An eminent divine of the church of England, was born in 1553, at Heavitree, near Exeter, and, under the patronage of Bishop Jewel, was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was distinguished for his piety and exemplary conduct. An unhappy marriage, which he contracted before he was thirty, with a scold who had neither beauty, money, nor manners, lost him his college fellowship, and was a fertile source of annoyance to him. In 1585, he was made master of the Temple; but, weary of disputes with the afternoon lecturer, -- a violent Presbyterian, -- and longing for rural retirement, he relinquished this preferment, and obtained the rectory of Bishop's Bourne, in Kent, at which he resided till his decease, in 1600. His great work is the treatise on "Ecclesiastical Polity;" of which Pope Clement VIII. said, "There are in it such seeds of eternity as will continue till the last fire shall devour all learning."