INTRODUCTION.

compass of science in Grocyn? What can be more acute, more profound, or more refined than the judgment of Linacre?" There are many similar passages, and, though eulogy was the fashion of the age, we feel at once that, at least in speaking of Linacre, Erasmus meant what he said. The same impression must be derived, I think, from an amusing passage in the Encomium Moriæ Praise of Folly, though some of Linacre's biographers seem to have omitted it as if derogatory to his reputation. It is, however, written in a strain of good-natured banter, which shews that there was a foundation of good feeling and mutual respect between the two scholars.

"I know a certain man, a great master of many arts original: "πολυτεχνότατον"—a Greek, a Latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physician, and a royal one at that original: "καὶ ταῦτα βασιλικὸν"—already sixty years old, who, having put aside all other things, has spent more than twenty years torturing and crucifying himself over grammar, thinking himself truly happy if he could live long enough to settle once and for all how the eight parts of speech should be distinguished, a task which no Greek or Latin writer has yet been able to accomplish fully. It is almost as if the matter were to be settled by war, should anyone make a conjunction a word belonging to the jurisdiction of adverbs."

There is no record of Linacre's practice in his profession at Oxford. A new direction was given to his life by the call which he received about the year 1501 to come to court, and direct the studies of the young Prince Arthur. This mark of court favour appears to have been in some way connected with the visit of Prince Arthur to the University where he resided in Magdalen College. The appointment lasted till the prince's death in 1503, but the only record of it which remains is the Latin translation of the treatise of Proclus On the Sphere, dedicated to Prince Arthur, which has been already referred to. This was Linacre's earliest published work. After the prince's death Linacre appears to have stayed in