Christopher Wase

Christopher Wase (162729 August 1690) was an English scholar, writer, translator, and educator, who was the Architypographus of Oxford University Press for several years.

Life The son of John Wase of London, he was born in Hackney. He was educated at Eton College, and in 1645 was admitted scholar of King's College, Cambridge. 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, with an appendix designed to show his devotion to the Stuart house. John Walker says that Wase also delivered a feigned letter from the king to Benjamin Whichcote, the Provost of King's. He was deprived of his fellowship and left England.

Captured at sea, Wase was imprisoned at Gravesend, 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, the eldest son of Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke. 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, 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. A small oval portrait is mentioned by James Granger.