Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/224

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authors. This, be it noticed, is the first establishment of a teacher of Greek in England, as previous efforts had been voluntary or else temporary. Still more significant was the provision for a reader in Divinity, who is to follow the ancient doctors, both Latin and Greek, and not the schoolmen, who are pronounced to be "both in time and learning far below them". This was a bold declaration of war both in its depreciation of the schoolmen, and in its recognition of Greek theology. It led to a formidable rising of the Old Learning, whose supporters dubbed themselves Trojans, and assaulted the audacious Grecians in the streets. Fox's beehive was in a sorry plight, and its bees found it difficult to gather honey. More had to interpose with Wolsey, and Wolsey sent a royal letter commanding all students in Oxford to study Greek. It was the handful of dust necessary to restrain the buzzing of the angry insects. But Wolsey made the matter sure by proceeding with the foundation of Cardinal College.

Thus both Universities were brought into line, and the position of the New Learning was secured. It is not my purpose to carry its progress further. It was just at this time, in the year 1518, that Sir Robert Rede, who had been a Fellow of King's Hall, and died as Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, bequeathed by will to the University a small sum of money for the endowment of lectures in philosophy, logic and rhetoric. His bequest was an indication of the revived interest which was felt in the Universities, and of the desire that room should be found in them for every branch of knowledge. The spirit of his