913 



TYCHSEN, THOMAS CHRISTIAN. 



TYNDALE, WILLIAM. 



214 



brought about at Rostock in 1789, and Tychsen was appointed chief 

 librarian and keeper of the museum of Rostock, which offices he held 

 until his death. In 1810, after having been employed in the university 

 for fifty years, he celebrated his jubilee, and received various honours 

 and distinctions on that occasion. He died at Rostock on the 30th of 

 December 1815. 



Tychsen was a man of extraordinary knowledge in his departments, 

 and with all his singularities and conceits, he promoted the study of 

 Biblical and Eastern literature more than any man of his time. He 

 undertook the laborious task of collecting the various readings of the 

 Old Testament, of comparing the earliest translations with the original, 

 and of making accurate descriptions of the moat remarkable editions 

 of the Bible. His controversies with Benjamin Kennicot were among 

 the first writings of the kind which established sound principles of 

 biblical criticism, although his pietistical tendency prevented the 

 unbiassed development of his inquiries in theological matters. He 

 wrote several dissertations on the Arabic and Phoenician languages, 

 and on the inscriptions of Persepolis. lie also made investigations 

 into the history of the various Christian sects in Asia : and was the 

 fir.-t who directed attention to the curious catechism of the Druses in 

 Syria. All these things combined to procure him a European repu- 

 tation, and engaged him in an extensive correspondence, but they 

 also produced an immoderate degree of vanity, and the presumption 

 of knowing everything, which led him into many gross absurdities, 

 and for which he was now and then severely chastised, as in his con- 

 troversies with Francis Perez Bayer, archdeacon of Valencia. The 

 most important among Tychsen's works is a journal called ' Biitzowsche 

 Nebeustunden ' (leisure hours of Biitzow), which contains many of his 

 essays. It appeared at Biitzow from 1766 till 1769, and consists of 

 six volumes. His library, which was very rich in manuscripts and 

 works on Oriental and Spanish literature, together with his collection 

 of curiosities of all kinds, was purchased by the university of Rostock. 

 It was owing to the fame of Tychsen that the Shah of Oude, Ghazi 

 uddin Hyder Redact ud Dowlah, sent to the university of Rostock a 

 copy of his splendid dictionary and grammar of the Persian language, 

 in seven volumes folio. For a detailed account of the life and 

 writings of Tychsen, see Hartmann, Ola/ Gerhard Tychsen, oder Wan- 

 derungen durch die mannichfaltigsten Gebiete der biblisch-Asiatischen 

 Literatur, 2 vols. 8vo, Bremen, 1818-20. 



TYCHSEN, THOMAS CHRISTIAN, a celebrated Oriental and 

 classical scholar, was born on the 8th of May 1758, at Horsbyll in 

 Schleswig, where his father, who gave him a sound and careful educa- 

 tion, was a clergyman. His first studies in theology and philology 

 were at Kiel : he continued them from the year 1779 at Gottingen 

 under Heyne. After the completion of his academical course he was 

 sent, together with Moldenhauer, on a scientific journey, in which he 

 travelled through Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. On his return 

 in 1784 he was appointed professor extraordinary of theology at Got- 

 tingen, and, four years later, ordinary professor in the philosophical 

 faculty. He continued here with unwearied activity until his death 

 on the 23rd of October 1834. During the long period of his professor- 

 ship various honours and distinctions were conferred upon him, and 

 he was made a foreign member of the Asiatic Societies of London and 

 Paris, and of the Danish and Gottingen Academies of Sciences. Of 

 the latter he was elected president in 1797. Tychsen wrote a great 

 number of valuable papers on antiquarian and numismatic subjects, in 

 various scientific periodicals. Among his greater works we may 

 mention his manual of the history of the Jews (' Grundriss einer 

 Geschichte der Hebriier'), 8vo, Gottingen, 1789; his edition of Q. 

 Smyrnseus, and his Arabic Grammar (' Grammatik der Arabischen 

 Schriftsprache'), 8vo, Gottingen, 1823. 



TYE, CHRISTOPHER, doctor in music, a man who appears pro- 

 minently in musical biography, both on account of his professional 

 ability and as possessor of some literary talent, was, according to Fuller 

 ('Worthies of England'), born in Westminster, and educated in the 

 King's Chapel. He was especially favoured by Henry VI1L, and held 

 the distinguishing appointment of musical instructor to Prince Edward, 

 and most probably the other children of that monarch. He was admit- 

 ted to the degree of Doctor in Music at Cambridge, in 1545, and, ad 

 eundem, at Oxford three years after. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth 

 he held the office of organist to the Chapel-Royal, for which, Fuller 

 tells us, he produced several " excellent Services and Anthems, of four 

 and five parts, which were used many years after his death;" and, 

 we will add, some few of his compositions are still listened to with 

 unfeigned pleasure, by all true lovers of the art who have acquired 

 any knowledge of its principles and are acquainted with its best 

 specimens. 



In a play by Rowley, printed in 1613, is a dialogue between Prince 

 Edward, afterwards Edward VI., and Dr. Tye, in which the illustrious 

 pupil announces his royal father's opinion of the doctor's merit : 

 " I oft have heard my father merily speake 

 In your high praise ; and thus his highncsse saith, 

 ' England one God, one truth, one doctor hath 

 For musicke's art, and that is Doctor Tye.' " 



In later days, " One God, one Farinelli ! " was said of an Italian 

 eunuch, the fanatical lady who screamed it out from a box at the 

 opera not knowing, most likely, that a similar absurdity, not to call it 

 profaneness, had been uttered three centuries before. 



Dr. Tye possessed a considerable knowledge of Italian as well as 

 English literature. He translated in verse the affecting story of ' Theo- 

 dore and Honoria' from Boccaccio, and published it in 12mo, black 

 letter, under the title of ' A Notable HUtory e of Nastigio and Trauersari, 

 translated out of Italian into English verse, by C. T. Imprinted at 

 London, in Poule's Churchyarde, by Thomas Purefoote, dwelling at 

 the sign of the Lucrece, anno 1569.' He also commenced a translation 

 of the Acts of the Apostles, in verse, of which he only completed the 

 first fourteen chapters, and these were printed in 1553 by William 

 Seres. The work was begun because, says Warton (' Hist, of Poetry '), 

 Tye "had been taught to believe that rhyme and edification wero 

 closely connected, and that every part of scripture would be more 

 instructive and better received, if reduced into verse." Combining the 

 musician and poet, he set " notes to eche chapter to synge, and also to 

 play upon the lute," and dedicated his labours " To the vertuous and 

 godlye learned prince, Edward the Sixth," his crowned pupil, who 

 certainly took a pride in and was fond of displaying the musical skill 

 he had acquired under so scientific and zealous a master. Sir John 

 Hawkins has given a specimen both of the poetry and music of this 

 work in vol. iii. of his ' History. 1 



Dr. Tye was a constant attendant at court, where his accomplish- 

 ments rendered him a welcome visitor. In his later days Anthony 

 Wood says that he became rather peevish, in proof whereof he states 

 that " Sometimes playing on the organ in the chapel of Queen Elizabeth 

 [that] which contained much music, but little to delight the ear, she 

 would send the verger to tell him that he played out of tune ; where- 

 upon he sent word that her ears were out of tune." This curious 

 anecdote appears, as a note, in the handwriting of Wood, in the Ash- 

 molean Manuscripts, fol. 189. 



TYNDALE, or TINDALE, WILLIAM, whose name is one of the 

 greatest in the history of the English reformation, was, according to 

 the commonly received account, born about 1477, at Hunt's Court, ia 

 the parish of Nibley, in Gloucestershire, the residence of his father, John 

 Tyndale, son of Hugh, Baron de Tyndale, of Langley Castle, Northum- 

 berland, who, having escaped some years before from a battle in which, 

 his party (that of the Yorkists) was defeated, had settled in the county 

 of Gloucester, assumed the name of Hytchins, Hitchins, or Hutchins, 

 and married Alicia, daughter and sole heiress of Hunt, of Huut's 

 Court. William is said to have been the second of three sons. Of all 

 this however, old Foxe, the Martyrologist, Tyndale's earliest biogra- 

 pher, says nothing ; and the story appears to rest for the most part on 

 tradition, and to have been put together in its present shape in very 

 recent times. Neither the place nor time of the battle from which 

 Tyndale's grandfather made his escape is specified ; nor do the retailers 

 of the story seem to think it necessary to account for the circurrfstance 

 of a Yorkist nobleman being obliged to keep himself concealed (as this 

 account supposes), or at least to remain divested of his titles and bis 

 property, throughout the reign of Edward IV. Moreover, the barony 

 of Tyndale of Langley appears to have been extinct for nearly three 

 hundred years before the birth of the reformer : the last baron of whom 

 anything is known died without male issue in the reign of Richard I 

 John Foxe says, that Tyndale " was born about the borders of Wales, 

 and brought up from a child in the University of Oxford, where he by 

 long continuance grew up and increased, as well in the knowledge of 

 .tongues and other liberal arts as specially in the knowledge of the 

 Scriptures, wbereunto his mind was singularly addicted ; insomuch 

 that he, lying then in Magdalen Hall, read privily to certain students 

 and fellows of Magdalen College some parcel of divinity." An ancient 

 picture of Tyndale, which has been several times engraved, is preserved 

 in the library of Magdalen Hall. Tyndale however at last removed 

 from Oxford to Cambridge; "where," proceeds Foxe, "after he had 

 likewise made his abode a certain space, being now further ripened in 

 the knowledge of God's word, leaving that university also, he resorted 

 to one Maister Welch, a knight of Gloucestershire, and was there 

 schoolmaister to his children, and in good favour with his maister." 

 At the house of this Sir John Welch, of Little Sodbury, as he is 

 called by other authorities, Tyndale held many disputes on religious 

 subjects with the clerical dignitaries of the neighbourhood, who 

 frequented Sir John's well-laden table ; and this after a time brought 

 him into so much danger, that he deemed it prudent to leave the 

 country and come up to London. After preaching for some time, as 

 he had also been accustomed to do iu the country, in the church of 

 St. Dunstan's in the West, he attempted to get into the service of 

 Tonstall, then bishop of London, of whose learning he had conceived a 

 great admiration, and to whom he made his court, by presenting him, 

 through Sir Henry Guildford, master of the horse and comptroller of 

 the king's household, with a translation of one of the orations of 

 Isocrates ; but Tonstall replied that his house was full, that he had 

 more people than he could well provide for, and advised him to seek 

 about in London where he could not long lack employment. After 

 this he was taken into the house of Humfrey Mummuth, or Mon- 

 mouth, an eminent merchant and one of the aldermen of the city, who 

 kept him for half a year, and then settled upon him an annuity of ten 

 pounds to enable him to live abroad. Monmouth, who was exten- 

 sively connected with the friends of the new opinions, and who a few 

 years after this got into trouble on that account, said in his own 

 examination before Bishop Stokesley, as reported in another part of 

 Foxe's work, " The said Tyndale lived like a good priest, studying 



