times when scholars would be found to read them. It was not indeed until the little group of Hellenists--Erasmus and Linacre and Grocyn and Colet--had shown the value of Greek thought as an interpreter of the New Testament, that any enthusiasm for the New Learning could be awakened in England. An increase of a knowledge of the Bible was worth working for, not the elegancies of an accurate Latin style. Englishmen in the fifteenth century were busy in the task of developing trade and commerce, and their intellectual tone took colour from their daily work. It became eminently utilitarian and practical. An English scholar was willing to accept the New Learning if you would prove to him that it was useful or was true, that it was only beautiful did not at first much affect him. It was only therefore with an eye to strictly practical results that at the universities the New Learning was welcomed, and even there tardily. Nowhere perhaps is this practical tendency of English scholarship at this period more characteristically shown than in the Cambridge work of Thomas Alcock and John Fisher, the founders respectively of Jesus College and of the twin colleges of Christ's and John's. Alcock and Fisher were both of them Yorkshiremen, born and educated at Beverley in the Grammar School connected with the Minster there, and both proceeding from thence to Cambridge: Alcock in all likelihood, though there is some doubt about this, to Pembroke, where he took his LL.D. degree in or before 1461; Fisher to Michaelhouse, of which he became a Fellow in 1491. Of Alcock, the historian Bale has said that "no one in England had a greater reputation for sanctity." He was equally remarkable for his practical qualities, as a diplomatist, as a financier, as an architect. He had twice been a Royal Commissioner, under Richard III. and under Henry VII., to arrange treaties with Scotland. By an arrangement, of which no similar instance is known, he had conjointly held the office of Lord Chancellor with Bishop Rotherham of Lincoln, he himself at that time ruling the diocese of Rochester. As early as 1462 he had been made Master of the Rolls. In 1476 he was translated to Worcester, and at the same time became Lord President of Wales. On the accession of Henry VII., he was made Comptroller of the Royal Works and Buildings, an office for which he was especially fitted, it is said, by his skill as an architect. In 1486 he was translated to the See of Ely and again made Lord Chancellor.