Thomas Blague

Thomas Blague (or Blage) (c.1545–1611) was an English churchman and author, dean of Rochester from 1592.

Life

He matriculated at Queens' College, Cambridge in 1568. He probably graduated B.A. at Oxford, and was B.D. (Oxford) in 1574, then D.D. (Cambridge) 1589.^[1]

He was admitted, 9 September 1570, to the rectory of Braxted Magna in Essex, but was Lnon-resident. On 2 September 1571, being B.A., he was presented to the church of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, London. On 20 July 1580, he was presented by the queen to Ewelme, Oxfordshire, which he resigned in 1596. On 2 April 1582, at Oxford, being described as 'student in divinity' and one of the chaplains in ordinary to the queen, he supplicated for D.D.. On 1 February 1591, by then D.D., he was installed dean of Rochester in the place of John Coldwell,

In 1602 he, as dean, presented John Wallis (or Wallys), father of the more famous Dr. John Wallis, to the living of Ashford, Kent. In 1604 he was appointed rector of Bangor, but never resided. He died 11 October 1611. He had a son named John, who, in his father's lifetime, was a commoner of Oriel College, Oxford.

Works

He was the author in early life of A Schoole of wise Conceytes.^[2] It is a collection of fables in the style of Aesop, and is thought to have drawn on material related to the Dialogus creaturarum. He actually used 19 authors, both classical and Renaissance humanists including Erasmus.^[3] In 1603 he printed and published a sermon on I Psalm i. 1-2, which had been preached at the Charter House.

Notes

1. "Thomas Blague (BLG568T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
2. A Schoole of wise Conceytes. Wherein as euery conceyte hath wit, so the most haue much mirth, set forth in common places by order of the alphabet. Translated out of diuers Greeke and Latin wryters by Thomas Blage, student of the Queenes Colledge in Cambridge. Printed at London by Henry Bynneman, 1572.
3. Peter Hunt, Dennis Butts, Children's Literature: an illustrated history (1995), p. 13.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1886). "Blague, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co.