8. _William Falkner_, _D.D._—He came to this town in 1658, recommended by Dr. Arrowsmith and Dr. Tuckney, and was engaged as an assistant to Mr. Hoogan, who had succeeded Dr. A. as senior or principal minister of St. Nicholas’ Chapel. Falkner was then Fellow of Peter-house in Cambridge; so that there is no reason to suppose him the same as that _William Falconer_, _M.A. of Aberdeen_, whom, according to _Granger_, _Wood_ in his Fasti mentions, under 1671, as incorporated into the University of Oxford, and one of the first exhibitioners at Baliol College. At the death or removal of Mr. Hoogan, F. appears to have succeeded him as chief minister, and in that situation he is supposed to have continued ever after; though, considering the prominent appearance he made among his brethren, it is not likely that he was left without other preferments. His residence here was about 24 years. He died April, 9. 1682: nor does it appear that he was then an old man; about 50, perhaps, or very little more. We have not been able to learn the character of his public ministry and pastoral labours, or how far he therein resembled Horne, or Arrowsmith. But, as a scholar and writer, he must have stood high among the Lynn clergy, and even among those of the whole diocese; for he was very learned, and his writings for the most part, were well calculated to render him famous among his brethren, and gain him the approbation and applause of the highest dignitaries of the church, and the chief functionaries of the state, or civil government. For passive obedience and non-resistance, and the whole tory system, then the darling doctrine of the clergy and the court, he was a warm and able advocate. Nor was he less so for the church of England, against the Romanists, on the one hand, and our protestant sectaries, on the other. How he would have stood, had he lived a few years longer, or till the eve of the revolution, it is impossible to say. But it is certain that many, who were to the full as torified as he in the reign of Charles, changed their minds and their tones greatly during that of his successor, so as to caress as friends and brethren, those very sectaries and schismatics, as they used to call them, whom they had before endeavoured with all their might to distress and crush. That Dr. F. would have done the same, had he lived so long, is more than we are warranted to affirm, through we would fain hope that such would have been the case.—Among the books of which he was the author were several pieces of divinity, which first perhaps appeared separately, but were in 1684, two years after his death, printed together in a quarto volume. As it has never fallen in our way, we can say nothing of its merits. But his principal publications seem to be the following; 1. _Libertas Ecclesiastica_, an english octavo volume, published in 1674, and spoken of, by Granger, as a book of merit. 2. A _vindication of Liturgies_, or set forms of prayer: printed in London in