Tooke, Andrew

, a learned English schoolmaster, was the second of five sons of Benjamin Tooke, citizen and stationer of London, and born in 1673. He was educated at the Charterhouse-school, and in 1690 sent to Clare-hall in Cambridge, where he took both the degrees in arts, that of B. A. in 1693, and of M.A. in 1697. In 1695, he was chosen usher of the Charterhouse-school; and, in 1704, professor of geometry in Gresham college, in the room of Dr. Hooke; being recommended by a testimonial from the master, Dr. Burnet, and other officers of the Charterhouse. In Nov. following, he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1723, several thousand pounds were left him by his elder brother, Mr. Benjamin Tooke, a bookseller in Fleet-street; yet, notwithstanding this addition to his fortune, he still held his place of usher | in the Charterhouse-school, and was preferred to the mastership of the school in 1728; and, the year after, married the widow of Dr. Henry Levett, physician to the Charterhouse. He then, as he was obliged by the statutes, resigned his professorship of Gresham, and from that time attended no other business but his school. This began to be too much for him, for he had some years before declined in his health, till at length he fell into a dropsy, which carried him off, Jan. 20, 1731, in his fifty-eighth year. He was buried in the Charter-house*chapel, in the middle of which is placed a white marble monument, in the form of a shield, against a pillar, with a Latin inscription upon it; to his memory. He had taken deacon’s orders, and sometimes preached, but devoted himself principally to the instruction of youth, for which he was no less fitted by his temper than learning.

He published some things for the benefit and assistance of youth: as, “Synopsis Grsecas linguae;” “Ovid’s Fasti,” from the Delphin edition, with an English interpretation and notes; and, “The Pantheon, or history of the heathen gods.” This book was first written in Latin by Francis Pomey, a Jesuit, and translated into English by one who conceals his name under initial letters. This translation was afterwards revised and corrected, with the addition of a new index, cuts of the deities, and other improvements, by Mr. Tooke; and the tenth edition, printed in 1726, was adorned with new cuts, copied from the sixth Latin, edition, published at Utrecht by Samuel Pitiscus, in 1701. Mr. Tooke translated PuffendorPs “Whole Duty of Man according to the law of nature,” with the notes of Barbeyrac, into English; and bishop GastrelP* “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” into Latin. The supplement to the account of Gresham college, inserted in the second appendix of “Stow’s Survey of London,” was written by him, and given to the editor Mr. Strype. ¹