by whom she had a son named Polydore, probably so named after the historian, Polydore Vergil. According to one account (Cole's MSS. vol. xiii. f. 150) it was she, and not her husband Rightwise, who made the tragedy of ‘Dido’ acted before Cardinal Wolsey.
The only portrait of Lily is a small engraving by Edwards. In this he is represented with his right hand resting on a book bearing a lily on the cover, to which his left hand points. Below is the inscription ‘Vera G. L. effigies, ætatis suæ 52, 1510.’ Above is a shield bearing a chevron between three lily heads. This may have been taken from the lost painting of Lily, which Sir Nicholas Bacon placed between those of Donatus and Servius in the ‘little banquetting-house’ at Gorhambury, and it has served in turn to suggest the idealised figure of Lily, now placed in a stained glass window in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford.
To Colet's ‘Æditio’ (a little accidence in English, preceded by some religious formularies) Lily contributed a short Latin syntax, with the rules in English, under the title of ‘Grammatices Rudimenta.’ In the earliest edition known, that of 1527, a copy of which is in the Cathedral Library at Peterborough, this part begins on leaf D vii, with the words ‘Whan I haue an englysshe to be tourned into latin, I shal reherse it twyes or thryes,’ and ends on E v. verso. Colet's letter of dedication, addressed to Lily, is dated 1 Aug. 1509. The ‘Absolutissimus de Octo Orationis partiū constructione,’ or syntax with the rules in Latin, was published separately in 1513. Though identified with the name of Lily, Erasmus had such a share in revising the first draft of this work, that his friend modestly refused to admit the authorship, and it appeared for some time anonymously (Baker, Reflections upon Learning, p. 23). The statement of a writer in the ‘Monthly Review’ for 1747 (i. 28), that it was borrowed from a work with similar title by Omnibonus Leonicenus, is without foundation. A fragment of an edition of 1521–2, printed by Siberch at Cambridge, was found by Mr. E. Gordon Duff in the Chapter House at Westminster (Academy, 30 Nov. 1889). By 1540 the ‘Æditio’ and the ‘Absolutissimus’ were entirely remodelled and combined into one grammar, designed to become the national Latin grammar. A copy of this, on vellum, printed by Berthelet in 1540, 4to, and apparently meant for the special use of Edward VI, is described by Maitland (Early Printed Books in Lambeth, p. 207). Its title is ‘Institutio compendiaria totius grammaticæ, quam … Rex noster euulgari jussit, ut non alia quam hæc una per totam Angliam pueris prælegeretur.’ A formulary of religious rudiments is prefixed to this, as it had been to Colet's accidence, but the contents are considerably altered. A proclamation of Edward VI in 1548, continuing to enjoin the use of the book, has caused the name of ‘King Edward the Sixth's Latin Grammar’ to be given to it, but incorrectly. In 1571 a canon was drawn up and signed by the upper house of convocation with the object of making the use of the King's Grammar compulsory (Cardwell, Synodalia, i. 128); afterwards, in 1675 (26 May), a bill for the same purpose was read for the first time in the House of Lords, but not proceeded with.
By 1574 the work was issued in a form again altered, and with a fresh title: ‘A short Introduction of Grammar generally to be used,’ &c., with which was usually bound up ‘Brevissima Institutio, seu Ratio Grammatices,’ &c. A copy of the edition of 1574 is among Selden's books in the Bodleian Library. In this, which may be called its third stage, the book was used by Shakespeare, who quotes familiar sentences from it: ‘Vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur’ in ‘Love's Labour's Lost,’ and ‘Diluculo surgere’ in ‘Twelfth Night.’ Charles Lamb in a well-known passage (Essays of Elia, 1823, p. 118) plays prettily with the stately English of the ‘Introduction.’ In 1732 Dr. John Ward was employed by the London booksellers to draw up a revised edition, and in 1758 the book was further transformed and appropriated by Eton. A collection of various editions since 1515 is in the library of St. Paul's School, and another, formed by Dr. Bloxam, is at Magdalen College, Oxford (Bloxam, A Register of the Presidents, &c., i. 24). Lily's famous ‘Carmen de Moribus,’ beginning ‘Qui mihi discipulus,’ has been often inserted in other works besides the Grammar. One sentence from it (‘puerum nil nisi pura decent’) is quoted with applause by Becon (Works, Parker Society, p. 383). A curious translation of it in English verse is found in manuscript at the end of a copy of Dionysius Cato (numbered 11388 a in the Brit. Mus.)
Lily also had a share in the ‘Antibossicon’ of William Horman [q. v.], published in 1521, the outcome of a ‘bellum grammaticale’ then raging between Lily and Robert Whitinton (cf. Maitland, Early Printed Books at Lambeth, p. 415).
As a grammarian, the fame which Lily has enjoyed is remarkable, considering the brevity of the work that bears his name. Evelyn, when recommending to the lord chancellor a list of learned men whose portraits might adorn his house, names Lily next after Edmund Spenser (Diary, under 20 Dec.
