Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/274

Rh relates that Linacre when advanced in years, taking in hand the New Testament for the first time (though he was a priest), and reading in Matthew vii. the Sermon on the Mount, threw away the volume exclaiming, ‘Either this is not the Gospel or we are not Christians’ (De Pronunciatione Græcæ Linguæ, Basel, 1555, pp. 176, 281). Selden assumes the story to refer only to the prohibition of swearing (De Synedriis Veterum Ebræorum, lib. ii. cap. xi. 6).

In 1523 Linacre received his last court appointment, being made, along with Ludovicus Vives, Latin tutor to the Princess Mary, then five years old, and being also charged with the care of the princess's health. Though the appointment must have been a sinecure, it gave occasion for the composition of a Latin grammar, ‘Rudimenta Grammatices,’ intended for the use of the royal pupil.

In 1524 Linacre's health was evidently breaking, and in June he executed his will, but continued to work at the revision of his work ‘De emendata structura,’ probably almost on his deathbed. He died on 20 Oct. 1524 of calculus, at the age, as is supposed, of sixty-four, and was buried in the old cathedral of St. Paul's. For more than thirty years no memorial marked his grave; but this neglect was repaired in 1557 by John Caius, who wrote a Latin epitaph, preserved by Dugdale, and printed in Johnson's life. Caius tersely sketches his character thus: ‘Fraudes dolosque mire perosus, fidus amicis, omnibus ordinibus juxta carus.’

The foundation of the College of Physicians was mainly due to Linacre's efforts, and was his most important public service. The letters patent constituting the college were granted by Henry VIII on 23 Sept. 1518, on the prayer of the king's physicians, John Chambre, Thomas Linacre, and Ferdinand de Victoria, and three other physicians, and especially of Cardinal Wolsey. They incorporated the above physicians with others of the same faculty, giving them the sole power of licensing to the practice of physic in London and seven miles round, with other privileges which were confirmed by a statute of 14 Henry VIII, and extended to the whole of England. Although other physicians are mentioned, they took no part in the early business of the college, and Linacre's predominance is proved by the facts that he was the first president, and remained so till his death; that the meetings of the college were held in his house in Knightrider Street, of which he conveyed a portion to the college during his lifetime; and that he gave to the college his medical library. Probably also his influence with Wolsey led to the grant being obtained. He has always therefore been honoured as the projector and founder of the college, the plan of which was, according to John Caius, taken from similar institutions in Italy. This great and successful scheme shows Linacre to have been in constructive skill and foresight at least the equal of his contemporary Colet.

Linacre's benefactions to the universities were also of great importance. It was well known in his lifetime that he intended to found a lectureship in medicine at Oxford, and a curious letter of thanks to him from the university is preserved in the Bodleian Library (translated in Life, p. 269), where this intention is expressly mentioned; but the necessary letters patent authorising the foundation were not obtained till eight days before Linacre's death. By these permission was given to found three lectureships in medicine, two in the university of Oxford, one in Cambridge, to be called Lynacre's Lectures. The large estates applied to the purpose were originally to be held in trust by the Company of Mercers (, Fœdera, London, 1712, xiv. 25; Life, p. 330); but in the end Sir Thomas More, Tunstall, bishop of London, and two other persons were appointed trustees. No application of the funds was, however, made till the third year of Edward VI, when Tunstall, the only surviving trustee, assigned two lectureships to Merton College, Oxford, and one to St. John's College, Cambridge. It is quite clear that Linacre meant them to be university foundations, but Wood states the reasons for settling the Oxford foundation in Merton to have been the decay of the university in Edward VI's reign, and the special distinction of Merton as a medical college. These appointments gradually sank to the position of college lectureships, and ultimately sinecures held by fellows, till the splendid revival of the foundation in the present Linacre professorship of physiology. At St. John's, Cambridge, the lectureship also came in the end to be a mere sinecure, and, moreover, as we are informed, through imprudent management of the property, the income intended for the reader seems to have been completely lost. Linacre's great schemes for medical teaching in the universities thus fell far short of his design.

It is difficult now to estimate Linacre's skill as a physician, but it was probably considerable. He was honoured with the confidence of the most important persons in church and state, and of the most distinguished scholars. Erasmus speaks highly of his friend's medical services, and the one specimen of his treatment which has been