und 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 {92}
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 {93}
physician and scholar in Italy at the end of the