COLET. JOHN, the founder of St. Paul's School, was born in the parish of St. Antholin, London, in 1466, and was the eldest son of Sir Henry Colet, knight, twice lord mayor, who had besides him twenty. one children. In 1453 he was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he pawed seven years, and took the usual degrees in arts. Hero he studied Latin. with some of the Greek authors through a Latin medium, and mathematics. Having thus laid a good foundation of learning at home, he travelled abroad for further improvement ; first to France, and then to Italy. in which two countries he continued from 1493 to 1497. Before his departure however, and Indeed when only of two years standing in the university, being then in acolythe'e orders, he was instituted to the rectory of Dennington in Suffolk, which ho held till het death. lila father also presented him in 1485 to the rectory of rhyming in Huntingdonshire, which he resigned in 1493. At Paris he beame acquainted with Budreue, and was afterwards introduced to Erasmus. In Italy he contracted a friendship with numerous eminent persons, and especielly with some of his own countrymen, among whom were Grocyn, Linacre, Lilly, and Latimer, all of whom were studying the Greek language, then but little known in England. Whilst abroad he devoted himself chiefly to divinity and the study of the civil and canon law. During his absence from England he was made a prebendary of York in 1497, and was also made a canon and prebendary of St. Martin's-le-Grand in London. Ile returned in this year, and was ordained deacon ; taking priest's orders In the following year. Soon after this he retired to Oxford, where Erasmus came, and renewed his friendship with him. In Oxford he read public lectures upon St. Paul's Epistles gratuitously. In 1502, having proceeded in divinity, he became prebendary of Durnsford In the church of Salisbury, and in 1504 resigned his prebendary at St. Martin's-le-Grand. In the same year he commenced D.D. In May 1505 he was instituted to the prebendary of More in St. Paul's, London, and in the same year and month was appointed dean. In this office he reformed the decayed discipline of his cathedral, and introduced a new practice of preaching himself upon Sundays and great festivals.
By his own and by other lectures which he caused to be read in his cathedral, Colet mainly assisted in raising that spirit of inquiry after the holy Scriptures which eventually produced the reformation; but the contempt which he avowed for the abuses in religious houses, his aversion to the celibacy of tho clergy, and the general freedom of his opinions, made him obnoxious to some of the clergy, and especially to Fit kismet', then bishop of London, who accused him to Archbishop 1Varlism as a dangerous man, and even preferred articles against him.
Warham however dismissed the case. From Bishop Latimer's sermons it should seem that Fitzjemes afterwards tried to stir up the king and court against him.
At length, tired with trouble and persecution, Colet began to think of retiring from the world. Ilo had now an ample estate, without any near relations, for numerous as his brethren had been, he had outlived them all. Ile resolved therefore, in the midst of life and health, to consecrate his fortune to some lasting benefaction, which he performed in the foundation of St. Paul's School, of which he appointed William Lilly first master in 1512. Ile ordained that there should bo in this school a higlernaster, a sur-master, and a chaplain, who should teach gratis 153 children, divided into eight classes ; and he endowed it with lands and houses then producing an income of 122/. 4s. 7id. per annum, of which endowment he made the Company of Mercers trustees. The gross average income of S4 Paul's School was, more than twenty years ago, about 53001. per annum, and is now much larger. (Carliele's 'Grammar Schools,' vol. ii. p. 94.) To further his scheme of retiring, Colet built for himself a handsome house near the royal palace of Richmond in Surrey, in which he Intended to reside; but baying been seized by the eweating-sickness twice, and relapsing into it a third time, a consumption ensued, which proved fatal, Sep tember 16, 1519, in his fifty-third year. He was buried in St. Paul's choir, with an humble monument which lie had himself prepared some years before, bearing simply his name. Another monument was afterwards set up for him by the Mercers' Company, of a handsomer description, but it was destroyed in the fire of 1666. It had previously been engraved for Dugslale's ' History of St. Paul's.' Dean Colet's works were :-1. Oratio ad Clerum iu Convocations,' anno 1511; reprinted by Dr. Samuel Knight, In the appendix to his ' Life of Colet, with an old English translation of it, supposed to have been dune by the author himself. 2, ' The Construction of the Eight Porta of Speech, entitled Abeolutismitnus de octo Orationis partium conetructioue Libellua,' 8vo, Ants'., 1530. 3. ' Rudiments Gramma. flees,' for the use of his school, commonly called ' Paul's Accidence, 8vo, 1531). '1)aily Devotions,' said not to be all of his composition. 5. • Monition to a Godly Life,' 8ro, 1534, die. Many of his letters are printed In Emanate's, ' Epistles,' and five, with one from Erasmus, iu the appendix to Knight's ' Life.' The original statutes of St. Paul's School, signed by Dean Colet, were some years ago accidentally picked up at a bookseller's by the late Mr. Hamper of Birmingham, and by bun presented to the British Museum.
(Knight, Life of ht. John Co/et, 8vo, London, 1724; Wood, A thous aron., &e.)