Page:English Law and the Renaissance.djvu/21

 law—and encouraged the study of another—the civil law—by the foundation of professorships at Oxford and Cambridge. We observe also that his choice of a man to fill the chair at Cambridge fell on one who was eminently qualified to represent in his own person that triad of the three R's—Renaissance, Reformation and Reception. We know Professor Thomas Smith as a humanist, an elegant scholar with advanced opinions about the pronunciation of Greek. We know the Reverend Thomas Smith as a decided, if cautious, protestant whose doings are of some interest to those who study the changeful history of ecclesiastical affairs. Then we know Dr Thomas Smith as a doctor in law of the university of Padua, for with praiseworthy zeal when he was appointed professor at Cambridge he journeyed to the fountain-head for his Roman law and his legal degree. Also he visited those French universities whence a new jurisprudence was beginning to spread. He returned to speak to us in two inaugural