, an English gentleman of talents, was the son of John Potenger,
, an English
gentleman of talents, was the son of John Potenger, D. D.
who was appointed master of Winchester School Aug. 1,
1642, which he was obliged to resign, in order to preserve his loyalty and principles, and died in Dec. 1659.
He was born in St. Swithin’s parish, Winchester, July 21,
1647, admitted on the foundation of the college in 1658,
and thence removed to a scholarship of Corpus Christi
college, Oxon, where he took the degree of B. A. and
afterwards entered of the Temple, and was regularly called
v to the bar. The office of comptroller of the pipe, which
he held to the day of his death, he purchased, in 1676, of
sir John Ernie, then chancellor of the Exchequer, whose
daughter he married. Speaking of his father, in one of
his writings, he expresses himself thus- “About the thirteenth year of my age, the Christmas before the return of
king Charles the Second, I lost a loving father; I was not
so young but I was deeply sensible of the misfortune,
knowing at what an unseasonable time I was deprived of
him, when he should have received a reward for his loyal
sufferings. He would often discourse with me, though,
young, about the unhappy times, amid lament the church’s
and the king’s misfortunes, which made a great impression
on me; and laid the foundation, I hope, of my being a
true son of the church of England, and an obedient subject
to my lawful prince.
” In A Pastoral Reflection on Death,
” a poem, in The Life of Agricoia,
” from Tacitus, and perhaps
other select pieces but the far greater part of his works,
consisting, of “Poems, Epistles, Translations, and Discourses,
” both in prose and verse, was reserved only for
the entertainment of his private friends, who often importuned him to make them public. Two original letters to
him from Dr. South, are printed in Nichols’s Select Collection of Poems.