or LILY, WILLIAM, the eminent grammarian, was born at Oldham, in Hampshire, about 1466, and at eighteen entered Oxford, as a demy of Magdalen College. After taking a degree in arts, he travelled towards the East, and, according to Wood, visited Jerusalem as a pilgrim. Attracted to Rhodes, by the number of eminent men who had fled thither after the capture of Constantinople, he spent five years there, engaged in the study of Greek. He then repaired to Rome, and studied the ancient languages under Sulpitius and Sabinius. On his return to England, in 1509, having instituted a school in London, he was the first Englishman who taught Greek in this country. In 1510 he was appointed first master of St Paul's school, by Dr Colet, the founder. In this new sphere he laboured for twelve years, numbering among his pupils several who afterwards rose to eminence. He died of the plague in February 1523, and was buried in the north churchyard of St Paul's.

Of the Brevisima Institutio seu Ratio Grammaticae Cognoscendar, London, 1513, which is commonly known by the name of Lilly's Grammar, he wrote only the English Syntax, the Carmen de Moribus, the Rules for the Genders of Nouns, and the Rules for the Praterperfect Tenses and Supines of Verbs. The preface to the first edition was written by Cardinal Wolsey; the English Rudiments by Dr Colet; and the Latin Syntax chiefly by Erasmus. This grammar has gone through innumerable editions, the last of which is that of London 1817. His other principal works are—In Enigmatica Bossi Antibasicum primum, secundum, tertium, ad G. Harmanum, London, 1521; De Octo Orationum partium Constructione Libellus, 1540; Institutio Compendiaria totius Grammaticae, London, 1542; Monita Pedagogica, Glasgow, 1693. He also wrote Latin verses, and translations from Latin and Greek. He is styled, by his friend Erasmus, "no ordinary scholar in classical literature, and a master in the art of tuition."