4 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. speak of, to possess the lost treasures of antiquity, thus opportunely helped to demonstrate the value of this new medium of communication. Printing has made books infinitely more accessible to all classes of persons in point of expense — causes them to be more easily read and apprehended — and enables information to be circulated with a degree of rapidity of which, in ancient times, there is no example. This important discovery, which facili- tated the progress of letters so immensely, w^as not introduced into Italy till 1465 ; and when Linacre was studying Greek under Demetrius Chalcon- dylas, that scholar must have been superintending the printing of the edition of Homer, published at Florence in 1488*. The opportunities Linacre enjoyed under the patronage of Lorenzo, he turned to the best advantage ; and when he quitted Flo-
- A copy of this valuable work is in the library of the College of
Physicians ; and it is not improbable that Demetrius may have em- ployed the young Linacre, the future founder of the college, to look over the proof-sheets of this curious edition. What could have been a better exercise for the young student ? A great authority in matters of this sort, Dibdin, speaks of this edition in the following terms : " Homerus, Chalcondylse. Florent, fol., 1488. Gra'ce, 2 vol. Editio princeps. This is one of the most celebrated publications of the fifteenth century, well known to bibliographers, and to be found in all the libraries of the curious. This immortal work (for such a production at such an early period of typography well merits the appellation) was composed and executed by the care, application, and at the expense of Demetrius Chalcondyla, an Athenian, and Demetrius of Crete." Mr. Palmer, in his History of Printing, thus observes on it ; " This excellent work I have seen in the curious library of Dr. Meadj and I dare affirm, that whoever examines the whiteness and strength of the paper, the fineness of the character, the elegant disposition of the matter, the exact distance between the lines, the large margin, and, in short, the whole performance, with its various ornaments, will easily own it a masterpiece in that kind."
