SIR HENRY SAVILE.

I ENTER upon this portion of my work with great satisfaction, and with a sort of national pride. It succeeds the article on the literary munificence of Leo the Tenth, with peculiar propriety, involving many circumstances of strong and striking resemblance.

It exhibits, like the former, the strenuous and honourable exertions of an individual, much greater, and much superior, to those of Leo, in the cause of learning: an individual not in the great and exalted situation of a Sovereign Prince, who possessed every means and every faculty of prosecuting what he might desire to have accomplished, but of one in the humbler station of a private English gentleman, to whom various difficulties must have presented themselves, only to be overcome by a noble zeal and steady perseverance. The object was indeed similar, and the means and instruments employed very much alike. It is painful to add, that, like the project of that illustrious Pope, this also of our countryman unfortunately failed of success, and in a great degree owing to the same causes.

The following is a concise account of the life of this eminent Scholar.

Sir Henry Savile was born in 1549 of a respectable family in Yorkshire. In 1561 he became a member of Merton College, Oxford, and after his degree of Master of Arts (1570) he read a public lecture on the Mathematics. In 1578 he went abroad, and on his return was appointed private tutor to Queen Elizabeth, whom he instructed in the Greek language. In 1586 he was, made Warden of Merton College, and remained in this honourable situation, distinguished for his accomplishments, his liberality and his patronage of learning and learned men, for the period of thirty-six years.

In 1596 he was elected Provost of Eton College, and it was in this situation that he produced those lasting monuments of his profound erudition, which it is the more immediate object of this section to record. I cannot however conclude this account of Sir Henry, without adding, that when James the First succeeded Elizabeth, he expressed a wish to bestow some eminent mark of his esteem upon him.

In Winwood's Memorials, v. 2, p. 23, Sir Thomas Edmunds writes as follows to Mr. Winwood, Sept. 30, 1604.

"At the time of the Kings late being at Windsor, he was drawn by Mr. Peter Young to see Eaton Colledge, and after a Bankquett there

made

made him, he knighted Mr. Savile. The gentlewoman your friend saith that the favour cometh now too late, and therefore not worthy of her."

All secular promotion he modestly declined; but he accepted of the honour of knighthood. He afterwards founded a Lectureship in Geometry, and another in Astronomy, at Oxford; which University he further and munificently distinguished by various marks of his regard.

He died at Eton College in 1621-2; and was buried in the Chapel.

Before I proceed further in my detail of Sir Henry Savile's exertions in the cause of letters, it is proper to observe, that previously to the period of his appointment to the Provostship of Eton College, neither of our Universities had much contributed to this honourable object. The printing presses employed at Oxford and Cambridge had indeed produced very few books of any description. Immediately, therefore, on taking up his residence in the College at Eton, Sir Henry conceived the project of his celebrated Edition of the Works of Chrysostom. By this he hoped to add new lustre to his College, which, from the first foundation, and in the time of Elizabeth more particularly, had been famous for learned men. He consequently established his printing press, and prepared strenuously for his great and important work. When it is considered that he was already far advanced in years,

it must appear a bold and arduous undertaking, and almost beyond the powers of an individual.

It must not be forgotten, that hitherto the valuable writings of this eminent Father of the Church had never been collected. They had only appeared in detached and separate publications, and of these some were corrupt and others imperfect.

The steps taken by Sir Henry to facilitate the accomplishment of his object, were those most likely to render it effectual. As vacancies took place in the Society of the College, his care was exerted to fill them with the most distinguished scholars in the kingdom. He immediately also commenced a learned correspondence with other eminent men, not in England alone, but in various parts of Europe.

Among the latter, we find the names of Thuanus, Velserus, G. M. Lingelsheimius, Schottus, Isaac Casaubon, Fronto Ducæus, Janus Gruterus, Hœschelius, Sebast Teugnagel, and Gabriel, Archbishop of Philadelphia.

Among the scholars whom he either found at Eton, or whom his patronage and influence established at the College, were his brother Thomas Savile, Thomas Allen, Henry Bust, John Hales, Richard Montague, and Jonas Montague. each of these I shall hereafter subjoin a brief account, as it is my purpose to do also of John Boyse and Andrew Downes, with whom Sir Henry

Of

carried