Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/181

 purposely, his biographer tells us, composed them with studied simplicity, and the reader misses the tall commanding presence, and the good voice and delivery of the preacher. Archbishop Secker's printed works include no fewer than 140 sermons. Four volumes of them were published in his lifetime and the rest after his death. His other printed works are: ‘Five Charges,’ delivered by him to his clergy as bishop of Oxford in 1738, 1741, 1750, and 1753 respectively, and ‘Three Charges’ as archbishop of Canterbury in 1758, 1762, and 1766. All these give a valuable insight into the state of the church in the middle of the eighteenth century. His ‘Instructions given to Candidates for Orders after their subscribing the Articles’ (1786; 15th edit. 1824) deal with the questions in the ordination service. They are short, but sensible and earnest. His ‘Oratio quam coram Synodo Provinciæ Cantuariensis anno 1761 convocatâ habendam scripserat, sed morbo præpeditus non habuit Archiepiscopus,’ is remarkable for its excellent latinity. His thirty-nine ‘Lectures on the Church Catechism’ (1769, 2 vols.), written for the use of his parishioners at St. James's, were published in two volumes after his death. He also wrote, in reply to a colonial criticism of the scheme of appointing bishops in America, ‘An Answer to Dr. Mayhew's Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts’ (1764). The subject of bishops for America also drew from him a ‘Letter to the Right Hon. Horatio Walpole, Esq.,’ dated 9 Jan. 1750–1, but not published until 1769, after his death, in accordance with his instructions. Secker argues in favour of the modest proposal that ‘two or three persons should be ordained bishops and sent to our American colonies.’ All these works were collected in 1792 in four octavo volumes.

A portrait by T. Willes was mezzotinted by J. McArdell in 1747. A later portrait by Reynolds, now at Lambeth, was engraved by Charles Townley (1797) and by Henry Meyer (1825). A copy of this portrait, probably by Gilbert Stuart, is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.



SECKER, WILLIAM (d. 1681?), divine, preached at Tewkesbury and afterwards at All-Hallows, London Wall. He may have been the William Secker who was appointed rector of Leigh, Essex, on 30 Aug. 1667, and died there before November 1681 (, Repert. Eccles. ii. 384).

Secker's sermon on ‘A Wedding Ring fit for the Finger, or the Salve of Divinity on the Sore of Humanity, laid open at a Wedding in St. Edmunds’ (?Edmonton), London, 1658, 12mo, was very popular, and was often reprinted (cf. edits. at Glasgow, 1850, 12mo; New York, 1854, 16mo). It was translated into Welsh, ‘Y Fodrwy Briodas,’ Brecon, 1775 (two editions), and as ‘Y Cristion rhagorol,’ Bala, 1880, 8vo. Secker also dedicated to Sir Edward and Lady Frances Barkham of Tottenham, who had befriended him, a volume of sermons entitled ‘The Nonsuch Professor’ (London, 1660, 8vo). This was republished (Leeds, 1803, 12mo; London, 1891), and was edited, with ‘The Wedding Ring,’ by Matthew Wilks, London, 1867, 12mo; it was several times reprinted in America.



SECKFORD or SACKFORD, THOMAS (1515?–1588), lawyer, second son of Thomas Seckford, esq., of Seckford Hall, Suffolk, sometime M.P. for Oxford, by Margaret, daughter of Sir John Wingfield, knt., of Letheringham, was born about 1515, and educated, it is believed, at Cambridge (, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 18). He was admitted a student of Gray's Inn, London, in 1540, and was called to the bar, being Lent reader of that house in 1555 (, Gray's Inn Admission Register, p. 14). He was sworn one of the masters of request in ordinary on 9 Dec. 1558, and he also held the offices of surveyor of the court of wards and liveries and steward of the court of Marshalsea. His name appears in a commission for the establishment of orders and regulations for the prison of the Fleet (1561); in a special commission of oyer and terminer for the county of Surrey (15 Feb. 1565–6), under which [q. v.], Edmund Pole, and others were tried and convicted of high treason; and in another commission (12 June 1566) for the trial of offences committed within the verge of the queen's house. He was appointed one of the commissioners for causes ecclesiastical in 1570. On 1 Aug. in that year he was included in the special commission of oyer and terminer for the