Indeed this story shows that England, even at that time, exercised great caution in receiving foreign influences. Englishmen, when abroad, were doubtless as sympathetic as their proverbial stiffness enabled them to be; but when they returned home external impressions rapidly passed away and insular stolidity again possessed them. This is seen in the case of Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, who visited Constance during the Council in 1417. He posed so successfully as a man of letters that the great Florentine scholar Poggio Bracciolini trusted to his vague promises and came to England hoping to enjoy the benefits of his patronage. But Poggio's sojourn was one continued disappointment. Such of the monastic libraries as he searched contained no classical MSS. The English nobles lived in the country, occupied in agricultural pursuits, and were wool merchants instead of patrons of letters. Their chief enjoyment was eating, and they cared more about the quality of the food than the refinement of the repast. Poggio found no sympathetic souls, and after waiting for eighteen months to see what the Bishop of Winchester would do for him, the mountain produced a mouse. He was offered a small benefice, miserably below his expectations. He was so disappointed that he did not choose to allude much afterwards to his English experiences, and we are deprived of an interesting record of our illiterate forefathers.
But better days were at hand; and it is strange that no rumour reached the ears of Poggio of the literary taste shown by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, who provided what England had not hitherto enjoyed,
