Kay, Thomas

, the antagonist of Dr. Caius in the antiquity of the universities, was born, as Wood conjectures, in Lincolnshire, but, according to Blomefield, was of a Yorkshire family. He was, however, educated at University college, Oxford, where he entered about the year 1522. In 1525, he was elected fellow of All Souls, where he took his degrees in arts, and at that time was esteemed an excellent Latin scholar, Grecian, and poet, in 1534, he was unanimously chosen registrar of the university; but. in 1552, was deprived of this office for negligence. Soon after the accession of queen Elizabeth, he was made prebendary of Salisbury. In 1561, he was elected master of University college, to which he was afterwards a considerable benefactor; and, in 1563, he was instituted to the rectory of Tredington in Worcestershire. He died in his college, in 1572, and was buried in the church of St. Peter’s in the East. He was well versed in sacred and profane learning, but, according to Smith, negligent and careless in some parts of his conduct. He translated Erasmus’s “Paraphrase on St. Mark,” by command of queen Catherine Parr, Lond. 1548; and likewise made translations from the Greek of Aristotle, Euripides, &e. but which do not appear to have been printed. What preserves his memory is his vindication of the antiquity of Oxford, metitioned in the preceding article, entitled, “Assertio antiquitatis Oxoniensis academic,” printed with Dr. John Caius’s answer, 1568, 1574, and again by Hearne 2 vols. 8vo, 1730. Mr. Smith, in his history of University College, has nearly answered Caius’s arguments respecting Alfred. ²

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