it aspires to crave for it's humble pages the attention only of youth. If, with sound principles, it be found to supply to the upper classes of our schools a series of Lives authentic in incidents, and in stile not inelegant or incorrect, I trust I shall not be thought to have thrown away or abused the leisure, with which by the blessing of Providence I have been indulged. Without wholly foregoing the hope, that some of it's passages may be perused even by the advanced scholar with pleasure, I feel that to have pursued the inquiries necessary for the discovery of more minute particulars (had a library of above ten thousand volumes, in all cases, enabled me so to do) or the reflexions to which those particulars might have given birth, would have implied a heavier trespass on my professional engagements, than I have dared to incur. Fully satisfied, therefore, if it be my good fortune to attain the praise I covet, of upright intention and accurate execution, I resign without a murmur the glories of more legitimate biography to those, who have higher qualifications and better opportunities.

FRANCIS WRANGHAM.

AMONG the various degrees of excellence which endear the memories of illustrious men to posterity, that which lays a foundation for the improvement of the human mind through a long succession of ages, by providing for the education of youth, deservedly holds an eminent station. The reader therefore will not be displeased, that the order of chronology requires us to assign the first place to the memoirs of the pious founder of St Paul's school.

John Colet was the eldest son of Sir Henry Colet, citizen and mercer, who upon the accession of Henry VII. to the throne, as a reward for his attachment, received the honour of knighthood. He was likewise

* AUTHORITIES. The Life of Erasmus, Biographia Britannica, and Knight's Life of Colet.

twice elected, by his fellow-citizens, to the dignity of chief magistrate.

The subject of our biography was born in London, in the parish of St. Antholin's, in the year 1466; and in 1483 was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, where at the expiration of seven years he took with distinguished reputation his degree of M. A. All the works of Cicero, indeed, were familiar to him; neither was he a stranger to Plato and Plotinus, whom he diligently perused and compared, the one as a comment upon the other. Such, however, was the infelicity of the times, that the Greek language was not only neglected in the English schools and universities, but the encouragement of it was regarded as little better than heresy;* so that Colet was obliged to read the two latter authors in their Latin translations.

At the time of taking his degree, he had a competent estate to support him as a gentleman, and sufficient interest to recommend him at court. He had, likewise, the advantage of a tall and graceful person; and the design of making him a courtier might perhaps have been conceived by his father, from his having enjoyed gayety and splendor in the public offices in the city, and established a very particular interest with the king. But the young man, whose disposition was truly religious, was determined to enter into holy orders, and to renounce the temptations of a courtly life. As a farther encouragement, in 1485 he received from Sir William Knevet, a near relation

* In reference to this barbarous opinion, Erasmus quotes a proverb, Cave à Græcis, ne fias hereticus; Beware of Greek, lest you become a heretic.'

of his mother, the valuable rectory of Dennington in Suffolk, which he held till his death; and in 1490 he was also presented by his father to the living of Thurning, in the county of Huntingdon : but this he resigned in 1493, when he was appointed prebendary of Botevant, in the church of York. prebend likewise of Good Easter, in the church of St. Martin's Le Grand, he resigned in 1503, having been admitted the year before to that of Durnesford, in the church of Sarum.*

The

His ample income now afforded him the means of gratifying an inclination, which he had long cherished, of visiting foreign countries, in order to complete his studies in the learned languages, to read the ancient Greek fathers, and to cultivate an acquaintance with men of letters. For this purpose, he quitted Oxford in 1493; and passing over to the continent, studied divinity both in Italy and France, where he met with several other English students, who had gone abroad to attain the Greek tongue. The passion for that language indeed, and for the study of the purer Latin writers, was now grown extremely prevalent throughout Europe, and no where more than in England, whence numbers of the youth, and many more advanced in life, continually travelled in quest of them.

* These preferments, bestowed upon so young a man, may seem somewhat extraordinary. But under the regulations of the Romish church, Colet being then an Acolyth, which is one of their seven ecclesiastical orders, was qualified to hold them without impropriety. It was one of the abuses, indeed, of that hierarchy to bestow livings upon persons from their youth incapable of undertaking the cure of souls, and as such engaged the earliest attention of the English Reformers.