dr. Tighe died in 1620, leaving to his son an estate of one thousand pounds a year; which is worth mentioning because so rarely done by men of the clerica profession. *See
Le Neve's Fast Eccles. Ang. P. 194. Also Woods Athenae, who adds, "linquist,' and "therefore employed in the Translation of the Bible."
FRANCIS BURLEIGH
Mr. Burleigh, or Burghley was made Vicar of Bishop's Stortford in 1590, which benefice he held at the time of his appointment to the important service of this Bible translation.
GEOFFRY KING
Mr. King was Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. It is a fair token of his fitness to take part in this translation-work, that he succeeded Mr. Spauld-ing, another of these Translators, as Regius Professor of Hebrew in that University. Men were not appointed in those days to such duties of instruction, with the expectation that they would qualify themselves after their induction into office.*(The late
Professor Stuart was wont jocularly to say that, when he was appointed Hebrew professor at Andover, all he knew of the language was, that ash'rai meant blessed, and lm-ish memat the man/Psalm 1:1)RICHARD THOMPSON
Mr. Thompson, at the time of his appointment, was Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. According to Wood he was "a Dutchman, born of English parents." By the Presbyterian divines, he was called "the grand propagator of Arminianism." Of the prelatic Arminians Coleridge too truly said, "they emptied revelation of all the doctrines that can properly be said to have been revealed." If "sin be the greatest heresy," as that class usually affirms, a more serious error imputed to Mr. Thompson is intemperance in his later years. As to his literary qualifications, he is described by the learned Richard Montague as a most admirable philo1oger "who was" better known in Italy, France, and Germany, than at home."
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