at Peterborough. His wife was Martha (1729–1805), eldest daughter of Edward Ferrar, attorney at Huntingdon. A poetical essay on Peckard is in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1799 (pt. i. p. 325), and two poems, one by him and one by his wife, are in that periodical for 1789 (pt. ii. p. 748).
Peckard published many sermons of a liberal tendency, and those of later life drew attention to the evils of the slave traffic. The views which Archbishop Secker deemed heterodox were set out in: 1. ‘Observations on the Doctrine of an Intermediate State,’ 1756. 2. ‘Further Observations on the Doctrine of an Intermediate State,’ 1757. The last was in reply to the queries of Thomas Morton, rector of Bassingham. Peckard's opinions were also criticised by Caleb Fleming, D.D. [q. v.], in his ‘Survey of the Search of the Souls,’ 1759, and defended by him in ‘Observations on Mr. Fleming's Survey,’ 1759, which provoked from Fleming ‘A Defence of the Conscious Scheme against that of the Mortalist.’
Among Peckard's other sermons and tracts were: 3. ‘The popular Clamour against the Jews indefensible,’ 1753. 4. ‘A Dissertation on Revelation, chap. xi. ver. 13,’ 1756. This was written to prove that the passage was prophetical, and fulfilled by the Lisbon earthquake. It was criticised at some length in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1756 (pp. 138–139), and defended by the author in the same periodical (pp. 213–14). 5. ‘The proper Stile of Christian Oratory,’ 1770 (against theatrical declamation). 6. ‘National Crimes the Cause of National Punishments,’ 1795. It passed through three editions, and referred chiefly to the slave trade, on which subject Peckard often preached. On becoming vice-chancellor at Cambridge he put the question, ‘Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare?’ He published anonymously in 1776 a treatise on (7) ‘Subscription with Historical Extracts,’ and in 1778 a pamphlet (8) ‘Am I not a Man and a Brother?’
Peckard's father-in-law, Edward Ferrar, left him by will many books and papers, including a ‘life,’ by John Ferrar, of Nicholas Ferrar [q. v.] It was published by him in 1790 as (9) ‘Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar,’ but with some mutilations, through fear of a ‘scornful public.’ It was reprinted, with a few omissions, in Wordsworth's ‘Ecclesiastical Biography’ (v. 69–266), and published separately in an abridged form in 1852. Some of Peckard's manuscripts, which were valuable to students of the genealogy of the early American settlers, are referred to in J. W. Thornton's ‘First Records of Anglo-American Colonisation,’ Boston, 1859.
Peckard left property to Magdalene College, and also founded two scholarships. Portraits of him and his wife hang in the college hall. A ‘capital portrait’ of him is said to exist at Fletton.
[Gent. Mag. 1766 p. 496, 1777 p. 248, 1797 pt. ii. pp. 1076, 1126, 1798 pt. i. p. 440; Mayor's N. Ferrar, pp. 378–9, 382–3; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ii. 119, 444; Nichols's Lit. Illustrations, vi. 729–31; Le Neve's Fasti, ii. 134, 541, iii. 455, 611, 695; Sweeting's Churches of Peterborough, pp. 58, 187, 204; Blackburne's Works, vol. i. pp. xlii–xliii; Pinkerton's Lit. Correspondence, i. 44–9, 105–6; information from A. G. Peskett, Magdalene Coll.]
PECKE, THOMAS (fl. 1664), verse-writer, son of James Pecke, a member of the well-known family of his name settled at Spixworth in Norfolk, was born at Wymondham in 1637. His mother's maiden name was Talbot. He was educated at the free school, Norwich, under Thomas Levering, to whom he addresses one of his epigrams, and was admitted a member of Gonville and Caius College, 8 Oct. 1655. He apparently owed his maintenance at the university to his uncle, Thomas Pecke of Spixworth, but seems to have left it without a degree. He entered at the Inner Temple on 22 June 1657, when he was described as of Edmon ton, and was called to the bar on 12 Feb. 1664 (Register Books of the Inner Temple), Pecke was a friend of Francis Osborne (1593–1659) [q. v.], the author of 'Advice to a Son,' and when Osborne was attacked by John Heydon [q. v.] in his 'Advice to a Daughter,' replied to the latter in 'Advice to Balaam's Ass,' 8vo, 1658. Heydon also gave currency to the report that Pecke was the author of 'A Dialogue of Polygamy,' a translation from the Italian of Bernardino Ochino [q. v.], published in 1657, and dedicated to Osborne.
Pecke also published 'An Elegie upon the never satisfactorily deplored Death of that rare Column of Parnassus, Mr. John Cleeveland,' a folio broadside, 1658 (Brit. Mus.); 'Parnassi Puerperium,' 8vo, 1659, a collection of epigrams, original and translated from Sir Thomas More and others, upon the title of which he describes himself as the 'Author of that celebrated Elegie upon Cleeveland,' and a congratulatory poem to Charles II, 4to, 1660.
There is a portrait of Pecke prefixed to 'Parnassi Puerperium.'
[Information kindly supplied by the master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.]
