Potter, Francis

Potter, Francis an English divine, was born in 1594 at Myre, in Wiltshire, and was educated at Trinity College, Oxford. He took holy orders, and, after successively filling various preferments, became in 1637 rector of Kilmington. He died in 1678. He was a man of learning and mechanical ingenuity. He published, An Interpretation of the Number 666, etc. (Oxf. 1642, 4to; in Latin, translated by Thomas Gibbet and others, Amst. 1677, 8vo; also translated into French and Dutch). It was attacked by Rev. Lambert Morehouse, to whom Potter wrote a reply; but neither the attack nor reply was ever published. A great authority (Joseph Mede) thus commends Potter's Interpretation: "This discourse of the Number of the Beast is the happiest that ever yet came into the world, and such as cannot be read (save of those that perhaps will not believe it) without much admiration." See Athen. Oxon.; Aubrey's MSS., in Letters of Eminent Persons (1813, 3 vols. 8vo): — General Dictionary; Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy.