expenses of his education. On leaving Paris, about 1514, Croke visited many other universities. His great knowledge of Greek made him welcome to learned men, and he claimed to be the first to lecture publicly on the language at Louvain, Cologne, and Leipzig. At Louvain he did not remain long enough to make a reputation. At Cologne he distinguished himself as a successful teacher of Greek, and just before leaving the town (20 March 1515) matriculated at the university. In the register he is described as ‘Magister Richardus Croce angelicus, dioc. lundenen. professor literarum grecarum.’ In the summer semester following Croke was established as Greek lecturer at Leipzig. He matriculated at the university in the course of the term, and is described in the register as ‘Magister Richardus Crocus Britannus Londoniensis, equestris ordinis, qui Græcas professus fuit literas.’ Although not the first, as he himself asserted, to teach Greek at Leipzig, he was the first to lecture on it with conspicuous success. He devoted most of his energies to instruction in grammar; but he also lectured on Plutarch, and his works prove a wide acquaintance with Greek literature. His pupils, among whom was Camerarius, wrote with enthusiasm of his crowded classes. However inconvenient the hour or place, his lecture-room was filled to overflowing. ‘Croke is the great man at Leipzig,’ wrote Erasmus to Linacre in June 1516. Almost all the German scholars of the day corresponded with him, and among his acquaintances were Reuchlin and Hutten. Mutianus described to Reuchlin a visit paid him by Croke, and added that he was more Greek than English, and read Theocritus charmingly, but knew no Hebrew. The Leipzig faculty of arts, at the desire of George, duke of Saxony, one of Croke's patrons, made him a present of ten guilders, and when the duke visited Leipzig the faculty petitioned him to confer a stipend of a hundred guilders on Croke. No immediate reply was made, and the university of Prague invited him to fill their Greek chair at the same salary. But the Leipzig authorities entreated him to stay, and on 12 March fifteen masters of arts of Leipzig repeated their request to the duke for adequate emolument (printed in Codex Dipl. Saxon. Reg. pt. ii. xi. 406). Croke wrote with satisfaction of the generosity with which the university authorities and the duke treated him, but it is not known whether any fixed stipend was granted him. While in Leipzig Croke published two important philological works. The first was an edition of Ausonius (1515), with an ‘Achademie Lipsensis Encomium Congratulatorium’ prefixed; the second was ‘Tabulæ Græcas literas compendio discere cupientibus sane quam necessariæ’ (1516), dedicated to the university, together with two Latin poems addressed to Mutianus. In 1516 Croke also issued a translation of the fourth book of Theodore Gaza's ‘Greek Grammar,’ with a dedication to the Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz, where he promises, at the request of Thomas More, to translate the three preceding books. The Leipzig authorities granted Croke copyright in these publications for five years. He returned to England in 1517, when he proceeded M.A. at Cambridge, and his pupil, P. Mosellanus, whom Croke in vain invited to settle in England, took his place at Leipzig as teacher of Greek. The statement that Croke also taught at Dresden rests on a misconception.
Croke's reputation as a scholar was of service to him in England. He was employed to teach the king Greek, and in 1518 began reading public Greek lectures at Cambridge—an appointment on which Erasmus wrote to congratulate him. On 23 April 1519 he was ordained priest, and in two orations delivered before the university about the same time exhorted his hearers to devote all their energies to confirming their knowledge of Greek. A translation of the greater part of the first speech appears in Mr. J. Bass Mullinger's ‘History of Cambridge University,’ i. 529 et seq. In 1522 Croke was elected the first public orator at Cambridge, and held the office till 1528. He was fellow of St. John's College in 1523, and received a salary from Bishop Fisher for reading a Greek lecture there. He proceeded D.D. in 1524, and became tutor to the king's natural son, the Duke of Richmond, who lived with him at King's College. Archbishop Warham, More, Grocyn, and Linacre offered him a higher salary to induce him to settle at Oxford; but Fisher persuaded him to remain at Cambridge. Early in 1529, when the senate decreed an annual service to commemorate Fisher's benefactions to the university and to St. John's College, Croke protested that it was imprudent to honour Fisher as the founder of St. John's, a title which belonged only to Lady Margaret [see Beaufort, Margaret]. Fisher wrote to Croke denying that he had set up any such claim (Hymers, Documents, 210–16), and Baker, the Cambridge antiquary, who is followed by Cole, denounces Croke for his attitude in this business, as ‘an ambitious, envious, and discontented wretch’ (Baker, St. John's College, i. 97). But Croke's reputation was not injured at the time. In November 1529 he was sent, at the suggestion
