Time would fail us to tell of all the famous Englishmen who went to study in Italy in the last years of the fifteenth century, let alone those who went and did not win fame.  Langton who became Bishop of Winchester, and, not content with Wykeham’s foundation, started a school in his own palace at Wolvesey; Grocin, Linacre and William Latimer, who took part in Aldus’ Greek Aristotle; Colet; Lily who went further afield, to Rhodes and Jerusalem; Tunstall and Stokesley and Pace—­all these were Oxford men, and yet few of them returned to settle in Oxford and teach.  Of their later lives much is known, though not so much as we could wish; but their connexion with this University cannot be precisely dated, because the university registers for just this period, 1471-1505, are missing.  We cannot tell just when they graduated; and we miss the chance of contemporary notes added occasionally to names of distinction.  We cannot even discover to what colleges they belonged.

In the last half of the fifteenth century there had been a beginning of Greek in Oxford.  Thomas Chandler, Warden of New College, 1454-75, had some knowledge of it; and under his auspices an Italian adventurer of no merit, Cornelio Vitelli, came and taught here for a short time.  For about two years, 1491-3, Grocin returned to lecture on Greek, as the result of his Italian studies.  Colet was here about 1497-1505, until he became Dean of St. Paul’s; but his lectures, as we have said, were on the Vulgate, not the Greek Testament.  Of the rest that shadowy and fugitive scholar, William Latimer, was the only one of this band of Oxonians who definitely came back to live and work in the University; and he perhaps did not cast in his lot here until 1513.  When he did return, he was not to be torn away again from his rooms at All Souls, under the shadow of St. Mary’s tower.  In 1516 More and Erasmus wished him to come and teach Greek to Fisher, Bishop of Rochester; but could not prevail with him.  It would seem strange to-day for an Oxford scholar to be invited to become private tutor to the Chancellor of the sister University:  he would probably shrink, as Latimer did, and find refuge in excuses.  For eight or nine years, Latimer said, his studies had led him elsewhere, and he had not touched Latin and Greek.  For the same reason he declared himself unable to help Erasmus in preparing for the second edition of his New Testament.  What these studies were is nowhere told—­Latimer’s only printed work is two letters, one a mere note to Aldus, the other a long letter to Erasmus—­but there is some reason to suppose that they were musical.  He urged, too, that it was useless to hope the Bishop could make much progress in a month or two with such a language as Greek, over which Grocin had spent two years in Italy, and Linacre, Latimer, and Erasmus himself had laboured for many years:  it would be much better to send to Italy for some one who could reside for a long time in the Bishop’s household.