Brief Lives, Vol. 2

Sir Henry Savile (1549-1621/2).

[933]Sir Henry Savill[BF], knight, was borne in Yorkshire (vide A. Wood's Antiq. Oxon.).... He was a younger (or <son> of a younger) brother, not borne to a foot of land. He came to Merton Coll. Oxon. <1565>; made Warden there <1585>.

He was a learned gentleman, as most was of his time. He would faine have been thought (I have heard Mr. Hobbes say) to have been as great a scholar as Joseph Scaliger. But as for mathematiques, I have heard Dr. Wallis say that he look't on him to be as able a mathematician as any of his time. He was an extraordinary handsome and beautifull man; no lady had a finer complexion.

Queen Elizabeth favoured him much; he read (I think) Greeke and Politiques to her. He was also preferred to be Provost of Eaton colledge <1596>.

He was a very severe governour, the scholars hated him for his austerity. He could not abide witts: when a young scholar was recommended to him for a good witt, 'Out upon him, I'le have nothing to doe with him; give me the ploding student. If I would look for witts I would goe to Newgate, there be the witts[LXXXI.];' and John Earles (afterwards bishop of Sarum) was the only scholar that ever he tooke as recommended for a witt, which was from Dr. <William> Goodwyn, <dean> of Christ Church.

He was not only a severe governor, but old Mr. Yates[BH] (who was fellow in his time) would make lamentable complaints of him to his dyeing day, that he did oppresse the fellows grievously, and he was so great and a favourite to the Queen, that there was no dealing with him; his naeve was that he was too much inflated with his learning and riches.

He was very munificent, as appeares by the two lectures he has given of Astronomy and Geometry. Bishop Seth Ward, of Sarum, has told me that he first sent for Mr. <Edmund> Gunter, from London, (being of Oxford university) to have been his[934] Professor of Geometrie: so he came and brought with him his sector and quadrant, and fell to resolving of triangles and doeing a great many fine things. Said the grave knight, 'Doe you call this reading of Geometrie? This is shewing of tricks, man!' and so dismisst him with scorne, and sent for <Henry> Briggs, from Cambridge.

I have heard Dr. Wallis say, that Sir H. Savill has sufficiently confuted Joseph Scaliger de Quadratura Circuli, in the very margent of the booke: and that sometimes when J. Scaliger sayes 'A B = C D ex constructione,' Sir H. Savill writes sometimes in the margent, 'Et dominatio vestra est asinus ex constructione.'

He left only one daughter, which was[935]maried to Sir ... Sedley, of ... in Kent, mother to this present Sir Charles Sedley, who well resembles his grandfather Savill in the face, but is not so proper a man.

Sir H. Savill dyed at, and was buried at Eaton colledge, in the chapell, on the south east side of the chancell, under a faire black marble grave-stone, with this inscription:—

He had travelled very well, and had a generall acquaintance with the learned men abroad; by which meanes he obtained from beyond sea, out of their libraries, severall rare Greeke MSS., which he had copied by an excellent amanuensis for the Greeke character.

... putt a trick upon him, for he gott a friend to send him weekely over to ... in Flanders (I thinke), the sheetes of the curious Chrysostome that were printed at Eaton, and translated them into Latin, and printed them Greeke and Latin together, which quite spoyled the sale of Sir Henry's.

Memorandum:—he gave his collection of mathematicall bookes to a peculiar little library belonging to the Savillian Professors[BI].