The Project Gutenberg eBook ofGaleni pergamensis de temperamentis, et de inaequali intemperieThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Galeni pergamensis de temperamentis, et de inaequali intemperieAuthor: GalenEditor: Joseph Frank PayneTranslator: Thomas LinacreRelease date: February 27, 2019 [eBook #58978]Language: LatinCredits: Produced by Laurent Vogel and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GALENI PERGAMENSIS DE TEMPERAMENTIS, ET DE INAEQUALI INTEMPERIE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Galeni pergamensis de temperamentis, et de inaequali intemperieAuthor: GalenEditor: Joseph Frank PayneTranslator: Thomas LinacreRelease date: February 27, 2019 [eBook #58978]Language: LatinCredits: Produced by Laurent Vogel and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)
Title: Galeni pergamensis de temperamentis, et de inaequali intemperie
Author: GalenEditor: Joseph Frank PayneTranslator: Thomas Linacre
Author: Galen
Editor: Joseph Frank Payne
Translator: Thomas Linacre
Release date: February 27, 2019 [eBook #58978]
Language: Latin
Credits: Produced by Laurent Vogel and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GALENI PERGAMENSIS DE TEMPERAMENTIS, ET DE INAEQUALI INTEMPERIE ***
Transcriber’s Note:Whilst the publishers of the original text intended it as a facsimile reproduction, this was not considered practical for an e-text. The original used, for example, scribal abbreviations and the long s, making it unnecessarily difficult to read. These have been converted. In addition the mistakes noted in the INDEX ERRATORVM have been addressed, and a number of other errors (listed at the end) were picked up on and changed, based on a comparison with another edition of the same work printed in Paris in 1523.
Transcriber’s Note:Whilst the publishers of the original text intended it as a facsimile reproduction, this was not considered practical for an e-text. The original used, for example, scribal abbreviations and the long s, making it unnecessarily difficult to read. These have been converted. In addition the mistakes noted in the INDEX ERRATORVM have been addressed, and a number of other errors (listed at the end) were picked up on and changed, based on a comparison with another edition of the same work printed in Paris in 1523.
Portrait of Linacre
GALENI PERGAMENSISDE TEMPERAMENTIS, ET DEINAEQVALI INTEMPERIELIBRI TRESTHOMA LINACRO ANGLO INTERPRETE.Opus non medicis modo, sed et philosophis oppido quam necessarium nunc primum prodit in lucemCVM GRATIA& Priuilegio.Impressum apud praeclaram Cantabrigiam per Joannem Siberch, annoMDXXI.Reproduced in exact FacsimileWITH AN INTRODUCTIONBYJOSEPH FRANK PAYNE, M.D., F.R.C.P.FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORDAND A PORTRAIT OF THOMAS LINACRE¶Printed byC. J. Clay, M.A.Printer to the University of CambridgeforAlexander MacmillanandRobert Bowes,BooksellersNo. 1 Trinity Street, over against Saint Mary’s ChurchMDCCCLXXXI
GALENI PERGAMENSISDE TEMPERAMENTIS, ET DEINAEQVALI INTEMPERIE
LIBRI TRES
THOMA LINACRO ANGLO INTERPRETE.
Opus non medicis modo, sed et philosophis oppido quam necessarium nunc primum prodit in lucem
CVM GRATIA& Priuilegio.
Impressum apud praeclaram Cantabrigiam per Joannem Siberch, annoMDXXI.
Reproduced in exact Facsimile
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BYJOSEPH FRANK PAYNE, M.D., F.R.C.P.FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND A PORTRAIT OF THOMAS LINACRE
¶Printed byC. J. Clay, M.A.Printer to the University of CambridgeforAlexander MacmillanandRobert Bowes,BooksellersNo. 1 Trinity Street, over against Saint Mary’s Church
MDCCCLXXXI
The present reproduction of Linacre’s translation of two treatises by Galen is issued as a specimen of early typography, being the sixth in order of the seven books printed by John Siberch, the first Cambridge printer, in 1521. Besides these seven, one appeared in 1522, after which date no book is known to have been printed in Cambridge till 1584. The books printed by Siberch are all very scarce; of one but a single copy is known, and of three of the books there is not a single specimen in Cambridge. In 1878, the publishers of the present volume proposed to issue the whole of the eight books, and the following are now ready, and will shortly be published:
1. Bullock, Henry. Oratio habita Cantabrigiae. 1521.2. Cujusdam fidelis Christiani Epistola ad Christianos omnes. Subsequitur et Divi Augustini de miseria … vitæ sermo. 1521.8. Papyrii Gemini Eleatis Hermathena, seu de Eloquentiae victoria. 1522.
1. Bullock, Henry. Oratio habita Cantabrigiae. 1521.
2. Cujusdam fidelis Christiani Epistola ad Christianos omnes. Subsequitur et Divi Augustini de miseria … vitæ sermo. 1521.
8. Papyrii Gemini Eleatis Hermathena, seu de Eloquentiae victoria. 1522.
Mr Bradshaw, University Librarian, has compared the eight books side by side, and has thus been able to determine their relative order. He kindly allows his notes to be printed, and they will be issued with the first of the above three volumes.
The Publishers are desirous of gaining information about the printer, John Siberch, before 1521, when he commenced to print in Cambridge, and after 1522 when he discontinued printing there. Herbert suggests that he may be the John Sibert, who was printing at Lyons in 1498, and mentions a book of that date being in the Cambridge University Library. But this book, Henrici Bouhic Distinctiones super libros quinque Decretalium, consists of two large folio volumes, and the printer calls himself ‘MagisterJohannes Siberti;’ both of which facts make it unreasonable to identify him with the plain Johannes Siberch who printed little books at Cambridge so many years afterwards.
Cambridge,July 1, 1881.
Thomas Linacre, known to his contemporaries as one of the most learned scholars of an epoch when learning was highly prized, but in after times chiefly as the founder of the College of Physicians in London, was born at Canterbury, probably about the year 1460. Of his parentage and descent nothing certain is known, though some of his biographers have assumed, apparently without any evidence except the name, that he was connected with the family of Linacre in Derbyshire. It is clear from a passage in Linacre’s will that he had a brother, sisters, and other relatives (the brother strange to say, bearing the same baptismal name—Thomas) but further the family history cannot be traced.
This fact will appear less surprising, if we remember that Linacre like many scholars of his time, was never married, and lived for many years an almost monastic life, little influenced by family or social ties. More important than his descent was his education, and in this Linacre was unusually happy; for not a little of the success and eminence of hisafter life may be traced to the bias which the young scholar’s mind received from his earliest teacher. The Cathedral school of Canterbury within the monastery of Christ Church where Linacre became a pupil was at that time under the direction of William Tilly, otherwise called William of Selling, an Augustinian monk, and a scholar of a type at that time rare in England. Originally educated at Oxford, elected a Fellow of the newly founded College of All Souls, and afterwards received as a monk in the Monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, Selling found the means to travel in Italy, where he not only studied the Canon Law, but, what is more to the present purpose, during a stay at Bologna, studied Greek and became the pupil of Angelo Politiano. After two years’ stay in Italy, he returned home, became Prior of Christ Church, and later on was sent as Envoy from Henry VII. to the papal court; an event which proved of great importance to Linacre. At the time of which we are now speaking, he was only Master of the Grammar School, whether appointed before or after his first journey to Italy we do not know. In any case it is clear that he had already those tastes and pursuits from which his pupil Linacre derived not only his determining impulse to the life of a scholar, but especially that love of Greek literature which runs like a thread through the great physician’s life and is the clue to much of his versatile literary activity.
At the mature age (especially according to the customs of the day) of twenty, Linacre was sent to Oxford. At what College or Hall he studied is uncertain, though it is assumed, on trivial grounds that he must have entered at Canterbury Hall. The only fact which is certain is that after four years’ residence at the University, in 1484, he was elected a fellow of All Souls’ College. It has been thought by Dr NobleJohnson, the best biographer of Linacre, that this election must have implied relationship to Archbishop Chichele, the founder, and thus also to Selling, assuming that the latter owed his preferment also to family connexions. But the entry in the College books (which though not contemporary is a copy thought to have been made about 1571 of the original record) has no indication of his being of founder’s kin. It is simply “Thomas Lynaker,medicus insignis.” The omission to specify kinship to the founder is regarded by Dr Leighton the present Warden of All Souls (he was himself good enough to inform me) as decisive that no such kinship existed, and the supposition of any family tie between Linacre and Chichele or Selling must therefore be regarded as entirely baseless[1].
The time of Linacre’s residence at Oxford was one of much moment in the history of the University, already stirred by the earliest movements of the revival of learning. The first Oxford printing press was already issuing those few volumes, now become so rare, which must have been of startling interest to the world of scholars. The study of the new learning, Greek, had been introduced by Cornelio Vitali, an Italian, said to have been the first teacher of that language in England, and it is stated that Linacre became his pupil. At the same time he doubtless formed the acquaintance of two scholars who shared his devotion to the ‘new learning,’ William Grocyn and William Latimer, the former of whom survived to form part, with Linacre himself, of the brilliant circle of Oxford scholars, who a few years later excited the admiration of Erasmus.
But Linacre was soon to have the privilege which he must have long coveted, of perfecting his knowledge of Greek at what was then the fountain-head of that learning,in the schools of Italy. The opportunity came through his old friend and teacher, William of Selling, who was sent by Henry the Seventh as his envoy to the Papal Court. It is not clear that Linacre had any official position in the embassy; he accompanied his patron however, as far as Bologna, but not in his further journey to Rome. At Bologna Linacre is stated by Leland to have been introduced to Angelo Politiano, and to have remained there in order to become a pupil of this great scholar. His stay in Bologna appears to have been short, and we next hear of him at Florence, having perhaps followed thither Politiano, who along with Demetrius Chalcondylas had now been charged with the instruction of the two sons of Lorenzo de Medici, Piero and Giovanni. Linacre seems to have been favoured with the patronage of Lorenzo, who allowed him to share the instructions given to the young princes. It is not easy to understand precisely what was the position Linacre now occupied at the Court of Florence, for though his fellow pupils were boys and he himself a man of twenty-five and already a considerable scholar, he is not spoken of as in any sense their tutor. The connexion however must have been in after years valuable to him, as the dedication of the work now reprinted clearly shews: the pope Leo the Tenth, being the younger of the two Medici princes. It will be evident from the dedication itself that the privilege accorded to Linacre was shared by others, and it was therefore perhaps not so important as it has been regarded. It is enough to know that he studied under such eminent scholars as Politiano and Chalcondylas, and thus laid the foundation of the elegance in Latin scholarship and profundity in Greek learning for which he was afterwards distinguished.
After a year thus spent in Florence, Linacre proceeded toRome, where his studies in the Vatican library procured him the acquaintance of another great scholar, Hermolaus Barbarus. It is possible that this acquaintance may have given Linacre’s studies a bias in the direction of medicine; for Barbarus, though not a physician, had devoted himself specially to the study of Dioscorides, whose works he translated into Latin, and illustrated with commentaries, more than once reprinted. It is suggested by Dr Noble Johnson that the example and arguments of Hermolaus Barbarus may have given Linacre’s mind a bias of a different kind, namely towards a single life; for the Italian scholar, we are told, wrote a treatise in favour of celibacy at the age of eighteen, and never afterwards deviated either in practice or theory from the principles there advocated. Barbarus was also a great Aristotelian scholar, and in this direction also he may have influenced the mind of Linacre; who afterwards undertook and partly carried out a plan which had also been among the projects of the elder scholar, of a complete translation of the works of Aristotle. In other less important matters, the influence of Hermolaus Barbarus seems traceable, and if Linacre took as his model in a learned life any of the great scholars with whom he studied, it was certainly rather Hermolaus than any other.
From Rome Linacre went to Venice, and here made the valuable acquaintance of the great printer, Aldus Manutius Romanus, who was then engaged in bringing out some of the most important editions of the classics, by which he earned the gratitude of scholars. Aldus appears to have treated the English scholar with great kindness, which is acknowledged, as a personal favour, by William Grocyn, in a letter to Aldus, which must have been written shortly after Linacre’s return from Italy. After acknowledging the kindness shewnto his friend Linacre, Grocyn goes on to thank Aldus, in the name of English scholars especially for his editions of the Greek classics, and commends his preference for Aristotle to Plato. The rest of this letter, the style of which is praised by Erasmus, is interesting, especially as the only extant composition, except two trifling epigrams, of this once celebrated scholar, but has no further reference to our subject. Aldus prefixed it to Linacre’s translation of ProclusOn the Sphere, printed by him in the year 1499[2], in order (as he says in his dedication of this work to Albertus Pius, prince of Carpi) to make the Italian philosophers ashamed of their bad Latin, and lead them to rival the Englishmen. In the dedication just named Aldus pays a high compliment to Linacre’s scholarship, which may be quoted here, though written later. “Linacre,” he says, “has translated this work with elegance and learning.
“Qui utinam et Simplicium in Aristotelis Physica, et in ejusdem meteora Alexandrum quos nunc summâ curâ Latinos facit, ad me dedisset, ut et illos unâ cum Proclo ad te mitterem. Quanquam (ut spero) eosque et alios in Philosophiâ, medicinâque perutiles libros aliquando dabit. ut ex eâdem Britanniâ unde olim barbaræ et indoctæ literæ ad nos profectæ Italiam occuparunt, et adhuc arces tenent, latine et docte loquentes bonas artes accipiamus, ac britannicis adjutoribus fugatâ barbarie, arces nostras recipiamus, ut eâdem hastâ sanetur a quâ illatum est vulnus.”
He also implies that an intimate friendship existed between Linacre and the prince of Carpi, on which account the work will be more welcome to his patron.
The Aldineeditio princepsof Aristotle contains also an interesting allusion to Linacre, which seems to shew that he had something to do with the editing or correcting of that greatwork. It may even not be without some significance that a splendid copy of this edition, printed on vellum (and as complete in this state, according to Dibdin, of the highest rarity), once belonged to Linacre, and is now, bearing his autograph, in the library of New College, Oxford. In the dedication prefixed to the second volume of this work, Aldus boasts of the pains he had taken to secure a correct text,
“Ut tum querendis optimis et antiquis libris atque eâdem in re multiplicibus tum conferendis castigandisque exemplaribus quæ dilaceranda impressoribus traderentur, perirentque ut pariens vipera, in manus hominum venirent emendatissima. Id ita sit necne sunt mihi gravissimi testes in totâ fere Italiâ, et præcipue in Venetiis Thomas Anglicus, homo et græce et latine peritissimus præcellensque in doctrinarum omnium disciplinis.”
This volume is dated February, 1497, the first volume 1495, dates which are quite reconcilable with the time when Linacre is believed to have been at Venice.
On leaving Venice, Linacre went to Padua and probably made some stay there: since it was here that he graduated as Doctor of Medicine, and here he must have acquired the greatest part of his medical knowledge. Padua was at that time one of the chief seats of medical knowledge in Europe, and became shortly afterwards one of the first schools of anatomy. Its reputation in both departments was long preserved under the enlightened patronage of the Venetian Senate. Many students from Northern Europe naturally flocked thither, and among them a few from England and Scotland. Linacre was not the first eminent English scholar who graduated in medicine at Padua; the once celebrated Phreas [Wells], who left Balliol for Italy, and died at Rome, having preceded him by half a century or more; but he wasfollowed by a long roll of English and Scottish students the names and escutcheons of some of whom may still be seen in the gallery of the University quadrangle.
Though Linacre is said to have taken the degree of Doctor of Medicine with great distinction, there is no foundation for the assertion that he was everProfessorof Medicine in the University. The story rests on an obvious confusion of the titles of Doctor and Professor which were then and long afterwards equivalent and interchangeable in the European Universities.
The tradition of Linacre’s successful disputation at Padua is preserved in a dialogue by Richard Pacey (quoted in Johnson’s life) where Grammar and Rhetoric are made to dispute as to the respective merits of Theodore Gaza and Thomas Linacre. Grammar first claims Linacre as her own, Rhetoric contends that he was by right her son, and that Grammar was only the occupation of his leisure moments. On one occasion (says Rhetoric) he condescended to dispute with some Grammarian on certain minutiæ connected with the vocative case, but gained a more brilliant victory when he defended his theses for graduation at Padua, “Nam quum in gymnasio Patavino, professionis artis medicæ ei (ut nunc moris est) darentur insignia, publicé non sine summâ laude disputavit, et seniorum medicorum adversaria argumenta accuratissime refellit”[3].
Linacre’s route after leaving Padua, may, Dr Johnson tells us, be accurately and precisely traced through Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo and Milan; but the authority for this statement is not given. It may however be permissible to delay for a moment at Vicenza, since it is pretty certain that Linacre did pass there, and highly probable that his stay had some influence on his literary life. This city wasthe home of a celebrated physician and scholar, Nicolaus Leonicenus, best known as the author of the earliest treatise on Syphilis, the fearful malady at that time beginning to be known; but also celebrated for having translated several works of Galen from the Greek. One of these versions, that of the treatiseDe motû musculorumwas afterwards published by Linacre with some of his own. Leonicenus was much older than Linacre (though he survived him) and in after years, as we know from a letter of Croke to Henry VIII., spoke of Linacre as his pupil[4].
The reputation of this now almost forgotten scholar was very high among his contemporaries. Aldus Romanus, in the dedication of the Aristotle already spoken of to Albertus Pius, Prince of Carpi, speaks of Leonicenus as ‘philosophorum ætatis nostræ medicorumque facile princeps’. A correspondence which has been preserved between Leonicenus and Angelus Politianus is full of mutual compliments; and shews that the two scholars regarded themselves as allies in the common warfare against ‘barbarism’ a foe that had to be expelled from the fields of philosophy and medicine as well as from that of letters[5].
It is certain that the example of such a man could not have been without effect on so apt a pupil as Linacre, and the influence of Vicenza is clearly apparent in some of his later work.
On leaving Italy, Linacre is said to have indulged in an antiquarian caprice which seems little in harmony with what we afterwards hear of his staid character, though in his hot youth and under the influence of the classical sentiment it may have been possible, and even natural. The story is that on bidding farewell to Italy at some mountain pass he indulged his fancy in building a cairn of stones, which he crowned withflowers, and dedicated to Italy, assancta mater studiorum. All that is known about this transaction comes from two Latin poems, by Janus Vitalis and by Joannes Latomus, one of which it may be sufficient to quote.
JANUS VITALESIN THOMÆ LINACRI ANGLI ITALIA DISCESSUM.Dum Linacrus adit Morinos, patriosque Britannos,Artibus egregiis dives ab Italiâ,Ingentem molem saxorum in rupibus altis,Congerit ad fauces ante Gebenna tuas,Floribus hinc, viridique struem dum fronde coronat,Et sacer Assyrias pascitur ignis opes:“Hoc tibi” ait “mater studiorum, ô sancta meorumTemplum Linacrus dedicat, Italia;Tu modò cui doctâ assurgunt cum Pallade AthenæHoc de me pretium sedulitatis habe.”
JANUS VITALES
IN THOMÆ LINACRI ANGLI ITALIA DISCESSUM.
Dum Linacrus adit Morinos, patriosque Britannos,Artibus egregiis dives ab Italiâ,Ingentem molem saxorum in rupibus altis,Congerit ad fauces ante Gebenna tuas,Floribus hinc, viridique struem dum fronde coronat,Et sacer Assyrias pascitur ignis opes:“Hoc tibi” ait “mater studiorum, ô sancta meorumTemplum Linacrus dedicat, Italia;Tu modò cui doctâ assurgunt cum Pallade AthenæHoc de me pretium sedulitatis habe.”
Dum Linacrus adit Morinos, patriosque Britannos,
Artibus egregiis dives ab Italiâ,
Ingentem molem saxorum in rupibus altis,
Congerit ad fauces ante Gebenna tuas,
Floribus hinc, viridique struem dum fronde coronat,
Et sacer Assyrias pascitur ignis opes:
“Hoc tibi” ait “mater studiorum, ô sancta meorum
Templum Linacrus dedicat, Italia;
Tu modò cui doctâ assurgunt cum Pallade Athenæ
Hoc de me pretium sedulitatis habe.”
The second poem is by Joannes Latomus, and entitledArnidis querela in Thomam Linacrum Anglum Italiâ discessurum. It represents the nymph of the Arno expostulating with Linacre while engaged in erecting his altar, on his fixed resolution to return home. It is highly laudatory, but too long for quotation[6].
In both copies of verses the nameGebennaoccurs in connexion with this incident, and as this usually means, in classical Latin, the mountain district called the Cevennes, Dr Johnson concludes that Linacre before pursuing his journey to Paris stayed in this district. It does not seem necessary to suppose that he took so circuitous a route, or visited apart of the country which must at that time have been wild and little traversed, and where a scholar, uninfluenced by modern love of the picturesque can have found nothing to attract him. ButCivitas Gebennensisis the name given, almost universally, by the printers of Linacre’s time, to the city of Geneva, and Stephanus:—Dictionarium nominum propriorumgives an interpretation apparently identical. We can well believe that, in crossing the pass of the great St Bernard on his way down to Geneva, Linacre would not bid farewell to the southern side of the Alps without some expression of emotion. But too much importance must not be attached to a story which probably rested only on some trifling incident of travel in crossing the Alps, related by Linacre himself in writing to his Italian friends.
The nameMorinosin the verses quoted above sufficiently indicates that Linacre returned home, or was expected to return by way of Calais. He must doubtless have passed through Paris, but we have no record of any acquaintanceship there, though certainly at a later time Linacre had literary correspondents and friends in that city.
On his return to England Linacre seems to have resumed his residence in All Souls’ College. His position in the University must have been one of considerable eminence, since a knowledge of Greek was still confined to a few scholars, and great respect was paid to those who had acquired this new accomplishment in Italy. There were about this time or a little later but four such scholars in Oxford. Grocyn and Latimer were a little older than Linacre. Colet was younger, or, at least, visited Italy later, and the date of his stay in Florence gave his studies a somewhat different complexion from what we see in Linacre. It has been well pointed out by Mr Seebohm, in his work on the Oxford Reformers[7], thatColet was at Florence during the agitation and enthusiasm aroused by the preaching of Savonarola, and doubtless derived from him that new spirit in theology which his after life displayed, and which has caused him to be reckoned among the precursors of the reformation. Grocyn and Linacre shew nothing of this. They knew Florence when the literaryrenaissancewas at its height, and when the spirit of the learned world was more pagan than Christian. We shall notice afterwards what bearing this had upon Linacre’s literary and theological position.
The dissertation which the newly-returned scholar read for his degree in medicine is said to have attracted attention, but he does not seem to have taught publicly;—at least Grocyn and Latimer are the only names we hear of as public lecturers on Greek. It was, however, Linacre’s good fortune, at this time, to meet with a pupil whose subsequent eminence was enough to make his teacher distinguished, with whom he formed the most important literary friendship of his life, and who has left us the brightest and most life-like pictures of Linacre himself. This pupil was Erasmus, whose long-cherished plans of going to Italy to learn Greek were, as is well known, deferred, in order that he might visit England with the same object. The story of Erasmus’ stay in Oxford has often been told, though never before so fully and clearly as in Mr Seebohm’s volume already referred to. It is very likely that he may have derived from Colet some of the ideas which afterwards influenced his literary and theological activity. To Linacre he owed, undoubtedly, the foundation of his Greek scholarship, and his respect for the ability and character of his teacher are shewn in many well-known passages from his letters. In one of the best known he writes as follows: “In Colet I hear Plato himself. Who does not admire the perfectcompass of science in Grocyn? What can be more acute, more profound, or more refined than the judgment of Linacre?” There are many similar passages, and, though eulogy was the fashion of the age, we feel at once that, at least in speaking of Linacre, Erasmus meant what he said. The same impression must be derived, I think, from an amusing passage in the “Encomium Moriæ,” though some of Linacre’s biographers seem to have omitted it as if derogatory to his reputation. It is, however, written in a strain of good-natured banter, which shews that there was a foundation of good feeling and mutual respect between the two scholars.
“Novi quendam πολυτεχνότατον Græcum, Latinum, Mathematicum, philosophum medicum καὶ ταῦτα βασιλικὸν jam sexagenarium qui cæteris rebus omissis annis plus viginti se torquet et discruciat in Grammaticâ, prorsus felicem se fore ratus si tamdiu licet vivere, donec certo statuat, quomodo distinguendæ sint octo partes orationis, quod hactenus nemo Græcorum aut Latinorum ad plenum præstare valuit. Proinde quasi res sit bello quoque vindicanda, si quis conjunctionem faciat dictionem ad adverbiorum jus pertinentem[8].”
There is no record of Linacre’s practice in his profession at Oxford. A new direction was given to his life by the call which he received about the year 1501 to come to court, and direct the studies of the young Prince Arthur. This mark of court favour appears to have been in some way connected with the visit of Prince Arthur to the University where he resided in Magdalen College. The appointment lasted till the prince’s death in 1503, but the only record of it which remains is the Latin translation of the treatise of ProclusOn the Sphere, dedicated to Prince Arthur, which has been already referred to. This was Linacre’s earliest published work. After the prince’s death Linacre appears to have stayed inLondon, and probably to have practised medicine, but there is no satisfactory evidence as to this period of his life.
The accession of Henry VIII. must have raised the hopes of Linacre, as it did those of all the scholars and enlightened men in England at that time. The young king, known to be learned himself and a favourer of learning, was expected to give a powerful stimulus to the progress of the new studies. Erasmus was urged by his friends to return to England to share the prosperity and splendour of the new reign. A new epoch of enlightenment was to commence, and a final blow was to be given to all those evils and abuses which the scholars summed up in the word barbarism. It is well known that these hopes were not at all, or very imperfectly, realized, but Linacre himself had no reason for disappointment. He was made the royal physician, a post, in those days, of great influence and importance in other than professional matters, as is shewn by a curious letter addressed to Linacre by the University of Oxford. From this, as from other events, it is clear that Linacre did not, while at court, forget his old mistress, learning, but used his influence as far as possible for her advancement. He is described by a contemporary and friend George Lilly, as conspicuous among the chief persons of the court in a purple robe and a hood of black silk[9]. Among his other patients are mentioned the great prelates Wolsey, Warham, and Fox.
After some years of professional activity, and when he was about fifty years of age, Linacre appears to have taken holy orders; or possibly at this time merely proceeded to priest’s orders, having been previously deacon. The simplest explanation of this step is that which is given by himself in the dedication of his translation ofGalen de Naturalibus Facultatibusto Archbishop Warham, namely, that hehoped to get more leisure for literary work. It is supposed that he prepared himself for the sacred office by entering, in mature life, upon the study of theology, and a curious story is told in connexion with his first reading of the New Testament, which, as it has been strangely misunderstood, may be worth giving in detail. The story rests solely on the authority of Sir John Cheke, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, in his letters on the pronunciation of Greek, addressed to Bishop Gardiner, at that time Chancellor of the University. Cheke seems to have been anxious to conciliate the Bishop, and at the same time, for some reason or other, to depreciate Linacre. He speaks of him as a learned person and a good physician, but one who should not venture out of his own province, and, he says, in power of rhetoric and popular expression far inferior to the episcopal correspondent to whom Cheke’s letters were addressed[10].
He then tells the following story. Linacre when advanced in life, his health broken by study and disease, and near his end, took the New Testament in his hand for the first time, (although he was a priest,) and read the Gospel of St Matthew to the end of the 7th Chapter (that is to the end of the Sermon on the Mount). Having read it, he threw the volume away with all the strength he could muster, swearing “either this is not the Gospel or we are not Christians.” It is probable that the striking contrast between the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and the practice of the Christian World has inspired many readers with the same feeling, and it will continue to have the same effect on many more, though they may not happen to give vent to their surprise with the same petulance. Cheke seems to argue that it shewed some scepticism in Linacre or want of respect for the Scriptures. Selden has misunderstood the story still more strangely, imaginingthat Linacre referred only or chiefly to the prohibition of swearing. But looked at without prejudice Linacre’s exclamation seems natural enough. It is well known that the Scholars of therenaissance, before the time of Erasmus at least, were very little acquainted with the Scriptures in the original text, or even in the Latin Vulgate Version, which is said to have been avoided on account of its non-classical idioms. Now Linacre was a scholar and not a theologian. A theologian by profession either passes lightly over discrepancies such as these or else has already found such an explanation of them as is possible. But the spirit of scholarship and criticism is to take words in their true meaning and to view ideas by uncoloured light. Linacre’s remark needs no other explanation than that he read the passage with the unbiassed judgment of a scholar.
Although it is clear that Linacre entered the Church under the patronage of Archbishop Warham he is said to have been ordained priest by the Bishop of London on Decʳ 22ⁿᵈ 1520. The date of his entrance into deacon’s orders is unknown. It has been conjectured that he received from Pope Leo the Tenth, his old schoolfellow, a dispensation from the necessity of passing through the inferior clerical degrees, and that this may have been the kindness for which he expresses his gratitude in the dedication of the present volume. Be this as it may, he received from Warham in 1509 his first preferment to the Rectory of Merstham in Kent, which he resigned in a little more than a month from his collation. In the same year he received the Prebend of Easton in Gardano in the Cathedral of Wells, and in the same year the living of Hawkhurst, in Kent, which he held till the year 1524. Further marks of favour were bestowed upon him in 1517, when he was made Canon and Prebendary of Westminster, and in 1518 when heacquired the Prebend of South Newbold in the Cathedral of York. He resigned the latter preferment on receiving the important appointment of Precentor in the same York Cathedral, but resigned this also in the same year. Two other benefices are recorded as having been bestowed upon him, the Rectory of Holworthy in Devonshire by the King, in 1518, and in 1520 the Rectory of Wigan, in Lancashire, on the title of which he received priest’s orders, Dec. 22, 1520, and which he held till his death[11].
There is no evidence that Linacre resided at any one of the benefices or Cathedral appointments which he received. In fact it is most probable, though not absolutely certain, that he continued to live in his London house. His biographers then have been somewhat puzzled to account for his accepting so many preferments and resigning most of them so soon. But it is probable that a physician and scholar did not hold more rigid notions respecting the evils of pluralism than his more strictly clerical contemporaries and that he saw no harm in holding a benefice of which he could not discharge the duty or only did so by deputy. The speedy resignation of a benefice is no evidence that the preferment was unprofitable. It is probable that in accordance with the common custom he resigned only in favour of a consideration paid by an aspirant who desired to be presented to the office, and was willing to pay the holder to vacate it. Such a practice has lasted in regard to secular offices almost to our own time[12]. Linacre must be judged not by the system which, whatever its faults, gave him leisure for literary work and plans of public usefulness, but by the manner in which he employed the wealth which these benefices placed at his disposal. It must have been from this source that he obtained funds for his munificent endowments.
The firstfruits of his renewed literary activity did not appear till the year 1517, eighteen years after his first work, when he published his translation into Latin of the six Books of Galen,De Sanitate Tuendâ. This version was printed in a fine folio by Rubeus, of Paris, and dedicated to Henry VIII. The dedication of this work shews the reverence in which the writings of Galen were held, a point of which we shall have to speak again. It is also interesting since it tells us that many scholars of Italy, France, and Germany, but especially the two great lights of the age, Erasmus and Budæus, had repeatedly urged him to publish this work. The Preface addressed to the reader contains a great many Greek words, which may perhaps be the reason why the work was not printed in England, where no Greek type probably existed at this time, as will be seen from Siberch’s introduction to the work now reprinted. A vellum copy of this book presented to Cardinal Wolsey is still preserved in the British Museum with the original letter which accompanied it. Another copy presented to Bishop Fox is now in the library of the College of Physicians, and has a dedicatory letter written at the beginning, but I cannot think it to be Linacre’s own handwriting.
Two years later appeared the translation of Galen’sMethodus Medendi, in bulk one of the greatest of his works, and in substance one of the most obscure. It is not now easy to understand the admiration and gratitude with which scholars received his translation. The work itself was known by name only to most, and perhaps on that account was the more respected. The judgment of Dr Johnson, Linacre’s biographer, is as follows:—“Not less formidable in its length than incomprehensible in many of the theories contained in it. The sentence pronounced by the Mufti on the verses of theTurkish poet Missi, whose meaning he declared to be intelligible to none save to God and to him by whom they were composed, may with equal truth be applied to the doctrine which this book inculcates.” This translation also was dedicated to Henry 8th and it is curious that Linacre speaks of it as the third work published under the protection of the Royal name, though no other is known than that already mentioned, unless the allusion be to the dedication of his translation of Proclus to the King’s elder brother, Prince Arthur. It is further introduced by some commendatory verses from the pen of Janus Lascaris. It was beautifully printed in folio by Desiderius Maheu, at Paris, in 1519. A presentation copy sent to Cardinal Wolsey with the complimentary letter which accompanied it is still preserved in the British Museum. Both the above-mentioned versions have been frequently reprinted at Paris and elsewhere, and, with a few alterations, have been accepted as the standard translations of those works of Galen.
The next work published by Linacre was the translation now reproduced of which we need not speak further at this point. The dedication to Pope Leo the Tenth is, as will be seen, inspired by a recollection of the writer’s early friendship with the great Pontiff, when they were fellow-pupils of Politian and Chalcondylas. One passage in this letter is still obscure, that in which he refers to some recent and striking proof of the Pontiff’s munificence, shared in common with others, who had been also his schoolfellows at Florence. It has been suggested that this act of kindness may have been some dispensation which facilitated Linacre’s entrance into Holy Orders. If there were any such dispensation, it is more likely that it was one enabling him to hold a benefice, while still a deacon, or perhaps even a layman, since we find that Linacre’s first clerical preferment was given him in the year of Henry theEighth’s accession, which must also have been that of Linacre’s appointment as Court Physician, and it seems highly improbable that his ordination should have taken place almost simultaneously with this appointment. But there is no proof that any dispensation whatever was referred to, and it is quite possible that the Pope’s generosity may have been shewn in some other way, such as by some valuable present, since this might have been, what a dispensation could not have been, bestowed alike on his other old schoolfellows.
Two other translations from Galen, were published by Linacre during his lifetime, one the treatiseDe Naturalibus Facultatibusin the year 1523 by Pynson, in London, and a short tractDe Pulsuum Usû, either in the same year or in the next, which was the last year of Linacre’s life. Two other translations,De Symptomatum DifferentiisandDe Symptomatum Causis, were printed by Pynson after the writer’s death.
Two grammatical works must also be mentioned as occupying some part of Linacre’s later years; theRudimenta Grammaticeswas composed for the use of the Princess Mary, and is in English, though its title is Latin. It was afterwards translated into Latin by George Buchanan, and in this form published at Paris.
A more elaborate work entitledDe Emendatâ structurâwas not printed until the year 1524, but from the history of its composition must have been written about 14 years earlier. Linacre’s old friend Dean Colet, the founder of St Paul’s School, desiring to have for the use of his school a better grammar than any which already existed, appears to have asked Linacre to compose a suitable work. The treatise of which we are now speaking resulted, but when produced it was thought to be, in bulk and difficulty, quite beyond the comprehension of young pupils. Colet accordingly thought himself obliged to decline it, and substituted a much shortercompendium written by himself, or William Lily, or by both jointly, which was afterwards revised by Erasmus and reprinted by Cardinal Wolsey for the use of Ipswich School. This was the foundation of the well-known Lily’s Grammar. Linacre appears to have been annoyed at the rejection of his Grammar, and a breach was thus made in his friendship with Colet, which never appears to have been healed. Erasmus vainly endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation. This was the best known work published by Linacre in the domain of scholarship; several editions were printed by Estienne at Paris, and many others in other European cities. To some is prefixed a laudatory preface by Melanchthon. It is not quite clear whether it was published before or immediately after the author’s death.
The works now mentioned were, in combination with medical practice, the occupation of the last 14 years of Linacre’s life. It is impossible to say exactly at what time he gave up the active practice of his profession. The only passage which might be supposed to throw any light on the subject, is one in the dedication of the translation ofDe Naturalibus Facultatibusto Archbishop Warham, where he speaks gratefully of the leisure afforded by the assumption of the priestly office conferred on him by Warham[13]. But as the only certain instance of his receiving a benefice from the Archbishop, was that of the rectory of Merstham, in 1509, the year in which Linacre entered upon his duties as Court Physician, it seems that some later preferment or else ordination, must be referred to. It is possible therefore, that he may have only gradually given up practice.
But Linacre rendered a service to medicine far more important than any of his writings, by the foundation of the College of Physicians and it is for this that he has been andwill continue to be held in grateful remembrance. In order to understand the importance and utility of Linacre’s conception we must remember that up to this time medicine could not be said to have existed as a distinct profession in England. The two classes of physicians and surgeons were very widely separated. The former were chiefly ecclesiastics and so far as any authorization was necessary to allow them to practice they received their authority from the Bishops or Archbishops. A statute passed in the 3rd year of Henry VIII. (3 Henry VIII. Cap. 11.) exhibits a first attempt to remedy this deficiency. It is there recited that “forasmuch as the science and cunning of physic and chirurgy to the perfect knowledge whereof be requisite both great learning and ready experience is daily in this realm exercised by great multitudes of ignorant persons of whom the greater part have no manner of insight in the same nor in any other kind of learning; some also can know no letters on the book, so far that common artificers as smiths, weavers, and women boldly and customarily take upon them great cures of things of great difficulty in the which they partly use sorcery and witchcraft, and partly apply such medicines unto the disease as be very noyous and are not meet therefor, to the high displeasure of God, great infamy to the faculty, and the grievous hurt, damage, and destruction of many of the King’s liege people, most especially of them that cannot discern the uncunning from the cunning.” It is then provided that no one should practise as a physician or surgeon within the City of London or seven miles from the same except he be examined and proved by the Bishop of London or by the Dean of Paul’s with the aid of doctors of Physic and experts in surgery. In other parts of the country the duty of proving medical practitioners was assigned to the Bishop of the Diocese.
We do not know whether Linacre’s influence was in any way concerned in getting this Statute passed. A few years afterwards, in the year 1518, Royal letters patent were granted for the carrying out of the scheme in which Linacre was concerned and which was in all probability framed by him. The letters were addressed to John Chambre, Thomas Linacre, and Fernandus de Victoria, together with three other physicians also named, and all men of the same faculty in London. These were to be incorporated as one perpetual commonalty or College, to have the power of electing a President, the use of a common seal, the liberty of holding lands in fee and of purchasing lands whose annual value did not exceed £12. They were permitted to make statutes for regulating the practice of physic in London and for seven miles round, and received the important privilege of punishing offenders by fine or imprisonment.
These letters were dated 23rd September in the 10th year of Henry VIII. Four years after the privileges thereby granted were confirmed and extended by a Statute (14 & 15 Henry VIII. Cap. 5). By this Statute the privileges of the College were extended over the whole of England, no person being allowed to practise physic without having been examined and licensed by the President of the College and three of the elect. The reason given for this extension of privilege was the difficulty of finding in each diocese men able to sufficiently examine those who were to be admitted physicians. The graduates of Oxford or Cambridge who had accomplished all their exercises in due form without any grace were alone allowed to practise without a licence. The privileges of the College were confirmed and enlarged by several subsequent Statutes and Letters Patent in the reign of King James the First, in the Protectorate of Cromwell, and at other times.Among other powers conferred by James the First was that of examining into the purity and goodness of all apothecaries’ wares kept in the houses of apothecaries and druggists in London. This right was exercised up till the beginning of this century and a similar inspection or visitation of drugs is still performed by Government Assessors in Germany.
Comparing the College of Physicians with the bodies which exercised the same rights in other countries in the sixteenth century we see that the chief justification for its existence was the fact that no University or Faculty of Medicine existed in London. In Paris, for instance, and in other University cities very similar privileges were given to the Faculty, that is to say, to the Doctors of Medicine of the University. It would have been a serious curtailment of University privileges to have founded in those cities any body like the College of Physicians. Linacre, who was so well acquainted with the learned bodies of Italy and France, must doubtless have felt the want in London of a learned body with the name and dignity of the University. His College was doubtless intended to take the place of the University so far as medicine was concerned. There is, however, no hint of any provision for teaching.
Beside the ostensible object of preventing the practice of medicine by ignorant persons, the foundation of the College effected another equally important reform which may possibly have been foreseen and intended by its founders, although the intention was not avowed. This was nothing else than the liberation of medicine and the medical profession from the control of the Church. The Bishops, it is said, notwithstanding the formal abolition of their privileges, continued to license physicians for 180 years after the foundation of the College, but never since has any ecclesiastical authority controlledthe status or the practice of the medical profession in England. This liberty could hardly have been so complete had medicine been as completely as in other countries a department of University teaching. Linacre’s foundation must have the credit of preserving medicine both from the immediate domination of clerics and from future subjection to the leaden rule of orthodoxy, which swayed for several centuries the English Universities. The conditions of the new College and the mode of admission into it were clearly designed, and were calculated to give a very definite stamp to the English physician. He was to be in the first place a man of learning, and in this respect the standard of the College was certainly higher than that of the Universities, as is clear from the history of certain controversies that arose between these authorities. Considering too that it was scarcely possible to obtain in this country the particular kind of learning required, a strong inducement was held out to physicians to study at the Universities of the Continent, especially in Italy. Hence physicians were not only learned but very often travelled persons; and the names of foreigners are found rather frequently in the early rolls of the College. Moreover as the number of physicians practising in London was not large, and the difficulties of obtaining a licence were so considerable, a physician had no doubt a social position very much above that of the surgeon, and perhaps relatively higher than at the present day. It must be admitted also that the standing of an English physician has been made more definite and further removed from any association with trade than in any other European country. We see then pretty clearly what was the ideal that Linacre had framed;—a grave and learned person, well read in Galen, respecting, but not bowing down to, the prestige of the Universities, claiming for his own science a dignity apartfrom, but not conflicting with, that of theology, looking upon surgeons and apothecaries with charity, but not without a sense of his own superiority.
Such was to be the English Physician, and Linacre succeeded, if such was his object, in moulding a definite type of character which lasted for two centuries at least. But the physician of Linacre’s school is no more;—his epitaph was written nearly a hundred years ago by no less a person than Samuel Johnson. The great lexicographer was asked upon his death-bed for what physician he had sent. “I have sent,” he said, “for Heberden,ultimum Romanorum, the last of our learned physicians.”
The further history of the College of Physicians need not be written here; but something must be said of two other foundations also due to the public spirit and far-seeing benevolence of Linacre. These were his readerships at Oxford and Cambridge. In order to provide for the public teaching of medicine in the University and more especially for the reading of the works of Hippocrates and Galen, Linacre shortly before his death transferred to trustees considerable landed estates producing about £30 a year, which it was no doubt intended should be conveyed directly to the Universities for the foundation of Readerships. But the manner in which his purpose was carried out was unsatisfactory, and the subsequent history of the foundations is a melancholy chapter in University annals. The four trustees were Sir Thomas More, Tunstall, Bishop of London, Stokesley, himself afterwards a bishop and a certain Sheriff, a lawyer. For reasons which it is difficult to understand, unless simply negligence and procrastination were responsible, nothing was done with these funds till the reign of Edward VI., when Tunstall, the surviving trustee, transferredpart of the estate to Merton College, Oxford, for the foundation of two Readers, and another part to St John’s College, Cambridge, for the establishment of a Readership there. It is quite clear that Linacre intended these to be University and not college foundations. His intention is sufficiently established by a letter addressed to him by the University of Oxford which has been published by Dr Johnson. The University acknowledges “that peculiar affection towards our commonwealth by which you have rendered yourself specially eminent,” and speaks of the splendid lectures “which you have appointed to be read here at your expense as wisely devoted to the study of medicine.” This might seem to refer to a foundation already established, but for the concluding words of the letter, “Lastly, we earnestly and again and again implore you not to abandon the resolution you have undertaken, and that your intentions may never be so many and varied as to divert or overcrowd this project. Let us certainly hope that the restoration of these, as well as all other studies to their pristine dignity may be effected during your life, and if aught in our power can promote this most excellent design, believe us prepared to second your wishes. Farewell, and may you long enjoy life, chief patron of learning!” According to Anthony Wood, Linacre’s foundation was settled in Merton College instead of in the University, on account of the great decay of the University in the reign of Edward VI., and through the persuasion of Dr Reynolds, warden of Merton College. This College was moreover for some reason specially frequented by the students of medicine. The appointment of readers, originally the duty of the trustees, was now transferred to the College. Members of the College had a preference for the appointment; though if none were found properly qualified, a member of anotherCollege or Hall might be appointed. The appointment was for three years only. With our present experience of University history, it is easy to see that no system could have been better calculated to reduce Linacre’s great foundation to uselessness and obscurity.
The names of a few of the earlier readers are given by Wood; that of one only, Dr Robert Barnes, emerges from total obscurity. The Readerships soon became sinecures, and their stipends were regarded as nothing more than an agreeable addition to the incomes of two of the Fellows. Among the many similar instances of the misapplication of endowments we shall not easily find a grosser abuse. Twenty years ago, as is well known, the Oxford Commissioners revived the name of the Founder in the present flourishing Linacre Professorship of Anatomy so ably filled, so important in the history of science in Oxford, and provided for its endowment by Merton College, as an equivalent for the income which the College still derives from Linacre’s estates.
At Cambridge the history of the corresponding Readership was even more unfortunate. The appointment was given to St John’s College, and though it was at first provided that the lectures of Linacre’s Reader should be delivered in the Schools of the University, the office soon came to be regarded as nothing more than a college sinecure. Moreover, through bad management of the funds, or chiefly, I believe, through an imprudent exchange of the estate originally settled by Linacre for one which has turned out to be of less value, the income originally intended for the Readership seems to have been lost. But for the sake of other than Cambridge men it ought to be here stated that the present Linacre Reader of Pathology fills with credit a chair most inadequately endowed, and has revived in Cambridgethe public teachings of a study perfectly congruous with, though different from that which was intended by the founder. It is impossible to doubt that Linacre looked forward to founding what should essentially be a school of medicine in each University. And it is a strange instance of the irony of fate, that Cambridge at the present day comes far nearer to carrying out the plans of the great scholar than his own University of Oxford, to which he always shewed the loyalty of an affectionate son, and on which he conferred the largest share of his munificent bounty.
In the year 1524 it became evident to Linacre that his health was breaking, and in June of that year he executed his will. He appears to have suffered much from the painful disease, stone in the bladder, which finally carried him off on the 20th October, 1524, at the age, as is supposed, of sixty-four. His death was a great loss to the cause of learning in England, and many passages in the letters of contemporary scholars will shew that it was not less felt in all learned circles throughout Europe. He was buried in the Old Cathedral of St Paul, but for more than thirty years no memorial appears to have marked his grave. This strange neglect was only supplied in the year 1557 by the great physician John Caius, a name memorable in Cambridge annals, who if not personally a pupil of Linacre was in the most complete sense the inheritor of his spirit, and the most perfect type of a physician, such as the founder of our College wished to see. The Latin epitaph, written no doubt by Caius himself, perished in the great fire of London, but has been preserved by Dugdale. After an enumeration of the learned works and public services of Linacre it sketches in a few words a fine character, “Fraudes dolosque mire perosus; fidus amicis; omnibus ordinibus juxta carus.”
It will hardly be necessary to supplement the terse eulogium pronounced by Caius, by any attempt to sum up Linacre’s moral excellences. But it may be worth while to form some estimate of the talents and accomplishments which gave him so high a reputation among his contemporaries. No original writing of Linacre’s has been preserved, except his grammatical works and a few dedications and letters, on the strength of which it would be absurd to hazard any generalization as to his intellectual power. His reputation rested and still rests upon his translations; together with the undefined, but unmistakably strong impression which he produced upon his friends and literary contemporaries. From them we should gather that it was to the multifariousness of Linacre’s attainments as well as his excellence in each, that he owed his renown. To his literary faculty there are many testimonies. His Latin writing was thought to be so good that according to the friendly eulogium of Erasmus, the works of Galen as interpreted by Linacre, spoke better Latin than they had before spoken Greek. Other opinions not less laudatory were expressed both by Erasmus himself in other places and by other scholars not less sensitive in the matter of style. Linacre was not, however, a slavish imitator of any master. Erasmus among others has preserved the tradition of his slight regard for Cicero. He would rather have been thought to write like Quinctilian. The only complaint however which Erasmus makes against his friend is for his excessive elaboration in polishing and correcting his writings, from which it resulted that much of his work was reserved as not sufficiently perfect to be published: and in many cases ultimately lost[14]. It is disappointing to hear that Linacre had translated Aristotle in such a way that Erasmus says ‘sic Latine legitur Aristoteles ut, licet Atticus, vix in suosermone parem habeat gratiam’: and of his other versions ‘sunt illi permulta in scriniis, magno usui futura studiosis.’
Beside the excellence of his style, Linacre was famed for his critical judgment, ‘vir non exacti tantum sed severi judicii’, says Erasmus, while in Grammar and Rhetoric, as shewn in the curious little fable of Richard Pacey formerly quoted, he was regarded as no less a master. Moreover he was what was called in those days an eminent ‘philosopher,’ that is, profoundly read in the works of the ancient naturalists and philosophers, such as Aristotle, Plato and Pliny.
It is not easy to form any distinct notion of Linacre’s skill in his own profession. Little more was expected of a physician in those days than to apply with proper care the maxims of the books. We do not even know whether in his practice Linacre made more use of the ancient medical classics whom he was endeavouring to rescue from neglect than of the ‘Neoterics’ who were the ruling spirits of the day, and whose doctrines were derived from the Arab physicians or from European schools sprung out of the Arab learning. Some have taken for granted that a man so great in book learning could not be good in practice. But the few notices which remain give no countenance to this assumption. Erasmus commemorates in two or three places his friend’s medical skill. In one he deplores Linacre’s absence, and laments (with curious modernism) that his servant had left the physician’s last prescription at the druggist’s, and begs for another copy. In one instance a record of Linacre’s treatment of Erasmus’s complaint remains, and appears to have been as sensible and practical, as if the physician had known not a word of Greek, and had passed his life as a country apothecary. He is also recorded to have advised his friend William Lily not to consent to an operation for the removal of a tumour of thehip; but the operation undertaken against Linacre’s advice, unfortunately proved fatal.
It was not Linacre’s fortune to contribute anything to the science of medicine, or to any of its collateral sciences. His age was not one of research as now understood. The first original work on medicine produced in England was done by his successor Caius, whose treatise on the sweating sickness published twenty years after Linacre’s death is still esteemed. This and other great epidemics must have passed before the eyes of Linacre, but no record remains to shew us in what light he regarded them. Nor is there any evidence that he appreciated the importance of the revival of Anatomy and Botany; sciences on which the subsequent development of medicine in Europe has so largely been based. Though evidently eagerly desirous to assist in the renovation of medical science, he looked to other means to accomplish this end. What these means were it may be worth while to state somewhat more in detail.
The aim which Linacre and other scholars set before them in translating or publishing the works of Galen can only be understood by a consideration of the state of medical learning and scholarship at the time. The student of medicine in those days, like the student of theology or philosophy, had to derive his knowledge almost entirely from books. There was indeed one school of practical anatomy in Italy, that founded by Mundinus at Bologna in the 14th century, and continued in Linacre’s time by Berengarius Carpus, who is said to have dissected one hundred bodies with his own hand, but in other parts of Europe only a literary knowledge of anatomy was possible. There was no such thing as hospital instruction, and what would be called in modern times Materia Medica was represented only by the empirical knowledge of humblecollectors of simples, and by the works of scholars learned only in books who gave descriptions borrowed at second or third hand from the Arabian physicians, or at a still greater distance from Aristotle. Medical learning, thus understood, received like all other learning the stimulus of two great movements, the revival of Greek literature, with the consequent higher estimation of the classical Latin writers, on the one hand, and on the other hand the readier diffusion of books through the invention of printing. How the classical revival affected letters in general, theology and philosophy, is well known. Everywhere men became aware more or less distinctly that there was a new world of knowledge within their reach, but concealed from them by a mass of commentary and compilation, barbarous in language, and corrupt in substance, though professedly founded on the works of those great authors who were little more than names to the mediæval scholars. Gradually the great figures of antiquity became more distinct, as the followers of the new learning tore off the barbarous wrappings which had so long hidden or distorted them. It was in this spirit that the scholars set to work in their great task of restoring antiquity. There were doubtless many other aims, and some of them higher, which animated the more ardent spirits of the Renaissance, but of these we cannot pretend to speak. What alone concerns us here is their resolute endeavour to get at the real Aristotle, Plato or Homer, instead of the reflections and shadows of them which had long been reverenced. It was this spirit which made the printing of the first edition of Homer by Chalcondylas and Demetrius Cretensis in 1488, seem to them, as it has indeed seemed to later generations, an epoch in literature. It was this which in the next generation led Erasmus to devote years of labour to bringing out the NovumTestamentum, and it was in this spirit too, that Linacre the pupil of Chalcondylas and the teacher of Erasmus, standing between the literary and the religious revival, conceived the two great projects of his life, the publication of Aristotle and Galen in a form accessible to the whole learned world. The first scheme indeed he scarcely commenced, of the latter he did but little, though as he says “nihil magis in votis erat.”
To discover the genuine text of an ancient author and make it known may seem to us a useful task, though not among the greatest, but to the scholars of the Renaissance it was a matter of supreme importance. Linacre and his fellow workers doubtless expected that medicine would profit as much by the rediscovery of the Greek medical writings as letters and philosophy had gained from the masterpieces of Greek poetry and speculation; and it was with such hopes that they undertook to revive and make known the works of Galen. Galen, like Aristotle, had been very imperfectly known, even to those who most implicitly acknowledged his authority. With regard to Aristotle Sir Alexander Grant has pointed out that thousands of scholars who considered themselves staunch Aristotelians, knew not a word of the master beyond the two first treatises in the Organon; and in the same way, many who reverenced Galen as the source of all medical knowledge, knew him only through imperfect Latin versions, the compilations of mediæval scholars, or of the Arabians, whose works were chiefly based on Galen, and who had in this case as in that of Aristotle the credit of making a Greek author in large measure known to the modern world.
The works of Avicenna, Mesua and others were the chief medical text-books in Europe before, and even for a long time after, the revival of learning. The Jewish teachers, whohad founded schools of surgery in many European cities, (among others in Oxford, before the rise of the University) were versed in Arabian learning, and thus it came to pass that medicine presented itself to the mediæval world in an Arabian dress. From these sources and from the teachers of the school of Salerno, were compiled the manuals of the “Arabistæ” or “Neoterici,” which under such names as Articella, Practica, Lilium Medicinæ, Rosa Anglica were the daily guides of the medical practitioner.
When the Arabian writers fell into disrepute, partly through being condemned as heretical, and partly as being barbarous in style, it was regarded, if one may say so, as a sort of indignity that Medical Science should still be so much beholden to the infidel sages. Those physicians who were also scholars felt this to be a reproach which must be wiped out. This feeling, fantastic as it may seem, was apparently wide-spread through the little world of scholars, and has been expressed by one of them in a manner so strange that I cannot forbear to quote it both for the sake of the grain of truth which it contains, and for its unconscious reflection of the fantastic ideas of the age.
The author Symphorien Champier was a physician of Lyons, a voluminous writer as well as a liberal and wealthy patron of letters. The extract is from a short tractSymphonia Galeni ad Hippocratem, Cornelii Celsi ad Avicennam, una cum sectis antiquorum medicorum ac recentium, forming the introduction to a little work on Clysters,Clysteriorum campi contra Arabum opinionem pro Galeni sententiâ, etc., which is known in literature as the original of the “Treatise on Clysters, by S. C.”, placed by Rabelais in the catalogue of books forming the library of St Victor.
After lamenting that for so many centuries pure literature,that is Greek and Roman, should have been neglected, and instead the mean ditties (neniæ) of certain pretenders should have been cultivated.Indignum facinus, says Champier,(ita me deus amet) nullis bobus, nullisque victimis expiandum.
Next, passing to the subjects of philosophy and medicine, he represents a war as arising between the Arabians and the Classics, which might have ended disastrously for the latter, but for the interposition of divine providence.
“Jam eo insolentiæ ac temeritatis devenerant Arabi principes, ut nobis medicam artem funditus auferre audacissime conarentur; quandoquidem castra solventes in Græcos ac Latinos omnem belli impetum convertebant, multaque millia processerant, cum deus Opt. Max. (cujus est hominum repente et consilia et animos immutare) ut auguror sanctissimi Lucæ precibus et orationibus flexus, auxiliarios milites demisit, qui obsidione miseros, Hippocratem, Galenum, Dioscoridem, Paulum Aeginetam et nostrum Celsum Cornelium, jam deditionem cogitantes eriperent et liberarent; idque quantâ sit confectum diligentiâ, in confesso est. Hippocrati non pauci auxilio fuere, Galeno ab Arabum principe oppresso strennue [sic] adfuit Vicentinorum dux [Nicolaus Leonicenus], præterea ex Galliâ Copus, ex Angliâ Linacrus, bone deus quo studio, quâ alacritate. Porro Dioscoridi Gallorum virtus et ferocia, Venetorum prudentia, Florentinorum divitiæ opem tulerunt.”
This passage only puts in an extravagant form the same ideas about the value of ancient learning in relation to medicine which we have already quoted from the letters of Leonicenus, and of Aldus.