Farmer Richard

Farmer, Richard, born at Leicester in 1735, and educated at Cambridge, took holy orders, though his testes were rather social and literary. In 1766 he produced his Essay on the Learniny of Shakespeare, in which he displayed a great knowledge of Elizabethan literature, and demolished the theories of such worshippers of the bard as desired to attribute to him sound classical scholarship. He became master of his college (Emmanuel), Vice-Chancellor, and Prebendary successively of Lichfield, Canterbury, and St. Paul's, rendering himself famous in the latter capacity by introducing sculpture into the cathedral. With much good sense he twice declined a bishopric, and died at Cambridge in 1797.