Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hopkins, Richard
HOPKINS, RICHARD (d. 1594?), catholic exile, was born of ‘genteel parents,’ and at about seventeen years of age became a commoner of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, where he was residing in 1563. Leaving the university without a degree he studied law at the Middle Temple, but he eventually became ‘wearied with the heresy of the place,’ and proceeded about 1566 to Louvain. There he contracted a close friendship with Dr. Thomas Harding (1512–1572) [q. v.] He afterwards prosecuted his studies in one of the Spanish universities, but returned to Louvain, where he was residing with his sister in 1579. After visits to Rheims (July 1580) and to Rouen in 1586, he is found again in Paris in 1589. In the Cottonian MS. Titus B. ii. f. 224 is an intercepted letter from him to Cardinal Allen at Rome, dated at Antwerp 8 Jan. 1594. In a memorial drawn up in that year for the Archduke Ernest, governor of the Low Countries, regarding English persons and affairs in their relation to the government of Flanders, he is thus mentioned: ‘Hay tambien Ricardo Hopequins, hombre de grande fidelidad y zelo en las cosas del servicio de Dios y del rey’ (Douay Diaries, pp. 403, 406). The date of his death is unknown. Pits and Dodd speak highly of his learning and generosity.
He translated the following works from the Spanish of Father F. Lewis de Granada, provincial of the order of Friar-preachers, in the province of Portugal: 1. ‘Of Prayer and Meditation; wherein is conteyned fowertien devoute Meditations for the seven daies of the weeke, bothe for the Morninges and Eveninges. And in them is treyted of the consideration of the principall holie Mysteries of our Faithe,’ Paris, 1582, 8vo, illustrated by curious plates; London, 1592, 24mo; Douay, 1612, 24mo. 2. ‘A Memoriall of a Christian Life; Wherein are treated all such thinges, as apperteyne unto a Christian to doe, from the beginninge of his conversion until the ende of his Perfection,’ Rouen, 1586, 8vo, with many neat engravings; Rouen, 1599, 8vo; Douay, 1612, 8vo; St. Omer, 1625, 8vo.
[Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, pp. 75, 78, 393; Gillow's Dict. of English Catholics; Harl. MS. 295, f. 261; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1351; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 896; Dodd's Church History, ii. 164; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 412; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 567.]