JOHN**, dean of St Paul's, the son of Sir Henry Colet, knight, was born at London in 1466. His education commenced in St Anthony's school in that city; whence, in 1483, he was sent to Magdalene College, Oxford. After seven years' study of logic and philosophy, he took his degree in arts. About the year 1493 Colet went to Paris, and thence to Italy, in order to improve himself in the Greek and Latin languages, which at that time were imperfectly taught in our universities. On his return to England in 1497, he took orders, and settled at Oxford, where he read lectures gratis on the Epistles of St Paul. At this period he held the rectory of St Dennington in Suffolk, to which he had been instituted at the early age of nineteen; and he was also prebendary of York, and canon of St Martin's le Grand, London. In 1502 he became prebendary of Sarum; in 1505 prebendary of St Paul's; and immediately afterwards dean of that cathedral, having previously taken the degree of doctor of divinity. He was no sooner raised to this dignity than he introduced the practice of preaching and expounding the Scriptures; and soon afterwards established a perpetual divinity lecture, on three days in each week, in St Paul's Church,—an institution which paved the way for the Reformation. About the year 1508, Dean Colet formed his plan for the foundation of St Paul's school, which he completed in 1512, and endowed with estates to the amount of £122 and upwards. The celebrated grammarian William Lyle was the first master, and the company of mercers were appointed trustees. The dean's religious opinions were so much more liberal than those of the contemporary clergy, that they deemed him little better than a heretic; and on this account he was so frequently molested, that he at last determined to spend the rest of his days in peaceful retirement. To carry this resolution into effect, he built a house near the palace of Richmond; but being seized with the sweating sickness, he died in 1519, in the fifty-third year of his age. He was buried on the south side of the choir of St Paul's, where a stone was laid over his grave, with no other inscription than his name. Besides the preferments above mentioned, he was rector of the guild of Jesus at St Paul's, and chaplain to Henry VIII. Dean Colet, though in communion with the Church of Rome, was an enemy to its superstitions. He disapproved of auricular confession, of the celibacy of priests, and other tenets and ceremonies which have since been rejected by all Protestants. He wrote—*Absolutissimus de octo Orationis partium constructione Libellus*, Antwerp, 1550; 8vo; *Rudimenta Grammaticae*, London, 1559, 8vo; *Daily Decoctions*; *Monition to a Godly Life*; *Epistle ad Erasmus*; and Commentaries on different parts of the sacred books; together with a number of smaller theological works.