Greek at the universities.
Erasmus had given up his dream of studying Greek in an Italian university and had settled down three years before the close of the century at Oxford on hearing that Grocyn was teaching there.[283] He had known some Greek before he went to Oxford, and he knew but little when he left, for its acquisition was still his great pre-occupation when he accepted Fisher’s invitation and went to Cambridge. The work of Grocyn and Linacre left no trace in their own university. When Colet introduced the study of Greek into his new school, Oxford showed itself hostile; when the Greek of Erasmus and Croke had taken permanent hold in Cambridge, the Oxford students rose up in arms against the Cambridge “Grecians,” and dubbing themselves “Trojans” sought street brawls with the “Greeks.” Finally, Sir Thomas More himself wrote a protest to his old university, which, he wrote, was engaged in casting ridicule on those who “are promoting all the interests of literature at your university, and especially that of Greek.” “At Cambridge, which you were always accustomed to outshine, even those who do not learn Greek are so much persuaded to its study in their university that they praiseworthily contribute to maintain a salaried professor who may teach it to others.”[284]
Colet took Greek into our public schools, in face of the hostility of his university; it was the Cambridge Grecians settled by Wolsey at Cardinal College who established it at both universities, and it was men like Ascham, Sir Thomas Smith, and Cheke who introduced it as Cambridge learning to the world outside. It has been well said that classics “kept a firm hold on the Cambridge mind.” The mantle of Erasmus Croke and Cheke fell upon Bentley and Porson who had no rivals among English classics and critics, and the services rendered by Cambridge as a university in this direction have been maintained by the present generation of scholars.[285]
Colloquial Latin and Greek.
By order of Thomas Cromwell “two daily public acts one of Greek the other of Latin” were to be held in all the colleges.[286] The Commonwealth Committee tried to revive the colloquial use of Latin and Greek in 1649, but the use of Latin in halls and walks ceased in this century, though it lingered in the college lectures, the declamations, and the “acts and opponencies.” It lingered also in the college chapels, but the only relic now remaining is the Latin grace in hall. The study of the classics themselves declined at Cambridge during the reign of Charles II. and Gray laments, while Bentley was still living, that these studies should have “fallen into great contempt.”[287]