This book is the first attempt to study, in historical context, the emergence of true critical scholarship in English classical learning. As scholar and poet A.E. Housman remarked of the early centuries of Greek studies in England, "These were the years when we were learning Greek and were not yet in case to teach it: our contribution to the European fund begins with the seventeenth century." Beginning with Housman's great predecessor, Richard Bentley (1662-1742), C.O. Brink traces the English development of classical studies, discussing the advances of Porson (1759-1808) and examining Housman's own mature achievement of a scientific basis for verbal and stylistic studies in the classics.