THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 1485-1514 [Sidenote: Henry the Seventh] Still young, for he was hardly thirty when his victory at Bosworth placed him on the throne, the temper of Henry the Seventh seemed to promise the reign of a poetic dreamer rather than of a statesman.

The spare form, the sallow face, the quick eye, lit now and then with a fire that told of his Celtic blood, the shy, solitary humour which was only broken by outbursts of pleasant converse or genial sarcasm, told of an inner concentration and enthusiasm; and to the last Henry's mind remained imaginative and adventurous.

He dreamed of crusades, he dwelt with delight on the legends of Arthur which Caxton gave to the world in the year of his accession.

His tastes were literary and artistic.

He called foreign scholars to his court to serve as secretaries and historiographers; he trained his children in the highest culture of their day; he was a patron of the new printing press, a lover of books and of art.