Rider, John

, an Irish prelate, was born at Carrington in Cheshire, about 1562, and was entered of Jesus college, Oxford, in 1576, where he took his degrees in arts, and continued some years in the university, teaching grammar chiefly. His first preferment in the church appears to have been to the living of Waterstock in Oxfordshire, in 1580, which he resigned in 158!. In 1583, he was admitted to that of South Wokingdon, which he resigned in 1590. He was also rector of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, and of Winwick in Lancashire. He was afterwards made archdeacon of Meath in Ireland, thence preferred to the deanery of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, and in 1612 to the bishopric of Killaloe. He died in 1632, and was buried in his cathedral. To this dry catalogue of preferments, we can only add generally that he was much respected for piety and learning; but there are no particulars of his life and progress from a state of comparative obscurity to the bishopric. As he was an eminent tutor, he might owe some of his preferments to the gratitude of his pupils. He published “A Letter concerning the News out of Ireland, and of the Spaniards landing, and the present state there,” Lond. 1601, 4to; and “Claim of antiquity in behalf of the Protestant Religion,” ibid. 1608, 4to; a tract written in controversy with Fitz Simon the Jesuit, whose

| answer is entitled “A catholic confutation of Mr. John Rider’s Claim of Antiquity, and a calming comfort against his caveat,” Roan, 1608, 8vo. To this was added a “Reply to Mr. Rider’s postscript, and a discovery of puritan partiality in his behalf.” But this prelate is most remembered on account of his dictionary, “A Dictionary, English and Latin, and Latin and English,” Oxon. 1589, 4to. This must have been at that time a work of great utility, although Fuller accuses him of borrowing from Thomasius. Wood says it was the first that had the English before the Latin, which is not correct, as this was the case in the “Promptorium parvulum,” printed by Pynson in 1499, and the “Ortus Vocabulorum,” by W. de Worde, in 1516 but it certainly was the first Latin Dictionary in which the English part was placed at the beginning of the book, before the Latin part. ¹