Catholic Churchmen in Science. First Series

He was one of the alchemists, but in addition to his inquiries into the properties of metals and his search for the philosopher's stone, he busied himself with the nature of drugs, vegetable and mineral, and with their action as remedies for disease. He was no anatomist, no physiologist, but rather what nowadays we should call a pharmacologist. He did not care for the problem of the body, all he sought to understand was how the constituents of the soil and of plants might be treated so as to be available for healing the sick and how they produced their effects. We apparently owe to him the introduction of many chemical substances, for instance, of hydrochloric acid, which he prepared from oil of vitriol and salt, and of many vegetable drugs. And he was apparently the author of certain conceptions which, as we shall see, played an important part in the development of chemistry and of physiology. To him, it seems, we owe the idea of the three "elements," as they were and have been called, replacing the old idea of the ancients of the four elements–earth, air, fire, and water. It must be remembered, however, that both in the ancient and in the new idea the word "element" was not intended to mean that which it means to us now, a fundamental unit of matter, but a general quality or property of matter. The three elements of Valentine were (1) sulphur, or that which is combustible, which is changed or destroyed, or which at all events disappears during burning or combustion; (2) mercury, that which temporarily disappears during burning or combustion, which is dissociated in the burning from the body burnt, but which may be recovered, that is to say, that which is volatile, and (3) salt, that which is fixed, the residue or ash which remains after burning.

The most interesting of Basil Valentine's books, and the one which has had the most enduring influence, is undoubtedly "The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony." It has been translated and has had a wide vogue in every language of modern Europe. Its recommendation of antimony had such an effect upon medical practice that it continued to be the most important drug in the pharmacopoeia down almost to the middle of the nineteenth century. If any proof were needed that Basil Valentine or that the author of the books that go under that name was a monk, it would be found in the introduction to this volume, which not only states that fact very clearly, but also in doing so makes use of language that shows the writer to have been deeply imbued with the old monastic spirit. I quote the first paragraph of this introduction in order to make clear what I mean. The quotation is taken from the English translation of the work as published in London in 1678. Curiously enough, seeing the obscurity surrounding Valentine himself, we do not know for sure who made the translation. The translator apologizes somewhat for the deeply religious spirit of the book, but considers that he was not justified in eliminating any of this. Of course, the translation is left in the quaint old-fashioned form so eminently suited to the thoughts of the old master, and the spelling and use of capitals is not changed:

Basil Valentine–His Triumphant Chariot of Antimony Since I, Basil Valentine, by Religious Vows am bound to live according to the Order of St. Benedict, and that requires another manner of spirit of Holiness than the common state of Mortals exercised in the profane business of this World; I thought it my duty before all things, in the beginning of this little book, to declare what is necessary to be known by the pious Spagyrist [old-time name for medical chemist], inflamed with an ardent desire of this Art, as what he ought to do, and whereunto to direct his aim, that he may lay such foundations of the whole matter as may be stable; lest his Building, shaken with the Winds, happen to fall, and the whole Edifice to be involved in shameful Ruine, which otherwise, being founded on more firm and solid principles, might have continued for a long series of time Which Admonition I judged was, is and always will be a necessary part of my Religious Office; especially since we must all die, and no one of us which are now, whether high or low, shall long be seen among the number of men For it concerns me to recommend these Meditations of Mortality to Posterity, leaving them behind me, not only that honor may be given to the Divine Majesty, but also that Men may obey him sincerely in all things.

In this my Meditation I found that there were five principal heads, chiefly to be considered by the wise and prudent spectators of our Wisdom and Art. The first of which is, Invocation of God. The second, Contemplation of Nature The third, True Preparation. The fourth, the Way of Using. The fifth, Utility and Fruit. For he who regards not these, shall never obtain place among true Chymists, or fill up the number of perfect Spagyrists. Therefore, touching these five heads, we shall here following treat and so far declare them, as that the general Work may be brought to light and perfected by an intent and studious Operator.

This book, though the title might seem to indicate it, is not devoted entirely to the study of antimony, but contains many important additions to the chemistry of the time. For instance, Basil Valentine explains in this work how what he calls the spirit of salt might be obtained. He succeeded in manufacturing this material by treating common salt with oil of vitriol and heat. From the description of the uses to which he put the end product of his chemical manipulation, it is evident that under the name of spirit of salt he is describing what we now know as hydrochloric acid. This is the first definite mention of it in the history of science, and the method suggested for its preparation is not very different from that employed even at the present time. He also suggests in this volume how alcohol may be obtained in high strengths. He distilled the spirit obtained from wine over carbonate of potassium, and thus succeeded in depriving it of a great proportion of its water.

We have said that he was deeply interested in the philosopher's stone. Naturally this turned his attention to the study of metals, and so it is not surprising to find that he succeeded in formulating a method by which metallic copper could be obtained. The substance used for the purpose was copper pyrites, which was changed to an impure sulphate of copper by the action of oil of vitriol and moist air. The sulphate of copper occurred in solution, and the copper could be precipitated from it by plunging an iron bar into it. Basil Valentine recognized the presence of this peculiar yellow metal and studied some of its qualities. He does not seem to have been quite sure, however, whether the phenomenon that he witnessed was not really a transmutation of the iron into copper, as a consequence of the other chemicals present.

There are some observations on chemical physiology, and especially with regard to respiration, in the book on antimony which show their author to have anticipated the true explanation of the theory of respiration. He states that animals breathe, because the air is needed to support their life, and that all the animals exhibit the phenomenon of respiration. He even insists that the fishes, though living in water, breathe air, and he adduces in support of this idea the fact that whenever a river is entirely frozen the fishes die. The reason for this being, according to this old-time physiologist, not that the fishes are frozen to death, but that they are not able to obtain air in the ice as they did in the water, and consequently perish.

There are many testimonies to the practical character of all his knowledge and his desire to apply it for the benefit of humanity. The old monk could not repress the expression of his impatience with physicians who gave to patients for diseases of which they knew little, remedies of which they knew less. For him it was an unpardonable sin for a physician not to have faithfully studied the various mixtures that he prescribed for his patients, and not to know not only their appearance and taste and effect, but also the limits of their application. Considering that at the present time it is a frequent source of complaint that physicians often prescribe remedies with whose physical appearances they are not familiar, this complaint of the old-time chemist alchemist will be all the more interesting for the modern physician. It is evident that when Basil Valentine allows his ire to get the better of him it is because of his indignation over the quacks who were abusing medicine and patients in his time, as they have ever since. There is a curious bit of aspersion on mere book-learning in the passage that has a distinctly modern ring, and one feels the truth of Russell Lowell's expression that to read a great genius, no matter how antique, is like reading a commentary in the morning paper, so up-to-date does genius ever remain:–

And whensoever I shall have occasion to contend in the School with such a Doctor, who knows not how himself to prepare his own medicines, but commits that business to another, I am sure I shall obtain the Palm from him; for indeed that good man knows not what medicines he prescribes to the sick; whether the color of them be white, black, grey, or blew, he cannot tell; nor doth this wretched man know whether the medicine he gives be dry or hot, cold or humid; but he only knows that he found it so written in his Books, and thence pretends knowledge (or as it were, Possession) by Prescription of a very long time; yet he desires to further Information Here again let it be lawful to exclaim, Good God, to what a state is the matter brought! what goodness of minde is in these men! what care do they take of the sick! Wo, wo to them! in the day of Judgment they will find the fruit of their ignorance and rashness, then they will see Him whom they pierced, when they neglected their Neighbor, sought after money and nothing else; whereas were they cordial in their profession, they would spend Nights and Days in Labour that they might become more learned in their Art, whence more certain health would accrew to the sick with their Estimation and greater glory to themselves. But since Labour is tedious to them, they commit the matter to chance, and being secure of their Honour, and content with their Fame, they (like Brawlers) defend themselves with a certain garrulity, without any respect had to Confidence or Truth.

Perhaps one of the reasons why Valentine's book has been of such enduring interest is that it is written in an eminently human vein and out of a lively imagination. It is full of figures relating to many other things besides chemistry, which serve to show how deeply this investigating observer was attentive to all the problems of life around him. For instance, when he wants to describe the affinity that exists between many substances in chemistry, and which makes it impossible for them not to be attracted to one another, he takes a figure from the attractions that he sees exist among men and women. There are some paragraphs with regard to the influence of the passion of love that one might think rather a quotation from an old-time sermon than from a great ground-breaking book in the science of chemistry.

Love leaves nothing entire or sound in man; it impedes his sleep; he cannot rest either day or night; it takes off his appetite that he hath no disposition either to meat or drink by reason of the continual torments of his heart and mind. It deprives him of all Providence, hence he neglects his affairs, vocation and business. He minds neither study, labor nor prayer; casts away all thoughts of anything but the body beloved; this is his study, this his most vain occupation. If to lovers the success be not answerable to their wish, or so soon and prosperously as they desire, how many melancholies henceforth arise, with griefs and sadnesses, with which they pine away and wax so lean as they have scarcely any flesh cleaving to the bones Yea, at last they lose the life itself, as may be proved by many examples! for such men, (which is an horrible thing to think of) slight and neglect all perils and detriments, both of the body and life, and of the soul and eternal salvation

It is evident that human nature is not different in our sophisticated twentieth century from that which this observant old monk saw around him in the fifteenth. He continues:–

How many testimonies of this violence which is in love, are daily found? for it not only inflames the younger sort, but it so far exaggerates some persons far gone in years as through the burning heat thereof, they are almost mad Natural diseases are for the most part governed by the complexion of man and therefore invade some more fiercely, others more gently; but Love, without distinction of poor or rich, young or old, seizeth all, and having seized so blinds them as forgetting all rules of reason, they neither see nor hear any snare.

But then the old monk thinks that he has said enough about this subject and apologizes for his digression in another paragraph that should remove any lingering doubt there may be with regard to the genuineness of his monastic character. The personal element in his confession is so naive and so simply straightforward that instead of seeming to be the result of conceit, and so repelling the reader, it rather attracts his kindly feeling for its author. The paragraph would remind one in certain ways of that personal element that was to become more popular in literature after Montaigne had made such extensive use of it.

But of these enough; for it becomes not a religious man to insist too long upon these cogitations, or to give place to such a flame in his heart. Hitherto (without boasting I speak it) I have throughout the whole course of my life kept myself safe and free from it, and I pray and invoke God to vouchsafe me his Grace that I may keep holy and inviolate the faith which I have sworn, and live contented with my spiritual spouse, the Holy, Catholick Church. For no other reason have I alleaged these than that I might express the love with which all tinctures ought to be moved towards metals, if ever they be admitted by them into true friendship, and by love, which permeates the inmost parts, be converted into a better state

The application of the figure at the end of his long digression is characteristic of the period in which he wrote and to a considerable extent also of the German literary methods of the time.

In this volume on the use of antimony there are in most of the editions certain biographical notes which have sometimes been accepted as authentic, but oftener rejected. According to these, Basil Valentine was born in a town in Alsace, on the southern bank of the Rhine. As a consequence of this, there are several towns that have laid claim to being his birthplace. M. Jean Reynaud, the distinguished French philosophical writer of the first half of the nineteenth century, once said that Basil Valentine, like Ossian and Homer, had many towns claim him years after his death. He also suggested that, like those old poets, it was possible that the writings sometimes attributed to Basil Valentine were really the work not of one man, but of several individuals. There are, however, many objections to this theory, the most forceful of which is the internal evidence of the books themselves and their style and method of treatment. Other biographic details contained in "The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony" are undoubtedly more correct. According to them, Basil Valentine travelled in England and Holland on missions for his Order, and went through France and Spain on a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella.

Besides this work, there is a number of other books of Basil Valentine's, printed during the first half of the sixteenth century, that are well-known and copies of which may be found in most of the important libraries. The United States Surgeon General's Library at Washington contains several of the works on medical subjects, and the New York Academy of Medicine Library has some valuable editions of his works. Some of his other well-known books, each of which is a good-sized octavo volume, bear the following descriptive titles (I give them in English, though, as they are usually to be found, they are in Latin, sixteenth-century translations of the original German): "The World in Miniature: or, The Mystery of the World and of Human Medical Science," published at Marburg, 1609;–"The Chemical Apocalypse: or, The Manifestation of Artificial Chemical Compounds," published at Erfurt in 1624;–"A Chemico-Philosophic Treatise Concerning Things Natural and Preternatural, Especially Relating to the Metals and the Minerals," published at Frankfurt in 1676;–"Haliography: or, The Science of Salts: A Treatise on the Preparation, Use and Chemical Properties of All the Mineral, Animal and Vegetable Salts," published at Bologna in 1644;–"The Twelve Keys of Philosophy," Leipsic, 1630.

The great interest manifested in Basil Valentine's work at the Renaissance period can be best realized from the number of manuscript copies and their wide distribution. His books were not all printed at one place, but, on the contrary, in different portions of Europe. The original edition of "The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony" was published at Leipsic in the early part of the sixteenth century. The first editions of the other books, however, appeared at places so distant from Leipsic as Amsterdam and Bologna, while various cities of Germany, as Erfurt and Frankfurt, claim the original editions of still other works. Many of the manuscript copies still exist in various libraries in Europe; and while there is no doubt that some unimportant additions to the supposed works of Basil Valentine have come from the attribution to him of scientific treatises of other German writers, the style and the method of the principal works mentioned are entirely too similar not to have been the fruit of a single mind and that possessed of a distinct investigating genius setting it far above any of its contemporaries in scientific speculation and observation.

The most interesting feature of all of Basil Valentine's writings that are extant is the distinctive tendency to make his observations of special practical utility. His studies in antimony were made mainly with the idea of showing how that substance might be used in medicine. He did not neglect to point out other possible uses, however, and knew the secret of the employment of antimony in order to give sharpness and definition to the impression produced by metal types. It would seem as though he was the first scientist who discussed this subject, and there is even some question whether printers and type founders did not derive their ideas in this matter from Basil Valentine, rather than he from them. Interested as he was in the transmutation of metals, he never failed to try to find and suggest some medicinal use for all of the substances that he investigated. His was no greedy search for gold and no accumulation of investigations with the idea of benefiting only himself. Mankind was always in his mind, and perhaps there is no better demonstration of his fulfilment of the character of the monk than this constant solicitude to benefit others by every bit of investigation that he carried out. For him with medieval nobleness of spirit the first part of every work must be the invocation of God, and the last, though no less important than the first, must be the utility and fruit for mankind that can be derived from it.

IV.

LINACRE: SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST

Linacre, as Dr. Payne remarks, "was possessed from his youth till his death by the enthusiasm of learning. He was an idealist devoted to objects which the world thought of little use." Painstaking, accurate, critical, hypercritical perhaps, he remains to-day the chief literary representative of British Medicine. Neither in Britain nor in Greater Britain have we maintained the place in the world of letters created for us by Linacre's noble start. Quoted by Osler in AEquanimitas.

IV.

LINACRE: SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST

Not long ago, in one of his piquant little essays, Mr. Augustine Birrell discussed the question as to what really happened at the time of the so-called Reformation in England. There is much more doubt with regard to this matter, even in the minds of non-Catholics, than is usually suspected. Mr. Birrell seems to have considered it one of the most important problems, and at the same time not by any means the least intricate one, in modern English history. The so-called High Church people emphatically insist that there is no break in the continuity of the Church of England, and that the modern Anglicanism is a direct descendant of the old British Church. They reject with scorn the idea that it was the Lutheran movement on the Continent which brought about the changes in the Anglican Church at that time. Protestantism did not come into England for a considerable period after the change in the constitution of the Anglican Church, and when it did come its tendencies were quite as subversal of the authority of the Anglican as of the Roman Church, Protestantism is the mother of Nonconformism in England. It can be seen, then, that the question as to what did really take place in the time of Henry VIII and of Edward VI is still open. It has seemed to me that no little light on this vexed historical question will be thrown by a careful study of the life of Dr. Linacre, who, besides being the best known physician of his time in England, was the greatest scholar of the English Renaissance period, yet had all his life been on very intimate terms with the ecclesiastical authorities, and eventually gave up his honors, his fortune, and his profession to become a simple priest of the old English Church.

Considering the usually accepted notions as to the sad state of affairs supposed to exist in the Church at the beginning of the sixteenth century, this is a very remarkable occurrence, and deserves careful study to determine its complete significance, for it tells better than anything else the opinion of a distinguished contemporary. Few men have ever been more highly thought of by their own generation. None has been more sincerely respected by intimate friends, who were themselves the leaders of the thought of their generation, than Thomas Linacre, scholar, physician and priest; and his action must stand as the highest possible tribute to the Church in England at that time.

How unimpaired his practical judgment of men and affairs was at the time he made his change from royal physician to simple priest can best be gathered from the sagacity displayed in the foundation of the Royal College of Physicians, an institution he was endowing with the wealth he had accumulated in some twenty years of most lucrative medical practice. The Royal College of Physicians represents the first attempt to secure the regulation of the practice of medicine in England, and, thanks to its founder's wonderful foresight and practical wisdom, it remains down to our own day, under its original constitution, one of the most effective and highly honored of British scientific foundations. No distinction is more sought at the present time by young British medical men, or by American or even Continental graduates in medicine, than the privilege of adding to their names the letters "F.R.C.P.(Eng.)," Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of England. The College worked the reformation of medical practice in England, and its methods have proved the suggestive formulae for many another such institution and for laws that all over the world protect, to some extent at least, the public from quacks and charlatans.

Linacre's change of profession at the end of his life has been a fruitful source of conjecture and misconception on the part of his biographers. Few of them seem to be able to appreciate the fact, common enough in the history of the Church, that a man may, even when well on in years, give up everything to which his life has been so far directed, and from a sense of duty devote himself entirely to the attainment of "the one thing necessary." Linacre appears only to have done what many another in the history of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries did without any comment; but his English biographers insist on seeing ulterior motives in it, or else fail entirely to understand it. The same action is not so rare even in our own day that it should be the source of misconception by later writers.

Dr. S. Weir Mitchell has, in the early part of Dr. North and His Friends, a very curious passage with regard to Linacre. One of the characters, St. Clair, says: "I saw, the other day, at Owen's, a life of one Linacre, a doctor, who had the luck to live about 1460 to 1524, when men knew little and thought they knew all. In his old age he took for novelty to reading St. Matthew. The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters were enough. He threw the book aside and cried out, 'Either this is not the Gospel, or we are not Christians.' What else could he say?" St. Clair uses the story to enforce an idea of his own, which he states as a question, as follows: "And have none of you the courage to wrestle with the thought I gave you, that Christ could not have expected the mass of men to live the life He pointed out as desirable for the first disciples of His faith?"

Dr. Mitchell's anecdote is not accepted by Linacre's biographers generally, though it is copied by Dr. Payne, the writer of the article on Linacre in the (English) Dictionary of National Biography, who, however, discredits it somewhat. The story is founded on Sir John Cheke's account of the conversion of Linacre. It is very doubtful, however, whether Linacre's deprecations of the actions of Christians had reference to anything more than the practice of false swearing so forcibly denounced in the Scriptures, which had apparently become frequent in his time. This is Selden's version of the story as quoted by Dr. Johnson, who was Linacre's well-known biographer. Sir John Cheke in his account seems to hint that this chance reading of the Scriptures represented the first occasion Linacre had ever taken of an opportunity to read the New Testament. Perhaps we are expected to believe that, following the worn-out Protestant tradition of the old Church's discouraging of the reading of the Bible, and of the extreme scarcity of copies of the Book, this was the first time he had ever had a good opportunity to read it. This, of course, is nonsense.

Linacre's early education had been obtained at the school of the monastery of Christ Church at Canterbury, and the monastery schools all used the New Testament as a text-book, and as the offices of the day at which the students were required to attend contain these very passages from Matthew which Linacre is supposed to have read for the first time later in life, this idea is preposterous. Besides, Linacre, as one of the great scholars of his time, intimate friend of Sir Thomas More, of Dean Colet, and Erasmus, can scarcely be thought to find his first copy of the Bible only when advanced in years. This is evidently a post-Reformation addition, part of the Protestant tradition with regard to the supposed suppression of the Scriptures in pre-Reformation days, which every one acknowledges now to be without foundation.

Linacre, as many another before and since, seems only to have realized the true significance of the striking passages in Matthew after life's experiences and disappointments had made him take more seriously the clauses of the Sermon on the Mount. There is much in fifth, sixth, and seventh Matthew that might disturb the complacent equanimity of a man whose main objects in life, though pursued with all honorable unselfishness, had been the personal satisfaction of wide scholarship and success in his chosen profession.

With regard to Sir John Cheke's story, Dr. John Noble Johnson, who wrote the life of Thomas Linacre, [Footnote 7] which is accepted as the authoritative biography by all subsequent writers, says: "The whole statement carries with it an air of invention, if not on the part of Cheke himself, at least on that of the individual from whom he derives it, and it is refuted by Linacre's known habits of moderation and the many ecclesiastical friendships which, with a single exception, were preserved without interruption until his death. It was a most frequent mode of silencing opposition to the received and established tenets of the Church, when arguments were wanting, to brand the impugner with the opprobrious titles of heretic and infidel, the common resource of the enemies to innovation in every age and country."

[Footnote 7: "The Life of Thomas Linacre," Doctor in Medicine, Physician to King Henry VIII, the Tutor and Friend of Sir Thomas More and the Founder of the College of Physicians in London By John Noble Johnson, M D., late Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London. Edited by Robert Graves, of the Inner Temple, Barrister at Law London: Edward Lumley, Chancery Lane 1835.]

The interesting result of the reflections inspired in Linacre by the reading of Matthew was, as has been said, the resignation of his high office of Royal Physician and the surrender of his wealth for the foundation of chairs in Medicine and Greek at Oxford and Cambridge. With the true liberal spirit of a man who wished to accomplish as much good as possible, his foundations were not limited to his own University of Oxford. After these educational foundations, however, his wealth was applied to the endowment of the Royal College of Physicians and its library, and to the provision of such accessories as might be expected to make the College a permanently useful institution, though left at the same time perfectly capable of that evolution which would suit it to subsequent times and the development of the science and practice of medicine.

It is evident that the life of such a man can scarcely fail to be of personal as well as historic interest.

Thomas Linacre was born about 1460–the year is uncertain–at Canterbury. Nothing is known of his parents or their condition, though this very silence in their regard would seem to indicate that they were poor and obscure. His education was obtained at the school of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, then presided over by the famous William Selling, the first of the great students of the new learning in England. Selling's interest seems to have helped Linacre to get to Oxford, where he entered at All Souls' College in 1480. In 1484 he was elected a Fellow of the College, and seems to have distinguished himself in Greek, to which he applied himself with special assiduity under Cornelio Vitelli. Though Greek is sometimes spoken of as having been introduced into Western Europe only at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Linacre undoubtedly laid the foundation of that remarkable knowledge of the language which he displayed at a later period of his life, during his student days at Oxford in the last quarter of the fifteenth century.

Linacre went to Italy under the most auspicious circumstances. His old tutor and friend at Canterbury, Selling, who had become one of the leading ecclesiastics of England, was sent to Rome as an Ambassador by Henry VII. He took Linacre with him. A number of English scholars had recently been in Italy and had attracted attention by their geniality, by their thorough-going devotion to scholarly studies, and by their success in their work. Selling himself had made a number of firm friends among the Italian students of the New Learning on a former visit, and they now welcomed him with enthusiasm and were ready to receive his protégé with goodwill and provide him with the best opportunities for study. As a member of the train of the English ambassador, Linacre had an entrée to political circles that proved of great service to him, and put him on a distinct footing above that of the ordinary English student in Italy.

Partly because of these and partly because of his own interesting and attractive personal character, Linacre had a number of special opportunities promptly placed at his disposal. Church dignitaries in Rome welcomed him and he was at once received into scholarly circles wherever he went in Italy. Almost as soon as he arrived in Florence, where he expected seriously to take up the study of Latin and Greek, he became the intimate friend of the family of Lorenzo de' Medici, who was so charmed with his personality and his readily recognizable talent that he chose him for the companion of his son's studies and received him into his own household.

Politian was at this time the tutor of the young de' Medici in Latin, and Demetrius Chalcondylas the tutor in Greek. Under these two eminent scholars Linacre obtained a knowledge of Latin and Greek such as it would have been impossible to have obtained under any other circumstances, and which with his talents at once stamped him as one of the foremost humanistic scholars in Europe. While in Florence he came in contact with Lorenzo the Magnificent's younger son, who afterwards became Leo X. The friendship thus formed lasted all during Linacre's lifetime, and later on he dedicated at least one of his books to Alexander de' Medici after the latter's elevation to the papal throne.

It is no wonder that Linacre always looked back on Italy as the Alma Mater–the fond mother in the fullest sense of the term–to whom he owed his precious opportunities for education and the broadest possible culture. In after-life the expression of his feelings was often tinged with romantic tenderness. It is said that when he was crossing the Alps, on his homeward journey, leaving Italy after finishing his years of apprenticeship of study, standing on the highest point of the mountains from which he could still see the Italian plains, he built with his own hands a rough altar of stone and dedicated it to the land of his studies–the land in which he had spent six happy years–under the fond title of Sancta Mater Studiorum.

At first, after his return from Italy, Linacre lectured on Greek at Oxford. Something of the influence acquired over English students and the good he accomplished may be appreciated from the fact that with Grocyn he had such students as More and the famous Dean Colet. Erasmus also was attracted from the Netherlands and studied Greek under Linacre, to whom he refers in the most kindly and appreciative terms many times in his after life. Linacre wrote books besides lecturing, and his work on certain fine points in the grammar of classical Latinity proved a revelation to English students of the old classical languages, for nothing so advanced as this had ever before been attempted outside Italy. In one of the last years of the fifteenth century Linacre was appointed tutor to Prince Arthur, the elder brother of Henry VIII, to whom it will be remembered that Catherine of Aragon had been betrothed before her marriage with Henry. Arthur's untimely death, however, soon put an end to Linacres' tutorship.

As pointed out by Einstein, the reputation of Grocyn and Linacre was not confined to England, but soon spread all over the Continent. After the death of the great Italian humanists of the fifteenth century, who had no worthy successors in the Italian peninsula, these two men became the principal European representatives of the New Learning. There were other distinguished men, however, such as Vives, the Spaniard; Lascaris, the Greek; Buda, or Budaeus, the Frenchman, and Erasmus, whom we have already mentioned–all of whom joined at various times in praising Linacre.

Some of Linacre's books were published by the elder Aldus at Venice; and Aldus is even said to have sent his regrets on publishing his edition of Linacre's translation of "The Sphere of Proclus," that the distinguished English humanist had not forwarded him others of his works to print. Aldus appreciatively added the hope that the eloquence and classic severity of style in Linacre's works and in those of the English humanists generally "might shame the Italian philosophers and scholars out of their uncultured methods of writing."

Augusta Theodosia Drane (Mother Raphael), in her book on "Christian Schools and Scholars," gives a very pleasant picture of how Dean Colet, Eramus, and More used at this time to spend their afternoons down at Stepney (then a very charming suburb of London), of whose parish church Colet was the vicar. They stopped at Colet's house and were entertained by his mother, to whom we find pleasant references in the letters that passed between these scholars. Linacre was also often of the party, and the conversations between these greatest students and literary geniuses of their age would indeed be interesting reading, if we could only have had preserved for us, in some way, the table-talk of those afternoons. Erasmus particularly was noted for his wit and for his ability to turn aside any serious discussions that might arise among his friends, so as to prevent anything like unpleasant argument in their friendly intercourse. A favorite way seems to have been to insist on telling one of the old jokes from a classic author whose origin would naturally be presumed to be much later than the date the New Learning had found for it.

Dean Colet's mother appears to have been much more than merely the conventional hostess. Erasmus sketches her in her ninetieth year with her countenance still so fair and cheerful that you would think she had never shed a tear. Her son tells in some of his letters to Erasmus and More of how much his mother liked his visitors and how agreeable she found their talk and witty conversation. They seem to have appreciated her in turn, for in Mother Raphael's chapter on English Scholars of the Renaissance there is something of a description of her garden, in which were to be found strawberries, lately brought from Holland, some of the finer varieties of which Mrs. Colet possessed through Erasmus's acquaintance in that country. Mrs. Colet also had some of the damask roses that had lately been introduced into England by Linacre, who was naturally anxious that the mother of his friend should have the opportunity to raise some of the beautiful flowers he was so much interested in domesticating in England.

It is a very charming picture, this, of the early humanists in England, and very different from what might easily be imagined by those unfamiliar with the details of the life of the period. Linacre was later to give up his worldly emoluments and honors and become a clergyman, in order to do good and at the same time satisfy his own craving for self-abnegation. More was to rise to the highest positions in England, and then for conscience' sake was to suffer death rather than yield to the wishes of his king in a matter in which he saw principle involved. Dean Colet himself was to be the ornament of the English clergy and the model of the scholar clergyman of the eve of the Reformation, to whom many generations were to look back as a worthy object of reverence. Erasmus was to become involved first with and then against Luther, and to be offered a cardinal's hat before his death. His work, like Newman's, was done entirely in the intellectual field. Meantime, in the morning of life, all of them were enjoying the pleasures of friendly intercourse and the charms of domestic felicity under circumstances that showed that their study of humanism and their admiration for the classics impaired none of their sympathetic humanity or their appreciation of the innocent delights of the present.

For us, however, Linacre's most interesting biographic details are those which relate to medicine, for, besides his humanistic studies while in Italy, Linacre graduated in medicine, obtaining the degree of doctor at Padua. The memory of the brilliant disputation which he sustained in the presence of the medical faculty in order to obtain his degree is still one of the precious traditions in the medical school of Padua. He does not seem to have considered his medical education finished, however, by the mere fact of having obtained his doctor's degree, and there is a tradition of his having studied later at Vicenza under Nicholas Leonicenus, the most celebrated physician and scholar in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century, who many years afterwards referred with pardonable pride to the fact that he had been Linacre's teacher in medicine.

It may seem strange to many that Linacre, with all his knowledge of the classics, should have devoted himself for so many years to the study of medicine in addition to his humanistic studies. It must not be forgotten, however, that the revival of the classics of Latin and Greek brought with it a renewed knowledge of the great Latin and Greek fathers of medicine, Hippocrates and Galen. This had a wonderful effect in inspiring the medical students of the time with renewed enthusiasm for the work in which they were engaged. A knowledge of the classics led to the restoration of the study of anatomy, botany, and of clinical medicine, which had been neglected in the midst of application to the Arabian writers in medicine during the preceding centuries. The restoration of the classics made of medicine a progressive science in which every student felt the possibility of making great discoveries that would endure not only for his own reputation but for the benefit of humanity.