Christopher Wase was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 scholar, author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, translator

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

, and educator, who was the Architypographus

Printer (publisher)

In publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. With the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, printing—and printers—proliferated throughout Europe.Today, printers are found...

 of Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

 for several years.

Life

The son of John Wase of London, he was born in Hackney

Hackney (parish)

Hackney was a parish in the historic county of Middlesex. The parish church of St John-at-Hackney was built in 1789, replacing the nearby former 16th century parish church dedicated to St Augustine . The original tower of that church was retained to hold the bells until the new church could be...

. He was educated at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

, and in 1645 was admitted scholar of King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

. Wase became Fellow of King's, and graduated B.A. in 1648. In 1649 he published a translation of Sophocles's ‘Electra,’ dedicated to Princess Elizabeth

Princess Elizabeth of England

The Princess Elizabeth of England and Scotland was the second daughter of King Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France. From the age of six until her early death at the age of fourteen she was a prisoner of Parliament during the English Civil War...

, with an appendix designed to show his devotion to the Stuart house. John Walker

John Walker (clerical historian)

John Walker was an English clergyman and ecclesiastical historian, known for his biographical work on the Church of England priests during the English Civil War and Interregnum.-Life:...

 says that Wase also delivered a feigned letter from the king to Benjamin Whichcote

Benjamin Whichcote

Benjamin Whichcote was a British Establishment and Puritan divine, Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and leader of the Cambridge Platonists.-Life:...

, the Provost of King's. He was deprived of his fellowship and left England.

Captured at sea, Wase was imprisoned at Gravesend

Gravesend, Kent

Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...

, but escaped, and served in the Spanish army against the French. He was taken prisoner, but was released, and returned to England and became tutor to William

William Herbert, 6th Earl of Pembroke

William Herbert, 6th Earl of Pembroke, 3rd Earl of Montgomery was an English nobleman and politician who succeeded to the titles on 11 December 1669 on the death of his father....

, the eldest son of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke

Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke

Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, 2nd Earl of Montgomery , succeeded to the titles in 1649 on the death of his father, also called Philip Herbert....

.

In 1655 Wase proceeded M.A. and was appointed headmaster of the royal free school in Dedham, Essex

Dedham, Essex

Dedham is a village within the borough of Colchester in northeast Essex, England, situated on the River Stour and on the border of Essex and Suffolk...

. From 1662 to 1668 he was headmaster of Tonbridge school

Tonbridge School

Tonbridge School is a British boys' independent school for both boarding and day pupils in Tonbridge, Kent, founded in 1553 by Sir Andrew Judd . It is a member of the Eton Group, and has close links with the Worshipful Company of Skinners, one of the oldest London livery companies...

, where the register states that he was B.D., and educated at the school Thomas Herbert

Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke

Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, 5th Earl of Montgomery, KG, PC, FRS was a British politician during the reigns of William III and Anne....

, younger brother of William Herbert. In 1671 he became superior beadle at law and printer to the university of Oxford. He died on 29 August 1690, in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

.

Works

In 1647 Nicholas Gray, the Head Master of Eton, published Wase's Greek version of Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...

's Baptizatorum Puerorum Institutio (other editions 1650, 1665, 1668, and 1682).

In 1649, Wase published his translation of the Electra

Electra (Sophocles)

Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan...

of Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...

. It called upon Prince Charles

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

, then living in Jersey

Jersey

Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...

, to avenge the death of his father, Charles I. Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 was figured as Egist

Aegisthus

In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of Thyestes' daughter, Pelopia....

, killed by Charles as Orestes

Orestes

Orestes was the son of Agamemnon in Greek mythology; Orestes may also refer to:Drama*Orestes , by Euripides*Orestes, the character in Sophocles' tragedy Electra*Orestes, the character in Aeschylus' trilogy of tragedies, Oresteia...

. Wase appended two poems anticipating the immediate restoration of the monarchy, one of which mentions John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 and alludes to his divorce tracts

Milton's divorce tracts

Milton's divorce tracts refer to the four interlinked polemical pamphlets--The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, The Judgment of Martin Bucer, Tetrachordon, and Colasterion--written by John Milton from 1643-45 arguing for the legitimacy for divorce on grounds of spousal incompatibility...

. His Latin notebooks, many of which contain political poems written during the 1650s, are in the Bodleian library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

.

In 1654 he dedicated to his pupil William Herbert a translation of the Cynegeticon of Faliscus Gratius. Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller, FRS was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1624 and 1679.- Early life :...

 addressed a copy of verses to Wase on this performance.

In 1668, he published the first complete English-language edition of Phaedrus's Fables. In 1678, he produced a survey of free schools

Free education

Free education refers to education that is funded through taxation, or charitable organizations rather than tuition fees. Although primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is free in many countries, for example, all education is mostly free including...

 throughout all of England; in many cases, his survey is the only surviving record of those schools' existence. Considerations concerning Free Schools in England (Oxford, 1678) urged an increase in the number of schools, and the claims of scholars on the wealthy.

Besides the works mentioned, Wase also published:

• ‘In Mirabilem Caroli II … restitutionem carmen gratulatorium,’ London, 1660.
• ‘Methodi practicæ specimen; an Essay of a Practical Grammar,’ 1660; 8th edit. amended, 1682.
• ‘English-Latin and Latin-English Dictionary,’ 1661.
• ‘Latin Version of Sir John Spelman's Life of Alfred,’ 1678.
• ‘Translation of Cicero's Tusculans,’ 1683.
• ‘Animadversiones Nonianæ,’ Oxford, 1685.
• ‘C. Wasii Senarius, sive de Legibus et Licentia veterum Poetarum,’ Oxford, 1687.

Thomas Hearne

Thomas Hearne

Thomas Hearne or Hearn , English antiquary, was born at Littlefield Green in the parish of White Waltham, Berkshire.-Life:...

, in his preface to John Leland's Itinerary, refers to Wase as an ‘eminent philologer.’ His manuscripts were preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom...

. A small oval portrait is mentioned by Granger.