John Stanbridge

another noted Grammarian of his time, was born at Heyford in Northamptonshire, educated in Trivials in Whykehams School near Winchester, admitted, after two Years of probation, true and perpetual Fellow of New College, in the Year 1481, left it Five Years after, and being naturally delighted in the faculty of Grammar (tho then Bac. of Arts) he was made first Usher of the Free-School joyning to Magd. Coll. (for so he occurs in the Year 1488.) and after the Death of Job. Anwykyll, chief Master thereof; in which employment, he continued, if I mistake not, to the time of his Death, and became so happy in the practice of his profession, that many Persons, who proved afterwards eminent, acknowledged to have received instruction from him. Among such Rob. Whittington was one, by whose endeavours, as also those of Stanbridge, Will. Horman, and Will. Lilye, (all Oxford Students) the Latin tongue was much refin’d and amended. This Jo. Stanbridge was a right worthy Lover of his faculty, and an indefatigable Man in teaching and writing, as it may appear by those things that he hath published, very grateful to the Muses and publick concerns. The last of which he consulted more than his own private interest; and when in his old Age, he should have withdrawn himself from his profession (which is esteem’d by the generality a drudgery) and have lived upon what he had gotten in his younger Years, he refused it, lived poor and bare to his last, yet with a juvenile and cheerful Spirit. He hath written,

Embryon relimatum, sive Vocabularium Metricum. This I have seen Printed in an old English Character, about 1522. in qu. In the title of which, is the Authors Picture (Printed from a Wooden Cut) sitting in a Chair with his Gown on, and a Hood on his Shoulders, but no Cap on his Head, only a close one, like to a Curlot. This Book was view’d and corrected in Qu. Elizabeth’s time by Thomas Newton of Cheshire, who hath an (m)(m) Vide Illustrium aliquot Anglorum encomia, per Thom. Newton Lond. 1589. p. 128. Encomium upon it: Afterwards enlarged, and made to run in compleat Verse, by that noted Grammarian John Brinsley, sometimes a Schoolmaster and Minister in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, an. 1636. I mean the same Brinsley, who married the Sister of Dr. Jos. Hall Bishop of Norwich, and wrot and published several Books of Divinity and Grammar besides translations. Stanbridge also wrot, Parvulorum Institutiones. De ordine constructionum.

Vulgaria. With other things which I have not yet seen.Clar. 1522. He lived beyond the Year Fifteen hundred twenty and two, but when he died, or where he was buried, (unless in Magd. Coll. Chap. or Yard belonging thereunto) I know not. One Thomas Stanbridge, his Kinsman I think, took the Degree of Master of Arts in this University an. 1518. being then a noted Schoolmaster of Benbury in Oxfordshire, who dying 1522, left several Books to the Coll. of which he had been Fellow; which, if I mistake not, was Magd. College.