Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lively, Edward
LIVELY, EDWARD (1545?–1605), Hebrew professor at Cambridge, born in or about 1545, was matriculated at Cambridge as a sizar of Trinity College in February 1564–5, and afterwards became a scholar of that house. In 1568–9 he graduated B.A. He was admitted a minor fellow of Trinity College on 24 Sept. 1571, and a major fellow on 18 April 1572. In the latter year he commenced M.A. (Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 407, 554). In the dedication of his ‘Chronologie of the Persian Monarchy’ he acknowledges that he owed his scholarship and fellowship, besides other greater benefits, to the good will of Archbishop Whitgift. During his residence in the university he received instruction in Hebrew from the famous John Drusius. About May 1575 he was unanimously elected regius professor of Hebrew, in spite of the fact that Lord Burghley, chancellor of the university, had recommended the appointment of Philip Bignon. His fellowship became vacant in or before 1578, when he married Catherine, daughter of Thomas Lorkin [q. v.], regius professor of physic. In 1584 Lively was one of four persons whom Archbishop Whitgift recommended for the deanery of Peterborough. On 21 June 1602 he was collated to a prebend in that cathedral (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 545).
He was one of the fifty-four learned men appointed by King James in 1604 to make the ‘authorised’ translation of the Bible, and on 20 Sept. in that year he was presented by his majesty to the rectory of Purleigh, Essex, at the instance of Archbishop Bancroft. Previously he had always been in pecuniary difficulties, but he was now well provided for. He died in 1605, and was buried on 7 May at St. Edward's, Cambridge. He left eleven children, ‘destitute of necessaries for their maintenance.’ Ussher, Eyre, Pocock, and Gataker speak in eulogistic terms of Lively's attainments as a Hebrew scholar.
His works are: 1. ‘Annotationes in quinq. priores ex Minoribus Prophetis, cum Latina eorum interpretatione … ad normam Hebraicæ veritatis diligenter examinata,’ London, 1587, 12mo; reprinted in Pearson's ‘Critici Sacri,’ 1660. Dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham. 2. ‘A true Chronologie of the Times of the Persian Monarchie and after to the destruction of Ierusalem by the Romanes. Wherein by the way briefly is handled the day of Christ his birth: with a declaration of the Angel Gabriels message to Daniel in the end of his ninth chapter against the friuolous conceits of Matthew Beroald,’ London, 1597, 12mo. Dedicated to Archbishop Whitgift. 3. ‘Commentationes in Martinium,’ manuscript in the Cambridge University Library, EE. 6. 23. It is a commentary on the Hebrew Grammar of Peter Martinius. 4. ‘Treatise touching the canonical Books of the Old Testament,’ manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, F. 106. 5. ‘Chronologia à Mundo condito ad annum 3598,’ 2 vols., manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, F. 88, 89.
[Funeral Sermon by Thomas Playfere, D.D.; Addit. MSS. 3088 f. 239, 5820 ff. 36, 43, 44, 5875 f. 10; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 1149, 1293; Anderson's Annals of the Bible, ii. 375; Baker MS. 28, f. 170; Clarke's Lives, 1683, p. 3; Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, i. 9, 10; Parr's Life and Letters of Archbishop Ussher, pp. 2, 3, 369, 378, 599, 601, 603; Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, 1779, pp. 332, 333; Plume's Life of Hacket, p. vi; Strype's Parker, p. 470, fol.; Strype's Whitgift, pp. 171, 590, fol.]