Thomas Vicars's place in the history of rhetoric depends on his Og4D"(T(\": Manvductio Ad Artem Rhetoricam (1621), a Latin rhetoric for students. The Greek word at the beginning of the title may be transliterated as cheiragogia; it means "a leading by the hand," which is also the meaning of the Latin manuductio immediately following. Vicars's handbook remains noteworthy for its catechistical structure; its emphasis on genre; its Ciceronian material; its presentation of instruction in both the composition and analysis of orations; and its use of the diagrammatic methodology of the followers of Pierre de La Ramée (known as Petrus Ramus) in this analysis.

Vicars was born at Carlisle in 1591, where he attended grammar school. He was a cousin of John Vicars, the Puritan polemicist, and later contributed prefatory verses to one of his cousin's publications. On 19 June 1607 Thomas Vicars matriculated as plebeian at Queen's College...