George Ethryg

, or Etheridge, or, as he writes himself in Latine, Edrycus, was born in a mercate town in Oxfordshire called Thame, admitted Scholar of C. C. Coll. in Nov. 1534, being then put under the tuition of John Shepreve, and in Feb. 1539 was made Probationer-Fellow. In 1543 he was licensed to proceed in Arts, and two years after was admitted to the reading of any of the Books of Aphorismes of Hypocrates. At length being esteemed by all to be a most excellent Grecian, he was made the Kings Professor of that language in the University about 1553, and kept that lecture till some time after Qu. Elizab. came to the Crown; and then, because he had been a forward Person against the Protestants in Qu. Maries Reign, was forced to leave it. So that following the practice of his faculty of Medicine with good success in, and near, Oxon, especially among those of his opinion, gained a considerable stock of wealth. He mostly lived, and kept a Family in an antient decayed place of literature called George hall opposite almost to the South end of Catstreet in St. Maries Parish in Oxon, in which he took to him (in the condition of Sojournours) the Sons of divers Catholick Gentlement to be instructed in several arts and sciences; among whom was Will. Gifford afterwards Archbishop of Rheimes, who received from him rudiments in Grammar, Musick, and partly in Logick. He constantly adher’d to the R. Catholick Religion, wherein he had been zealously educated, for which he suffer’d at the reformation by losing his lecture (perhaps his Fellowship too) and by continual imprisonments to be great impoverishment of his health and estate. In a word, he was esteemed by most Persons, especially by those of his opinion, a noted Mathematician, well skill’d in vocal and instrumental Musick, an eminent Hebrician, Grecian, and Poet, and above all an excellent Physician, as it appears in certain books of his composition, the titles of which follow.

Musical compositions.

Diversa Carmina.

MS.

Acta Henrici octavi, carmine Graec. Presented in MS. (†)(†) Vide. Hist. & Antiq. Univ. Ox. lib. 1. p. 289. a. to Qu. Elizabeth when she was in Oxon. 1566.

Hypomnemata quaedam in aliquot libros Pauli Aeginetae, seu observationes medicamentorum quae hâc aetate in usu sunt. Lond. 1588 oct. He also turn’d the Psalmes of David into a short form of Hebrew verse, and translated most, if not all, of the works of Justin Martyr from Greek into Latin, with other things, which I have not yet seen. He was living an antient Man in fifteen hundred eighty and eight,Clar. 1588. but when, or where he died, I know not, nor where buried unless in the ayard of St. Maries Church in Oxon, in which his Father and Mother were before buried. John Leland who was his familiar friend did celebrate his memory (*)(*) In Princ. & illustr. aliquot & erudit. in Angl. virorum encomii, &c. Lond. 1589. p. 111. by verse while he lived, and told him thus.

Scripsisti juvenis multâ cum laude libellos,

Qui Regi eximiè perplacuere meo.