Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Callis, Robert
CALLIS, ROBERT (fl. 1634), serjeant-at-law, was born in Lincolnshire, and after being called to the bar at Gray's Inn was appointed a commissioner of sewers in his native county. He was made a serjeant-at-law on 12 April 1627. His works are: 1. ‘The Case and Argument against Sir Ignoramus of Cambridg.,’ London, 1648, 4to. The lawyers were greatly annoyed by the Latin comedy of ‘Ignoramus,’ performed before James I at Cambridge, 1615, and in this ‘reading,’ delivered at Staple Inn in Lent, 1616, Callis states a supposititious law case, in order to determine in which of six persons the right exists of presentation to a church, and in the argument he introduces Sir Ignoramus, a clerk, presented to it by the university of Cambridge, who is described as being ‘egregiè illiteratus.’ 2. ‘Reading upon the Statute, 23 H. VIII, cap. 5, of Sewers,’ London, 1647, 4to; 2nd edit. enlarged, 1685, 4to; 4th edit. 1810, 8vo; 5th edit., with additions and corrections by William John Broderip, London, 1824, 8vo.
[Dugdale's Origines Juridicæ, pp. 296, 334, App. 109; Croke's Reports, temp. Car. I, 71; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser., v. 134, 204; Clarke's Bibl. Legum, 20, 323, 403; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), 349; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Calendar of State Papers (Dom.), Charles I (1633–4), 409; Dugdale's Hist. of Imbanking and Draining (1772), 417; Nichols's Progresses of James I, iii. 90.]