SAVILLE, Sir Henry, a learned Englishman, was the second son of Henry Saville, and was born at Bradley, near Halifax, in Yorkshire, on the 30th of November 1549. He entered of Merton College, Oxford, in 1561, where he took the degrees in arts, and was chosen fellow. When he proceeded master of arts in 1570, he read for that degree in the Almagest of Ptolemy, which procured him the reputation of a man eminently skilled in the mathematics and the Greek language; in the former of which he voluntarily read a public lecture in the university for some time.

In 1578 he travelled into France and other countries, where, diligently improving himself in all useful learning, in languages, and in the knowledge of the world, he became a most accomplished gentleman. At his return he was made tutor in the Greek tongue to Queen Elizabeth, who had a great esteem for him.

In 1585 he was made warden of Merton College, which he governed thirty-six years with great honour, and improved it by all the means in his power. In 1596 he was chosen provost of Eton College, which he filled with many learned men. James I. upon his accession to the crown of England, expressed a great regard for him, and would have preferred him either in church or state; but Saville declined it, and only accepted the ceremony of knighthood from the king, at Windsor, in 1604. His only son Henry dying about that time, he thenceforth devoted his fortune to the promoting of learning. Among other things, in 1619, he founded, in the university of Oxford, two lectures or professorships, one in geometry, and the other in astronomy, which he endowed with a salary of L.160 a year each, besides a legacy of L.600 to purchase more lands for the same use. He also furnished a library with mathematical books, near the mathematical school, for the use of his professors, and gave L.100 to the mathematical chest of his own appointing; adding afterwards a legacy of L.40 a year to the same chest, to the university, and to his professors jointly. He likewise gave L.120 towards the new building of the schools, besides several rare manuscripts and printed books to the Bodleian Library, and a g∞d quantity of Greek types to the printing press at Oxford.

After a life thus spent in the encouragement and promotion of science and literature in general, he died at Eton College on the 19th of February 1622, in the seventy-third year of his age, and was buried in the chapel there. On this occasion, the university of Oxford paid him the greatest honours, by having a public speech and verses made in his praise; which were soon afterwards published in quarto, under the title of Ultima Linea Savilii.

The highest encomiums were bestowed on Saville by all the learned of his time; by Casaubon, Mercerus, Meibomius, Joseph Scaliger, and especially the learned Bishop Montague, who, in his Diatribae upon Selden’s History of Tythes, styles him, “that magazine of learning, whose memory shall be honourable amongst not only the learned, but the righteous, for ever.” His works are, 1. Four Books of the Histories of Cornelius Tacitus, and the Life of Agricoa, with Notes upon them, in folio, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, 1581. 2. A View of certain Military Matters, or Commentaries concerning Roman Warfare, 1598. 3. Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam, 1596, a collection of the best writers of our English history. 4. The Works of St Chrysostom, in Greek, in eight vols, folio, 1613. This is a very-fine edition, and composed with great cost and labour. In the preface he says, “that having himself visited, about twelve years before, all the public and private libraries in Britain, and copied out thence whatever he thought useful to his design, he then sent some learned men into France, Germany, Italy, and the East, to transcribe such parts as he had not already, and to collate the others with the best manuscripts.” The whole charge of this edition, including the several sums paid to learned men, at home and abroad, employed in finding out, transcribing, and collating the best manuscripts, is said to have amounted to no less than L.8000. 5. In 1618 he published a Latin work, written by Thomas Bradwardin, archbishop of Canterbury, against Pelagius, entitled De Causa Dei contra Pelagium, et de virtute Causarum, to which he prefixed the life of Bradwardin. 6. In 1621 he published a collection of his own Mathematical Lectures on Euclid’s Elements, in 4to. 7. Oratio coram Elizabetha Regina Oxoniae habita, anno 1592, printed at Oxford in 1658, in 4to. 8. He translated into Latin King James’s Apology for the Oath of Allegiance. He also left several manuscripts, written by order of King James, all which are in the Bodleian Library. He wrote notes likewise upon the margin of many books in his library, particularly Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History; which were afterwards used by Valesius in his edition of that work in 1659.[7:19:662] Four of his letters to Camden are published by Smith, among Camden’s Letters, 1691, 4to.