GROCYN, William, an English scholar of the 15th century, was born at Bristol about 1442. Designed by his parents for the church, he was sent to Winchester College, and there he remained till his twenty-second year, when he was elected to a scholarship at New College, Oxford. In 1467 he became a fellow, and though in 1479 he accepted the rectory of Newton Longville in Buckinghamshire, he continued to reside in the university city. Having been chosen reader in divinity in Magdalen College in 1483, it fell to his lot to maintain a disputation with John Taylor, professor of divinity, in presence of King Richard III., and so well did he carry himself in the matter that the king sent him a buck and five marks. About 1488 Grocyn left England for Italy, and before his return in 1492 he had visited Florence, Rome, and Padua, and studied Greek and Latin under Demetrius Chalchondyles and Politian. As lecturer in Exeter College he found an opportunity of indoctrinating his countrymen in the new learning, and had the honour of teaching Greek not only to Sir Thomas More but to Erasmus himself, who was indebted to him also for an introduction to Archbishop Warham. When, some time afterwards, Grocyn removed to London, he was chosen by Dean Colet to deliver lectures in St Paul’s; and in connexion with this engagement he gave a singular proof of his honesty. Having at first denounced all who impugned the authenticity of the Hierarchia Ecclesiastica ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, he was led to modify his views as he advanced in his investigation of the subject, and at length openly declared that he had been completely mistaken. About this time he was evidently in straitened circumstances, and though in 1506 he was appointed on Archbishop Warham’s recommendation master or warden ...