Of the Imitation of Christ by Thomas ti Kenspis. Translated
by Richard Whytford. Re-edited into Modern English, with Historical Introduction, by Wilfrid Reyna, O.S.B. (Chatto and Windus. 7s. 6d. net.)—William Whytford, so called, it is supposed, from the parish of that name in Flintshire, was chaplain to Bishop Fox (the founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford). He became, some time before 1513, an inmate of Syon House, and there busied himself with literary work. In 1535, or thereabouts, he was ejected, the cause of trouble being the Declaration of Supremacy. He was sheltered by some powerful patron till the accession of Queen Mary. It was in 1550 that the translation of the De Imitatione was published by the Queen' printer. Whytford must have been then at least eighty years of age, and he probably died before the accession of Elizabeth. Wilfrid Raynal, the moderniser of Whytford's version, was a native of Mauritius, became a monk at Downside, and was transferred to
Belmont, near Hereford, a House of which he ultimately became Prior. He published this work in 1872, resigned in 1901, and died three years later.
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