"I, too, in England have gone ahead not a little. That Erasmus whom you used to know is almost a good hunter, a horseman not the worst, and no slouch of a courtier; he knows how to salute more gracefully and smile more sweetly and all this with Minerva against him. How are my affairs? Well enough. If you are a wise man you will fly over here too. Why should a man with a nose like yours grow old in that Gallic dung-heap? But then your gout--bad luck to it, saving your presence!--keeps you away. And yet if you knew the delights of Britain, Faustus, you would hurry over here with winged feet, and if your gout wouldn't let you, you'd pray to be turned into a Daedalus. Why, just to mention one thing out of many: the girls here have divine faces; they are gentle and easy-mannered. You'd like them better than your Muses. Besides, there is a fashion here which can't be praised enough. Wherever you go everyone kisses you, and when you leave you are dismissed with kisses; you come back, the sweets are returned. Someone comes to see you--your health in kisses! he says good-bye--kisses again! You meet a person anywhere,--kisses galore!--so wherever you go everything is filled with these sweets. If you, Faustus, should just once taste how delicious, how fragrant they are, you would long to travel in England, not like Solon, for ten years only, but to the end of your days. The rest we will laugh over together, for I hope to see you very soon." Two other Englishmen, both his seniors by some years, became friends of Erasmus during this first visit,--William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. Grocyn was primarily a scholar and teacher, versed especially in Greek. Linacre was a physician of the highest repute in his day, and identified with the whole future of medical science in England through his foundation of the London College of Physicians. Both had studied in Italy and there had put themselves under the influence of the leading personages in the later humanistic generation. Both had become skilled in Greek learning, and were doing their parts, each in his own way, to further the advancement of Greek study in England. Grocyn was probably teaching Greek at Oxford when Erasmus came thither, and so far as he ever acknowledged obligations to any teacher, the younger man admits the great profit he derived from this riper talent. In regard to Linacre he notes especially a severe and painful accuracy which was, probably, the reason why he left so little behind to attest his scholarship. He could not satisfy his own exacting standards. With both these men Erasmus seems to have lived on terms of affectionate intimacy. There are indications that they were at times rather tired of his persistent begging, but this did not interfere with their friendly interest, which ended only with their lives.