Selling, Grocyn, Latimer, Tunstall, Colet and Lily, of that
extraordinary group of scholars who transformed Oxford by the
introduction of Greek ideals and gave to it the peculiar distinction
which is still shining, I mention them only to suggest that they are the
source of the Renaissance respect for a foreign education, and the
founders of the fashion which, in its popular spreadings, we will
attempt to trace. They all studied in Italy, and brought home nothing
but good. For to scholarship they joined a native force of character
which gave a most felicitous introduction to England of the fine things
of the mind which they brought home with them. By their example they
gave an impetus to travel for education's sake which lesser men could
never have done.

Though through Grocyn, Linacre and Tunstall, Greek was better taught in
England than in Italy, according to Erasmus,[15] at the time Henry VIII.
came to the throne, the idea of Italy as the goal of scholars persisted.
Rich churchmen, patrons of letters, launched promising students on to
the Continent to give them a complete education; as Richard Fox, Founder
of Corpus Christi, sent Edward Wotton to Padua, "to improve his learning
and chiefly to learn Greek,"[16] or Thomas Langton, Bishop of
Winchester, supported Richard Pace at the same university.[17] To
Reginald Pole, the scholar's life in Italy made so strong an appeal that
he could never be reclaimed by Henry VIII. Shunning all implication in
the tumult of the political world, he slipped back to Padua, and there
surrounded himself with friends,--"singular fellows, such as ever
absented themselves from the court, desiring to live holily."[18] To his
household at Padua gravitated other English students fond of "good
company and the love of learned men"; Thomas Lupset,[19] the confidant
of Erasmus and Richard Pace; Thomas Winter,[20] Wolsey's reputed natural
son; Thomas Starkey,[21] the historian; George Lily,[22] son of the