24.
** 3 and 4 Edward VI.c.

20.
*** Strype, vol.i.p.

117.
The penalties inflicted upon the new pronunciation were no less than whipping, degradation, and expulsion; and the bishop declared, that rather than permit the liberty of innovating in the pronunciation of the Greek alphabet, it were better that the language itself were totally banished the universities.

The introduction of the Greek language into Oxford excited the emulation of Cambridge.[*] Wolsey intended to have enriched the library of his college at Oxford with copies of all the manuscripts that were in the Vatican.[**] The countenance given to letters by this king and his ministers contributed to render learning fashionable in England: Erasmus speaks with great satisfaction of the general regard paid by the nobility and gentry to men of knowledge.[***] It is needless to be particular in mentioning the writers of this reign or of the preceding.

There is no man of that age who has the least pretension to be ranked among our classics.