William Lily (grammarian)

He was an author of the most widely used Latin grammar textbook in England and was the first high master of St Paul's School, London.

On his return journey he put in at Rhodes, which was still occupied by the knights of St John, under whose protection many Greeks had taken refuge after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks.

He then went on to Italy, where he attended the lectures of Angelus Sabinus,[1] Sulpitius Verulanus and Pomponius Laetus at Rome, and of Egnatius at Venice.

In 1510 John Colet, dean of St Paul's, who was then founding the school which afterwards became famous, appointed Lily the first high master in 1512.

Lily is famous not only as one of the pioneers of Greek learning, but as one of the joint-authors of a book, familiar to many generations of students up to the 19th century, the old Eton Latin grammar or Accidence.

[2] However Erasmus himself stated: At Colet's command, this book was written by William Lily, a man of no ordinary skill, a wonderful craftsman in the instruction of boys.

The poem is an early reinforcement of part of the reading list in Erasmus' De Ratione Studii of the Classical authors who should be included in the curriculum of a Latin grammar school.