thence to Padua, and finally to the great Italian teacher, Guarino, who was then lecturing at Ferrara. He was made by Henry VI his representative at the papal Court; and the great literary Pope, Nicholas V., so admired his learning that he nominated him Bishop of Ely in 1454. It is to be feared that Bishop Grey's scholarly tastes found no response in the university of his diocese. At all events he passed by Cambridge, and set his hopes of a classical revival on his old college at Oxford, to which he gave a large sum for the purpose of building a library, which was to hold the literary treasures acquired in Italy. His collection amounted to 200 MSS., many of which still remain.
It would seem that Grey had made friends at Balliol of men like-minded with himself, who listened to his enthusiastic reports of the excellence of Guarino's teaching, and set out to join their comrade at Ferrara. The first of these was John Free, a poor student whose expenses were probably paid by Grey. Free, besides Latin and Greek, learned botany and also medicine, which he both taught and practised at Padua and Florence. He was, however, above all things a scholar, made several translations from the Greek, and wrote a cosmography. He went to Rome, where Pope Paul II. testified to his merits by appointing him Bishop of Bath in 1465, but he died before consecration.
Free, in his turn, invited to Italy another Balliol friend, John Gunthorp, who as soon as he had learned to make Latin speeches returned to England, was employed by the King for the purpose of going on complimentary embassies, which the decorum of the
