Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/218

 England was exceptionally callous to the attractions of culture, as such.

These men were Latinists, stylists, engaged with form rather than content, opening out no new intellectual horizon. It was not till the value of Greek thought became in some degree manifest that the New Learning awakened any enthusiasm in England. An increase of knowledge was worth working for, not a development of style. Englishmen were little moved by purely æsthetic perceptions. They were willing to accept what was proved to be useful, or true; they were not much affected by what was only beautiful. English society in the fifteenth century was engaged in developing trade, and its tone was eminently practical. The nobles who followed the Italian model in developing their individuality were not appreciated and ended ill. The New Learning, if it was to take root in England, must come into definite connexion with English life and temper.

It was another band of Oxford men who gave it this form, and so secured for it an abiding home. The first Englishman who studied Greek was William Selling, of All Souls College, afterwards Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury. In the monastery school he breathed his own enthusiasm into one of his pupils, Thomas Linacre, who with two friends, William Grocyn and Thomas Latimer, went to Italy for the special purpose of learning Greek. These men differed from their predecessors in that they were not wandering scholars, but were academic to the core. When they had learned what they wanted, they returned to Oxford and taught. Moreover, they applied their