Education
A native of Suffolk, he was educated at Street Catharine"s College, Cambridge, of which he became master in 1675 in succession to John Lightfoot.
A native of Suffolk, he was educated at Street Catharine"s College, Cambridge, of which he became master in 1675 in succession to John Lightfoot.
He was created Doctor of Divinity in 1676 by royal mandate, and was twice (in 1679 and 1695) vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. In 1670 he had published anonymously a humorous satire entitled The Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy enquired into in a letter to R. L., which excited much attention and provoked several replies, one of them being from John Owen. These were met by Some Observations, et cetera, in a second letter to R. L. (1671), written in the same bantering tone as the original work.
Eachard attributed the contempt into which the clergy had fallen to their imperfect education, their insufficient incomes, and the want of a true vocation.
His descriptions, which were somewhat exaggerated, were largely used by Macaulay in his History of England. He attacked the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes in his Mr.
Hobbs State of Nature considered. In a dialogue between Philautus and Timothy (1672), and in his Some Opinions of Mr.
Hobbs considered in a second dialogue (1673).
These were written in their author"s chosen vein of light satire, and John Dryden praised them as highly effective within their own range. Eachard"s own sermons, however, were not superior to those he satirized. Jonathan Swift alludes to him as a signal instance of a successful humorist who entirely failed as a serious writer
The Contempt of the Clergy was reprinted in East. Arbors English Garner.
A Free Enquiry into the Causes of the very great Esteem that the Nonconforming Preachers are generally in with their Followers (1673) has been attributed to Eachard on insufficient grounds.