[484] Warton, iii. 247. Johnson’s Life of Linacre, p. 5. This is mentioned on Selling’s monument now remaining in Canterbury cathedral.
Doctor theologus Selling Græca atque Latina
Lingua perdoctus.
Selling, however, did not go to Italy till after 1480, far from returning in 1460, as Warton has said, with his usual indifference to anachronisms.
[485] Polydore says nothing about Vitelli’s teaching Greek, though Knight, in his Life of Colet, translates bonæ literæ, “Greek and Latin.” But the following passages seem decisive as to Grocyn’s early studies in the Greek language. Grocinus, qui prima Græcaæ et Latinæ linguæ, rudimenta in Britannia hausit, mox solidiorem iisdem operam sub Demetrio Chalcondyle et Politiano præceptoribus in Italia hausit. Lilly, Elogia virorum doctorum, in Knight’s Life of Colet, p. 24. Erasmus as positively: Ipse Grocinus, cujus exemplum affers, nonne primum in Anglia Græcæ linguæ rudimenta didicit? Post in Italiam profectus audivit summos viros, sed interim lucro fuit ilia prius a qualibuscunque didicisse. Epist. ccclxiii. Whether the qualescunque were Vitelli or any one else, this can leave no doubt as to the existence of some Greek instruction in England before Grocyn; and as no one can be suggested, so far as appears, except Vitelli, it seems reasonable to fix upon him as the first preceptor of Grocyn. Vitelli had returned to Paris in 1489, and taught in the university, as has just been mentioned; so that he could have little time, if Polydore’s date of 1488 be right, for giving much instruction at Oxford.
[486] Johnson’s Life of Linacre, p. 152.
Erasmus comes to England. 128. Erasmus paid his first visit to England in 1497, and was delighted with everything that he found, especially at Oxford. In an epistle dated Dec. 5th, after praising Grocyn, Colet, and Linacre to the skies, he says of Thomas More, who could not then have been eighteen years old, “What mind was ever framed by nature more gentle, more pleasing, more gifted?—It is incredible, what a treasure of old books is found here far and wide.—There is so much erudition, not of a vulgar and ordinary kind, but recondite, accurate, ancient, both Latin and Greek, that you would seek nothing in Italy but the pleasure of travelling.”[487] But this letter is addressed to an Englishman, and the praise is evidently much exaggerated; the scholars were few, and not more than three or four could be found, or at least could now be mentioned, who had any tincture of Greek,—Grocyn, Linacre, William Latimer, who, though an excellent scholar, never published anything, and More, who had learned at Oxford under Grocyn.[488] It should here be added, that, in 1497, Terence was printed by Pynson, being the first edition of a strictly classical author in England; though Boethius had already appeared with Latin and English on opposite pages.
[487] Thomæ Mori ingenio quid unquam finxit natura vel mollius, vel dulcius, vel felicius?... Mirum est dictu, quam hic passim, quam dense veterum librorum seges efflorescat ... tantum eruditionis non illius protritæ ac trivialis, sed reconditæ, exactæ, antiquæ, Latinæ Græcæque, ut jam Italiam nisi visendi gratia non multum desideres. Epist. xiv.
[488] A letter of Colet to Erasmus from Oxford in 1497, is written in the style of a man who was conversant with the best Latin authors. Sir Thomas More’s birth has not been placed by any biographer earlier than 1480.
It has been sometimes asserted, on the authority of Antony Wood, that Erasmus taught Greek at Oxford; but there is no foundation for this, and in fact he did not know enough of the language. Knight, on the other hand, maintains that he learned it there under Grocyn and Linacre; but this rests on no evidence; and we have seen that he gives a different account of his studies in Greek. Life of Erasmus, p. 22.
He publishes his Adages. 129. In 1500 was printed at Paris the first edition of Erasmus’s Adages, doubtless the chief prose work of this century beyond the limits of Italy; but this edition should, if possible, be procured, in order to judge with chronological exactness of the state of literature; for as his general knowledge of antiquity, and particularly of Greek, which was now very slender, increased, he made vast additions. The Adages, which were now about eight hundred, amounted in his last edition to 4151; not that he could find so many which properly deserve that name, but the number is made up by explanations of Latin and Greek idioms, or even of single words. He declares himself, as early as 1504, ashamed of the first edition of his Adages, which already seemed meagre and imperfect.[489] Erasmus had been preceded in some measure by Polydore Virgil, best known as the historian of this country, where he resided many years as collector of papal dues. He published a book of adages, which must have been rather a juvenile, and is a superficial production, at Venice in 1498.