Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/333

 His Latin style is neither elegant nor correct ; his English is not distinctive. His scriptural exegesis often takes refuge in mystical subtleties. His practical efforts of church reform were confined to the reissue of old rules of discipline to prevent the clergy from neglecting their duties. He was, however, among the first not only to recognise the necessity of making the scriptures intelligible to the masses in vernacular translations, but to criticise their subject-matter with any approach to scholarly method. Yet his chief strength lay in the overwhelming force of his personal conviction that the church had lost its primitive purity, and that the schoolmen had contributed less to the advantage of piety or of human intelligence than the early fathers or the classics, a conviction which impressed itself on all with whom he came into close contact, stirring active antagonism in the slow-witted or self-interested, but stimulating men of Erasmus's or More's intelligence into effective thought and action. Colet was conservative in the passionate enthusiasm with which he urged his countrymen to seek salvation in pre-mediæval usages and literature ; reformation was in his eyes conformation to a very distant past. It is almost certain that the Lutheran Reformation, which he indirectly encouraged, although he did not foresee it, would have altogether exceeded his sense of the situation's needs, and that, had he lived, he would have been found at the side of More and Fisher.

The following separate works by Colet were published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries : 1. 'The Convocation Sermon of 1512.' An undated copy in English, printed by Berthelet, probably in Colet's lifetime, is at Lambeth. Herbert and Ames mention a convocation sermon by Colet, printed by Richard Pynson in 1511–12 (Typ. Ant. 256-8). This was reprinted in English Alone in 1661, 1701, and in the 'Phoenix,' 1708, vol. ii., and in Knight's 'Life' (1724 and 1823) in Latin and English. 2. ' A righte fruitfull Admonition concerning the order of a good Christian man's life made by the famous Doctour Colete,' first printed alone by John Byddell in 1534 (copy at St. John's College, Cambridge), and reprinted by John Cawood (Bodleian). Gabriel Cawood in 1577 issued it with two other anonymous religious treatises. In later editions this book took the name of 'Daily Devotions, or the Christian's Morning and Evening Sacrifice. By John Colet, D.D.,' where Colet's ' Order of a Christian Life ' is succeeded by a number of prayers, of which he is not the author. The eighteenth edition of Colet's so-called 'Devotions' contains Fuller's notice of the dean. A twenty-second edition appeared in 1722. 3. Colet's Grammar entitled 'Joannis Coleti Theologi olim Decani Divi Pauli aeditio una cum quibusdam G. Lilii Grammatices rudimentis.' This book is almost all in English. It opens with Colet's precepts, the articles of the faith, and other religious pieces. A Latin dedication to Lilly follows, and is dated 1 Aug. 1509. After the eight parts of speech are duly treated of, 'G. Lilii Angli Rudimenta' are given in a few concluding pages. A copy dated 1527, without printer's name, is in Peterborough Cathedral Library. Several copies of an edition printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1534 are known. In 1529 and 1536 Colet's ' Æditio ' was issued with Wolsey's ' Rudimenta Grammatices,' drawn up for the use of his school at Ipswich, and first printed by Peter Treveris. There was doubtless an earlier edition, dated about 1510, but no trace of it has been found. The 'Æditio' was reprinted at Antwerp in 1535 and 1536, and in London in 1539. Lilly's Latin syntax rather than Colet's accidence is the original of nearly all the Latin grammars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Colet's numerous manuscript treatises were left by his will at the disposition of his executors. After many wanderings some are now in St. Paul's School Library, and others are at Cambridge. Many are extant in the handwriting of Peter Meghen, one of Colet's amanuenses. Their publication was not undertaken till our own time. It was begun by the Rev. J. H. Lupton, sur-master of St. Paul's School, in 1867, and completed by him in 1876. All the volumes are carefully edited, and the Latin works are in most instances translated. Mr. Lupton's publications are as follows : 1. 'Opus de Sacramentis Ecclesiæ,' the Latin text alone, from a manuscript in St. Paul's School Library, 1867. 2. Two treatises on the Hierarchies of Dionysius, from a manuscript in St. Paul's School Library ; the first treatise is also collated with Cambr. Univ. Libr. MS. Gg. iv. 26 (the Latin text with an English translation), 1869. 3. 'An Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans,' from Cambr. Univ. Libr. MS. Gg. iv. 26 (the Latin text with an English translation), 1873. 4. ' An Exposition of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians,' from Cambr. Univ. Libr. MS. Gg. iv. 26 (the Latin text with an English translation), 1874. 5. Letters to Radulphus on the Mosaic account of the Creation, and an unfinished exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, both from Archbishop Parker's MSS. in Corpus Christi Coll. Libr. ccclv. ; 'Christ's