215 



TYRANNIC. 



TYRRELL, JAMES. 



216 



both night and day. lie would eat but sodden meat, by bis good will, 

 nor drink but small single beer. He was never seen in that house to 

 wear linen about him, all the space of his being there." Tyndale now 

 left England, and proceeded in the first instance to Saxony, where he 

 is stated to have conferred with Luther ; after which he repaired to 

 the Low Countries and settled at Antwerp, where his services as a 

 preacher were very acceptable to many of the members of the English 

 mercantile factory there established. It was probably while resident 

 here that, if he did not begin, he at least executed the greater parb of 

 his English translation of the New Testament. Of this remarkable 

 work the first edition appears to have been an 8vo volume containing 

 only the text, which was printed at Wittenberg, and published either 

 in 1525 or 1526; the second a 4to, containing glosses as well as the 

 text, the printing of which was begun at Cologne and finished at 

 Wittenberg or at Worms, and which was certainly published in 1526. 

 But this account is in part conjectural, and the subject is one upon 

 which bibliographers are not agreed. These original impressions 

 appear to have been rapidly sold ; and both in England, and among 

 the English residents on the continent, the demand was so great, that 

 the Dutch booksellers found it for their interest to produce a suc- 

 cession of reprints in the course of the next few years. It was not till 

 1534 that Tyndale himself brought out a new edition, in which the 

 translation was altered and improved in a great many passages. In 

 the interim he had also printed at Hamburg, in 1530, a translation of 

 the Five Books of Moses from the Hebrew, in which he is understood 

 to have been assisted by Miles Coverdale, who afterwards produced the 

 first English translation that was printed of the entire Scriptures ; and, 

 in 1531, he published at the same place a version of the Book of Jonas. 

 During his residence abroad Tyndale likwise sent to the press several 

 tracts in vindication of his theological opinions, which were all 

 written in his own native language, and were probably mostly sold in 

 England. He was master of an admirable English style easy, correct, 

 and lucid, and at the same time full of idiomatic vigour and expressive- 

 ness: his translation of the New Testament, in particular, deserves to 

 be ranked as one of the classic works of our literature, one of the finest 

 samples we possess of the language in what may be described as the 

 first stage of its maturity, when it had attained in all essential 

 respects the form and character which it has ever since preserved, 

 although it had not effloresced into the luxuriance and full manifesta- 

 tion of its resources which it exhibits both in the poetry and the 

 prose of what has been called the Elizabethan age. Tyndale finished 

 his career at Antwerp in 1536. His translations of the Scriptures and 

 his other publications had been repeatedly denounced by public 

 authority in England; and at last, in 1534, his person was seized, by 

 the contrivance, it is supposed, of the English government, and he was 

 conveyed to the Castle of Vilvoord, or Villefort, near Brussels, where 

 he was kept in confinement for a year and a half, and, being then 

 brought to trial, was condemned as guilty of heresy in conformity 

 with the imperial decree promulgated at the diet of Augsburg, in 

 1530. Upon this sentence he was, says Foxe, " brought forth to the 

 place of execution, was there tied to the stake, and then strangled 

 first by the hangman, and afterward with fire consumed." The 

 accounts of the affair that have come down to us however are very 

 imperfect and obscure ; even the exact dates are wanting. 



A new edition of Tyndale's translation of the New Testament was 

 published at London, in small 4to, in 1836; it is very beautifully 

 executed, and professes to be printed verbatim from a copy, supposed 

 to be the only perfect copy extant, in the library of the Baptist 

 College at Bristol, of the first impression of 1525 or 1526. Only some 

 specimens are given of the alterations in the revised edition of 1534. 

 But a reprint of this latter edition has since been produced by the 

 same publisher (Mr. Bagster) in his 'English Hexapla,' Lond., 4to, 

 1841. All Tyndale's original writiugs were published, along with 

 those of Frith and Barnes, at London, in 1573, in a Yolio volume, in 

 which they occupy 478 pp., besides an index ; and there is a modern 

 edition of them, along with those of Frith, under the title of ' The 

 Works of the English Reformers William Tyndale and John Firth,' 

 edited by Thomas Russell, A.M., 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1831. In this 

 edition Tyiidale's works fill the two first volumes and seventy pages of 

 the third. The most detailed life of Tyndal is a Memoir (of 89 pp.) 

 by Mr. George Offor, prefixed to the reprint of his New Testament ; 

 but it ia a very uncritical performance. 



TYRA'NNIO (TypawW), a Greek grammarian, and a native of 

 Amisus in Pontus, was made prisoner by Lucullus during his campaign 

 in Pontus, B.C. 72. According to Suidas the original name of this 

 grammarian was Theophrastus, instead of which he was nick-named or 

 surnamed Tyrannic on account of his severity towards those who 

 studied under him. He was carried to Rome by Lucullus, and given 

 as a present to Murena, who restored him to freedom. At Rome he 

 occupied himself with teaching and study, and is said to have amassed 

 a considerable fortune. He is also said to have been employed in 

 arranging the celebrated library of Apellico, which Sulla had brought 

 from Athens, and which contained most of the works of Aristotle and 

 Theophrastus. (Plut., ' Sulla/ 26 ; Strabo, xiii., p. 609.) That he had 

 a great knowledge of books is clear from the fact that Cicero employed 

 him in arranging his library, which Tyrannio did to the great satisfac- 

 tion of Cicero. (Cicero, 'Ad Att.,' iv., 4 and 8.) That he however 

 should himself have possessed, as Suidaa states, a library of upwards 



of 30,000 volumes, is hardly credible. Cicero speaks with great 

 respect of his knowledge and his mode of instruction ; and we know 

 that about the year B.C. 56 he gave lessons in the house of Cicero to 

 Quiutus, the sou of Cicero's brother Quintus. (Cicero, ' Ad. Q. Frat.,' 

 ii. 4.) Strabo (xii., p. 548) also mentions him as one of the persons 

 whose instruction he had received. He appears to have possessed 

 considerable knowledge of geography, for Cicero attributes much 

 importance to some objections which he made to Eratosthenes ('Ad 

 Att.,' ii. 6). Cicero alludes to a work of Tyrannio which he valued, 

 but does not inform us on what subject it was written ('Ad. Att.,' 

 xii. 6; 'Ad Q. Frat.,' iil 4.) Tyrannio died of a paralytic stroke at a 

 very advanced age. (Suidas, s. v.) 



Suidas mentions a second or younger Tyrannio, whom he calls a 

 native of Phoenicia and a pupil of the elder Tyrannio, whose name he 

 also adopted, as his real name was Diocles. He was made prisoner in 

 the war between Antony and Octavianus, and was bought by one 

 Dymas, a freedman of Octavianus. He gave him to Terentia, the wife 

 of Cicero, who restored him to freedom, after which he occupied him- 

 self with teaching. He is said to have written sixty-eight works, all of 

 which are now lost. Suidas mentions the titles of some, such as ' On 

 the Prosody of Homer,' ' On the Parts of Speech,' ' On the Latin Lan- 

 guage,' ' On Orthography,' and similar other grammatical works. The 

 circumstance that a copious writer like this Tyrannio is not mentioned 

 by any ancient author except Suidas, has led some modern critics to 

 suppose that he never existed, and that Suidas has made some great 

 blunder. (Brucker, 'Hist. Philos.,' ii., p. 19.) A third Tyrannic is 

 mentioned by Suidas as the author of a work on Auguries, in three 

 books, and some other works which are not specified. 



TYRRELL, JAMES, was the eldest of the four sons of Sir Timothy 

 Tyrrell, of Shotover, near Oxford, by Elizabeth, only child of Arch- 

 bishop Usher; and was born in Great Queen-street, London, in May 

 1642. After an elementary education in the free school of Camber- 

 well, he was, in 1657, admitted a gentleman-commoner of Queen's 

 College, Oxford, where he resided three years, and then entered him- 

 self of the Inner Temple. He took his degree of M.A. in September 

 1663, and about two years after was called to the bar. He did not 

 however follow the profession of the law, but employed a life of 

 leisure in his historical inquiries and the composition of his various 

 works, residing at first on his estate at Oakley, near Brill, in Bucking- 

 hamshire, and afterwards at Shotover, for the sake of easier access to 

 the Oxford libraries. He died in 1718, leaving by his wife Mary, 

 daughter and heiress of Sir Michael Hutchinson, of Hadbury in Wor- 

 cestershire, one son, Lieutenant-General James Tyrrell, who was 

 governor of Gravesend and Tilbury Fort, and afterwards of Berwick 

 and Holy Island, aud sat in parliament for Boroughbridge from 1722 

 till his death in August 1742, at the age of sixty-eight. 



Tyrrell's first appearance in print was in a dedication to Charles II. 

 of a posthumous work of his grandfather Archbishop Usher, entitled 

 ' The Power communicated by God to the Prince, and the Obedience 

 required of the Subject,' which had been drawn up, at the commence- 

 ment of the civil war, by command of Charles I., and was now, in the 

 beginning of the year 1661, published in quarto, by Dr. Sanderson, 

 bishop of Lincoln. His next performance was an answer to Sir 

 Robert Filmer's speculations upon government, in an octavo volume, 

 printed at London in 1681, under the title of ' Patriarcha nou Mo- 

 narcha; or the Patriarch Unmonarched,' &c. This was followed by a 

 defence of the conduct and character of Usher, published in 1686, at 

 the end of Dr. Parr's life of the archbishop, as ' An Appendix to the 

 Life of the Lord Primate Usher, containing a Vindication of his 

 Opinions and Actions in reference to the Doctrine and Discipline of 

 the Church of England, and his conformity thereunto, from the asper- 

 sions of Peter Heylin, D.D., in his pamphlet called " Respondet 

 Petrus." ' Tyrrell, who with all the other deputy-lieutenants and 

 justices of the peace of his county, had been struck out of the commis- 

 sion by James II. for refusing to dispense with the Test Act and other 

 penal laws affecting the Roman Catholics, warmly hailed the Revolu- 

 tion ; and, after the establishment of the new government, he came 

 forth as a champion of that change in a series of ' Political Dialogues," 

 nine of which were published in quarto in 1692, a tenth in 1693, three 

 more in 1694, another in 1695 ; and which were afterwards collected 

 aud republished, in a folio volume, in 1718, and again in 1727, under 

 the title of ' Bibliotheca Politica ; or an Enquiry into the Autieut Con- 

 stitution of the English Government, with respect to the just Extent 

 of the Regal power and the Rights aud Liberties of the Subject,' &c. 

 In 1692 also he published anonymously, in octavo, 'A Brief disquisi- 

 tion of the Law of Nature, according to the Principles and Method 

 laid down in the Reverend Dr. Cumberland's (now Lord Bishop of 

 Peterborough) Latin Treatise on that Subject.' It is mainly a trans- 

 lation and compendium of Bishop Cumberland's work ' De Legibus 

 Naturae,' not however without additional illustrations and other 

 matter, and many changes in the arrangement and mode of exposi- 

 tion. But Tyrrell's great work is his ' General History of England, 

 both Ecclesiastical and Civil,' in 3 vols. folio (commonly bound in five 

 parts), Lond., 1700-1704. As expressed on the title-page, this history 

 was intended to be brought down "from the earliest accounts of time 

 to the reign of .... King William III. ; " but only a part of that 

 design was accomplished : the first volume coming down to the Nor- 

 man Conquest ; the second, Part 1, to the accession of John ; Part 2, 



