John Frome Wilkinson

“ His leg was broken and was set so badly that mortification ensued, and ten days later he died at the inn to which he had been taken (4 Dec. 1621) , in his fifty-ninth year. On 8 Dec. he was buried in the chancel of Barley parish church. A fine effigy and brass were placed by his parishioners and friends over the place of burial. The effigy (which is still in good preservation) shows a priest, full-length, dressed in his doctor's robes, with square cap, ruff, and scarf, and wearing a beard. There is a portrait of Willet in the fifth folio edition of his 'Synopsis Papismi,' published in 1630. ”

“ His father had been presented by Bishop Cox, the patron, to the living of Barley in north-east Hertfordshire, and only fourteen miles from Cambridge, and it was here that Willet spent his vacations at his father's rectory of Barley, often accompanied by Downham. He took holy orders in 1585, and was admitted on 22 July 1587, on the presentation of the queen, to the prebendal stall at Ely, which his father had resigned in his favour. ”

“ Shortly after he withdrew to Swansey, and here, after having lost his first wife, he married the widow of a clergyman named John Pruden. He died in 1674, at the age of sixty-nine. He lies buried in an obscure corner of the Little Neck burial-ground at Bullock's Cove, Swansey, Rhode Island. ”

“ He was much admired by King James, yet able to adapt himself to his rural parishioners. A good specimen of Willet's village preaching is preserved in his 'Thesaurus Ecclesiæ' (an exposition of St. John xvii.) , which contains the substance of expository afternoon lectures addressed to his parishioners at Barley.
Willet's son-in-law has drawn an interesting picture of his life at Barley with his wife and family in the old timber rectory-house. 'He came down at the hour of prayer [6 a.m. ?] , taking his family with him to the church; there service was publically read . . . ”

“ Peter Smith and prefixed to the 'Hexapla in Levit.,' from another in Cole's manuscripts in the British Museum, and other shorter lists and first editions. Only twenty of Willet's works are in the British Museum: In Latin : 1. 'De animæ natura et viribus questiones quædam; partim ex Aristotelis scriptis decerptæ, partim ex vera philosophia id est rationis thesauris depromptæ in usum Cantabrigiensium,' Cambridge, 1585, 8vo. In Latin and English: 2. 'De universali et novissima Judæorum vocatione,' Cambridge, 1590, 4to. 3. 'Sacrorum emblematum centuria una,' Cambridge [circa 1591] , 4to. 4. ”