THOMAS

See also:

• WILSON, ALEXANDER (1766-1813)
• WILSON, HENRY (1812–1875)
• WILSON, HORACE HAYMAN (1786–1860)
• WILSON, JAMES (1742—1798)
• WILSON, JAMES (1835— )
• WILSON, JAMES HARRISON (1837– )
• WILSON, JOHN (1627-1696)
• WILSON, JOHN (178 1854)
• WILSON, ROBERT (d. 1600)
• WILSON, SIR DANIEL (1816–1892)
• WILSON, SIR ROBERT THOMAS (1777—1849)
• WILSON, SIR WILLIAM JAMES ERASMUS
• WILSON, THOMAS (1663-1755)
• THOMAS WILSON (c. 1525-1581)
• WILSON, WOODROW (1856— )

WILSON (c. 1525-1581)  , English statesman and critic, the son of Thomas Wilson of Strubby, in Lincolnshire,was born about 1525 . He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he joined the school of Hellenists to which Cheke, Thomas Smith, Walter Haddon and others belonged . He graduated B.A. in 1546 and M.A. in 1549• In 1551 he produced, in conjunction with Walter Haddon, a Latin life of Henry and Charles Brandon, dukes of Suffolk . His earliest work of importance was The Rule of Reason, conteinynge the Arte of Logique set forth in Englishe (1551) ,which was frequently reprinted . It has been maintained that the book on which Wilson's fame mainly rests, The Arte of Rhetorique, was printed about the same time, but this is probably an error: the first edition extant is dated January 1553 . It is the earliest systematic work of literary criticism existing in the English language . Wilson threw in his lot with the Dudley family, and when they fell, he fled to the Continent . He was with Sir John Cheke in Padua in 1555-1557, and afterwards at Rome, whither in 1558 Queen Mary wrote, ordering him to return to England to stand his trial as a heretic . He refused to come, but was arrested by the Roman Inquisition and tortured . He escaped, and fled to Ferrara, but in 156o he was once more in London . Wilson became Master of St Katherine's Hospital in the Tower, and entered parliament in January 1563 . In 1570 he published a translation, the first attempted in English, of the Olynthiacs and Philippics of Demosthenes, on which he had been engaged since 1556 .

His Discourse upon

Usury appeared in 1572 . From 1574 to 1577, Wilson, who had now become a prominent person in the diplomatic world, was principally engaged on embassies to the Low Countries, and on his return to England he was made a privy councillor and sworn secretary of state; Walsingham was his colleague . In 1580, although he was not in holy orders, Queen Elizabeth made Wilson dean of Durham . He died at St Katherine's Hospital on the 16th of June 1581, and was buried next day, " without charge or pomp," at his express wish . The Arte of Rhetorique gives Wilson a high place among the earliest artificers of English style; and it is interesting to see that he was opposed to pedantry of phrase, and above all to a revival of uncouth medieval forms of speech, and encouraged a simpler manner of prose writing than was generally appreciated in the middle of the 16th century .