INTRODUCTION.

Colet was at Florence during the agitation and enthusiasm aroused by the preaching of Savonarola, and doubtless derived from him that new spirit in theology which his after life displayed, and which has caused him to be reckoned among the precursors of the reformation. Grocyn and Linacre shew nothing of this. They knew Florence when the literary renaissance rebirth of classical learning was at its height, and when the spirit of the learned world was more pagan than Christian. We shall notice afterwards what bearing this had upon Linacre's literary and theological position.

The dissertation which the newly-returned scholar read for his degree in medicine is said to have attracted attention, but he does not seem to have taught publicly;—at least Grocyn and Latimer are the only names we hear of as public lecturers on Greek. It was, however, Linacre's good fortune, at this time, to meet with a pupil whose subsequent eminence was enough to make his teacher distinguished, with whom he formed the most important literary friendship of his life, and who has left us the brightest and most life-like pictures of Linacre himself. This pupil was Erasmus, whose long-cherished plans of going to Italy to learn Greek were, as is well known, deferred, in order that he might visit England with the same object. The story of Erasmus' stay in Oxford has often been told, though never before so fully and clearly as in Mr Seebohm's volume already referred to. It is very likely that he may have derived from Colet some of the ideas which afterwards influenced his literary and theological activity. To Linacre he owed, undoubtedly, the foundation of his Greek scholarship, and his respect for the ability and character of his teacher are shewn in many well-known passages from his letters. In one of the best known he writes as follows: "In Colet I hear Plato himself. Who does not admire the perfect