LINACRE. 13 application, brought away a stone as big as an almond. One cannot deny, that the remedy was a judicious one ; but a warm bath, which would now-a-days have been suggested by any tyro in physic, would have been a little more efficacious, though it might not have had so medicated an appearance ; a circumstance of no small import- ance in these matters. Besides his medical translations, Linacre wrote on mathematics and on grammar : the first of these works he dedicated to prince Arthur, the second to the princess Mary. In the preface of this latter work, he declares, that having been ap- pointed by the king, to take care of the health of the princess, and not being able, on account of his own increasing infirmities to perform the duties of a physician, he bethought himself how he could be of the most use to his illustrious charge. He saw in the princess a most favourable disposition towards the cultivation of letters, and he therefore devoted himself to the perfection of this treatise on the rudiments of the Latin grammar, which might aid her highness in her studies. To sum up his character, it was said of him, that no Englishman of his day had had such famous masters, viz., Demetrius and PoHtian, at Florence ; such noble patrons, Lorenzo de' Medici, Henry VIL and Henry VIH. ; such high-born scholars, the prince Arthur and princess Mary, of England; or such learned friends : for amongst the latter were to be enumerated Erasmus, Melancthon, Latimer, Tonstal, and Sir Thomas More. Of his transla- tions of Galen, Erasmus spoke in the highest terms ; and when writing to a friend, to whom he
