Thomas Horne taught grammar and rhetoric in four grammar schools of seventeenth-century England. His contribution to rhetoric lies in the publication of his KHeii, sive Manuductio in aedem Palladis, quâ utilissima methodus authores bonos legendi indigitatur (Cheiragogia, or A Handbook on the Temple of Pallas, in Which the Most Useful Method of Reading Good Authors Is Invoked, 1641), which gives one of the clearest contemporary accounts of rhetorical education in English grammar schools, and to a lesser extent in the publication of his Rhetoricae compendium, Latino-Anglice (Compendium of Rhetoric in Latin and English, 1651), which is a pedagogical adaptation of his major work.

Horne was born on 30 July 1608 at West Hallam, Derbyshire, the son of William Horne of Cassall, Nottinghamshire. The parish register from West Hallam indicates that Thomas was the youngest of six children. Aside from these few details, little is known concerning his early childhood and education...