Excerpt from History of English Poetry, Vol. 4 of 4: From the Twelfth to the Close of the Sixteenth Century Thefe happy beginnings in favour of a new and rational fyfiem of academical education, were feconded by the aufpicious munificence of Cardinal Wolfey. About the year 1519, he founded a public chair at Oxford for rhetoric and humanity, and foon afterwards another for teaching the Greek language; endowing both with ample falaries.1 About the year 1524, King Henry the Eighth, who deitroyed or advanced literary inftitutions from caprice, called Robert Wakefield, originally a ftudent of Cambridge, but now a profeil'or of humanity at Tubingen in Germany, into England, that one of his own fubjeets, a linguift of (0 much celebrity, might no longer teach the Greek and oriental languages abroad: and when Wakefield appeared before the king, his majefty lamented, in the firongeft exprefiions of concern, the total ignorance of his clergy and the univerfities in the learned tongues and immediately alligned him a competent flipend for open ing a lecture at Cambridge in this necell'ary and neglected department of lettersfi Wakefield was afterwards a preferver of many copies of the Greek claflics, in the havock of the religious houfes. It is re corded by Fox, the martyrologiit, as a memorable occurrence,3 and very defervedly, that about the fame time, Robert Barnes, prior of the Auguftines at Cambridge and educated at Louvain, with the aflif'cance of his fcholar Thomas Parnell, explained within the walls of his own monai'tery, Plautus, Terence, and Cicero, to thofe aca demies who faw the utility of philology, and were defirous of deferting the Gothic philofophy. It may feem at firft furprifing that Fox, a weak and prejudiced writer, Ihould allow any merit to a catholic but Barnes afterwards appears to have been one of Fox's martyrs, and was executed at the {take in Smithfield for a defence of Lutheranifm. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.