483 



WALKER, REV. JOHN. 



WALKER, OBADIAH. 



48i 



succeeded Lundie in tbe command of the garrison, determined to 

 hold out as long as possible, in the hope that King William would, 

 before they were exhausted, be able to throw in supplies by sea. This 

 was about the middle of April 1689. The besieged were soon reduced 

 to the most terrible extremities. Baker died on the 20th of June, 

 and then the sole command devolved on Walker, who however showed 

 himself quite equal to the emergency, directing and assisting in every 

 operation, preserving the strictest discipline under the most difficult 

 circumstances, and dividing himself between the most opposite duties, 

 now heading a sallying party, now reviving the hearts of soldiers and 

 citizens by a rousing sermon in the cathedral. The end was, that the 

 siege was at last raised, on the 30th of July, by Major-General Kirk 

 making his way with three ships over a boom which James had thrown 

 across the river. Walker soon after came over to England, and having 

 published a narrative of the scenes in which he had been engaged, 

 under the title of ' A True Account of the tSiege of Londonderry,' in 

 a quarto pamphlet, he received in November the thanks of the House 

 of Commons for his heroic exertions. His account provoked some 

 controversy : he defended himself against some of big assailants in a 

 vindication published the same year ; this was followed by an anony- 

 mous 'Apology for the Failures charged on the Rev. G. Walker's 

 printed Account,' also 4to, 1689; and that by a ' Narrative of the 

 Siege,' &c., by the Rev. John Mackenzie, 4to, 1690, professing to 

 rectify Walker's mistakes, which was answered the same year by a 

 friend of Walker, in another quarto pamphlet, entitled ' Mr. John 

 Mackenzie's Narrative a False Libel.' Meanwhile Walker, having been 

 created D.D. by the University of Oxford, had been nominated by King 

 William to the bishopric of Derry; but having resolved to aerve 

 another campaign before entering upon his episcopal duties, he was 

 killed at the battle of the Eoyne, on the 1st of July 1690. 



There is in the British Museum a pamphlet of ten pages, entitled 

 ' The Substance of a Discourse, being an Encouragement for Protes- 

 tants, or a happy prospect of glorious success, &c., occasionally (sic) 

 on the Protestants' victory over the French and Irish Papists before 

 Londonderry, in raising that desperate Siege. By Mr. Walker, 

 Minister, Governor of the City. London, printed by A. M. in the 

 year 1689.' This was probably a reporter's publication. Prefixed on 

 the title-page is a rude wood-cut, which seems to be intended to be 

 taken for a portrait of Walker. 



WALKER, REVEREND JOHN, is tho author of a work entitled 

 ' An Attempt towards recovering an Account of the Numbers and 

 Sufferings of the Clergy of the Church of England, Heads of Colleges, 

 Fellows, Scholars, &c., who were sequestered, harassed, &c. in the late 

 times of the Grand Rebellion ; occasioned by the Ninth Chapter (now 

 the Second Volume) of Dr. Calamy's Abridgement of the Life of Mr. 

 Baxter : together with an examination of that Chapter,' folio, London, 

 1714. It contains a long list of subscribers, is dedicated to "The 

 Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy, now assembled in Convocation," 

 and commences with a preface of above 50 pages, in which the author 

 gives a very detailed account of his sources of information and the 

 extensive researches he had made both in printed books and in public 

 and private repositories. The body of the work consists of two parts, 

 the first in 204 pp., the second in 436. 



On his title-page the author designates himself ' M.A., Rector of St. 

 Mary's the More in Exeter, and sometime Fellow of Exeter College, 

 in Oxford.' In Watt's ' Bibliotheca ' he is called ' Vicar of Ledbury, 

 Herefordshire ; ' and there are attributed to him, besides the above- 

 mentioned work, two single Sermons, both published in 1710, and 

 'Conscience Displayed, in several Discourses on Acts xxiv. 16,' 8vo, 

 1729. But whether different writers be not confounded in this notice 

 may be doubted. In Gorton's 'Biographical Dictionary' Walker is 

 stated to have been a native of Devonshire, to have been, after the 

 publication of his work on the Sufferings of the Clergy, complimented 

 by the University of Oxford with the honorary degree of D.D., and to 

 have died at Exeter in 1730. This information professes to be given 

 on the authority of the 'Biographia Britannica; ' but there is no 

 account of Walker either in that work or in any of the other collec- 

 tions of English biography which we have had an opportunity of 

 consulting. 



Walker's ' Account of the Sufferings of the Clergy' has been severely 

 attacked for its misstatements and exaggerations by Puritan and dis- 

 senting writers. It was replied to soon after its first appearance 

 by Dr. Calamy, in a tract entitled ' The Church and Dissenters com- 

 pared as to Persecution ; ' and also by the Rev. John Withers, a 

 dissenting minister of Exeter. Several of its assertions are disputed 

 by Neal, in various passages of his ' History of the Puritans ; ' and 

 there is a general notice of the book in the preface to the third volume 

 of that work, published in 1735, in which it is denounced as written 

 " with notorious partiality, and in language not fit for the lips of a 

 clergyman, a scholar, or a Christian." It must be admitted that 

 Walker was a mail of a coarse and violently prejudiced mind, without 

 any critical judgment, and with little learning or ability of any kind : 

 he boasts indeed of his unusual ignorance of the history of the time 

 to which his work relates when he undertook its compilation, as rather 

 a qualification for the task ; and with all his parade of inquiry and 

 preparation, it is evident that, partly from incompetency, partly from 

 haste, he has set down many things upon very insufficient authority. 

 His style is illiterate to the point of barbarism, and he complains 



pathetically of the laborious occupation he found writing for the press 

 to be. Yet, after all deductions that may justly be made from the 

 value of his book, it must be allowed to have preserved much curious 

 information that in all probability would otherwise have been lost. 

 Walker makes the entire number of the episcopal clergy who were 

 "imprisoned, banished, and sent a starving," to have amounted to 

 seven or eight thousand. 



WALKER, JOHN, was born at Colney-Hatch, in the parish of Friern- 

 Barnet, Middlesex, 18th March 1732, and was brought up to trade, but 

 adopted the profession of an actor, which he followed with no great 

 success till 1767, when he quitted the stage, and joined Mr. Jamea 

 Usher in establishing a school at Kensington Gravel-pits. This part- 

 nership lasted only about two years, after which Walker set up for 

 himself as a teacher of elocution, and soon became greatly distinguished 

 in that capacity. Not confining his instructions to the metropolis, he 

 visited Scotland; Ireland, and various provincial towns, especially 

 Oxford, where early in his career the heads of houses invited him to 

 give a course of private lectures in the University. He soon also 

 began to employ the aid of the press in disseminating what he con- 

 sidered to be correct views on the art which he professed. The settle- 

 ment of the pronunciation of the English language upon analogical 

 principles, and according to the best usage, was certainly attempted 

 by Walker more systematically than by any preceding writer; and his 

 various works, characterised as they all are by good sense and careful 

 inquiry, as well as a respectable amount of information, cannot bo 

 denied to have done considerable service in that matter. His first 

 publication was a prospectus of his Pronouncing Dictionary, under tho 

 title of 'A General Idea of a Pronouncing Dictionary of the English 

 Language,' which he printed in quarto in 1772. This was followed in 

 1775 by 'A Dictionary of the English Language, answering at once 

 the purposes of rhyming, spelling,, and pronouncing ; ' afterwards 

 reprinted, at least twice, under the title of ' A Rhyming Dictionary 



in which the whole Language is arranged according to its 



Terminations,' &c. In 1781 appeared his ' Elements of Elocution,' 

 which has gone through many editions. In 1783 he published a 

 pamphlet, entitled ' Hints for Improvement in the Art of Heading.' 

 The greater part of this tract he afterwards incorporated in his ' Rhe- 

 torical Grammar,' first published in 1785, and since often reprinted, as 

 well as his 'Academic Speaker,' and two or three other similar com- 

 pilations. In 1787 he published a small 8vo tract of 70 pages, entitled 

 ' The Melody of Speaking delineated, or Elocution taught, like Music, 

 by visible Signs; ' which is not much known. His ' Critical Pronoun- 

 cing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language,' the work 

 which had occupied most of his attention, and upon which his repu- 

 tation principally rests, first appeared in 1791. It has been eminently 

 successful, having since gone through some thirty editions, and having 

 superseded all other previous works of the same nature. Several of 

 the later editions contain also his ' Key to the Classical Pronunciation 

 of Greek, Latin, and Scriptural Proper Names,' which was first pub- 

 lished a few years after the Dictionary, and of which there are also 

 many editions in a separate form. His last publication was his ' Out- 

 lines of English Grammar,' which appeared in 1805. Mr. Walker, 

 who was brought up a Presbyterian, but became a Roman Catholic, 

 and a very strict one, in his latter days, died on the 1st of August 

 1807, and was buried among his co-religionists in Old St. Pancras 

 church-yard, London. 



WALKER, OBADIAH, was born at Worsbrougb, near Barnesley, 

 in the West Riding of Yorkshire, probably in the year 1616, and was 

 educated at University College, Oxford, where lie took his degree of 

 M.A. in July 1635, and was chosen Fellow of his college in August 

 following. In April 1638, he took his master's degree, and entered 

 into holy orders. Becoming now very distinguished as a college tutor, 

 he remained at Oxford till he was expelled from his fellowship by the 

 parliamentary visitors in May 1648; on which he retired to Rome. 

 On the Restoration he was reinstated in his fellowship ; but he soon 

 after paid another visit to Rome in the capacity of travelling tutor. 

 Returning home in 1665, he might then have been elected master of 

 his college, but declined the appointment. He accepted it however on 

 the death of Dr. Richard Clayton in 1676. 



Walker's tutors at Oxford had been Mr. Anderson and Mr. Abraham 

 Woodhead, both of whom appear to have been then inclined towards 

 popery, which Woodhead afterwards openly professed. Their instruction 

 and his visits to Rome had prSbably made Walkera.conyert to the same 

 faith long before his election to the mastership of University College. 

 Indeed it is asserted by Anthony Wood that at the time of his ap- 

 pointment to this office he was actually assisting Woodward in his 

 seminary at Hogsdon, or Hoxton, near London, in which young 

 men were educated in the Romish religion. It was not however till 

 1678 that attention was drawn to his principles and conduct by tho 

 publication of his Latin translation of Sir John Spelmau's Life of 

 King Alfred, which appeared at Oxford in a magnificent folio in 1678. 

 In October of this year, in tho ferment excited by the death of Sir 

 Edmundbury Godfrey, complaint was made in the House of Commons 

 of the dangerous tendency of some of the notes to this work, and also 

 of Walker's connection with the seminary at Hoxton. But no con- 

 sequences followed; and, although the matter was mentioned again in 

 April 1679, the master of University College remained still un- 

 molested. At last, on the accession of James II. in 1685, Walker 



