Learning, politics, and religion--forces that combined in the decade of his birth to produce in Cambridge the revival of classical learning of which Sir John Cheke was to become the acknowledged leader--combined as well to determine his fate. Ironically, what renown Cheke earned resulted not from his official and public duties at court, but from the impact of his teaching and personality in his earlier days at Saint John's College. As a humanist teacher called to serve the king, Cheke exemplified the Ciceronian ideal that Renaissance humanists from Thomas More to John Milton held in so much esteem. His knowledge and appreciation of the classics for their wisdom, style, and literary excellence, his views about using native English words rather than borrowing from foreign tongues, and his emphasis upon simplicity and naturalness in writing--whether classical or English--constitute the legacy he left as a translator, critic, and author.

The...