of Italy. He was tempted to remain in Rome for ever, by reason
of the company he found there. "What a sky and fields, what libraries
and pleasant walks and sweet confabulation with the learned ..."[12] he
exclaims, in afterwards recalling that paradise of scholars. There was,
for instance, the Cardinal Grimani, who begged Erasmus to share his life
... and books.[13] And there was Aldus Manutius. We get a glimpse of the
Venetian printing-house when Aldus and Erasmus worked together: Erasmus
sitting writing regardless of the noise of printers, while Aldus
breathlessly reads proof, admiring every word. "We were so busy," says
Erasmus, "we scarce had time to scratch our ears."[14]

It was this charm of intellectual companionship which started the whole
stream of travel _animi causa_. Whoever had keen wits, an agile mind,
imagination, yearned for Italy. There enlightened spirits struck sparks
from one another. Young and ardent minds in England and in Germany found
an escape from the dull and melancholy grimness of their uneducated
elders--purely practical fighting-men, whose ideals were fixed on a
petrified code of life.

I need not explain how Englishmen first felt this charm of urbane
civilization. The travels of Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, of Gunthorpe,
Flemming, Grey and Free, have been recently described by Mr Einstein in
_The Italian Renaissance in England_. As for Italian journeys of
Selling, Grocyn, Latimer, Tunstall, Colet and Lily, of that
extraordinary group of scholars who transformed Oxford by the
introduction of Greek ideals and gave to it the peculiar distinction
which is still shining, I mention them only to suggest that they are the
source of the Renaissance respect for a foreign education, and the
founders of the fashion which, in its popular spreadings, we will
attempt to trace. They all studied in Italy, and brought home nothing
but good. For to scholarship they joined a native force of character
which gave a most felicitous introduction to England of the fine things
of the mind which they brought home with them. By their example they
gave an impetus to travel for education's sake which lesser men could
never have done.

Though through Grocyn, Linacre and Tunstall, Greek was better taught in
England than in Italy, according to Erasmus,[15] at the time Henry VIII.
came to the throne, the idea of Italy as the goal of scholars persisted.
Rich churchmen, patrons of letters, launched promising students on to