INTRODUCTION.

The firstfruits of his renewed literary activity did not appear till the year 1517, eighteen years after his first work, when he published his translation into Latin of the six Books of Galen, De Sanitate Tuendâ On the Preservation of Health. This version was printed in a fine folio by Rubeus, of Paris, and dedicated to Henry VIII. The dedication of this work shews the reverence in which the writings of Galen were held, a point of which we shall have to speak again. It is also interesting since it tells us that many scholars of Italy, France, and Germany, but especially the two great lights of the age, Erasmus and Budæus, had repeatedly urged him to publish this work. The Preface addressed to the reader contains a great many Greek words, which may perhaps be the reason why the work was not printed in England, where no Greek type probably existed at this time, as will be seen from Siberch’s introduction to the work now reprinted. A vellum copy of this book presented to Cardinal Wolsey is still preserved in the British Museum with the original letter which accompanied it. Another copy presented to Bishop Fox is now in the library of the College of Physicians, and has a dedicatory letter written at the beginning, but I cannot think it to be Linacre’s own handwriting.

Two years later appeared the translation of Galen’s Methodus Medendi Method of Healing, in bulk one of the greatest of his works, and in substance one of the most obscure. It is not now easy to understand the admiration and gratitude with which scholars received his translation. The work itself was known by name only to most, and perhaps on that account was the more respected. The judgment of Dr Johnson, Linacre’s biographer, is as follows: "Not less formidable in its length than incomprehensible in many of the theories contained in it. The sentence pronounced by the Mufti on the verses of the