, one of our early grammarians, was born in Lichfield about 1480,
, one of our early grammarians, was born in Lichfield about 1480, and educated under
the famous grammarian, John Stanbridge, in the school adjoining to Magdalen college, Oxford. He afterwards made
a considerable progress in philosophy, but took more pleasure in classical and grammatical studies, in which he fancied himself destined to shine. In 150.1 he began to teach
a grammar-school, probably in London, as all his publications were dated thence. In the beginning of 1513, he
supplicated the congregation of regents of the university
of Oxford, by the name of Robert WhittingtOn, a secular chaplain, and a scholar of the art of rhetoric, that
whereas he had spent fourteen years in the study of
the said art, and twelve years in teaching, “it might
be sufficient for him that he might be ia'ureated.
” This
being granted, he composed an hundred verses which
were stuck up in public places, especially on the doors of
St. Mary’s church, and was solemnly crowned with a wreath
of laurel, &c. that is, he was made doctor of grammar, an
nnusual title and ceremony, and the last of the kind. This
appears to have conferred no academical rank, for he was
afterwards admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts. From
this time, however, he called himself in several of his works
Protovates Angli<e, an assumption which his fellow-grammarians, Herman and Lily, did not much relish. He appears indeed to have been very conceited of his abilities,
and to have undervalued those who were at least his equals.
Yet historians allow him to have been an excellent Greek
and Latin scholar, and a man of a facetious turn, but too
much given to personal satire both in conversation, and in
his literary disputes with Lily, Aldridge, and others. He
was alive in 1530, but' how long afterwards does not appear. He wrote a great many grammatical treatises, some
of which must have long been in use in schools, for they
went through many editions. They are enumerated by
Wood, and, more correctly, by Mr.Dibdin in his Typographical Antiquities. Warton also mentions a few of them,
and says that some of.his Latin poetry is in a very classical
style, and much, in the manner of the earlier Italian poets.