Dugard, William
, an eminent school-master and learned man, was the son of Henry Dugard, a clergyman, and born at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, Jan. 9, 1605. He was instructed in classical learning at a school in Worcester; and from thence sent, in 162‘J, to Sidney college, Cambridge. In 1626 he took the degree of B. A. and that of M. A. in 1630. Soon after he was appointed master of Stamford school in Lincolnshire; from whence, in 1637, he was elected master of the free-school in Colchester. He resigned the care of this school Jan. 1642-3, in consequence of the ill-treatment he received at the hands of a party in that town, to which, us well as to the school, he had been of great service; and May 1644 was chosen head master of Merchant Taylors’ school in London. This school flourished exceedingly under his influence and management but for shewing, as was thought, too great an affection to the royal cause, and especially for printing Salmasius’s defence of Charles I. at a press in his own house, he was deprived of it February 1650, and imprisoned in Newgate his wife and six children turned out of doors and a printing-office, which he valued at a thousand pounds, seized .*
That he was very well affected to Charles I. and to the royal interest, appears from a curious register he kept of his school, which is still extant in Sion college library, wherein are entered two Greek verses, on the beheading of that monarch, to this effect: "Charles, the best, of kings, is
|fallen by the bands of cruel and wicked men, a martyr for the laws of Cod and of his country.“There are also two more Greek verses on the burial of Oliver Croinwell’8 mother in Westminster-abbey, to this effect: ”Here lieth the mother of a cursed son, who has been the ruin of two kings, and of three kingdoms.“However, it -.vas not for these verses that he was dismissed the school, but for being concerned in printing Salmasius’s book, as we learn from the following memorandum in this same register: ” Feb. 20, 1649, a concilio novi status ab archididascalatus officio summotus, et in carceretn Novas - Portac oonjecttis sum ob hanc praecipue oausam, quod Claudii Salmasii librum, qui inscribitur ‘ Defensio regia pro Carolo priino ad seremssininm regem Carolutu secundum legitimum taereden et successoretn,’ typis mandandum curaveram: typographeo insuper intrgro spoliatus, ad valorem mille librarum mi nimum nihil jam reliqunm habens> unde victum quacram uxori & sex liberis.“Dugard would have been more severely punished, if Milton, who was his intimate friend, had not used his interest to bring him otF, which he effected by means of Kradshaw; but upon this condition, that Dugard should add Pamela’s prayer to the bonk he was printing (an edition of the ” Icon Basilike") as an atonement for his fault, they designing thereby to bring a scandal upon the performance, and blast the reputation of its authority. In expectation of which they used frequently to laugh at their dexterity in thus inserting a;iioag the king’s genuine pieces a prayer out of sir Philip Sydney’s Arcadia. The book being thus interpolated, -Milton was employed by the council of slate, to whom he was Latin secretary, to censure thr> king for the use of this very prayer Nichols’s Bowyer.
A work excellently calculated for the use of schools and young students cor<:ance in a compendious form. in divinity shewing the purpose, not The Iftte learned Mr. Bowyer had taken only of n Lexicon, by exhibiting all the words of toe Greek Testament, as they stand in the text, with their explanations and iuflections, but answering, likewise, the end of a Concordance, in a compendious form. The late learned Mr. Bcwyer had taken some pains with this Lexicon, with view to an improved edition of it; and his corrected copy is still in the hands of Mr. Nichols.
Biog. Brit—Nichols’s Bowyer.—Lloyd’s Memoirs, p. 638.—Wilson’s Hist. of Merchant Taylor’s School.
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