dies, but
also out of the desire to give himself up to something other than the
mere worldly pursuits in which he had been occupied during all his
previous life. His biographer, Dr. Johnson, says: "In examining the
motives of this choice of Linacre's, it would seem that he was guided
less by the expectation of dignity and preferment than by the desire
of retirement and of rendering himself acquainted with those writings
which might afford him consolation in old age and relief from the
infirmities which a life of assiduous study and application had tended
to produce."

The precise time of Linacre's ordination is not known, nor is it
certain whether he was ordained by Archbishop Warham of Canterbury, or
by Cardinal Wolsey, the Archbishop of York. He received his first
clerical appointment from Warham, by whom he was collated to the
rectory of Mersham in Kent. He held this place scarcely a month, but
his resignation was followed by his installation as prebend in the
Cathedral of Wells, and by an admission to the Church of Hawkhurst in
Kent, which he held until the year of his death. Seven years later he
was made prebend in the Collegiate Chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster,
and in the following year he became prebendary of South Newbold in the
Church of York. This was in the year 1518. In the following year he
received the dignified and lucrative appointment of presenter to the
Cathedral of York, for which he was indebted to Cardinal Wolsey, to
whom {104} about this time he dedicated his translation of Galen "On
the Use of the Pulse." He seems also to have held several other
benefices during the later years of his life, although some of them
were resigned within so short a time as to make it difficult to
understand why he should have accepted them, since the expenses of
institution must have exceeded the profits which were derived from
them during the period of possession. Linacre owed his clerical
opportunities during the last years of his life particularly to
Archbishop Warham, who, as ambassador, primate, and chancellor,
occupied a large and honorable place in the history of the times.
Erasmus says of him in one of his letters: "Such were his vigilance
and attention in all matters relating to religion and to the offices
of the Church that no concern which was foreign to them seemed ever to
distract him. He had sufficient time for a scrupulous performance of
the accustomed exercises of prayer, for the almost daily celebr