ociety of the most eminent Greek and Latin scholars, and
could probably number among his correspondents the
illustrious names of Budaeus, Erasmus, the Stephenses, Faber
and Turnebus. Here, too, he cultivated his natural taste for
poetry; and, from inspecting the FINE BOOKS which the
Italian and French presses had produced, as well as fired by
the love of Grecian learning, which had fled, on the sacking
of Constantinople, to take shelter in the academic bowers of
the Medici--he seems to have matured his plans for carrying
into effect the great work which had now taken full
possession of his mind. He returned to England, resolved to
institute an inquiry into the state of the LIBRARIES,
ANTIQUITIES, RECORDS, and WRITINGS then in existence. Having
entered into holy orders, and obtained preferment at the
express interposition of the king (Henry VIII.), he was
appointed his antiquary and library-keeper; and a royal
commission was issued, in which Leland was directed to
search after "ENGLAND'S ANTIQUITIES, and peruse the
libraries of all cathedrals, abbies, priories, colleges,
&c., as also all the places wherein records, writings, and
secrets of antiquity were reposited." "Before Leland's
time," says Hearne--in a strain which makes one
shudder--"all the literary monuments of antiquity were
totally disregarded; and students of Germany, apprized of
this culpable indifference, were suffered to enter our
libraries unmolested, and to cut out of the books, deposited
there, whatever passages they thought proper--which they
afterwards published as relics of the ancient literature of
their own country." _Pref. to the Itinerary._ Leland was
occupied, without intermission, in his laborious
undertaking, for the space of six years; and, on its
completion, he hastened to the metropolis to lay at the feet
of his sovereign the result of his researches. As John Kay
had presented his translation of the _Siege of Rhodes_ to
Edward IV., as "A GIFT of his labour," so Leland presented
his Itinerary to Henry VIII., under the title of _A New
Year's Gift_; and it was first published as such by Bale in
1549, 8vo. "Being inflamed," says the author, "with a love
to see thoroughly all those parts of your opulent and ample
realm, in so much that all my other occu