INTRODUCTION.

part of the country which must at that time have been wild and little traversed, and where a scholar, uninfluenced by modern love of the picturesque can have found nothing to attract him. But Civitas Gebennensis the city of Geneva is the name given, almost universally, by the printers of Linacre’s time, to the city of Geneva, and Stephanus:—Dictionarium nominum propriorum Dictionary of Proper Names gives an interpretation apparently identical. We can well believe that, in crossing the pass of the great St Bernard on his way down to Geneva, Linacre would not bid farewell to the southern side of the Alps without some expression of emotion. But too much importance must not be attached to a story which probably rested only on some trifling incident of travel in crossing the Alps, related by Linacre himself in writing to his Italian friends.

The name Morinos in the verses quoted above sufficiently indicates that Linacre returned home, or was expected to return by way of Calais. He must doubtless have passed through Paris, but we have no record of any acquaintanceship there, though certainly at a later time Linacre had literary correspondents and friends in that city.

On his return to England Linacre seems to have resumed his residence in All Souls’ College. His position in the University must have been one of considerable eminence, since a knowledge of Greek was still confined to a few scholars, and great respect was paid to those who had acquired this new accomplishment in Italy. There were about this time or a little later but four such scholars in Oxford. Grocyn and Latimer were a little older than Linacre. Colet was younger, or, at least, visited Italy later, and the date of his stay in Florence gave his studies a somewhat different complexion from what we see in Linacre. It has been well pointed out by Mr Seebohm, in his work on the Oxford Reformers Reference to "The Oxford Reformers" by Frederic Seebohm, first published in 1867., that

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