Potter, John

Potter, John an Anglican prelate of much note, was born in 1674 of very humble parentage. He was, however, given all the educational facilities as if of superior rank, and, manifesting a more than usual aptitude for study, was sent at fourteen to the University College of Oxford; took the degree of B.A. in 1692, and in 1694 became fellow of Lincoln College. He had by this time made great attainments in classical learning, and, though still very young, was encouraged by Dr. Charlett, the master of University College, to publish in 1694 a collection which he had made of various readings and notes on Plutarch's treatise De Audiendis Poetis, a work which he followed soon after by various readings and notes on an oration of Basil. His greater works appeared soon after: his edition of Lycophron, and his Archaeologia Graeca (1697), the former gaining him a world-wide reputation. In 1698 he entered into holy orders, and from that time his studies appear to have been almost exclusively professional, and he passed from one preferment in the Church to another, till at last he reached the highest dignity. Archbishop Tenison made him his chaplain, and gave him the living of Great Mongeham in Kent, and subsequently other preferment in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. He became chaplain to Queen Anne and regius professor of divinity in the University of Oxford in 1708. In the same year he published an excellent edition of the works of Clemens Alexandrinus (2 vols. fol.). His other publications were Sermons and Charges, and A Discourse on Church Government. In 1715 he was made bishop of Oxford, and in 1737 archbishop of Canterbury, which high station he supported with much dignity to the time of his death, Oct. 21, 1747. His theological works were published at Oxford (1753, 3 vols. 8vo). Archbishop Potter was a man of much industry, but hardly a great scholar; a compiler rather than an original investigator, and hence his works are of little value in our day. As an ecclesiastic he was haughty and overzealous, as well as excessively narrow. See Hook, Eccles. Biog. 8:142; Biog. Brit. s.v.; English Cyclop. s.v.; Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Auth. s.v.; Perry, Eccles. Hist. of the Ch. of England, 3, 199, 360 sq. (J. H.W.)