chapter i

. p. 33.

[273] _Royal Injunctions_ to the university of 1535, requiring the denial of papal supremacy. “King Henry stung with the dilatory pleas of the canonists at Rome in point of his marriage, did in revenge destroy their whole hive throughout his own universities,” _Fuller_. The last Cambridge doctor in canon law “commenced” in this reign.

[274] The usual course is to take the special medical examinations with the First Part of the natural sciences tripos. Sometimes however these are taken in addition to the ordinary _B.A._ degree. The last of the three _M.B._ examinations is divided into two parts, of which Part I. is taken at the end of the fourth year of medical study, and Part II. after six years, three of which must have been spent in medical and surgical practice and hospital work. The keeping of the “act” is not intended to be a mere form, and students are advised to prepare for it during the years of their hospital practice.

[275] The degrees of bachelor of surgery (a registrable qualification) and master of surgery require no separate examination; the candidate must have done all that is required of a bachelor of medicine; but bachelors of surgery who are not also masters of arts cannot incept until three years have passed since they took the _B.C._, and masters of arts must have become legally qualified surgeons.

[276] Whitgift’s thesis for the _D.D._ degree (1570) was “_Papa est ille anti-Christus_“--‘the pope is himself anti-Christ.’

[277] _Erasm. Epist._ (London 1642), _Liber secundus, Epist. 10_. Letter to Bullock dated from the Palace at Rochester, August 31, 1516.

[278] Or were relegated to the previous examinations.

[279] Till then it had meant Aristotle: the statutes of Queens’ and Christ’s, framed within 50 years of one another, provide for its teaching--“the natural, moral, and _metaphysical_ philosophy of Aristotle”; and even in Fuller’s time these metaphysics were the study of the bachelor of arts: “Let a _sophister_ begin with his axioms, a _batchelor of art_ proceed to his _metaphysicks_, a _master_ to his _mathematicks_, and a _divine_ conclude with his _controversies_ and _comments_ on scripture....”

Philosophy, meaning Aristotle, had come in to disturb the peace and the sufficiency of the old ‘seven arts.’

[280] William Everett, _M.A._, 1865.

[281] It has been said that senior wranglers are hidden in country rectories and are never heard of again. In a hundred and sixty years (1747-1906) there have been eight senior wranglers who could be placed in the first rank as mathematicians and physicists:

Herschell 1813 Airy 1823 Stokes 1841 Cayley 1842 Adams 1843 Todhunter 1848 Routh 1854 Rayleigh 1865

Paley, in 1763, was the first distinguished senior wrangler. On the other hand Colenso Whewell and Lord Kelvin were second wranglers, so was the geometrician Sylvester; de Morgan and Pritchard were fourth wranglers; the learned Porteous was tenth wrangler, Lord Manners (Lord Chancellor of Ireland) was 5th, Lord Ellenborough (Lord Chief Justice) 3rd, Lord Lyndhurst (Lord Chancellor) second.

[282] Another distinguished Oxonian, and East Anglian, Grosseteste, attempted in the xiii c. the re-introduction of Greek into England; but the foreign linguists whom he invited to St. Albans left no successors.

[283] The west countryman Grocyn (b. 1442) who learnt his Greek in Italy and returned to teach it in Oxford was, chronologically, the first English classical scholar since the revival of learning.

[284] “All students equally contributed to his” (Croke’s) “lectures, whether they heard or heard them not.” _Fuller_.

[285] REVIVERS OF GREEK IN CAMBRIDGE.

[Sidenote: First period: Early patrons of Greek learning, and the group round Erasmus.]

1. John Fisher, b. Beverley, Yorks, 1459. Chancellor of the university, Master of Michaelhouse, President of Queens’, a co-founder of S. John’s. Though not himself a Greek classic, one of the chief instruments of its introduction into Cambridge. See also ii. pp. 120-21.

2. John Tonnys, _D.D._ prior at Cambridge and provincial of the Augustinians. Ob. 1510. One of the first men in the university to desire to learn Greek.

3. John Caius, ii. pp. 141-2 (lectured in Greek at Padua after leaving Cambridge).

4. Erasmus, _D.D._ Queens’, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and lecturer in Greek. Befriended by Fisher, Warham, Tunstall, and Fox, but opposed by the Oxonian Lee, Abp. of York. Left Cambridge 1513.

5. Richard Fox (Bishop of Winchester) Master of Pembroke College. Introduces Greek learning into his college of Corpus Christi, Oxford, and founds the first Greek lectureship at the sister university.

6. Cuthbert Tunstall (Balliol Oxford, King’s Hall Cambridge, and university of Padua) b. 1474. Ob. 1559. Bishop of Durham.

7. Henry Bullock, fellow of Queens’ and vice-chancellor.

8. John Bryan, fellow of King’s, ob. 1545. Lectured on Greek before the appointment of Croke.

9. Robert Aldrich, fellow of King’s, senior proctor 1523-4, Bp. of Carlisle.

10. Richard Croke or Crooke, scholar of King’s 1506; later a pupil of Grocyn’s; studied Greek in Italy at the charges of Abp. Warham. Greek tutor to Henry VIII. Appointed first Reader in Greek at Cambridge 1519; and was first Public Orator. Afterwards professor of Greek at Oxford.

11. Tyndale, b. circa 1486, ob. 1536 (resided at Cambridge between 1514-1521, and owed his Greek to that university). Left Oxford for Cambridge, as Erasmus had done, probably on account of the sworn hostility at Oxford to classical learning. See his “Answer” to Sir Thomas More, written in 1530 (Mullinger, _The University of Cambridge_ p. 590).

[Sidenote: Greek Classics, Second period.]

Roger Ascham, b. 1515, fellow of S. John’s. Reader in Greek and Public Orator in the university. Tutor to Mary, Elizabeth, and Lady Jane Grey.

Sir Thomas Smith, b. 1514, _LL.D._ Queens’. Regius Professor of Law and Reader in Greek at Cambridge, and Public Orator.

Sir John Cheke, b. 1514 at Cambridge, fellow of S. John’s. First Regius Professor of Greek. [”Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheek | Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, | When thou taught’st Cambridge, and King Edward, Greek” (Milton).]

Nicholas Carr, fellow of Pembroke, who replaced Cheke. Ob. Cambs. 1568-9. (As with other Cambridge men he joined science and classics, and afterwards became a doctor of physic.)

Richard Cox, scholar of King’s (v. pp. 272-4). One of the introducers of Greek and the new learning into Oxford.

Francis Dillingham, fellow of Christ’s. One of the translators of the English bible.

Dr. Thomas Watts, of Caius, who endowed 7 “Greek scholars” at Pembroke College in the xvi century.

[Sidenote: A few later names.]

Augustine Bryan, ob. 1726, Trinity College,

Jeremiah Markland, b. 1693, fellow and tutor of Peterhouse.

Richard Bentley, 1662-1742, of S. John’s, Master of Trinity.

Richard Porson, 1759-1808, scholar and fellow of Trinity, Regius Professor of Greek.

Thirlwall, b. 1797, fellow of Trinity, Bishop of S. David’s.

W. H. Thompson, ob. 1886, Trinity. Regius Professor of Greek, Master of Trinity.

Sir R. C. Jebb, ob. 1906, Trinity, Regius Professor of Greek.

REVIVERS OF GREEK IN OXFORD.

1. William Selling. Got his love of Greek from Italy. Taught at Canterbury. Afterwards of All Souls’ Oxford.

2. Linacre, b. _circa_ 1460 and studied at Canterbury with Selling, and at Oxford under Vitelli, but learnt his Greek in Italy. Lectured in Oxford on physic. Tutor to Prince Arthur. Ob. 1524.

{ 3. Grocyn b. Bristol 1442. New and Exeter Colleges, Inspired by { Oxford. The first to lecture on Greek. Linacre to start { 4. William Latymer, educated at Padua, but afterwards for Italy to { a fellow at Oxford. learn Greek. { 5. William Lily, b. Hants. 1468, learnt Greek at Rhodes { and Rome.

6. Colet, b. 1466. At Oxford and Paris; learnt Greek in Italy.

7. Thomas More, b. 1480. Learnt Greek with Linacre and Grocyn.

8. Richard Pace.

[286] Namely “in King’s Hall, King’s, S. John’s and Christ’s Colleges, Michaelhouse, Peterhouse, Gonville, Trinity Hall, Pembroke Hall, Queens’, Jesus, and Buckingham Colleges, Clare Hall and Benet College.” Royal Injunctions of 1535.

[287] The ancient pronunciation of Latin (so far as it can be recovered) has been taught, as an alternative, at Cambridge for the last 25 years, and has of late been widely adopted there, as elsewhere. Perhaps at the bottom of the preference for English Latin there lies the notion that without it Latin would no longer be the English scholar’s second tongue. The simple retort is that with it Latin is no longer (has not been for centuries) a common medium, the second tongue, of European scholars. Anglicised Greek is due to Sir John Cheke and Sir Thomas Smith, though it was promptly abolished at the time by Stephen Gardiner then chancellor of the university, and opposed also by Caius. “Nor mattereth it if foreigners should dissent, seeing hereby we Englishmen shall understand one another,” so Fuller explains the position.

[288] Paley continued to keep his traditional hold on Cambridge through the divinity paper in the “Little Go” which is based upon the “Evidences for Christianity.” On the other hand logic has recaptured the place which Aristotle held in the general curriculum by being admitted, since 1884, as the alternative subject for Paley’s “Evidences.”

[289] Lord Maynard of Wicklow (S. John’s College) endowed a professor of logic at Cambridge in the reign of James I., with £40-50 a year.

For university activity in philosophy in the xvii c. see