Mulcaster, Richard

Mulcaster, Richard an English divine and teacher noted for his scholastic attainments, was ,a native of Carlisle, and of an old family in Cumberland. He received his earliest education on the foundation at Eton, under the celebrated Udal, whence, in 1548, he was elected scholar of King's College, Cambridge. From Cambridge he removed to Oxford, and in 1555 was chosen student of Christ Church. In the next year he was licensed to proceed in arts, and about the same time became known for his proficiency in Eastern literature. He began to teach in 1559; and on September 24, 1561, for his extraordinary attainments in philology, was appointed the first master of Merchant Tailors' School in London, then just founded. Here he continued till 1586, when he resigned; and some time after he was appointed upper master of St. Paul's School. Here he remained twelve years, and then retired to the rectory of Stanford rivers, in Essex, to which he had been presented by the queen. He held this place until his death, April 15, 1611. Several of his smaller compositions, commendatory verses, etc., are prefixed to works of his contemporaries; and Gascoigne has printed some Latin verses of his composition which were spoken before the queen at Kenilworth in 1575. His separate works were, his Positions, wherein those primitive circumstances be examined which are necessarie for the training up of Children, either for skill in theire book or health in their bodie (Lond. 1581 and 1587, 4to); to which a second part was promised: — The first part of the Elementarie, which entreateth chefely of the right writing

of the English tung (Lond. 1582, 4to); a book which Warton (Hist. English Poetry) says contains many judicious criticisms and observations on the English language: — Catechismus Paulinus; in usum Scholae Paulinae conscriptus, ad formam parvi illius Anglici Catechismi qui pueris in communi Precum Anglicarum libro ediscendus proponitur (1601, 8vo). This is in long and short verse, and, though now forgotten, was once esteemed. Mulcaster was a firm adherent to the Reformed religion; a man of piety, and a "priest in his own house as well as in the temple." See Gentleman's Magazine, volume 30; Hook, Ecclesiastes Biog. 7:388, 389; English Cyclop. s.v.; Fuller, Worthies of England, s.v.