Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/219

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learning to practice. Latimer and Grocyn were theologians; Linacre was the most eminent physician of his day. Grocyn showed what a knowledge of Greek could do for theology by proving that the treatise on "The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy," attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, could not have been written by him. This was the introduction of criticism into England. Linacre revived classical medicine by his translation of Galen, and so prepared the way for its more scientific study. He left a considerable estate for the foundation of three lectureships in medicine, two at Oxford and one at Cambridge.

This brings me to a point which is of importance. As soon as it was seen that the New Learning had a vivifying influence on thought, an attempt was made to provide for it in the Universities. Doubtless this was largely due to the academic patriotism shown by Linacre and Grocyn. Their predecessors tried to leaven English life directly; they trusted to high position, to patronage, to their personal reputation, to their practical success. They entirely failed to produce any effect. England was slow to move, and was not to be fascinated by brilliancy. Culture did not radiate from the royal court or from the efforts of stray bishops. Englishmen in a dim way seemed to agree that the Universities were the organs of national life for the purpose of promoting learning. In fact I think that nowhere does the English temper show itself more clearly than in its relation to the Universities. Two centres of intellectual life came into being, we can hardly say how: but so soon as two existed, great objection was felt to the creation of any