Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lyly, John
LYLY, JOHN (1554?–1606), dramatist and author of ‘Euphues,’ a native of the Weald of Kent, was born about 1554. In 1569 he became a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, but did not matriculate till 8 Oct. 1571, when he was described as ‘plebeii filius,’ and seventeen years old. According to Wood he was ‘always averse to the crabbed studies of logic and philosophy. … His genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry, he did in a manner neglect academical studies,’ yet he graduated B.A. 27 April 1573, and secured the reputation of being ‘a noted wit.’ On 16 May 1574 he wrote to Lord Burghley begging him to obtain for him from the crown a presentation to a fellowship at his college (Lansdowne MS. xix. No. 16). The application apparently failed. According to a passage in ‘Euphues,’ he ‘was sent into the country’ by the university authorities, and spent there three unprofitable years. On 1 June 1575 he proceeded M.A. at Oxford, and an entry in the bursar's book at Magdalen shows that he owed 23s. 10d. ‘pro communis et batellis’ in 1584. Meanwhile he had studied at Cambridge, and he expressed equal affection in later years for each university (Euphues and his England). He was incorporated M.A. at Cambridge in 1579.
Lyly on completing his studies went to London, and for many years he made energetic efforts to secure a place at court. At the same time—as early as 1578—he attempted literary work, and found a patron in Edward Vere, earl of Oxford. The first part of his ‘Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit’—his ‘first counterfaite’—was ‘hatched in the hard winter,’ apparently of 1578–9, and on its publication in London in 1579 he at once leaped into fame, although not into fortune. A second part—‘Euphues and his England’—followed in 1580. His literary success apparently brought him to the notice of Lord Burghley, who gave him some employment. In July 1582 he wrote to Burghley complaining that he had been falsely charged with ‘dishonesty,’ and begging some opportunity of proving his innocence to the satisfaction of both his master and his master's wife (Lansdowne MS. xxxvi. No. 76). He made some literary friendships, and in 1582 a letter of his was prefixed to Thomas Watson's ‘Hekatompathia.’ ‘And seeing,’ he told Watson, ‘you have used me so friendly as to make me acquainted with your passions, I will shortly make you pryvie to mine, which I woulde be loth the printer shoulde see.’ No poems by Lyly corresponding to those described in this letter are known to be extant.
Before 1584 Lyly entered another literary field, and began a series of plays to be performed at court by the children's acting companies connected with the Chspel Royal and St. Paul's Cathedral, and his ambition to obtain a place at court seems to have been partly realised by his appointment as 'vice master' of the St. Paul's and the Savoy companies of child actors. Some vague promise was also made him that he might possibly be promoted to the mastership of the revels. 'I was entertained,' he told the queen ten years later, 'your Majesty's servant by your own gracious favour, strengthened with conditions that I should aim all my courses at the Revels (I dare not say with a promise but a hopeful item to the reversion).' Eight pieces are positively known to have been composed by him for the 'children.' Sir. Fleay thinks 'Campaspe' was the earliest, and was performed on New Year's eve 1581. But Lyly's description of 'The Woman in the Moone' as 'a poet's dreame,'
- The first he had in Phoebus's holy bowre,
- But not the last unlesse the first displease,
has been interpreted with some justice as proof that that piece was the poet's first dramatic effort, and not merely his first essay in blank verse. 'Campaspe' and 'Sapho and Phao' were the first to be published, and they appeared in 1584.
Before the children's companies of St. Paul's were inhibited in 1690, Lyly sought new occupation by flinging himself, like other men of letters, into the Martin Mar-Prelate controversy. He vigorously championed the cause of the bishops. His only known contribution was a tract entitled 'Pappe with an Hatchet. Alias, A Figge for my God sonne. Or Cracke me this Nut. Or a Countrie Cuffe, that is a sound boxe of the eare, for the idiot Martin to hold his peace, seeing the patch will take no warning.' The terms of the title represent the rough energy with which the author assaults his puritan foe. It was probably privately printed in September 1589. The author conceals his identity under the pseudonym of 'Double V,' but Lyly was declared without contradiction by Gabriel Harvey in 1590 to be the writer, when Harvey replied to the tract in his scurrilous 'Advertisement for Papp-Hatohett and Martin Mar-Prelate,' which he appended to his 'Pierce's Supererogation.' Harvey and Lyly had been friends, but Harvey had been prosecuted by Lyly's patron, the Earl of Oxford, for libelling him in his 'Speculum Tuscanismi,' and Harvey credited Lyly with first rousing the earl's suspicions of that book (cf. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iv. 332). Euphues, Harvey now wrote, 'was some way a pretty fellow: would God Lilly had always been Euphues and never Papp-Hatchett' (Harvey, Works, ed. Grosart,ii. 124). 'Euphues,' Harvey proceeds, 'it is good to be merry, and Lyly it is good to be wise, and Papp-Hatchett it is better to lose a new jest than an old friend' (ib. p. 125). In Harvey's opinion Lyly's tract consisted of 'ale-house and tinkerly stuff,' hut he added Lyly 'hath not played the vice-master of Poules and the foolmaster of the theatre for naught: himself a mad lad, as ever twanged, never troubled with any substance of wit or circumstance of honesty, sometime the fiddlestick of Oxford, now the very babble of London.' Lyly's responsibility for the 'Pappe with an Hatchet' has been disputed, but Harvey's evidence seems incontrovertible. William Masked, in his 'History of the Martin Marprelale controversy' (1845), while expressing doubt as to the authorship of the 'Pappe,' credits Lyly, on general grounds of style, with another pamphlet issued in the same interest, 'An Almond for a Parrott,' but the argument is not at all conclusive (p. 214). Collier asigns the 'Pappe' to Nashe. It was reissued in Petheram's 'Puritan Discipline Tracts' in 1844. Nashe, in his 'Have with you to Saffron Walden,' when replying to Harvey's personal abuse of himsell, denied that Lyly (as Harvey hinted) first procured him and Greene to attack Harvey, and announced that Lyly intended to retaliate on Harvey, but Lyly in a further tract seems to have wisely withdrawn from the contest.
Lyly entered parliament as member for Hindon in 1589, and was subsequently elected for Aylesbury in 1593, for Appleby in 1597, and again for Aylesbury in 1601. But he waa still ambitious of court office. About 1691 he reminded the queen, in a piteously worded petition, that he nod waited ten years, 'with unwearied patience,' for some substantial recognition of her favour. 'If your sacred majesty think me unworthy,and that after ten years' tempest I must at the court suffer shipwreck of my time, my wits, my hopes, vouchsafe, in your never-erring judgment, some plank or rafter to waft me into a country where in my sad and settled devotion I may in every corner of a thatched cottage write prayers instead of plays, prayer for your long and prosperous life, and a repentance that I have played the fool so long.' Three years later he renewed his complaints. He had abandoned all hope of the mastership of the revels, but 'the just fall of these most false traitors' — apparently a reference to Roderigo Lopez [q. v.] and his associates — gave him hope of receiving a share of their forfeited property. 'Thirteen years,' he cried, your highness's servant, but yet nothing. Twenty friends that though they say they will be sure, I find them sure to be slow. A thousand hopes, but all nothing; a hundred promises, but yet nothing.' Finally he asks permission to dedicate to the queen 'Lillie de Tristibus, wherein shall be seen patience labours and misfortunes,' and suggests that he should be released from the demands of his creditors.
In 1597 Lyly contributed Latin verses in the queen's praise to the 'Ecclesiastes' of his friend Henry Lok [q. v.], and saw through the press three plays in 1597, 1600, and 1601, respectively. 'John Lyllie, gent.' was buried 'in the church of St. Bartholomew-the-Less on 30 Nov. 1606. Nashe describes him as a small man and a confirmed tobacco-smoker. He was married. A son John was baptised at St. Bartholomew's Church on 10 Sept. 1596, and was buried at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, 27 Aug. 1597. Another son John was baptised at St. Bartholomew's, 3 July 1600, and a daughter, Frances, 21 May 1603.
'Euphues,' Lyly's chief work, appeared in two parts. The first, 'Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit,' was licensed to the printer, Gabriel Cawood, on 2 Dec. 1578, and was published the next year. Of this edition a copy, believed to be unique, belongs to Professor Henry Horley, and wants the title-page. A second edition, corrected and augmented, appeared later in 1575. A copy is in the Bodleian Library. The title-page begins; 'Euphues. The Anatomy of Wit. Verse pleasaunt for all Gentlemen to read and most necessarie to remember;' and it is dedicated to Sir William West, Earl de la Warr. Other editions of the first part are dated 1581 (Brit. Mus.), 1585, 1597 (Brit. Mus.), 1607 (ib.), 1613 (ib.), 1617 (ib.), 1623 (ib. ) and 1636 (ib.) The second part, called 'Euphues and his England,' was licensed to Cawood on 24 July 1579, and was twice issued in 1580 as 'Euphues and his England, containing his Voyage and Aduentures, myxed with sundry pretie Discourses of honest Loue, the Discription of the Countrey, the Court, and the Manners of that Isle.' It is dedicated to Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford. A unique copy of the first 1580 edition belongs to Mr. Morley and a unique copy of the second 1580 edition to the Bodleian Library. Later editions are dated 1582, 1585, 1597 (Brit. Mus.), 1603, 1613, 1617, 1623, 1631, and 1636. Editions of the first part, dated 1580, 1626, and 1630, and of the second part dated 1581 are mentioned by Malone; they are not now known to be extant. Careful reprints of the earliest editions of both parts were issued by Professor Arber in 1868, and by Dr. Friedrich Landmann at Heilbronn in 1887.
A Dutch translation appeared at Rotterdam in 1671 ('De vermakelijke Historie, Zeean Landreise van Euphues'), and was reissued at Amsterdam in 1682. A modernised version, entitled 'Euphues and Lucilla, or the False Friend and the Inconstant Mistress' to which is added 'Ephœbus, or Instructions for the Education of Youth,' appeared in London in 1716. A new edition of 1718 was called 'The False Friend and Inconstant Mistress, an instructive Novel, to which is added "Love's Diversion."' Both editions were dedicated to Lord de la Warr.
'Euphues' is a very tedious story, relating the adventures, correspondence, and conversations of a young gentleman of Athens, who gives his name to the work, and of his friend Philautus, a native of Naples. The young men are engaged in the pursuit of a strictly moral training. The scene of the first part is laid in Naples, that of the second part in England. There is practically no action, and the author mainly discusses educational or religious problems, love, and the proper conduct of life. The section on education, called 'Euphues and his Ephœbua,' is directly borrowed from Plutarch on 'Education' (cf. Plutarch, Philosophie, transl. Holland, 1608, pp. 2 sq.) When treating of England, the author introduces some shrewd comments on the extravagances of his contemporaries' fashions of dress. But the leading interest of the book lies in its prose style, which is chiefly characterised by a continuous straining after antithesis and epigram. Lyly, when enforcing bis sententious moralisings, delights in long series of short parallel sentences, all in the same syntactical form, and embodying fantastic similes drawn from natural history or classical mythology. Pliny's 'Natural History' appears to have supplied him with many of his illustrations, as Plutarch supplied him with much of his sentiment. He had at the same time an ear for alliteration, and was liberal in the use of the rhetorical question.
The monotonous structure of his sentences wearies the modern reader. In his own day the novelty of his style was generally acknowledged, and received the name of 'Euphuism.' Its source has been much disputed. There is nothing inherent in Lyly's pedantry to confute the simple theory that it was the unaided outcome of his own ingenuity. The age encouraged experiments in literary forms, and contemporary verse-writers were in the habit of inventing eccentric metres in order to give their readers novel sensations. But Lyly's originality as the inventor of euphuism has been denied. A well-known Spanish writer, Antonio de Guevara, wrote early in the century a book that, like 'Euphues,' discussed the training of young men, and was couched in an affected style, not altogether unlike euphuism. Guevara subsequently enlarged his work, and it is extant both in a brief original and in a larger amplified shape (1529). Both forms attracted notice in France, and thence found their way into England. The work in its earlier form was translated by Lord Berners, from the French, as 'The Golden Book of Mark Aurelie,' in 1534, and this translation had passed through seven editions by 1580. The later amplification was rendered into English, also through the French, by Sir Thomas North, as 'The Dial of Princes," in 1557 (2nd edit., revised, 1668). In matter and manner Lyly's work bears occasional resemblance to both Berners's and North's translations; but in considering Lyly's relations with Guevara, it must be borne in mind that Lyly only knew the Spanish author in English translation made not from the Spanish original, hut from French versions. Hence Guevara's prose reached him after it had been twice diluted. Lyly's affectations are far more marked than those of Guevara, and his claim to originality can only he slightly affected by a comparison of 'Euphues' with 'Marcus Aurelius.' Guevara's iniluence on English prose style seems to have been overestimated. Many other of his books besides his 'Marcus Aurelius' were popular in English translations, but 'euphuistic' pedantries are rarely apparent there. On the other hand, 'euphuistic' charac- teristics are traceable in the 'Palace of Pleasure' (1566) of Pettie, who certainly knew parts of the galliciaed Quevara, but was not extensively indebted to that work. Lyly doubtless read Pettie's book, and it is quite consistent with the conditions of the problem to credit Pettie with as much influence on Lyly's style as Guevara.
Of the favour that Lyly's prose found at Elizabeth's court many proofs are extant. Edward Blount, in an address to the reader prefixed to his edition of 'Lyly's Comedies' (1632), wrote of the author: 'Our Nation are in his debt for a new English which he taught them. "Euphues and his England" began first that language. All our Ladies were then his Schollers; and that Beautie in Court which could not Parley Euphueisme was as little regarded as she which now there speaks not French.' 'Euphues' was avowedly intended to interest the ladies; 'it had rather lye shut (its author wrote) in a ladye's casket than open in a scholler's studio.' In 1586 William Webbe, in his 'Discourse of English Poetrie,' described Lyly as excelling in eloquence all earlier English prose writers. His fit phrases, pithy sentences, gallant trmies, flowing speech, and plain sense justified, in Webbe's judgment, the application to Lyly of 'that verdict which Quintillian giveth of both the best Orators, Demosthenes and Tully, that from the one nothing may be taken to the other nothing may be added.' Men of letters vied with each other in issuing sequels to Lyly's novel. Robert Greene, called by Harvey the ape of 'Euphues,' was one of his most persistent imitators. John Eliot in 1588, when addressing Greene in a French sonnet (prefixed to the latter's 'Perimedes'), spoke of Greene and Lyly as 'tous deux rastineurs de l'Anglois.' In 1587 Greene published 'Euphues his Censure to Philautus.' 'Gentlemen,' Greene here informs his readers, 'by chance some of Euphues' loose papers came to my hand, wherein hee writ to his friend Philotid from Silexedra certaine principles necessary to be observed by every souldier.' Two years later Greene issued 'Menaphon: Camilla's Alarum to slumbering Euphues.' Among similar publications were Antony Munday's 'Zelauto . . . containing a Delicate Disputation' (1580); Lodge's 'Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie, found after his death in his cell at Silexedra,' 1590; and John Dickenson's 'Arisbas: Euphues amidst his Slumbers,' 1594.
But an inevitable revolt against the tyranny of euphuism arose at an early date. Sidney, in 'Astrophel and Stella,' complained of 'the dainty wits enam'ling with py'd flowers their thoughts of gold,' or those who 'with strange similes enrich each line'
- Of herbs and beasts which Ind and Africk hold.
Nashe, although in 'Wit's Miserie' (1506) called Lyly 'famous for facility in discourse,' also described him in his 'Summer's Last Will' as 'one of those hieroglyphical writers that by the figures of beasts, plants, and stones express the mind as we do in A B C,' and declared in his 'Strange Newes,' 1592, 'that he had not read Euphues for ten years, I and 'to imitate it I abhor, otherwise than it' imitates Plutarch, Ovid, and the choicest Latin writers.' Numerous passages have been pointed out in Shakespeare's plays as proofs of his extensive indebtedness to Lyly's 'Euphues' for sentiments and phrases (cf. W. L. Rushton, Shakespeare's Euphuism, London, 1871), but in the majority of cases the resemblances are too slender to warrant any definite conclusion. Polonius's advice to Laertes is not unlike Euphues's advice to Philautus, but many other parallels for it might be found. It is more certain that Shakespeare very vaguely ridiculed Lyly's style in his earliest comedy, 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and accurately caricatured its vapid artificiality in Falaff's remark, 'Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears’ (First Part of Henry IV, ii. iv. 438–61: cf. Euphues, p. 46). Like sarcasm at Lyly's expense figures in the ‘Return from Parnassus’ (ed. Macray, p. 72) in such expressions as ‘There is a beast in India called a polecat, that the further she is from you the less she stinks,’ &c. As early as 1589 Henry Upchear, in verses prefixed to Greene's ‘Menaphon,’ remarked on the declining popularity of Lyly's ‘labouring beauty.’ Harvey, perhaps scarcely a disinterested witness, declared that he could not ‘stand . . . euphuing of similes alla Savoica’ in reference to Lyly's connection with the Savoy—and wrote later, in his ‘Rhetor:’ ‘The finest wits prefer the loosest period in M. Ascham, or Sir Philip Sidney, before the tricksiest page in "Euphues" or "Paphatchet." ’ Ben Jonson ridiculed Lyly in the character of Fastidious Brisk in ‘Every Man out of his Humour’ (1599), and returned to the topic in ‘Cynthia's Revels.’ Wither, in ‘Britains Remembrancer,’ congratulated himself that Lyly's fashion had passed away; while Drayton in 1627, in his ‘Of Poets and Poesie,’ eulogised Sidney for having first reduced
Our tongue from Lillies writing then in use
Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of Fishes, Flyes
Playing with words and idle Similes.
Sir Walter Scott attempted, with doubtful success, to portray the character of a disciple of Lyly in Sir Piercie Shafton in ‘The Monastery’ (1820). In 1855 Charles Kingsley, in his ‘Westward Ho!’ essayed the impossible task of rolling back the flood of ridicule that had overwhelmed ‘Euphues,’ and declared it to be, ‘in spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as brave, pious, and righteous a book as man need look into.’
In his own days Lyly was reckoned by Meres among 'the best for comedy,' and is described as 'eloquent and witty' (Palladis Tamia, 1598). The plots and the names of his characters in his plays are mainly drawn from classical mythology. The 'Endymion' is partly based on Lucian's dialogue between the Moon and Venus; 'Galathea' on Ovid's 'Metamorphoses,' bk. ix., although Lyly transfers the scene to North Lincolnshire; 'Sapho and Phao' on Ovid's 'Epistles;' and 'Midas' on Apuleius's 'Golden Ass.' 'Campaspe' owes something to Pliny's 'Natural History,' xxxv., 10. The three best plays, 'Alexander and Campaspe,' 'Midas,' and 'Endymion,' have much classical elegance, and reminded Hazlitt of the graceful communicativeness of Lucian or of Apuleius, authors to whom Lyly was deeply indebted. But the plots are loosely fashioned, and, in spite of many beautiful passages, the artificiality of the language palls on the modern reader. Lamb quotes two attractive passages from 'Love's Metamorphosis' and 'Sapho and Phao' respectively in his 'Specimens,' and Hazlitt the best scene in 'Endymion' in his 'Lectures on Elizabethan Literature.' 'Mother Bomble'—of the type of the 'Comedy of Errors'—is overweighted by its 'crude conceits and clumsy levity.' The heroine is a fortune-teller of Kent: the form of the piece follows the old Latin comedy. Except 'The Woman in the Moone,' which is in blank verse, all the plays are in more or less euphuistic prose. Their most attractive features are the lyrics, which were not published in the quartos, but first appeared in Blount's collected edition of 1632. The 'Song by Apelles' in 'Campaspe,' beginning 'Cupid sang, Campaspe played,' has found its way into numberless anthologies. Lyly's blank verse is very regular, but lacks pliancy, and some doubts have been expressed whether Lyly has shown elsewhere sufficient capacity to make it altogether probable that he was author of the lyrics which were not associated with his name in his lifetime. Shakespeare seems indebted to Lyly's 'Endymion' for some hints in his 'Midsummer-Night's Dream.'
Lyly doubtless contrived amid his classical allusions to introduce some half-concealed compliments concerning Queen Elizabeth: but the attempts made by recent critics to detect in most of his plays veiled comments on current politics have not at present proved very successful. Endymion has been identified with Leicester, Midas of Phrygia with Philip of Spain, and so forth, but the grounds of identification are disputable.
The titles of the plays are, in order of publication: 1. 'Alexander and Campaspe, played before the Queenes Majestie on Twelfe Day at night, by her Majesties Children and the Children of Paules,' London (for Thomas Cadman), 1584: reissued as 'Campaspe' in the same year and in 1591. 2. 'Sapho and Phao, played before the Queenes Majestie on Shrove Tuesday, by her Majesties Children and the Children of Paules,' London (by Thomas Cadman), 1584, 1591. 3. 'Endimion, the Man in the Moone, played before the Queenes Majestie at Greenewich on New Yeares Day at night, by the Children of Paules,' London (by I. Charlwood for the widow Broome), 1591; this and the two succeeding pieces were jointly licensed by the Stationers' Company 4 Oct. 1591. 4. 'Gallathea, played before the Queenes Majestie at Greenwich, on New Yeeres Day at night, by the Children of Pauls,' London (by John Charlwood for the Widdow Broome), 1592. 5. 'Mydas, played before the Queenes Majestie upon Twelfe Day at night, by the Children of Pauls,' London (by Thomas Scarlet for I. B.), 1592. 6. 'Mother Bombie, as it was sundry times plaved by the Children of Pauls,' London (by Thomas Scarlet for Cuthbert Burby), 1594, 1598. 7. 'The Woman in the Moone, as it was presented before her Highness; by John Lyllie, Maister of Artes. Imprinted at London for William Jones, and are to be sold at the Signe of the Gun, neere Holburne Conduict,' 1597. 8. 'Love's Metamorphosis, a wittie and courtly Pastorall, written by Mr. John Lyllie, first play'd by the Children of Paules, and now by the Children of the Chappell. London, printed by William Wood, dwelling at the West end of Paules, at the Signe of Time,' 1601. Six of these pieces (Nos. 1-6) were collected by Edward Blount [q. v.] in 1632 as 'Six Courte Comedies. . . . Written by the only rare jewel of that time, the wittie, comicall, facetiously quiche and unparalleled John Lilly, Master of Arts' (by William Stansby for Edward Blount). A copy sold at the sole of Ludwig Tieck's books in Berlin in 1849 was said to contain Oliver Cromwell's autograph (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 46). The eight plays were edited by F. W. Fairholt in 1868.
Lyly has also been credited with two plays published anonymously. The first, 'The Warning for Faire Women,' 1599, has no pretensions at all to be assigned to Lyly. The second is 'The Maydes Metamorphosis, as it hath been aundrie times acted by the Children of Powles,' London, printed by Thomas Creede, for Richard Olive, dwelling in Long Lane, 1600. It is a pastoral play in rhymed verse, and the style is hardly compatible with Lyly's authorship. But the fairies' songs in act iii. resemble those in 'Endymion,' and the lyrics throughout are worthy of those in Lyly's plays. The theory that the piece was an early effort of John Day deserves attention. Mr. Fleay improbably assigns it to Daniel. The play was reprinted in Mr. A. H. Bullen's 'Collection of Old English Plays,' 1st ser. 1882, i. 99 et seq.
Lyly usually spelt his surname thus. The form Lilly is a common variant.
[Arber's edition of Euphues, 1858; Landmann's Euphuismus, GiBSaeti, 1881, his edition of Euphues, 1887. and his paper in the New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1880-5, pt. ii. pp. 214-77; Huon of Bordeaux, edited by the present writer, 1883-8, pt. iv. pp. 785 sq. (Early English Text Soc.); Morley's English Writers, viii. 305 sq., ix. 197 sq.; Fairholt's edition of Lyly's Plays, 1858; Collier's Hist. of Dramatic Poetry; Jusierand's English Noval in the Time of Shakespeare; Fleay's Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, s. v. Lilly; Wood's Athena Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 676; Cooper's Athene Cantab. ii. 326.]
LYNAM, ROBERT (1796–1845), miscellaneous writer, son of Charles Lynam, spectacle-maker, of the parish of St. Alphage, London Wall, was born in London on 14 April 1796. He was admitted to Christ's Hospital in March 1806, passed thence as a Grecian in 1814 (Trollope, Hist. of Christ's Hospital, p. 307), graduated B.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, and proceeded M.A. in 1821. He was appointed assistant mathematical master at Christ's Hospital in 1818, and was promoted in 1820 to be fourth grammar master—a post which he resigned in 1832 for that of assistant chaplain and secretary to the Magdalene Hospital, having previously taken orders. He was St. Matthew's day preacher at Christ's Hospital in 1821 and 1835, and was subsequently curate and lecturer of Cripplegate Without until his death in Bridgewater Square, London, on 12 Oct. 1845. He left a widow and nine children. Lynam's portrait was engraved by Adlard, after Hervé.
Besides some sermons Lynam published: 1. ‘The History of England during the Reign of George III,’ London, 1825; short and perspicuous. 2. ‘The History of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to the Death of Marcus Antoninus,’ 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1850, with portrait; published after the author's death by the Rev. J. T. White, a master at Christ's Hospital; though based too exclusively on Tacitus and Suetonius, it is not without merit, but had the misfortune to appear almost simultaneously with Merivale's ‘Romans under the Empire,’ and never attracted the slightest attention. Lynam is chiefly remembered as an editor. He edited with a memoir, and revised 1. The fifteenth edition of the translation of Charles Rollin's ‘Ancient History,’ 8 vols. 1823. 2. ‘The Complete Works of Philip Skelton, rector of Fintona,’ 6 vols. 1824, dedicated to John Plumtre, dean of Gloucester. 3. ‘The Complete Works of William Paley, with Life and Extracts from his Correspondence,’ 4 vols. 8vo, 1825. 4. ‘The Works of Samuel Johnson,’ 6 vols. 1825. 5. The ‘Edinburgh Mirror’ (1779–80), with introductory preface and notices of the chief contributors [see Mackenzie, Henry, ‘The Man of Feeling’], London, 1826. 6. ‘The British Essayist, with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, with Portraits,’ 30 vols. London, 12mo, 1827; a sound compilation, which, however, never succeeded in supplanting
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.187
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 328 | ii | 27-28 | Lyly, John: for Harvey, but Lyly in a further tract read Harvey in a further tract, but Lyly |
| 331 | ii | 21 | for sang, read and my |