THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 15 



and in none that would touch his spirit more closely, 

 than by the issue of a fine edition of his principal works 

 (including the MS. annals of the College). For the 

 preparation of this there are those among us well fitted, 

 not less by veneration for his memory than by the 

 possession of that critical scholarship which he valued 

 so highly. 



When Harvey set out on the grand tour, Italy was 

 still the mater gloriosa studiorum ; to which one hundred 

 years earlier, so tradition says, Linacre on leaving had 

 erected an altar. The glamour of the ideals of the Re- 

 naissance had faded somewhat since the days when 

 John Free, an Oxford man, had made the ancient learn- 

 ing his own ; and had so far bettered the instruction of 

 his masters that he was welcomed as a teacher in 

 Padua, Ferrara, and Florence. In a measure, too, the 

 national glory had departed, dimmed amid the strife and 

 warfare which had cost the old republics their indepen- 

 dence. Many years earlier Fracastorius, one of our 

 medical poets, had sung of her decadence : 



To what estate, O wretched Italy, 

 Has civil strife reduc'd and moulder'd Thee ! 

 Where now are all thy ancient glories hurl'd ? 

 Where is thy boasted Empire of the world ? 

 What nook in Thee from barbarous Rage is freed 

 And has not seen thy captive children bleed? 1 



And matters had not improved but had grown worse. 

 In the sixteenth century Italian influence had sunk 

 deeply into the social, professional, and commercial life 

 of England, more deeply, indeed, than we appreciate ; - 

 and it was not for a generation or two later that the 

 candlesticks were removed from the Cisalpine towns to 



1 Syphilis. Englished by N. Tate, 1686. 



2 Italian Renaissance in England, Einstein. Macmillan, 1902. 



