Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgh, Benedict
BURGH, BENEDICT (fl. 1472), clerk and translator, became rector of Sandon, Essex, in 1440, archdeacon of Colchester in 1465, a prebendary of St. Paul’s in 1472, and was afterwards made ‘high canon of St. Stephen's' at Westminster. He translated Cato's precepts into English verse. The opening words of Caxton’s translation of Cato’s precepts, printed on 23 Dec. 1483, are: ‘Here begynneth the prologue or prohemye of the booke callid Caton, whiche booke hath ben translated out of Latin in to Englysshe by Mayster Benet Burgh, late Archedeken of Colchester and hye chanon of Saint Stephens at Vifesmestre, which ful craftly hath made it in balade ryal for the erudicion of my lorde Bousher, sone and heyr at that time to my lord the erle of Essex.' Burgh then was probably tutor of the young Lord Bouchier, and was certainly dead in 1483.
[Newcourt’s Reportorium, ii. 517; Le Neve’s Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 341; Caxton’s Cato in the Library of the British Museum; Ames’s Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), 49; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 140.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.43
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 315 | ii | 19 | Burgh, Benedict: after Estsex' insert Burgh also edited and completed Lydgate's 'Secretes of Philosophers' (see Robert Steele's edition of the 'Secreta' for the Early English Text Society, 1893) |