:: Bacon's Dictionary Part 2A ::

Abbot George (1562–1633) Archbishop of Canterbury. He was educated at Guildford Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. His servant was called Old Nightingale “and weeps when he talks of him”. (Aubrey).

Abbott A. Edwin, D.D. (1838–1926) eldest son of Edwin Abbott (1808–1882), headmaster of the Philological School, Marylebone, and his wife, Jane Abbott (1806–1882). His parents were first cousins. Edwin A. Abbott was educated at the City of London School and at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he took the highest honours in classics, mathematics and theology, and became fellow of his College. In 1862 he took orders. After holding masterships at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and at Clifton College, he succeeded G.F. Mortimer as headmaster of the City of London School in 1865 at the early age of twenty-six. Here he oversaw the education of future Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. He was Hulsean lecturer in 1876. He retired in 1889 and devoted himself to literary and theological pursuits. Dr. Abbott’s liberal inclinations in theology were prominent both in his educational views and in his books. His Shakespearian Grammar (1870) is a permanent contribution to English philology. In 1885 his works on Francis Bacon were published. His theological writings include three anonymously published religious romances: Philochristus (1878), Onesimus (1882), and Sitanus (1906). More weighty contributions are the anonymous theological discussion: The Kernel and the Husk (1886), Philomythus (1891), his book The Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman (1892), and his article The Gospels in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, embodying a critical view which caused considerable stir in the English theological world. He also wrote St Thomas of Canterbury, his Death and Miracles (1898), Johannine Vocabulary (1905), Johannine Grammar (1906), and his Flatland was published in 1884.

Alciati Andrea (b.May 8, 1492–d.1550) Born in Alzate, near Milan, whence his cognomen. His family moved to Milan in 1504, and, between 1507 and 1514, he went to Pavia and Bologna to study law. In 1516, at age twenty-four, the University of Ferrara granted him a doctorate in civil and canon law, and he then practiced jurisprudence in Pavia and Bologna. Soon renowned for his intellectual acumen, in 1518 he was invited to teach in France, where he took up his first academic post in the papal city of Avignon. Equally fluent in Latin and Greek, he regularly corresponded with notable European humanists, the likes of Desiderius Erasmus in Rotterdam and Konrad Peutinger in Augsburg. In 1521, he was made a Palatine Count by Pope Leo X. Although the prestige he enjoyed in France was enormous, he was driven to return to his homeland in 1522. Unfortunately, for the next four years northern Italy was to become the battle ground between Charles V., and Francois I., for dominion over Milan, so Alciati reluctantly left Italy in 1527 to take up academic posts in Avignon and, later, in Bourges. In 1533, he was recalled to Milan by Duke Francesco Sforza II. Back in Italy, besides teaching at Pavia, Bologna and Ferrara, Alciati worked tirelessly to re-establish political harmony, and Pope Paul II., appointed him an apostolic first notary. At the age of fifty-seven, covered with honours, he died in Pavia on January 12, 1550. His posthumously published (1582) writings on the interpretation of laws filled two volumes.

Allen Thomas (1542–1632) He was described by Fuller as having succeeded to the skill and scandal of Friar Roger Bacon. He was generally acquainted, and every long vacation he rode into the country to visit his old acquaintance and patrons, to whom his great learning, mixed with much sweetness of humour, rendered him very welcome. One time being at the home of Lacy in Herefordshire, at Mr. John Scudamore’s (grandfather to the Lord Scudamore) he happened to leave his watch in the chamber window. The maids came in to make the bed, and hearing a thing in a case cry tick, tick, tick, presently concluded that that was his devil, and took it by the string with the tongues, and threw it out of the window into the mote to drown the devil. It so happened that the string hung on a sprig of an elder that grew out of the mote, and this confirmed them that it was the devil. So the good old gentleman got his watch again. (Aubrey).

Agrippa Cornelius (1486–1535) born at Cologne. His best-known work, the treatise De Incertudine et Vanitate Scientiarum from which Bacon borrowed, though not largely, in his Advancement of Learning. Bacon’s mention of him in his work Temporis Partus Masculus.

Allen Thomas (1542–1632) Considered “in those dark times, astrologer, mathematician, and conjurer were accounted the same things: and the vulgar did verily believe him to be a conjurer.” Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, on advisements of nativities, would constantly call in Thomas Allen. Even Queen Elizabeth I., attributed him to a paradigmatic of great astrology with Dr. Dee.

Anderson Edmund. Sir (1530–1605) born at Flin borough or Broughton in Lincolnshire. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, called to the bar, and made a Serjeant in 1577. He tried Robert Brown, founder of the Brownists, as assistant judge on the Norfolk Circuit in 1581; in the same year he tried Campian, the Jesuit, on the Western Circuit. In both cases he expressed strong views as to the claims of the Established Church. He was promoted to the Chief ship of the Common Pleas in 1582, and tried Babington for treason in 1586, and Davison for beheading Mary, Queen of Scots. He also took part in the trials of the Duke of Arundel; Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy of Ireland; and the Earl of Essex. He tried Udall, the puritan, and no doubt tried to entrap him into a confession of guilt. Apart from political trials, he had the reputation of being a good judge and a sound lawyer.

Andrews Lancelot. Dr (1555–1626) was appointed to the living of St. Giles, Cripplegate, in 1589, through Walsingham’s influence. He was made Master of Pembroke Hall soon after and refused two bishoprics offered him by Elizabeth I., because he would not consent to the alienation of any part of their revenues, but became Dean of Windsor in 1601. He subsequently became Bishop of Chichester in 1605; of Ely in 1609; of Winchester in 1619. He took part in the Hampton Court Conference, and his name stands first in the list of the authors of the Authorised Version of The King James Bible. He was a very prominent divine and great favourite in the reign of Elizabeth. After completing his collegiate course at Cambridge, he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, and acted in a like capacity to Archbishop Whitgift. [Also see Whitgift]. He afterwards became Dean of Westminster and Privy Councillor for England and Scotland. Finally, he was further honoured by being made successively, Bishop of Ely, Chichester, and Winchester. Being a man of unusual intellectual gifts, he was selected to assist in the preparation of the Authorized Version of The King James Bible. His scholarly mind and able preaching were later on much appreciated by King James I., who held him in high esteem also for “his social qualities and rare sense of humour.”
His best-known work, written in Latin, was entitled Tortura Torti. Besides this he published many sermons which were edited by Laud and Buckeridge. Most of the prayers composed by him are well known, and those for special use in the consecration of churches are still employed. He saw very much of Bacon, and we may infer that he was intimately associated with him during his whole life. They died in the same year 1626, the Bishop having reached the age of seventy-one years. Bacon was in the habit of seeking his advice on various philosophical subjects relating to his works, and in the Miscellany Works, published in 1629, appears a long letter from Bacon to him, pertaining more especially to the Instauration, and he adds in this: “I have also entered into a work touching Laws. 1 So now being (as I am) no more able to do my Country service, it remained unto me to do it honour, which I have endeavoured to do in my work of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh. As for my Essays, and some other particulars of that nature, I count them but as the recreations of my other studies, and in that sort of purpose to continue them, though I am not ignorant that those kind of writings would, with less pains and embracement (perhaps), yield more lustre and reputation to my name than those other which I have in hand. But I account the use that a man should seek of the publishing of his own writings before his death to be not an untimely anticipation of that which is proper to follow a man, and not to go along with him.”
The literary fragment which Bacon has left on an Advertisement touching an Holy War contains a dedication to Bishop Andrews; and in a letter accompanying the presentation of a copy of the Cogitata et Visa one finds the following remarks: “And because you were wont to make me believe you took liking to my writings, I send you some of this vacation’s fruits, and thus much more of my mind and purpose. If your Lordship be so good now, as when you were the good Dean of Westminster, my request to you is not by pricks, but by notes, you should mark unto me whatsoever shall seem unto you either not current in the style, or harsh to credit and opinion, or inconvenient for the person of the writer; for no man can be judge and party: and when our minds judge by reflection of ourselves they are more subject to error.”

ArchBishop Parker (1504–1576) the eminent prelate of the English Protestant Church was a native of the city of Norwich. Arch Bishop Parker was educated in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. After he had taken orders, and during the reigns of Henry VIII., and Edward VI., he had various preferment bestowed upon him: of these he was deprived in the reign of Queen Mary; but when Elizabeth ascended the throne, he was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Before he became primate, he executed a metrical version of the entire Psalter either, as Warton remarks, “for the private amusement and exercise of his religious exile, or that the people, whose predilection for psalmody could not be suppressed, might at least be furnished with a rational and proper translation.” This work was subsequently printed without date or translator’s name, under the title of The whole Psalter translated into English Metre, which containeth an hundredth and fifty Psalms. The first Quinquagene. Cum gratia et privelegio Regiæ Majestatis per decennium. The other two quinquagenea are indicated by half titles. Warton states that this translation was never published; and Strype tells that he could never get a sight of it from its great scarcity. There are, however, copies extant in the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, and Lambeth Palace Library, beside other in private libraries. 2

Aristotle Born in 384 BC, Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece and died in 322, Chalcis, Euboea. He determined the orientation and the content of Western intellectual history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that through the centuries became the support and vehicle for both medieval Christian and Islāmic scholastic thought: until the end of the seventeenth century, Western culture was Aristotelian. Even after the intellectual revolutions of centuries to follow, Aristotelian concepts and ideas remained embedded in Western thinking.

Ascham Roger (1515–1568) born at Kirby Wiske, near Northallerton in Yorkshire, where his father resided as steward to the noble family of Scroope. His parents, who were highly esteemed in their station, after living together for forty-seven years, both died on the same day and nearly at the same hour. Their son Roger displayed from his childhood a taste for learning, and was received into the family of Sir Anthony Wingfield, who caused him to be educated with his own sons, under the care of their tutor, Mr. Robert Bond; and in the year 1530, placed him at St. John’s College, Cambridge, then the most flourishing in the University. Ascham applied himself particularly to the study of Greek, to which a great impulse had recently been given by the dispersion of the learned Greeks throughout Europe, in consequence of the taking of Constantinople. He made great proficiency in Greek as well as Latin, and he read Greek lectures, while yet a youth, to students still younger than himself. He took the degree of A.B. in February, 1534, and on the 23rd of the next month was elected fellow of his college, through the influence of the master, Dr. Medcalf, himself a northern man, who privately exerted himself in Ascham’s favour, notwithstanding he had exhibited a leaning toward the new doctrines of Protestantism, and had even been exposed to public censure for speaking against the pope.

He took the degree of A.M. in 1536, at the age of twenty-one, and began to take pupils, in whose instruction he was very successful. He also read Greek publicly in the university, and privately in his own college. In 1544, on the resignation of Sir John Cheke, he was chosen University Orator, an office which he filled with general approbation. In the following year, 1545, appeared his Toxophilus, or, the Schole of Shootinge, a treatise on archery, which he composed with a double view; in the first place, to exhibit a specimen of English prose composition in a purer taste than then prevailed, and in the second, to attract the attention of King Henry VIII., then on the point of setting out on his Boulogne expedition, and to obtain the means of visiting Italy, which he much desired. He succeeded perfectly in the first object, and partially in the second; for the King was so well pleased, that he settled on the author a pension of 10l. per annum at that time a considerable sum, especially to a poor scholar. Ascham about this time acquired other great patrons. He enjoyed a pension from Archbishop Lee, acted for some time as tutor to Henry and Charles Brandon, the two sons of the Duchess of Suffolk, and attracted the friendly regards of the Chancellor Wriothesly, and other eminent men. In 1548, on occasion of the death of William Grindal, who had been his pupil at Cambridge, Ascham was appointed instructor in the learned languages to the Lady Elizabeth, afterwards Queen, a situation which he filled for some time with great credit to himself and satisfaction to his pupil. Of Ascham’s own attachments, as well as methods of study and teaching, we have the best record in his letters and the Schoolmaster, written in 1563/64 and first printed in 1571.

He held fast the truth, that it is only by its own free agency that the intellect can either be enriched or invigorated; that true knowledge is an act, a continuous immanent act, and at the same time an operation of the reflective faculty on its own objects. How he applied this idea to the purposes of education, his Schoolmaster, written in the maturity of his powers, and out of the fullness of his experience, sufficiently shows. But the idea, though undeveloped, wrought in him from his earliest youth; his favourite maxim was Docendo disces. For two years the most perfect harmony subsisted between Elizabeth and her preceptor. The intervals of study were occasionally relieved with chess, at which Ascham is said to have been an adept. It is to be hoped that he had too much prudence and gallantry to beat the Lady oftener than was necessary to convince her that he always played his best. True, the royal virgin was not then Queen, or even presumptive heir; but no wise man would take the conceit out of a chess-player, that stood within the hundredth degree of relationship to the throne. Elizabeth was not the only distinguished female whose classical studies were assisted by Ascham; he taught Latin to Anne, Countess of Pembroke, to whom he addressed two letters in that language, still extant. The Court of the young Edward was filled with lovers of learning in whose society and patronage Ascham enjoyed himself fully, as Sir John Cheke his old friend, Lord Paget, Sir William Cecil, and the Chancellor Wriothesly.
He had a share in the education of the two Brandons, and he partook the favour of the youthful King, who honouring knowledge, and ail its professors, must have especially esteemed it in the instructor of his Lady Temper, as the amiable boy used to call his favourite sister. It was at this period that he became acquainted with the lovely Jane Grey, a creature whose memory should singly put to rout the vulgar prejudice against female erudition. Returning to his duties, as public orator at Cambridge, he still retained his pension, and the confidence of the worthiest persons about Court. His interest must have been very considerable, if, as Lloyd quaintly expresses it, “he hindered those who had dined on the church from supping on the universities;” He was certainly esteemed by Elizabeth, and of her he spoke with enthusiasm to his latest day, not without a pleasing consciousness of his own services in making her what she was. Thus, in the Schoolmaster, his latest work, he makes her perfections a reproach to all her male subjects. He took to his bed on December 28, and expired on the 30th of the same month, 1568, aged fifty-three. He was attended to the last by Dr. Alexander Nowel, Dean of St. Paul’s, who, on the ensuing fourth of January, preached his funeral sermon, in which he declares that “he never knew man live more honestly nor die more christianly.” As he had many friends, and no enemies, his death was a common sorrow, and Queen Elizabeth is reported to have said, that “she would rather have thrown ten thousand pounds into the sea, than have lost her Ascham. Notwithstanding his preferment, Ascham died poor.

Aspley William (fl. 1588–1637) Stationer and printer, son of William Aspley, clerk deceased, late of Raiston (?), Cumberland, was apprenticed to George Bishop for nine years from 5 Feb. 1588, and admitted a freeman of the Stationers’ Company on 11 April 1597. He lived at the sign of the Tiger’s Head in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and afterwards at the Parrot. The first appearance of the name of Shakespeare in the registers is in connection with Aspley and Andrew Wise, who obtained license 23 Aug. 1600 for Much Ado about Nothing and the second part of “Henry IV., wrytten by master Shakespere”, (Arber, Transcript, iii. p. 170). They were printed by V.S. for the two booksellers. It is worth noticing that while both the quartos have “Shakespeare” on their title-pages the name is transcribed as above. Aspley dealt largely in plays, as maybe seen by the numerous licenses obtained by him down to 1627, when his business appears to have declined. In 1637 he was made warden. The play Eastward Hoe was performed in the Blackfriars, by the Children of Her Majesties Revels. It was created by Geo. Chapman, Ben Jonson, Job. Marston, and printed in London, for William Aspley in 1605. King James I., was so displeased with this performance, on account of some sarcastical remarks upon the Scotch, that both the writers and printer were nigh being imprisoned. The Sonnets printed by G. Eld, for T. T., by William Aspley, 1609. 4to. Sold at the sale of Dr. Farmer’s library for £8; at Mr. Steevens’ for £3.19s., at the Duke of Roxburghe’s for £21, at White Knight’s for £37, at Mr. Boswell’s for £38.18s., and at Sotheby’s, June 1826, for £40.19s. 3

Aubrey John (1626–1697) Author of Brief Lives with local gossip and brief biographies of eminent persons.

1 He alludes to the Reign of Henry the Seventh

2 Farr. Select Poetry, Vol. I. 1845

3 Timperley. Encyclopaedia of Anecdote, 2nd ed. 1842

A Finding List: Part 2.

Bacon’s Acquaintances, Friends, Companions, Colleagues

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