14. *Shepery, John. HYPPOLITVS OVIDIANÆ | PHAEDRAE RES-|PONDENS, PER IOAN-|NEM SCHEPREVVM SOMA-|TO CHRISTIANVM. | [device.]
Impr. 8: [1586]: (eights) 12o: pp. [80], signn. *,A-D8: sign. B 1r beg. Scilicet expectas: Pica Italic. Contents:—sign. *1r, title: *2r-*7v, “Ioannis Schepreui præfatio, in epistolam Hyppoliti sui ad Phædram, ad M. Guadum dedicatam,” in Latin elegiacs: *8r-*8v, “Candido lectori Georgius Edrychus medicus S. P. D.,” a Latin preface: A 1r-D 8r, the poem.
See Wood’s Ath. Oxon., i. 135. This work is an imaginary reply of Hippolytus to the temptations of Phaedra, in Ovidian elegiacs. The author, John Shepery, of Corpus Christi College (“Somatochristianus”), tells us in the preface that it was composed as a return for kindness shown him by one Guadus (Wade ?, whom the editor describes as a chaplain to Henry viii), but delayed for some years. Shepery died in 1542, aged 32 years. George Etheridge (“Edrychus”) was a pupil of Shepery, fellow of Corpus, and a Roman Catholic.
The date is fixed at 1586 by two passages: Etheridge in his preface states that for about 53 years he had been a member of the University: he was admitted scholar of Corpus in Nov. 1534. Also Dr. Humphrey in his introduction to the Summa et synopsis (see below) alludes to the Hippolytus as “nuperrime impressum.” Wood places the date at about 1584, and the Bodleian catalogue of 1843 assigns the book to 1542, owing to the date of Shepery’s death, which happens to occur prominently at the end of Etheridge’s preface.
15. Shepery, John. SVMMA | ET SYNOPSIS | NOVI TESTAMEN-|TI DISTICHIS DV-|CENTIS SEXAGIN-|TA, QVAE TOTI-|DEM CAPITIBVS | RESPONDENT, | comprehensa: | Prior a IOANNE SCHEPREVO | Oxoniensi olim conscripta: Posterior ex Erasmi | Roterodami Editione decerpta: Tyrunculis & om-|nibus pietatis & Theologiæ candidatis non inutilis, à | Lavrentio Hvmfredo recognita, & iu-|uandæ memoriæ causâ, edita: | Cui præmissa est eiusdem | De Scholis & studijs Christianorum piè & metho-|dicè instituendis breuis Admonitio. | [motto by L. H.(umfrey).]
Impr. 5: 1586: (eights) 16o: pp. [62], signn. A-B8 C9 (see below) D6: sign. B 1r beg. disticha Ioannis: Pica Italic. Contents:—sign. A 1r, title: A 2r-A 8r “Admonitio Laurentii Humfredi ad Studiosos”: A 8v, “Librorum Novi Testamenti elenchus & ordo per Cor. Graphæ ...”: B 1r-C 3v “Disticha Ioannis Sheprevi ...”: verso of leaf after C 3-D 6r, “Disticha ... in Editione Erasmi Roterodami inserta.”
The “Summa Ioannis Sheprevi” is a set of elegiac stanzas, each stanza describing the contents of a chapter in the New Testament, and beginning successively with the letters of the alphabet, written by John Shepery, of Corpus Christi College, Reader of the Hebrew Lecture from about 1537 to his death in 1542. The Summa is stated by Wood to have been first published at Strasburg in about 1556 by John Parkhurst bp. of Norwich, next in Lond. 1560 (Wood), and from Humfrey’s ed. in “Gemma Fabri,” Lond. 1598, and “Biblii (or Bibliorum) summula,” Lond. 1621, etc. The first distich is “A priscis oritur Christus, turbatur Ioseph, | Angelus hunc retinet, virgo beata parit.” MS. C. C. C. (Oxf.) 266 contains these verses.
The “Synopsis” is a similar set of elegiac stanzas, without the alphabetical succession of first letters, first inserted in the Latin editions of Erasmus’s New Testament, from that of 1542 on. The author appears to be unknown: the first distich is “Angelus in somnis iustum solatur Ioseph, | Prototoco Mariæ nomen Iesus erit.”
In the preface Dr. Humfrey states that his object in editing the book was to recall young students to the study of the text of the Bible, and that he had collated a MS. copy of the Summa with bp. Parkhurst’s edition, and had compared different editions of the Synopsis: he alludes also to the Hippolytus of Shepery as “nuperrime impressum.”
See Wood’s Ath. Oxon., i. 135, 560. Dr. Philip Bliss noted in his copy “Whoever wants to write a history of the Oxford press should first get together all the little vols printed by Jo. Barnes, of which this is one of the rarest.”