Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/23

Oxford Oxford to meet the new legates Gratian and Vivian, and he took them to Domfront, and was present at the interviews which ensued. In November he was sent to Benevento to negotiate further with the pope. In January 1170 he returned, bringing letters from the pope; he had secured the issue of a new commission to compose the quarrel (ib. vii. 204 seq. 236, &c.) Before many months peace had been made, and Becket was escorted to England by his old foe, famosus ille jurator decanus Saresberiensis' (Materials, iii. 115, 116, vii. 400;, p. 160). The duty was faithfully performed, and the firmness of John of Oxford alone prevented outrage upon the archbishop by his enemies on his landing (Materials, iii. 118, vii. 403-4;, p. 164). He was not at Canterbury at the time of Becket's murder; but early in 1171 he returned to the king, and during the next few years remained either with him or with his son, the young king Henry (, Itinerary, passim). In 1175 his long services received a further reward. On 26 Nov. 1175 the king, at Eynsham, conferred on him the see of Norwich, 'concorde Norwicensium. . . archiepiscopi conventia, cardinalis auctoritate.' He was consecrated 'bishop of the East Angles' at Lambeth by the Archbishop Richard of Dover [q. v.] on 14 Dec.(, Rolls Ser. iii. 403;, fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 459). In 1176 he was despatched, with three companions, to escort the king's daughter Johanna to Sicily. The hardships of the journey are fully narrated by Ralph de Diceto (Rolls Ser. i. 416-17). He delivered the lady in safety on 9 Nov., and returned at once to report to the king the success of his embassy (ib. pp. 415, 417). In the reconstruction of the judicial system in 1179 John was appointed, with the bishops of Winchester (Richard of Ilchester) and Ely (Geoffrey Ridel), 'archijusticiarius' (ib. ii. 435). In his later years he appears to have retired from political life. He was present at the coronation of King John (, iv. 90). He died on 2 June 1200. His life affords a striking example of the entire absence of specialisation among the men whom Henry II employed in his great reforms. He was, as diplomatist, judge, statesman, and ecclesiastic, one of the most active of the agents through whom Henry II carried out his domestic and foreign policy. Dr. Giles (Joannis Saresberiensis Opera, vol. i. pref. pp. xiv-xv) attributed to John of Oxford & treatise 'Summa de pœnitentia,' of which manuscripts exist in the Bodleian Library and in the Burgundian Library, Brussels. Tanner had previously assigned this to John of Salisbury. But there is no evidence internal or external to support its ascription to either author. No literary works are ascribed to John of Oxford by any contemporary writer, but he was a patron of other writers, and among them Daniel of Morley [q. v.], who dedicated to him his 'Liber de Naturis Inferiorum et Superiorum.' [Materials for the Life of Archbishop Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser), ed. Robertson and Sheppard, 7 vols.; Gervase of Canterbury (Rolls Ser.), ed. Stubbs; Garnier de Pont Sainte-Maxence, ed. Hippeau, Paris, 1859; Lord Lyttelton's History of Henry II; Lives of Becket by Robertson (1859), and Morris (2nd ed. 1885); Stubbs's Constitutional History of England; Eyton's Itinerary of Henry II; Pipe Rolls; Jones's Fasti Ecclesiæ Saresberiensis.]

 OXINDEN, HENRY (1609–1670), poet. [See ]

 OXLEE, JOHN (1779–1854), divine, son of a well-to-do farmer in Yorkshire, was born at Guisborough in Cleveland, Yorkshire, on 25 Sept. 1779, and educated at Sunderland. After devoting himself to business for a short time he studied mathematics and Latin, and made such rapid progress in Latin that in 1842 Dr. Vicesimus Knox appointed him second master at Tunbridge grammar school. While at Tunbridge he lost, through inflammation, the use of an eye, yet commenced studying Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. In 1805 he was ordained to the curacy of Egton, near Whitby. In 1811 he removed to the curacy of Stonegrave, from 1815 to 1826 he held the rectory of Scawton, and in 1836 the archbishop of York presented him to the rectory of Molesworth in Huntingdonshire.

Oxlee's power of acquiring languages, considering that he was self-educated, has rarely been excelled. He obtained a knowledge more or less extensive of 120 languages and dialects. In prosecuting his studies he was often obliged to form his own grammar and dictionary. He left among his numerous unpublished writings a work entitled ‘One hundred and more Vocabularies of such Words as form the Stamina of Human Speech, commencing with the Hungarian and terminating with the Yoruba,’ 1837–40. A large portion of his time he spent in making himself thoroughly conversant with the Hebrew law and in studying the Talmud. His only recreation was pedestrian exercise, and he at times walked fifty miles to procure a book in Hebrew or other oriental language. He was a contributor to the ‘Anti-Jacobin Review,’ ‘Valpy's Classical Journal,’ the ‘Christian Remembrancer,’ the ‘Voice of Jacob,’ the ‘Voice of Israel,’ the ‘Jewish