sallow cheeks, the sunken eyes, the bent shoulders, the worn air of the whole man seemed to speak of a more advanced age. But neither then, nor at any later time, was he other than youthful in buoyant vivacity of spirit, in restless activity of mind, in untiring capacity for work.
And now a new world opened before him. In England he was not only an honoured guest, but, for the first time, perhaps, since he left school, he found himself among men from whom he had something to learn. He went to Oxford, with a letter of introduction to Richard Charnock, Prior of a house of his own order, the Canons Regular of St Augustine, and was hospitably received by him in the College of St Mary the Virgin. At that time the scholastic theology and philosophy still held the field in both the English Universities—as everywhere else, north of the Alps. But at Oxford there were a few eminent men who had studied the new learning in Italy, and had brought the love for it home with them. Erasmus was just too late to see William Selling of All Souls College, who died in 1495,—one of the first Englishmen who endeavoured to introduce Greek studies in this country. And he was too early to meet William Lilly, who was still abroad then. But he met some other scholars, who were among the earliest teachers or advocates of Greek at Oxford,—William Grocyn, William Latimer, and Thomas Linacre;—the last-named, who became Founder of the Royal College of Physicians, had studied at Florence under Politian
