340 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION, 
JOHN PRINCE, 
AUTHOR OF THE “WORTHIES OF DEVON.” 
BY MR. EDWARD WINDEATT. 
(Read January 31st, 1878.) 
Ir is not without considerable diffidence that I venture to present 
to the members of this Institution a sketch of John Prince, the 
author of the Worthies of Devon, because I cannot but feel my 
own inability to do justice to my subject, and place it before them 
in such a manner as shall give them a good idea of this worthy man, 
the times in which he lived, and the scenes with which he was 
surrounded. If it be necessary to apologize to a Plymouth 
audience for bringing before their notice a man not intimately 
connected with Plymouth, I would remind them that many of the 
heroes of whom he wrote were men who were natives of this town 
or its immediate neighbourhood, and that Prince in writing of 
Plymouth declares, “it is a port so famous that it hath a kind of 
invitation from the commodiousness thereof to maritime actions.’’ 
It is strange that no biographical sketch of John Prince, or at least 
none of any length, should have appeared ere this, and that more 
than a hundred and fifty years should have been allowed to elapse 
since his death, without the life of the man who wrote the Worthies 
of Devon having been written. Indeed it would seem that the 
prophecy of his friend William Pearse, vicar of Dean Prior, which 
appears in the Worthies, has been almost fulfilled : 
“You've done the work, sir; but you can’t be pay'd 
Until among those Worthies you are laid. 
Then future ages will unjustly do, 
To write of Worthies, and to leave out you.’’ 
This may, however, have arisen from the difficulty of obtaining 
particulars of general interest respecting him, for the editors of the 
1810 edition of the Worthies give a sketch of his life occupying 
