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+Project Gutenberg's Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, by Johan Huizinga
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Erasmus and the Age of Reformation
+
+Author: Johan Huizinga
+
+Release Date: October 5, 2007 [EBook #22900]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Juliet Sutherland, David King,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION
+
+
+JOHAN HUIZINGA
+
+_with a selection from the letters of Erasmus_
+
+
+HARPER TORCHBOOKS / The Cloister Library
+
+HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS
+
+NEW YORK, EVANSTON, AND LONDON
+
+[Illustration: WOODCUT BY HANS HOLBEIN. 1535]
+
+
+
+ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION
+
+_Printed in the United States of America_
+
+Huizinga's text was translated from the Dutch by F. Hopman and first
+published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1924. The section from the
+Letters of Erasmus was translated by Barbara Flower.
+
+Reprinted by arrangement with Phaidon Press, Ltd., London
+
+Originally published under the title: "Erasmus of Rotterdam"
+
+First HARPER TORCHBOOK edition published 1957
+
+Library of Congress catalogue card number 57-10119
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+_Preface by G. N. Clark_ xi
+
+CHAP.
+
+    I CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH, 1466-88 1
+
+   II IN THE MONASTERY, 1488-95 10
+
+  III THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, 1495-9 20
+
+   IV FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND, 1499-1500 29
+
+   V ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 39
+
+   VI THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS, 1501 47
+
+  VII YEARS OF TROUBLE--LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND, 1502-6 55
+
+ VIII IN ITALY, 1506-9 62
+
+   IX THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 69
+
+    X THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND, 1509-14 79
+
+   XI A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY, 1514-16 87
+
+  XII ERASMUS'S MIND 100
+
+ XIII ERASMUS'S MIND (_continued_) 109
+
+  XIV ERASMUS'S CHARACTER 117
+
+   XV AT LOUVAIN, 1517-18 130
+
+  XVI FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 139
+
+ XVII ERASMUS AT BASLE, 1521-9 151
+
+XVIII CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER AND GROWING CONSERVATISM, 1524-6 161
+
+  XIX AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS, 1528-9 170
+
+   XX LAST YEARS 179
+
+  XXI CONCLUSION 188
+
+SELECTED LETTERS OF ERASMUS 195
+
+_List of Illustrations_ 257
+
+_Index of Names_ 263
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_by G.N. Clark, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford_
+
+
+Rather more than twenty years ago, on a spring morning of alternate
+cloud and sunshine, I acted as guide to Johan Huizinga, the author of
+this book, when he was on a visit to Oxford. As it was not his first
+stay in the city, and he knew the principal buildings already, we looked
+at some of the less famous. Even with a man who was well known all over
+the world as a writer, I expected that these two or three hours would be
+much like the others I had spent in the same capacity with other
+visitors; but this proved to be a day to remember. He understood the
+purposes of these ancient buildings, the intentions of their founders
+and builders; but that was to be expected from an historian who had
+written upon the history of universities and learning. What surprised
+and delighted me was his seeing eye. He told me which of the decorative
+_motifs_ on the Tower of the Four Orders were usual at the time when it
+was built, and which were less common. At All Souls he pointed out the
+seldom appreciated merits of Hawksmoor's twin towers. His eye was not
+merely informed but sensitive. I remembered that I had heard of his
+talent for drawing, and as we walked and talked I felt the influence of
+a strong, quiet personality deep down in which an artist's
+perceptiveness was fused with a determination to search for historical
+truth.
+
+Huizinga's great success and reputation came suddenly when he was over
+forty. Until that time his powers were ripening, not so much slowly as
+secretly. His friends knew that he was unique, but neither he nor they
+foresaw what direction his studies would take. He was born in 1872 in
+Groningen, the most northerly of the chief towns of the Netherlands, and
+there he went to school and to the University. He studied Dutch history
+and literature and also Oriental languages and mythology and sociology;
+he was a good linguist and he steadily accumulated great learning, but
+he was neither an infant prodigy nor a universal scholar. Science and
+current affairs scarcely interested him, and until his maturity
+imagination seemed to satisfy him more than research. Until he was over
+thirty he was a schoolmaster at Haarlem, a teacher of history; but it
+was still uncertain whether European or Oriental studies would claim him
+in the end. For two or three years before giving up school-teaching he
+lectured in the University of Amsterdam on Sanskrit, and it was almost
+an accident that he became professor of history in the University of his
+native town. All through his life it was characteristic of him that
+after a spell of creative work, when he had finished a book, he would
+turn aside from the subject that had absorbed him and plunge into some
+other subject or period, so that the books and articles in the eight
+volumes of his collected works (with one more volume still to come)
+cover a very wide range. As time went on he examined aspects of history
+which at first he had passed over, and he acquired a clear insight into
+the political and economic life of the past. It has been well said of
+him that he never became either a pedant or a doctrinaire. During the
+ten years that he spent as professor at Groningen, he found himself. He
+was happily married, with a growing family, and the many elements of his
+mind drew together into a unity. His sensitiveness to style and beauty
+came to terms with his conscientious scholarship. He was rooted in the
+traditional freedoms of his national and academic environment, but his
+curiosity, like the historical adventures of his people and his
+profession, was not limited by time or space or prejudice. He came more
+and more definitely to find his central theme in civilization as a
+realized ideal, something that men have created in an endless variety of
+forms, but always in order to raise the level of their lives.
+
+While this interior fulfilment was bringing Huizinga to his best, the
+world about him changed completely. In 1914, Holland became a neutral
+country surrounded by nations at war. In 1914, also, his wife died, and
+it was as a lonely widower that he was appointed in the next year to the
+chair of general history at Leyden, which he was to hold for the rest of
+his academic life. Yet the year after the end of the war saw the
+publication of his masterpiece, the book which gave him his high place
+among historical writers and was translated as _The Waning of the Middle
+Ages_. This is a study of the forms of life and thought in France and
+the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the last
+phase of one of the great European eras of civilization. In England,
+where the Middle Ages had been idealized for generations, some of its
+leading thoughts did not seem so novel as they did in Holland, where
+many people regarded the Renaissance and more still regarded the
+Reformation as a new beginning of a better world; but in England and
+America, which had been drawn, unlike Holland, into the vortex of war,
+it had the poignancy of a recall to the standards of reasonableness. It
+will long maintain its place as a historical book and as a work of
+literature.
+
+The shorter book on Erasmus is a companion to this great work. It was
+first published in 1924 and so belongs to the same best period of the
+author. Its subject is the central intellectual figure of the next
+generation after the period which Huizinga called the waning, or rather
+the autumn, of the Middle Ages; but Erasmus was also, as will appear
+from many of its pages, a man for whom he had a very special sympathy.
+Something of what he wrote about Erasmus might also have been written
+about himself, or at least about his own response to the transformation
+of the world that he had known.
+
+This is not the place for an analysis of that questioning and
+illuminating response, nor for a considered estimate of Huizinga's work
+as a whole; but there is room for a word about his last years. He was
+recognized as one of the intellectual leaders of his country, and a
+second marriage in 1937 brought back his private happiness; but the
+shadows were darkening over the western world. From the time when
+national socialism began to reveal itself in Germany, he took his stand
+against it with perfect simplicity and calm. After the invasion of
+Holland he addressed these memorable words to some of his colleagues:
+'When it comes, as it soon will, to defending our University and the
+freedom of science and learning in the Netherlands, we must be ready to
+give everything for that: our possessions, our freedom, and even our
+lives'. The Germans closed the University. For a time they held Johan
+Huizinga, now an old man and in failing health, as a hostage; then they
+banished him to open arrest in a remote parish in the eastern part of
+the country. Even in these conditions he still wrote, and wrote well. In
+the last winter of the war the liberating armies approached and he
+suffered the hardships of the civilian population in a theatre of war;
+but his spirit was unbroken. He died on 1 February 1945, a few weeks
+before his country was set free.
+
+G. N. CLARK
+
+Oriel College, Oxford
+
+April 1952
+
+
+
+
+ERASMUS
+
+_and the Age of Reformation_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH
+
+1466-88
+
+    The Low Countries in the fifteenth century--The Burgundian
+    power--Connections with the German Empire and with France--The
+    northern Netherlands outskirts in every sense--Movement of
+    _Devotio moderna_: brethren of the Common Life and Windesheim
+    monasteries--Erasmus's birth: 1466--His relations and name--At
+    school at Gouda, Deventer and Bois-le-Duc--He takes the vows:
+    probably in 1488
+
+
+When Erasmus was born Holland had for about twenty years formed part of
+the territory which the dukes of Burgundy had succeeded in uniting under
+their dominion--that complexity of lands, half French in population,
+like Burgundy, Artois, Hainault, Namur; half Dutch like Flanders,
+Brabant, Zealand, Holland. The appellation 'Holland' was, as yet,
+strictly limited to the county of that name (the present provinces of
+North and South Holland), with which Zealand, too, had long since been
+united. The remaining territories which, together with those last
+mentioned, make up the present kingdom of the Netherlands, had not yet
+been brought under Burgundian dominion, although the dukes had cast
+their eyes on them. In the bishopric of Utrecht, whose power extended to
+the regions on the far side of the river Ysel, Burgundian influence had
+already begun to make itself manifest. The projected conquest of
+Friesland was a political inheritance of the counts of Holland, who
+preceded the Burgundians. The duchy of Guelders, alone, still preserved
+its independence inviolate, being more closely connected with the
+neighbouring German territories, and consequently with the Empire
+itself.
+
+All these lands--about this time they began to be regarded collectively
+under the name of 'Low Countries by the Sea'--had in most respects the
+character of outskirts. The authority of the German emperors had for
+some centuries been little more than imaginary. Holland and Zealand
+hardly shared the dawning sense of a national German union. They had too
+long looked to France in matters political. Since 1299 a French-speaking
+dynasty, that of Hainault, had ruled Holland. Even the house of Bavaria
+that succeeded it about the middle of the fourteenth century had not
+restored closer contact with the Empire, but had itself, on the
+contrary, early become Gallicized, attracted as it was by Paris and soon
+twined about by the tentacles of Burgundy to which it became linked by
+means of a double marriage.
+
+The northern half of the Low Countries were 'outskirts' also in
+ecclesiastical and cultural matters. Brought over rather late to the
+cause of Christianity (the end of the eighth century), they had, as
+borderlands, remained united under a single bishop: the bishop of
+Utrecht. The meshes of ecclesiastical organization were wider here than
+elsewhere. They had no university. Paris remained, even after the
+designing policy of the Burgundian dukes had founded the university of
+Louvain in 1425, the centre of doctrine and science for the northern
+Netherlands. From the point of view of the wealthy towns of Flanders and
+Brabant, now the heart of the Burgundian possessions, Holland and
+Zealand formed a wretched little country of boatmen and peasants.
+Chivalry, which the dukes of Burgundy attempted to invest with new
+splendour, had but moderately thrived among the nobles of Holland. The
+Dutch had not enriched courtly literature, in which Flanders and Brabant
+zealously strove to follow the French example, by any contribution worth
+mentioning.
+
+Whatever was coming up in Holland flowered unseen; it was not of a sort
+to attract the attention of Christendom. It was a brisk navigation and
+trade, mostly transit trade, by which the Hollanders already began to
+emulate the German Hansa, and which brought them into continual contact
+with France and Spain, England and Scotland, Scandinavia, North Germany
+and the Rhine from Cologne upward. It was herring fishery, a humble
+trade, but the source of great prosperity--a rising industry, shared by
+a number of small towns.
+
+Not one of those towns in Holland and Zealand, neither Dordrecht nor
+Leyden, Haarlem, Middelburg, Amsterdam, could compare with Ghent,
+Bruges, Lille, Antwerp or Brussels in the south. It is true that in the
+towns of Holland also the highest products of the human mind germinated,
+but those towns themselves were still too small and too poor to be
+centres of art and science. The most eminent men were irresistibly drawn
+to one of the great foci of secular and ecclesiastical culture. Sluter,
+the great sculptor, went to Burgundy, took service with the dukes, and
+bequeathed no specimen of his art to the land of his birth. Dirk Bouts,
+the artist of Haarlem, removed to Louvain, where his best work is
+preserved; what was left at Haarlem has perished. At Haarlem, too, and
+earlier, perhaps, than anywhere else, obscure experiments were being
+made in that great art, craving to be brought forth, which was to change
+the world: the art of printing.
+
+There was yet another characteristic spiritual phenomenon, which
+originated here and gave its peculiar stamp to life in these countries.
+It was a movement designed to give depth and fervour to religious life;
+started by a burgher of Deventer, Geert Groote, toward the end of the
+fourteenth century. It had embodied itself in two closely connected
+forms--the fraterhouses, where the brethren of the Common Life lived
+together without altogether separating from the world, and the
+congregation of the monastery of Windesheim, of the order of the regular
+Augustinian canons. Originating in the regions on the banks of the Ysel,
+between the two small towns of Deventer and Zwolle, and so on the
+outskirts of the diocese of Utrecht, this movement soon spread, eastward
+to Westphalia, northward to Groningen and the Frisian country, westward
+to Holland proper. Fraterhouses were erected everywhere and monasteries
+of the Windesheim congregation were established or affiliated. The
+movement was spoken of as 'modern devotion', _devotio moderna_. It was
+rather a matter of sentiment and practice than of definite doctrine. The
+truly Catholic character of the movement had early been acknowledged by
+the church authorities. Sincerity and modesty, simplicity and industry,
+and, above all, constant ardour of religious emotion and thought, were
+its objects. Its energies were devoted to tending the sick and other
+works of charity, but especially to instruction and the art of writing.
+It is in this that it especially differed from the revival of the
+Franciscan and Dominican orders of about the same time, which turned to
+preaching. The Windesheimians and the Hieronymians (as the brethren of
+the Common Life were also called) exerted their crowning activities in
+the seclusion of the schoolroom and the silence of the writing cell. The
+schools of the brethren soon drew pupils from a wide area. In this way
+the foundations were laid, both here in the northern Netherlands and in
+lower Germany, for a generally diffused culture among the middle
+classes; a culture of a very narrow, strictly ecclesiastical nature,
+indeed, but which for that very reason was fit to permeate broad layers
+of the people.
+
+What the Windesheimians themselves produced in the way of devotional
+literature is chiefly limited to edifying booklets and biographies of
+their own members; writings which were distinguished rather by their
+pious tenor and sincerity than by daring or novel thoughts.
+
+But of them all, the greatest was that immortal work of Thomas à Kempis,
+Canon of Saint Agnietenberg, near Zwolle, the _Imitatio Christi_.
+
+Foreigners visiting these regions north of the Scheldt and the Meuse
+laughed at the rude manners and the deep drinking of the inhabitants,
+but they also mentioned their sincere piety. These countries were
+already, what they have ever remained, somewhat contemplative and
+self-contained, better adapted for speculating on the world and for
+reproving it than for astonishing it with dazzling wit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rotterdam and Gouda, situated upward of twelve miles apart in the lowest
+region of Holland, an extremely watery region, were not among the first
+towns of the county. They were small country towns, ranking after
+Dordrecht, Haarlem, Leyden, and rapidly rising Amsterdam. They were not
+centres of culture. Erasmus was born at Rotterdam on 27 October, most
+probably in the year 1466. The illegitimacy of his birth has thrown a
+veil of mystery over his descent and kinship. It is possible that
+Erasmus himself learned the circumstances of his coming into the world
+only in his later years. Acutely sensitive to the taint in his origin,
+he did more to veil the secret than to reveal it. The picture which he
+painted of it in his ripe age was romantic and pathetic. He imagined
+that his father when a young man made love to a girl, a physician's
+daughter, in the hope of marrying her. The parents and brothers of the
+young fellow, indignant, tried to persuade him to take holy orders. The
+young man fled before the child was born. He went to Rome and made a
+living by copying. His relations sent him false tidings that his beloved
+had died; out of grief he became a priest and devoted himself to
+religion altogether. Returned to his native country he discovered the
+deceit. He abstained from all contact with her whom he now could no
+longer marry, but took great pains to give his son a liberal education.
+The mother continued to care for the child, till an early death took her
+from him. The father soon followed her to the grave. To Erasmus's
+recollection he was only twelve or thirteen years old when his mother
+died. It seems to be practically certain that her death did not occur
+before 1483, when, therefore, he was already seventeen years old. His
+sense of chronology was always remarkably ill developed.
+
+Unfortunately it is beyond doubt that Erasmus himself knew, or had
+known, that not all particulars of this version were correct. In all
+probability his father was already a priest at the time of the
+relationship to which he owed his life; in any case it was not the
+impatience of a betrothed couple, but an irregular alliance of long
+standing, of which a brother, Peter, had been born three years before.
+
+We can only vaguely discern the outlines of a numerous and commonplace
+middle-class family. The father had nine brothers, who were all married.
+The grandparents on his father's side and the uncles on his mother's
+side attained to a very great age. It is strange that a host of
+cousins--their progeny--has not boasted of a family connection with the
+great Erasmus. Their descendants have not even been traced. What were
+their names? The fact that in burgher circles family names had, as yet,
+become anything but fixed, makes it difficult to trace Erasmus's
+kinsmen. Usually people were called by their own and their father's
+name; but it also happened that the father's name became fixed and
+adhered to the following generation. Erasmus calls his father Gerard,
+his brother Peter Gerard, while a papal letter styles Erasmus himself
+Erasmus Rogerii. Possibly the father was called Roger Gerard or Gerards.
+
+Although Erasmus and his brother were born at Rotterdam, there is much
+that points to the fact that his father's kin did not belong there, but
+at Gouda. At any rate they had near relatives at Gouda.
+
+Erasmus was his Christian name. There is nothing strange in the choice,
+although it was rather unusual. St. Erasmus was one of the fourteen Holy
+Martyrs, whose worship so much engrossed the attention of the multitude
+in the fifteenth century. Perhaps the popular belief that the
+intercession of St. Erasmus conferred wealth, had some weight in
+choosing the name. Up to the time when he became better acquainted with
+Greek, he used the form Herasmus. Later on he regretted that he had not
+also given that name the more correct and melodious form Erasmius. On a
+few occasions he half jocularly called himself so, and his godchild,
+Johannes Froben's son, always used this form.
+
+It was probably for similar aesthetic considerations that he soon
+altered the barbaric Rotterdammensis to Roterdamus, later Roterodamus,
+which he perhaps accentuated as a proparoxytone. Desiderius was an
+addition selected by himself, which he first used in 1496; it is
+possible that the study of his favourite author Jerome, among whose
+correspondents there is a Desiderius, suggested the name to him. When,
+therefore, the full form, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, first appears,
+in the second edition of the _Adagia_, published by Josse Badius at
+Paris in 1506, it is an indication that Erasmus, then forty years of
+age, had found himself.
+
+Circumstances had not made it easy for him to find his way. Almost in
+his infancy, when hardly four years old, he thinks, he had been put to
+school at Gouda, together with his brother. He was nine years old when
+his father sent him to Deventer to continue his studies in the famous
+school of the chapter of St. Lebuin. His mother accompanied him. His
+stay at Deventer must have lasted, with an interval during which he was
+a choir boy in the minster at Utrecht, from 1475 to 1484. Erasmus's
+explicit declaration that he was fourteen years old when he left
+Deventer may be explained by assuming that in later years he confused
+his temporary absence from Deventer (when at Utrecht) with the definite
+end of his stay at Deventer. Reminiscences of his life there repeatedly
+crop up in Erasmus's writings. Those concerning the teaching he got
+inspired him with little gratitude; the school was still barbaric, then,
+he said; ancient medieval text-books were used there of whose silliness
+and cumbrousness we can hardly conceive. Some of the masters were of the
+brotherhood of the Common Life. One of them, Johannes Synthen, brought
+to his task a certain degree of understanding of classic antiquity in
+its purer form. Toward the end of Erasmus's residence Alexander Hegius
+was placed at the head of the school, a friend of the Frisian humanist,
+Rudolf Agricola, who on his return from Italy was gaped at by his
+compatriots as a prodigy. On festal days, when the rector made his
+oration before all the pupils, Erasmus heard Hegius; on one single
+occasion he listened to the celebrated Agricola himself, which left a
+deep impression on his mind.
+
+His mother's death of the plague that ravaged the town brought Erasmus's
+school-time at Deventer to a sudden close. His father called him and his
+brother back to Gouda, only to die himself soon afterwards. He must have
+been a man of culture. For he knew Greek, had heard the famous humanists
+in Italy, had copied classic authors and left a library of some value.
+
+Erasmus and his brother were now under the protection of three guardians
+whose care and intentions he afterwards placed in an unfavourable light.
+How far he exaggerated their treatment of him it is difficult to decide.
+That the guardians, among whom one Peter Winckel, schoolmaster at Gouda,
+occupied the principal place, had little sympathy with the new
+classicism, about which their ward already felt enthusiastic, need not
+be doubted. 'If you should write again so elegantly, please to add a
+commentary', the schoolmaster replied grumblingly to an epistle on which
+Erasmus, then fourteen years old, had expended much care. That the
+guardians sincerely considered it a work pleasing to God to persuade the
+youths to enter a monastery can no more be doubted than that this was
+for them the easiest way to get rid of their task. For Erasmus this
+pitiful business assumes the colour of a grossly selfish attempt to
+cloak dishonest administration; an altogether reprehensible abuse of
+power and authority. More than this: in later years it obscured for him
+the image of his own brother, with whom he had been on terms of cordial
+intimacy.
+
+Winckel sent the two young fellows, twenty-one and eighteen years old,
+to school again, this time at Bois-le-Duc. There they lived in the
+Fraterhouse itself, to which the school was attached. There was nothing
+here of the glory that had shone about Deventer. The brethren, says
+Erasmus, knew of no other purpose than that of destroying all natural
+gifts, with blows, reprimands and severity, in order to fit the soul for
+the monastery. This, he thought, was just what his guardians were aiming
+at; although ripe for the university they were deliberately kept away
+from it. In this way more than two years were wasted.
+
+One of his two masters, one Rombout, who liked young Erasmus, tried hard
+to prevail on him to join the brethren of the Common Life. In later
+years Erasmus occasionally regretted that he had not yielded; for the
+brethren took no such irrevocable vows as were now in store for him.
+
+An epidemic of the plague became the occasion for the brothers to leave
+Bois-le-Duc and return to Gouda. Erasmus was attacked by a fever that
+sapped his power of resistance, of which he now stood in such need. The
+guardians (one of the three had died in the meantime) now did their
+utmost to make the two young men enter a monastery. They had good cause
+for it, as they had ill administered the slender fortune of their wards,
+and, says Erasmus, refused to render an account. Later he saw everything
+connected with this dark period of his life in the most gloomy
+colours--except himself. Himself he sees as a boy of not yet sixteen
+years (it is nearly certain that he must have been twenty already)
+weakened by fever, but nevertheless resolute and sensible in refusing.
+He has persuaded his brother to fly with him and to go to a university.
+The one guardian is a narrow-minded tyrant, the other, Winckel's
+brother, a merchant, a frivolous coaxer. Peter, the elder of the youths,
+yields first and enters the monastery of Sion, near Delft (of the order
+of the regular Augustinian canons), where the guardian had found a place
+for him. Erasmus resisted longer. Only after a visit to the monastery of
+Steyn or Emmaus, near Gouda, belonging to the same order, where he found
+a schoolfellow from Deventer, who pointed out the bright side of
+monastic life, did Erasmus yield and enter Steyn, where soon after,
+probably in 1488, he took the vows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN THE MONASTERY
+
+1488-95
+
+    Erasmus as an Augustinian canon at Steyn--His friends--Letters
+    to Servatius--Humanism in the monasteries: Latin poetry--
+    Aversion to cloister-life--He leaves Steyn to enter the
+    service of the Bishop of Cambray: 1493--James Batt--
+    _Antibarbari_--He gets leave to study at Paris: 1495
+
+
+In his later life--under the influence of the gnawing regret which his
+monkhood and all the trouble he took to escape from it caused him--the
+picture of all the events leading up to his entering the convent became
+distorted in his mind. Brother Peter, to whom he still wrote in a
+cordial vein from Steyn, became a worthless fellow, even his evil
+spirit, a Judas. The schoolfellow whose advice had been decisive now
+appeared a traitor, prompted by self-interest, who himself had chosen
+convent-life merely out of laziness and the love of good cheer.
+
+The letters that Erasmus wrote from Steyn betray no vestige of his
+deep-seated aversion to monastic life, which afterwards he asks us to
+believe he had felt from the outset. We may, of course, assume that the
+supervision of his superiors prevented him from writing all that was in
+his heart, and that in the depths of his being there had always existed
+the craving for freedom and for more civilized intercourse than Steyn
+could offer. Still he must have found in the monastery some of the good
+things that his schoolfellow had led him to expect. That at this period
+he should have written a 'Praise of Monastic Life', 'to please a friend
+who wanted to decoy a cousin', as he himself says, is one of those naïve
+assertions, invented afterwards, of which Erasmus never saw the
+unreasonable quality.
+
+He found at Steyn a fair degree of freedom, some food for an intellect
+craving for classic antiquity, and friendships with men of the same turn
+of mind. There were three who especially attracted him. Of the
+schoolfellow who had induced him to become a monk, we hear no more. His
+friends are Servatius Roger of Rotterdam and William Hermans of Gouda,
+both his companions at Steyn, and the older Cornelius Gerard of Gouda,
+usually called Aurelius (a quasi-latinization of Goudanus), who spent
+most of his time in the monastery of Lopsen, near Leyden. With them he
+read and conversed sociably and jestingly; with them he exchanged
+letters when they were not together.
+
+Out of the letters to Servatius there rises the picture of an Erasmus
+whom we shall never find again--a young man of more than feminine
+sensitiveness; of a languishing need for sentimental friendship. In
+writing to Servatius, Erasmus runs the whole gamut of an ardent lover.
+As often as the image of his friend presents itself to his mind tears
+break from his eyes. Weeping he re-reads his friend's letter every hour.
+But he is mortally dejected and anxious, for the friend proves averse to
+this excessive attachment. 'What do you want from me?' he asks. 'What is
+wrong with you?' the other replies. Erasmus cannot bear to find that
+this friendship is not fully returned. 'Do not be so reserved; do tell
+me what is wrong! I repose my hope in you alone; I have become yours so
+completely that you have left me naught of myself. You know my
+pusillanimity, which when it has no one on whom to lean and rest, makes
+me so desperate that life becomes a burden.'
+
+Let us remember this. Erasmus never again expresses himself so
+passionately. He has given us here the clue by which we may understand
+much of what he becomes in his later years.
+
+These letters have sometimes been taken as mere literary exercises; the
+weakness they betray and the complete absence of all reticence, seem to
+tally ill with his habit of cloaking his most intimate feelings which,
+afterwards, Erasmus never quite relinquishes. Dr. Allen, who leaves this
+question undecided, nevertheless inclines to regard the letters as
+sincere effusions, and to me they seem so, incontestably. This exuberant
+friendship accords quite well with the times and the person.
+
+Sentimental friendships were as much in vogue in secular circles during
+the fifteenth century as towards the end of the eighteenth century. Each
+court had its pairs of friends, who dressed alike, and shared room, bed,
+and heart. Nor was this cult of fervent friendship restricted to the
+sphere of aristocratic life. It was among the specific characteristics
+of the _devotio moderna_, as, for the rest, it seems from its very
+nature to be inseparably bound up with pietism. To observe one another
+with sympathy, to watch and note each other's inner life, was a
+customary and approved occupation among the brethren of the Common Life
+and the Windesheim monks. And though Steyn and Sion were not of the
+Windesheim congregation, the spirit of the _devotio moderna_ was
+prevalent there.
+
+As for Erasmus himself, he has rarely revealed the foundation of his
+character more completely than when he declared to Servatius: 'My mind
+is such that I think nothing can rank higher than friendship in this
+life, nothing should be desired more ardently, nothing should be
+treasured more jealously'. A violent affection of a similar nature
+troubled him even at a later date when the purity of his motives was
+questioned. Afterwards he speaks of youth as being used to conceive a
+fervent affection for certain comrades. Moreover, the classic examples
+of friends, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, Theseus and
+Pirithous, as also David and Jonathan, were ever present before his
+mind's eye. A young and very tender heart, marked by many feminine
+traits, replete with all the sentiment and with all the imaginings of
+classic literature, who was debarred from love and found himself placed
+against his wish in a coarse and frigid environment, was likely to
+become somewhat excessive in his affections.
+
+He was obliged to moderate them. Servatius would have none of so jealous
+and exacting a friendship and, probably at the cost of more humiliation
+and shame than appears in his letters, young Erasmus resigns himself, to
+be more guarded in expressing his feelings in the future. The
+sentimental Erasmus disappears for good and presently makes room for the
+witty latinist, who surpasses his older friends, and chats with them
+about poetry and literature, advises them about their Latin style, and
+lectures them if necessary.
+
+The opportunities for acquiring the new taste for classic antiquity
+cannot have been so scanty at Deventer, and in the monastery itself, as
+Erasmus afterwards would have us believe, considering the authors he
+already knew at this time. We may conjecture, also, that the books left
+by his father, possibly brought by him from Italy, contributed to
+Erasmus's culture, though it would be strange that, prone as he was to
+disparage his schools and his monastery, he should not have mentioned
+the fact. Moreover, we know that the humanistic knowledge of his youth
+was not exclusively his own, in spite of all he afterwards said about
+Dutch ignorance and obscurantism. Cornelius Aurelius and William Hermans
+likewise possessed it.
+
+In a letter to Cornelius he mentions the following authors as his poetic
+models--Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Statius, Martial, Claudian,
+Persius, Lucan, Tibullus, Propertius. In prose he imitates Cicero,
+Quintilian, Sallust, and Terence, whose metrical character had not yet
+been recognized. Among Italian humanists he was especially acquainted
+with Lorenzo Valla, who on account of his _Elegantiae_ passed with him
+for the pioneer of _bonae literae_; but Filelfo, Aeneas Sylvius,
+Guarino, Poggio, and others, were also not unknown to him. In
+ecclesiastical literature he was particularly well read in Jerome. It
+remains remarkable that the education which Erasmus received in the
+schools of the _devotio moderna_ with their ultra-puritanical object,
+their rigid discipline intent on breaking the personality, could produce
+such a mind as he manifests in his monastic period--the mind of an
+accomplished humanist. He is only interested in writing Latin verses and
+in the purity of his Latin style. We look almost in vain for piety in
+the correspondence with Cornelius of Gouda and William Hermans. They
+manipulate with ease the most difficult Latin metres and the rarest
+terms of mythology. Their subject-matter is bucolic or amatory, and, if
+devotional, their classicism deprives it of the accent of piety. The
+prior of the neighbouring monastery of Hem, at whose request Erasmus
+sang the Archangel Michael, did not dare to paste up his Sapphic ode: it
+was so 'poetic', he thought, as to seem almost Greek. In those days
+poetic meant classic. Erasmus himself thought he had made it so bald
+that it was nearly prose--'the times were so barren, then', he
+afterwards sighed.
+
+These young poets felt themselves the guardians of a new light amidst
+the dullness and barbarism which oppressed them. They readily believed
+each other's productions to be immortal, as every band of youthful poets
+does, and dreamt of a future of poetic glory for Steyn by which it would
+vie with Mantua. Their environment of clownish, narrow-minded
+conventional divines--for as such they saw them--neither acknowledged
+nor encouraged them. Erasmus's strong propensity to fancy himself
+menaced and injured tinged this position with the martyrdom of oppressed
+talent. To Cornelius he complains in fine Horatian measure of the
+contempt in which poetry was held; his fellow-monk orders him to let his
+pen, accustomed to writing poetry, rest. Consuming envy forces him to
+give up making verses. A horrid barbarism prevails, the country laughs
+at the laurel-bringing art of high-seated Apollo; the coarse peasant
+orders the learned poet to write verses. 'Though I had mouths as many as
+the stars that twinkle in the silent firmament on quiet nights, or as
+many as the roses that the mild gale of spring strews on the ground, I
+could not complain of all the evils by which the sacred art of poetry is
+oppressed in these days. I am tired of writing poetry.' Of this effusion
+Cornelius made a dialogue which highly pleased Erasmus.
+
+Though in this art nine-tenths may be rhetorical fiction and sedulous
+imitation, we ought not, on that account, to undervalue the enthusiasm
+inspiring the young poets. Let us, who have mostly grown blunt to the
+charms of Latin, not think too lightly of the elation felt by one who,
+after learning this language out of the most absurd primers and
+according to the most ridiculous methods, nevertheless discovered it in
+its purity, and afterwards came to handle it in the charming rhythm of
+some artful metre, in the glorious precision of its structure and in all
+the melodiousness of its sound.
+
+[Illustration: I. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 51]
+
+[Illustration: II. VIEW OF ROTTERDAM, EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
+
+  Nec si quot placidis ignea noctibus
+  Scintillant tacito sydera culmine,
+  Nec si quot tepidum flante Favonio
+    Ver suffundit humo rosas,
+  Tot sint ora mihi...
+
+Was it strange that the youth who could say this felt himself a
+poet?--or who, together with his friend, could sing of spring in a
+Meliboean song of fifty distichs? Pedantic work, if you like, laboured
+literary exercises, and yet full of the freshness and the vigour which
+spring from the Latin itself.
+
+Out of these moods was to come the first comprehensive work that Erasmus
+was to undertake, the manuscript of which he was afterwards to lose, to
+recover in part, and to publish only after many years--the
+_Antibarbari_, which he commenced at Steyn, according to Dr. Allen. In
+the version in which eventually the first book of the _Antibarbari_
+appeared, it reflects, it is true, a somewhat later phase of Erasmus's
+life, that which began after he had left the monastery; neither is the
+comfortable tone of his witty defence of profane literature any longer
+that of the poet at Steyn. But the ideal of a free and noble life of
+friendly intercourse and the uninterrupted study of the Ancients had
+already occurred to him within the convent walls.
+
+In the course of years those walls probably hemmed him in more and more
+closely. Neither learned and poetic correspondence nor the art of
+painting with which he occupied himself,[1] together with one Sasboud,
+could sweeten the oppression of monastic life and a narrow-minded,
+unfriendly environment. Of the later period of his life in the
+monastery, no letters at all have been preserved, according to Dr.
+Allen's carefully considered dating. Had he dropped his correspondence
+out of spleen, or had his superiors forbidden him to keep it up, or are
+we merely left in the dark because of accidental loss? We know nothing
+about the circumstances and the frame of mind in which Erasmus was
+ordained on 25 April 1492, by the Bishop of Utrecht, David of Burgundy.
+Perhaps his taking holy orders was connected with his design to leave
+the monastery. He himself afterwards declared that he had but rarely
+read mass. He got his chance to leave the monastery when offered the
+post of secretary to the Bishop of Cambray, Henry of Bergen. Erasmus
+owed this preferment to his fame as a Latinist and a man of letters; for
+it was with a view to a journey to Rome, where the bishop hoped to
+obtain a cardinal's hat, that Erasmus entered his service. The
+authorization of the Bishop of Utrecht had been obtained, and also that
+of the prior and the general of the order. Of course, there was no
+question yet of taking leave for good, since, as the bishop's servant,
+Erasmus continued to wear his canon's dress. He had prepared for his
+departure in the deepest secrecy. There is something touching in the
+glimpse we get of his friend and fellow-poet, William Hermans, waiting
+in vain outside of Gouda to see his friend just for a moment, when on
+his way south he would pass the town. It seems there had been
+consultations between them as to leaving Steyn together, and Erasmus, on
+his part, had left him ignorant of his plans. William had to console
+himself with the literature that might be had at Steyn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Erasmus, then twenty-five years old--for in all probability the year
+when he left the monastery was 1493--now set foot on the path of a
+career that was very common and much coveted at that time: that of an
+intellectual in the shadow of the great. His patron belonged to one of
+the numerous Belgian noble families, which had risen in the service of
+the Burgundians and were interestedly devoted to the prosperity of that
+house. The Glimes were lords of the important town of Bergen-op-Zoom,
+which, situated between the River Scheldt and the Meuse delta, was one
+of the links between the northern and the southern Netherlands. Henry,
+the Bishop of Cambray, had just been appointed chancellor of the Order
+of the Golden Fleece, the most distinguished spiritual dignity at court,
+which although now Habsburg in fact, was still named after Burgundy. The
+service of such an important personage promised almost unbounded honour
+and profit. Many a man would under the circumstances, at the cost of
+some patience, some humiliation, and a certain laxity of principle, have
+risen even to be a bishop. But Erasmus was never a man to make the most
+of his situation.
+
+Serving the bishop proved to be rather a disappointment. Erasmus had to
+accompany him on his frequent migrations from one residence to another
+in Bergen, Brussels, or Mechlin. He was very busy, but the exact nature
+of his duties is unknown. The journey to Rome, the acme of things
+desirable to every divine or student, did not come off. The bishop,
+although taking a cordial interest in him for some months, was less
+accommodating than he had expected. And so we shortly find Erasmus once
+more in anything but a cheerful frame of mind. 'The hardest fate,' he
+calls his own, which robs him of all his old sprightliness.
+Opportunities to study he has none. He now envies his friend William,
+who at Steyn in the little cell can write beautiful poetry, favoured by
+his 'lucky stars'. It befits him, Erasmus, only to weep and sigh; it has
+already so dulled his mind and withered his heart that his former
+studies no longer appeal to him. There is rhetorical exaggeration in
+this and we shall not take his pining for the monastery too seriously,
+but still it is clear that deep dejection had mastered him. Contact with
+the world of politics and ambition had probably unsettled Erasmus. He
+never had any aptitude for it. The hard realities of life frightened and
+distressed him. When forced to occupy himself with them he saw nothing
+but bitterness and confusion about him. 'Where is gladness or repose?
+Wherever I turn my eyes I only see disaster and harshness. And in such a
+bustle and clamour about me you wish me to find leisure for the work of
+the Muses?'
+
+Real leisure Erasmus was never to find during his life. All his reading,
+all his writing, he did hastily, _tumultuarie_, as he calls it
+repeatedly. Yet he must nevertheless have worked with intensest
+concentration and an incredible power of assimilation. Whilst staying
+with the bishop he visited the monastery of Groenendael near Brussels,
+where in former times Ruysbroeck wrote. Possibly Erasmus did not hear
+the inmates speak of Ruysbroeck and he would certainly have taken little
+pleasure in the writings of the great mystic. But in the library he
+found the works of St. Augustine and these he devoured. The monks of
+Groenendael were surprised at his diligence. He took the volumes with
+him even to his bedroom.
+
+He occasionally found time to compose at this period. At Halsteren, near
+Bergen-op-Zoom, where the bishop had a country house, he revised the
+_Antibarbari_, begun at Steyn, and elaborated it in the form of a
+dialogue. It would seem as if he sought compensation for the agitation
+of his existence in an atmosphere of idyllic repose and cultured
+conversation. He conveys us to the scene (he will afterwards use it
+repeatedly) which ever remained the ideal pleasure of life to him: a
+garden or a garden house outside the town, where in the gladness of a
+fine day a small number of friends meet to talk during a simple meal or
+a quiet walk, in Platonic serenity, about things of the mind. The
+personages whom he introduces, besides himself, are his best friends.
+They are the valued and faithful friend whom he got to know at Bergen,
+James Batt, schoolmaster and afterwards also clerk of that town, and his
+old friend William Hermans of Steyn, whose literary future he continued
+somewhat to promote. William, arriving unexpectedly from Holland, meets
+the others, who are later joined by the Burgomaster of Bergen and the
+town physician. In a lightly jesting, placid tone they engage in a
+discussion about the appreciation of poetry and literature--Latin
+literature. These are not incompatible with true devotion, as barbarous
+dullness wants us to believe. A cloud of witnesses is there to prove it,
+among them and above all St. Augustine, whom Erasmus had studied
+recently, and St. Jerome, with whom Erasmus had been longer acquainted
+and whose mind was, indeed, more congenial to him. Solemnly, in ancient
+Roman guise, war is declared on the enemies of classic culture. O ye
+Goths, by what right do you occupy, not only the Latin provinces (the
+_disciplinae liberales_ are meant) but the capital, that is Latinity
+itself?
+
+It was Batt who, when his prospects with the Bishop of Cambray ended in
+disappointment, helped to find a way out for Erasmus. He himself had
+studied at Paris, and thither Erasmus also hoped to go, now that Rome
+was denied him. The bishop's consent and the promise of a stipend were
+obtained and Erasmus departed for the most famous of all universities,
+that of Paris, probably in the late summer of 1495. Batt's influence and
+efforts had procured him this lucky chance.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Allen No. 16.12 cf. IV p. xx, and _vide_ LB. IV 756, where surveying
+the years of his youth he also writes 'Pingere dum meditor tenueis sine
+corpore formas'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
+
+1495-9
+
+    The University of Paris--Traditions and schools of Philosophy
+    and Theology--The College of Montaigu--Erasmus's dislike of
+    scholasticism--Relations with the humanist, Robert Gaguin,
+    1495--How to earn a living--First drafts of several of his
+    educational works--Travelling to Holland and back--Batt and the
+    Lady of Veere--To England with Lord Mountjoy: 1499
+
+
+The University of Paris was, more than any other place in Christendom,
+the scene of the collision and struggle of opinions and parties.
+University life in the Middle Ages was in general tumultuous and
+agitated. The forms of scientific intercourse themselves entailed an
+element of irritability: never-ending disputations, frequent elections
+and rowdyism of the students. To those were added old and new quarrels
+of all sorts of orders, schools and groups. The different colleges
+contended among themselves, the secular clergy were at variance with the
+regular. The Thomists and the Scotists, together called the Ancients,
+had been disputing at Paris for half a century with the Terminists, or
+Moderns, the followers of Ockam and Buridan. In 1482 some sort of peace
+was concluded between those two groups. Both schools were on their last
+legs, stuck fast in sterile technical disputes, in systematizing and
+subdividing, a method of terms and words by which science and philosophy
+benefited no longer. The theological colleges of the Dominicans and
+Franciscans at Paris were declining; theological teaching was taken over
+by the secular colleges of Navarre and Sorbonne, but in the old style.
+
+The general traditionalism had not prevented humanism from penetrating
+Paris also during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Refinement
+of Latin style and the taste for classic poetry here, too, had their
+fervent champions, just as revived Platonism, which had sprung up in
+Italy. The Parisian humanists were partly Italians as Girolamo Balbi and
+Fausto Andrelini, but at that time a Frenchman was considered to be
+their leader, Robert Gaguin, general of the order of the Mathurins or
+Trinitarians, diplomatist, French poet and humanist. Side by side with
+the new Platonism a clearer understanding of Aristotle penetrated, which
+had also come from Italy. Shortly before Erasmus's arrival Jacques
+Lefèvre d'Étaples had returned from Italy, where he had visited the
+Platonists, such as Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Ermolao
+Barbaro, the reviver of Aristotle. Though theoretical theology and
+philosophy generally were conservative at Paris, yet here as well as
+elsewhere movements to reform the Church were not wanting. The authority
+of Jean Gerson, the University's great chancellor (about 1400), had not
+yet been forgotten. But reform by no means meant inclination to depart
+from the doctrine of the Church; it aimed, in the first place, at
+restoration and purification of the monastic orders and afterwards at
+the extermination of abuses which the Church acknowledged and lamented
+as existing within its fold. In that spirit of reformation of spiritual
+life the Dutch movement of the _devotio moderna_ had recently begun to
+make itself felt, also, at Paris. The chief of its promoters was John
+Standonck of Mechlin, educated by the brethren of the Common Life at
+Gouda and imbued with their spirit in its most rigorous form. He was an
+ascetic more austere than the spirit of the Windesheimians, strict
+indeed but yet moderate, required; far beyond ecclesiastical circles his
+name was proverbial on account of his abstinence--he had definitely
+denied himself the use of meat. As provisor of the college of Montaigu
+he had instituted the most stringent rules there, enforced by
+chastisement for the slightest faults. To the college he had annexed a
+home for poor scholars, where they lived in a semi-monastic community.
+
+To this man Erasmus had been recommended by the Bishop of Cambray.
+Though he did not join the community of poor students--he was nearly
+thirty years old--he came to know all the privations of the system. They
+embittered the earlier part of his stay at Paris and instilled in him a
+deep, permanent aversion to abstinence and austerity. Had he come to
+Paris for this--to experience the dismal and depressing influences of
+his youth anew in a more stringent form?
+
+The purpose for which Erasmus went to Paris was chiefly to obtain the
+degree of doctor of theology. This was not too difficult for him: as a
+regular he was exempt from previous study in the faculty of arts, and
+his learning and astonishing intelligence and energy enabled him to
+prepare in a short time for the examinations and disputations required.
+Yet he did not attain this object at Paris. His stay, which with
+interruptions lasted, first till 1499, to be continued later, became to
+him a period of difficulties and exasperations, of struggle to make his
+way by all the humiliating means which at the time were indispensable to
+that end; of dawning success, too, which, however, failed to gratify
+him.
+
+The first cause of his reverses was a physical one; he could not endure
+the hard life in the college of Montaigu. The addled eggs and squalid
+bedrooms stuck in his memory all his life; there he thinks he contracted
+the beginnings of his later infirmity. In the _Colloquia_ he has
+commemorated with abhorrence Standonck's system of abstinence, privation
+and chastisement. For the rest his stay there lasted only until the
+spring of 1496.
+
+Meanwhile he had begun his theological studies. He attended lectures on
+the Bible and on the Book of the Sentences, the medieval handbook of
+theology and still the one most frequently used. He was even allowed to
+give some lessons in the college on Holy Scripture. He preached a few
+sermons in honour of the Saints, probably in the neighbouring abbey of
+St. Geneviève. But his heart was not in all this. The subtleties of the
+schools could not please him. That aversion to all scholasticism, which
+he rejected in one sweeping condemnation, struck root in his mind,
+which, however broad, always judged unjustly that for which it had no
+room. 'Those studies can make a man opinionated and contentious; can
+they make him wise? They exhaust the mind by a certain jejune and barren
+subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By their stammering and
+by the stains of their impure style they disfigure theology which had
+been enriched and adorned by the eloquence of the ancients. They involve
+everything whilst trying to resolve everything.' 'Scotist', with
+Erasmus, became a handy epithet for all schoolmen, nay, for everything
+superannuated and antiquated. He would rather lose the whole of Scotus
+than Cicero's or Plutarch's works. These he feels the better for
+reading, whereas he rises from the study of scholasticism frigidly
+disposed towards true virtue, but irritated into a disputatious mood.
+
+It would, no doubt, have been difficult for Erasmus to find in the arid
+traditionalism which prevailed in the University of Paris the heyday of
+scholastic philosophy and theology. From the disputations which he heard
+in the Sorbonne he brought back nothing but the habit of scoffing at
+doctors of theology, or as he always ironically calls them by their
+title of honour: _Magistri nostri_. Yawning, he sat among 'those holy
+Scotists' with their wrinkled brows, staring eyes, and puzzled faces,
+and on his return home he writes a disrespectful fantasy to his young
+friend Thomas Grey, telling him how he sleeps the sleep of Epimenides
+with the divines of the Sorbonne. Epimenides awoke after his forty-seven
+years of slumber, but the majority of our present theologians will never
+wake up. What may Epimenides have dreamt? What but subtleties of the
+Scotists: quiddities, formalities, etc.! Epimenides himself was reborn
+in Scotus, or rather, Epimenides was Scotus's prototype. For did not he,
+too, write theological books, in which he tied such syllogistic knots as
+he would never have been able to loosen? The Sorbonne preserves
+Epimenides's skin written over with mysterious letters, as an oracle
+which men may only see after having borne the title of _Magister noster_
+for fifteen years.
+
+It is not a far cry from caricatures like these to the _Sorbonistres_
+and the _Barbouillamenta Scoti_ of Rabelais. 'It is said', thus Erasmus
+concludes his _boutade_, 'that no one can understand the mysteries of
+this science who has had the least intercourse with the Muses or the
+Graces. All that you have learned in the way of _bonae literae_ has to
+be unlearned first; if you have drunk of Helicon you must first vomit
+the draught. I do my utmost to say nothing according to the Latin taste,
+and nothing graceful or witty; and I am already making progress, and
+there is hope that one day they will acknowledge Erasmus.'
+
+It was not only the dryness of the method and the barrenness of the
+system which revolted Erasmus. It was also the qualities of his own
+mind, which, in spite of all its breadth and acuteness, did not tend to
+penetrate deeply into philosophical or dogmatic speculations. For it was
+not only scholasticism that repelled him; the youthful Platonism and the
+rejuvenated Aristotelianism taught by Lefèvre d'Étaples also failed to
+attract him. For the present he remained a humanist of aesthetic bias,
+with the substratum of a biblical and moral disposition, resting mainly
+on the study of his favourite Jerome. For a long time to come Erasmus
+considered himself, and also introduced himself, as a poet and an
+orator, by which latter term he meant what we call a man of letters.
+
+Immediately on arriving at Paris he must have sought contact with the
+headquarters of literary humanism. The obscure Dutch regular introduced
+himself in a long letter (not preserved) full of eulogy, accompanied by
+a much-laboured poem, to the general, not only of the Trinitarians but,
+at the same time, of Parisian humanists, Robert Gaguin. The great man
+answered very obligingly: 'From your lyrical specimen I conclude that
+you are a scholar; my friendship is at your disposal; do not be so
+profuse in your praise, that looks like flattery'. The correspondence
+had hardly begun when Erasmus found a splendid opportunity to render
+this illustrious personage a service and, at the same time, in the
+shadow of his name, make himself known to the reading public. The matter
+is also of importance because it affords us an opportunity, for the
+first time, to notice the connection that is always found between
+Erasmus's career as a man of letters and a scholar and the technical
+conditions of the youthful art of printing.
+
+Gaguin was an all-round man and his Latin text-book of the history of
+France, _De origine et gestis Francorum Compendium_, was just being
+printed. It was the first specimen of humanistic historiography in
+France. The printer had finished his work on 30 September 1495, but of
+the 136 leaves, two remained blank. This was not permissible according
+to the notions of that time. Gaguin was ill and could not help matters.
+By judicious spacing the compositor managed to fill up folio 135 with a
+poem by Gaguin, the colophon and two panegyrics by Faustus Andrelinus
+and another humanist. Even then there was need of matter, and Erasmus
+dashed into the breach and furnished a long commendatory letter,
+completely filling the superfluous blank space of folio 136.[2] In this
+way his name and style suddenly became known to the numerous public
+which was interested in Gaguin's historical work, and at the same time
+he acquired another title to Gaguin's protection, on whom the
+exceptional qualities of Erasmus's diction had evidently not been lost.
+That his history would remain known chiefly because it had been a
+stepping stone to Erasmus, Gaguin could hardly have anticipated.
+
+Although Erasmus had now, as a follower of Gaguin, been introduced into
+the world of Parisian humanists, the road to fame, which had latterly
+begun to lead through the printing press, was not yet easy for him. He
+showed the _Antibarbari_ to Gaguin, who praised them, but no suggestion
+of publication resulted. A slender volume of Latin poems by Erasmus was
+published in Paris in 1496, dedicated to Hector Boys, a Scotchman, with
+whom he had become acquainted at Montaigu. But the more important
+writings at which he worked during his stay in Paris all appeared in
+print much later.
+
+While intercourse with men like Robert Gaguin and Faustus Andrelinus
+might be honourable, it was not directly profitable. The support of the
+Bishop of Cambray was scantier than he wished. In the spring of 1496 he
+fell ill and left Paris. Going first to Bergen, he had a kind welcome
+from his patron, the bishop; and then, having recovered his health, he
+went on to Holland to his friends. It was his intention to stay there,
+he says. The friends themselves, however, urged him to return to Paris,
+which he did in the autumn of 1496. He carried poetry by William Hermans
+and a letter from this poet to Gaguin. A printer was found for the poems
+and Erasmus also brought his friend and fellow-poet into contact with
+Faustus Andrelinus.
+
+The position of a man who wished to live by intellectual labour was far
+from easy at that time and not always dignified. He had either to live
+on church prebends or on distinguished patrons, or on both. But such a
+prebend was difficult to get and patrons were uncertain and often
+disappointing. The publishers paid considerable copy-fees only to famous
+authors. As a rule the writer received a number of copies of his work
+and that was all. His chief advantage came from a dedication to some
+distinguished personage, who could compliment him for it with a handsome
+gift. There were authors who made it a practice to dedicate the same
+work repeatedly to different persons. Erasmus has afterwards defended
+himself explicitly from that suspicion and carefully noted how many of
+those whom he honoured with a dedication gave nothing or very little.
+
+The first need, therefore, to a man in Erasmus's circumstances was to
+find a Maecenas. Maecenas with the humanists was almost synonymous with
+paymaster. Under the adage _Ne bos quidem pereat_ Erasmus has given a
+description of the decent way of obtaining a Maecenas. Consequently,
+when his conduct in these years appears to us to be actuated, more than
+once, by an undignified pushing spirit, we should not gauge it by our
+present standards. These were his years of weakness.
+
+On his return to Paris he did not again lodge in Montaigu. He tried to
+make a living by giving lessons to young men of fortune. A merchant's
+sons of Lübeck, Christian and Henry Northoff, who lodged with one
+Augustine Vincent, were his pupils. He composed beautiful letters for
+them, witty, fluent and a trifle scented. At the same time he taught two
+young Englishmen, Thomas Grey and Robert Fisher, and conceived such a
+doting affection for Grey as to lead to trouble with the youth's
+guardian, a Scotchman, by whom Erasmus was excessively vexed.
+
+Paris did not fail to exercise its refining influence on Erasmus. It
+made his style affectedly refined and sparkling--he pretends to disdain
+the rustic products of his youth in Holland. In the meantime, the works
+through which afterwards his influence was to spread over the whole
+world began to grow, but only to the benefit of a few readers. They
+remained unprinted as yet. For the Northoffs was composed the little
+compendium of polite conversation (in Latin), _Familiarium colloquiorum
+formulae_, the nucleus of the world-famous _Colloquia_. For Robert
+Fisher he wrote the first draft of _De conscribendis epistolis_, the
+great dissertation on the art of letter-writing (Latin letters),
+probably also the paraphrase of Valla's _Elegantiae_, a treatise on pure
+Latin, which had been a beacon-light of culture to Erasmus in his youth.
+_De copia verborum ac rerum_ was also such a help for beginners, to
+provide them with a vocabulary and abundance of turns and expressions;
+and also the germs of a larger work: _De ratione studii_, a manual for
+arranging courses of study, lay in the same line.
+
+It was a life of uncertainty and unrest. The bishop gave but little
+support. Erasmus was not in good health and felt continually depressed.
+He made plans for a journey to Italy, but did not see much chance of
+effecting them. In the summer of 1498 he again travelled to Holland and
+to the bishop. In Holland his friends were little pleased with his
+studies. It was feared that he was contracting debts at Paris. Current
+reports about him were not favourable. He found the bishop, in the
+commotion of his departure for England on a mission, irritable and full
+of complaints. It became more and more evident that he would have to
+look out for another patron. Perhaps he might turn to the Lady of Veere,
+Anna of Borselen, with whom his faithful and helpful friend Batt had now
+taken service, as a tutor to her son, in the castle of Tournehem,
+between Calais and Saint Omer.
+
+Upon his return to Paris, Erasmus resumed his old life, but it was
+hateful slavery to him. Batt had an invitation for him to come to
+Tournehem, but he could not yet bear to leave Paris. Here he had now as
+a pupil the young Lord Mountjoy, William Blount. That meant two strings
+to his bow. Batt is incited to prepare the ground for him with Anna of
+Veere; William Hermans is charged with writing letters to Mountjoy, in
+which he is to praise the latter's love of literature. 'You should
+display an erudite integrity, commend me, and proffer your services
+kindly. Believe me, William, your reputation, too, will benefit by it.
+He is a young man of great authority with his own folk; you will have
+some one to distribute your writings in England. I pray you again and
+again, if you love me, take this to heart.'
+
+The visit to Tournehem took place at the beginning of 1499, followed by
+another journey to Holland. Henceforward Anna of Veere passed for his
+patroness. In Holland he saw his friend William Hermans and told him
+that he thought of leaving for Bologna after Easter. The Dutch journey
+was one of unrest and bustle; he was in a hurry to return to Paris, not
+to miss any opportunity which Mountjoy's affection might offer him. He
+worked hard at the various writings on which he was engaged, as hard as
+his health permitted after the difficult journey in winter. He was
+busily occupied in collecting the money for travelling to Italy, now
+postponed until August. But evidently Batt could not obtain as much for
+him as he had hoped, and, in May, Erasmus suddenly gave up the Italian
+plan, and left for England with Mountjoy at the latter's request.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Allen No. 43, p. 145, where the particulars of the case are
+expounded with peculiar acuteness and conclusions drawn with regard to
+the chronology of Erasmus's stay at Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND
+
+1499-1500
+
+    First stay in England: 1499-1500--Oxford: John Colet--Erasmus's
+    aspirations directed towards divinity--He is as yet mainly a
+    literate--Fisher and More--Mishap at Dover when leaving England:
+    1500--Back in France he composes the _Adagia_--Years of trouble
+    and penury
+
+
+Erasmus's first stay in England, which lasted from the early summer of
+1499 till the beginning of 1500, was to become for him a period of
+inward ripening. He came there as an erudite poet, the protégé of a
+nobleman of rank, on the road to closer contact with the great world
+which knew how to appreciate and reward literary merit. He left the
+country with the fervent desire in future to employ his gifts, in so far
+as circumstances would permit, in more serious tasks. This change was
+brought about by two new friends whom he found in England, whose
+personalities were far above those who had hitherto crossed his path:
+John Colet and Thomas More.
+
+During all the time of his sojourn in England Erasmus is in high
+spirits, for him. At first it is still the man of the world who speaks,
+the refined man of letters, who must needs show his brilliant genius.
+Aristocratic life, of which he evidently had seen but little at the
+Bishop of Cambray's and the Lady of Veere's at Tournehem, pleased him
+fairly well, it seems. 'Here in England', he writes in a light vein to
+Faustus Andrelinus, 'we have, indeed, progressed somewhat. The Erasmus
+whom you know is almost a good hunter already, not too bad a horseman, a
+not unpractised courtier. He salutes a little more courteously, he
+smiles more kindly. If you are wise, you also will alight here.' And he
+teases the volatile poet by telling him about the charming girls and the
+laudable custom, which he found in England, of accompanying all
+compliments by kisses.[3]
+
+It even fell to his lot to make the acquaintance of royalty. From
+Mountjoy's estate at Greenwich, More, in the course of a walk, took him
+to Eltham Palace, where the royal children were educated. There he saw,
+surrounded by the whole royal household, the youthful Henry, who was to
+be Henry VIII, a boy of nine years, together with two little sisters and
+a young prince, who was still an infant in arms. Erasmus was ashamed
+that he had nothing to offer and, on returning home, he composed (not
+without exertion, for he had not written poetry at all for some time) a
+panegyric on England, which he presented to the prince with a graceful
+dedication.
+
+In October Erasmus was at Oxford which, at first, did not please him,
+but whither Mountjoy was to follow him. He had been recommended to John
+Colet, who declared that he required no recommendations: he already knew
+Erasmus from the letter to Gaguin in the latter's historical work and
+thought very highly of his learning. There followed during the remainder
+of Erasmus's stay at Oxford a lively intercourse, in conversation and in
+correspondence, which definitely decided the bent of Erasmus's
+many-sided mind.
+
+[Illustration: III. JOHN COLET, DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S]
+
+John Colet, who did not differ much from Erasmus in point of age, had
+found his intellectual path earlier and more easily. Born of well-to-do
+parents (his father was a London magistrate and twice lord mayor), he
+had been able leisurely to prosecute his studies. Not seduced by quite
+such a brilliant genius as Erasmus possessed into literary digressions,
+he had from the beginning fixed his attention on theology. He knew Plato
+and Plotinus, though not in Greek, was very well read in the older
+Fathers and also respectably acquainted with scholasticism, not to
+mention his knowledge of mathematics, law, history and the English
+poets. In 1496 he had established himself at Oxford. Without possessing
+a degree in divinity, he expounded St. Paul's epistles. Although, owing
+to his ignorance of Greek, he was restricted to the Vulgate, he tried to
+penetrate to the original meaning of the sacred texts, discarding the
+later commentaries.
+
+Colet had a deeply serious nature, always warring against the tendencies
+of his vigorous being, and he kept within bounds his pride and the love
+of pleasure. He had a keen sense of humour, which, without doubt,
+endeared him to Erasmus. He was an enthusiast. When defending a point in
+theology his ardour changed the sound of his voice, the look in his
+eyes, and a lofty spirit permeated his whole person.
+
+[Illustration: IV. SIR THOMAS MORE, 1527]
+
+Out of his intercourse with Colet came the first of Erasmus's
+theological writings. At the end of a discussion regarding Christ's
+agony in the garden of Gethsemane, in which Erasmus had defended the
+usual view that Christ's fear of suffering proceeded from his human
+nature, Colet had exhorted him to think further about the matter. They
+exchanged letters about it and finally Erasmus committed both their
+opinions to paper in the form of a 'Little disputation concerning the
+anguish, fear and sadness of Jesus', _Disputatiuncula de tedio, pavore,
+tristicia Jesu_, etc., being an elaboration of these letters.
+
+While the tone of this pamphlet is earnest and pious, it is not truly
+fervent. The man of letters is not at once and completely superseded.
+'See, Colet,' thus Erasmus ends his first letter, referring half
+ironically to himself, 'how I can observe the rules of propriety in
+concluding such a theologic disputation with poetic fables (he had made
+use of a few mythologic metaphors). But as Horace says, _Naturam
+expellas furca, tamen usque recurret_.'
+
+This ambiguous position which Erasmus still occupied, also in things of
+the mind, appears still more clearly from the report which he sent to
+his new friend, the Frisian John Sixtin, a Latin poet like himself, of
+another disputation with Colet, at a repast, probably in the hall of
+Magdalen College, where Wolsey, too, was perhaps present. To his
+fellow-poet, Erasmus writes as a poet, loosely and with some
+affectation. It was a meal such as he liked, and afterwards frequently
+pictured in his _Colloquies_: cultured company, good food, moderate
+drinking, noble conversation. Colet presided. On his right hand sat the
+prior Charnock of St. Mary's College, where Erasmus resided (he had also
+been present at the disputation about Christ's agony). On his left was a
+divine whose name is not mentioned, an advocate of scholasticism; next
+to him came Erasmus, 'that the poet should not be wanting at the
+banquet'. The discussion was about Cain's guilt by which he displeased
+the Lord. Colet defended the opinion that Cain had injured God by
+doubting the Creator's goodness, and, in reliance on his own industry,
+tilling the earth, whereas Abel tended the sheep and was content with
+what grew of itself. The divine contended with syllogisms, Erasmus with
+arguments of 'rhetoric'. But Colet kindled, and got the better of both.
+After a while, when the dispute had lasted long enough and had become
+more serious than was suitable for table-talk--'then I said, in order to
+play my part, the part of the poet that is--to abate the contention and
+at the same time cheer the meal with a pleasant tale: "it is a very old
+story, it has to be unearthed from the very oldest authors. I will tell
+you what I found about it in literature, if you will promise me first
+that you will not look upon it as a fable."'
+
+And now he relates a witty story of some very ancient codex in which he
+had read how Cain, who had often heard his parents speak of the glorious
+vegetation of Paradise, where the ears of corn were as high as the
+alders with us, had prevailed upon the angel who guarded it, to give him
+some Paradisal grains. God would not mind it, if only he left the apples
+alone. The speech by which the angel is incited to disobey the Almighty
+is a masterpiece of Erasmian wit. 'Do you find it pleasant to stand
+there by the gate with a big sword? We have just begun to use dogs for
+that sort of work. It is not so bad on earth and it will be better
+still; we shall learn, no doubt, to cure diseases. What that forbidden
+knowledge matters I do not see very clearly. Though, in that matter,
+too, unwearied industry surmounts all obstacles.' In this way the
+guardian is seduced. But when God beholds the miraculous effect of
+Cain's agricultural management, punishment does not fail to ensue. A
+more delicate way of combining Genesis and the Prometheus myth no
+humanist had yet invented.
+
+But still, though Erasmus went on conducting himself as a man of letters
+among his fellow-poets, his heart was no longer in those literary
+exercises. It is one of the peculiarities of Erasmus's mental growth
+that it records no violent crises. We never find him engaged in those
+bitter inward struggles which are in the experience of so many great
+minds. His transition from interest in literary matters to interest in
+religious matters is not in the nature of a process of conversion. There
+is no Tarsus in Erasmus's life. The transition takes place gradually and
+is never complete. For many years to come Erasmus can, without suspicion
+of hypocrisy, at pleasure, as his interests or his moods require, play
+the man of letters or the theologian. He is a man with whom the deeper
+currents of the soul gradually rise to the surface; who raises himself
+to the height of his ethical consciousness under the stress of
+circumstances, rather than at the spur of some irresistible impulse.
+
+The desire to turn only to matters of faith he shows early. 'I have
+resolved', he writes in his monastic period to Cornelius of Gouda, 'to
+write no more poems in the future, except such as savour of praise of
+the saints, or of sanctity itself.' But that was the youthful pious
+resolve of a moment. During all the years previous to the first voyage
+to England, Erasmus's writings, and especially his letters, betray a
+worldly disposition. It only leaves him in moments of illness and
+weariness. Then the world displeases him and he despises his own
+ambition; he desires to live in holy quiet, musing on Scripture and
+shedding tears over his old errors. But these are utterances inspired by
+the occasion, which one should not take too seriously.
+
+It was Colet's word and example which first changed Erasmus's desultory
+occupation with theological studies into a firm and lasting resolve to
+make their pursuit the object of his life. Colet urged him to expound
+the Pentateuch or the prophet Isaiah at Oxford, just as he himself
+treated of Paul's epistles. Erasmus declined; he could not do it. This
+bespoke insight and self-knowledge, by which he surpassed Colet. The
+latter's intuitive Scripture interpretation without knowledge of the
+original language failed to satisfy Erasmus. 'You are acting
+imprudently, my dear Colet, in trying to obtain water from a
+pumice-stone (in the words of Plautus). How shall I be so impudent as to
+teach that which I have not learned myself? How shall I warm others
+while shivering and trembling with cold?... You complain that you find
+yourself deceived in your expectations regarding me. But I have never
+promised you such a thing; you have deceived yourself by refusing to
+believe me when I was telling you the truth regarding myself. Neither
+did I come here to teach poetics or rhetoric (Colet had hinted at that);
+these have ceased to be sweet to me, since they ceased to be necessary
+to me. I decline the one task because it does not come up to my aim in
+life; the other because it is beyond my strength ... But when, one day,
+I shall be conscious that the necessary power is in me, I, too, shall
+choose your part and devote to the assertion of divinity, if no
+excellent, yet sincere labour.'
+
+The inference which Erasmus drew first of all was that he should know
+Greek better than he had thus far been able to learn it.
+
+Meanwhile his stay in England was rapidly drawing to a close; he had to
+return to Paris. Towards the end of his sojourn he wrote to his former
+pupil, Robert Fisher, who was in Italy, in a high-pitched tone about the
+satisfaction which he experienced in England. A most pleasant and
+wholesome climate (he was most sensitive to it); so much humanity and
+erudition--not of the worn-out and trivial sort, but of the recondite,
+genuine, ancient, Latin and Greek stamp--that he need hardly any more
+long to go to Italy. In Colet he thought he heard Plato himself. Grocyn,
+the Grecian scholar; Linacre, the learned physician, who would not
+admire them! And whose spirit was ever softer, sweeter or happier than
+that of Thomas More!
+
+A disagreeable incident occurred as Erasmus was leaving English soil in
+January 1500. Unfortunately it not only obscured his pleasant memories
+of the happy island, but also placed another obstacle in the path of his
+career, and left in his supersensitive soul a sting which vexed him for
+years afterwards.
+
+The livelihood which he had been gaining at Paris of late years was
+precarious. The support from the bishop had probably been withdrawn;
+that of Anna of Veere had trickled but languidly; he could not too
+firmly rely on Mountjoy. Under these circumstances a modest fund, some
+provision against a rainy day, was of the highest consequence. Such
+savings he brought from England, twenty pounds. An act of Edward III,
+re-enacted by Henry VII not long before, prohibited the export of gold
+and silver, but More and Mountjoy had assured Erasmus that he could
+safely take his money with him, if only it was not in English coin. At
+Dover he learned that the custom-house officers were of a different
+opinion. He might only keep six 'angels'--the rest was left behind in
+the hands of the officials and was evidently confiscated.
+
+The shock which this incident gave him perhaps contributed to his
+fancying himself threatened by robbers and murderers on the road from
+Calais to Paris. The loss of his money plunged him afresh into
+perplexity as to his support from day to day. It forced him to resume
+the profession of a _bel esprit_, which he already began to loathe, and
+to take all the humiliating steps to get what was due to it from
+patrons. And, above all, it affected his mental balance and his dignity.
+Yet this mishap had its great advantage for the world, and for Erasmus,
+too, after all. To it the world owes the _Adagia_; and he the fame,
+which began with this work.
+
+The feelings with which his misfortune at Dover inspired Erasmus were
+bitter anger and thirst for revenge. A few months later he writes to
+Batt: 'Things with me are as they are wont to be in such cases: the
+wound received in England begins to smart only now that it has become
+inveterate, and that the more as I cannot have my revenge in any way'.
+And six months later, 'I shall swallow it. An occasion may offer itself,
+no doubt, to be even with them.' Yet meanwhile true insight told this
+man, whose strength did not always attain to his ideals, that the
+English, whom he had just seen in such a favourable light, let alone his
+special friends among them, were not accessories to the misfortune. He
+never reproached More and Mountjoy, whose inaccurate information, he
+tells us, had done the harm. At the same time his interest, which he
+always saw in the garb of virtue, told him that now especially it would
+be essential not to break off his relations with England, and that this
+gave him a splendid chance of strengthening them. Afterwards he
+explained this with a naïveté which often causes his writings,
+especially where he tries to suppress or cloak matters, to read like
+confessions.
+
+'Returning to Paris a poor man, I understood that many would expect I
+should take revenge with my pen for this mishap, after the fashion of
+men of letters, by writing something venomous against the king or
+against England. At the same time I was afraid that William Mountjoy,
+having indirectly caused my loss of money, would be apprehensive of
+losing my affection. In order, therefore, both to put the expectations
+of those people to shame, and to make known that I was not so unfair as
+to blame the country for a private wrong, or so inconsiderate as,
+because of a small loss, to risk making the king displeased with myself
+or with my friends in England, and at the same time to give my friend
+Mountjoy a proof that I was no less kindly disposed towards him than
+before, I resolved to publish something as quickly as possible. As I had
+nothing ready, I hastily brought together, by a few days' reading, a
+collection of Adagia, in the supposition that such a booklet, however it
+might turn out, by its mere usefulness would get into the hands of
+students. In this way I demonstrated that my friendship had not cooled
+off at all. Next, in a poem I subjoined, I protested that I was not
+angry with the king or with the country at being deprived of my money.
+And my scheme was not ill received. That moderation and candour procured
+me a good many friends in England at the time--erudite, upright and
+influential men.'
+
+This is a characteristic specimen of semi-ethical conduct. In this way
+Erasmus succeeded in dealing with his indignation, so that later on he
+could declare, when the recollection came up occasionally, 'At one blow
+I had lost all my fortune, but I was so unconcerned that I returned to
+my books all the more cheerfully and ardently'. But his friends knew how
+deep the wound had been. 'Now (on hearing that Henry VIII had ascended
+the throne) surely all bitterness must have suddenly left your soul,'
+Mountjoy writes to him in 1509, possibly through the pen of Ammonius.
+
+The years after his return to France were difficult ones. He was in
+great need of money and was forced to do what he could, as a man of
+letters, with his talents and knowledge. He had again to be the _homo
+poeticus_ or _rhetoricus_. He writes polished letters full of mythology
+and modest mendicity. As a poet he had a reputation; as a poet he could
+expect support. Meanwhile the elevating picture of his theological
+activities remained present before his mind's eye. It nerves him to
+energy and perseverance. 'It is incredible', he writes to Batt, 'how my
+soul yearns to finish all my works, at the same time becoming somewhat
+proficient in Greek, and afterwards to devote myself entirely to the
+sacred learning after which my soul has been hankering for a long time.
+I am in fairly good health, so I shall have to strain every nerve this
+year (1501) to get the work we gave the printer published, and by
+dealing with theological problems, to expose our cavillers, who are very
+numerous, as they deserve. If three more years of life are granted me, I
+shall be beyond the reach of envy.'
+
+Here we see him in a frame of mind to accomplish great things, though
+not merely under the impulse of true devotion. Already he sees the
+restoration of genuine divinity as his task; unfortunately the effusion
+is contained in a letter in which he instructs the faithful Batt as to
+how he should handle the Lady of Veere in order to wheedle money out of
+her.
+
+For years to come the efforts to make a living were to cause him almost
+constant tribulations and petty cares. He had had more than enough of
+France and desired nothing better than to leave it. Part of the year
+1500 he spent at Orléans. Adversity made him narrow. There is the story
+of his relations with Augustine Vincent Caminade, a humanist of lesser
+rank (he ended as syndic of Middelburg), who took young men as lodgers.
+It is too long to detail here, but remarkable enough as revealing
+Erasmus's psychology, for it shows how deeply he mistrusted his friends.
+There are also his relations with Jacobus Voecht, in whose house he
+evidently lived gratuitously and for whom he managed to procure a rich
+lodger in the person of an illegitimate brother of the Bishop of
+Cambray. At this time, Erasmus asserts, the bishop (Antimaecenas he now
+calls him) set Standonck to dog him in Paris.
+
+Much bitterness there is in the letters of this period. Erasmus is
+suspicious, irritable, exacting, sometimes rude in writing to his
+friends. He cannot bear William Hermans any longer because of his
+epicureanism and his lack of energy, to which he, Erasmus, certainly was
+a stranger. But what grieves us most is the way he speaks to honest
+Batt. He is highly praised, certainly. Erasmus promises to make him
+immortal, too. But how offended he is, when Batt cannot at once comply
+with his imperious demands. How almost shameless are his instructions as
+to what Batt is to tell the Lady of Veere, in order to solicit her
+favour for Erasmus. And how meagre the expressions of his sorrow, when
+the faithful Batt is taken from him by death in the first half of 1502.
+
+It is as if Erasmus had revenged himself on Batt for having been obliged
+to reveal himself to his true friend in need more completely than he
+cared to appear to anyone; or for having disavowed to Anna of Borselen
+his fundamental convictions, his most refined taste, for the sake of a
+meagre gratuity. He has paid homage to her in that ponderous Burgundian
+style with which dynasties in the Netherlands were familiar, and which
+must have been hateful to him. He has flattered her formal piety. 'I
+send you a few prayers, by means of which you could, as by incantations,
+call down, even against her will, from Heaven, so to say, not the moon,
+but her who gave birth to the sun of justice.'
+
+Did you smile your delicate smile, O author of the _Colloquies_, while
+writing this? So much the worse for you.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Allen No. 103.17. Cf. _Chr. Matrim. inst._ LB. V. 678 and _Cent
+nouvelles_ 2.63, 'ung baiser, dont les dames et demoiselles du dit pays
+d'Angleterre sont assez libérales de l'accorder'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST
+
+    Significance of the _Adagia_ and similar works of later
+    years--Erasmus as a divulger of classical culture--
+    Latin--Estrangement from Holland--Erasmus as a
+    Netherlander
+
+
+Meanwhile renown came to Erasmus as the fruit of those literary studies
+which, as he said, had ceased to be dear to him. In 1500 that work
+appeared which Erasmus had written after his misfortune at Dover, and
+had dedicated to Mountjoy, the _Adagiorum Collectanea_. It was a
+collection of about eight hundred proverbial sayings drawn from the
+Latin authors of antiquity and elucidated for the use of those who
+aspired to write an elegant Latin style. In the dedication Erasmus
+pointed out the profit an author may derive, both in ornamenting his
+style and in strengthening his argumentation, from having at his
+disposal a good supply of sentences hallowed by their antiquity. He
+proposes to offer such a help to his readers. What he actually gave was
+much more. He familiarized a much wider circle than the earlier
+humanists had reached with the spirit of antiquity.
+
+Until this time the humanists had, to some extent, monopolized the
+treasures of classic culture, in order to parade their knowledge of
+which the multitude remained destitute, and so to become strange
+prodigies of learning and elegance. With his irresistible need of
+teaching and his sincere love for humanity and its general culture,
+Erasmus introduced the classic spirit, in so far as it could be
+reflected in the soul of a sixteenth-century Christian, among the
+people. Not he alone; but none more extensively and more effectively.
+Not among all the people, it is true, for by writing in Latin he limited
+his direct influence to the educated classes, which in those days were
+the upper classes.
+
+Erasmus made current the classic spirit. Humanism ceased to be the
+exclusive privilege of a few. According to Beatus Rhenanus he had been
+reproached by some humanists, when about to publish the _Adagia_, for
+divulging the mysteries of their craft. But he desired that the book of
+antiquity should be open to all.
+
+The literary and educational works of Erasmus, the chief of which were
+begun in his Parisian period, though most of them appeared much later,
+have, in truth, brought about a transmutation of the general modes of
+expression and of argumentation. It should be repeated over and over
+again that this was not achieved by him single-handed; countless others
+at that time were similarly engaged. But we have only to cast an eye on
+the broad current of editions of the _Adagia_, of the _Colloquia_, etc.,
+to realize of how much greater consequence he was in this respect than
+all the others. 'Erasmus' is the only name in all the host of humanists
+which has remained a household word all over the globe.
+
+Here we will anticipate the course of Erasmus's life for a moment, to
+enumerate the principal works of this sort. Some years later the
+_Adagia_ increased from hundreds to thousands, through which not only
+Latin, but also Greek, wisdom spoke. In 1514 he published in the same
+manner a collection of similitudes, _Parabolae_. It was a partial
+realization of what he had conceived to supplement the _Adagia_--
+metaphors, saws, allusions, poetical and scriptural allegories, all to
+be dealt with in a similar way. Towards the end of his life he published
+a similar thesaurus of the witty anecdotes and the striking words or
+deeds of wisdom of antiquity, the _Apophthegmata_. In addition to these
+collections, we find manuals of a more grammatical nature, also piled up
+treasury-like: 'On the stock of expressions', _De copia verborum et
+rerum_, 'On letter-writing', _De conscribendis epistolis_, not to
+mention works of less importance. By a number of Latin translations of
+Greek authors Erasmus had rendered a point of prospect accessible to
+those who did not wish to climb the whole mountain. And, finally, as
+inimitable models of the manner in which to apply all that knowledge,
+there were the _Colloquia_ and that almost countless multitude of
+letters which have flowed from Erasmus's pen.
+
+All this collectively made up antiquity (in such quantity and quality as
+it was obtainable in the sixteenth century) exhibited in an emporium
+where it might be had at retail. Each student could get what was to his
+taste; everything was to be had there in a great variety of designs.
+'You may read my _Adagia_ in such a manner', says Erasmus (of the later
+augmented edition), 'that as soon as you have finished one, you may
+imagine you have finished the whole book.' He himself made indices to
+facilitate its use.
+
+In the world of scholasticism he alone had up to now been considered an
+authority who had mastered the technicalities of its system of thought
+and its mode of expression in all its details and was versed in biblical
+knowledge, logic and philosophy. Between scholastic parlance and the
+spontaneously written popular languages, there yawned a wide gulf.
+Humanism since Petrarch had substituted for the rigidly syllogistic
+structure of an argument the loose style of the antique, free,
+suggestive phrase. In this way the language of the learned approached
+the natural manner of expression of daily life and raised the popular
+languages, even where it continued to use Latin, to its own level.
+
+The wealth of subject-matter was found with no one in greater abundance
+than with Erasmus. What knowledge of life, what ethics, all supported by
+the indisputable authority of the Ancients, all expressed in that fine,
+airy form for which he was admired. And such knowledge of antiquities in
+addition to all this! Illimitable was the craving for and illimitable
+the power to absorb what is extraordinary in real life. This was one of
+the principal characteristics of the spirit of the Renaissance. These
+minds never had their desired share of striking incidents, curious
+details, rarities and anomalies. There was, as yet, no symptom of that
+mental dyspepsia of later periods, which can no longer digest reality
+and relishes it no more. Men revelled in plenty.
+
+And yet, were not Erasmus and his fellow-workers as leaders of
+civilization on a wrong track? Was it true reality they were aiming at?
+Was their proud Latinity not a fatal error? There is one of the crucial
+points of history.
+
+A present-day reader who should take up the _Adagia_ or the
+_Apophthegmata_ with a view to enriching his own life (for they were
+meant for this purpose and it is what gave them value), would soon ask
+himself: 'What matter to us, apart from strictly philological or
+historical considerations, those endless details concerning obscure
+personages of antique society, of Phrygians, of Thessalians? They are
+nothing to me.' And--he will continue--they really mattered nothing to
+Erasmus's contemporaries either. The stupendous history of the sixteenth
+century was not enacted in classic phrases or turns; it was not based on
+classic interests or views of life. There were no Phrygians and
+Thessalians, no Agesilauses or Dionysiuses. The humanists created out of
+all this a mental realm, emancipated from the limitations of time.
+
+And did their own times pass without being influenced by them? That is
+the question, and we shall not attempt to answer it: to what extent did
+humanism influence the course of events?
+
+In any case Erasmus and his coadjutors greatly heightened the
+international character of civilization which had existed throughout the
+Middle Ages because of Latin and of the Church. If they thought they
+were really making Latin a vehicle for daily international use, they
+overrated their power. It was, no doubt, an amusing fancy and a witty
+exercise to plan, in such an international _milieu_ as the Parisian
+student world, such models of sports and games in Latin as the
+_Colloquiorum formulae_ offered. But can Erasmus have seriously thought
+that the next generation would play at marbles in Latin?
+
+Still, intellectual intercourse undoubtedly became very easy in so wide
+a circle as had not been within reach in Europe since the fall of the
+Roman Empire. Henceforth it was no longer the clergy alone, and an
+occasional literate, but a numerous multitude of sons of burghers and
+nobles, qualifying for some magisterial office, who passed through a
+grammar-school and found Erasmus in their path.
+
+Erasmus could not have attained to his world-wide celebrity if it had
+not been for Latin. To make his native tongue a universal language was
+beyond him. It may well puzzle a fellow-countryman of Erasmus to guess
+what a talent like his, with his power of observation, his delicacy of
+expression, his gusto and wealth, might have meant to Dutch literature.
+Just imagine the _Colloquia_ written in the racy Dutch of the sixteenth
+century! What could he not have produced if, instead of gleaning and
+commenting upon classic Adagia, he had, for his themes, availed himself
+of the proverbs of the vernacular? To us such a proverb is perhaps even
+more sapid than the sometimes slightly finical turns praised by Erasmus.
+
+This, however, is to reason unhistorically; this was not what the times
+required and what Erasmus could give. It is quite clear why Erasmus
+could only write in Latin. Moreover, in the vernacular everything would
+have appeared too direct, too personal, too real, for his taste. He
+could not do without that thin veil of vagueness, of remoteness, in
+which everything is wrapped when expressed in Latin. His fastidious mind
+would have shrunk from the pithy coarseness of a Rabelais, or the rustic
+violence of Luther's German.
+
+Estrangement from his native tongue had begun for Erasmus as early as
+the days when he learned reading and writing. Estrangement from the land
+of his birth set in when he left the monastery of Steyn. It was
+furthered not a little by the ease with which he handled Latin. Erasmus,
+who could express himself as well in Latin as in his mother tongue, and
+even better, consequently lacked the experience of, after all, feeling
+thoroughly at home and of being able to express himself fully, only
+among his compatriots. There was, however, another psychological
+influence which acted to alienate him from Holland. After he had seen at
+Paris the perspectives of his own capacities, he became confirmed in the
+conviction that Holland failed to appreciate him, that it distrusted and
+slandered him. Perhaps there was indeed some ground for this conviction.
+But, partly, it was also a reaction of injured self-love. In Holland
+people knew too much about him. They had seen him in his smallnesses and
+feebleness. There he had been obliged to obey others--he who, above all
+things, wanted to be free. Distaste of the narrow-mindedness, the
+coarseness and intemperance which he knew to prevail there, were summed
+up, within him, in a general condemnatory judgement of the Dutch
+character.
+
+Henceforth he spoke as a rule about Holland with a sort of apologetic
+contempt. 'I see that you are content with Dutch fame,' he writes to his
+old friend William Hermans, who like Cornelius Aurelius had begun to
+devote his best forces to the history of his native country. 'In Holland
+the air is good for me,' he writes elsewhere, 'but the extravagant
+carousals annoy me; add to this the vulgar uncultured character of the
+people, the violent contempt of study, no fruit of learning, the most
+egregious envy.' And excusing the imperfection of his juvenilia, he
+says: 'At that time I wrote not for Italians, but for Hollanders, that
+is to say, for the dullest ears'. And, in another place, 'eloquence is
+demanded from a Dutchman, that is, from a more hopeless person than a
+B[oe]otian'. And again, 'If the story is not very witty, remember it is
+a Dutch story'. No doubt, false modesty had its share in such sayings.
+
+After 1496 he visited Holland only on hasty journeys. There is no
+evidence that after 1501 he ever set foot on Dutch soil. He dissuaded
+his own compatriots abroad from returning to Holland.
+
+Still, now and again, a cordial feeling of sympathy for his native
+country stirred within him. Just where he would have had an opportunity,
+in explaining Martial's _Auris Batava_ in the _Adagia_, for venting his
+spleen, he availed himself of the chance of writing an eloquent
+panegyric on what was dearest to him in Holland, 'a country that I am
+always bound to honour and revere, as that which gave me birth. Would I
+might be a credit to it, just as, on the other hand, I need not be
+ashamed of it.' Their reputed boorishness rather redounds to their
+honour. 'If a "Batavian ear" means a horror of Martial's obscene jokes,
+I could wish that all Christians might have Dutch ears. When we consider
+their morals, no nation is more inclined to humanity and benevolence,
+less savage or cruel. Their mind is upright and void of cunning and all
+humbug. If they are somewhat sensual and excessive at meals, it results
+partly from their plentiful supply: nowhere is import so easy and
+fertility so great. What an extent of lush meadows, how many navigable
+rivers! Nowhere are so many towns crowded together within so small an
+area; not large towns, indeed, but excellently governed. Their
+cleanliness is praised by everybody. Nowhere are such large numbers of
+moderately learned persons found, though extraordinary and exquisite
+erudition is rather rare.'
+
+They were Erasmus's own most cherished ideals which he here ascribes to
+his compatriots--gentleness, sincerity, simplicity, purity. He sounds
+that note of love for Holland on other occasions. When speaking of lazy
+women, he adds: 'In France there are large numbers of them, but in
+Holland we find countless wives who by their industry support their
+idling and revelling husbands'. And in the colloquy entitled 'The
+Shipwreck', the people who charitably take in the castaways are
+Hollanders. 'There is no more humane people than this, though surrounded
+by violent nations.'
+
+In addressing English readers it is perhaps not superfluous to point out
+once again that Erasmus when speaking of Holland, or using the epithet
+'Batavian', refers to the county of Holland, which at present forms the
+provinces of North and South Holland of the kingdom of the Netherlands,
+and stretches from the Wadden islands to the estuaries of the Meuse.
+Even the nearest neighbours, such as Zealanders and Frisians, are not
+included in this appellation.
+
+But it is a different matter when Erasmus speaks of _patria_, the
+fatherland, or of _nostras_, a compatriot. In those days a national
+consciousness was just budding all over the Netherlands. A man still
+felt himself a Hollander, a Frisian, a Fleming, a Brabantine in the
+first place; but the community of language and customs, and still more
+the strong political influence which for nearly a century had been
+exercised by the Burgundian dynasty, which had united most of these low
+countries under its sway, had cemented a feeling of solidarity which did
+not even halt at the linguistic frontier in Belgium. It was still rather
+a strong Burgundian patriotism (even after Habsburg had _de facto_
+occupied the place of Burgundy) than a strictly Netherlandish feeling of
+nationality. People liked, by using a heraldic symbol, to designate the
+Netherlander as 'the Lions'. Erasmus, too, employs the term. In his
+works we gradually see the narrower Hollandish patriotism gliding into
+the Burgundian Netherlandish. In the beginning, _patria_ with him still
+means Holland proper, but soon it meant the Netherlands. It is curious
+to trace how by degrees his feelings regarding Holland, made up of
+disgust and attachment, are transferred to the Low Countries in general.
+'In my youth', he says in 1535, repeating himself, 'I did not write for
+Italians but for Hollanders, the people of Brabant and Flemings.' So
+they now all share the reputation of bluntness. To Louvain is applied
+what formerly was said of Holland: there are too many compotations;
+nothing can be done without a drinking bout. Nowhere, he repeatedly
+complains, is there so little sense of the _bonae literae_, nowhere is
+study so despised as in the Netherlands, and nowhere are there more
+cavillers and slanderers. But also his affection has expanded. When
+Longolius of Brabant plays the Frenchman, Erasmus is vexed: 'I devoted
+nearly three days to Longolius; he was uncommonly pleasing, except only
+that he is too French, whereas it is well known that he is one of
+us'.[4] When Charles V has obtained the crown of Spain, Erasmus notes:
+'a singular stroke of luck, but I pray that it may also prove a blessing
+to the fatherland, and not only to the prince'. When his strength was
+beginning to fail he began to think more and more of returning to his
+native country. 'King Ferdinand invites me, with large promises, to come
+to Vienna,' he writes from Basle, 1 October 1528, 'but nowhere would it
+please me better to rest than in Brabant.'
+
+[Illustration: V. Doodles by Erasmus in the margin of one of his
+manuscripts.]
+
+[Illustration: VI. A manuscript page of Erasmus]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Allen No. 1026.4, cf. 914, intr. p. 473. Later Erasmus was made to
+believe that Longolius was a Hollander, cf. LBE. 1507 A.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS
+
+1501
+
+    At Tournehem: 1501--The restoration of theology now the aim of
+    his life--He learns Greek--John Vitrier--_Enchiridion Militis
+    Christiani_
+
+
+The lean years continued with Erasmus. His livelihood remained
+uncertain, and he had no fixed abode. It is remarkable that, in spite of
+his precarious means of support, his movements were ever guided rather
+by the care for his health than for his sustenance, and his studies
+rather by his burning desire to penetrate to the purest sources of
+knowledge than by his advantage. Repeatedly the fear of the plague
+drives him on: in 1500 from Paris to Orléans, where he first lodges with
+Augustine Caminade; but when one of the latter's boarders falls ill,
+Erasmus moves. Perhaps it was the impressions dating from his youth at
+Deventer that made him so excessively afraid of the plague, which in
+those days raged practically without intermission. Faustus Andrelinus
+sent a servant to upbraid him in his name with cowardice: 'That would be
+an intolerable insult', Erasmus answers, 'if I were a Swiss soldier, but
+a poet's soul, loving peace and shady places, is proof against it'. In
+the spring of 1501 he leaves Paris once more for fear of the plague:
+'the frequent burials frighten me', he writes to Augustine.
+
+He travelled first to Holland, where, at Steyn, he obtained leave to
+spend another year outside the monastery, for the sake of study; his
+friends would be ashamed if he returned, after so many years of study,
+without having acquired some authority. At Haarlem he visited his friend
+William Hermans, then turned to the south, once again to pay his
+respects to the Bishop of Cambray, probably at Brussels. Thence he went
+to Veere, but found no opportunity to talk to his patroness. In July
+1501, he subsided into quietness at the castle of Tournehem with his
+faithful friend Batt.
+
+In all his comings and goings he does not for a moment lose sight of his
+ideals of study. Since his return from England he is mastered by two
+desires: to edit Jerome, the great Father of the Church, and,
+especially, to learn Greek thoroughly. 'You understand how much all this
+matters to my fame, nay, to my preservation,' he writes (from Orléans
+towards the end of 1500) to Batt. But, indeed, had Erasmus been an
+ordinary fame and success hunter he might have had recourse to plenty of
+other expedients. It was the ardent desire to penetrate to the source
+and to make others understand that impelled him, even when he availed
+himself of these projects of study to raise a little money. 'Listen,' he
+writes to Batt, 'to what more I desire from you. You must wrest a gift
+from the abbot (of Saint Bertin). You know the man's disposition; invent
+some modest and plausible reason for begging. Tell him that I purpose
+something grand, viz., to restore the whole of Jerome, however
+comprehensive he may be, and spoiled, mutilated, entangled by the
+ignorance of divines; and to re-insert the Greek passages. I venture to
+say, I shall be able to lay open the antiquities and the style of
+Jerome, understood by no one as yet. Tell him that I shall want not a
+few books for the purpose, and moreover the help of Greeks, and that
+therefore I require support. In saying this, Battus, you will be telling
+no lies. For I really mean to do all this.'
+
+He was, indeed, in a serious mood on this point, as he was soon to prove
+to the world. His conquest of Greek was a veritable feat of heroism. He
+had learned the simplest rudiments at Deventer, but these evidently
+amounted to very little. In March, 1500, he writes to Batt: 'Greek is
+nearly killing me, but I have no time and I have no money to buy books
+or to take a master'. When Augustine Caminade wants his Homer back which
+he had lent to him, Erasmus complains: 'You deprive me of my sole
+consolation in my tedium. For I so burn with love for this author,
+though I cannot understand him, that I feast my eyes and re-create my
+mind by looking at him.' Was Erasmus aware that in saying this he almost
+literally reproduced feelings which Petrarch had expressed a hundred and
+fifty years before? But he had already begun to study. Whether he had a
+master is not quite clear, but it is probable. He finds the language
+difficult at first. Then gradually he ventures to call himself 'a
+candidate in this language', and he begins with more confidence to
+scatter Greek quotations through his letters. It occupies him night and
+day and he urges all his friends to procure Greek books for him. In the
+autumn of 1502 he declares that he can properly write all he wants in
+Greek, and that extempore. He was not deceived in his expectation that
+Greek would open his eyes to the right understanding of Holy Scripture.
+Three years of nearly uninterrupted study amply rewarded him for his
+trouble. Hebrew, which he had also taken up, he abandoned. At that time
+(1504) he made translations from the Greek, he employed it critically in
+his theological studies, he taught it, amongst others, to William Cop,
+the French physician-humanist. A few years later he was to find little
+in Italy to improve his proficiency in Greek; he was afterwards inclined
+to believe that he carried more of the two ancient languages to that
+country than he brought back.
+
+Nothing testifies more to the enthusiasm with which Erasmus applied
+himself to Greek than his zeal to make his best friends share in its
+blessings. Batt, he decided, should learn Greek. But Batt had no time,
+and Latin appealed more to him. When Erasmus goes to Haarlem to visit
+William Hermans, it is to make him a Greek scholar too; he has brought a
+handbag full of books. But he had only his trouble for his pains.
+William did not take at all kindly to this study and Erasmus was so
+disappointed that he not only considered his money and trouble thrown
+away, but also thought he had lost a friend.
+
+Meanwhile he was still undecided where he should go in the near future.
+To England, to Italy, or back to Paris? In the end he made a fairly long
+stay as a guest, from the autumn of 1501 till the following summer,
+first at Saint Omer, with the prior of Saint Bertin, and afterwards at
+the castle of Courtebourne, not far off.
+
+At Saint Omer, Erasmus became acquainted with a man whose image he was
+afterwards to place beside that of Colet as that of a true divine, and
+of a good monk at the same time: Jean Vitrier, the warden of the
+Franciscan monastery at Saint Omer. Erasmus must have felt attracted to
+a man who was burdened with a condemnation pronounced by the Sorbonne on
+account of his too frank expressions regarding the abuses of monastic
+life. Vitrier had not given up the life on that account, but he devoted
+himself to reforming monasteries and convents. Having progressed from
+scholasticism to Saint Paul, he had formed a very liberal conception of
+Christian life, strongly opposed to practices and ceremonies. This man,
+without doubt, considerably influenced the origin of one of Erasmus's
+most celebrated and influential works, the _Enchiridion militis
+Christiani_.
+
+Erasmus himself afterwards confessed that the _Enchiridion_ was born by
+chance. He did not reflect that some outward circumstance is often made
+to serve an inward impulse. The outward circumstance was that the castle
+of Tournehem was frequented by a soldier, a friend of Batt, a man of
+very dissolute conduct, who behaved very badly towards his pious wife,
+and who was, moreover, an uncultured and violent hater of priests.[5]
+For the rest he was of a kindly disposition and excepted Erasmus from
+his hatred of divines. The wife used her influence with Batt to get
+Erasmus to write something which might bring her husband to take an
+interest in religion. Erasmus complied with the request and Jean Vitrier
+concurred so cordially with the views expressed in these notes that
+Erasmus afterwards elaborated them at Louvain; in 1504 they were
+published at Antwerp by Dirck Maertensz.
+
+This is the outward genesis of the _Enchiridion_. But the inward cause
+was that sooner or later Erasmus was bound to formulate his attitude
+towards the religious conduct of the life of his day and towards
+ceremonial and soulless conceptions of Christian duty, which were an
+eyesore to him.
+
+In point of form the _Enchiridion_ is a manual for an illiterate soldier
+to attain to an attitude of mind worthy of Christ; as with a finger he
+will point out to him the shortest path to Christ. He assumes the friend
+to be weary of life at court--a common theme of contemporary literature.
+Only for a few days does Erasmus interrupt the work of his life, the
+purification of theology, to comply with his friend's request for
+instruction. To keep up a soldierly style he chooses the title,
+_Enchiridion_, the Greek word that even in antiquity meant both a
+poniard and a manual:[6] 'The poniard of the militant Christian'.[7] He
+reminds him of the duty of watchfulness and enumerates the weapons of
+Christ's militia. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. The general
+rules of the Christian conduct of life are followed by a number of
+remedies for particular sins and faults.
+
+Such is the outward frame. But within this scope Erasmus finds an
+opportunity, for the first time, to develop his theological programme.
+This programme calls upon us to return to Scripture. It should be the
+endeavour of every Christian to understand Scripture in its purity and
+original meaning. To that end he should prepare himself by the study of
+the Ancients, orators, poets, philosophers; Plato especially. Also the
+great Fathers of the Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine will be found
+useful, but not the large crowd of subsequent exegetists. The argument
+chiefly aims at subverting the conception of religion as a continual
+observance of ceremonies. This is Judaic ritualism and of no value. It
+is better to understand a single verse of the psalms well, by this means
+to deepen one's understanding of God and of oneself, and to draw a moral
+and line of conduct from it, than to read the whole psalter without
+attention. If the ceremonies do not renew the soul they are valueless
+and hurtful. 'Many are wont to count how many masses they have heard
+every day, and referring to them as to something very important, as
+though they owed Christ nothing else, they return to their former habits
+after leaving church.' 'Perhaps you sacrifice every day and yet you live
+for yourself. You worship the saints, you like to touch their relics; do
+you want to earn Peter and Paul? Then copy the faith of the one and the
+charity of the other and you will have done more than if you had walked
+to Rome ten times.' He does not reject formulae and practices; he does
+not want to shake the faith of the humble but he cannot suffer that
+Christ is offered a cult made up of practices only. And why is it the
+monks, above all, who contribute to the deterioration of faith? 'I am
+ashamed to tell how superstitiously most of them observe certain petty
+ceremonies, invented by puny human minds (and not even for this
+purpose), how hatefully they want to force others to conform to them,
+how implicitly they trust them, how boldly they condemn others.'
+
+Let Paul teach them true Christianity. 'Stand fast therefore in the
+liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again
+with the yoke of bondage.' This word to the Galatians contains the
+doctrine of Christian liberty, which soon at the Reformation was to
+resound so loudly. Erasmus did not apply it here in a sense derogatory
+to the dogmatics of the Catholic Church; but still it is a fact that the
+_Enchiridion_ prepared many minds to give up much that he still wanted
+to keep.
+
+The note of the _Enchiridion_ is already what was to remain the note of
+Erasmus's life-work: how revolting it is that in this world the
+substance and the shadow differ so and that the world reverences those
+whom it should not reverence; that a hedge of infatuation, routine and
+thoughtlessness prevents mankind from seeing things in their true
+proportions. He expresses it later in the _Praise of Folly_ and in the
+_Colloquies_. It is not merely religious feeling, it is equally social
+feeling that inspired him. Under the heading: Opinions worthy of a
+Christian, he laments the extremes of pride of class, national
+hostility, professional envy, and rivalry between religious orders,
+which keep men apart. Let everybody sincerely concern himself about his
+brother. 'Throwing dice cost you a thousand gold pieces in one night,
+and meanwhile some wretched girl, compelled by poverty, sold her
+modesty; and a soul is lost for which Christ gave his own. You say, what
+is that to me? I mind my own business, according to my lights. And yet
+you, holding such opinions, consider yourself a Christian, who are not
+even a man!'
+
+In the _Enchiridion_ of the militant Christian, Erasmus had for the
+first time said the things which he had most at heart, with fervour and
+indignation, with sincerity and courage. And yet one would hardly say
+that this booklet was born of an irresistible impulse of ardent piety.
+Erasmus treats it, as we have seen, as a trifle, composed at the request
+of a friend in a couple of days stolen from his studies (though,
+strictly speaking, this only holds good of the first draft, which he
+elaborated afterwards). The chief object of his studies he had already
+conceived to be the restoration of theology. One day he will expound
+Paul, 'that the slanderers who consider it the height of piety to know
+nothing of _bonae literae_, may understand that we in our youth embraced
+the cultured literature of the Ancients, and that we acquired a correct
+knowledge of the two languages, Greek and Latin--not without many
+vigils--not for the purpose of vainglory or childish satisfaction, but
+because, long before, we premeditated adorning the temple of the Lord
+(which some have too much desecrated by their ignorance and barbarism)
+according to our strength, with help from foreign parts, so that also in
+noble minds the love of Holy Scripture may be kindled'. Is it not still
+the Humanist who speaks?
+
+We hear, moreover, the note of personal justification. It is sounded
+also in a letter to Colet written towards the close of 1504,
+accompanying the edition of the _Lucubrationes_ in which the
+_Enchiridion_ was first published. 'I did not write the _Enchiridion_ to
+parade my invention or eloquence, but only that I might correct the
+error of those whose religion is usually composed of more than Judaic
+ceremonies and observances of a material sort, and who neglect the
+things that conduce to piety.' He adds, and this is typically
+humanistic, 'I have tried to give the reader a sort of art of piety, as
+others have written the theory of certain sciences'.
+
+The art of piety! Erasmus might have been surprised had he known that
+another treatise, written more than sixty years before, by another canon
+of the Low Countries would continue to appeal much longer and much more
+urgently to the world than his manual: the _Imitatio Christi_ by Thomas
+à Kempis.
+
+The _Enchiridion_, collected with some other pieces into a volume of
+_Lucubrationes_, did not meet with such a great and speedy success as
+had been bestowed upon the _Adagia_. That Erasmus's speculations on true
+piety were considered too bold was certainly not the cause. They
+contained nothing antagonistic to the teachings of the Church, so that
+even at the time of the Counter-Reformation, when the Church had become
+highly suspicious of everything that Erasmus had written, the divines
+who drew up the _index expurgatorius_ of his work found only a few
+passages in the _Enchiridion_ to expunge. Moreover, Erasmus had inserted
+in the volume some writings of unsuspected Catholic tenor. For a long
+time it was in great repute, especially with theologians and monks. A
+famous preacher at Antwerp used to say that a sermon might be found in
+every page of the _Enchiridion_. But the book only obtained its great
+influence in wide cultured circles when, upheld by Erasmus's world-wide
+reputation, it was available in a number of translations, English,
+Czech, German, Dutch, Spanish, and French. But then it began to fall
+under suspicion, for that was the time when Luther had unchained the
+great struggle. 'Now they have begun to nibble at the _Enchiridion_
+also, that used to be so popular with divines,' Erasmus writes in 1526.
+For the rest it was only two passages to which the orthodox critics
+objected.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] That this man should have been John of Trazegnies as Allen thinks
+possible and Renaudet accepts, is still all too uncertain; A. 164 t. I.
+p. 373; Renaudet, Préréforme 428.
+
+[6] In 1500 (A. 123.21) Erasmus speaks of the _Enchiridion_ of the
+Father Augustine, cf. 135, 138; in 1501, A. 152.33, he calls the
+_Officia_ of Cicero a 'pugiunculus'--a dagger. So the appellation had
+been in his mind for some time.
+
+[7] _Miles_ with Erasmus has no longer the meaning of 'knight' which it
+had in medieval Latin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+YEARS OF TROUBLE--LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND
+
+1502-6
+
+    Death of Batt: 1502--First stay at Louvain: 1502-4--Translations
+    from the Greek--At Paris again--Valla's _Annotationes_ on the
+    New Testament--Second stay in England: 1505-6--More patrons and
+    friends--Departure for Italy: 1506--_Carmen Alpestre_
+
+
+Circumstances continued to remain unfavourable for Erasmus. 'This year
+fortune has truly been raging violently against me,' he writes in the
+autumn of 1502. In the spring his good friend Batt had died. It is a
+pity that no letters written by Erasmus directly after his bereavement
+have come down to us. We should be glad to have for that faithful helper
+a monument in addition to that which Erasmus erected to his memory in
+the _Antibarbari_. Anna of Veere had remarried and, as a patroness,
+might henceforth be left out of account. In October 1502, Henry of
+Bergen passed away. 'I have commemorated the Bishop of Cambray in three
+Latin epitaphs and a Greek one; they sent me but six guilders, that also
+in death he should remain true to himself.' In Francis of Busleiden,
+Archbishop of Besançon, he lost at about the same time a prospective new
+patron. He still felt shut out from Paris, Cologne and England by the
+danger of the plague.
+
+In the late summer of 1502 he went to Louvain, 'flung thither by the
+plague,' he says. The university of Louvain, established in 1425 to wean
+the Netherlands in spiritual matters from Paris, was, at the beginning
+of the sixteenth century, one of the strongholds of theological
+tradition, which, however, did not prevent the progress of classical
+studies. How else should Adrian of Utrecht, later pope but at that time
+Dean of Saint Peter's and professor of theology, have forthwith
+undertaken to get him a professorship? Erasmus declined the offer,
+however, 'for certain reasons,' he says. Considering his great distress,
+the reasons must have been cogent indeed. One of them which he mentioned
+is not very clear to us: 'I am here so near to Dutch tongues which know
+how to hurt much, it is true, but have not learned to profit any one'.
+His spirit of liberty and his ardent love of the studies to which he
+wanted to devote himself entirely, were, no doubt, his chief reasons for
+declining.
+
+But he had to make a living. Life at Louvain was expensive and he had no
+regular earnings. He wrote some prefaces and dedicated to the Bishop of
+Arras, Chancellor of the University, the first translation from the
+Greek: some _Declamationes_ by Libanius. When in the autumn of 1503
+Philip le Beau was expected back in the Netherlands from his journey to
+Spain Erasmus wrote, with sighs of distaste, a panegyric to celebrate
+the safe return of the prince. It cost him much trouble. 'It occupies me
+day and night,' says the man who composed with such incredible facility,
+when his heart was in the work. 'What is harder than to write with
+aversion; what is more useless than to write something by which we
+unlearn good writing?' It must be acknowledged that he really flattered
+as sparingly as possible; the practice was so repulsive to him that in
+his preface he roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this whole class
+of composition was not to his taste.
+
+At the end of 1504 Erasmus was back at Paris, at last. Probably he had
+always meant to return and looked upon his stay at Louvain as a
+temporary exile. The circumstances under which he left Louvain are
+unknown to us, because of the almost total lack of letters of the year
+1504. In any case, he hoped that at Paris he would sooner be able to
+attain his great end of devoting himself entirely to the study of
+theology. 'I cannot tell you, dear Colet,' he writes towards the end of
+1504, 'how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature; how I
+dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me. But the disfavour
+of Fortune, who always looks at me with the same face, has been the
+reason why I have not been able to get clear of those vexations. So I
+returned to France with the purpose, if I cannot solve them, at any rate
+of ridding myself of them in one way or another. After that I shall
+devote myself, with all my heart, to the _divinae literae_, to give up
+the remainder of my life to them.' If only he can find the means to work
+for some months entirely for himself and disentangle himself from
+profane literature. Can Colet not find out for him how matters stand
+with regard to the proceeds of the hundred copies of the _Adagia_ which,
+at one time, he sent to England at his own expense? The liberty of a few
+months may be bought for little money.
+
+There is something heroic in Erasmus scorning to make money out of his
+facile talents and enviable knowledge of the humanities, daring
+indigence so as to be able to realize his shining ideal of restoring
+theology.
+
+It is remarkable that the same Italian humanist who in his youth had
+been his guide and example on the road to pure Latinity and classic
+antiquity, Lorenzo Valla, by chance became his leader and an outpost in
+the field of critical theology. In the summer of 1504, hunting in the
+old library of the Premonstratensian monastery of Parc, near Louvain
+('in no preserves is hunting a greater delight'), he found a manuscript
+of Valla's _Annotationes_ on the New Testament. It was a collection of
+critical notes on the text of the Gospels, the Epistles and Revelation.
+That the text of the Vulgate was not stainless had been acknowledged by
+Rome itself as early as the thirteenth century. Monastic orders and
+individual divines had set themselves to correct it, but that
+purification had not amounted to much, in spite of Nicholas of Lyra's
+work in the fourteenth century.
+
+It was probably the falling in with Valla's _Annotationes_ which led
+Erasmus, who was formerly more inspired with the resolution to edit
+Jerome and to comment upon Paul (he was to do both at a later date), to
+turn to the task of taking up the New Testament as a whole, in order to
+restore it in its purity. In March 1505 already Josse Badius at Paris
+printed Valla's _Annotationes_ for Erasmus, as a sort of advertisement
+of what he himself one day hoped to achieve. It was a feat of courage.
+Erasmus did not conceal from himself that Valla, the humanist, had an
+ill name with divines, and that there would be an outcry about 'the
+intolerable temerity of the _homo grammaticus_, who after having
+harassed all the _disciplinae_, did not scruple to assail holy
+literature with his petulant pen'. It was another programme much more
+explicit and defiant than the _Enchiridion_ had been.
+
+Once more it is not clear why and how Erasmus left Paris again for
+England in the autumn of 1505. He speaks of serious reasons and the
+advice of sensible people. He mentions one reason: lack of money. The
+reprint of the _Adagia_, published by John Philippi at Paris in 1505,
+had probably helped him through, for the time being; the edition cannot
+have been to his taste, for he had been dissatisfied with his work and
+wanted to extend it by weaving his new Greek knowledge into it. From
+Holland a warning voice had sounded, the voice of his superior and
+friend Servatius, demanding an account of his departure from Paris.
+Evidently his Dutch friends had still no confidence in Erasmus, his
+work, and his future.
+
+In many respects that future appeared more favourable to him in England
+than it had seemed anywhere, thus far. There he found the old friends,
+men of consideration and importance: Mountjoy, with whom, on his
+arrival, he stayed some months, Colet, and More. There he found some
+excellent Greek scholars, whose conversation promised to be profitable
+and amusing; not Colet, who knew little Greek, but More, Linacre,
+Grocyn, Latimer, and Tunstall. He soon came in contact with some high
+ecclesiastics who were to be his friends and patrons: Richard Foxe,
+Bishop of Winchester, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and William
+Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon he would also find a friend whose
+congenial spirit and interests, to some extent, made up for the loss of
+Batt: the Italian Andrew Ammonius, of Lucca. And lastly, the king
+promised him an ecclesiastical benefice. It was not long before Erasmus
+was armed with a dispensation from Pope Julius II, dated 4 January 1506,
+cancelling the obstacles in the way of accepting an English benefice.
+
+Translations from Greek into Latin were for him an easy and speedy means
+to obtain favour and support: a dialogue by Lucian, followed by others,
+for Foxe; the _Hecuba_ and the _Iphigenia_ of Euripides for Warham. He
+now also thought of publishing his letters.
+
+Clearly his relations with Holland were not yet satisfactory. Servatius
+did not reply to his letters. Erasmus ever felt hanging over him a
+menace to his career and his liberty embodied in the figure of that
+friend, to whom he was linked by so many silken ties, yonder in the
+monastery of Steyn, where his return was looked forward to, sooner or
+later, as a beacon-light of Christendom. Did the prior know of the papal
+dispensation exempting Erasmus from the 'statutes and customs of the
+monastery of Steyn in Holland, of the order of Saint Augustine?'
+Probably he did. On 1 April 1506, Erasmus writes to him: 'Here in London
+I am, it seems, greatly esteemed by the most eminent and erudite men of
+all England. The king has promised me a curacy: the visit of the prince
+necessitated a postponement of this business.'[8]
+
+He immediately adds: 'I am deliberating again how best to devote the
+remainder of my life (how much that will be, I do not know) entirely to
+piety, to Christ. I see life, even when it is long, as evanescent and
+dwindling; I know that I am of a delicate constitution and that my
+strength has been encroached upon, not a little, by study and also,
+somewhat, by misfortune. I see that no deliverance can be hoped from
+study, and that it seems as if we had to begin over again, day after
+day. Therefore I have resolved, content with my mediocrity (especially
+now that I have learned as much Greek as suffices me), to apply myself
+to meditation about death and the training of my soul. I should have
+done so before and have husbanded the precious years when they were at
+their best. But though it is a tardy husbandry that people practise when
+only little remains at the bottom, we should be the more economical
+accordingly as the quantity and quality of what is left diminishes.'
+
+Was it a fit of melancholy which made Erasmus write those words of
+repentance and renunciation? Was he surprised in the middle of the
+pursuit of his life's aim by the consciousness of the vanity of his
+endeavours, the consciousness, too, of a great fatigue? Is this the
+deepest foundation of Erasmus's being, which he reveals for a moment to
+his old and intimate friend? It may be doubted. The passage tallies very
+ill with the first sentences of the letter, which are altogether
+concerned with success and prospects. In a letter he wrote the next day,
+also to Gouda and to a trusted friend, there is no trace of the mood: he
+is again thinking of his future. We do not notice that the tremendous
+zeal with which he continues his studies is relaxed for a moment. And
+there are other indications that towards Servatius, who knew him better
+than he could wish, and who, moreover, as prior of Steyn, had a
+threatening power over him, he purposely demeaned himself as though he
+despised the world.
+
+Meanwhile nothing came of the English prebend. But suddenly the occasion
+offered to which Erasmus had so often looked forward: the journey to
+Italy. The court-physician of Henry VII, Giovanni Battista Boerio, of
+Genoa, was looking for a master to accompany his sons in their journey
+to the universities of Italy. Erasmus accepted the post, which charged
+him neither with the duties of tuition nor with attending to the young
+fellows, but only with supervising and guiding their studies. In the
+beginning of June 1506, he found himself on French soil once more. For
+two summer months the party of travellers stayed at Paris and Erasmus
+availed himself of the opportunity to have several of his works, which
+he had brought from England, printed at Paris. He was by now a
+well-known and favourite author, gladly welcomed by the old friends (he
+had been reputed dead) and made much of. Josse Badius printed all
+Erasmus offered him: the translations of Euripides and Lucian, a
+collection of _Epigrammata_, a new but still unaltered edition of the
+_Adagia_.
+
+In August the journey was continued. As he rode on horseback along the
+Alpine roads the most important poem Erasmus has written, the echo of an
+abandoned pursuit, originated. He had been vexed about his travelling
+company, had abstained from conversing with them, and sought consolation
+in composing poetry. The result was the ode which he called _Carmen
+equestre vel potius alpestre_, about the inconveniences of old age,
+dedicated to his friend William Cop.
+
+Erasmus was one of those who early feel old. He was not forty and yet
+fancied himself across the threshold of old age. How quickly it had
+come! He looks back on the course of his life: he sees himself playing
+with nuts as a child, as a boy eager for study, as a youth engrossed in
+poetry and scholasticism, also in painting. He surveys his enormous
+erudition, his study of Greek, his aspiration to scholarly fame. In the
+midst of all this, old age has suddenly come. What remains to him? And
+again we hear the note of renunciation of the world and of devotion to
+Christ. Farewell jests and trifles, farewell philosophy and poetry, a
+pure heart full of Christ is all he desires henceforward.
+
+Here, in the stillness of the Alpine landscape, there arose something
+more of Erasmus's deepest aspirations than in the lament to Servatius.
+But in this case, too, it is a stray element of his soul, not the strong
+impulse that gave direction and fullness to his life and with
+irresistible pressure urged him on to ever new studies.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] A. 189, Philip le Beau, who had unexpectedly come to England because
+of a storm, which obliged Mountjoy to do court-service.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN ITALY
+
+1506-9
+
+    Erasmus in Italy: 1506-9--He takes his degree at Turin--Bologna
+    and Pope Julius II--Erasmus in Venice with Aldus: 1507-8--The
+    art of printing--Alexander Stewart--To Rome: 1509--News of Henry
+    VIII's accession--Erasmus leaves Italy
+
+
+At Turin Erasmus received, directly upon his arrival, on 4 September
+1506, the degree of doctor of theology. That he did not attach much
+value to the degree is easy to understand. He regarded it, however, as
+an official warrant of his competence as a writer on theological
+subjects, which would strengthen his position when assailed by the
+suspicion of his critics. He writes disdainfully about the title, even
+to his Dutch friends who in former days had helped him on in his studies
+for the express purpose of obtaining the doctor's degree. As early as
+1501, to Anna of Borselen he writes, 'Go to Italy and obtain the
+doctor's degree? Foolish projects, both of them. But one should conform
+to the customs of the times.' Again to Servatius and Johannes Obrecht,
+half apologetically, he says: 'I have obtained the doctor's degree in
+theology, and that quite contrary to my intention, only because I was
+overcome by the prayers of friends.'
+
+Bologna was now the destination of his journey. But when Erasmus arrived
+there, a war was in progress which forced him to retire to Florence for
+a time. Pope Julius II, allied with the French, at the head of an army,
+marched on Bologna to conquer it from the Bentivogli. This purpose was
+soon attained, and Bologna was a safe place to return to. On 11 November
+1506, Erasmus witnessed the triumphal entry of the martial pope.
+
+Of these days nothing but short, hasty letters of his have come down to
+us. They speak of unrest and rumours of war. There is nothing to show
+that he was impressed by the beauty of the Italy of the Renaissance. The
+scanty correspondence dating from his stay in Italy mentions neither
+architecture, nor sculpture, nor pictures. When much later he happened
+to remember his visit to the Chartreuse of Pavia, it is only to give an
+instance of useless waste and magnificence. Books alone seemed to occupy
+and attract Erasmus in Italy.
+
+At Bologna, Erasmus served as a mentor to the young Boerios to the end
+of the year for which he had bound himself. It seemed a very long time
+to him. He could not stand any encroachment upon his liberty. He felt
+caught in the contract as in a net. The boys, it seems, were intelligent
+enough, if not so brilliant as Erasmus had seen them in his first joy;
+but with their private tutor Clyfton, whom he at first extolled to the
+sky, he was soon at loggerheads. At Bologna he experienced many
+vexations for which his new relations with Paul Bombasius could only in
+part indemnify him. He worked there at an enlarged edition of his
+_Adagia_, which now, by the addition of the Greek ones, increased from
+eight hundred to some thousands of items.
+
+[Illustration: VII. Title-page of the _Adagia_, printed by Aldus
+Manutius in 1508]
+
+[Illustration: VIII. VIEW OF VENICE, 1493]
+
+[Illustration: IX. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS. On the reverse the
+Aldine emblem]
+
+[Illustration: X. A page from the _Praise of Folly_ with a drawing by
+Holbein of Erasmus at his desk.]
+
+From Bologna, in October 1507, Erasmus addressed a letter to the famous
+Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius, in which he requested him to publish,
+anew, the two translated dramas of Euripides, as the edition of Badius
+was out of print and too defective for his taste. What made Aldus
+attractive in his eyes was, no doubt, besides the fame of the business,
+though it was languishing at the time, the printer's beautiful
+type--'those most magnificent letters, especially those very small
+ones'. Erasmus was one of those true book-lovers who pledge their heart
+to a type or a size of a book, not because of any artistic preference,
+but because of readableness and handiness, which to them are of the very
+greatest importance. What he asked of Aldus was a small book at a low
+price. Towards the end of the year their relations had gone so far that
+Erasmus gave up his projected journey to Rome, for the time, to remove
+to Venice, there personally to superintend the publication of his works.
+Now there was no longer merely the question of a little book of
+translations, but Aldus had declared himself willing to print the
+enormously increased collection of the _Adagia_.
+
+Beatus Rhenanus tells a story which, no doubt, he had heard from Erasmus
+himself: how Erasmus on his arrival at Venice had gone straight to the
+printing-office and was kept waiting there for a long time. Aldus was
+correcting proofs and thought his visitor was one of those inquisitive
+people by whom he used to be pestered. When he turned out to be Erasmus,
+he welcomed him cordially and procured him board and lodging in the
+house of his father-in-law, Andrea Asolani. Fully eight months did
+Erasmus live there, in the environment which, in future, was to be his
+true element: the printing-office. He was in a fever of hurried work,
+about which he would often sigh, but which, after all, was congenial to
+him. The augmented collection of the _Adagia_ had not yet been made
+ready for the press at Bologna. 'With great temerity on my part,'
+Erasmus himself testifies, 'we began to work at the same time, I to
+write, Aldus to print.' Meanwhile the literary friends of the New
+Academy whom he got to know at Venice, Johannes Lascaris, Baptista
+Egnatius, Marcus Musurus and the young Jerome Aleander, with whom, at
+Asolani's, he shared room and bed, brought him new Greek authors,
+unprinted as yet, furnishing fresh material for augmenting the _Adagia_.
+These were no inconsiderable additions: Plato in the original,
+Plutarch's _Lives_ and _Moralia_, Pindar, Pausanias, and others. Even
+people whom he did not know and who took an interest in his work,
+brought new material to him. Amid the noise of the press-room, Erasmus,
+to the surprise of his publisher, sat and wrote, usually from memory, so
+busily occupied that, as he picturesquely expressed it, he had no time
+to scratch his ears. He was lord and master of the printing-office. A
+special corrector had been assigned to him; he made his textual changes
+in the last impression. Aldus also read the proofs. 'Why?' asked
+Erasmus. 'Because I am studying at the same time,' was the reply.
+Meanwhile Erasmus suffered from the first attack of his tormenting
+nephrolithic malady; he ascribed it to the food he got at Asolani's and
+later took revenge by painting that boarding-house and its landlord in
+very spiteful colours in the _Colloquies_.
+
+When in September 1508, the edition of the _Adagia_ was ready, Aldus
+wanted Erasmus to remain in order to write more for him. Till December
+he continued to work at Venice on editions of Plautus, Terence, and
+Seneca's tragedies. Visions of joint labour to publish all that classic
+antiquity still held in the way of hidden treasures, together with
+Hebrew and Chaldean stores, floated before his mind.
+
+Erasmus belonged to the generation which had grown up together with the
+youthful art of printing. To the world of those days it was still like a
+newly acquired organ; people felt rich, powerful, happy in the
+possession of this 'almost divine implement'. The figure of Erasmus and
+his _[oe]uvre_ were only rendered possible by the art of printing. He
+was its glorious triumph and, equally, in a sense, its victim. What
+would Erasmus have been without the printing-press? To broadcast the
+ancient documents, to purify and restore them was his life's passion.
+The certainty that the printed book places exactly the same text in the
+hands of thousands of readers, was to him a consolation that former
+generations had lacked.
+
+Erasmus is one of the first who, after his name as an author was
+established, worked directly and continually for the press. It was his
+strength, but also his weakness. It enabled him to exercise an immediate
+influence on the reading public of Europe such as had emanated from none
+before him; to become a focus of culture in the full sense of the word,
+an intellectual central station, a touchstone of the spirit of the time.
+Imagine for a moment what it would have meant if a still greater mind
+than his, say Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, that universal spirit who had
+helped in nursing the art of printing in its earliest infancy, could
+have availed himself of the art as it was placed at the disposal of
+Erasmus!
+
+The dangerous aspect of this situation was that printing enabled
+Erasmus, having once become a centre and an authority, to address the
+world at large immediately about all that occurred to him. Much of his
+later mental labour is, after all, really but repetition, ruminating
+digression, unnecessary vindication from assaults to which his greatness
+alone would have been a sufficient answer, futilities which he might
+have better left alone. Much of this work written directly for the press
+is journalism at bottom, and we do Erasmus an injustice by applying to
+it the tests of lasting excellence. The consciousness that we can reach
+the whole world at once with our writings is a stimulant which
+unwittingly influences our mode of expression, a luxury that only the
+highest spirits can bear with impunity.
+
+The link between Erasmus and book-printing was Latin. Without his
+incomparable Latinity his position as an author would have been
+impossible. The art of printing undoubtedly furthered the use of Latin.
+It was the Latin publications which in those days promised success and a
+large sale for a publisher, and established his reputation, for they
+were broadcast all over the world. The leading publishers were
+themselves scholars filled with enthusiasm for humanism. Cultured and
+well-to-do people acted as proof-readers to printers; such as Peter
+Gilles, the friend of Erasmus and More, the town clerk of Antwerp, who
+corrected proof-sheets for Dirck Maertensz. The great printing-offices
+were, in a local sense, too, the foci of intellectual intercourse. The
+fact that England had lagged behind, thus far, in the evolution of the
+art of printing, contributed not a little, no doubt, to prevent Erasmus
+from settling there, where so many ties held and so many advantages
+allured him.
+
+To find a permanent place of residence was, indeed, and apart from this
+fact, very hard for him. Towards the end of 1508 he accepted the post of
+tutor in rhetorics to the young Alexander Stewart, a natural son of
+James IV of Scotland, and already, in spite of his youth, Archbishop of
+Saint Andrews, now a student at Padua. The danger of war soon drove them
+from upper Italy to Siena. Here Erasmus obtained leave to visit Rome. He
+arrived there early in 1509, no longer an unknown canon from the
+northern regions but a celebrated and honoured author. All the charms of
+the Eternal City lay open to him and he must have felt keenly gratified
+by the consideration and courtesy with which cardinals and prelates,
+such as Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards Leo X, Domenico Grimani, Riario
+and others, treated him. It seems that he was even offered some post in
+the curia. But he had to return to his youthful archbishop with whom he
+thereupon visited Rome again, incognito, and afterwards travelled in the
+neighbourhood of Naples. He inspected the cave of the Sibylla of Cumae,
+but what it meant to him we do not know. This entire period following
+his departure from Padua and all that follows till the spring of
+1511--in certain respects the most important part of his life--remains
+unrecorded in a single letter that has come down to us. Here and there
+he has occasionally, and at a much later date, touched upon some
+impressions of Rome,[9] but the whole remains vague and dim. It is the
+incubation period of the _Praise of Folly_ that is thus obscured from
+view.
+
+On 21 April 1509, King Henry VII of England died. His successor was the
+young prince whom Erasmus had saluted at Eltham in 1499, to whom he had
+dedicated his poem in praise of Great Britain, and who, during his stay
+at Bologna, had distinguished him by a Latin letter as creditable to
+Erasmus as to the fifteen-year-old royal latinist.[10] If ever the
+chance of obtaining a patron seemed favourable, it was now, when this
+promising lover of letters ascended the throne as Henry VIII. Lord
+Mountjoy, Erasmus's most faithful Maecenas, thought so, too, and pointed
+out the fact to him in a letter of 27 May 1509. It was a pleasure to
+see, he wrote, how vigorous, how upright and just, how zealous in the
+cause of literature and men of letters was the conduct of the youthful
+prince. Mountjoy--or Ammonius, who probably drew up the flowery document
+for him--was exultant. A laughing sky and tears of joy are the themes of
+the letter. Evidently, however, Erasmus himself had, on his side,
+already sounded Mountjoy as to his chances, as soon as the tidings of
+Henry VII's death became known at Rome; not without lamentations about
+cares and weakened health. 'The Archbishop of Canterbury', Mountjoy was
+able to apprise Erasmus, 'is not only continually engrossed in your
+_Adagia_ and praises you to the skies, but he also promises you a
+benefice on your return and sends you five pounds for travelling
+expenses,' which sum was doubled by Mountjoy.
+
+We do not know whether Erasmus really hesitated before he reached his
+decision. Cardinal Grimani, he asserts, tried to hold him back, but in
+vain, for in July, 1509, he left Rome and Italy, never to return.
+
+As he crossed the Alps for the second time, not on the French side now,
+but across the Splügen, through Switzerland, his genius touched him
+again, as had happened in those high regions three years before on the
+road to Italy. But this time it was not in the guise of the Latin Muse,
+who then drew from him such artful and pathetic poetical meditations
+about his past life and pious vows for the future;--it was something
+much more subtle and grand: the _Praise of Folly_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] LBE. No. 1175 _c._ 1375, visit to Grimani.
+
+[10] A. 206, where from Allen's introduction one can form an opinion
+about the prince's share in the composition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
+
+    _Moriae Encomium, The Praise of Folly_: 1509, as a work of
+    art--Folly, the motor of all life: Indispensable, salutary,
+    cause and support of states and of heroism--Folly keeps the
+    world going--Vital energy incorporated with folly--Lack of folly
+    makes unfit for life--Need of self-complacency--Humbug beats
+    truth--Knowledge a plague--Satire of all secular and
+    ecclesiastical vocations--Two themes throughout the work--The
+    highest folly: Ecstasy--The _Moria_ to be taken as a gay
+    jest--Confusion of fools and lunatics--Erasmus treats his
+    _Moria_ slightingly--Its value
+
+
+While he rode over the mountain passes,[11] Erasmus's restless spirit,
+now unfettered for some days by set tasks, occupied itself with
+everything he had studied and read in the last few years, and with
+everything he had seen. What ambition, what self-deception, what pride
+and conceit filled the world! He thought of Thomas More, whom he was now
+to see again--that most witty and wise of all his friends, with that
+curious name _Moros_, the Greek word for a fool, which so ill became his
+personality. Anticipating the gay jests which More's conversation
+promised, there grew in his mind that masterpiece of humour and wise
+irony, _Moriae Encomium_, the _Praise of Folly_. The world as the scene
+of universal folly; folly as the indispensable element making life and
+society possible and all this put into the mouth of Stultitia--Folly--
+itself (true antitype of Minerva), who in a panegyric on her own power
+and usefulness, praises herself. As to form it is a _Declamatio_, such
+as he had translated from the Greek of Libanius. As to the spirit, a
+revival of Lucian, whose _Gallus_, translated by him three years before,
+may have suggested the theme. It must have been in the incomparably
+lucid moments of that brilliant intellect. All the particulars of
+classic reading which the year before he worked up in the new edition of
+the _Adagia_ were still at his immediate disposal in that retentive and
+capacious memory. Reflecting at his ease on all that wisdom of the
+ancients, he secreted the juices required for his expostulation.
+
+He arrived in London, took up his abode in More's house in Bucklersbury,
+and there, tortured by nephritic pains, he wrote down in a few days,
+without having his books with him, the perfect work of art that must
+have been ready in his mind. Stultitia was truly born in the manner of
+her serious sister Pallas.
+
+As to form and imagery the _Moria_ is faultless, the product of the
+inspired moments of creative impulse. The figure of an orator
+confronting her public is sustained to the last in a masterly way. We
+see the faces of the auditors light up with glee when Folly appears in
+the pulpit; we hear the applause interrupting her words. There is a
+wealth of fancy, coupled with so much soberness of line and colour, such
+reserve, that the whole presents a perfect instance of that harmony
+which is the essence of Renaissance expression. There is no exuberance,
+in spite of the multiplicity of matter and thought, but a temperateness,
+a smoothness, an airiness and clearness which are as gladdening as they
+are relaxing. In order perfectly to realize the artistic perfection of
+Erasmus's book we should compare it with Rabelais.
+
+'Without me', says Folly, 'the world cannot exist for a moment. For is
+not all that is done at all among mortals, full of folly; is it not
+performed by fools and for fools?' 'No society, no cohabitation can be
+pleasant or lasting without folly; so much so, that a people could not
+stand its prince, nor the master his man, nor the maid her mistress, nor
+the tutor his pupil, nor the friend his friend, nor the wife her husband
+for a moment longer, if they did not now and then err together, now
+flatter each other; now sensibly conniving at things, now smearing
+themselves with some honey of folly.' In that sentence the summary of
+the _Laus_ is contained. Folly here is worldly wisdom, resignation and
+lenient judgement.
+
+He who pulls off the masks in the comedy of life is ejected. What is the
+whole life of mortals but a sort of play in which each actor appears on
+the boards in his specific mask and acts his part till the stage-manager
+calls him off? He acts wrongly who does not adapt himself to existing
+conditions, and demands that the game shall be a game no longer. It is
+the part of the truly sensible to mix with all people, either conniving
+readily at their folly, or affably erring like themselves.
+
+And the necessary driving power of all human action is 'Philautia',
+Folly's own sister: self-love. He who does not please himself effects
+little. Take away that condiment of life and the word of the orator
+cools, the poet is laughed at, the artist perishes with his art.
+
+Folly in the garb of pride, of vanity, of vainglory, is the hidden
+spring of all that is considered high and great in this world. The state
+with its posts of honour, patriotism and national pride; the stateliness
+of ceremonies, the delusion of caste and nobility--what is it but folly?
+War, the most foolish thing of all, is the origin of all heroism. What
+prompted the Deciuses, what Curtius, to sacrifice themselves? Vainglory.
+It is this folly which produces states; through her, empires, religion,
+law-courts, exist.
+
+This is bolder and more chilling than Machiavelli, more detached than
+Montaigne. But Erasmus will not have it credited to him: it is Folly who
+speaks. He purposely makes us tread the round of the _circulus
+vitiosus_, as in the old saw: A Cretan said, all Cretans are liars.
+
+Wisdom is to folly as reason is to passion. And there is much more
+passion than reason in the world. That which keeps the world going, the
+fount of life, is folly. For what else is love? Why do people marry, if
+not out of folly, which sees no objections? All enjoyment and amusement
+is only a condiment of folly. When a wise man wishes to become a father,
+he has first to play the fool. For what is more foolish than the game of
+procreation?
+
+Unperceived the orator has incorporated here with folly all that is
+vitality and the courage of life. Folly is spontaneous energy that no
+one can do without. He who is perfectly sensible and serious cannot
+live. The more people get away from me, Stultitia, the less they live.
+Why do we kiss and cuddle little children, if not because they are still
+so delightfully foolish. And what else makes youth so elegant?
+
+Now look at the truly serious and sensible. They are awkward at
+everything, at meal-time, at a dance, in playing, in social intercourse.
+If they have to buy, or to contract, things are sure to go wrong.
+Quintilian says that stage fright bespeaks the intelligent orator, who
+knows his faults. Right! But does not, then, Quintilian confess openly
+that wisdom is an impediment to good execution? And has not Stultitia
+the right to claim prudence for herself, if the wise, out of shame, out
+of bashfulness, undertake nothing in circumstances where fools pluckily
+set to work?
+
+Here Erasmus goes to the root of the matter in a psychological sense.
+Indeed the consciousness of falling short in achievement is the brake
+clogging action, is the great inertia retarding the progress of the
+world. Did he know himself for one who is awkward when not bending over
+his books, but confronting men and affairs?
+
+Folly is gaiety and lightheartedness, indispensable to happiness. The
+man of mere reason without passion is a stone image, blunt and without
+any human feeling, a spectre or monster, from whom all fly, deaf to all
+natural emotions, susceptible neither to love nor compassion. Nothing
+escapes him, in nothing he errs; he sees through everything, he weighs
+everything accurately, he forgives nothing, he is only satisfied with
+himself; he alone is healthy; he alone is king, he alone is free. It is
+the hideous figure of the doctrinaire which Erasmus is thinking of.
+Which state, he exclaims, would desire such an absolutely wise man for a
+magistrate?
+
+He who devotes himself to tasting all the bitterness of life with wise
+insight would forthwith deprive himself of life. Only folly is a remedy:
+to err, to be mistaken, to be ignorant is to be human. How much better
+it is in marriage to be blind to a wife's shortcomings than to make away
+with oneself out of jealousy and to fill the world with tragedy!
+Adulation is virtue. There is no cordial devotion without a little
+adulation. It is the soul of eloquence, of medicine and poetry; it is
+the honey and the sweetness of all human customs.
+
+Again a series of valuable social qualities is slyly incorporated with
+folly: benevolence, kindness, inclination to approve and to admire.
+
+But especially to approve of oneself. There is no pleasing others
+without beginning by flattering ourselves a little and approving of
+ourselves. What would the world be if everyone was not proud of his
+standing, his calling, so that no person would change places with
+another in point of good appearance, of fancy, of good family, of landed
+property?
+
+Humbug is the right thing. Why should any one desire true erudition? The
+more incompetent a man, the pleasanter his life is and the more he is
+admired. Look at professors, poets, orators. Man's mind is so made that
+he is more impressed by lies than by the truth. Go to church: if the
+priest deals with serious subjects the whole congregation is dozing,
+yawning, feeling bored. But when he begins to tell some cock-and-bull
+story, they awake, sit up, and hang on his lips.
+
+To be deceived, philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not to be
+deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err, why should
+a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he was so born and made,
+and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly or
+does not walk on four legs? We might as well call the horse unhappy
+because it does not learn grammar or eat cakes. No creature is unhappy,
+if it lives according to its nature. The sciences were invented to our
+utmost destruction; far from conducing to our happiness, they are even
+in its way, though for its sake they are supposed to have been invented.
+By the agency of evil demons they have stolen into human life with the
+other pests. For did not the simple-minded people of the Golden Age live
+happily, unprovided with any science, only led by nature and instinct?
+What did they want grammar for, when all spoke the same language? Why
+have dialectics, when there were no quarrels and no differences of
+opinion? Why jurisprudence, when there were no bad morals from which
+good laws sprang? They were too religious to investigate with impious
+curiosity the secrets of nature, the size, motions, influence of the
+stars, the hidden cause of things.
+
+It is the old idea, which germinated in antiquity, here lightly touched
+upon by Erasmus, afterwards proclaimed by Rousseau in bitter earnest:
+civilization is a plague.
+
+Wisdom is misfortune, but self-conceit is happiness. Grammarians, who
+wield the sceptre of wisdom--schoolmasters, that is--would be the most
+wretched of all people if I, Folly, did not mitigate the discomforts of
+their miserable calling by a sort of sweet frenzy. But what holds good
+of schoolmasters, also holds good of poets, orators, authors. For them,
+too, all happiness merely consists in vanity and delusion. The lawyers
+are no better off and after them come the philosophers. Next there is a
+numerous procession of clergy: divines, monks, bishops, cardinals,
+popes, only interrupted by princes and courtiers.
+
+In the chapters[12] which review these offices and callings, satire has
+shifted its ground a little. Throughout the work two themes are
+intertwined: that of salutary folly, which is true wisdom, and that of
+deluded wisdom, which is pure folly. As they are both put into the mouth
+of Folly, we should have to invert them both to get truth, if Folly ...
+were not wisdom. Now it is clear that the first is the principal theme.
+Erasmus starts from it; and he returns to it. Only in the middle, as he
+reviews human accomplishments and dignities in their universal
+foolishness, the second theme predominates and the book becomes an
+ordinary satire on human folly, of which there are many though few are
+so delicate. But in the other parts it is something far deeper.
+
+Occasionally the satire runs somewhat off the line, when Stultitia
+directly censures what Erasmus wishes to censure; for instance,
+indulgences, silly belief in wonders, selfish worship of the saints; or
+gamblers whom she, Folly, ought to praise; or the spirit of
+systematizing and levelling, and the jealousy of the monks.
+
+For contemporary readers the importance of the _Laus Stultitiae_ was, to
+a great extent, in the direct satire. Its lasting value is in those
+passages where we truly grant that folly is wisdom and the reverse.
+Erasmus knows the aloofness of the ground of all things: all consistent
+thinking out of the dogmas of faith leads to absurdity. Only look at the
+theological quiddities of effete scholasticism. The apostles would not
+have understood them: in the eyes of latter-day divines they would have
+been fools. Holy Scripture itself sides with folly. 'The foolishness of
+God is wiser than men,' says Saint Paul. 'But God hath chosen the
+foolish things of the world.' 'It pleased God by the foolishness (of
+preaching) to save them that believe.' Christ loved the simple-minded
+and the ignorant: children, women, poor fishermen, nay, even such
+animals as are farthest removed from vulpine cunning: the ass which he
+wished to ride, the dove, the lamb, the sheep.
+
+Here there is a great deal behind the seemingly light jest: 'Christian
+religion seems in general to have some affinity with a certain sort of
+folly'. Was it not thought the apostles were full of new wine? And did
+not the judge say: 'Paul, thou art beside thyself'? When are we beside
+ourselves? When the spirit breaks its fetters and tries to escape from
+its prison and aspires to liberty. That is madness, but it is also
+other-worldliness and the highest wisdom. True happiness is in
+selflessness, in the furore of lovers, whom Plato calls happiest of all.
+The more absolute love is, the greater and more rapturous is the frenzy.
+Heavenly bliss itself is the greatest insanity; truly pious people enjoy
+its shadow on earth already in their meditations.
+
+Here Stultitia breaks off her discourse, apologizing in a few words in
+case she may have been too petulant or talkative, and leaves the pulpit.
+'So farewell, applaud, live happily, and drink, Moria's illustrious
+initiates.'
+
+It was an unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters neither to
+lose the light comical touch, nor to lapse into undisguised profanation.
+It was only feasible by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of
+sophistry. In the _Moria_ Erasmus is all the time hovering on the brink
+of profound truths. But what a boon it was--still granted to those
+times--to be able to treat of all this in a vein of pleasantry. For this
+should be impressed upon our minds: that the _Moriae Encomium_ is a
+true, gay jest. The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty than
+Rabelais's. 'Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite.' 'All common people
+abound to such a degree, and everywhere, in so many forms of folly that
+a thousand Democrituses would be insufficient to laugh at them all (and
+they would require another Democritus to laugh at them).'
+
+How could one take the _Moria_ too seriously, when even More's _Utopia_,
+which is a true companion-piece to it and makes such a grave impression
+on us, is treated by its author and Erasmus as a mere jest? There is a
+place where the _Laus_ seems to touch both More and Rabelais; the place
+where Stultitia speaks of her father, Plutus, the god of wealth, at
+whose beck all things are turned topsy-turvy, according to whose will
+all human affairs are regulated--war and peace, government and counsel,
+justice and treaties. He has begotten her on the nymph Youth, not a
+senile, purblind Plutus, but a fresh god, warm with youth and nectar,
+like another Gargantua.
+
+The figure of Folly, of gigantic size, looms large in the period of the
+Renaissance. She wears a fool's cap and bells. People laughed loudly and
+with unconcern at all that was foolish, without discriminating between
+species of folly. It is remarkable that even in the _Laus_, delicate as
+it is, the author does not distinguish between the unwise or the silly,
+between fools and lunatics. Holbein, illustrating Erasmus, knows but of
+one representation of a fool: with a staff and ass's ears. Erasmus
+speaks without clear transition, now of foolish persons and now of real
+lunatics. They are happiest of all, he makes Stultitia say: they are not
+frightened by spectres and apparitions; they are not tortured by the
+fear of impending calamities; everywhere they bring mirth, jests, frolic
+and laughter. Evidently he here means harmless imbeciles, who, indeed,
+were often used as jesters. This identification of denseness and
+insanity is kept up, however, like the confusion of the comic and the
+simply ridiculous, and all this is well calculated to make us feel how
+wide the gap has already become that separates us from Erasmus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In later years he always spoke slightingly of his _Moria_. He considered
+it so unimportant, he says, as to be unworthy of publication, yet no
+work of his had been received with such applause. It was a trifle and
+not at all in keeping with his character. More had made him write it, as
+if a camel were made to dance. But these disparaging utterances were not
+without a secondary purpose. The _Moria_ had not brought him only
+success and pleasure. The exceedingly susceptible age in which he lived
+had taken the satire in very bad part, where it seemed to glance at
+offices and orders, although in his preface he had tried to safeguard
+himself from the reproach of irreverence. His airy play with the texts
+of Holy Scripture had been too venturesome for many. His friend Martin
+van Dorp upbraided him with having made a mock of eternal life. Erasmus
+did what he could to convince evil-thinkers that the purpose of the
+_Moria_ was no other than to exhort people to be virtuous. In affirming
+this he did his work injustice: it was much more than that. But in 1515
+he was no longer what he had been in 1509. Repeatedly he had been
+obliged to defend his most witty work. Had he known that it would
+offend, he might have kept it back, he writes in 1517 to an acquaintance
+at Louvain. Even towards the end of his life, he warded off the
+insinuations of Alberto Pio of Carpi in a lengthy expostulation.
+
+Erasmus made no further ventures in the genre of the _Praise of Folly_.
+One might consider the treatise _Lingua_, which he published in 1525, as
+an attempt to make a companion-piece to the _Moria_. The book is called
+_Of the Use and Abuse of the Tongue_. In the opening pages there is
+something that reminds us of the style of the _Laus_, but it lacks all
+the charm both of form and of thought.
+
+Should one pity Erasmus because, of all his publications, collected in
+ten folio volumes, only the _Praise of Folly_ has remained a really
+popular book? It is, apart from the _Colloquies_, perhaps the only one
+of his works that is still read for its own sake. The rest is now only
+studied from a historical point of view, for the sake of becoming
+acquainted with his person or his times. It seems to me that perfect
+justice has been done in this case. The _Praise of Folly_ is his best
+work. He wrote other books, more erudite, some more pious--some perhaps
+of equal or greater influence on his time. But each has had its day.
+_Moriae Encomium_ alone was to be immortal. For only when humour
+illuminated that mind did it become truly profound. In the _Praise of
+Folly_ Erasmus gave something that no one else could have given to the
+world.
+
+[Illustration: XI. The last page of the _Praise of Folly_, with
+Holbein's drawing of Folly descending from the pulpit]
+
+[Illustration: XII. THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] That he conceived the work in the Alps follows from the fact that
+he tells us explicitly that it happened while riding, whereas, after
+passing through Switzerland, he travelled by boat. A. 1, IV 216.62.
+
+[12] Erasmus did not divide the book into chapters. It was done by an
+editor as late as 1765.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND
+
+1509-14
+
+    Third stay in England: 1509-14--No information about two years
+    of Erasmus's life: 1509 summer, till 1511 spring--Poverty--
+    Erasmus at Cambridge--Relations with Badius, the Paris
+    publisher--A mistake profitable to Johannes Froben at Basle--
+    Erasmus leaves England: 1514--_Julius Exclusus_--Epistle
+    against war
+
+
+From the moment when Erasmus, back from Italy in the early summer of
+1509, is hidden from view in the house of More, to write the _Praise of
+Folly_, until nearly two years later when he comes to view again on the
+road to Paris to have the book printed by Gilles Gourmont, every trace
+of his life has been obliterated. Of the letters which during that
+period he wrote and received, not a single one has been preserved.
+Perhaps it was the happiest time of his life, for it was partly spent
+with his tried patron, Mountjoy, and also in the house of More in that
+noble and witty circle which to Erasmus appeared ideal. That house was
+also frequented by the friend whom Erasmus had made during his former
+sojourn in England, and whose mind was perhaps more congenial to him
+than any other, Andrew Ammonius. It is not improbable that during these
+months he was able to work without interruption at the studies to which
+he was irresistibly attracted, without cares as to the immediate future,
+and not yet burdened by excessive renown, which afterwards was to cause
+him as much trouble and loss as joy.
+
+That future was still uncertain. As soon as he no longer enjoys More's
+hospitality, the difficulties and complaints recommence. Continual
+poverty, uncertainty and dependence were extraordinarily galling to a
+mind requiring above all things liberty. At Paris he charged Badius with
+a new, revised edition of the _Adagia_, though the Aldine might still be
+had there at a moderate price. The _Laus_, which had just appeared at
+Gourmont's, was reprinted at Strassburg as early as 1511, with a
+courteous letter by Jacob Wimpfeling to Erasmus, but evidently without
+his being consulted in the matter. By that time he was back in England,
+had been laid up in London with a bad attack of the sweating sickness,
+and thence had gone to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he had resided
+before. From Cambridge he writes to Colet, 24 August 1511, in a vein of
+comical despair. The journey from London had been disastrous: a lame
+horse, no victuals for the road, rain and thunder. 'But I am almost
+pleased at this, I see the track of Christian poverty.' A chance to make
+some money he does not see; he will be obliged to spend everything he
+can wrest from his Maecenases--he, born under a wrathful Mercury.
+
+This may sound somewhat gloomier than it was meant, but a few weeks
+later he writes again: 'Oh, this begging; you laugh at me, I know. But I
+hate myself for it and am fully determined, either to obtain some
+fortune, which will relieve me from cringing, or to imitate Diogenes
+altogether.' This refers to a dedication of a translation of Basilius's
+Commentaries on Isaiah to John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester.
+
+Colet, who had never known pecuniary cares himself, did not well
+understand these sallies of Erasmus. He replies to them with delicate
+irony and covert rebuke, which Erasmus, in his turn, pretends not to
+understand. He was now 'in want in the midst of plenty', _simul et in
+media copia et in summa inopia_. That is to say, he was engaged in
+preparing for Badius's press the _De copia verborum ac rerum_, formerly
+begun at Paris; it was dedicated to Colet. 'I ask you, who can be more
+impudent or abject than I, who for such a long time already have been
+openly begging in England?'
+
+Writing to Ammonius he bitterly regrets having left Rome and Italy; how
+prosperity had smiled upon him there! In the same way he would
+afterwards lament that he had not permanently established himself in
+England. If he had only embraced the opportunity! he thinks. Was not
+Erasmus rather one of those people whom good fortune cannot help? He
+remained in trouble and his tone grows more bitter. 'I am preparing some
+bait against the 1st of January, though it is pretty sure to be in
+vain,' he writes to Ammonius, referring to new translations of Lucian
+and Plutarch.
+
+At Cambridge Erasmus lectured on divinity and Greek, but it brought him
+little success and still less profit. The long-wished-for prebend,
+indeed, had at last been given him, in the form of the rectory of
+Aldington, in Kent, to which Archbishop William Warham, his patron,
+appointed him in 1512. Instead of residing he was allowed to draw a
+pension of twenty pounds a year. The archbishop affirms explicitly that,
+contrary to his custom, he had granted this favour to Erasmus, because
+he, 'a light of learning in Latin and Greek literature, had, out of love
+for England, disdained to live in Italy, France, or Germany, in order to
+pass the rest of his life here, with his friends'. We see how nations
+already begin to vie with each other for the honour of sheltering
+Erasmus.
+
+Relief from all cares the post did not bring. Intercourse and
+correspondence with Colet was a little soured under the light veil of
+jests and kindness by his constant need of money. Seeking new resources
+by undertaking new labours, or preparing new editions of his old books,
+remained a hard necessity for Erasmus. The great works upon which he had
+set his heart, and to which he had given all his energies at Cambridge,
+held out no promise of immediate profit. His serious theological labours
+ranked above all others; and in these hard years, he devoted his best
+strength to preparation for the great edition of Jerome's works and
+emendation of the text of the New Testament, a task inspired, encouraged
+and promoted by Colet.
+
+For his living other books had to serve. He had a sufficient number now,
+and the printers were eager enough about them, though the profit which
+the author made by them was not large. After leaving Aldus at Venice,
+Erasmus had returned to the publisher who had printed for him as early
+as 1505--Josse Badius, of Brabant, who, at Paris, had established the
+Ascensian Press (called after his native place, Assche) and who, a
+scholar himself, rivalled Aldus in point of the accuracy of his editions
+of the classics. At the time when Erasmus took the _Moria_ to Gourmont,
+at Paris, he had charged Badius with a new edition, still to be revised,
+of the _Adagia_. Why the _Moria_ was published by another, we cannot
+tell; perhaps Badius did not like it at first. From the _Adagia_ he
+promised himself the more profit, but that was a long work, the
+alterations and preface of which he was still waiting for Erasmus to
+send. He felt very sure of his ground, for everyone knew that he,
+Badius, was preparing the new edition. Yet a rumour reached him that in
+Germany the Aldine edition was being reprinted. So there was some hurry
+to finish it, he wrote to Erasmus in May 1512.
+
+Badius, meanwhile, had much more work of Erasmus in hand, or on
+approval: the _Copia_, which, shortly afterwards, was published by him;
+the _Moria_, of which, at the same time, a new edition, the fifth,
+already had appeared; the dialogues by Lucian; the Euripides and Seneca
+translations, which were to follow. He hoped to add Jerome's letters to
+these. For the _Adagia_ they had agreed upon a copy-fee of fifteen
+guilders; for Jerome's letters Badius was willing to give the same sum
+and as much again for the rest of the consignment. 'Ah, you will say,
+what a very small sum! I own that by no remuneration could your genius,
+industry, knowledge and labour be requited, but the gods will requite
+you and your own virtue will be the finest reward. You have already
+deserved exceedingly well of Greek and Roman literature; you will in
+this same way deserve well of sacred and divine, and you will help your
+little Badius, who has a numerous family and no earnings besides his
+daily trade.'
+
+Erasmus must have smiled ruefully on receiving Badius's letter. But he
+accepted the proposal readily. He promised to prepare everything for the
+press and, on 5 January 1513, he finished, in London, the preface to the
+revised _Adagia_, for which Badius was waiting. But then something
+happened. An agent who acted as a mediator with authors for several
+publishers in Germany and France, one Francis Berckman, of Cologne, took
+the revised copy of the _Adagia_ with the preface entrusted to him by
+Erasmus to hand over to Badius, not to Paris, but to Basle, to Johannes
+Froben, who had just, without Erasmus's leave, reprinted the Venetian
+edition! Erasmus pretended to be indignant at this mistake or perfidy,
+but it is only too clear that he did not regret it. Six months later he
+betook himself with bag and baggage to Basle, to enter with that same
+Froben into those most cordial relations by which their names are
+united. Beatus Rhenanus, afterwards, made no secret of the fact that a
+connection with the house of Froben, then still called Amerbach and
+Froben, had seemed attractive to Erasmus ever since he had heard of the
+_Adagia_ being reprinted.
+
+Without conclusive proofs of his complicity, we do not like to accuse
+Erasmus of perfidy towards Badius, though his attitude is curious, to
+say the least. But we do want to commemorate the dignified tone in which
+Badius, who held strict notions, as those times went, about copyright,
+replied, when Berckman afterwards had come to offer him a sort of
+explanation of the case. He declares himself satisfied, though Erasmus
+had, since that time, caused him losses in more ways, amongst others by
+printing a new edition of the _Copia_ at Strassburg. 'If, however, it is
+agreeable to your interests and honour, I shall suffer it, and that with
+equanimity.' Their relations were not broken off. In all this we should
+not lose sight of the fact that publishing at that time was yet a quite
+new commercial phenomenon and that new commercial forms and relations of
+trade are wont to be characterized by uncertainty, confusion and lack of
+established business morals.
+
+The stay at Cambridge gradually became irksome to Erasmus. 'For some
+months already', he writes to Ammonius in November 1513, 'we have been
+leading a true snail's life, staying at home and plodding. It is very
+lonely here; most people have gone for fear of the plague, but even when
+they are all here, it is lonely.' The cost of sustenance is unbearable
+and he makes no money at all. If he does not succeed, that winter, in
+making a nest for himself, he is resolved to fly away, he does not know
+where. 'If to no other end, to die elsewhere.'
+
+Added to the stress of circumstances, the plague, reappearing again and
+again, and attacks of his kidney-trouble, there came the state of war,
+which depressed and alarmed Erasmus. In the spring of 1513 the English
+raid on France, long prepared, took place. In co-operation with
+Maximilian's army the English had beaten the French near Guinegate and
+compelled Therouanne to surrender, and afterwards Tournay. Meanwhile the
+Scotch invaded England, to be decisively beaten near Flodden. Their
+king, James IV, perished together with his natural son, Erasmus's pupil
+and travelling companion in Italy, Alexander, Archbishop of Saint
+Andrews.
+
+Crowned with martial fame, Henry VIII returned in November to meet his
+parliament. Erasmus did not share the universal joy and enthusiastic
+admiration. 'We are circumscribed here by the plague, threatened by
+robbers; we drink wine of the worst (because there is no import from
+France), but, _io triumphe!_ we are the conquerors of the world!'
+
+His deep aversion to the clamour of war, and all it represented,
+stimulated Erasmus's satirical faculties. It is true that he flattered
+the English national pride by an epigram on the rout of the French near
+Guinegate, but soon he went deeper. He remembered how war had impeded
+his movements in Italy; how the entry of the pope-conqueror, Julius II,
+into Bologna had outraged his feelings. 'The high priest Julius wages
+war, conquers, triumphs and truly plays the part of Julius (Caesar)' he
+had written then. Pope Julius, he thought, had been the cause of all the
+wars spreading more and more over Europe. Now the Pope had died in the
+beginning of the year 1513.
+
+And in the deepest secrecy, between his work on the New Testament and
+Jerome, Erasmus took revenge on the martial Pope, for the misery of the
+times, by writing the masterly satire, entitled _Julius exclusus_, in
+which the Pope appears in all his glory before the gate of the Heavenly
+Paradise to plead his cause and find himself excluded. The theme was not
+new to him; for had he not made something similar in the witty Cain
+fable, by which, at one time, he had cheered a dinner-party at Oxford?
+But that was an innocent jest to which his pious fellow-guests had
+listened with pleasure. To the satire about the defunct Pope many would,
+no doubt, also gladly listen, but Erasmus had to be careful about it.
+The folly of all the world might be ridiculed, but not the worldly
+propensities of the recently deceased Pope. Therefore, though he helped
+in circulating copies of the manuscript, Erasmus did his utmost, for the
+rest of his life, to preserve its anonymity, and when it was universally
+known and had appeared in print, and he was presumed to be the author,
+he always cautiously denied the fact; although he was careful to use
+such terms as to avoid a formal denial. The first edition of the
+_Julius_ was published at Basle, not by Froben, Erasmus's ordinary
+publisher, but by Cratander, probably in the year 1518.
+
+Erasmus's need of protesting against warfare had not been satisfied by
+writing the _Julius_. In March 1514, no longer at Cambridge, but in
+London, he wrote a letter to his former patron, the Abbot of Saint
+Bertin, Anthony of Bergen, in which he enlarges upon the folly of waging
+war. Would that a Christian peace were concluded between Christian
+princes! Perhaps the abbot might contribute to that consummation through
+his influence with the youthful Charles V and especially with his
+grandfather Maximilian. Erasmus states quite frankly that the war has
+suddenly changed the spirit of England. He would like to return to his
+native country if the prince would procure him the means to live there
+in peace. It is a remarkable fact and of true Erasmian naïveté that he
+cannot help mixing up his personal interests with his sincere
+indignation at the atrocities disgracing a man and a Christian. 'The war
+has suddenly altered the spirit of this island. The cost of living rises
+every day and generosity decreases. Through lack of wine I nearly
+perished by gravel, contracted by taking bad stuff. We are confined in
+this island, more than ever, so that even letters are not carried
+abroad.'
+
+This was the first of Erasmus's anti-war writings. He expanded it into
+the adage _Dulce bellum inexpertis_, which was inserted into the
+_Adagia_ edition of 1515, published by Froben and afterwards also
+printed separately. Hereafter we shall follow up this line of Erasmus's
+ideas as a whole.
+
+Though the summer of 1514 was to bring peace between England and France,
+Erasmus had now definitely made up his mind to leave England. He sent
+his trunks to Antwerp, to his friend Peter Gilles and prepared to go to
+the Netherlands, after a short visit to Mountjoy at the castle of Hammes
+near Calais. Shortly before his departure from London he had a curious
+interview with a papal diplomat, working in the cause of peace, Count
+Canossa, at Ammonius's house on the Thames. Ammonius passed him off on
+Erasmus as a merchant. After the meal the Italian sounded him as to a
+possible return to Rome, where he might be the first in place instead of
+living alone among a barbarous nation. Erasmus replied that he lived in
+a land that contained the greatest number of excellent scholars, among
+whom he would be content with the humblest place. This compliment was
+his farewell to England, which had favoured him so. Some days later, in
+the first half of July 1514, he was on the other side of the Channel. On
+three more occasions he paid short visits to England, but he lived there
+no more.
+
+[Illustration: XIII. JOHANNES FROBEN, 1522-3
+
+Reproduced by gracious permission of H.M. The Queen]
+
+[Illustration: XIV. THE PRINTER'S EMBLEM OF JOHANNES FROBEN]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY
+
+1514-16
+
+    On the way to success and satisfaction--His Prior calls him back
+    to Steyn--He refuses to comply--First journey to Basle:
+    1514-16--Cordial welcome in Germany--Johannes Froben--Editions
+    of Jerome and the New Testament--A Councillor to Prince Charles:
+    _Institutio Principis Christiani_, 1515--Definitive dispensation
+    from Monastic Vows: 1517--Fame--Erasmus as a spiritual
+    centre--His correspondence--Letter-writing as an art--Its
+    dangers--A glorious age at hand
+
+
+Erasmus had, as was usual with him, enveloped his departure from England
+with mystery. It was given out that he was going to Rome to redeem a
+pledge. Probably he had already determined to try his fortune in the
+Netherlands; not in Holland, but in the neighbourhood of the princely
+court in Brabant. The chief object of his journey, however, was to visit
+Froben's printing-office at Basle, personally to supervise the
+publication of the numerous works, old and new, which he brought with
+him, among them the material for his chosen task, the New Testament and
+Jerome, by which he hoped to effect the restoration of theology, which
+he had long felt to be his life-work. It is easy thus to imagine his
+anxiety when during the crossing he discovered that his hand-bag,
+containing the manuscripts, was found to have been taken on board
+another ship. He felt bereft, having lost the labour of so many years; a
+sorrow so great, he writes, as only parents can feel at the loss of
+their children.
+
+To his joy, however, he found his manuscripts safe on the other side. At
+the castle of Hammes near Calais, he stayed for some days, the guest of
+Mountjoy. There, on 7 July, a letter found him, written on 18 April by
+his superior, the prior of Steyn, his old friend Servatius Rogerus,
+recalling him to the monastery after so many years of absence. The
+letter had already been in the hands of more than one prying person,
+before it reached him by mere chance.
+
+It was a terrific blow, which struck him in the midst of his course to
+his highest aspirations. Erasmus took counsel for a day and then sent a
+refusal. To his old friend, in addressing whom he always found the most
+serious accents of his being, he wrote a letter which he meant to be a
+justification and which was self-contemplation, much deeper and more
+sincere than the one which, at a momentous turning-point of his life,
+had drawn from him his _Carmen Alpestre_.
+
+He calls upon God to be his witness that he would follow the purest
+inspiration of his life. But to return to the monastery! He reminds
+Servatius of the circumstances under which he entered it, as they lived
+in his memory: the pressure of his relations, his false modesty. He
+points out to him how ill monastic life had suited his constitution, how
+it outraged his love of freedom, how detrimental it would be to his
+delicate health, if now resumed. Had he, then, lived a worse life in the
+world? Literature had kept him from many vices. His restless life could
+not redound to his dishonour, though only with diffidence did he dare to
+appeal to the examples of Solon, Pythagoras, St. Paul and his favourite
+Jerome. Had he not everywhere won recognition from friends and patrons?
+He enumerates them: cardinals, archbishops, bishops, Mountjoy, the
+Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and, lastly, John Colet. Was
+there, then, any objection to his works: the _Enchiridion_, the
+_Adagia_? (He did not mention the _Moria_.) The best was still to
+follow: Jerome and the New Testament. The fact that, since his stay in
+Italy, he had laid aside the habit of his order and wore a common
+clerical dress, he could excuse on a number of grounds.
+
+The conclusion was: I shall not return to Holland. 'I know that I shall
+not be able to stand the air and the food there; all eyes will be
+directed to me. I shall return to the country, an old and grey man, who
+left it as a youth; I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed
+to the contempt even of the lowest, I, who am accustomed to be honoured
+even by the greatest.' 'It is not possible', he concludes, 'to speak out
+frankly in a letter. I am now going to Basle and thence to Rome,
+perhaps, but on my return I shall try to visit you ... I have heard of
+the deaths of William, Francis and Andrew (his old Dutch friends).
+Remember me to Master Henry and the others who live with you; I am
+disposed towards them as befits me. For those old tragedies I ascribe to
+my errors, or if you like to my fate. Do not omit to commend me to
+Christ in your prayers. If I knew for sure that it would be pleasing to
+Him that I should return to live with you, I should prepare for the
+journey this very day. Farewell, my former sweetest companion, now my
+venerable father.'
+
+Underlying the immediate motives of his high theological aspirations,
+this refusal was doubtless actuated by his ancient, inveterate,
+psychological incentives of disgust and shame.[13]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the southern Netherlands, where he visited several friends and
+patrons and renewed his acquaintance with the University of Louvain,
+Erasmus turned to the Rhine and reached Basle in the second half of
+August 1514. There such pleasures of fame awaited him as he had never
+yet tasted. The German humanists hailed him as the light of the
+world--in letters, receptions and banquets. They were more solemn and
+enthusiastic than Erasmus had found the scholars of France, England and
+Italy, to say nothing of his compatriots; and they applauded him
+emphatically as being a German himself and an ornament of Germany. At
+his first meeting with Froben, Erasmus permitted himself the pleasure of
+a jocular deception: he pretended to be a friend and agent of himself,
+to enjoy to the full the joy of being recognized. The German environment
+was rather to his mind: '_My_ Germany, which to my regret and shame I
+got to know so late'.
+
+Soon the work for which he had come was in full swing. He was in his
+element once more, as he had been at Venice six years before: working
+hard in a large printing-office, surrounded by scholars, who heaped upon
+him homage and kindness in those rare moments of leisure which he
+permitted himself. 'I move in a most agreeable Museon: so many men of
+learning, and of such exceptional learning!'
+
+Some translations of the lesser works of Plutarch were published by
+Froben in August. The _Adagia_ was passing through the press again with
+corrections and additions, and the preface which was originally destined
+for Badius. At the same time Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, was also at
+work for Erasmus, who had, on passing through the town, entrusted him
+with a collection of easy Latin texts; also M. Schürer at Strassburg,
+who prepared the _Parabolae sive similia_ for him. For Froben, too,
+Erasmus was engaged on a Seneca, which appeared in 1515, together with a
+work on Latin construction. But Jerome and the New Testament remained
+his chief occupation.
+
+Jerome's works had been Erasmus's love in early youth, especially his
+letters. The plan of preparing a correct edition of the great Father of
+the Church was conceived in 1500, if not earlier, and he had worked at
+it ever since, at intervals. In 1513 he writes to Ammonius: 'My
+enthusiasm for emending and annotating Jerome is such that I feel as
+though inspired by some god. I have almost completely emended him
+already by collating many old manuscripts. And this I do at incredibly
+great expense.' In 1512 he negotiated with Badius about an edition of
+the letters. Froben's partner, Johannes Amerbach, who died before
+Erasmus's arrival, had been engaged for years on an edition of Jerome.
+Several scholars, Reuchlin among others, had assisted in the undertaking
+when Erasmus offered himself and all his material. He became the actual
+editor. Of the nine volumes, in which Froben published the work in 1516,
+the first four contained Erasmus's edition of Jerome's letters; the
+others had been corrected by him and provided with forewords.
+
+His work upon the New Testament was, if possible, still nearer his
+heart. By its growth it had gradually changed its nature. Since the time
+when Valla's _Annotationes_ had directed his attention to textual
+criticism of the Vulgate, Erasmus had, probably during his second stay
+in England from 1505 to 1506, at the instance of Colet, made a new
+translation of the New Testament from the Greek original, which
+translation differed greatly from the Vulgate. Besides Colet, few had
+seen it. Later, Erasmus understood it was necessary to publish also a
+new edition of the Greek text, with his notes. As to this he had made a
+provisional arrangement with Froben, shortly after his arrival at Basle.
+Afterwards he considered that it would be better to have it printed in
+Italy, and was on the point of going there when, possibly persuaded by
+new offers from Froben, he suddenly changed his plan of travel and in
+the spring of 1515 made a short trip to England--probably, among other
+reasons, for the purpose of securing a copy of his translation of the
+New Testament, which he had left behind there. In the summer he was back
+at Basle and resumed the work in Froben's printing-office. In the
+beginning of 1516 the _Novum Instrumentum_ appeared, containing the
+purified Greek text with notes, together with a Latin translation in
+which Erasmus had altered too great deviations from the Vulgate.
+
+From the moment of the appearance of two such important and, as regards
+the second, such daring theological works by Erasmus as Jerome and the
+New Testament, we may say that he had made himself the centre of the
+scientific study of divinity, as he was at the same time the centre and
+touchstone of classic erudition and literary taste. His authority
+constantly increased in all countries, his correspondence was
+prodigiously augmented.
+
+But while his mental growth was accomplished, his financial position was
+not assured. The years 1515 to 1517 are among the most restless of his
+life; he is still looking out for every chance which presents itself, a
+canonry at Tournay, a prebend in England, a bishopric in Sicily, always
+half jocularly regretting the good chances he missed in former times,
+jesting about his pursuit of fortune, lamenting about his 'spouse,
+execrable poverty, which even yet I have not succeeded in shaking off my
+shoulders'. And, after all, ever more the victim of his own restlessness
+than of the disfavour of fate. He is now fifty years old and still he
+is, as he says, 'sowing without knowing what I shall reap'. This,
+however, only refers to his career, not to his life-work.
+
+In the course of 1515 a new and promising patron, John le Sauvage,
+Chancellor of Brabant, had succeeded in procuring for him the title of
+councillor of the prince, the youthful Charles V. In the beginning of
+1516 he was nominated: it was a mere title of honour, promising a yearly
+pension of 200 florins, which, however, was paid but irregularly. To
+habilitate himself as a councillor of the prince, Erasmus wrote the
+_Institutio Principis Christiani_, a treatise about the education of a
+prince, which in accordance with Erasmus's nature and inclination deals
+rather with moral than with political matters, and is in striking
+contrast with that other work, written some years earlier, _il Principe_
+by Machiavelli.
+
+When his work at Basle ceased for the time being, in the spring of 1516,
+Erasmus journeyed to the Netherlands. At Brussels he met the chancellor,
+who, in addition to the prince's pension, procured him a prebend at
+Courtray, which, like the English benefice mentioned above, was
+compounded for by money payments. At Antwerp lived one of the great
+friends who helped in his support all his life: Peter Gilles, the young
+town clerk, in whose house he stayed as often as he came to Antwerp.
+Peter Gilles is the man who figures in More's _Utopia_ as the person in
+whose garden the sailor tells his experiences; it was in these days that
+Gilles helped Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, to pass the first edition of
+the _Utopia_ through the press. Later Quentin Metsys was to paint him
+and Erasmus, joined in a diptych; a present for Thomas More and for us a
+vivid memorial of one of the best things Erasmus ever knew: this triple
+friendship.
+
+In the summer of 1516 Erasmus made another short trip to England. He
+stayed with More, saw Colet again, also Warham, Fisher, and the other
+friends. But it was not to visit old friends that he went there. A
+pressing and delicate matter impelled him. Now that prebends and church
+dignities began to be presented to him, it was more urgent than ever
+that the impediments in the way of a free ecclesiastical career should
+be permanently obviated. He was provided with a dispensation of Pope
+Julius II, authorizing him to accept English prebends, and another
+exempting him from the obligation of wearing the habit of his order. But
+both were of limited scope, and insufficient. The fervent impatience
+with which he conducted this matter of his definite discharge from the
+order makes it probable that, as Dr. Allen presumes, the threat of his
+recall to Steyn had, since his refusal to Servatius in 1514, hung over
+his head. There was nothing he feared and detested so much.
+
+With his friend Ammonius he drew up, in London, a very elaborate paper,
+addressed to the apostolic chancery, in which he recounts the story of
+his own life as that of one Florentius: his half-enforced entrance to
+the monastery, the troubles which monastic life had brought him, the
+circumstances which had induced him to lay his monk's dress aside. It is
+a passionate apology, pathetic and ornate. The letter, as we know it,
+does not contain a direct request. In an appendix at the end, written in
+cipher, of which he sent the key in sympathetic ink in another letter,
+the chancery was requested to obviate the impediments which Erasmus's
+illegitimate birth placed in the way of his promotion. The addressee,
+Lambertus Grunnius, apostolic secretary, was most probably an imaginary
+personage.[14] So much mystery did Erasmus use when his vital interests
+were at stake.
+
+The Bishop of Worcester, Silvestro Gigli, who was setting out to the
+Lateran Council, as the envoy of England, took upon himself to deliver
+the letter and to plead Erasmus's cause. Erasmus, having meanwhile at
+the end of August returned to the Netherlands, awaited the upshot of his
+kind offices in the greatest suspense. The matter was finally settled in
+January 1517. In two letters bearing the signature of Sadolet, Leo X
+condoned Erasmus's transgressions of ecclesiastical law, relieved him of
+the obligation to wear the dress of his order, allowed him to live in
+the world and authorized him to hold church benefices in spite of any
+disqualifications arising from illegitimacy of birth.
+
+So much his great fame had now achieved. The Pope had moreover accepted
+the dedication of the edition of the New Testament, and had, through
+Sadolet, expressed himself in very gracious terms about Erasmus's work
+in general. Rome itself seemed to further his endeavours in all
+respects.
+
+Erasmus now thought of establishing himself permanently in the
+Netherlands, to which everything pointed. Louvain seemed to be the most
+suitable abode, the centre of studies, where he had already spent two
+years in former times. But Louvain did not attract him. It was the
+stronghold of conservative theology. Martin van Dorp, a Dutchman like
+Erasmus, and professor of divinity at Louvain, had, in 1514, in the name
+of his faculty, rebuked Erasmus in a letter for the audacity of the
+_Praise of Folly_, his derision of divines and also his temerity in
+correcting the text of the New Testament. Erasmus had defended himself
+elaborately. At present war was being waged in a much wider field: for
+or against Reuchlin, the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors of
+the _Epistolae obscurorum virorum_ had so sensationally taken up the
+cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded with the same suspicion with
+which he distrusted Dorp and the other Louvain divines. He stayed during
+the remainder of 1516 and the first half of 1517 at Antwerp, Brussels
+and Ghent, often in the house of Peter Gilles. In February 1517, there
+came tempting offers from France. Budaeus, Cop, Étienne Poncher, Bishop
+of Paris, wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I, would
+present him with a generous prebend if he would come to Paris. Erasmus,
+always shy of being tied down, only wrote polite, evasive answers, and
+did not go.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime he received the news of the papal absolution. In
+connection with this he had, once more, to visit England, little
+dreaming that it would be the last time he should set foot on British
+soil. In Ammonius's house of Saint Stephen's Chapel at Westminster on 9
+April 1517, the ceremony of absolution took place, ridding Erasmus for
+good of the nightmare which had oppressed him since his youth. At last
+he was free!
+
+Invitations and specious promises now came to him from all sides.
+Mountjoy and Wolsey spoke of high ecclesiastical honours which awaited
+him in England. Budaeus kept pressing him to remove to France. Cardinal
+Ximenes wanted to attach him to the University of Alcalá, in Spain. The
+Duke of Saxony offered him a chair at Leipzig. Pirckheimer boasted of
+the perfections of the free imperial city of Nuremberg. Erasmus,
+meanwhile, overwhelmed again with the labour of writing and editing,
+according to his wont, did not definitely decline any of these offers;
+neither did he accept any. He always wanted to keep all his strings on
+his bow at the same time. In the early summer of 1517 he was asked to
+accompany the court of the youthful Charles, who was on the point of
+leaving the Netherlands for Spain. But he declined. His departure to
+Spain would have meant a long interruption of immediate contact with the
+great publishing centres, Basle, Louvain, Strassburg, Paris, and that,
+in turn, would have meant postponement of his life-work. When, in the
+beginning of July, the prince set out for Middelburg, there to take ship
+for Spain, Erasmus started for Louvain.
+
+He was thus destined to go to this university environment, although it
+displeased him in so many respects. There he would have academic duties,
+young latinists would follow him about to get their poems and letters
+corrected by him and all those divines, whom he distrusted, would watch
+him at close quarters. But it was only to be for a few months. 'I have
+removed to Louvain', he writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'till I
+shall decide which residence is best suited to old age, which is already
+knocking at the gate importunately.'
+
+As it turned out, he was to spend four years (1517-21) at Louvain. His
+life was now becoming more stationary, but because of outward
+circumstances rather than of inward quiet. He kept deliberating all
+those years whether he should go to England, Germany or France, hoping
+at last to find the brilliant position which he had always coveted and
+never had been able or willing to grasp.
+
+The years 1516-18 may be called the culmination of Erasmus's career.
+Applauding crowds surrounded him more and more. The minds of men were
+seemingly prepared for something great to happen and they looked to
+Erasmus as the man! At Brussels, he was continually bothered with visits
+from Spaniards, Italians and Germans who wanted to boast of their
+interviews with him. The Spaniards, with their verbose solemnity,
+particularly bored him. Most exuberant of all were the eulogies with
+which the German humanists greeted him in their letters. This had begun
+already on his first journey to Basle in 1514. 'Great Rotterdamer',
+'ornament of Germany', 'ornament of the world' were some of the simplest
+effusions. Town councils waited upon him, presents of wine and public
+banquets were of common occurrence. No one expresses himself so
+hyperbolically as the jurist Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg. 'I am pointed
+out in public', he asserts, 'as the man who has received a letter from
+Erasmus.' 'Thrice greatest hero, you great Jove' is a moderate
+apostrophe for him. 'The Swiss', Zwingli writes in 1516, 'account it a
+great glory to have seen Erasmus.' 'I know and I teach nothing but
+Erasmus now,' writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and Henry
+Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside Erasmus, as Alcibiades
+stood beside Socrates. And Beatus Rhenanus devotes to him a life of
+earnest admiration and helpfulness that was to prove of much more value
+than these exuberant panegyrics. There is an element of national
+exaltation in this German enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently
+stimulated mood into which Luther's word will fall anon.
+
+The other nations also chimed in with praise, though a little later and
+a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall promise him immortality,
+Étienne Poncher exalts him above the celebrated Italian humanists,
+Germain de Brie declares that French scholars have ceased reading any
+authors but Erasmus, and Budaeus announces that all Western Christendom
+resounds with his name.
+
+This increase of glory manifested itself in different ways. Almost every
+year the rumour of his death was spread abroad, malignantly, as he
+himself thinks. Again, all sorts of writings were ascribed to him in
+which he had no share whatever, amongst others the _Epistolae obscurorum
+virorum_.
+
+But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. The time was
+long since past when he asked More to procure him more correspondents.
+Letters now kept pouring in to him, from all sides, beseeching him to
+reply. A former pupil laments with tears that he cannot show a single
+note written by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully sought an introduction
+from one of his friends, before venturing to address him. In this
+respect Erasmus was a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to answer
+what he could, although so overwhelmed by letters every day that he
+hardly found time to read them. 'If I do not answer, I seem unkind,'
+says Erasmus, and that thought was intolerable.
+
+We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that time, occupied more
+or less the place of the newspaper at present, or rather of the literary
+monthly, which arose fairly directly out of erudite correspondence. It
+was, as in antiquity--which in this respect was imitated better and more
+profitably, perhaps, than in any other sphere--an art. Even before 1500
+Erasmus had, at Paris, described that art in the treatise, _De
+conscribendis epistolis_, which was to appear in print in 1522. People
+wrote, as a rule, with a view to later publication, for a wider circle,
+or at any rate, with the certainty that the recipient would show the
+letter to others. A fine Latin letter was a gem, which a man envied his
+neighbour. Erasmus writes to Budaeus: 'Tunstall has devoured your letter
+to me and re-read it as many as three or four times; I had literally to
+tear it from his hands.'
+
+Unfortunately fate did not always take into consideration the author's
+intentions as to publicity, semi-publicity or strict secrecy. Often
+letters passed through many hands before reaching their destination, as
+did Servatius's letter to Erasmus in 1514. 'Do be careful about
+letters,' he writes more than once; 'waylayers are on the lookout to
+intercept them.' Yet, with the curious precipitation that characterizes
+him, Erasmus was often very careless as to what he wrote. From an early
+age he preserved and cared for his letters, yet nevertheless, through
+his itinerant life, many were lost. He could not control their
+publication. As early as 1509 a friend sent him a manuscript volume of
+his own (Erasmus's) letters, that he had picked up for sale at Rome.
+Erasmus had it burnt at once. Since 1515 he himself superintended the
+publication of his letters; at first only a few important ones;
+afterwards in 1516 a selection of letters from friends to him, and after
+that ever larger collections till, at the end of his life, there
+appeared a new collection almost every year. No article was so much in
+demand on the book market as letters by Erasmus, and no wonder. They
+were models of excellent style, tasteful Latin, witty expression and
+elegant erudition.
+
+The semi-private, semi-public character of the letters often made them
+compromising. What one could say to a friend in confidence might
+possibly injure when many read it. Erasmus, who never was aware how
+injuriously he expressed himself, repeatedly gave rise to
+misunderstanding and estrangement. Manners, so to say, had not yet
+adapted themselves to the new art of printing, which increased the
+publicity of the written word a thousandfold. Only gradually under this
+new influence was the separation effected between the public word,
+intended for the press, and the private communication, which remains in
+writing and is read only by the recipient.
+
+Meanwhile, with the growth of Erasmus's fame, his earlier writings, too,
+had risen in the public estimation. The great success of the
+_Enchiridion militis christiani_ had begun about 1515, when the times
+were much riper for it than eleven years before. 'The _Moria_ is
+embraced as the highest wisdom,' writes John Watson to him in 1516. In
+the same year we find a word used, for the first time, which expresses
+better than anything else how much Erasmus had become a centre of
+authority: _Erasmiani_. So his German friends called themselves,
+according to Johannes Sapidus. More than a year later Dr. Johannes Eck
+employs the word still in a rather friendly sense, as a generally
+current term: 'all scholars in Germany are Erasmians,' he says. But
+Erasmus did not like the word. 'I find nothing in myself', he replies,
+'why anyone should wish to be an Erasmicus, and, altogether, I hate
+those party names. We are all followers of Christ, and to His glory we
+all drudge, each for his part.' But he knows that now the question is:
+for or against him! From the brilliant latinist and the man of wit of
+his prime he had become the international pivot on which the
+civilization of his age hinged. He could not help beginning to feel
+himself the brain, the heart and the conscience of his times. It might
+even appear to him that he was called to speak the great redeeming word
+or, perhaps, that he had already spoken it. The faith in an easy triumph
+of pure knowledge and Christian meekness in a near future speaks from
+the preface of Erasmus's edition of the New Testament.
+
+How clear did the future look in those years! In this period Erasmus
+repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of a golden age, which is on the
+point of dawning. Perennial peace is before the door. The highest
+princes of the world, Francis I of France, Charles, King of Spain, Henry
+VIII of England, and the emperor Maximilian have ensured peace by the
+strongest ties. Uprightness and Christian piety will flourish together
+with the revival of letters and the sciences. As at a given signal the
+mightiest minds conspire to restore a high standard of culture. We may
+congratulate the age, it will be a golden one.
+
+But Erasmus does not sound this note long. It is heard for the last time
+in 1519; after which the dream of universal happiness about to dawn
+gives place to the usual complaint about the badness of the times
+everywhere.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] For a full translation of this important letter see pp. 212-18.
+
+[14] The name Grunnius may have been taken from Jerome's epistles, where
+it is a nickname for a certain Ruffinus, whom Jerome disliked very much.
+It appears again in a letter of 5 March 1531, LB. X 1590 A.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ERASMUS'S MIND
+
+    Erasmus's mind: Ethical and aesthetic tendencies, aversion to
+    all that is unreasonable, silly and cumbrous--His vision of
+    antiquity pervaded by Christian faith--Renascence of good
+    learning--The ideal life of serene harmony and happy
+    wisdom--Love of the decorous and smooth--His mind neither
+    philosophic nor historical, but strongly philological and
+    moralistic--Freedom, clearness, purity, simplicity--Faith in
+    nature--Educational and social ideas
+
+
+What made Erasmus the man from whom his contemporaries expected their
+salvation, on whose lips they hung to catch the word of deliverance? He
+seemed to them the bearer of a new liberty of the mind, a new clearness,
+purity and simplicity of knowledge, a new harmony of healthy and right
+living. He was to them as the possessor of newly discovered, untold
+wealth which he had only to distribute.
+
+What was there in the mind of the great Rotterdamer which promised so
+much to the world?
+
+The negative aspect of Erasmus's mind may be defined as a heartfelt
+aversion to everything unreasonable, insipid, purely formal, with which
+the undisturbed growth of medieval culture had overburdened and
+overcrowded the world of thought. As often as he thinks of the
+ridiculous text-books out of which Latin was taught in his youth,
+disgust rises in his mind, and he execrates them--Mammetrectus,
+Brachylogus, Ebrardus and all the rest--as a heap of rubbish which ought
+to be cleared away. But this aversion to the superannuated, which had
+become useless and soulless, extended much farther. He found society,
+and especially religious life, full of practices, ceremonies, traditions
+and conceptions, from which the spirit seemed to have departed. He does
+not reject them offhand and altogether: what revolts him is that they
+are so often performed without understanding and right feeling. But to
+his mind, highly susceptible to the foolish and ridiculous things, and
+with a delicate need of high decorum and inward dignity, all that sphere
+of ceremony and tradition displays itself as a useless, nay, a hurtful
+scene of human stupidity and selfishness. And, intellectualist as he is,
+with his contempt for ignorance, he seems unaware that those religious
+observances, after all, may contain valuable sentiments of unexpressed
+and unformulated piety.
+
+Through his treatises, his letters, his _Colloquies_ especially, there
+always passes--as if one was looking at a gallery of Brueghel's
+pictures--a procession of ignorant and covetous monks who by their
+sanctimony and humbug impose upon the trustful multitude and fare
+sumptuously themselves. As a fixed motif (such motifs are numerous with
+Erasmus) there always recurs his gibe about the superstition that a
+person was saved by dying in the gown of a Franciscan or a Dominican.
+
+Fasting, prescribed prayers, the observance of holy days, should not be
+altogether neglected, but they become displeasing to God when we repose
+our trust in them and forget charity. The same holds good of confession,
+indulgence, all sorts of blessings. Pilgrimages are worthless. The
+veneration of the Saints and of their relics is full of superstition and
+foolishness. The people think they will be preserved from disasters
+during the day if only they have looked at the painted image of Saint
+Christopher in the morning. 'We kiss the shoes of the saints and their
+dirty handkerchiefs and we leave their books, their most holy and
+efficacious relics, neglected.'
+
+Erasmus's dislike of what seemed antiquated and worn out in his days,
+went farther still. It comprised the whole intellectual scheme of
+medieval theology and philosophy. In the syllogistic system he found
+only subtlety and arid ingenuity. All symbolism and allegory were
+fundamentally alien to him and indifferent, though he occasionally tried
+his hand at an allegory; and he never was mystically inclined.
+
+Now here it is just as much the deficiencies of his own mind as the
+qualities of the system which made him unable to appreciate it. While he
+struck at the abuse of ceremonies and of Church practices both with
+noble indignation and well-aimed mockery, a proud irony to which he was
+not fully entitled preponderates in his condemnation of scholastic
+theology which he could not quite understand. It was easy always to talk
+with a sneer of the conservative divines of his time as _magistri
+nostri_.
+
+His noble indignation hurt only those who deserved castigation and
+strengthened what was valuable, but his mockery hurt the good as well as
+the bad in spite of him, assailed both the institution and persons, and
+injured without elevating them. The individualist Erasmus never
+understood what it meant to offend the honour of an office, an order, or
+an establishment, especially when that institution is the most sacred of
+all, the Church itself.
+
+Erasmus's conception of the Church was no longer purely Catholic. Of
+that glorious structure of medieval-Christian civilization with its
+mystic foundation, its strict hierarchic construction, its splendidly
+fitting symmetry he saw hardly anything but its load of outward details
+and ornament. Instead of the world which Thomas Aquinas and Dante had
+described, according to their vision, Erasmus saw another world, full of
+charm and elevated feeling, and this he held up before his compatriots.
+
+[Illustration: XV. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS]
+
+It was the world of Antiquity, but illuminated throughout by Christian
+faith. It was a world that had never existed as such. For with the
+historical reality which the times of Constantine and the great fathers
+of the Church had manifested--that of declining Latinity and
+deteriorating Hellenism, the oncoming barbarism and the oncoming
+Byzantinism--it had nothing in common. Erasmus's imagined world was an
+amalgamation of pure classicism (this meant for him, Cicero, Horace,
+Plutarch; for to the flourishing period of the Greek mind he remained
+after all a stranger) and pure, biblical Christianity. Could it be a
+union? Not really. In Erasmus's mind the light falls, just as we saw in
+the history of his career, alternately on the pagan antique and on the
+Christian. But the warp of his mind is Christian; his classicism only
+serves him as a form, and from Antiquity he only chooses those elements
+which in ethical tendency are in conformity with his Christian ideal.
+
+[Illustration: XVI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57]
+
+And because of this, Erasmus, although he appeared after a century of
+earlier Humanism, is yet new to his time. The union of Antiquity and the
+Christian spirit which had haunted the mind of Petrarch, the father of
+Humanism, which was lost sight of by his disciples, enchanted as they
+were by the irresistible brilliance of the antique beauty of form, this
+union was brought about by Erasmus.
+
+What pure Latinity and the classic spirit meant to Erasmus we cannot
+feel as he did because its realization does not mean to us, as to him, a
+difficult conquest and a glorious triumph. To feel it thus one must have
+acquired, in a hard school, the hatred of barbarism, which already
+during his first years of authorship had suggested the composition of
+the _Antibarbari_. The abusive term for all that is old and rude is
+already Gothic, Goths. The term barbarism as used by Erasmus comprised
+much of what we value most in the medieval spirit. Erasmus's conception
+of the great intellectual crisis of his day was distinctly dualistic. He
+saw it as a struggle between old and new, which, to him, meant evil and
+good. In the advocates of tradition he saw only obscurantism,
+conservatism, and ignorant opposition to _bonae literae_, that is, the
+good cause for which he and his partisans battled. Of the rise of that
+higher culture Erasmus had already formed the conception which has since
+dominated the history of the Renaissance. It was a revival, begun two or
+three hundred years before his time, in which, besides literature, all
+the plastic arts shared. Side by side with the terms restitution and
+reflorescence the word renascence crops up repeatedly in his writings.
+'The world is coming to its senses as if awaking out of a deep sleep.
+Still there are some left who recalcitrate pertinaciously, clinging
+convulsively with hands and feet to their old ignorance. They fear that
+if _bonae literae_ are reborn and the world grows wise, it will come to
+light that they have known nothing.' They do not know how pious the
+Ancients could be, what sanctity characterizes Socrates, Virgil, and
+Horace, or Plutarch's _Moralia_, how rich the history of Antiquity is in
+examples of forgiveness and true virtue. We should call nothing profane
+that is pious and conduces to good morals. No more dignified view of
+life was ever found than that which Cicero propounds in _De Senectute_.
+
+In order to understand Erasmus's mind and the charm which it had for his
+contemporaries, one must begin with the ideal of life that was present
+before his inward eye as a splendid dream. It is not his own in
+particular. The whole Renaissance cherished that wish of reposeful,
+blithe, and yet serious intercourse of good and wise friends in the cool
+shade of a house under trees, where serenity and harmony would dwell.
+The age yearned for the realization of simplicity, sincerity, truth and
+nature. Their imagination was always steeped in the essence of
+Antiquity, though, at heart, it is more nearly connected with medieval
+ideals than they themselves were aware. In the circle of the Medici it
+is the idyll of Careggi, in Rabelais it embodies itself in the fancy of
+the abbey of Thélème; it finds voice in More's _Utopia_ and in the work
+of Montaigne. In Erasmus's writings that ideal wish ever recurs in the
+shape of a friendly walk, followed by a meal in a garden-house. It is
+found as an opening scene of the _Antibarbari_, in the numerous
+descriptions of meals with Colet, and the numerous _Convivia_ of the
+_Colloquies_. Especially in the _Convivium religiosum_ Erasmus has
+elaborately pictured his dream, and it would be worth while to compare
+it, on the one hand with Thélème, and on the other with the fantastic
+design of a pleasure garden which Bernard Palissy describes. The little
+Dutch eighteenth-century country-seats and garden-houses in which the
+national spirit took great delight are the fulfilment of a purely
+Erasmian ideal. The host of the _Convivium religiosum_ says: 'To me a
+simple country-house, a nest, is pleasanter than any palace, and, if he
+be king who lives in freedom and according to his wishes, surely I am
+king here'.
+
+Life's true joy is in virtue and piety. If they are Epicureans who live
+pleasantly, then none are more truly Epicureans than they who live in
+holiness and piety.
+
+The ideal joy of life is also perfectly idyllic in so far that it
+requires an aloofness from earthly concerns and contempt for all that is
+sordid. It is foolish to be interested in all that happens in the world;
+to pride oneself on one's knowledge of the market, of the King of
+England's plans, the news from Rome, conditions in Denmark. The sensible
+old man of the _Colloquium Senile_ has an easy post of honour, a safe
+mediocrity, he judges no one and nothing and smiles upon all the world.
+Quiet for oneself, surrounded by books--that is of all things most
+desirable.
+
+On the outskirts of this ideal of serenity and harmony numerous flowers
+of aesthetic value blow, such as Erasmus's sense of decorum, his great
+need of kindly courtesy, his pleasure in gentle and obliging treatment,
+in cultured and easy manners. Close by are some of his intellectual
+peculiarities. He hates the violent and extravagant. Therefore the
+choruses of the Greek drama displease him. The merit of his own poems he
+sees in the fact that they pass passion by, they abstain from pathos
+altogether--'there is not a single storm in them, no mountain torrent
+overflowing its banks, no exaggeration whatever. There is great
+frugality in words. My poetry would rather keep within bounds than
+exceed them, rather hug the shore than cleave the high seas.' In another
+place he says: 'I am always most pleased by a poem that does not differ
+too much from prose, but prose of the best sort, be it understood. As
+Philoxenus accounted those the most palatable fishes that are no true
+fishes and the most savoury meat what is no meat, the most pleasant
+voyage, that along the shores, and the most agreeable walk, that along
+the water's edge; so I take especial pleasure in a rhetorical poem and a
+poetical oration, so that poetry is tasted in prose and the reverse.'
+That is the man of half-tones, of fine shadings, of the thought that is
+never completely expressed. But he adds: 'Farfetched conceits may please
+others; to me the chief concern seems to be that we draw our speech from
+the matter itself and apply ourselves less to showing off our invention
+than to present the thing.' That is the realist.
+
+From this conception results his admirable, simple clarity, the
+excellent division and presentation of his argument. But it also causes
+his lack of depth and the prolixity by which he is characterized. His
+machine runs too smoothly. In the endless _apologiae_ of his later
+years, ever new arguments occur to him; new passages to point, or
+quotations to support, his idea. He praises laconism, but never
+practises it. Erasmus never coins a sentence which, rounded off and
+pithy, becomes a proverb and in this manner lives. There are no current
+quotations from Erasmus. The collector of the _Adagia_ has created no
+new ones of his own.
+
+The true occupation for a mind like his was paraphrasing, in which,
+indeed, he amply indulged. Soothing down and unfolding was just the work
+he liked. It is characteristic that he paraphrased the whole New
+Testament except the Apocalypse.
+
+Erasmus's mind was neither philosophic nor historic. His was neither the
+work of exact, logical discrimination, nor of grasping the deep sense of
+the way of the world in broad historical visions in which the
+particulars themselves, in their multiplicity and variegation, form the
+image. His mind is philological in the fullest sense of the word. But by
+that alone he would not have conquered and captivated the world. His
+mind was at the same time of a deeply ethical and rather strong
+aesthetic trend and those three together have made him great.
+
+The foundation of Erasmus's mind is his fervent desire of freedom,
+clearness, purity, simplicity and rest. It is an old ideal of life to
+which he gave new substance by the wealth of his mind. Without liberty,
+life is no life; and there is no liberty without repose. The fact that
+he never took sides definitely resulted from an urgent need of perfect
+independence. Each engagement, even a temporary one, was felt as a
+fetter by Erasmus. An interlocutor in the _Colloquies_, in which he so
+often, spontaneously, reveals his own ideals of life, declares himself
+determined neither to marry, nor to take holy orders, nor to enter a
+monastery, nor into any connection from which he will afterwards be
+unable to free himself--at least not before he knows himself completely.
+'When will that be? Never, perhaps.' 'On no other account do I
+congratulate myself more than on the fact that I have never attached
+myself to any party,' Erasmus says towards the end of his life.
+
+Liberty should be spiritual liberty in the first place. 'But he that is
+spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man,' is
+the word of Saint Paul. To what purpose should he require prescriptions
+who, of his own accord, does better things than human laws require? What
+arrogance it is to bind by institutions a man who is clearly led by the
+inspirations of the divine spirit!
+
+In Erasmus we already find the beginning of that optimism which judges
+upright man good enough to dispense with fixed forms and rules. As More,
+in _Utopia_, and Rabelais, Erasmus relies already on the dictates of
+nature, which produces man as inclined to good and which we may follow,
+provided we are imbued with faith and piety.
+
+In this line of confidence in what is natural and desire of the simple
+and reasonable, Erasmus's educational and social ideas lie. Here he is
+far ahead of his times. It would be an attractive undertaking to discuss
+Erasmus's educational ideals more fully. They foreshadow exactly those
+of the eighteenth century. The child should learn in playing, by means
+of things that are agreeable to its mind, from pictures. Its faults
+should be gently corrected. The flogging and abusive schoolmaster is
+Erasmus's abomination; the office itself is holy and venerable to him.
+Education should begin from the moment of birth. Probably Erasmus
+attached too much value to classicism, here as elsewhere: his friend
+Peter Gilles should implant the rudiments of the ancient languages in
+his two-year-old son, that he may greet his father with endearing
+stammerings in Greek and Latin. But what gentleness and clear good sense
+shines from all Erasmus says about instruction and education!
+
+The same holds good of his views about marriage and woman. In the
+problem of sexual relations he distinctly sides with the woman from deep
+conviction. There is a great deal of tenderness and delicate feeling in
+his conception of the position of the girl and the woman. Few characters
+of the _Colloquies_ have been drawn with so much sympathy as the girl
+with the lover and the cultured woman in the witty conversation with the
+abbot. Erasmus's ideal of marriage is truly social and hygienic. Let us
+beget children for the State and for Christ, says the lover, children
+endowed by their upright parents with a good disposition, children who
+see the good example at home which is to guide them. Again and again he
+reverts to the mother's duty to suckle the child herself. He indicates
+how the house should be arranged, in a simple and cleanly manner; he
+occupies himself with the problem of useful children's dress. Who stood
+up at that time, as he did, for the fallen girl, and for the prostitute
+compelled by necessity? Who saw so clearly the social danger of
+marriages of persons infected with the new scourge of Europe, so
+violently abhorred by Erasmus? He would wish that such a marriage should
+at once be declared null and void by the Pope. Erasmus does not hold
+with the easy social theory, still quite current in the literature of
+his time, which casts upon women all the blame of adultery and lewdness.
+With the savages who live in a state of nature, he says, the adultery of
+men is punished, but that of women is forgiven.
+
+Here it appears, at the same time, that Erasmus knew, be it half in
+jest, the conception of natural virtue and happiness of naked islanders
+in a savage state. It soon crops up again in Montaigne and the following
+centuries develop it into a literary dogma.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ERASMUS'S MIND-CONTINUED
+
+    Erasmus's mind: Intellectual tendencies--The world encumbered by
+    beliefs and forms--Truth must be simple--Back to the pure
+    sources--Holy Scripture in the original languages--Biblical
+    humanism--Critical work on the texts of Scripture--Practice
+    better than dogma--Erasmus's talent and wit--Delight in words
+    and things--Prolixity--Observation of details--A veiled
+    realism--Ambiguousness--The 'Nuance'--Inscrutability of the
+    ultimate ground of all things
+
+
+Simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness, those are to
+Erasmus the dominant requirements, also when we pass from his ethical
+and aesthetic concepts to his intellectual point of view; indeed, the
+two can hardly be kept apart.
+
+The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with human constitutions and
+opinions and scholastic dogmas, and overburdened with the tyrannical
+authority of orders, and because of all this the strength of gospel
+doctrine is flagging. Faith requires simplification, he argued. What
+would the Turks say of our scholasticism? Colet wrote to him one day:
+'There is no end to books and science. Let us, therefore, leave all
+roundabout roads and go by a short cut to the truth.'
+
+Truth must be simple. 'The language of truth is simple, says Seneca;
+well then, nothing is simpler nor truer than Christ.' 'I should wish',
+Erasmus says elsewhere, 'that this simple and pure Christ might be
+deeply impressed upon the mind of men, and that I deem best attainable
+in this way, that we, supported by our knowledge of the original
+languages, should philosophize _at the sources_ themselves.'
+
+Here a new watchword comes to the fore: back to the sources! It is not
+merely an intellectual, philological requirement; it is equally an
+ethical and aesthetic necessity of life. The original and pure, all that
+is not yet overgrown or has not passed through many hands, has such a
+potent charm. Erasmus compared it to an apple which we ourselves pick
+off the tree. To recall the world to the ancient simplicity of science,
+to lead it back from the now turbid pools to those living and most pure
+fountain-heads, those most limpid sources of gospel doctrine--thus he
+saw the task of divinity. The metaphor of the limpid water is not
+without meaning here; it reveals the psychological quality of Erasmus's
+fervent principle.
+
+'How is it', he exclaims, 'that people give themselves so much trouble
+about the details of all sorts of remote philosophical systems and
+neglect to go to the sources of Christianity itself?' 'Although this
+wisdom, which is so excellent that once for all it put the wisdom of all
+the world to shame, may be drawn from these few books, as from a
+crystalline source, with far less trouble than is the wisdom of
+Aristotle from so many thorny books and with much more fruit.... The
+equipment for that journey is simple and at everyone's immediate
+disposal. This philosophy is accessible to everybody. Christ desires
+that his mysteries shall be spread as widely as possible. I should wish
+that all good wives read the Gospel and Paul's Epistles; that they were
+translated into all languages; that out of these the husbandman sang
+while ploughing, the weaver at his loom; that with such stories the
+traveller should beguile his wayfaring.... This sort of philosophy is
+rather a matter of disposition than of syllogisms, rather of life than
+of disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition, rather of
+transformation than of logic.... What is the philosophy of Christ, which
+he himself calls _Renascentia_, but the insaturation of Nature created
+good?--moreover, though no one has taught us this so absolutely and
+effectively as Christ, yet also in pagan books much may be found that is
+in accordance with it.'
+
+Such was the view of life of this biblical humanist. As often as Erasmus
+reverts to these matters, his voice sounds clearest. 'Let no one', he
+says in the preface to the notes to the New Testament, 'take up this
+work, as he takes up Gellius's _Noctes atticae_ or Poliziano's
+Miscellanies.... We are in the presence of holy things; here it is no
+question of eloquence, these matters are best recommended to the world
+by simplicity and purity; it would be ridiculous to display human
+erudition here, impious to pride oneself on human eloquence.' But
+Erasmus never was so eloquent himself as just then.
+
+What here raises him above his usual level of force and fervour is the
+fact that he fights a battle, the battle for the right of biblical
+criticism. It revolts him that people should study Holy Scripture in the
+Vulgate when they know that the texts show differences and are corrupt,
+although we have the Greek text by which to go back to the original form
+and primary meaning.
+
+He is now reproached because he dares, as a mere grammarian, to assail
+the text of Holy Scripture on the score of futile mistakes or
+irregularities. 'Details they are, yes, but because of these details we
+sometimes see even great divines stumble and rave.' Philological
+trifling is necessary. 'Why are we so precise as to our food, our
+clothes, our money-matters and why does this accuracy displease us in
+divine literature alone? He crawls along the ground, they say, he
+wearies himself out about words and syllables! Why do we slight any word
+of Him whom we venerate and worship under the name of the Word? But, be
+it so! Let whoever wishes imagine that I have not been able to achieve
+anything better, and out of sluggishness of mind and coldness of heart
+or lack of erudition have taken this lowest task upon myself; it is
+still a Christian idea to think all work good that is done with pious
+zeal. We bring along the bricks, but to build the temple of God.'
+
+He does not want to be intractable. Let the Vulgate be kept for use in
+the liturgy, for sermons, in schools, but he who, at home, reads our
+edition, will understand his own the better in consequence. He, Erasmus,
+is prepared to render account and acknowledge himself to have been wrong
+when convicted of error.
+
+Erasmus perhaps never quite realized how much his philological-critical
+method must shake the foundations of the Church. He was surprised at his
+adversaries 'who could not but believe that all their authority would
+perish at once when the sacred books might be read in a purified form,
+and when people tried to understand them in the original'. He did not
+feel what the unassailable authority of a sacred book meant. He rejoices
+because Holy Scripture is approached so much more closely, because all
+sorts of shadings are brought to light by considering not only what is
+said but also by whom, for whom, at what time, on what occasion, what
+precedes and what follows, in short, by the method of historical
+philological criticism. To him it seemed so especially pious when
+reading Scripture and coming across a place which seemed contrary to the
+doctrine of Christ or the divinity of his nature, to believe rather that
+one did not understand the phrase _or that the text might be corrupt_.
+Unperceived he passed from emendation of the different versions to the
+correction of the contents. The epistles were not all written by the
+apostles to whom they are attributed. The apostles themselves made
+mistakes, at times.
+
+The foundation of his spiritual life was no longer a unity to Erasmus.
+It was, on the one hand, a strong desire for an upright, simple, pure
+and homely belief, the earnest wish to be a good Christian. But it was
+also the irresistible intellectual and aesthetic need of the good taste,
+the harmony, the clear and exact expression of the Ancients, the dislike
+of what was cumbrous and involved. Erasmus thought that good learning
+might render good service for the necessary purification of the faith
+and its forms. The measure of church hymns should be corrected. That
+Christian expression and classicism were incompatible, he never
+believed. The man who in the sphere of sacred studies asked every author
+for his credentials remained unconscious of the fact that he
+acknowledged the authority of the Ancients without any evidence. How
+naïvely he appeals to Antiquity, again and again, to justify some bold
+feat! He is critical, they say? Were not the Ancients critical? He
+permits himself to insert digressions? So did the Ancients, etc.
+
+Erasmus is in profound sympathy with that revered Antiquity by his
+fundamental conviction that it is the practice of life which matters.
+Not he is the great philosopher who knows the tenets of the Stoics or
+Peripatetics by rote--but he who expresses the meaning of philosophy by
+his life and his morals, for that is its purpose. He is truly a divine
+who teaches, not by artful syllogisms, but by his disposition, by his
+face and his eyes, by his life itself, that wealth should be despised.
+To live up to that standard is what Christ himself calls _Renascentia_.
+Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only. But in that sense it
+is closely allied to the idea of the Renaissance as a historical
+phenomenon. The worldly and pagan sides of the Renaissance have nearly
+always been overrated. Erasmus is, much more than Aretino or
+Castiglione, the representative of the spirit of his age, one over whose
+Christian sentiment the sweet gale of Antiquity had passed. And that
+very union of strong Christian endeavour and the spirit of Antiquity is
+the explanation of Erasmus's wonderful success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mere intention and the contents of the mind do not influence the
+world, if the form of expression does not cooperate. In Erasmus the
+quality of his talent is a very important factor. His perfect clearness
+and ease of expression, his liveliness, wit, imagination, gusto and
+humour have lent a charm to all he wrote which to his contemporaries was
+irresistible and captivates even us, as soon as we read him. In all that
+constitutes his talent, Erasmus is perfectly and altogether a
+representative of the Renaissance. There is, in the first place, his
+eternal _à propos_. What he writes is never vague, never dark--it is
+always plausible. Everything seemingly flows of itself like a fountain.
+It always rings true as to tone, turn of phrase and accent. It has
+almost the light harmony of Ariosto. And it is, like Ariosto, never
+tragic, never truly heroic. It carries us away, indeed, but it is never
+itself truly enraptured.
+
+The more artistic aspects of Erasmus's talent come out most
+clearly--though they are everywhere in evidence--in those two
+recreations after more serious labour, the _Moriae Encomium_ and the
+_Colloquia_. But just those two have been of enormous importance for his
+influence upon his times. For while Jerome reached tens of readers and
+the New Testament hundreds, the _Moria_ and _Colloquies_ went out to
+thousands. And their importance is heightened in that Erasmus has
+nowhere else expressed himself so spontaneously.
+
+In each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely formulary ones,
+there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a satire. There is
+hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression without a vivid
+fancy. There are unrivalled niceties. The abbot of the _Abbatis et
+eruditae colloquium_ is a Molière character. It should be noticed how
+well Erasmus always sustains his characters and his scenes, because he
+_sees_ them. In 'The woman in childbed' he never forgets for a moment
+that Eutrapelus is an artist. At the end of 'The game of knucklebones',
+when the interlocutors, after having elucidated the whole nomenclature
+of the Latin game of knuckle-bones, are going to play themselves,
+Carolus says: 'but shut the door first, lest the cook should see us
+playing like two boys'.
+
+As Holbein illustrated the _Moria_, we should wish to possess the
+_Colloquia_ with illustrations by Brueghel, so closely allied is
+Erasmus's witty clear vision of incidents to that of this great master.
+The procession of drunkards on Palm Sunday, the saving of the
+shipwrecked crew, the old men waiting for the travelling cart while the
+drivers are still drinking, all these are Dutch genre pieces of the best
+sort.
+
+We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance. Erasmus is certainly
+a realist in the sense of having an insatiable hunger for knowledge of
+the tangible world. He wants to know things and their names: the
+particulars of each thing, be it never so remote, such as those terms of
+games and rules of games of the Romans. Read carefully the description
+of the decorative painting on the garden-house of the _Convivium
+religiosum_: it is nothing but an object lesson, a graphic
+representation of the forms of reality.
+
+In its joy over the material universe and the supple, pliant word, the
+Renaissance revels in a profusion of imagery and expressions. The
+resounding enumerations of names and things, which Rabelais always
+gives, are not unknown to Erasmus, but he uses them for intellectual and
+useful purposes. In _De copia verborum ac rerum_ one feat of varied
+power of expression succeeds another--he gives fifty ways of saying:
+'Your letter has given me much pleasure,' or, 'I think that it is going
+to rain'. The aesthetic impulse is here that of a theme and variations:
+to display all the wealth and mutations of the logic of language.
+Elsewhere, too, Erasmus indulges this proclivity for accumulating the
+treasures of his genius; he and his contemporaries can never restrain
+themselves from giving all the instances instead of one: in _Ratio verae
+theologiae_, in _De pronuntiatione_, in _Lingua_, in _Ecclesiastes_. The
+collections of _Adagia_, _Parabolae_, and _Apophthegmata_ are altogether
+based on this eagerness of the Renaissance (which, by the way, was an
+inheritance of the Middle Ages themselves) to luxuriate in the wealth of
+the tangible world, to revel in words and things.
+
+The senses are open for the nice observation of the curious. Though
+Erasmus does not know that need of proving the secrets of nature, which
+inspired a Leonardo da Vinci, a Paracelsus, a Vesalius, he is also, by
+his keen observation, a child of his time. For peculiarities in the
+habits and customs of nations he has an open eye. He notices the gait of
+Swiss soldiers, how dandies sit, how Picards pronounce French. He
+notices that in old pictures the sitters are always represented with
+half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, and how
+some Spaniards still honour this expression in life, while German art
+prefers lips pouting as for a kiss. His lively sense of anecdote, to
+which he gives the rein in all his writings, belongs here.
+
+And, in spite of all his realism, the world which Erasmus sees and
+renders, is not altogether that of the sixteenth century. Everything is
+veiled by Latin. Between the author's mind and reality intervenes his
+antique diction. At bottom the world of his mind is imaginary. It is a
+subdued and limited sixteenth-century reality which he reflects.
+Together with its coarseness he lacks all that is violent and direct in
+his times. Compared with the artists, with Luther and Calvin, with the
+statesmen, the navigators, the soldiers and the scientists, Erasmus
+confronts the world as a recluse. It is only the influence of Latin. In
+spite of all his receptiveness and sensitiveness, Erasmus is never fully
+in contact with life. All through his work not a bird sings, not a wind
+rustles.
+
+But that reserve or fear of directness is not merely a negative quality.
+It also results from a consciousness of the indefiniteness of the ground
+of all things, from the awe of the ambiguity of all that is. If Erasmus
+so often hovers over the borderline between earnestness and mockery, if
+he hardly ever gives an incisive conclusion, it is not only due to
+cautiousness, and fear to commit himself. Everywhere he sees the
+shadings, the blending of the meaning of words. The terms of things are
+no longer to him, as to the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals mounted
+in gold, or as stars in the firmament. 'I like assertions so little that
+I would easily take sides with the sceptics whereever it is allowed by
+the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the decrees of the
+Church.' 'What is exempt from error?' All subtle contentions of
+theological speculation arise from a dangerous curiosity and lead to
+impious audacity. What have all the great controversies about the
+Trinity and the Virgin Mary profited? 'We have defined so much that
+without danger to our salvation might have remained unknown or
+undecided.... The essentials of our religion are peace and unanimity.
+These can hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few points as
+possible and leave many questions to individual judgement. Numerous
+problems are now postponed till the oecumenical Council. It would be
+much better to put off such questions till the time when the glass shall
+be removed and the darkness cleared away, and we shall see God face to
+face.'
+
+'There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed
+that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate there, we grope in ever
+deeper darkness the farther we proceed, so that we recognize, in this
+manner, too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdom and the imbecility
+of human understanding.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ERASMUS'S CHARACTER
+
+    Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness--
+    Delicacy--Dislike of contention, need of concord and
+    friendship--Aversion to disturbance of any kind--Too much
+    concerned about other men's opinions--Need of self-
+    justification--Himself never in the wrong--Correlation
+    between inclinations and convictions--Ideal image of
+    himself--Dissatisfaction with himself--Self-centredness--A
+    solitary at heart--Fastidiousness--Suspiciousness--Morbid
+    mistrust--Unhappiness--Restlessness--Unsolved contradictions of
+    his being--Horror of lies--Reserve and insinuation
+
+
+Erasmus's powerful mind met with a great response in the heart of his
+contemporaries and had a lasting influence on the march of civilization.
+But one of the heroes of history he cannot be called. Was not his
+failure to attain to still loftier heights partly due to the fact that
+his character was not on a level with the elevation of his mind?
+
+And yet that character, a very complicated one, though he took himself
+to be the simplest man in the world, was determined by the same factors
+which determined the structure of his mind. Again and again we find in
+his inclinations the correlates of his convictions.
+
+At the root of his moral being we find--a key to the understanding of
+his character--that same profound need of purity which drove him to the
+sources of sacred science. Purity in the material and the moral sense is
+what he desires for himself and others, always and in all things. Few
+things revolt him so much as the practices of vintners who doctor wine
+and dealers who adulterate food. If he continually chastens his language
+and style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse
+which prompts his passionate desire for cleanliness and brightness, of
+the home and of the body. He has a violent dislike of stuffy air and
+smelly substances. He regularly takes a roundabout way to avoid a
+malodorous lane; he loathes shambles and fishmongers' shops. Fetors
+spread infection, he thinks. Erasmus had, earlier than most people,
+antiseptic ideas about the danger of infection in the foul air of
+crowded inns, in the breath of confessants, in baptismal water. Throw
+aside common cups, he pleaded; let everybody shave himself, let us be
+cleanly as to bed-sheets, let us not kiss each other by way of greeting.
+The fear of the horrible venereal disease, imported into Europe during
+his lifetime, and of which Erasmus watched the unbridled propagation
+with solicitude, increases his desire for purity. Too little is being
+done to stop it, he thinks. He cautions against suspected inns; he wants
+to have measures taken against the marriages of syphilitic persons. In
+his undignified attitude towards Hutten his physical and moral aversion
+to the man's evil plays an unmistakable part.
+
+Erasmus is a delicate soul in all his fibres. His body forces him to be
+that. He is highly sensitive, among other things very susceptible to
+cold, 'the scholars' disorder', as he calls it. Early in life already
+the painful malady of the stone begins to torment him, which he resisted
+so bravely when his work was at stake. He always speaks in a coddling
+tone about his little body, which cannot stand fasting, which must be
+kept fit by some exercise, namely riding, and for which he carefully
+tries to select a suitable climate. He is at times circumstantial in the
+description of his ailments.[15] He has to be very careful in the matter
+of his sleep; if once he wakes up, he finds it difficult to go to sleep
+again, and because of that has often to lose the morning, the best time
+to work and which is so dear to him. He cannot stand cold, wind and fog,
+but still less overheated rooms. How he has execrated the German stoves,
+which are burned nearly all the year through and made Germany almost
+unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we have spoken above. It is
+not only the plague which he flees--for fear of catching cold he gives
+up a journey from Louvain to Antwerp, where his friend Peter Gilles is
+in mourning. Although he realizes quite well that 'often a great deal of
+the disease is in the imagination', yet his own imagination leaves him
+no peace. Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death.
+
+His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and fresh air, this last
+item in moderation: he takes the vicinity of the sea to be unwholesome
+and is afraid of draughts. His friend Gilles, who is ill, he advises:
+'Do not take too much medicine, keep quiet and do not get angry'. Though
+there is a 'Praise of Medicine' among his works, he does not think
+highly of physicians and satirizes them more than once in the
+_Colloquies_.
+
+Also in his outward appearance there were certain features betraying his
+delicacy. He was of medium height, well-made, of a fair complexion with
+blond hair and blue eyes, a cheerful face, a very articulate mode of
+speech, but a thin voice.
+
+In the moral sphere Erasmus's delicacy is represented by his great need
+of friendship and concord, his dislike of contention. With him peace and
+harmony rank above all other considerations, and he confesses them to be
+the guiding principles of his actions. He would, if it might be, have
+all the world as a friend. 'Wittingly I discharge no one from my
+friendship,' he says. And though he was sometimes capricious and
+exacting towards his friends, yet a truly great friend he was: witness
+the many who never forsook him, or whom he, after a temporary
+estrangement, always won back--More, Peter Gilles, Fisher, Ammonius,
+Budaeus, and others too numerous to mention. 'He was most constant in
+keeping up friendships,' says Beatus Rhenanus, whose own attachment to
+Erasmus is a proof of the strong affection he could inspire.
+
+At the root of this desire of friendship lies a great and sincere need
+of affection. Remember the effusions of almost feminine affection
+towards Servatius during his monastic period. But at the same time it is
+a sort of moral serenity that makes him so: an aversion to disturbance,
+to whatever is harsh and inharmonious. He calls it 'a certain occult
+natural sense' which makes him abhor strife. He cannot abide being at
+loggerheads with anyone. He always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep
+his pen unbloody, to attack no one, to provoke no one, even if he were
+attacked. But his enemies had not willed it, and in later years he
+became well accustomed to bitter polemics, with Lefèvre d'Étaples, with
+Lee, with Egmondanus, with Hutten, with Luther, with Beda, with the
+Spaniards, and the Italians. At first it is still noticeable how he
+suffers by it, how contention wounds him, so that he cannot bear the
+pain in silence. 'Do let us be friends again,' he begs Lefèvre, who does
+not reply. The time which he had to devote to his polemics he regards as
+lost. 'I feel myself getting more heavy every day,' he writes in 1520,
+'not so much on account of my age as because of the restless labour of
+my studies, nay more even by the weariness of disputes than by the work,
+which, in itself, is agreeable.' And how much strife was still in store
+for him then!
+
+If only Erasmus had been less concerned about public opinion! But that
+seemed impossible: he had a fear of men, or, we may call it, a fervent
+need of justification. He would always see beforehand, and usually in
+exaggerated colours, the effect his word or deed would have upon men. Of
+himself, it was certainly true as he once wrote: that the craving for
+fame has less sharp spurs than the fear of ignominy. Erasmus is with
+Rousseau among those who cannot bear the consciousness of guilt, out of
+a sort of mental cleanliness. Not to be able to repay a benefit with
+interest, makes him ashamed and sad. He cannot abide 'dunning creditors,
+unperformed duty, neglect of the need of a friend'. If he cannot
+discharge the obligation, he explains it away. The Dutch historian Fruin
+has quite correctly observed: 'Whatever Erasmus did contrary to his duty
+and his rightly understood interests was the fault of circumstances or
+wrong advice; he is never to blame himself'. And what he has thus
+justified for himself becomes with him universal law: 'God relieves
+people of pernicious vows, if only they repent of them,' says the man
+who himself had broken a vow.
+
+There is in Erasmus a dangerous fusion between inclination and
+conviction. The correlations between his idiosyncrasies and his precepts
+are undeniable. This has special reference to his point of view in the
+matter of fasting and abstinence from meat. He too frequently vents his
+own aversion to fish, or talks of his inability to postpone meals, not
+to make this connection clear to everybody. In the same way his personal
+experience in the monastery passes into his disapproval, on principle,
+of monastic life.
+
+The distortion of the image of his youth in his memory, to which we have
+referred, is based on that need of self-justification. It is all
+unconscious interpretation of the undeniable facts to suit the ideal
+which Erasmus had made of himself and to which he honestly thinks he
+answers. The chief features of that self-conceived picture are a
+remarkable, simple sincerity and frankness, which make it impossible to
+him to dissemble; inexperience and carelessness in the ordinary concerns
+of life and a total lack of ambition. All this is true in the first
+instance: there is a superficial Erasmus who answers to that image, but
+it is not the whole Erasmus; there is a deeper one who is almost the
+opposite and whom he himself does not know because he will not know him.
+Possibly because behind this there is a still deeper being, which is
+truly good.
+
+Does he not ascribe weaknesses to himself? Certainly. He is, in spite of
+his self-coddling, ever dissatisfied with himself and his work.
+_Putidulus_, he calls himself, meaning the quality of never being
+content with himself. It is that peculiarity which makes him
+dissatisfied with any work of his directly after it has appeared, so
+that he always keeps revising and supplementing. 'Pusillanimous' he
+calls himself in writing to Colet. But again he cannot help giving
+himself credit for acknowledging that quality, nay, converting that
+quality itself into a virtue: it is modesty, the opposite of boasting
+and self-love.
+
+This bashfulness about himself is the reason that he does not love his
+own physiognomy, and is only persuaded with difficulty by his friends to
+sit for a portrait. His own appearance is not heroic or dignified enough
+for him, and he is not duped by an artist who flatters him: 'Heigh-ho,'
+he exclaims, on seeing Holbein's thumbnail sketch illustrating the
+_Moria_: 'if Erasmus still looked like that, he would take a wife at
+once'. It is that deep trait of dissatisfaction that suggests the
+inscription on his portraits: 'his writings will show you a better
+image'.
+
+Erasmus's modesty and the contempt which he displays of the fame that
+fell to his lot are of a somewhat rhetorical character. But in this we
+should not so much see a personal trait of Erasmus as a general form
+common to all humanists. On the other hand, this mood cannot be called
+altogether artificial. His books, which he calls his children, have not
+turned out well. He does not think they will live. He does not set store
+by his letters: he publishes them because his friends insist upon it. He
+writes his poems to try a new pen. He hopes that geniuses will soon
+appear who will eclipse him, so that Erasmus will pass for a stammerer.
+What is fame? A pagan survival. He is fed up with it to repletion and
+would do nothing more gladly than cast it off.
+
+Sometimes another note escapes him. If Lee would help him in his
+endeavours, Erasmus would make him immortal, he had told the former in
+their first conversation. And he threatens an unknown adversary, 'If you
+go on so impudently to assail my good name, then take care that my
+gentleness does not give way and I cause you to be ranked, after a
+thousand years, among the venomous sycophants, among the idle boasters,
+among the incompetent physicians'.
+
+The self-centred element in Erasmus must needs increase accordingly as
+he in truth became a centre and objective point of ideas and culture.
+There really was a time when it must seem to him that the world hinged
+upon him, and that it awaited the redeeming word from him. What a
+widespread enthusiastic following he had, how many warm friends and
+venerators! There is something naïve in the way in which he thinks it
+requisite to treat all his friends, in an open letter, to a detailed,
+rather repellent account of an illness that attacked him on the way back
+from Basle to Louvain. _His_ part, _his_ position, _his_ name, this more
+and more becomes the aspect under which he sees world-events. Years will
+come in which his whole enormous correspondence is little more than one
+protracted self-defence.
+
+Yet this man who has so many friends is nevertheless solitary at heart.
+And in the depth of that heart he desires to be alone. He is of a most
+retiring disposition; he is _a recluse_. 'I have always wished to be
+alone, and there is nothing I hate so much as sworn partisans.' Erasmus
+is one of those whom contact with others weakens. The less he has to
+address and to consider others, friends or enemies, the more truly he
+utters his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always
+causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry,
+reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore it should not
+be thought that we get to know him to the core from his letters. Natures
+like his, which all contact with men unsettles, give their best and
+deepest when they speak impersonally and to all.
+
+After the early effusions of sentimental affection he no longer opens
+his heart unreservedly to others. At bottom he feels separated from all
+and on the alert towards all. There is a great fear in him that others
+will touch his soul or disturb the image he has made of himself. The
+attitude of warding off reveals itself as fastidiousness and as
+bashfulness. Budaeus hit the mark when he exclaimed jocularly:
+'_Fastidiosule!_ You little fastidious person!' Erasmus himself
+interprets the dominating trait of his being as maidenly coyness. The
+excessive sensitiveness to the stain attaching to his birth results from
+it. But his friend Ammonius speaks of his _subrustica verecundia_, his
+somewhat rustic _gaucherie_. There is, indeed, often something of the
+small man about Erasmus, who is hampered by greatness and therefore
+shuns the great, because, at bottom, they obsess him and he feels them
+to be inimical to his being.
+
+It seems a hard thing to say that genuine loyalty and fervent
+gratefulness were strange to Erasmus. And yet such was his nature. In
+characters like his a kind of mental cramp keeps back the effusions of
+the heart. He subscribes to the adage: 'Love so, as if you may hate one
+day, and hate so, as if you may love one day'. He cannot bear benefits.
+In his inmost soul he continually retires before everybody. He who
+considers himself the pattern of simple unsuspicion, is indeed in the
+highest degree suspicious towards all his friends. The dead Ammonius,
+who had helped him so zealously in the most delicate concerns, is not
+secure from it. 'You are always unfairly distrustful towards me,'
+Budaeus complains. 'What!' exclaims Erasmus, 'you will find few people
+who are so little distrustful in friendship as myself.'
+
+When at the height of his fame the attention of the world was indeed
+fixed on all he spoke or did, there was some ground for a certain
+feeling on his part of being always watched and threatened. But when he
+was yet an unknown man of letters, in his Parisian years, we continually
+find traces in him of a mistrust of the people about him that can only
+be regarded as a morbid feeling. During the last period of his life this
+feeling attaches especially to two enemies, Eppendorf and Aleander.
+Eppendorf employs spies everywhere who watch Erasmus's correspondence
+with his friends. Aleander continually sets people to combat him, and
+lies in wait for him wherever he can. His interpretation of the
+intentions of his assailants has the ingenious self-centred element
+which passes the borderline of sanity. He sees the whole world full of
+calumny and ambuscades threatening his peace: nearly all those who once
+were his best friends have become his bitterest enemies; they wag their
+venomous tongues at banquets, in conversation, in the confessional, in
+sermons, in lectures, at court, in vehicles and ships. The minor
+enemies, like troublesome vermin, drive him to weariness of life, or to
+death by insomnia. He compares his tortures to the martyrdom of Saint
+Sebastian, pierced by arrows. But his is worse, for there is no end to
+it. For years he has daily been dying a thousand deaths and that alone;
+for his friends, if such there are, are deterred by envy.
+
+He mercilessly pillories his patrons in a row for their stinginess. Now
+and again there suddenly comes to light an undercurrent of aversion and
+hatred which we did not suspect. Where had more good things fallen to
+his lot than in England? Which country had he always praised more? But
+suddenly a bitter and unfounded reproach escapes him. England is
+responsible for his having become faithless to his monastic vows, 'for
+no other reason do I hate Britain more than for this, though it has
+always been pestilent to me'.
+
+He seldom allows himself to go so far. His expressions of hatred or
+spite are, as a rule, restricted to the feline. They are aimed at
+friends and enemies, Budaeus, Lypsius, as well as Hutten and Beda.
+Occasionally we are struck by the expression of coarse pleasure at
+another's misfortune. But in all this, as regards malice, we should not
+measure Erasmus by our ideas of delicacy and gentleness. Compared with
+most of his contemporaries he remains moderate and refined.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Erasmus never felt happy, was never content. This may perhaps surprise
+us for a moment, when we think of his cheerful, never-failing energy, of
+his gay jests and his humour. But upon reflection this unhappy feeling
+tallies very well with his character. It also proceeds from his general
+attitude of warding off. Even when in high spirits he considers himself
+in all respects an unhappy man. 'The most miserable of all men, the
+thrice-wretched Erasmus,' he calls himself in fine Greek terms. His life
+'is an Iliad of calamities, a chain of misfortunes. How can anyone envy
+_me_?' To no one has Fortune been so constantly hostile as to him. She
+has sworn his destruction, thus he sang in his youth in a poetical
+complaint addressed to Gaguin: from earliest infancy the same sad and
+hard fate has been constantly pursuing him. Pandora's whole box seems to
+have been poured out over him.
+
+This unhappy feeling takes the special form of his having been charged
+by unlucky stars with Herculean labour, without profit or pleasure to
+himself:[16] troubles and vexations without end. His life might have
+been so much easier if he had taken his chances. He should never have
+left Italy; or he ought to have stayed in England. 'But an immoderate
+love of liberty caused me to wrestle long with faithless friends and
+inveterate poverty.' Elsewhere he says more resignedly: 'But we are
+driven by fate'.
+
+That immoderate love of liberty had indeed been as fate to him. He had
+always been the great seeker of quiet and liberty who found liberty late
+and quiet never. By no means ever to bind himself, to incur no
+obligations which might become fetters--again that fear of the
+entanglements of life. Thus he remained the great restless one. He was
+never truly satisfied with anything, least of all with what he produced
+himself. 'Why, then, do you overwhelm us with so many books', someone at
+Louvain objected, 'if you do not really approve of any of them?' And
+Erasmus answers with Horace's word: 'In the first place, because I
+cannot sleep'.
+
+A sleepless energy, it was that indeed. He cannot rest. Still half
+seasick and occupied with his trunks, he is already thinking about an
+answer to Dorp's letter, just received, censuring the _Moria_. We should
+fully realize what it means that time after time Erasmus, who, by
+nature, loved quiet and was fearful, and fond of comfort, cleanliness
+and good fare, undertakes troublesome and dangerous journeys, even
+voyages, which he detests, for the sake of his work and of that alone.
+
+He is not only restless, but also precipitate. Helped by an incomparably
+retentive and capacious memory he writes at haphazard. He never becomes
+anacoluthic; his talent is too refined and sure for that; but he does
+repeat himself and is unnecessarily circumstantial. 'I rather pour out
+than write everything,' he says. He compares his publications to
+parturitions, nay, to abortions. He does not select his subjects, he
+tumbles into them, and having once taken up a subject he finishes
+without intermission. For years he has read only _tumultuarie_, up and
+down all literature; he no longer finds time really to refresh his mind
+by reading, and to work so as to please himself. On that account he
+envied Budaeus.
+
+'Do not publish too hastily,' More warns him: 'you are watched to be
+caught in inexactitudes.' Erasmus knows it: he will correct all later,
+he will ever have to revise and to polish everything. He hates the
+labour of revising and correcting, but he submits to it, and works
+passionately, 'in the treadmill of Basle', and, he says, finishes the
+work of six years in eight months.
+
+In that recklessness and precipitation with which Erasmus labours there
+is again one of the unsolved contradictions of his being. He _is_
+precipitate and careless; he _wants_ to be careful and cautious; his
+mind drives him to be the first, his nature restrains him, but usually
+only after the word has been written and published. The result is a
+continual intermingling of explosion and reserve.
+
+The way in which Erasmus always tries to shirk definite statements
+irritates us. How carefully he always tries to represent the
+_Colloquies_, in which he had spontaneously revealed so much of his
+inner convictions, as mere trifling committed to paper to please his
+friends. They are only meant to teach correct Latin! And if anything is
+said in them touching matters of faith, it is not I who say it, is it?
+As often as he censures classes or offices in the _Adagia_, princes
+above all, he warns the readers not to regard his words as aimed at
+particular persons.
+
+Erasmus was a master of reserve. He knew, even when he held definite
+views, how to avoid direct decisions, not only from caution, but also
+because he saw the eternal ambiguity of human issues.
+
+Erasmus ascribes to himself an unusual horror of lies. On seeing a liar,
+he says, he was corporeally affected. As a boy he already violently
+disliked mendacious boys, such as the little braggart of whom he tells
+in the _Colloquies_. That this reaction of aversion is genuine is not
+contradicted by the fact that we catch Erasmus himself in untruths.
+Inconsistencies, flattery, pieces of cunning, white lies, serious
+suppression of facts, simulated sentiments of respect or sorrow--they
+may all be pointed out in his letters. He once disavowed his deepest
+conviction for a gratuity from Anne of Borselen by flattering her
+bigotry. He requested his best friend Batt to tell lies in his behalf.
+He most sedulously denied his authorship of the Julius dialogue, for
+fear of the consequences, even to More, and always in such a way as to
+avoid saying outright, 'I did not write it'. Those who know other
+humanists, and know how frequently and impudently they lied, will
+perhaps think more lightly of Erasmus's sins.
+
+For the rest, even during his lifetime he did not escape punishment for
+his eternal reserve, his proficiency in semi-conclusions and veiled
+truths, insinuations and slanderous allusions. The accusation of perfidy
+was often cast in his teeth, sometimes in serious indignation. 'You are
+always engaged in bringing suspicion upon others,' Edward Lee exclaims.
+'How dare you usurp the office of a general censor, and condemn what you
+have hardly ever tasted? How dare you despise all but yourself? Falsely
+and insultingly do you expose your antagonist in the _Colloquia_.' Lee
+quotes the spiteful passage referring to himself, and then exclaims:
+'Now from these words the world may come to know its divine, its censor,
+its modest and sincere author, that Erasmian diffidence, earnest,
+decency and honesty! Erasmian modesty has long been proverbial. You are
+always using the words "false accusations". You say: if I was
+consciously guilty of the smallest of all his (Lee's) false accusations,
+I should not dare to approach the Lord's table!--O man, who are you, to
+judge another, a servant who stands or falls before his Lord?'
+
+This was the first violent attack from the conservative side, in the
+beginning of 1520, when the mighty struggle which Luther's action had
+unchained kept the world in ever greater suspense. Six months later
+followed the first serious reproaches on the part of radical reformers.
+Ulrich von Hutten, the impetuous, somewhat foggy-headed knight, who
+wanted to see Luther's cause triumph as the national cause of Germany,
+turns to Erasmus, whom, at one time, he had enthusiastically acclaimed
+as the man of the new weal, with the urgent appeal not to forsake the
+cause of the reformation or to compromise it. 'You have shown yourself
+fearful in the affair of Reuchlin; now in that of Luther you do your
+utmost to convince his adversaries that you are altogether averse from
+it, though we know better. Do not disown us. You know how triumphantly
+certain letters of yours are circulated, in which, to protect yourself
+from suspicion, you rather meanly fasten it on others ... If you are now
+afraid to incur a little hostility for _my_ sake, concede me at least
+that you will not allow yourself, out of fear for another, to be tempted
+to renounce me; rather be silent about me.'
+
+Those were bitter reproaches. In the man who had to swallow them there
+was a puny Erasmus who deserved those reproaches, who took offence at
+them, but did not take them to heart, who continued to act with prudent
+reserve till Hutten's friendship was turned to hatred. In him was also a
+great Erasmus who knew how, under the passion and infatuation with which
+the parties combated each other, the Truth he sought, and the Love he
+hoped would subdue the world, were obscured; who knew the God whom he
+professed too high to take sides. Let us try ever to see of that great
+Erasmus as much as the petty one permits.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Cf. the letter to Beatus Rhenanus, pp. 227-8.
+
+[16] Ad. 2001 LB. II, 717B, 77 c. 58A. On the book which Erasmus holds
+in his hand in Holbein's portrait at Longford Castle, we read in Greek:
+The Labours of Hercules.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT LOUVAIN
+
+1517-18
+
+    Erasmus at Louvain, 1517--He expects the renovation of the
+    Church as the fruit of good learning--Controversy with Lefèvre
+    d'Étaples--Second journey to Basle, 1518--He revises the edition
+    of the New Testament--Controversies with Latomus, Briard and
+    Lee--Erasmus regards the opposition of conservative theology
+    merely as a conspiracy against good learning
+
+
+When Erasmus established himself at Louvain in the summer of 1517 he had
+a vague presentiment that great changes were at hand. 'I fear', he
+writes in September, 'that a great subversion of affairs is being
+brought about here, if God's favour and the piety and wisdom of princes
+do not concern themselves about human matters.' But the forms which that
+great change would assume he did not in the least realize.
+
+He regarded his removal as merely temporary. It was only to last 'till
+we shall have seen which place of residence is best fit for old age,
+which is already knocking'. There is something pathetic in the man who
+desires nothing but quiet and liberty, and who through his own
+restlessness, and his inability not to concern himself about other
+people, never found a really fixed abode or true independence. Erasmus
+is one of those people who always seem to say: tomorrow, tomorrow! I
+must first deal with this, and then ... As soon as he shall be ready
+with the new edition of the New Testament and shall have extricated
+himself from troublesome and disagreeable theological controversies, in
+which he finds himself entangled against his wish, he will sleep, hide
+himself, 'sing for himself and the Muses'. But that time never came.
+
+Where to live when he shall be free? Spain, to which Cardinal Ximenes
+called him, did not appeal to him. From Germany, he says, the stoves and
+the insecurity deter him. In England the servitude which was required of
+him there revolted him. But in the Netherlands themselves, he did not
+feel at his ease, either: 'Here I am barked at a great deal, and there
+is no remuneration; though I desired it ever so much, I could not bear
+to stay there long'. Yet he remained for four years.
+
+Erasmus had good friends in the University of Louvain. At first he put
+up with his old host Johannes Paludanus, Rhetor of the University, whose
+house he exchanged that summer for quarters in the College of the Lily.
+Martin Dorp, a Dutchman like himself, had not been estranged from him by
+their polemics about the _Moria_; his good will was of great importance
+to Erasmus, because of the important place Dorp occupied in the
+theological faculty. And lastly, though his old patron, Adrian of
+Utrecht, afterwards Pope, had by that time been called away from Louvain
+to higher dignities, his influence had not diminished in consequence,
+but rather increased; for just about that time he had been made a
+cardinal.
+
+Erasmus was received with great complaisance by the Louvain divines.
+Their leader, the vice-chancellor of the University, Jean Briard of Ath,
+repeatedly expressed his approval of the edition of the New Testament,
+to Erasmus's great satisfaction. Soon Erasmus found himself a member of
+the theological faculty. Yet he did not feel at his ease among the
+Louvain theologians. The atmosphere was a great deal less congenial to
+him than that of the world of the English scholars. Here he felt a
+spirit which he did not understand and distrusted in consequence.
+
+In the years in which the Reformation began, Erasmus was the victim of a
+great misunderstanding, the result of the fact that his delicate,
+aesthetic, hovering spirit understood neither the profoundest depths of
+the faith nor the hard necessities of human society. He was neither
+mystic nor realist. Luther was both. To Erasmus the great problem of
+Church and State and society, seemed simple. Nothing was required but
+restoration and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt
+sources of Christianity. A number of accretions to the faith, rather
+ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared away. All should be reduced
+to the nucleus of faith, Christ and the Gospel. Forms, ceremonies,
+speculations should make room for the practice of true piety. The Gospel
+was easily intelligible to everybody and within everybody's reach. And
+the means to reach all this was good learning, _bonae literae_. Had he
+not himself, by his editions of the New Testament and of Jerome, and
+even earlier by the now famous _Enchiridion_, done most of what had to
+be done? 'I hope that what now pleases the upright, will soon please
+all.' As early as the beginning of 1517 Erasmus had written to Wolfgang
+Fabricius Capito, in the tone of one who has accomplished the great
+task. 'Well then, take you the torch from us. The work will henceforth
+be a great deal easier and cause far less hatred and envy. _We_ have
+lived through the first shock.'
+
+Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May 1517: 'Was anyone born under such
+inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure discipline (scholasticism)
+does not revolt him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's
+diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? But it is
+still much greater that he should have effected by the same labour the
+emergence of sacred truth itself out of that Cimmerian darkness, even
+though divinity is not yet quite free from the dirt of the sophist
+school. If that should occur one day, it will be owing to the beginnings
+made in our times.' The philologist Budaeus believed even more firmly
+than Erasmus that faith was a matter of erudition.
+
+It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone accepted the cleansed
+truth at once. How could people continue to oppose themselves to what,
+to him, seemed as clear as daylight and so simple? He, who so sincerely
+would have liked to live in peace with all the world, found himself
+involved in a series of polemics. To let the opposition of opponents
+pass unnoticed was forbidden not only by his character, for ever
+striving to justify himself in the eyes of the world, but also by the
+custom of his time, so eager for dispute.
+
+There were, first of all, his polemics with Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples,
+or in Latinized form, Faber Stapulensis, the Parisian theologian, who as
+a preparer of the Reformation may, more than anyone else, be ranked with
+Erasmus. At the moment when Erasmus got into the travelling cart which
+was to take him to Louvain, a friend drew his attention to a passage in
+the new edition of Faber's commentary on St. Paul's epistles, in which
+he controverted Erasmus's note on the Second Epistle to the Hebrews,
+verse 7. Erasmus at once bought Faber's book, and soon published an
+_Apologia_. It concerned Christ's relation to God and the angels, but
+the dogmatic point at issue hinged, after all, on a philological
+interpretation of Erasmus.
+
+Not yet accustomed to much direct wrangling, Erasmus was violently
+agitated by the matter, the more as he esteemed Faber highly and
+considered him a congenial spirit. 'What on earth has occurred to the
+man? Have others set him on against me? All theologians agree that I am
+right,' he asserts. It makes him nervous that Faber does not reply again
+at once. Badius has told Peter Gilles that Faber is sorry about it.
+Erasmus in a dignified letter appeals to their friendship; he will
+suffer himself to be taught and censured. Then again he growls: Let him
+be careful. And he thinks that his controversy with Faber keeps the
+world in suspense: there is not a meal at which the guests do not side
+with one or the other of them. But finally the combat abated and the
+friendship was preserved.
+
+Towards Easter 1518, Erasmus contemplated a new journey to Basle, there
+to pass through the press, during a few months of hard labour, the
+corrected edition of the New Testament. He did not fail to request the
+chiefs of conservative divinity at Louvain beforehand to state their
+objections to his work. Briard of Ath declared he had found nothing
+offensive in it, after he had first been told all sorts of bad things
+about it. 'Then the new edition will please you much better,' Erasmus
+had said. His friend Dorp and James Latomus, also one of the chief
+divines, had expressed themselves in the same sense, and the Carmelite
+Nicholas of Egmond had said that he had never read Erasmus's work. Only
+a young Englishman, Edward Lee, who was studying Greek at Louvain, had
+summarized a number of criticisms into ten conclusions. Erasmus had got
+rid of the matter by writing to Lee that he had not been able to get
+hold of his conclusions and therefore could not make use of them. But
+his youthful critic had not put up with being slighted so, and worked
+out his objections in a more circumstantial treatise.
+
+[Illustration: XVII. VIEW OF BASLE, 1548]
+
+Thus Erasmus set out for Basle once more in May 1518. He had been
+obliged to ask all his English friends (of whom Ammonius had been taken
+from him by death in 1517) for support to defray the expenses of the
+journey; he kept holding out to them the prospect that, after his work
+was finished, he would return to England. In a letter to Martin Lypsius,
+as he was going up the Rhine, he answered Lee's criticism, which had
+irritated him extremely. In revising his edition he not only took it but
+little into account, but ventured, moreover, this time to print his own
+translation of the New Testament of 1506 without any alterations. At the
+same time he obtained for the new edition a letter of approval from the
+Pope, a redoubtable weapon against his cavillers.
+
+At Basle Erasmus worked again like a horse in a treadmill. But he was
+really in his element. Even before the second edition of the New
+Testament, the _Enchiridion_ and the _Institutio Principis Christiani_
+were reprinted by Froben. On his return journey, Erasmus, whose work had
+been hampered all through the summer by indisposition, and who had, on
+that account, been unable to finish it, fell seriously ill. He reached
+Louvain with difficulty (21 September 1518). It might be the pestilence,
+and Erasmus, ever much afraid of contagion himself, now took all
+precautions to safeguard his friends against it. He avoided his quarters
+in the College of the Lily, and found shelter with his most trusted
+friend, Dirck Maertensz, the printer. But in spite of rumours of the
+plague and his warnings, first Dorp and afterwards also Ath came, at
+once, to visit him. Evidently the Louvain professors did not mean so
+badly by him, after all.
+
+[Illustration: XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament printed by Froben
+in 1520]
+
+But the differences between Erasmus and the Louvain faculty were deeply
+rooted. Lee, hurt by the little attention paid by Erasmus to his
+objections, prepared a new critique, but kept it from Erasmus, for the
+present, which irritated the latter and made him nervous. In the
+meantime a new opponent arose. Directly after his return to Louvain,
+Erasmus had taken much trouble to promote the establishment of the
+_Collegium Trilingue_, projected and endowed by Jerome Busleiden, in his
+testament, to be founded in the university. The three biblical
+languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were to be taught there. Now when
+James Latomus, a member of the theological faculty and a man whom he
+esteemed, in a dialogue about the study of those three languages and of
+theology, doubted the utility of the former, Erasmus judged himself
+concerned, and answered Latomus in an _Apologia_. About the same time
+(spring 1519) he got into trouble with the vice-chancellor himself.
+Erasmus thought that Ath had publicly censured him with regard to his
+'Praise of Marriage', which had recently appeared. Though Ath withdrew
+at once, Erasmus could not abstain from writing an _Apologia_, however
+moderate. Meanwhile the smouldering quarrel with Lee assumed ever more
+hateful forms. In vain did Erasmus's English friends attempt to restrain
+their young, ambitious compatriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him
+furtively. He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and
+dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum
+he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan, even the old
+taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve once more. The points
+at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In
+his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy
+weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to
+ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his
+English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the
+greatest trouble in keeping them back'.
+
+Alack! Germany had other causes of disturbance: it is 1520 and the three
+great polemics of Luther were setting the world on fire.
+
+Though one may excuse the violence and the petty spitefulness of Erasmus
+in this matter, as resulting from an over-sensitive heart falling
+somewhat short in really manly qualities, yet it is difficult to deny
+that he failed completely to understand both the arguments of his
+adversaries and the great movements of his time.
+
+It was very easy for Erasmus to mock the narrow-mindedness of
+conservative divines who thought that there would be an end to faith in
+Holy Scripture as soon as the emendation of the text was attempted.
+'"They correct the Holy Gospel, nay, the Pater Noster itself!" the
+preacher exclaims indignantly in the sermon before his surprised
+congregation. As if I cavilled at Matthew and Luke, and not at those
+who, out of ignorance and carelessness, have corrupted them. What do
+people wish? That the Church should possess Holy Scripture as correct as
+possible, or not?' This reasoning seemed to Erasmus, with his passionate
+need of purity, a conclusive refutation. But instinct did not deceive
+his adversaries, when it told them that doctrine itself was at stake if
+the linguistic judgement of a single individual might decide as to the
+correct version of a text. And Erasmus wished to avoid the inferences
+which assailed doctrine. He was not aware of the fact that his
+conceptions of the Church, the sacraments and the dogmas were no longer
+purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated to his
+philological insight. He could not be aware of it because, in spite of
+all his natural piety and his fervent ethical sentiments, he lacked the
+mystic insight which is the foundation of every creed.
+
+It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him unable to understand
+the real grounds of the resistance of Catholic orthodoxy. How was it
+possible that so many, and among them men of high consideration, refused
+to accept what to him seemed so clear and irrefutable! He interpreted
+the fact in a highly personal way. He, the man who would so gladly have
+lived in peace with all the world, who so yearned for sympathy and
+recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty, saw the ranks of haters
+and opponents increase about him. He did not understand how they feared
+his mocking acrimony, how many wore the scar of a wound that the _Moria_
+had made. That real and supposed hatred troubled Erasmus. He sees his
+enemies as a sect. It is especially the Dominicans and the Carmelites
+who are ill-affected towards the new scientific theology. Just then a
+new adversary had arisen at Louvain in the person of his compatriot
+Nicholas of Egmond, prior of the Carmelites, henceforth an object of
+particular abhorrence to him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus
+found his fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the narrower sense
+of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, William of Vianen, Ruurd Tapper.
+The persecution increases: the venom of slander spreads more and more
+every day and becomes more deadly; the greatest untruths are impudently
+preached about him; he calls in the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor,
+against them. But it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write
+for the erudite, who are few; we shall bark to stir up the people. After
+1520 he writes again and again: 'I am stoned every day'.
+
+But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not without reason, at
+the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no longer be blind to the fact that
+the great struggle did not concern him alone. On all sides the battle
+was being fought. What is it, that great commotion about matters of
+spirit and of faith?
+
+The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it is a great and wilful
+conspiracy on the part of the conservatives to suffocate good learning
+and make the old ignorance triumph. This idea recurs innumerable times
+in his letters after the middle of 1518. 'I know quite certainly', he
+writes on 21 March 1519 to one of his German friends, 'that the
+barbarians on all sides have conspired to leave no stone unturned till
+they have suppressed _bonae literae_.' 'Here we are still fighting with
+the protectors of the old ignorance'; cannot Wolsey persuade the Pope to
+stop it here? All that appertains to ancient and cultured literature is
+called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they
+indicate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, that is to
+say all that they have not learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole
+tragedy--under these terms he usually refers to the great theological
+struggle--originates in the hatred of _bonae literae_. 'This is the
+source and hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic
+study and the _bonae literae_.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom it
+is impossible to conquer, though their cause is a bad one. And meanwhile
+envy harasses the _bonae literae_, which are attacked at his (Luther's)
+instigation by these gadflies. They are already nearly insufferable,
+when things do not go well with them; but who can stand them when they
+triumph? Either I am blind, or they aim at something else than Luther.
+They are preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.'
+
+This was written by Erasmus to a member of the University of Leipzig in
+December 1520. This one-sided and academic conception of the great
+events, a conception which arose in the study of a recluse bending over
+his books, did more than anything else to prevent Erasmus from
+understanding the true nature and purport of the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION
+
+    Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther--
+    Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1517--Progress of the
+    Reformation--Luther tries to bring about a _rapprochement_ with
+    Erasmus, March 1519--Erasmus keeps aloof; fancies he may yet act
+    as a conciliator--His attitude becomes ambiguous--He denies ever
+    more emphatically all relations with Luther and resolves to
+    remain a spectator--He is pressed by either camp to take
+    sides--Aleander in the Netherlands--The Diet of Worms,
+    1521--Erasmus leaves Louvain to safeguard his freedom, October
+    1521
+
+
+About the close of 1516, Erasmus received a letter from the librarian
+and secretary of Frederick, elector of Saxony, George Spalatinus,
+written in the respectful and reverential tone in which the great man
+was now approached. 'We all esteem you here most highly; the elector has
+all your books in his library and intends to buy everything you may
+publish in future.' But the object of Spalatinus's letter was the
+execution of a friend's commission. An Augustinian ecclesiastic, a great
+admirer of Erasmus, had requested him to direct his attention to the
+fact that in his interpretation of St. Paul, especially in that of the
+epistle to the Romans, Erasmus had failed to conceive the idea of
+_justitia_ correctly, had paid too little attention to original sin: he
+might profit by reading Augustine.
+
+The nameless Austin Friar was Luther, then still unknown outside the
+circle of the Wittenberg University, in which he was a professor, and
+the criticism regarded the cardinal point of his hardly acquired
+conviction: justification by faith.
+
+Erasmus paid little attention to this letter. He received so many of
+that sort, containing still more praise and no criticism. If he answered
+it, the reply did not reach Spalatinus, and later Erasmus completely
+forgot the whole letter.
+
+Nine months afterwards, in September 1517, when Erasmus had been at
+Louvain for a short time, he received an honourable invitation, written
+by the first prelate of the Empire, the young Archbishop of Mayence,
+Albert of Brandenburg. The archbishop would be pleased to see him on an
+occasion: he greatly admired his work (he knew it so little as to speak
+of Erasmus's emendation of the Old Testament, instead of the New) and
+hoped that he would one day write some lives of saints in elegant style.
+
+The young Hohenzoller, advocate of the new light of classical studies,
+whose attention had probably been drawn to Erasmus by Hutten and Capito,
+who sojourned at his court, had recently become engaged in one of the
+boldest political and financial transactions of his time. His elevation
+to the see of Mayence, at the age of twenty-four, had necessitated a
+papal dispensation, as he also wished to keep the archbishopric of
+Magdeburg and the see of Halberstadt. This accumulation of
+ecclesiastical offices had to be made subservient to the Brandenburg
+policy which opposed the rival house of Saxony. The Pope granted the
+dispensation in return for a great sum of money, but to facilitate its
+payment he accorded to the archbishop a liberal indulgence for the whole
+archbishopric of Mayence, Magdeburg and the Brandenburg territories.
+Albert, to whom half the proceeds were tacitly left, raised a loan with
+the house of Fugger, and this charged itself with the indulgence
+traffic.
+
+When in December 1517, Erasmus answered the archbishop, Luther's
+propositions against indulgences, provoked by the Archbishop of
+Mayence's instructions regarding their colportage, had already been
+posted up (31 October 1517), and were circulated throughout Germany,
+rousing the whole Church. They were levelled at the same abuses which
+Erasmus combated, the mechanical, atomistical, and juridical conception
+of religion. But how different was their practical effect, as compared
+with Erasmus's pacific endeavour to purify the Church by lenient means!
+
+'Lives of saints?' Erasmus asked replying to the archbishop. 'I have
+tried in my poor way to add a little light to the prince of saints
+himself. For the rest, your endeavour, in addition to so many difficult
+matters of government, and at such an early age, to get the lives of the
+saints purged of old women's tales and disgusting style, is extremely
+laudable. For nothing should be suffered in the Church that is not
+perfectly pure or refined,' And he concludes with a magnificent eulogy
+of the excellent prelate.
+
+During the greater part of 1518, Erasmus was too much occupied by his
+own affairs--the journey to Basle and his red-hot labours there, and
+afterwards his serious illness--to concern himself much with Luther's
+business. In March he sends Luther's theses to More, without comment,
+and, in passing, complains to Colet about the impudence with which Rome
+disseminates indulgences. Luther, now declared a heretic and summoned to
+appear at Augsburg, stands before the legate Cajetanus and refuses to
+recant. Seething enthusiasm surrounds him. Just about that time Erasmus
+writes to one of Luther's partisans, John Lang, in very favourable terms
+about his work. The theses have pleased everybody. 'I see that the
+monarchy of the Pope at Rome, as it is now, is a pestilence to
+Christendom, but I do not know if it is expedient to touch that sore
+openly. That would be a matter for princes, but I fear that these will
+act in concert with the Pope to secure part of the spoils. I do not
+understand what possessed Eck to take up arms against Luther.' The
+letter did not find its way into any of the collections.
+
+The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the election of an emperor,
+after old Maximilian had died in January, and the attempt of the curia
+to regain ground with lenity. Germany was expecting the long-projected
+disputation between Johannes Eck and Andreas Karlstadt which, in truth,
+would concern Luther. How could Erasmus, who himself was involved that
+year in so many polemics, have foreseen that the Leipzig disputation,
+which was to lead Luther to the consequence of rejecting the highest
+ecclesiastical authority, would remain of lasting importance in the
+history of the world, whereas his quarrel with Lee would be forgotten?
+
+On 28 March 1519 Luther addressed himself personally to Erasmus for the
+first time. 'I speak with you so often, and you with me, Erasmus, our
+ornament and our hope; and we do not know each other as yet.' He
+rejoices to find that Erasmus displeases many, for this he regards as a
+sign that God has blessed him. Now that his, Luther's, name begins to
+get known too, a longer silence between them might be wrongly
+interpreted. 'Therefore, my Erasmus, amiable man, if you think fit,
+acknowledge also this little brother in Christ, who really admires you
+and feels friendly disposed towards you, and for the rest would deserve
+no better, because of his ignorance, than to lie, unknown, buried in a
+corner.'
+
+There was a very definite purpose in this somewhat rustically cunning
+and half ironical letter. Luther wanted, if possible, to make Erasmus
+show his colours, to win him, the powerful authority, touchstone of
+science and culture, for the cause which he advocated. In his heart
+Luther had long been aware of the deep gulf separating him from Erasmus.
+As early as March 1517, six months before his public appearance, he
+wrote about Erasmus to John Lang: 'human matters weigh heavier with him
+than divine,' an opinion that so many have pronounced about
+Erasmus--obvious, and yet unfair.
+
+The attempt, on the part of Luther, to effect a _rapprochement_ was a
+reason for Erasmus to retire at once. Now began that extremely ambiguous
+policy of Erasmus to preserve peace by his authority as a light of the
+world and to steer a middle course without committing himself. In that
+attitude the great and the petty side of his personality are
+inextricably intertwined. The error because of which most historians
+have seen Erasmus's attitude towards the Reformation either in far too
+unfavourable a light or--as for instance the German historian
+Kalkoff--much too heroic and far-seeing, is that they erroneously regard
+him as psychologically homogeneous. Just that he is not. His
+double-sidedness roots in the depths of his being. Many of his
+utterances during the struggle proceed directly from his fear and lack
+of character, also from his inveterate dislike of siding with a person
+or a cause; but behind that is always his deep and fervent conviction
+that neither of the conflicting opinions can completely express the
+truth, that human hatred and purblindness infatuate men's minds. And
+with that conviction is allied the noble illusion that it might yet be
+possible to preserve the peace by moderation, insight, and kindliness.
+
+In April 1519 Erasmus addressed himself by letter to the elector
+Frederick of Saxony, Luther's patron. He begins by alluding to his
+dedication of Suetonius two years before; but his real purpose is to say
+something about Luther. Luther's writings, he says, have given the
+Louvain obscurants plenty of reason to inveigh against the _bonae
+literae_, to decry all scholars. He himself does not know Luther and has
+glanced through his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone praises
+his life. How little in accordance with theological gentleness it is to
+condemn him offhand, and that before the indiscreet vulgar! For has he
+not proposed a dispute, and submitted himself to everybody's judgement?
+No one has, so far, admonished, taught, convinced him. Every error is
+not at once heresy.
+
+The best of Christianity is a life worthy of Christ. Where we find that,
+we should not rashly suspect people of heresy. Why do we so uncharitably
+persecute the lapses of others, though none of us is free from error?
+Why do we rather want to conquer than cure, suppress than instruct?
+
+But he concludes with a word that could not but please Luther's friends,
+who so hoped for his support. 'May the duke prevent an innocent man from
+being surrendered under the cloak of piety to the impiety of a few. This
+is also the wish of Pope Leo, who has nothing more at heart than that
+innocence be safe.'
+
+At this same time Erasmus does his best to keep Froben back from
+publishing Luther's writings, 'that they may not fan the hatred of the
+_bonae literae_ still more'. And he keeps repeating: I do not know
+Luther, I have not read his writings. He makes this declaration to
+Luther himself, in his reply to the latter's epistle of 28 March. This
+letter of Erasmus, dated 30 May 1519, should be regarded as a newspaper
+leader[17], to acquaint the public with his attitude towards the Luther
+question. Luther does not know the tragedies which his writings have
+caused at Louvain. People here think that Erasmus has helped him in
+composing them and call him the standard bearer of the party! That
+seemed to them a fitting pretext to suppress the _bonae literae_. 'I
+have declared that you are perfectly unknown to me, that I have not yet
+read your books and therefore neither approve nor disapprove anything.'
+'I reserve myself, so far as I may, to be of use to the reviving
+studies. Discreet moderation seems likely to bring better progress than
+impetuosity. It was by this that Christ subjugated the world.'
+
+On the same day he writes to John Lang, one of Luther's friends and
+followers, a short note, not meant for publication: 'I hope that the
+endeavours of yourself and your party will be successful. Here the
+Papists rave violently.... All the best minds are rejoiced at Luther's
+boldness: I do not doubt he will be careful that things do not end in a
+quarrel of parties!... We shall never triumph over feigned Christians
+unless we first abolish the tyranny of the Roman see, and of its
+satellites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Carmelites. But no
+one could attempt that without a serious tumult.'
+
+As the gulf widens, Erasmus's protestations that he has nothing to do
+with Luther become much more frequent. Relations at Louvain grow ever
+more disagreeable and the general sentiment about him ever more unkind.
+In August 1519 he turns to the Pope himself for protection against his
+opponents. He still fails to see how wide the breach is. He still takes
+it all to be quarrels of scholars. King Henry of England and King
+Francis of France in their own countries have imposed silence upon the
+quarrellers and slanderers; if only the Pope would do the same!
+
+In October he was once more reconciled with the Louvain faculty. It was
+just at this time that Colet died in London, the man who had, better
+perhaps than anyone else, understood Erasmus's standpoint. Kindred
+spirits in Germany still looked up to Erasmus as the great man who was
+on the alert to interpose at the right moment and who had made
+moderation the watchword, until the time should come to give his friends
+the signal.
+
+But in the increasing noise of the battle his voice already sounded less
+powerfully than before. A letter to Cardinal Albert of Mayence, 19
+October 1519, of about the same content as that of Frederick of Saxony
+written in the preceding spring, was at once circulated by Luther's
+friends; and by the advocates of conservatism, in spite of the usual
+protestation, 'I do not know Luther', it was made to serve against
+Erasmus.
+
+It became more and more clear that the mediating and conciliatory
+position which Erasmus wished to take up would soon be altogether
+untenable. The inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraten had come from Cologne, where
+he was a member of the University, to Louvain, to work against Luther
+there, as he had worked against Reuchlin. On 7 November 1519 the Louvain
+faculty, following the example of that of Cologne, proceeded to take the
+decisive step: the solemn condemnation of a number of Luther's opinions.
+In future no place could be less suitable to Erasmus than Louvain, the
+citadel of action against reformers. It is surprising that he remained
+there another two years.
+
+The expectation that he would be able to speak the conciliating word was
+paling. For the rest he failed to see the true proportions. During the
+first months of 1520 his attention was almost entirely taken up by his
+own polemics with Lee, a paltry incident in the great revolution. The
+desire to keep aloof got more and more the upper hand of him. In June he
+writes to Melanchthon: 'I see that matters begin to look like sedition.
+It is perhaps necessary that scandals occur, but I should prefer not to
+be the author.' He has, he thinks, by his influence with Wolsey,
+prevented the burning of Luther's writings in England, which had been
+ordered. But he was mistaken. The burning had taken place in London, as
+early as 12 May.
+
+The best proof that Erasmus had practically given up his hope to play a
+conciliatory part may be found in what follows. In the summer of 1520
+the famous meeting between the three monarchs, Henry VIII, Francis I and
+Charles V, took place at Calais. Erasmus was to go there in the train of
+his prince. How would such a congress of princes--where in peaceful
+conclave the interests of France, England, Spain, the German Empire, and
+a considerable part of Italy, were represented together--have affected
+Erasmus's imagination, if his ideal had remained unshaken! But there are
+no traces of this. Erasmus was at Calais in July 1520, had some
+conversation with Henry VIII there, and greeted More, but it does not
+appear that he attached any other importance to the journey than that of
+an opportunity, for the last time, to greet his English friends.
+
+It was awkward for Erasmus that just at this time, when the cause of
+faith took so much harsher forms, his duties as counsellor to the
+youthful Charles, now back from Spain to be crowned as emperor,
+circumscribed his liberty more than before. In the summer of 1520
+appeared, based on the incriminating material furnished by the Louvain
+faculty, the papal bull declaring Luther to be a heretic, and, unless he
+should speedily recant, excommunicating him. 'I fear the worst for the
+unfortunate Luther,' Erasmus writes, 9 September 1520, 'so does
+conspiracy rage everywhere, so are princes incensed with him on all
+sides, and, most of all, Pope Leo. Would Luther had followed my advice
+and abstained from those hostile and seditious actions!... They will not
+rest until they have quite subverted the study of languages and the good
+learning.... Out of the hatred against these and the stupidity of monks
+did this tragedy first arise.... I do not meddle with it. For the rest,
+a bishopric is waiting for me if I choose to write against Luther.'
+
+Indeed, Erasmus had become, by virtue of his enormous celebrity, as
+circumstances would have it, more and more a valuable asset in the great
+policy of emperor and pope. People wanted to use his name and make him
+choose sides. And that he would not do for any consideration. He wrote
+evasively to the Pope about his relations with Luther without altogether
+disavowing him. How zealously he defends himself from the suspicion of
+being on Luther's side as noisy monks make out in their sermons, who
+summarily link the two in their scoffing disparagement.
+
+But by the other side also he is pressed to choose sides and to speak
+out. Towards the end of October 1520 the coronation of the emperor took
+place at Aix-la-Chapelle. Erasmus was perhaps present; in any case he
+accompanied the Emperor to Cologne. There, on 5 November, he had an
+interview about Luther with the Elector Frederick of Saxony. He was
+persuaded to write down the result of that discussion in the form of
+twenty-two _Axiomata concerning Luther's cause_. Against his intention
+they were printed at once.
+
+Erasmus's hesitation in those days between the repudiation and the
+approbation of Luther is not discreditable to him. It is the tragic
+defect running through his whole personality: his refusal or inability
+ever to draw ultimate conclusions. Had he only been a calculating and
+selfish nature, afraid of losing his life, he would long since have
+altogether forsaken Luther's cause. It is his misfortune affecting his
+fame, that he continually shows his weaknesses, whereas what is great in
+him lies deep.
+
+At Cologne Erasmus also met the man with whom, as a promising young
+humanist, fourteen years younger than himself, he had, for some months,
+shared a room in the house of Aldus's father-in-law, at Venice:
+Hieronymus Aleander, now sent to the Emperor as a papal nuncio, to
+persuade him to conform his imperial policy to that of the Pope, in the
+matter of the great ecclesiastical question, and give effect to the
+papal excommunication by the imperial ban.
+
+It must have been somewhat painful for Erasmus that his friend had so
+far surpassed him in power and position, and was now called to bring by
+diplomatic means the solution which he himself would have liked to see
+achieved by ideal harmony, good will and toleration. He had never
+trusted Aleander, and was more than ever on his guard against him. As a
+humanist, in spite of brilliant gifts, Aleander was by far Erasmus's
+inferior, and had never, like him, risen from literature to serious
+theological studies; he had simply prospered in the service of Church
+magnates (whom Erasmus had given up early). This man was now invested
+with the highest mediating powers.
+
+To what degree of exasperation Erasmus's most violent antagonists at
+Louvain had now been reduced is seen from the witty and slightly
+malicious account he gives Thomas More of his meeting with Egmondanus
+before the Rector of the university, who wanted to reconcile them. Still
+things did not look so black as Ulrich von Hutten thought, when he wrote
+to Erasmus: 'Do you think that you are still safe, now that Luther's
+books are burned? Fly, and save yourself for us!'
+
+Ever more emphatic do Erasmus's protestations become that he has nothing
+to do with Luther. Long ago he had already requested him not to mention
+his name, and Luther promised it: 'Very well, then, I shall not again
+refer to you, neither will other good friends, since it troubles you'.
+Ever louder, too, are Erasmus's complaints about the raving of the monks
+at him, and his demands that the mendicant orders be deprived of the
+right to preach.
+
+In April 1521 comes the moment in the world's history to which
+Christendom has been looking forward: Luther at the Diet of Worms,
+holding fast to his opinions, confronted by the highest authority in the
+Empire. So great is the rejoicing in Germany that for a moment it may
+seem that the Emperor's power is in danger rather than Luther and his
+adherents. 'If I had been present', writes Erasmus, 'I should have
+endeavoured that this tragedy would have been so tempered by moderate
+arguments that it could not afterwards break out again to the still
+greater detriment of the world.'
+
+The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the Empire (as in the
+Burgundian Netherlands before that time) Luther's books were to be
+burned, his adherents arrested and their goods confiscated, and Luther
+was to be given up to the authorities. Erasmus hopes that now relief
+will follow. 'The Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had
+never appeared on the stage.' In these days Albrecht Dürer, on hearing
+the false news of Luther's death, wrote in the diary of his journey that
+passionate exclamation: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you be?
+Hear, you knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, protect
+the truth, obtain the martyr's crown. For you are but an old manikin. I
+have heard you say that you have allowed yourself two more years, in
+which you are still fit to do some work; spend them well, in behalf of
+the Gospel and the true Christian faith.... O Erasmus, be on this side,
+that God may be proud of you.'
+
+It expresses confidence in Erasmus's power, but at bottom is the
+expectation that he will not do all this. Dürer had rightly understood
+Erasmus.
+
+The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. Latomus, the most
+dignified and able of Louvain divines, had now become one of the most
+serious opponents of Luther and, in so doing, touched Erasmus, too,
+indirectly. To Nicholas of Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Erasmus's
+compatriots had been added as a violent antagonist, Vincent Dirks of
+Haarlem, a Dominican. Erasmus addresses himself to the faculty, to
+defend himself against the new attacks, and to explain why he has never
+written against Luther. He will read him, he will soon take up something
+to quiet the tumult. He succeeds in getting Aleander, who arrived at
+Louvain in June, to prohibit preaching against him. The Pope still hopes
+that Aleander will succeed in bringing back Erasmus, with whom he is
+again on friendly terms, to the right track.
+
+But Erasmus began to consider the only exit which was now left to him:
+to leave Louvain and the Netherlands to regain his menaced independence.
+The occasion to depart had long ago presented itself: the third edition
+of his New Testament called him to Basle once more. It would not be a
+permanent departure, and he purposed to return to Louvain. On 28 October
+(his birthday) he left the town where he had spent four difficult years.
+His chambers in the College of the Lily were reserved for him and he
+left his books behind. On 15 November he reached Basle.
+
+Soon the rumour spread that out of fear of Aleander he had saved himself
+by flight. But the idea, revived again in our days in spite of Erasmus's
+own painstaking denial, that Aleander should have cunningly and
+expressly driven him from the Netherlands, is inherently improbable. So
+far as the Church was concerned, Erasmus would at almost any point be
+more dangerous than at Louvain, in the headquarters of conservatism,
+under immediate control of the strict Burgundian government, where, it
+seemed, he could sooner or later be pressed into the service of the
+anti-Lutheran policy.
+
+It was this contingency, as Dr. Allen has correctly pointed out, which
+he feared and evaded. Not for his bodily safety did he emigrate; Erasmus
+would not have been touched--he was far too valuable an asset for such
+measures. It was his mental independence, so dear to him above all else,
+that he felt to be threatened; and, to safeguard that, he did not return
+to Louvain.
+
+[Illustration: XIX. THE HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT WHERE ERASMUS LIVED FROM MAY
+TO NOVEMBER 1521]
+
+[Illustration: XX. ERASMUS'S STUDY AT ANDERLECHT]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] Translation on pp. 229 ff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ERASMUS AT BASLE
+
+1521-9
+
+    Basle his dwelling-place for nearly eight years:
+    1521-9--Political thought of Erasmus--Concord and
+    peace--Anti-war writings--Opinions concerning princes and
+    government--New editions of several Fathers--The
+    _Colloquia_--Controversies with Stunica, Beda, etc.--Quarrel
+    with Hutten--Eppendorff
+
+
+It is only towards the evening of life that the picture of Erasmus
+acquires the features with which it was to go down to posterity. Only at
+Basle--delivered from the troublesome pressure of parties wanting to
+enlist him, transplanted from an environment of haters and opponents at
+Louvain to a circle of friends, kindred spirits, helpers and admirers,
+emancipated from the courts of princes, independent of the patronage of
+the great, unremittingly devoting his tremendous energy to the work that
+was dear to him--did he become Holbein's Erasmus. In those late years he
+approaches most closely to the ideal of his personal life.
+
+He did not think that there were still fifteen years in store for him.
+Long before, in fact, since he became forty years old in 1506, Erasmus
+had been in an old-age mood. 'The last act of the play has begun,' he
+keeps saying after 1517.
+
+He now felt practically independent as to money matters. Many years had
+passed before he could say that. But peace of mind did not come with
+competence. It never came. He never became truly placid and serene, as
+Holbein's picture seems to represent him. He was always too much
+concerned about what people said or thought of him. Even at Basle he did
+not feel thoroughly at home. He still speaks repeatedly of a removal in
+the near future to Rome, to France, to England, or back to the
+Netherlands. Physical rest, at any rate, which was not in him, was
+granted him by circumstances: for nearly eight years he now remained at
+Basle, and then he lived at Freiburg for six.
+
+Erasmus at Basle is a man whose ideals of the world and society have
+failed him. What remains of that happy expectation of a golden age of
+peace and light, in which he had believed as late as 1517? What of his
+trust in good will and rational insight, in which he wrote the
+_Institutio Principis Christiani_ for the youthful Charles V? To Erasmus
+all the weal of state and society had always been merely a matter of
+personal morality and intellectual enlightenment. By recommending and
+spreading those two he at one time thought he had introduced the great
+renovation himself. From the moment when he saw that the conflict would
+lead to an exasperated struggle he refused any longer to be anything but
+a spectator. As an actor in the great ecclesiastical combat Erasmus had
+voluntarily left the stage.
+
+But he does not give up his ideal. 'Let us resist,' he concludes an
+Epistle about gospel philosophy, 'not by taunts and threats, not by
+force of arms and injustice, but by simple discretion, by benefits, by
+gentleness and tolerance.' Towards the close of his life, he prays: 'If
+Thou, O God, deignst to renew that Holy Spirit in the hearts of all,
+then also will those external disasters cease.... Bring order to this
+chaos, Lord Jesus, let Thy Spirit spread over these waters of sadly
+troubled dogmas.'
+
+Concord, peace, sense of duty and kindliness, were all valued highly by
+Erasmus; yet he rarely saw them realized in practical life. He becomes
+disillusioned. After the short spell of political optimism he never
+speaks of the times any more but in bitter terms--a most criminal age,
+he says--and again, the most unhappy and most depraved age imaginable.
+In vain had he always written in the cause of peace: _Querela pacis_,
+the complaint of peace, the adage _Dulce bellum inexpertis_, war is
+sweet to those who have not known it, _Oratio de pace et discordia_, and
+more still. Erasmus thought rather highly of his pacifistic labours:
+'that polygraph, who never leaves off persecuting war by means of his
+pen', thus he makes a character of the _Colloquies_ designate himself.
+According to a tradition noted by Melanchthon, Pope Julius is said to
+have called him before him in connection with his advice about the war
+with Venice,[18] and to have remarked to him angrily that he should stop
+writing on the concerns of princes: 'You do not understand those
+things!'
+
+Erasmus had, in spite of a certain innate moderation, a wholly
+non-political mind. He lived too much outside of practical reality, and
+thought too naïvely of the corrigibility of mankind, to realize the
+difficulties and necessities of government. His ideas about a good
+administration were extremely primitive, and, as is often the case with
+scholars of a strong ethical bias, very revolutionary at bottom, though
+he never dreamed of drawing the practical inferences. His friendship
+with political and juridical thinkers, as More, Budaeus and Zasius, had
+not changed him. Questions of forms of government, law or right, did not
+exist for him. Economic problems he saw in idyllic simplicity. The
+prince should reign gratuitously and impose as few taxes as possible.
+'The good prince has all that loving citizens possess.' The unemployed
+should be simply driven away. We feel in closer contact with the world
+of facts when he enumerates the works of peace for the prince: the
+cleaning of towns, building of bridges, halls, and streets, draining of
+pools, shifting of river-beds, the diking and reclamation of moors. It
+is the Netherlander who speaks here, and at the same time the man in
+whom the need of cleansing and clearing away is a fundamental trait of
+character.
+
+Vague politicians like Erasmus are prone to judge princes very severely,
+since they take them to be responsible for all wrongs. Erasmus praises
+them personally, but condemns them in general. From the kings of his
+time he had for a long time expected peace in Church and State. They had
+disappointed him. But his severe judgement of princes he derived rather
+from classical reading than from political experience of his own times.
+In the later editions of the _Adagia_ he often reverts to princes, their
+task and their neglect of duty, without ever mentioning special princes.
+'There are those who sow the seeds of dissension between their townships
+in order to fleece the poor unhindered and to satisfy their gluttony by
+the hunger of innocent citizens.' In the adage _Scarabeus aquilam
+quaerit_ he represents the prince under the image of the Eagle as the
+great cruel robber and persecutor. In another, _Aut regem aut fatuum
+nasci oportere_, and in _Dulce bellum inexpertis_ he utters his
+frequently quoted dictum: 'The people found and develop towns, the folly
+of princes devastates them.' 'The princes conspire with the Pope, and
+perhaps with the Turk, against the happiness of the people,' he writes
+to Colet in 1518.
+
+He was an academic critic writing from his study. A revolutionary
+purpose was as foreign to Erasmus as it was to More when writing the
+_Utopia_. 'Bad monarchs should perhaps be suffered now and then. The
+remedy should not be tried.' It may be doubted whether Erasmus exercised
+much real influence on his contemporaries by means of his diatribes
+against princes. One would fain believe that his ardent love of peace
+and bitter arraignment of the madness of war had some effect. They have
+undoubtedly spread pacific sentiments in the broad circles of
+intellectuals who read Erasmus, but unfortunately the history of the
+sixteenth century shows little evidence that such sentiments bore fruit
+in actual practice. However this may be, Erasmus's strength was not in
+these political declamations. He could never be a leader of men with
+their passions and their harsh interests.
+
+His life-work lay elsewhere. Now, at Basle, though tormented more and
+more frequently by his painful complaint which he had already carried
+for so many years, he could devote himself more fully than ever before
+to the great task he had set himself: the opening up of the pure sources
+of Christianity, the exposition of the truth of the Gospel in all the
+simple comprehensibility in which he saw it. In a broad stream flowed
+the editions of the Fathers, of classic authors, the new editions of the
+New Testament, of the _Adagia_, of his own Letters, together with
+Paraphrases of the New Testament, Commentaries on Psalms, and a number
+of new theological, moral and philological treatises. In 1522 he was ill
+for months on end; yet in that year Arnobius and the third edition of
+the New Testament succeeded Cyprian, whom he had already annotated at
+Louvain and edited in 1520, closely followed by Hilary in 1523 and next
+by a new edition of Jerome in 1524. Later appeared Irenaeus, 1526;
+Ambrose, 1527; Augustine, 1528-9, and a Latin translation of Chrysostom
+in 1530. The rapid succession of these comprehensive works proves that
+the work was done as Erasmus always worked: hastily, with an
+extraordinary power of concentration and a surprising command of his
+mnemonic faculty, but without severe criticism and the painful accuracy
+that modern philology requires in such editions.
+
+Neither the polemical Erasmus nor the witty humorist had been lost in
+the erudite divine and the disillusioned reformer. The paper-warrior we
+would further gladly have dispensed with, but not the humorist, for many
+treasures of literature. But the two are linked inseparably as the
+_Colloquies_ prove.
+
+What was said about the _Moria_ may be repeated here: if in the
+literature of the world only the _Colloquies_ and the _Moria_ have
+remained alive, that choice of history is right. Not in the sense that
+in literature only Erasmus's pleasantest, lightest and most readable
+works were preserved, whereas the ponderous theological erudition was
+silently relegated to the shelves of libraries. It was indeed Erasmus's
+best work that was kept alive in the _Moria_ and the _Colloquies_. With
+these his sparkling wit has charmed the world. If only we had space here
+to assign to the Erasmus of the _Colloquies_ his just and lofty place in
+that brilliant constellation of sixteenth-century followers of
+Democritus: Rabelais, Ariosto, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Ben Jonson!
+
+When Erasmus gave the _Colloquies_ their definite form at Basle, they
+had already had a long and curious genesis. At first they had been no
+more than _Familiarium colloquiorum formulae_, models of colloquial
+Latin conversation, written at Paris before 1500, for the use of his
+pupils. Augustine Caminade, the shabby friend who was fond of living on
+young Erasmus's genius, had collected them and had turned them to
+advantage within a limited compass. He had long been dead when one
+Lambert Hollonius of Liége sold the manuscript that he had got from
+Caminade to Froben at Basle. Beatus Rhenanus, although then already
+Erasmus's trusted friend, had it printed at once without the latter's
+knowledge. That was in 1518. Erasmus was justly offended at it, the more
+so as the book was full of slovenly blunders and solecisms. So he at
+once prepared a better edition himself, published by Maertensz at
+Louvain in 1519. At that time the work really contained but one true
+dialogue, the nucleus of the later _Convivium profanum_. The rest were
+formulae of etiquette and short talks. But already in this form it was,
+apart from its usefulness to latinists, so full of happy wit and
+humorous invention that it became very popular. Even before 1522 it had
+appeared in twenty-five editions, mostly reprints, at Antwerp, Paris,
+Strassburg, Cologne, Cracow, Deventer, Leipzig, London, Vienna, Mayence.
+
+At Basle Erasmus himself revised an edition which was published in March
+1522 by Froben, dedicated to the latter's six-year-old son, the author's
+godchild, Johannes Erasmius Froben. Soon after he did more than revise.
+In 1523 and 1524 first ten new dialogues, afterwards four, and again
+six, were added to the _Formulae_, and at last in 1526 the title was
+changed to _Familiarium colloquiorum opus_. It remained dedicated to the
+boy Froben and went on growing with each new edition: a rich and motley
+collection of dialogues, each a masterpiece of literary form, well-knit,
+spontaneous, convincing, unsurpassed in lightness, vivacity and fluent
+Latin; each one a finished one-act play. From that year on, the stream
+of editions and translations flowed almost uninterruptedly for two
+centuries.
+
+Erasmus's mind had lost nothing of its acuteness and freshness when, so
+many years after the _Moria_, he again set foot in the field of satire.
+As to form, the _Colloquies_ are less confessedly satirical than the
+_Moria_. With its telling subject, the _Praise of Folly_, the latter at
+once introduces itself as a satire: whereas, at first sight, the
+_Colloquies_ might seem to be mere innocent genre-pieces. But as to the
+contents, they are more satirical, at least more directly so. The
+_Moria_, as a satire, is philosophical and general; the _Colloquia_ are
+up to date and special. At the same time they combine more the positive
+and negative elements. In the _Moria_ Erasmus's own ideal dwells
+unexpressed behind the representation; in the _Colloquia_ he continually
+and clearly puts it in the foreground. On this account they form,
+notwithstanding all the jests and mockery, a profoundly serious moral
+treatise and are closely akin to the _Enchiridion militis Christiani_.
+What Erasmus really demanded of the world and of mankind, how he
+pictured to himself that passionately desired, purified Christian
+society of good morals, fervent faith, simplicity and moderation,
+kindliness, toleration and peace--this we can nowhere else find so
+clearly and well-expressed as in the _Colloquia_. In these last fifteen
+years of his life Erasmus resumes, by means of a series of
+moral-dogmatic disquisitions, the topics he broached in the
+_Enchiridion_: the exposition of simple, general Christian conduct;
+untrammelled and natural ethics. That is his message of redemption. It
+came to many out of _Exomologesis_, _De esu carnium_, _Lingua_,
+_Institutio christiani matrimonii_, _Vidua christiana_, _Ecclesiastes_.
+But, to far larger numbers, the message was contained in the
+_Colloquies_.
+
+The _Colloquia_ gave rise to much more hatred and contest than the
+_Moria_, and not without reason, for in them Erasmus attacked persons.
+He allowed himself the pleasure of ridiculing his Louvain antagonists.
+Lee had already been introduced as a sycophant and braggart into the
+edition of 1519, and when the quarrel was assuaged, in 1522, the
+reference was expunged. Vincent Dirks was caricatured in _The Funeral_
+(1526) as a covetous friar, who extorts from the dying testaments in
+favour of his order. He remained. Later sarcastic observations were
+added about Beda and numbers of others. The adherents of Oecolampadius
+took a figure with a long nose in the _Colloquies_ for their leader:
+'Oh, no,' replied Erasmus, 'it is meant for quite another person.'
+Henceforth all those who were at loggerheads with Erasmus, and they were
+many, ran the risk of being pilloried in the _Colloquia_. It was no
+wonder that this work, especially with its scourging mockery of the
+monastic orders, became the object of controversy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Erasmus never emerged from his polemics. He was, no doubt, serious when
+he said that, in his heart, he abhorred and had never desired them; but
+his caustic mind often got the better of his heart, and having once
+begun to quarrel he undoubtedly enjoyed giving his mockery the rein and
+wielding his facile dialectic pen. For understanding his personality it
+is unnecessary here to deal at large with all those fights on paper.
+Only the most important ones need be mentioned.
+
+Since 1516 a pot had been boiling for Erasmus in Spain. A theologian of
+the University at Alcalá, Diego Lopez Zuñiga, or, in Latin, Stunica, had
+been preparing Annotations to the edition of the New Testament: 'a
+second Lee', said Erasmus. At first Cardinal Ximenes had prohibited the
+publication, but in 1520, after his death, the storm broke. For some
+years Stunica kept persecuting Erasmus with his criticism, to the
+latter's great vexation; at last there followed a _rapprochement_,
+probably as Erasmus became more conservative, and a kindly attitude on
+the part of Stunica.
+
+No less long and violent was the quarrel with the syndic of the
+Sorbonne, Noel Bedier or Beda, which began in 1522. The Sorbonne was
+prevailed upon to condemn several of Erasmus's dicta as heretical in
+1526. The effort of Beda to implicate Erasmus in the trial of Louis de
+Berquin, who had translated the condemned writings and who was
+eventually burned at the stake for faith's sake in 1529, made the matter
+still more disagreeable for Erasmus.
+
+It is clear enough that both at Paris and at Louvain in the circles of
+the theological faculties the chief cause of exasperation was in the
+_Colloquia_. Egmondanus and Vincent Dirks did not forgive Erasmus for
+having acridly censured their station and their personalities.
+
+More courteous than the aforementioned polemics was the fight with a
+high-born Italian, Alberto Pio, prince of Carpi; acrid and bitter was
+one with a group of Spanish monks, who brought the Inquisition to bear
+upon him. In Spain 'Erasmistas' was the name of those who inclined to
+more liberal conceptions of the creed.
+
+In this way the matter accumulated for the volume of Erasmus's works
+which contains, according to his own arrangement, all his _Apologiae_:
+not 'excuses', but 'vindications'. 'Miserable man that I am; they just
+fill a volume,' exclaimed Erasmus.
+
+Two of his polemics merit a somewhat closer examination: that with
+Ulrich von Hutten and that with Luther.
+
+[Illustration: XXI. MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK]
+
+[Illustration: XXII. ULRICH VON HUTTEN]
+
+Hutten, knight and humanist, the enthusiastic herald of a national
+German uplift, the ardent hater of papacy and supporter of Luther, was
+certainly a hot-head and perhaps somewhat of a muddle-head. He had
+applauded Erasmus when the latter still seemed to be the coming man and
+had afterwards besought him to take Luther's side. Erasmus had soon
+discovered that this noisy partisan might compromise him. Had not one of
+Hutten's rash satires been ascribed to him, Erasmus? There came a time
+when Hutten could no longer abide Erasmus. His knightly instinct reacted
+on the very weaknesses of Erasmus's character: the fear of committing
+himself and the inclination to repudiate a supporter in time of danger.
+Erasmus knew that weakness himself: 'Not all have strength enough for
+martyrdom,' he writes to Richard Pace in 1521. 'I fear that I shall, in
+case it results in a tumult, follow St. Peter's example.' But this
+acknowledgement does not discharge him from the burden of Hutten's
+reproaches which he flung at him in fiery language in 1523. In this
+quarrel Erasmus's own fame pays the penalty of his fault. For nowhere
+does he show himself so undignified and puny as in that 'Sponge against
+Hutten's mire', which the latter did not live to read. Hutten,
+disillusioned and forsaken, died at an early age in 1523, and Erasmus
+did not scruple to publish the venomous pamphlet against his former
+friend after his demise.
+
+Hutten, however, was avenged upon Erasmus living. One of his adherents,
+Henry of Eppendorff, inherited Hutten's bitter disgust with Erasmus and
+persecuted him for years. Getting hold of one of Erasmus's letters in
+which he was denounced, he continually threatened him with an action for
+defamation of character. Eppendorff's hostility so thoroughly
+exasperated Erasmus that he fancied he could detect his machinations and
+spies everywhere even after the actual persecution had long ceased.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Melanchthon, _Opera, Corpus Reformatorum_, XII 266, where he refers
+to _Querela pacis_, which, however, was not written before 1517; _vide_
+A. 603 and I p. 37.10.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER AND GROWING CONSERVATISM
+
+1524-6
+
+    Erasmus persuaded to write against Luther--_De Libero Arbitrio_:
+    1524--Luther's answer: _De Servo Arbitrio_--Erasmus's
+    indefiniteness contrasted with Luther's extreme rigour--Erasmus
+    henceforth on the side of conservatism--The Bishop of Basle and
+    Oecolampadius--Erasmus's half-hearted dogmatics: confession,
+    ceremonies, worship of the Saints, Eucharist--_Institutio
+    Christiani Matrimonii_: 1526--He feels surrounded by enemies
+
+
+At length Erasmus was led, in spite of all, to do what he had always
+tried to avoid: he wrote against Luther. But it did not in the least
+resemble the _geste_ Erasmus at one time contemplated, in the cause of
+peace in Christendom and uniformity of faith, to call a halt to the
+impetuous Luther, and thereby to recall the world to its senses. In the
+great act of the Reformation their polemics were merely an after-play.
+Not Erasmus alone was disillusioned and tired--Luther too was past his
+heroic prime, circumscribed by conditions, forced into the world of
+affairs, a disappointed man.
+
+Erasmus had wished to persevere in his resolution to remain a spectator
+of the great tragedy. 'If, as appears from the wonderful success of
+Luther's cause, God wills all this'--thus did Erasmus reason--'and He
+has perhaps judged such a drastic surgeon as Luther necessary for the
+corruption of these times, then it is not my business to withstand him.'
+But he was not left in peace. While he went on protesting that he had
+nothing to do with Luther and differed widely from him, the defenders of
+the old Church adhered to the standpoint urged as early as 1520 by
+Nicholas of Egmond before the rector of Louvain: 'So long as he refuses
+to write against Luther, we take him to be a Lutheran'. So matters
+stood. 'That you are looked upon as a Lutheran here is certain,' Vives
+writes to him from the Netherlands in 1522.
+
+Ever stronger became the pressure to write against Luther. From Henry
+VIII came a call, communicated by Erasmus's old friend Tunstall, from
+George of Saxony, from Rome itself, whence Pope Adrian VI, his old
+patron, had urged him shortly before his death.
+
+Erasmus thought he could refuse no longer. He tried some dialogues in
+the style of the _Colloquies_, but did not get on with them; and
+probably they would not have pleased those who were desirous of
+enlisting his services. Between Luther and Erasmus himself there had
+been no personal correspondence, since the former had promised him, in
+1520; 'Well then, Erasmus, I shall not mention your name again.' Now
+that Erasmus had prepared to attack Luther, however, there came an
+epistle from the latter, written on 15 April 1524, in which the
+reformer, in his turn, requested Erasmus in his own words: 'Please
+remain now what you have always professed yourself desirous of being: a
+mere spectator of our tragedy'. There is a ring of ironical contempt in
+Luther's words, but Erasmus called the letter 'rather humane; I had not
+the courage to reply with equal humanity, because of the sycophants'.
+
+In order to be able to combat Luther with a clear conscience Erasmus had
+naturally to choose a point on which he differed from Luther in his
+heart. It was not one of the more superficial parts of the Church's
+structure. For these he either, with Luther, cordially rejected, such as
+ceremonies, observances, fasting, etc., or, though more moderately than
+Luther, he had his doubts about them, as the sacraments or the primacy
+of St. Peter. So he naturally came to the point where the deepest gulf
+yawned between their natures, between their conceptions of the essence
+of faith, and thus to the central and eternal problem of good and evil,
+guilt and compulsion, liberty and bondage, God and man. Luther confessed
+in his reply that here indeed the vital point had been touched.
+
+_De libero arbitrio diatribe_ (_A Disquisition upon Free Will_) appeared
+in September 1524. Was Erasmus qualified to write about such a subject?
+In conformity with his method and with his evident purpose to vindicate
+authority and tradition, this time, Erasmus developed the argument that
+Scripture teaches, doctors affirm, philosophers prove, and human reason
+testifies man's will to be free. Without acknowledgement of free will
+the terms of God's justice and God's mercy remain without meaning. What
+would be the sense of the teachings, reproofs, admonitions of Scripture
+(Timothy iii.) if all happened according to mere and inevitable
+necessity? To what purpose is obedience praised, if for good and evil
+works we are equally but tools to God, as the hatchet to the carpenter?
+And if this were so, it would be dangerous to reveal such a doctrine to
+the multitude, for morality is dependent on the consciousness of
+freedom.
+
+Luther received the treatise of his antagonist with disgust and
+contempt. In writing his reply, however, he suppressed these feelings
+outwardly and observed the rules of courtesy. But his inward anger is
+revealed in the contents itself of _De servo arbitrio_ (_On the Will not
+free_). For here he really did what Erasmus had just reproached him
+with--trying to heal a dislocated member by tugging at it in the
+opposite direction. More fiercely than ever before, his formidable
+boorish mind drew the startling inferences of his burning faith. Without
+any reserve he now accepted all the extremes of absolute determinism. In
+order to confute indeterminism in explicit terms, he was now forced to
+have recourse to those primitive metaphors of exalted faith striving to
+express the inexpressible: God's two wills, which do not coincide, God's
+'eternal hatred of mankind, a hatred not only on account of demerits and
+the works of free will, but a hatred that existed even before the world
+was created', and that metaphor of the human will, which, as a riding
+beast, stands in the middle between God and the devil and which is
+mounted by one or the other without being able to move towards either of
+the two contending riders. If anywhere, Luther's doctrine in _De Servo
+Arbitrio_ means a recrudescence of faith and a straining of religious
+conceptions.
+
+But it was Luther who here stood on the rockbed of a profound and mystic
+faith in which the absolute conscience of the eternal pervades all. In
+him all conceptions, like dry straw, were consumed in the glow of God's
+majesty, for him each human co-operation to attain to salvation was a
+profanation of God's glory. Erasmus's mind after all did not truly
+_live_ in the ideas which were here disputed, of sin and grace, of
+redemption and the glory of God as the final cause of all that is.
+
+Was, then, Erasmus's cause in all respects inferior? Was Luther right at
+the core? Perhaps. Dr. Murray rightly reminds us of Hegel's saying that
+tragedy is not the conflict between right and wrong, but the conflict
+between right and right. The combat of Luther and Erasmus proceeded
+beyond the point at which our judgement is forced to halt and has to
+accept an equivalence, nay, a compatibility of affirmation and negation.
+And this fact, that they here were fighting with words and metaphors in
+a sphere beyond that of what may be known and expressed, was understood
+by Erasmus. Erasmus, the man of the fine shades, for whom ideas
+eternally blended into each other and interchanged, called a Proteus by
+Luther; Luther the man of over-emphatic expression about all matters.
+The Dutchman, who sees the sea, was opposed to the German, who looks out
+on mountain tops.
+
+'This is quite true that we cannot speak of God but with inadequate
+words.' 'Many problems should be deferred, not to the oecumenical
+Council, but till the time when, the glass and the darkness having been
+taken away, we shall see God face to face.' 'What is free of error?'
+'There are in sacred literature certain sanctuaries into which God has
+not willed that we should penetrate further.'
+
+The Catholic Church had on the point of free will reserved to itself
+some slight proviso, left a little elbow-room to the consciousness of
+human liberty _under_ grace. Erasmus conceived that liberty in a
+considerably broader spirit. Luther absolutely denied it. The opinion of
+contemporaries was at first too much dominated by their participation in
+the great struggle as such: they applauded Erasmus, because he struck
+boldly at Luther, or the other way about, according to their sympathies.
+Not only Vives applauded Erasmus, but also more orthodox Catholics such
+as Sadolet. The German humanists, unwilling, for the most part, to break
+with the ancient Church, were moved by Erasmus's attack to turn their
+backs still more upon Luther: Mutianus, Zasius, and Pirckheimer. Even
+Melanchthon inclined to Erasmus's standpoint. Others, like Capito, once
+a zealous supporter, now washed their hands of him. Soon Calvin with the
+iron cogency of his argument was completely to take Luther's side.
+
+It is worth while to quote the opinion of a contemporary Catholic
+scholar about the relations of Erasmus and Luther. 'Erasmus,' says F. X.
+Kiefl,[19] 'with his concept of free, unspoiled human nature was
+intrinsically much more foreign to the Church than Luther. He only
+combated it, however, with haughty scepticism: for which reason Luther
+with subtle psychology upbraided him for liking to speak of the
+shortcomings and the misery of the Church of Christ in such a way that
+his readers could not help laughing, instead of bringing his charges,
+with deep sighs, as beseemed before God.'
+
+The _Hyperaspistes_, a voluminous treatise in which Erasmus again
+addressed Luther, was nothing but an epilogue, which need not be
+discussed here at length.
+
+Erasmus had thus, at last, openly taken sides. For, apart from the
+dogmatical point at issue itself, the most important part about _De
+libero arbitrio_ was that in it he had expressly turned against the
+individual religious conceptions and had spoken in favour of the
+authority and tradition of the Church. He always regarded himself as a
+Catholic. 'Neither death nor life shall draw me from the communion of
+the Catholic Church,' he writes in 1522, and in the _Hyperaspistes_ in
+1526: 'I have never been an apostate from the Catholic Church. I know
+that in this Church, which you call the Papist Church, there are many
+who displease me, but such I also see in your Church. One bears more
+easily the evils to which one is accustomed. Therefore I bear with this
+Church, until I shall see a better, and it cannot help bearing with me,
+until I shall myself be better. And he does not sail badly who steers a
+middle course between two several evils.'
+
+But was it possible to keep to that course? On either side people turned
+away from him. 'I who, formerly, in countless letters was addressed as
+thrice great hero, Prince of letters, Sun of studies, Maintainer of true
+theology, am now ignored, or represented in quite different colours,' he
+writes. How many of his old friends and congenial spirits had already
+gone!
+
+A sufficient number remained, however, who thought and hoped as Erasmus
+did. His untiring pen still continued to propagate, especially by means
+of his letters, the moderating and purifying influence of his mind
+throughout all the countries of Europe. Scholars, high church
+dignitaries, nobles, students, and civil magistrates were his
+correspondents. The Bishop of Basle himself, Christopher of Utenheim,
+was a man after Erasmus's heart. A zealous advocate of humanism, he had
+attempted, as early as 1503, to reform the clergy of his bishopric by
+means of synodal statutes, without much success; afterwards he had
+called scholars like Oecolampadius, Capito and Wimpfeling to Basle. That
+was before the great struggle began, which was soon to carry away
+Oecolampadius and Capito much further than the Bishop of Basle or
+Erasmus approved. In 1522 Erasmus addressed the bishop in a treatise _De
+interdicto esu carnium_ (_On the Prohibition of eating Meat_). This was
+one of the last occasions on which he directly opposed the established
+order.
+
+The bishop, however, could no longer control the movement. A
+considerable number of the commonalty of Basle and the majority of the
+council, were already on the side of radical Reformation. About a year
+after Erasmus, Johannes Oecolampadius, whose first residence at Basle
+had also coincided with his (at that time he had helped Erasmus with
+Hebrew for the edition of the New Testament), returned to the town with
+the intention of organizing the resistance to the old order there. In
+1523 the council appointed him professor of Holy Scripture in the
+University; at the same time four Catholic professors lost their places.
+He succeeded in obtaining general permission for unlicensed preaching.
+Soon a far more hot-headed agitator, the impetuous Guillaume Farel, also
+arrived for active work at Basle and in the environs. He is the man who
+will afterwards reform Geneva and persuade Calvin to stay there.
+
+Though at first Oecolampadius began to introduce novelties into the
+church service with caution, Erasmus saw these innovations with alarm.
+Especially the fanaticism of Farel, whom he hated bitterly. It was these
+men who retarded what he still desired and thought possible: a
+compromise. His lambent spirit, which never fully decided in favour of a
+definite opinion, had, with regard to most of the disputed points,
+gradually fixed on a half-conservative midway standpoint, by means of
+which, without denying his deepest conviction, he tried to remain
+faithful to the Church. In 1524 he had expressed his sentiments about
+confession in the treatise _Exomologesis_ (_On the Way to confess_). He
+accepts it halfway: if not instituted by Christ or the Apostles, it was,
+in any case, by the Fathers. It should be piously preserved. Confession
+is of excellent use, though, at times, a great evil. In this way he
+tries 'to admonish either party', 'neither to agree with nor to assail'
+the deniers, 'though inclining to the side of the believers'.
+
+In the long list of his polemics he gradually finds opportunities to
+define his views somewhat; circumstantially, for instance, in the
+answers to Alberto Pio, of 1525 and 1529. Subsequently it is always done
+in the form of an _Apologia_, whether he is attacked for the
+_Colloquia_, for the _Moria_, Jerome, the _Paraphrases_ or anything
+else. At last he recapitulates his views to some extent in _De amabili
+Ecclesiae concordia_ (_On the Amiable Concord of the Church_), of 1533,
+which, however, ranks hardly any more among his reformatory endeavours.
+
+On most points Erasmus succeeds in finding moderate and conservative
+formulae. Even with regard to ceremonies he no longer merely rejects. He
+finds a kind word to say even for fasting, which he had always abhorred,
+for the veneration of relics and for Church festivals. He does not want
+to abolish the worship of the Saints: it no longer entails danger of
+idolatry. He is even willing to admit the images: 'He who takes the
+imagery out of life deprives it of its highest pleasure; we often
+discern more in images than we conceive from the written word'.
+Regarding Christ's substantial presence in the sacrament of the altar he
+holds fast to the Catholic view, but without fervour, only on the ground
+of the Church's consensus, and because he cannot believe that Christ,
+who is truth and love, would have suffered His bride to cling so long to
+so horrid an error as to worship a crust of bread instead of Him. But
+for these reasons he might, at need, accept Oecolampadius's view.
+
+From the period at Basle dates one of the purest and most beneficent
+moral treatises of Erasmus's, the _Institutio Christiani matrimonii_
+(_On Christian Marriage_) of 1526, written for Catherine of Aragon,
+Queen of England, quite in the spirit of the _Enchiridion_, save for a
+certain diffuseness betraying old age. Later follows _De vidua
+Christiana_, _The Christian Widow_, for Mary of Hungary, which is as
+impeccable but less interesting.
+
+All this did not disarm the defenders of the old Church. They held fast
+to the clear picture of Erasmus's creed that arose from the _Colloquies_
+and that could not be called purely Catholic. There it appeared only too
+clearly that, however much Erasmus might desire to leave the letter
+intact, his heart was not in the convictions which were vital to the
+Catholic Church. Consequently the _Colloquies_ were later, when
+Erasmus's works were expurgated, placed on the index in the lump, with
+the _Moria_ and a few other works. The rest is _caute legenda_, to be
+read with caution. Much was rejected of the Annotations to the New
+Testament, of the _Paraphrases_ and the _Apologiae_, very little of the
+_Enchiridion_, of the _Ratio verae theologiae_, and even of the
+_Exomologesis_. But this was after the fight against the living Erasmus
+had long been over.
+
+So long as he remained at Basle, or elsewhere, as the centre of a large
+intellectual group whose force could not be estimated, just because it
+did not stand out as a party--it was not known what turn he might yet
+take, what influence his mind might yet have on the Church. He remained
+a king of minds in his quiet study. The hatred that was felt for him,
+the watching of all his words and actions, were of a nature as only
+falls to the lot of the acknowledged great. The chorus of enemies who
+laid the fault of the whole Reformation on Erasmus was not silenced. 'He
+laid the eggs which Luther and Zwingli have hatched.' With vexation
+Erasmus quoted ever new specimens of narrow-minded, malicious and stupid
+controversy. At Constance there lived a doctor who had hung his portrait
+on the wall merely to spit at it as often as he passed it. Erasmus
+jestingly compares his fate to that of Saint Cassianus, who was stabbed
+to death by his pupils with pencils. Had he not been pierced to the
+quick for many years by the pens and tongues of countless people and did
+he not live in that torment without death bringing the end? The keen
+sensitiveness to opposition was seated very deeply with Erasmus. And he
+could never forbear irritating others into opposing him.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] _Luther's religiöse Psyche_, Hochland XV, 1917, p. 21.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS
+
+1528-9
+
+    Erasmus turns against the excesses of humanism: its paganism and
+    pedantic classicism--_Ciceronianus_: 1528--It brings him new
+    enemies--The Reformation carried through at Basle--He emigrates
+    to Freiburg: 1529--His view concerning the results of the
+    Reformation
+
+
+Nothing is more characteristic of the independence which Erasmus
+reserved for himself regarding all movements of his time than the fact
+that he also joined issue in the camp of the humanists. In 1528 there
+were published by Froben (the chief of the firm of Johannes Froben had
+just died) two dialogues in one volume from Erasmus's hand: one about
+the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek, and one entitled
+_Ciceronianus_ or _On the Best Diction_, i.e. in writing and speaking
+Latin. Both were proofs that Erasmus had lost nothing of his liveliness
+and wit. The former treatise was purely philological, and as such has
+had great influence; the other was satirical as well. It had a long
+history.
+
+Erasmus had always regarded classical studies as the panacea of
+civilization, provided they were made serviceable to pure Christianity.
+His sincere ethical feeling made him recoil from the obscenity of a
+Poggio and the immorality of the early Italian humanists. At the same
+time his delicate and natural taste told him that a pedantic and servile
+imitation of antique models could never produce the desired result.
+Erasmus knew Latin too well to be strictly classical; his Latin was
+alive and required freedom. In his early works we find taunts about the
+over-precise Latin purists: one had declared a newly found fragment of
+Cicero to be thoroughly barbaric; 'among all sorts of authors none are
+so insufferable to me as those apes of Cicero'.
+
+In spite of the great expectations he cherished of classical studies for
+pure Christianity, he saw one danger: 'that under the cloak of reviving
+ancient literature paganism tries to rear its head, as there are those
+among Christians who acknowledge Christ only in name but inwardly
+breathe heathenism'. This he writes in 1517 to Capito. In Italy scholars
+devote themselves too exclusively and in too pagan guise to _bonae
+literae_. He considered it his special task to assist in bringing it
+about that those _bonae literae_ 'which with the Italians have thus far
+been almost pagan, shall get used to speaking of Christ'.
+
+How it must have vexed Erasmus that in Italy of all countries he was, at
+the same time and in one breath, charged with heresy and questioned in
+respect to his knowledge and integrity as a scholar. Italians accused
+him of plagiarism and trickery. He complained of it to Aleander, who, he
+thought, had a hand in it.
+
+In a letter of 13 October 1527, to a professor at Toledo, we find the
+_ébauche_ of the _Ciceronianus_. In addition to the haters of classic
+studies for the sake of orthodox belief, writes Erasmus, 'lately another
+and new sort of enemies has broken from their ambush. These are troubled
+that the _bonae literae_ speak of Christ, as though nothing can be
+elegant but what is pagan. To their ears _Jupiter optimus maximus_
+sounds more pleasant than _Jesus Christus redemptor mundi_, and _patres
+conscripti_ more agreeable than _sancti apostoli_.... They account it a
+greater dishonour to be no Ciceronian than no Christian, as if Cicero,
+if he should now come to life again, would not speak of Christian things
+in other words than in his time he spoke of his own religion!... What is
+the sense of this hateful swaggering with the name Ciceronian? I will
+tell you briefly, in your ear. With that pearl-powder they cover the
+paganism that is dearer to them than the glory of Christ.' To Erasmus
+Cicero's style is by no means the ideal one. He prefers something more
+solid, succinct, vigorous, less polished, more manly. He who sometimes
+has to write a book in a day has no time to polish his style, often not
+even to read it over.... 'What do I care for an empty dish of words, ten
+words here and there mumped from Cicero: I want all Cicero's spirit.'
+These are apes at whom one may laugh, for far more serious than these
+things are the tumults of the so-called new Gospel, to which he next
+proceeds in this letter.
+
+And so, in the midst of all his polemics and bitter vindication, he
+allowed himself once more the pleasure of giving the reins to his love
+of scoffing, but, as in the _Moria_ and _Colloquia_, ennobled by an
+almost passionate sincerity of Christian disposition and a natural sense
+of measure. The _Ciceronianus_ is a masterpiece of ready, many-sided
+knowledge, of convincing eloquence, and of easy handling of a wealth of
+arguments. With splendid, quiet and yet lively breadth flows the long
+conversation between Bulephorus, representing Erasmus's opinions,
+Hypologus, the interested inquirer, and Nosoponus, the zealous
+Ciceronian, who, to preserve a perfect purity of mind, breakfasts off
+ten currants.
+
+Erasmus in drawing Nosoponus had evidently, in the main, alluded to one
+who could no longer reply: Christopher Longolius, who had died in 1522.
+
+The core of the _Ciceronianus_ is where Erasmus points out the danger to
+Christian faith of a too zealous classicism. He exclaims urgently: 'It
+is paganism, believe me, Nosoponus, it is paganism that charms our ear
+and our soul in such things. We are Christians in name alone.' Why does
+a classic proverb sound better to us than a quotation from the Bible:
+_corchorum inter olera_, 'chick-weed among the vegetables', better than
+'Saul among the prophets'? As a sample of the absurdity of
+Ciceronianism, he gives a translation of a dogmatic sentence in
+classical language: 'Optimi maximique Jovis interpres ac filius,
+servator, rex, juxta vatum responsa, ex Olympo devolavit in terras,'
+for: Jesus Christ, the Word and the Son of the eternal Father, came into
+the world according to the prophets. Most humanists wrote indeed in that
+style.
+
+Was Erasmus aware that he here attacked his own past? After all, was it
+not exactly the same thing which he had done, to the indignation of his
+opponents, when translating _Logos_ by _Sermo_ instead of by _Verbum_?
+Had he not himself desired that in the church hymns the metre should be
+corrected, not to mention his own classical odes and paeans to Mary and
+the Saints? And was his warning against the partiality for classic
+proverbs and turns applicable to anything more than to the _Adagia_?
+
+We here see the aged Erasmus on the path of reaction, which might
+eventually have led him far from humanism. In his combat with humanistic
+purism he foreshadows a Christian puritanism.
+
+As always his mockery procured him a new flood of invectives. Bembo and
+Sadolet, the masters of pure Latin, could afford to smile at it, but the
+impetuous Julius Caesar Scaliger violently inveighed against him,
+especially to avenge Longolius's memory. Erasmus's perpetual feeling of
+being persecuted got fresh food: he again thought that Aleander was at
+the bottom of it. 'The Italians set the imperial court against me,' he
+writes in 1530. A year later all is quiet again. He writes jestingly:
+'Upon my word, I am going to change my style after Budaeus's model and
+to become a Ciceronian according to the example of Sadolet and Bembo'.
+But even near the close of his life he was engaged in a new contest with
+Italians, because he had hurt their national pride; 'they rage at me on
+all sides with slanderous libels, as at the enemy of Italy and Cicero'.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were, as he had said himself, other difficulties touching him more
+closely. Conditions at Basle had for years been developing in a
+direction which distressed and alarmed him. When he established himself
+there in 1521, it might still have seemed to him as if the bishop, old
+Christopher of Utenheim, a great admirer of Erasmus and a man after his
+heart, would succeed in effecting a reformation at Basle, as he desired
+it; abolishing acknowledged abuses, but remaining within the fold of the
+Church. In that very year, 1521, however, the emancipation of the
+municipality from the bishop's power--it had been in progress since
+Basle, in 1501, had joined the Swiss Confederacy--was consummated.
+Henceforth the council was number one, now no longer exclusively made up
+of aristocratic elements. In vain did the bishop ally himself with his
+colleagues of Constance and Lausanne to maintain Catholicism. In the
+town the new creed got more and more the upper hand. When, however, in
+1525, it had come to open tumults against the Catholic service, the
+council became more cautious and tried to reform more heedfully.
+
+Oecolampadius desired this, too. Relations between him and Erasmus were
+precarious. Erasmus himself had at one time directed the religious
+thought of the impulsive, sensitive, restless young man. When he had, in
+1520, suddenly sought refuge in a convent, he had expressly justified
+that step towards Erasmus, the condemner of binding vows. And now they
+saw each other again at Basle, in 1522: Oecolampadius having left the
+monastery, a convinced adherent and apostle of the new doctrine;
+Erasmus, the great spectator which he wished to be. Erasmus treated his
+old coadjutor coolly, and as the latter progressed, retreated more and
+more. Yet he kept steering a middle course and in 1525 gave some
+moderate advice to the council, which meanwhile had turned more Catholic
+again.
+
+The old bishop, who for some years had no longer resided in his town, in
+1527 requested the chapter to relieve him of his office, and died
+shortly afterwards. Then events moved very quickly. After Berne had,
+meanwhile, reformed itself in 1528, Oecolampadius demanded a decision
+also for Basle. Since the close of 1528 the town had been on the verge
+of civil war. A popular rising put an end to the resistance of the
+Council and cleared it of Catholic members; and in February 1529 the old
+service was prohibited, the images were removed from the churches, the
+convents abolished, and the University suspended. Oecolampadius became
+the first minister in the 'Münster' and leader of the Basle church, for
+which he soon drew up a reformatory ordinance. The new bishop remained
+at Porrentruy, and the chapter removed to Freiburg.
+
+[Illustration: XXIII. ERASMUS'S RESIDENCE AT FREIBURG, 1529-31]
+
+The moment of departure had now come for Erasmus. His position at Basle
+in 1529 somewhat resembled, but in a reversed sense, the one at Louvain
+in 1521. Then the Catholics wanted to avail themselves of his services
+against Luther, now the Evangelicals would fain have kept him at Basle.
+For his name was still as a banner. His presence would strengthen the
+position of reformed Basle; on the one hand, because, as people
+reasoned, if he were not of the same mind as the reformers, he would
+have left the town long ago; on the other hand, because his figure
+seemed to guarantee moderation and might attract many hesitating minds.
+
+It was, therefore, again to safeguard his independence that Erasmus
+changed his residence. It was a great wrench this time. Old age and
+invalidism had made the restless man a stay-at-home. As he foresaw
+trouble from the side of the municipality, he asked Archduke
+Ferdinand--who for his brother Charles V governed the German empire and
+just then presided over the Diet of Speyer--to send him a safe conduct
+for the whole empire and an invitation, moreover, to come to court,
+which he did not dream of accepting. As place of refuge he had selected
+the not far distant town of Freiburg im Breisgau, which was directly
+under the strict government of the Austrian house, and where he,
+therefore, need not be afraid of such a turn of affairs as that at
+Basle. It was, moreover, a juncture at which the imperial authority and
+the Catholic cause in Germany seemed again to be gaining ground rapidly.
+
+Erasmus would not or could not keep his departure a secret. He sent the
+most precious of his possessions in advance, and when this had drawn
+attention to his plan, he purposely invited Oecolampadius to a farewell
+talk. The reformer declared his sincere friendship for Erasmus, which
+the latter did not decline, provided he granted him to differ on certain
+points of dogma. Oecolampadius tried to keep him from leaving the town,
+and, when it proved too late for that, to persuade him to return later.
+They took leave with a handshake. Erasmus had desired to join his boat
+at a distant landing-stage, but the Council would not allow this: he had
+to start from the usual place near the Rhine bridge. A numerous crowd
+witnessed his embarkation, 13 April 1529. Some friends were there to see
+him off. No unfavourable demonstration occurred.
+
+His reception at Freiburg convinced him that, in spite of all, he was
+still the celebrated and admired prince of letters. The Council placed
+at his disposal the large, though unfinished, house built for the
+Emperor Maximilian himself; a professor of theology offered him his
+garden. Anthony Fugger had tried to draw him to Augsburg by means of a
+yearly allowance. For the rest he considered Freiburg by no means a
+permanent place of abode. 'I have resolved to remain here this winter
+and then to fly with the swallows to the place whither God shall call
+me.' But he soon recognized the great advantage which Freiburg offered.
+The climate, to which he was so sensitive, turned out better than he
+expected, and the position of the town was extremely favourable for
+emigrating to France, should circumstances require this, or for dropping
+down the Rhine back to the Netherlands, whither many always called him.
+In 1531 he bought a house at Freiburg.
+
+The old Erasmus at Freiburg, ever more tormented by his painful malady,
+much more disillusioned than when he left Louvain in 1521, of more
+confirmed views as to the great ecclesiastical strife, will only be
+fully revealed to us when his correspondence with Boniface Amerbach, the
+friend whom he left behind at Basle--a correspondence not found complete
+in the older collections--has been edited by Dr. Allen's care. From no
+period of Erasmus's life, it seems, may so much be gleaned, in point of
+knowledge of his daily habits and thoughts, as from these very years.
+Work went on without a break in that great scholar's workshop where he
+directs his famuli, who hunt manuscripts for him, and then copy and
+examine them, and whence he sends forth his letters all over Europe. In
+the series of editions of the Fathers followed Basil and new editions of
+Chrysostom and Cyprian; his editions of classic authors were augmented
+by the works of Aristotle. He revised and republished the _Colloquies_
+three more times, the _Adages_ and the New Testament once more.
+Occasional writings of a moral or politico-theological nature kept
+flowing from his pen.
+
+From the cause of the Reformation he was now quite estranged.
+'Pseudevangelici', he contumeliously calls the reformed. 'I might have
+been a corypheus in Luther's church,' he writes in 1528, 'but I
+preferred to incur the hatred of all Germany to being separate from the
+community of the Church.' The authorities should have paid a little less
+attention at first to Luther's proceedings; then the fire would never
+have spread so violently. He had always urged theologians to let minor
+concerns which only contain an appearance of piety rest, and to turn to
+the sources of Scripture. Now it was too late. Towns and countries
+united ever more closely for or against the Reformation. 'If, what I
+pray may never happen,' he writes to Sadolet in 1530, 'you should see
+horrible commotions of the world arise, not so fatal for Germany as for
+the Church, then remember Erasmus prophesied it.' To Beatus Rhenanus he
+frequently said that, had he known that an age like theirs was coming,
+he would never have written many things, or would not have written them
+as he had.
+
+'Just look,' he exclaims, 'at the Evangelical people, have they become
+any better? Do they yield less to luxury, lust and greed? Show me a man
+whom that Gospel has changed from a toper to a temperate man, from a
+brute to a gentle creature, from a miser into a liberal person, from a
+shameless to a chaste being. I will show you many who have become even
+worse than they were.' Now they have thrown the images out of the
+churches and abolished mass (he is thinking of Basle especially): has
+anything better come instead? 'I have never entered their churches, but
+I have seen them return from hearing the sermon, as if inspired by an
+evil spirit, the faces of all showing a curious wrath and ferocity, and
+there was no one except one old man who saluted me properly, when I
+passed in the company of some distinguished persons.'
+
+He hated that spirit of absolute assuredness so inseparably bound up
+with the reformers. 'Zwingli and Bucer may be inspired by the Spirit,
+Erasmus from himself is nothing but a man and cannot comprehend what is
+of the Spirit.'
+
+There was a group among the reformed to whom Erasmus in his heart of
+hearts was more nearly akin than to the Lutherans or Zwinglians with
+their rigid dogmatism: the Anabaptists. He rejected the doctrine from
+which they derived their name, and abhorred the anarchic element in
+them. He remained far too much the man of spiritual decorum to identify
+himself with these irregular believers. But he was not blind to the
+sincerity of their moral aspirations and sympathized with their dislike
+of brute force and the patience with which they bore persecution. 'They
+are praised more than all others for the innocence of their life,' he
+writes in 1529. Just in the last part of his life came the episode of
+the violent revolutionary proceedings of the fanatic Anabaptists; it
+goes without saying that Erasmus speaks of it only with horror.
+
+One of the best historians of the Reformation, Walter Köhler, calls
+Erasmus one of the spiritual fathers of Anabaptism. And certain it is
+that in its later, peaceful development it has important traits in
+common with Erasmus: a tendency to acknowledge free will, a certain
+rationalistic trend, a dislike of an exclusive conception of a Church.
+It seems possible to prove that the South German Anabaptist Hans Denk
+derived opinions directly from Erasmus. For a considerable part,
+however, this community of ideas must, no doubt, have been based on
+peculiarities of religious consciousness in the Netherlands, whence
+Erasmus sprang, and where Anabaptism found such a receptive soil.
+Erasmus was certainly never aware of these connections.
+
+Some remarkable evidence regarding Erasmus's altered attitude towards
+the old and the new Church is shown by what follows.
+
+The reproach he had formerly so often flung at the advocates of
+conservatism that they hated the _bonae literae_, so dear to him, and
+wanted to stifle them, he now uses against the evangelical party.
+'Wherever Lutherism is dominant the study of literature is extinguished.
+Why else,' he continues, using a remarkable sophism, 'are Luther and
+Melanchthon compelled to call back the people so urgently to the love of
+letters?' 'Just compare the University of Wittenberg with that of
+Louvain or Paris!... Printers say that before this Gospel came they used
+to dispose of 3,000 volumes more quickly than now of 600. A sure proof
+that studies flourish!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+LAST YEARS
+
+    Religious and political contrasts grow sharper--The coming
+    strife in Germany still suspended--Erasmus finishes his
+    _Ecclesiastes_--Death of Fisher and More--Erasmus back at Basle:
+    1535--Pope Paul III wants to make him write in favour of the
+    cause of the Council--Favours declined by Erasmus--_De Puritate
+    Ecclesiae_--The end: 12 July 1536
+
+
+During the last years of Erasmus's life all the great issues which kept
+the world in suspense were rapidly taking threatening forms. Wherever
+compromise or reunion had before still seemed possible, sharp conflicts,
+clearly outlined party-groupings, binding formulae were now barring the
+way to peace. While in the spring of 1529 Erasmus prepared for his
+departure from Basle, a strong Catholic majority of the Diet at Speyer
+got the 'recess' of 1526, favourable for the Evangelicals, revoked, only
+the Lutherans among them keeping what they had obtained; and secured a
+prohibition of any further changes or novelties. The Zwinglians and
+Anabaptists were not allowed to enjoy the least tolerance. This was
+immediately followed by the Protest of the chief evangelical princes and
+towns, which henceforth was to give the name to all anti-Catholics
+together (19 April 1529). And not only between Catholics and Protestants
+in the Empire did the rupture become complete. Even before the end of
+that year the question of the Lord's supper proved an insuperable
+stumbling-block in the way of a real union of Zwinglians and Lutherans.
+Luther parted from Zwingli at the colloquy of Marburg with the words,
+'Your spirit differs from ours'.
+
+In Switzerland civil war had openly broken out between the Catholic and
+the Evangelical cantons, only calmed for a short time by the first peace
+of Kappel. The treaties of Cambray and Barcelona, which in 1529 restored
+at least political peace in Christendom for the time being, could no
+longer draw from old Erasmus jubilations about a coming golden age, like
+those with which the concord of 1516 had inspired him. A month later the
+Turks appeared before Vienna.
+
+All these occurrences could not but distress and alarm Erasmus. But he
+was outside them. When reading his letters of that period we are more
+than ever impressed by the fact that, for all the width and liveliness
+of his mind, he is remote from the great happenings of his time. Beyond
+a certain circle of interests, touching his own ideas or his person, his
+perceptions are vague and weak. If he still meddles occasionally with
+questions of the day, he does so in the moralizing manner, by means of
+generalities, without emphasis: his 'Advice about declaring war on the
+Turks' (March 1530) is written in the form of an interpretation of Psalm
+28, and so vague that, at the close, he himself anticipates that the
+reader may exclaim: 'But now say clearly: do you think that war should
+be declared or not?'
+
+In the summer of 1530 the Diet met again at Augsburg under the auspices
+of the Emperor himself to try once more 'to attain to a good peace and
+Christian truth'. The Augsburg Confession, defended all too weakly by
+Melanchthon, was read here, disputed, and declared refuted by the
+Emperor.
+
+Erasmus had no share in all this. Many had exhorted him in letters to
+come to Augsburg; but he had in vain expected a summons from the
+Emperor. At the instance of the Emperor's counsellors he had postponed
+his proposed removal to Brabant in that autumn till after the decision
+of the Diet. But his services were not needed for the drastic resolution
+of repression with which the Emperor closed the session in November.
+
+The great struggle in Germany seemed to be approaching: the resolutions
+of Augsburg were followed by the formation of the League of Schmalkalden
+uniting all Protestant territories and towns of Germany in their
+opposition to the Emperor. In the same year (1531) Zwingli was killed in
+the battle of Kappel against the Catholic cantons, soon to be followed
+by Oecolampadius, who died at Basle. 'It is right', writes Erasmus,
+'that those two leaders have perished. If Mars had been favourable to
+them, we should now have been done for.'
+
+In Switzerland a sort of equilibrium had set in; at any rate matters had
+come to a standstill; in Germany the inevitable struggle was postponed
+for many years. The Emperor had understood that, to combat the German
+Protestants effectively, he should first get the Pope to hold the
+Council which would abolish the acknowledged abuses of the Church. The
+religious peace of Nuremberg (1532) put the seal upon this turn of
+imperial policy.
+
+It might seem as if before long the advocates of moderate reform and of
+a compromise might after all get a chance of being heard. But Erasmus
+had become too old to actively participate in the decisions (if he had
+ever seriously considered such participation). He does write a treatise,
+though, in 1533, 'On the sweet concord of the Church', like his 'Advice
+on the Turks' in the form of an interpretation of a psalm (83). But it
+would seem as if the old vivacity of his style and his power of
+expression, so long unimpaired, now began to flag. The same remark
+applies to an essay 'On the preparation for death', published the same
+year. His voice was growing weaker.
+
+During these years he turned his attention chiefly to the completion of
+the great work which more than any other represented for him the summing
+up and complete exposition of his moral-theological ideas:
+_Ecclesiastes_ or, _On the Way to preach_. Erasmus had always regarded
+preaching as the most dignified part of an ecclesiastic's duties. As
+preachers, he had most highly valued Colet and Vitrarius. As early as
+1519 his friend, John Becar of Borselen, urged him to follow up the
+_Enchiridion_ of the Christian soldier and the _Institutio_ of the
+Christian prince, by the true instruction of the Christian preacher.
+'Later, later,' Erasmus had promised him, 'at present I have too much
+work, but I hope to undertake it soon.' In 1523 he had already made a
+sketch and some notes for it. It was meant for John Fisher, the Bishop
+of Rochester, Erasmus's great friend and brother-spirit, who eagerly
+looked forward to it and urged the author to finish it. The work
+gradually grew into the most voluminous of Erasmus's original writings:
+a forest of a work, _operis sylvam_, he calls it himself. In four books
+he treated his subject, the art of preaching well and decorously, with
+an inexhaustible abundance of examples, illustrations, schemes, etc. But
+was it possible that a work, conceived already by the Erasmus of 1519,
+and upon which he had been so long engaged, while he himself had
+gradually given up the boldness of his earlier years, could still be a
+revelation in 1533, as the _Enchiridion_ had been in its day?
+
+_Ecclesiastes_ is the work of a mind fatigued, which no longer sharply
+reacts upon the needs of his time. As the result of a correct,
+intellectual, tasteful instruction in a suitable manner of preaching, in
+accordance with the purity of the Gospel, Erasmus expects to see society
+improve. 'The people become more obedient to the authorities, more
+respectful towards the law, more peaceable. Between husband and wife
+comes greater concord, more perfect faithfulness, greater dislike of
+adultery. Servants obey more willingly, artisans work better, merchants
+cheat no more.'
+
+At the same time that Erasmus took this work to Froben, at Basle, to
+print, a book of a young Frenchman, who had recently fled from France to
+Basle, passed through the press of another Basle printer, Thomas
+Platter. It too was to be a manual of the life of faith: the
+_Institution of the Christian Religion_, by Calvin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even before Erasmus had quite completed the _Ecclesiastes_, the man for
+whom the work had been meant was no more. Instead of to the Bishop of
+Rochester, Erasmus dedicated his voluminous work to the Bishop of
+Augsburg, Christopher of Stadion. John Fisher, to set a seal on his
+spiritual endeavours, resembling those of Erasmus in so many respects,
+had left behind, as a testimony to the world, for which Erasmus knew
+himself too weak, that of martyrdom. On 22 June 1535, he was beheaded by
+command of Henry VIII. He died for being faithful to the old Church.
+Together with More he had steadfastly refused to take the oath to the
+Statute of Supremacy. Not two weeks after Fisher, Thomas More mounted
+the scaffold. The fate of those two noblest of his friends grieved
+Erasmus. It moved him to do what for years he had no longer done: to
+write a poem. But rather than in the fine Latin measure of that _Carmen
+heroïcum_ one would have liked to hear his emotion in language of
+sincere dismay and indignation in his letters. They are hardly there. In
+the words devoted to Fisher's death in the preface to the _Ecclesiastes_
+there is no heartfelt emotion. Also in his letters of those days, he
+speaks with reserve. 'Would More had never meddled with that dangerous
+business, and left the theological cause to the theologians.' As if More
+had died for aught but simply for his conscience!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Erasmus wrote these words, he was no longer at Freiburg. He had in
+June 1535 gone to Basle, to work in Froben's printing-office, as of old;
+the _Ecclesiastes_ was at last going to press and still required careful
+supervision and the final touches during the process; the _Adagia_ had
+to be reprinted, and a Latin edition of Origenes was in preparation. The
+old, sick man was cordially received by the many friends who still lived
+at Basle. Hieronymus Froben, Johannes's son, who after his father's
+death managed the business with two relatives, sheltered him in his
+house _Zum Luft_. In the hope of his return a room had been built
+expressly for him and fitted up as was convenient for him. Erasmus found
+that at Basle the ecclesiastical storms which had formerly driven him
+away had subsided. Quiet and order had returned. He did feel a spirit of
+distrust in the air, it is true, 'but I think that, on account of my
+age, of habit, and of what little erudition I possess, I have now got so
+far that I may live in safety anywhere'. At first he had regarded the
+removal as an experiment. He did not mean to stay at Basle. If his
+health could not stand the change of air, he would return to his fine,
+well-appointed, comfortable house at Freiburg. If he should prove able
+to bear it, then the choice was between the Netherlands (probably
+Brussels, Malines or Antwerp, perhaps Louvain) or Burgundy, in
+particular Besançon. Towards the end of his life he clung to the
+illusion which he had been cherishing for a long time that Burgundy wine
+alone was good for him and kept his malady in check. There is something
+pathetic in the proportions which this wine-question gradually assumes:
+that it is so dear at Basle might be overlooked, but the thievish
+wagoners drink up or spoil what is imported.
+
+In August he doubted greatly whether he will return to Freiburg. In
+October he sold his house and part of his furniture and had the rest
+transported to Basle. After the summer he hardly left his room, and was
+mostly bedridden.
+
+Though the formidable worker in him still yearned for more years and
+time to labour, his soul was ready for death. Happy he had never felt;
+only during the last years he utters his longing for the end. He was
+still, curiously enough, subject to the delusion of being in the thick
+of the struggle. 'In this arena I shall have to fall,' he writes in
+1533. 'Only this consoles me, that near at hand already, the general
+haven comes in sight, which, if Christ be favourable, will bring the end
+of all labour and trouble.' Two years later his voice sounds more
+urgent: 'That the Lord might deign to call me out of this raving world
+to His rest'.
+
+Most of his old friends were gone. Warham and Mountjoy had passed away
+before More and Fisher; Peter Gilles, so many years younger than he, had
+departed in 1533; also Pirckheimer had been dead for years. Beatus
+Rhenanus shows him to us, during the last months of his life,
+re-perusing his friends' letters of the last few years, and repeating:
+'This one, too, is dead'. As he grew more solitary, his suspiciousness
+and his feeling of being persecuted became stronger. 'My friends
+decrease, my enemies increase,' he writes in 1532, when Warham has died
+and Aleander has risen still higher. In the autumn of 1535 he thinks
+that all his former servant-pupils betray him, even the best beloved
+ones like Quirin Talesius and Charles Utenhove. They do not write to
+him, he complains.
+
+[Illustration: XXIV. CARDINAL JEROME ALEANDER]
+
+In October 1534, Pope Clement VII was succeeded by Paul III, who at once
+zealously took up the Council-question. The meeting of a Council was, in
+the eyes of many, the only means by which union could be restored to the
+Church, and now a chance of realizing this seemed nigh. At once the most
+learned theologians were invited to help in preparing the great work.
+Erasmus did not omit, in January 1535, to address to the new Pope a
+letter of congratulation, in which he professed his willingness to
+co-operate in bringing about the pacification of the Church, and warned
+the Pope to steer a cautious middle course. On 31 May followed a reply
+full of kindliness and acknowledgement. The Pope exhorted Erasmus, 'that
+you too, graced by God with so much laudable talent and learning, may
+help Us in this pious work, which is so agreeable to your mind, to
+defend, with Us, the Catholic religion, by the spoken and the written
+word, before and during the Council, and in this manner by this last
+work of piety, as by the best act to close a life of religion and so
+many writings, to refute your accusers and rouse your admirers to fresh
+efforts.'
+
+Would Erasmus in years of greater strength have seen his way to
+co-operate actively in the council of the great? Undoubtedly, the Pope's
+exhortation correctly represented his inclination. But once faced by the
+necessity of hard, clear resolutions, what would he have effected? Would
+his spirit of peace and toleration, of reserve and compromise, have
+brought alleviation and warded off the coming struggle? He was spared
+the experiment.
+
+He knew himself too weak to be able to think of strenuous
+church-political propaganda any more. Soon there came proofs that the
+kindly feelings at Rome were sincere. There had been some question also
+of numbering Erasmus among the cardinals who were to be nominated with a
+view to the Council; a considerable benefice connected with the church
+of Deventer was already offered him. But Erasmus urged the Roman friends
+who were thus active in his behalf to cease their kind offices; he would
+accept nothing, he a man who lived from day to day in expectation of
+death and often hoping for it, who could hardly ever leave his
+room--would people instigate _him_ to hunt for deaneries and cardinals'
+hats! He had subsistence enough to last him. He wanted to die
+independent.
+
+Yet his pen did not rest. The _Ecclesiastes_ had been printed and
+published and _Origenes_ was still to follow. Instead of the important
+and brilliant task to which Rome called him, he devoted his last
+strength to a simple deed of friendly cordiality. The friend to whose
+share the honour fell to receive from the old, death-sick author a last
+composition prepared expressly for him, amidst the most terrible pains,
+was the most modest of the number who had not lost their faith in him.
+No prelate or prince, no great wit or admired divine, but Christopher
+Eschenfelder, customs officer at Boppard on the Rhine. On his passage in
+1518 Erasmus had, with glad surprise, found him to be a reader of his
+work and a man of culture.[20] That friendship had been a lasting one.
+Eschenfelder had asked Erasmus to dedicate the interpretation of some
+psalm to him (a form of composition often preferred by Erasmus of late).
+About the close of 1535 he remembered that request. He had forgotten
+whether Eschenfelder had indicated a particular psalm and chose one at
+haphazard, Psalm 14, calling the treatise 'On the purity of the
+Christian Church'. He expressly dedicated it to 'the publican' in
+January 1536. It is not remarkable among his writings as to contents and
+form, but it was to be his last.
+
+On 12 February 1536, Erasmus made his final preparations. In 1527 he had
+already made a will with detailed clauses for the printing of his
+complete works by Froben. In 1534 he drew up an accurate inventory of
+his belongings. He sold his library to the Polish nobleman Johannes a
+Lasco. The arrangements of 1536 testify to two things which had played
+an important part in his life: his relations with the house of Froben
+and his need of friendship. Boniface Amerbach is his heir. Hieronymus
+Froben and Nicholas Episcopius, the managers of the business, are his
+executors. To each of the good friends left to him he bequeathed one of
+the trinkets which spoke of his fame with princes and the great ones of
+the earth, in the first place to Louis Ber and Beatus Rhenanus. The poor
+and the sick were not forgotten, and he remembered especially girls
+about to marry and youths of promise. The details of this charity he
+left to Amerbach.
+
+In March 1536, he still thinks of leaving for Burgundy. Money matters
+occupy him and he speaks of the necessity of making new friends, for the
+old ones leave him: the Bishop of Cracow, Zasius at Freiburg. According
+to Beatus Rhenanus, the Brabant plan stood foremost at the end of
+Erasmus's life. The Regent, Mary of Hungary, did not cease to urge him
+to return to the Netherlands. Erasmus's own last utterance leaves us in
+doubt whether he had made up his mind. 'Though I am living here with the
+most sincere friends, such as I did not possess at Freiburg, I should
+yet, on account of the differences of doctrine, prefer to end my life
+elsewhere. If only Brabant were nearer.'
+
+This he writes on 28 June 1536. He had felt so poorly for some days that
+he had not even been able to read. In the letter we again trace the
+delusion that Aleander persecutes him, sets on opponents against him,
+and even lays snares for his friends. Did his mind at last give way too?
+
+On 12 July the end came. The friends around his couch heard him groan
+incessantly: 'O Jesu, misericordia; Domine libera me; Domine miserere
+mei!' And at last in Dutch: 'Lieve God.'
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] See Erasmus's letter, p. 224.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+    Conclusion--Erasmus and the spirit of the sixteenth century--His
+    weak points--A thorough idealist and yet a moderate mind--The
+    enlightener of a century--He anticipates tendencies of two
+    centuries later--His influence affects both Protestantism and
+    Catholic reform--The Erasmian spirit in the Netherlands
+
+
+Looking back on the life of Erasmus the question still arises: why has
+he remained so great? For ostensibly his endeavours ended in failure. He
+withdraws in alarm from that tremendous struggle which he rightly calls
+a tragedy; the sixteenth century, bold and vehement, thunders past him,
+disdaining his ideal of moderation and tolerance. Latin literary
+erudition, which to him was the epitome of all true culture, has gone
+out as such. Erasmus, so far as regards the greater part of his
+writings, is among the great ones who are no longer read. He has become
+a name. But why does that name still sound so clear and articulate? Why
+does he keep regarding us, as if he still knew a little more than he has
+ever been willing to utter?
+
+What has he been to his age, and what was he to be for later
+generations? Has he been rightly called a precursor of the modern
+spirit?
+
+Regarded as a child of the sixteenth century, he does seem to differ
+from the general tenor of his times. Among those vehemently passionate,
+drastically energetic and violent natures of the great ones of his day,
+Erasmus stands as the man of too few prejudices, with a little too much
+delicacy of taste, with a deficiency, though not, indeed, in every
+department, of that _stultitia_ which he had praised as a necessary
+constituent of life. Erasmus is the man who is too sensible and moderate
+for the heroic.
+
+What a surprising difference there is between the _accent_ of Erasmus
+and that of Luther, Calvin, and Saint Teresa! What a difference, also,
+between his accent, that is, the accent of humanism, and that of
+Albrecht Dürer, of Michelangelo, or of Shakespeare.
+
+Erasmus seems, at times, the man who was not strong enough for his age.
+In that robust sixteenth century it seems as if the oaken strength of
+Luther was necessary, the steely edge of Calvin, the white heat of
+Loyola; not the velvet softness of Erasmus. Not only were their force
+and their fervour necessary, but also their depth, their unsparing,
+undaunted consistency, sincerity and outspokenness.
+
+They cannot bear that smile which makes Luther speak of the guileful
+being looking out of Erasmus's features. His piety is too even for them,
+too limp. Loyola has testified that the reading of the _Enchiridion
+militis Christiani_ relaxed his fervour and made his devotion grow cold.
+He saw that warrior of Christ differently, in the glowing colours of the
+Spanish-Christian, medieval ideal of chivalry.
+
+Erasmus had never passed through those depths of self-reprobation and
+that consciousness of sin which Luther had traversed with toil; he saw
+no devil to fight with, and tears were not familiar to him. Was he
+altogether unaware of the deepest mystery? Or did it rest in him too
+deep for utterance?
+
+Let us not suppose too quickly that we are more nearly allied to Luther
+or Loyola because their figures appeal to us more. If at present our
+admiration goes out again to the ardently pious, and to spiritual
+extremes, it is partly because our unstable time requires strong
+stimuli. To appreciate Erasmus we should begin by giving up our
+admiration of the extravagant, and for many this requires a certain
+effort at present. It is extremely easy to break the staff over Erasmus.
+His faults lie on the surface, and though he wished to hide many things,
+he never hid his weaknesses.
+
+He was too much concerned about what people thought, and he could not
+hold his tongue. His mind was _too_ rich and facile, always suggesting a
+superfluity of arguments, cases, examples, quotations. He could never
+let things slide. All his life he grudged himself leisure to rest and
+collect himself, to see how unimportant after all was the commotion
+round about him, if only he went his own way courageously. Rest and
+independence he desired most ardently of all things; there was no more
+restless and dependent creature. Judge him as one of a too delicate
+constitution who ventures out in a storm. His will-power was great
+enough. He worked night and day, amidst the most violent bodily
+suffering, with a great ideal steadfastly before him, never satisfied
+with his own achievements. He was not self-sufficient.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As an intellectual type Erasmus was one of a rather small group: the
+absolute idealists who, at the same time, are thoroughly moderate. They
+can not bear the world's imperfections; they feel constrained to oppose.
+But extremes are uncongenial to them; they shrink back from action,
+because they know it pulls down as much as it erects, and so they
+withdraw themselves, and keep calling that everything should be
+different; but when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with
+tradition and conservatism. Here too is a fragment of Erasmus's
+life-tragedy: he was the man who saw the new and coming things more
+clearly than anyone else--who must needs quarrel with the old and yet
+could not accept the new. He tried to remain in the fold of the old
+Church, after having damaged it seriously, and renounced the
+Reformation, and to a certain extent even Humanism, after having
+furthered both with all his strength.
+
+[Illustration: XXV. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 65]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our final opinion about Erasmus has been concerned with negative
+qualities, so far. What was his positive importance?
+
+Two facts make it difficult for the modern mind to understand Erasmus's
+positive importance: first that his influence was extensive rather than
+intensive, and therefore less historically discernible at definite
+points, and second, that his influence has ceased. He has done his work
+and will speak to the world no more. Like Saint Jerome, his revered
+model, and Voltaire, with whom he has been occasionally compared, 'he
+has his reward'. But like them he has been the enlightener of an age
+from whom a broad stream of culture emanated.
+
+[Illustration: XXVI. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY, 1530]
+
+As historic investigation of the French Revolution is becoming more and
+more aware that the true history of France during that period should be
+looked for in those groups which as 'Centre' or 'Marais' seemed for a
+long time but a drove of supernumeraries, and understands that it should
+occasionally protect its eyes a little from the lightning flashes of the
+Gironde and Mountain thunderstorm; so the history of the Reformation
+period should pay attention--and it has done so for a long time--to the
+broad central sphere permeated by the Erasmian spirit. One of his
+opponents said: 'Luther has drawn a large part of the Church to himself,
+Zwingli and Oecolampadius also some part, but Erasmus the largest'.
+Erasmus's public was numerous and of high culture. He was the only one
+of the Humanists who really wrote for all the world, that is to say, for
+all educated people. He accustomed a whole world to another and more
+fluent mode of expression: he shifted the interest, he influenced by his
+perfect clarity of exposition, even through the medium of Latin, the
+style of the vernacular languages, apart from the numberless
+translations of his works. For his contemporaries Erasmus put on many
+new stops, one might say, of the great organ of human expression, as
+Rousseau was to do two centuries later.
+
+He might well think with some complacency of the influence he had
+exerted on the world. 'From all parts of the world'--he writes towards
+the close of his life--'I am daily thanked by many, because they have
+been kindled by my works, whatever may be their merit, into zeal for a
+good disposition and sacred literature; and they who have never seen
+Erasmus, yet know and love him from his books.' He was glad that his
+translations from the Greek had become superfluous; he had everywhere
+led many to take up Greek and Holy Scripture, 'which otherwise they
+would never have read'. He had been an introducer and an initiator. He
+might leave the stage after having said his say.
+
+His word signified something beyond a classical sense and biblical
+disposition. It was at the same time the first enunciation of the creed
+of education and perfectibility, of warm social feeling and of faith in
+human nature, of peaceful kindliness and toleration. 'Christ dwells
+everywhere; piety is practised under every garment, if only a kindly
+disposition is not wanting.'
+
+In all these ideas and convictions Erasmus really heralds a later age.
+In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries those thoughts remained an
+undercurrent: in the eighteenth Erasmus's message of deliverance bore
+fruit. In this respect he has most certainly been a precursor and
+preparer of the modern mind: of Rousseau, Herder, Pestalozzi and of the
+English and American thinkers. It is only part of the modern mind which
+is represented by all this. To a number of its developments Erasmus was
+wholly a stranger, to the evolution of natural science, of the newer
+philosophy, of political economy. But in so far as people still believe
+in the ideal that moral education and general tolerance may make
+humanity happier, humanity owes much to Erasmus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This does not imply that Erasmus's mind did not directly and fruitfully
+influence his own times. Although Catholics regarded him in the heat of
+the struggle as the corrupter of the Church, and Protestants as the
+betrayer of the Gospel, yet his word of moderation and kindliness did
+not pass by unheard or unheeded on either side. Eventually neither camp
+finally rejected Erasmus. Rome did not brand him as an arch-heretic, but
+only warned the faithful to read him with caution. Protestant history
+has been studious to reckon him as one of the Reformers. Both obeyed in
+this the pronouncement of a public opinion which was above parties and
+which continued to admire and revere Erasmus.
+
+To the reconstruction of the Catholic Church and the erection of the
+evangelical churches not only the names of Luther and Loyola are linked.
+The moderate, the intellectual, the conciliating have also had their
+share of the work; figures like Melanchthon here, Sadolet there, both
+nearly allied to Erasmus and sympathetically disposed towards him. The
+frequently repeated attempts to arrive at some compromise in the great
+religious conflict, though they might be doomed to end in failure,
+emanated from the Erasmian spirit.
+
+Nowhere did that spirit take root so easily as in the country that gave
+Erasmus birth. A curious detail shows us that it was not the exclusive
+privilege of either great party. Of his two most favoured pupils of
+later years, both Netherlanders, whom as the actors of the colloquy
+_Astragalismus_ (_The Game of Knucklebones_), he has immortalized
+together, the one, Quirin Talesius, died for his attachment to the
+Spanish cause and the Catholic faith: he was hanged in 1572 by the
+citizens of Haarlem, where he was a burgomaster. The other, Charles
+Utenhove, was sedulous on the side of the revolt and the Reformed
+religion. At Ghent, in concert with the Prince of Orange, he turned
+against the narrow-minded Protestant terrorism of the zealots.
+
+A Dutch historian recently tried to trace back the opposition of the
+Dutch against the king of Spain to the influence of Erasmus's political
+thought in his arraignment of bad princes--wrongly as I think. Erasmus's
+political diatribes were far too academic and too general for that. The
+desire of resistance and revolt arose from quite other causes. The
+'Gueux' were not Erasmus's progeny. But there is much that is Erasmian
+in the spirit of their great leader, William of Orange, whose vision
+ranged so widely beyond the limitations of religious hatred. Thoroughly
+permeated by the Erasmian spirit, too, was that class of municipal
+magistrates who were soon to take the lead and to set the fashion in the
+established Republic. History is wont, as always with an aristocracy, to
+take their faults very seriously. After all, perhaps no other
+aristocracy, unless it be that of Venice, has ruled a state so long, so
+well and with so little violence. If in the seventeenth century the
+institutions of Holland, in the eyes of foreigners, were the admired
+models of prosperity, charity and social discipline, and patterns of
+gentleness and wisdom, however defective they may seem to us--then the
+honour of all this is due to the municipal aristocracy. If in the Dutch
+patriciate of that time those aspirations lived and were translated into
+action, it was Erasmus's spirit of social responsibility which inspired
+them. The history of Holland is far less bloody and cruel than that of
+any of the surrounding countries. Not for naught did Erasmus praise as
+truly Dutch those qualities which we might also call truly Erasmian:
+gentleness, kindliness, moderation, a generally diffused moderate
+erudition. Not romantic virtues, if you like; but are they the less
+salutary?
+
+One more instance. In the Republic of the Seven Provinces the atrocious
+executions of witches and wizards ceased more than a century before they
+did in all other countries. This was not owing to the merit of the
+Reformed pastors. They shared the popular belief which demanded
+persecution. It was the magistrates whose enlightenment even as early as
+the beginning of the seventeenth century no longer tolerated these
+things. Again, we are entitled to say, though Erasmus was not one of
+those who combated this practice: the spirit which breathes from this is
+that of Erasmus.
+
+Cultured humanity has cause to hold Erasmus's memory in esteem, if for
+no other reason than that he was the fervently sincere preacher of that
+general kindliness which the world still so urgently needs.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS OF ERASMUS
+
+
+_This selection from the vast correspondence of Erasmus is intended to
+exhibit him at a few points in his strenuous and rather comfortless
+life, always overworked, often ill, and perpetually hurried--many of his
+letters have the postscript 'In haste' or 'I had no time to read this
+over'--but holding always tenaciously to his aim of steering a middle
+course; in religion between the corruption and fossilization of the old
+and the uncompromising violence of the new: in learning between
+neo-paganism on the one hand and the indolent refusal, under the pretext
+of piety, to apply critical methods to sacred texts on the other. The
+first letter has been included because it may provide a clue to his
+later reluctance to trust his feelings when self-committal to any cause
+seemed to be required of him, a reluctance not unnaturally interpreted
+by his enemies as an arrogant refusal to 'yield to any'._
+
+_The notes have been compiled from P. S. and H. M. Allen's_ Opus
+epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, _Oxford, 1906-47, by the kind
+permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and references are
+to the numbers of the letters in that edition_.
+
+
+I. TO SERVATIUS ROGER[21]
+
+[Steyn, _c._ 1487]
+
+To his friend Servatius, greetings:
+
+... You say there is something which you take very hard, which torments
+you wretchedly, which in short makes life a misery to you. Your looks
+and your carriage betray this, even if you were silent. Where is your
+wonted and beloved cheerful countenance gone, your former beauty, your
+lively glance? Whence come these sorrowful downcast eyes, whence this
+perpetual silence, so unlike you, whence the look of a sick man in your
+expression? Assuredly as the poet says, 'the sick body betrays the
+torments of the lurking soul, likewise its joys: it is to the mind that
+the face owes its looks, well or ill'.[22]
+
+It is certain then, my Servatius, that there is something which troubles
+you, which is destroying your former good health. But what am I to do
+now? Must I comfort you or scold you? Why do you hide your pain from me
+as if we did not know each other by this time? You are so deep that you
+do not believe your closest friend, or trust even the most trustworthy;
+or do you not know that the hidden fire burns stronger?... And for the
+rest, my Servatius, what is it makes you draw in and hide yourself like
+a snail? I suspect what the matter is: you have not yet convinced
+yourself that I love you very much. So I entreat you by the things
+sweetest to you in life, by our great love, if you have any care for
+your safety, if you want me to live unharmed, not to be at such pains to
+hide your feelings, but whatever it is, entrust it to my safe ears. I
+will assist you in whatever way I can with help or counsel. But if I
+cannot provide either, still it will be sweet to rejoice with you, to
+weep with you, to live and die with you. Farewell, my Servatius, and
+look after your health.
+
+
+II. TO NICHOLAS WERNER[23]
+
+Paris, 13 September [1496]
+
+To the religious Father Nicholas Werner, greetings:
+
+... If you are all well there, things are as I wish and hope; I myself
+am very well, the gods be thanked. I have now made clear by my
+actions--if it was not clear to anyone before this--how much theology is
+coming to mean to me. A somewhat arrogant claim; but it ill becomes
+Erasmus to hide anything from his most loving Father. Lately I had
+fallen in with certain Englishmen, of noble birth, and all of them
+wealthy. Very recently I was approached by a young priest,[24] very
+rich, who said he had refused a bishopric offered him, as he knew that
+he was not well educated; nevertheless he is to be recalled by the King
+to take a bishopric within a year, although, apart from any bishopric
+even, he has a yearly income of more than 2000 _scudi_. As soon as he
+heard of my learning he proceeded in unbelievably affectionate fashion
+to devote himself to me, to frequent and revere me--he lived for a while
+in my house. He offered 100 _scudi_, if I would teach him for a year; he
+offered a benefice in a few months' time; he offered to lend me 300
+_scudi_, if I should need them to procure the office, until I could pay
+them back out of the benefice. By this service I could have laid all the
+English in this city under an obligation to me--they are all of the
+first families--and through them all England, had I so wished. But I
+cared nothing for the splendid income and the far more splendid
+prospects; I cared nothing for their entreaties and the tears which
+accompanied them. I am telling the truth, exaggerating not at all; the
+English realize that the money of all England means nothing to me. This
+refusal, which I still maintain, was not made without due consideration;
+not for any reward will I let myself be drawn away from theological
+studies. I did not come here to teach or to pile up gold, but to learn.
+Indeed I shall seek a Doctorate in Theology, if the gods so will it.
+
+The Bishop of Cambrai is marvellously fond of me: he makes liberal
+promises; the remittances are not so liberal, to tell the truth. I wish
+you good health, excellent Father. I beg and entreat you to commend me
+in your prayers to God: I shall do likewise for you. From my library in
+Paris.
+
+
+III. TO ROBERT FISHER[25]
+
+London, 5 December [1499]
+
+To Robert Fisher, Englishman, abiding in Italy, greetings:
+
+... I hesitated not a little to write to you, beloved Robert, not that I
+feared lest so great a sunderance in time and place had worn away
+anything of your affection towards me, but because you are in a country
+where even the house-walls are more learned and more eloquent than are
+our men here, so that what is here reckoned polished, fine and
+delectable cannot there appear anything but crude, mean and insipid.
+Wherefore your England assuredly expects you to return not merely very
+learned in the law but also equally eloquent in both the Greek and the
+Latin tongues. You would have seen me also there long since, had not my
+friend Mountjoy carried me off to his country when I was already packed
+for the journey into Italy. Whither indeed shall I not follow a youth so
+polite, so kindly, so lovable? I swear I would follow him even into
+Hades. You indeed had most handsomely commended him and, in a word,
+precisely delineated him; but believe me, he every day surpasses both
+your commendation and my opinion of him.
+
+But you ask how England pleases me. If you have any confidence in me,
+dear Robert, I would have you believe me when I say that I have never
+yet liked anything so well. I have found here a climate as delightful as
+it is wholesome; and moreover so much humane learning, not of the
+outworn, commonplace sort, but the profound, accurate, ancient Greek and
+Latin learning, that I now scarcely miss Italy, but for the sight of it.
+When I listen to my friend Colet, I seem to hear Plato himself. Who
+would not marvel at the perfection of encyclopaedic learning in
+Grocyn?[26] What could be keener or nobler or nicer than Linacre's[27]
+judgement? What has Nature ever fashioned gentler or sweeter or happier
+than the character of Thomas More? But why should I catalogue the rest?
+It is marvellous how thick upon the ground the harvest of ancient
+literature is here everywhere flowering forth: all the more should you
+hasten your return hither. Your friend's affection and remembrance of
+you is so strong that he speaks of none so often or so gladly. Farewell.
+Written in haste in London on the 5th of December.
+
+
+IV. TO JAMES BATT[28]
+
+Orléans [_c._ 12 December] 1500
+
+... If you care sincerely what becomes of your Erasmus, do you act thus:
+plead my shyness before my Lady[29] in pleasant phrases, as if I had not
+been able to bring myself to reveal my poverty to her in person. But you
+must write that I am now in a state of extreme poverty, owing to the
+great expense of this flight to Orléans, as I had to leave people from
+whom I was making some money. Tell her that Italy is by far the most
+suitable place in which to take the Degree of Doctor, and that it is
+impossible for a fastidious man to go to Italy without a large sum of
+money; particularly because I am not even at liberty to live meanly, on
+account of my reputation, such as it is, for learning. You will explain
+how much greater fame I am likely to bring my Lady by my learning than
+are the other theologians maintained by her. They compose commonplace
+harangues: I write works destined to live for ever. Their ignorant
+triflings are heard by one or two persons in church: my books will be
+read by Latins, Greeks, by every race all over the world. Tell her that
+this kind of unlearned theologian is to be found in hordes everywhere,
+whereas a man like myself is hardly to be found once in many centuries;
+unless indeed you are so superstitious that you scruple to employ a few
+harmless lies to help a friend. Then you must point out that she will
+not be a whit the poorer if, with a few gold pieces, she helps to
+restore the corrupt text of St. Jerome and the true Theology, when so
+much of her wealth is being shamelessly dissipated. After dilating on
+this with your customary ingenuity and writing at length on my
+character, my expectations, my affection for my Lady and my shyness, you
+must then add that I have written to say that I need 200 francs in all,
+and request her to grant me next year's payment now; I am not inventing
+this, my dear Batt; to go to Italy with 100 francs, no, less than 100
+francs, seems to me a hazardous enterprise, unless I want to enslave
+myself to someone once more; may I die before I do this. Then how little
+difference it will make to her whether she gives me the money this year
+or next, and how much it means to me! Next urge her to look out for a
+benefice for me, so that on my return I may have some place where I can
+pursue learning in peace. Do not stop at this, but devise on your own
+the most convenient method of indicating to her that she should promise
+me, before all the other candidates, at least a reasonable, if not a
+splendid, benefice which I can change as soon as a better one appears. I
+am well aware that there are many candidates for benefices; but you must
+say that I am the one man, whom, compared with the rest, etc., etc. You
+know your old way of lying profusely about Erasmus.... You will add at
+the end that I have made the same complaint in my letter which Jerome
+makes more than once in his letters, that study is tearing my eyes out,
+that things look as if I shall have to follow his example and begin to
+study with my ears and tongue only; and persuade her, in the most
+amusing words at your command, to send me some sapphire or other gem
+wherewith to fortify my eyesight. I would have told you myself which
+gems have this virtue, but I have not Pliny at hand; get the information
+out of your doctor.... Let me tell you what else I want you to attempt
+still further--to extract a grant from the Abbot. You know him--invent
+some modest and persuasive argument for making this request. Tell him
+that I have a great design in hand--to constitute in its entirety the
+text of Jerome, which has been corrupted, mutilated, and thrown into
+disorder through the ignorance of the theologians (I have detected many
+false and spurious pieces among his writings), and to restore the
+Greek.[30] I shall reveal [in him] an ingenuity and a knowledge of
+antiquities which no one, I venture to claim, has yet realized. Explain
+that for this undertaking many books are needed, also Greek works, so
+that I may receive a grant. Here you will not be lying, Batt; I am
+wholly engaged on this work. Farewell, my best and dearest Batt, and put
+all of Batt into this business. I mean Batt the friend, not Batt the
+slowcoach.
+
+
+V. TO ANTONY OF BERGEN[31]
+
+[Paris?] [16 March? 1501]
+
+To the most illustrious prelate Antony, Abbot of St. Bertin, greetings:
+
+... I have accidentally happened upon some Greek books, and am busy day
+and night secretly copying them out. I shall be asked why I am so
+delighted with Cato the Censor's example that I want to turn Greek at my
+age. Indeed, most excellent Father, if in my boyhood I had been of this
+mind, or rather if time had not been wanting, I should be the happiest
+of men. As things are, I think it better to learn, even if a little
+late, than not to know things which it is of the first importance to
+have at one's command. I have already tasted of Greek literature in the
+past, but merely (as the saying goes) sipped at it; however, having
+lately gone a little deeper into it, I perceive--as one has often read
+in the best authorities--that Latin learning, rich as it is, is
+defective and incomplete without Greek; for we have but a few small
+streams and muddy puddles, while they have pure springs and rivers
+rolling gold. I see that it is utter madness even to touch the branch of
+theology which deals chiefly with the mysteries unless one is also
+provided with the equipment of Greek, as the translators of the
+Scriptures, owing to their conscientious scruples, render Greek forms in
+such a fashion that not even the primary sense (what our theologians
+call the _literal_ sense) can be understood by persons ignorant of
+Greek. Who could understand the sentence in the Psalm [Ps. 50.4 (51.3)]
+_Et peccatum meum contra me est semper_,[32] unless he has read the
+Greek? This runs as follows: [Greek: kai hê hamartia mou enôpion mou
+esti diapantos]. At this point some theologian will spin a long story of
+how the flesh is perpetually in conflict with the spirit, having been
+misled by the double meaning of the preposition, that is, _contra_, when
+the word [Greek: enôpion] refers not to _conflict_ but to _position_, as
+if you were to say _opposite_, i.e., _in sight_: so that the Prophet's
+meaning was that his fault was so hateful to him that the memory of it
+never left him, but floated always before his mind as if it were
+present. Further in a passage elsewhere [Ps. 91 (92. 14)], _Bene
+patientes erunt ut annuncient_, everyone will be misled by the deceptive
+form, unless he has learned from the Greek that, just as according to
+Latin usage we say _bene facere_ of those who _do good to_ someone, so
+the Greeks call [Greek: eupathountas] (_bene patientes_) those who
+_suffer good to be done them_. So that the sense is, 'They will be well
+treated and will be helped by my benefactions, so that they will make
+mention of my beneficence towards them'. But why do I pick out a few
+trifling examples from so many important ones, when I have on my side
+the venerable authority of the papal Curia? There is a Curial Decree[33]
+still extant in the Decretals, ordaining that persons should be
+appointed in the chief academies (as they were then) capable of giving
+accurate instruction in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin literature, since, as
+they believed, the Scriptures could not be understood, far less
+discussed, without this knowledge. This most sound and most holy decree
+we so far neglect that we are perfectly satisfied with the most
+elementary knowledge of the Latin language, being apparently convinced
+that everything can be extracted from Duns Scotus, as it were from a
+cornucopia.
+
+For myself I do not fight with men of this sort; each man to his taste,
+as far as I am concerned; let the old man marry the old woman. It is my
+delight to set foot on the path into which Jerome and the splendid host
+of so many ancients summon me; so help me God, I would sooner be mad
+with them than as sane as you like with the mob of modern theologians.
+Besides I am attempting an arduous and, so to say, Phaethontean task--to
+do my best to restore the works of Jerome, which have been partly
+corrupted by those half-learned persons, and are partly--owing to the
+lack of knowledge of antiquities and of Greek literature--forgotten or
+mangled or mutilated or at least full of mistakes and monstrosities; not
+merely to restore them but to elucidate them with commentaries, so that
+each reader will acknowledge to himself that the great Jerome,
+considered by the ecclesiastical world as the most perfect in both
+branches of learning, the sacred and the profane, can indeed be read by
+all, but can only be understood by the most learned. As I am working
+hard on this design and see that I must in the first place acquire
+Greek, I have decided to study for some months under a Greek
+teacher,[34] a real Greek, no, twice a Greek, always hungry,[35] who
+charges an immoderate fee for his lessons. Farewell.
+
+
+VI. TO WILLIAM WARHAM[36]
+
+London, 24 January [1506]
+
+To the Reverend Father in Christ, William, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+Primate of England, many greetings from Erasmus of Rotterdam, Canon of
+the Order of St. Augustine:
+
+... Having made up my mind, most illustrious prelate, to translate the
+Greek authors and by so doing to revive or, if you will, promote as far
+as I could theological studies--and God immortal, how miserably they
+have been corrupted by sophistical nonsensicalities!--I did not wish to
+give the impression that I was attempting forthwith to learn the
+potter's art on a winejar[37] (as the Greek adage goes) and rushing in
+with unwashen feet, as they say, on so vast an undertaking; so I decided
+to begin by testing how far I had profited by my studies in both
+languages, and that in a material difficult indeed, but not sacred; so
+that the difficulty of the undertaking might be useful for practice and
+at the same time if I made any mistakes these mistakes should involve
+only the risk of my talent and leave the Holy Scriptures undamaged. And
+so I endeavoured to render in Latin two tragedies of Euripides, the
+_Hecuba_ and the _Iphigeneia in Aulis_, in the hope that perchance some
+god might favour so bold a venture with fair breezes. Then, seeing that
+a specimen of the work begun found favour with persons excellently well
+versed in both tongues (assuredly England by now possesses several of
+these, if I may acknowledge the truth without envy, men deserving of the
+admiration even of all Italy in any branch of learning), I brought the
+work to a finish, with the good help of the Muses, within a few short
+months. At what a cost in exertion, those will best feel who enter the
+same lists.
+
+Why so? Because the mere task of putting real Greek into real Latin is
+such that it requires an extraordinary artist, and not only a man with a
+rich store of scholarship in both languages at his fingertips, but one
+exceedingly alert and observant; so that for several centuries now none
+has appeared whose efforts in this field were unanimously approved by
+scholars. It is surely easy then to conjecture what a heavy task it has
+proved to render verse in verse, particularly verse so varied and
+unfamiliar, and to do this from a writer not merely so remote in time,
+and withal a tragedian, but also marvellously concise, taut and
+unadorned, in whom there is nothing otiose, nothing which it would not
+be a crime to alter or remove; and besides, one who treats rhetorical
+topics so frequently and so acutely that he appears to be everywhere
+declaiming. Add to all this the choruses, which through I know not what
+striving after effect are so obscure that they need not so much a
+translator as an Oedipus or priest of Apollo to interpret them. In
+addition there is the corrupt state of the manuscripts, the dearth of
+copies, the absence of any translators to whom one can have recourse. So
+I am not so much surprised that even in this most prolific age none of
+the Italians has ventured to attempt the task of translating any tragedy
+or comedy, whereas many have set their hand to Homer (among these even
+Politian[38] failed to satisfy himself); one man[39] has essayed Hesiod,
+and that without much success; another[40] has attempted Theocritus, but
+with even far more unfortunate results: and finally Francesco Filelfo
+has translated the first scene of the Hecuba in one of his funeral
+orations.[41] (I first learned this after I had begun my version), but
+in such a way that, great as he is, his work gave me courage enough to
+proceed, overprecise as I am in other respects.
+
+Then for me the lure of this poet's more than honeyed eloquence, which
+even his enemies allow him, proved stronger than the deterrent of these
+great examples and the many difficulties of the work, so that I have
+been bold to attack a task never before attempted, in the hope that,
+even if I failed, my honest readers would consider even this poor effort
+of mine not altogether unpraiseworthy, and the more grudging would at
+least be lenient to an inexperienced translator of a work so difficult:
+in particular because I have deliberately added no light burden to my
+other difficulties through my conscientiousness as a translator, in
+attempting so far as possible to reproduce the shape and as it were
+contours of the Greek verse, by striving to render line for line and
+almost word for word, and everywhere seeking with the utmost fidelity to
+convey to Latin ears the force and value of the sentence: whether it be
+that I do not altogether approve of the freedom in translation which
+Cicero allows others and practised himself (I would almost say to an
+immoderate degree), or that as an inexperienced translator I preferred
+to err on the side of seeming over-scrupulous rather than
+over-free--hesitating on the sandy shore instead of wrecking my ship and
+swimming in the midst of the billows; and I preferred to run the risk of
+letting scholars complain of lack of brilliance and poetic beauty in my
+work rather than of lack of fidelity to the original. Finally I did not
+want to set myself up as a paraphraser, thus securing myself that
+retreat which many use to cloak their ignorance, wrapping themselves
+like the cuttle-fish in darkness of their own making to avoid detection.
+Now, if readers do not find here the grandiloquence of Latin tragedy,
+'the bombast and the words half a yard long,' as Horace calls it, they
+must not blame me if in performing my function of translator I have
+preferred to reproduce the concise simplicity and elegance of my
+original, and not the bombast to which he is a stranger, and which I do
+not greatly admire at any time.
+
+Furthermore, I am encouraged to hope with all certainty that these
+labours of mine will be most excellently protected against the calumnies
+of the unjust, as their publication will be most welcome to the honest
+and just, if you, most excellent Father, have voted them your approval.
+For me it was not difficult to select you from the great host of
+illustrious and distinguished men to be the recipient of this product of
+my vigils, as the one man I have observed to be--aside from the
+brilliance of your fortune--so endowed, adorned and showered with
+learning, eloquence, good sense, piety, modesty, integrity, and lastly
+with an extraordinary liberality towards those who cultivate good
+letters, that the word Primate suits none better than yourself, who hold
+the first place not solely by reason of your official dignity, but far
+more because of all your virtues, while at the same time you are the
+principal ornament of the Court and the sole head of the ecclesiastical
+hierarchy. If I have the fortune to win for this my work the
+commendation of a man so highly commended I shall assuredly not repent
+of the exertions I have so far expended, and will be forward to promote
+theological studies with even more zeal for the future.
+
+Farewell, and enrol Erasmus in the number of those who are
+wholeheartedly devoted to Your Fathership.
+
+[Illustration: XXVII. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 53
+
+On the reverse his device and motto]
+
+[Illustration: XXVIII. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF ABOUT 57]
+
+
+VII. TO ALDUS MANUTIUS[42]
+
+Bologna, 28 October [1507]
+
+To Aldus Manutius of Rome, many greetings:
+
+... I have often wished, most learned Manutius, that the light you have
+cast on Greek and Latin literature, not by your printing alone and your
+splendid types, but by your brilliance and your uncommon learning, could
+have been matched by the profit you in your turn drew from them. So far
+as _fame_ is concerned, the name of Aldus Manutius will without doubt be
+on the lips of all devotees of sacred literature unto all posterity; and
+your memory will be--as your fame now is--not merely illustrious but
+loved and cherished as well, because you are engaged, as I hear, in
+reviving and disseminating the good authors--with extreme diligence but
+not at a commensurate profit--undergoing truly Herculean labours,
+labours splendid indeed and destined to bring you immortal glory, but
+meanwhile more profitable to others than to yourself. I hear that you
+are printing Plato[43] in Greek types; very many scholars eagerly await
+the book. I should like to know what medical authors you have printed; I
+wish you would give us Paul of Aegina.[44] I wonder what has prevented
+you from publishing the New Testament[45] long since--a work which would
+delight even the common people (if I conjecture aright) but particularly
+my own class, the theologians.
+
+I send you two tragedies[46] which I have been bold enough to translate,
+whether with success you yourself shall judge. Thomas Linacre, William
+Grocyn, William Latimer, Cuthbert Tunstall, friends of yours as well as
+of mine, thought highly of them; you know yourself that they are too
+learned to be deceived in their judgement, and too sincere to want to
+flatter a friend--unless their affection for me has somewhat blinded
+them; the Italians to whom I have so far shown my attempt do not condemn
+it. It has been printed by Badius, successfully as far as he is
+concerned, so he writes, for he has now sold all the copies to his
+satisfaction. But my reputation has not been enhanced thereby, so full
+is it all of mistakes, and in fact he offers his services to repair the
+first edition by printing a second. But I am afraid of his mending ill
+with ill, as the Sophoclean saying goes. I should consider my labours to
+have been immortalized if they could come out printed in your types,
+particularly the smaller types, the most beautiful of all. This will
+result in the volume being very small and the business being concluded
+at little expense. If you think it convenient to undertake the affair, I
+will supply you with a corrected copy, which I send by the bearer,
+_gratis_, except that you may wish to send me a few volumes as gifts for
+my friends.
+
+I should not have hesitated to attempt the publication at my own risk
+and expense, were it not that I have to leave Italy within a few months:
+so I should much like to have the business concluded as soon as
+possible; in fact it is hardly ten days' work. If you insist on my
+taking a hundred or two hundred volumes, though the god of gain does not
+usually favour me and it will be most inconvenient to transport the
+package, I shall not refuse, if only you fix a horse as the price.
+Farewell, most learned Aldus, and reckon Erasmus as one of your
+well-wishers.
+
+If you have any rare authors in your press, I shall be obliged if you
+will indicate this--my learned British friends have asked me to search
+for them. If you decide not to print the _Tragedies_, will you return
+the copy to the bearer to bring back to me?
+
+
+VIII. TO THOMAS MORE[47]
+
+[Paris?] 9 June [1511]
+
+To his friend Thomas More, greetings:
+
+... In days gone by, on my journey back from Italy into England, in
+order not to waste all the time that must needs be spent on horseback in
+dull and unlettered gossiping, I preferred at times either to turn over
+in my mind some topic of our common studies or to give myself over to
+the pleasing recollection of the friends, as learned as they are
+beloved, whom I had left behind me in England. You were among the very
+first of these to spring to mind, my dear More; indeed I used to enjoy
+the memory of you in absence even as I was wont to delight in your
+present company, than which I swear I never in my life met anything
+sweeter. Therefore, since I thought that I must at all hazards do
+_something_, and that time seemed ill suited to serious meditation, I
+determined to amuse myself with the _Praise of Folly_. You will ask what
+goddess put this into my mind. In the first place it was your family
+name of More, which comes as near to the word _moria_ [folly] as you
+yourself are far from the reality--everyone agrees that you are far
+removed from it. Next I suspected that you above all would approve this
+_jeu d'esprit_ of mine, in that you yourself do greatly delight in jests
+of this kind, that is, jests learned (if I mistake not) and at no time
+insipid, and altogether like to play in some sort the Democritus[48] in
+the life of society. Although you indeed, owing to your incredibly sweet
+and easy-going character, are both able and glad to be all things to all
+men, even as your singularly penetrating intellect causes you to dissent
+widely from the opinions of the herd. So you will not only gladly accept
+this little declamation as a memento of your comrade, but will also take
+it under your protection, inasmuch as it is dedicated to you and is now
+no longer mine but yours.
+
+And indeed there will perhaps be no lack of brawlers to represent that
+trifles are more frivolous than becomes a theologian, or more mordant
+than suits with Christian modesty, and they will be crying out that I am
+reviving the Old Comedy or Lucian and assailing everything with biting
+satire. But I would have those who are offended by the levity and
+sportiveness of my theme reflect that it was not I that began this, but
+that the same was practised by great writers in former times; seeing
+that so many centuries ago Homer made his trifle _The Battle of Frogs
+and Mice_, Virgil his _Gnat_ and _Dish of Herbs_ and Ovid his _Nut_;
+seeing that Busiris was praised by Polycrates and his critic Isocrates,
+Injustice by Glaucon, Thersites and the Quartan Fever by Favorinus,
+Baldness by Synesius, the Fly and the Art of Being a Parasite by Lucian;
+and that Seneca devised the Apotheosis of the Emperor Claudius, Plutarch
+the Dialogue of Gryllus and Ulysses, Lucian and Apuleius the Ass, and
+someone unknown the Testament of Grunnius Corocotta the Piglet,
+mentioned even by St. Jerome.
+
+So, if they will, let my detractors imagine that I have played an
+occasional game of draughts for a pastime or, if they prefer, taken a
+ride on a hobby-horse. How unfair it is truly, when we grant every
+calling in life its amusements, not to allow the profession of learning
+any amusement at all, particularly if triflings bring serious thoughts
+in their train and frivolous matters are so treated that a reader not
+altogether devoid of perception wins more profit from these than from
+the glittering and portentous arguments of certain persons--as when for
+instance one man eulogizes rhetoric or philosophy in a painfully
+stitched-together oration, another rehearses the praises of some prince,
+another urges us to begin a war with the Turks, another foretells the
+future, and another proposes a new method of splitting hairs. Just as
+there is nothing so trifling as to treat serious matters triflingly, so
+there is nothing so delightful as to treat trifling matters in such
+fashion that it appears that you have been doing anything but trifle. As
+to me, the judgement is in other hands--and yet, unless I am altogether
+misled by self-love, I have sung the praise of Folly and that not
+altogether foolishly.
+
+And now to reply to the charge of mordacity. It has ever been the
+privilege of wits to satirize the life of society with impunity,
+provided that licence does not degenerate into frenzy. Wherefore the
+more do I marvel at the fastidiousness of men's ears in these times, who
+by now can scarce endure anything but solemn appellations. Further, we
+see some men so perversely religious that they will suffer the most
+hideous revilings against Christ sooner than let prince or pope be
+sullied by the lightest jest, particularly if this concerns monetary
+gain. But if a man censures men's lives without reproving anyone at all
+by name, pray do you think this man a satirist, and not rather a teacher
+and admonisher? Else on how many counts do I censure myself? Moreover he
+who leaves no class of men unmentioned is clearly foe to no man but to
+all vices. Therefore anyone who rises up and cries out that he is
+insulted will be revealing a bad conscience, or at all events fear. St.
+Jerome wrote satire in this kind far more free and biting, not always
+abstaining from the mention of names, whereas I myself, apart from not
+mentioning anyone by name, have moreover so tempered my pen that the
+sagacious reader will easily understand that my aim has been to give
+pleasure, not pain; for I have at no point followed Juvenal's example in
+'stirring up the murky bilge of crime', and I have sought to survey the
+laughable, not the disgusting. If there is anyone whom even this cannot
+appease, at least let him remember that it is a fine thing to be reviled
+by Folly; in bringing her upon the stage I had to suit the words to the
+character. But why need I say all this to you, an advocate so remarkable
+that you can defend excellently even causes far from excellent?
+Farewell, most eloquent More, and be diligent in defending your _moria_.
+
+
+IX. TO JOHN COLET[49]
+
+Cambridge, 29 October [1511]
+
+To his friend Colet, greetings:
+
+... Something came into my mind which I know will make you laugh. In the
+presence of several Masters [of Arts] I was putting forward a view on
+the Assistant Teacher, when one of them, a man of some repute, smiled
+and said: 'Who could bear to spend his life in that school among boys,
+when he could live anywhere in any way he liked?' I answered mildly that
+it seemed to me a very honourable task to train young people in manners
+and literature, that Christ himself did not despise the young, that no
+age had a better right to help, and that from no quarter was a richer
+return to be expected, seeing that young people were the harvest-field
+and raw material of the nation. I added that all truly religious people
+felt that they could not better serve God in any other duty than the
+bringing of children to Christ. He wrinkled his nose and said with a
+scornful gesture: 'If any man wishes to serve Christ altogether, let him
+go into a monastery and enter a religious order.' I answered that St.
+Paul said that true religion consisted in the offices of
+charity--charity consisting in doing our best to help our neighbours.
+This he rejected as an ignorant remark. 'Look,' said he, 'we have
+forsaken everything: in this is perfection.' 'That man has not forsaken
+everything,' said I, 'who, when he could help very many by his labours,
+refuses to undertake a duty because it is regarded as humble.' And with
+that, to prevent a quarrel arising, I let the man go. There you have the
+dialogue. You see the Scotist philosophy! Once again, farewell.
+
+
+X. TO SERVATIUS ROGER
+
+Hammes Castle [near Calais],
+
+8 July 1514
+
+To the Reverend Father Servatius, many greetings:
+
+... Most humane father, your letter has at last reached me, after
+passing through many hands, when I had already left England, and it has
+afforded me unbelievable delight, as it still breathes your old
+affection for me. However, I shall answer briefly, as I am writing just
+after the journey, and shall reply in particular on those matters which
+are, as you write, strictly to the point. Men's thoughts are so varied,
+'to each his own bird-song', that it is impossible to satisfy everyone.
+My own feelings are that I want to follow what is best to do, God is my
+witness. Those feelings which I had in my youth have been corrected
+partly by age, partly by experience of the world. I have never intended
+to change my mode of life or my habit--not that I liked them, but to
+avoid scandal. You are aware that I was not so much led as driven to
+this mode of life by the obstinate determination of my guardians and the
+wrongful urgings of others, and that afterwards, when I realized that
+this kind of life was quite unsuited to me (for not all things suit all
+men), I was held back by Cornelius of Woerden's reproaches and by a
+certain boyish sense of shame. I was never able to endure fasting,
+through some peculiarity of my constitution. Once roused from sleep I
+could never fall asleep again for several hours. I was so drawn towards
+literature, which is not practised in the monastery, that I do not doubt
+that if I had chanced on some free mode of life I could have been
+numbered not merely among the happy but even among the good.
+
+So, when I realized that I was by no means fit for this mode of life,
+that I had taken it up under compulsion and not of my own free will,
+nevertheless, as public opinion in these days regards it as a crime to
+break away from a mode of life once taken up, I had resolved to endure
+with fortitude this part of my unhappiness also--you know that I am in
+many things unfortunate. But I have always regarded this one thing as
+harder than all the rest, that I had been forced into a mode of life for
+which I was totally unfit both in body and in mind: in mind, because I
+abhorred ritual and loved liberty; in body, because even had I been
+perfectly satisfied with the life, my constitution could not endure such
+labours. One may object that I had a year of probation, as it is called,
+and that I was of ripe age. Ridiculous! As if anyone could expect a boy
+of sixteen, particularly one with a literary training, to know himself
+(an achievement even for an old man), or to have succeeded in learning
+in a single year what many do not yet understand in their grey hairs.
+Though I myself never liked the life, still less after I had tried it,
+but was trapped in the way I have mentioned; although I confess that the
+truly good man will live a good life in any calling. And I do not deny
+that I was prone to grievous vices, but not of so utterly corrupt a
+nature that I could not have come to some good, had I found a kindly
+guide, a true Christian, not one given to Jewish scruples.
+
+Meanwhile I looked about to find in what kind of life I could be least
+bad, and I believe indeed that I have attained this. I have spent my
+life meantime among sober men, in literary studies, which have kept me
+off many vices. I have been able to associate with true followers of
+Christ, whose conversation has made me a better man. I do not now boast
+of my books, which you at Steyn perhaps despise.
+
+But many confess that they have become not merely more knowledgeable,
+but even better men through reading them. Passion for money has never
+affected me. I am quite untouched by the thirst for fame. I have never
+been a slave to pleasures, although I was formerly inclined to them.
+Over-indulgence and drunkenness I have ever loathed and avoided. But
+whenever I thought of returning to your society, I remembered the
+jealousy of many, the contempt of all, the conversations how dull, how
+foolish, how un-Christlike, the feasts how unclerical! In short the
+whole way of life, from which if you remove the ritual, I do not see
+what remains that one could desire. Lastly I remembered my frail
+constitution, now weakened by age, disease and hard work, as a result of
+which I should fail to satisfy you and kill myself. For several years
+now I have been subject to the stone, a severe and deadly illness, and
+for several years I have drunk nothing but wine, and not all kinds of
+wine at that, owing to my disease; I cannot endure all kinds of food nor
+indeed all climates. The illness is very liable to recur and demands a
+very careful regimen; and I know the climate in Holland and your style
+of living, not to mention your ways. So, had I come back to you, all I
+would have achieved would have been to bring trouble on you and death on
+myself.
+
+But perhaps you think it a great part of happiness to die amid one's
+fellow-brethren? This belief deceives and imposes not on you alone but
+on nearly everyone. We make Christian piety depend on place, dress,
+style of living and on certain little rituals. We think a man lost who
+changes his white dress for black, or his cowl for a cap, or
+occasionally moves from place to place. I should dare to say that
+Christian piety has suffered great damage from these so-called religious
+practices, although it may be that their first introduction was due to
+pious zeal. They then gradually increased and divided into thousands of
+distinctions; this was helped by a papal authority which was too lax and
+easy-going in many cases. What more defiled or more impious than these
+lax rituals? And if you turn to those that are commended, no, to the
+most highly commended, apart from some dreary Jewish rituals, I know not
+what image of Christ one finds in them. It is these on which they preen
+themselves, these by which they judge and condemn others. How much more
+in conformity with the spirit of Christ to consider the whole Christian
+world one home and as it were one monastery, to regard all men as one's
+fellow-monks and fellow-brethren, to hold the sacrament of Baptism as
+the supreme rite, and not to consider where one lives but how well one
+lives! You want me to settle on a permanent abode, a course which my
+very age also suggests. But the travellings of Solon, Pythagoras and
+Plato are praised; and the Apostles, too, were wanderers, in particular
+Paul. St. Jerome also was a monk now in Rome, now in Syria, now in
+Antioch, now here, now there, and even in his old age pursued literary
+studies.
+
+But I am not to be compared with St. Jerome--I agree; yet I have never
+moved unless forced by the plague or for reasons of study or health, and
+wherever I have lived (I shall say this of myself, arrogantly perhaps,
+but truthfully) I have been commended by the most highly commended and
+praised by the most praised. There is no land, neither Spain nor Italy
+nor Germany nor France nor England nor Scotland, which does not summon
+me to partake of its hospitality. And if I am not liked by all (which is
+not my aim), at all events I am liked in the highest places of all. At
+Rome there was no cardinal who did not welcome me like a brother; in
+particular the Cardinal of St. George,[50] the Cardinal of Bologna,[51]
+Cardinal Grimani, the Cardinal of Nantes,[52] and the present Pope,[53]
+not to mention bishops, archdeacons and men of learning. And this honour
+was not a tribute to wealth, which even now I neither possess nor
+desire; nor to ambition, a failing to which I have ever been a stranger;
+but solely to learning, which our countrymen ridicule, while the
+Italians worship it. In England there is no bishop who is not glad to be
+greeted by me, who does not desire my company, who does not want me in
+his home. The King himself, a little before his father's death, when I
+was in Italy, wrote a most affectionate letter to me with his own hand,
+and now too speaks often of me in the most honourable and affectionate
+terms; and whenever I greet him he welcomes me most courteously and
+looks at me in a most friendly fashion, making it plain that his
+feelings for me are as friendly as his speeches. And he has often
+commissioned his Almoner[54] to find a benefice for me. The Queen sought
+to take me as her tutor. Everyone knows that, if I were prepared to live
+even a few months at Court, he would heap on me as many benefices as I
+cared for; but I put my leisure and my learned labours before
+everything. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England and
+Chancellor of the Realm, a good and learned man, could not treat me with
+more affection were I his father or brother. And that you may understand
+that he is sincere in this, he gave me a living of nearly 100 nobles,
+which afterwards at my wish he changed into a pension of 100 crowns on
+my resignation; in addition he has given me more than 400 nobles during
+the last few years, although I never asked for anything. He gave me 150
+nobles in one day. I received more than 100 nobles from other bishops in
+freely offered gifts. Mountjoy, a baron of the realm, formerly my pupil,
+gives me annually a pension of 100 crowns. The King and the Bishop of
+Lincoln, who has great influence through the King, make many splendid
+promises. There are two universities in England, Oxford and Cambridge,
+and both of them want me; at Cambridge I taught Greek and sacred
+literature for several months, for nothing, and have resolved always to
+do this. There are colleges here so religious, and of such modesty in
+living, that you would spurn any other religious life, could you see
+them. In London there is John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who has
+combined great learning with a marvellous piety, a man greatly respected
+by all. He is so fond of me, as all know, that he prefers my company
+above all others'; I do not mention many others, lest I doubly vex you
+with my loquacity as well as my boasting.
+
+Now to say something of my works--I think you have read the
+_Enchiridion_,[55] through which not a few confess themselves inspired
+to the study of piety; I make no claim for myself, but give thanks to
+Christ for any good which has come to pass through me by His giving. I
+do not know whether you have seen the _Adagia_,[56] printed by Aldus. It
+is not a theological work, but most useful for every branch of learning;
+at least it cost me countless labours and sleepless nights. I have
+published a work _De rerum verborumque copia_,[57] dedicated to my
+friend Colet, very useful for those who desire to speak in public; but
+all these are despised by those who despise all good learning. During
+the last two years, apart from much else, I have emended the _Letters_
+of St. Jerome, obelizing what was false and spurious and explaining the
+obscure passages with notes. I have corrected the whole of the New
+Testament from collations of the Greek and ancient manuscripts, and have
+annotated more than a thousand passages, not without some benefit to
+theologians. I have begun commentaries on the _Epistles_ of St. Paul,
+which I shall complete when I have published these. For I have resolved
+to live and die in the study of the Scriptures. I make these my work and
+my leisure. Men of consequence say that I can do what others cannot in
+this field; in your mode of life I shall be able to do nothing. Although
+I have been intimate with so many grave and learned men, here and in
+Italy and France, I have not yet found anyone who advised me to return
+to you or thought this the better course. Nay, even Nicholas Werner of
+blessed memory, your predecessor, would always dissuade me from this,
+advising me to attach myself rather to some bishop; he would add that he
+knew my mind and his little brothers' ways: those were the words he
+used, in the vernacular. In the life I live now I see what I should
+avoid, but do not see what would be a better course.
+
+It now remains to satisfy you on the question of my dress. I have always
+up to now worn the canon's dress, and when I was at Louvain I obtained
+permission from the Bishop of Utrecht to wear a linen scapular instead
+of a complete linen garment, and a black capuce instead of a black
+cloak, after the Parisian custom. But on my journey to Italy, seeing the
+monks all along the way wearing a black garment with a scapular, I there
+took to wearing black, with a scapular, to avoid giving offence by any
+unusual dress. Afterwards the plague broke out at Bologna, and there
+those who nurse the sick of the plague customarily wear a white linen
+cloth depending from the shoulder--these avoid contact with people.
+Consequently when one day I went to call on a learned friend some
+rascals drew their swords and were preparing to set about me, and would
+have done so, had not a certain matron warned them that I was an
+ecclesiastic. Again the next day, when I was on my way to visit the
+Treasurer's sons, they rushed at me with bludgeons from all directions
+and attacked me with horrible cries. So on the advice of good men I
+concealed my scapular, and obtained a dispensation from Pope Julius II
+allowing me to wear the religious dress or not, as seemed good, provided
+that I wore clerical garb; and in this document he condoned any previous
+offences in the matter. In Italy I continued to wear clerical garb, lest
+the change cause offence to anyone. On my return to England I decided to
+wear my usual dress, and I invited to my lodging a friend of excellent
+repute for his learning and mode of life and showed him the dress I had
+decided to wear; I asked him whether this was suitable in England. He
+approved, so I appeared in public in this dress. I was at once warned by
+other friends that this dress could not be tolerated in England, that I
+had better conceal it. I did so; and as it cannot be concealed without
+causing scandal if it is eventually discovered, I stored it away in a
+box, and up to now have taken advantage of the Papal dispensation
+received formerly. Ecclesiastical law excommunicates anyone who casts
+off the religious habit so as to move more freely in secular society. I
+put it off under compulsion in Italy, to escape being killed; and
+likewise under compulsion in England, because it was not tolerated
+there, although myself I should much prefer to have worn it. To adopt it
+again now would cause more scandal than did the change itself.
+
+There you have an account of my whole life, there you have my plans. I
+should like to change even this present mode of life, if I see a better.
+But I do not see what I am to do in Holland. I know that the climate and
+way of living will not agree with me; I shall have everyone looking at
+me. I shall return a white-haired old man, having gone away as a
+youth--I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed to the
+contempt of the lowest, used as I am to the respect of the highest. I
+shall exchange my studies for drinking-parties. As to your promising me
+your help in finding me a place where I can live with an excellent
+income, as you write, I cannot conjecture what this can be, unless
+perhaps you intend to place me among some community of nuns, to serve
+women--I who have never been willing to serve kings nor archbishops. I
+want no pay; I have no desire for riches, if only I have money enough to
+provide for my health and my literary leisure, to enable me to live
+without burdening anyone. I wish we could discuss these things together
+face to face; it cannot be done in a letter conveniently or safely. Your
+letter, although it was sent by most reliable persons, went so far
+astray that if I had not accidentally come to this castle I should never
+have seen it; and many people had looked at it before I received it. So
+do not mention anything secret unless you know for certain where I am
+and have a very trustworthy messenger. I am now on my way to Germany,
+that is, Basle, to have my works published, and this winter I shall
+perhaps be in Rome. On my return journey I shall see to it that we meet
+and talk somewhere. But now the summer is nearly over and it is a long
+journey. Farewell, once my sweetest comrade, now my esteemed father.
+
+
+XI. TO WOLFGANG FABRICIUS CAPITO[58]
+
+Antwerp, 26 February 1516/17
+
+To the distinguished theologian Wolfgang Fabricius Capito of Hagenau,
+skilled in the three languages, greetings:
+
+... Now that I see that the mightiest princes of the earth, King Francis
+of France, Charles the Catholic King, King Henry of England and the
+Emperor Maximilian have drastically cut down all warlike preparations
+and concluded a firm and, I hope, unbreakable treaty of peace, I feel
+entitled to hope with confidence that not only the moral virtues and
+Christian piety but also the true learning, purified of corruption, and
+the fine disciplines will revive and blossom forth; particularly as this
+aim is being prosecuted with equal zeal in different parts of the world,
+in Rome by Pope Leo, in Spain by the Cardinal of Toledo,[59] in England
+by King Henry VIII, himself no mean scholar, here by King Charles, a
+young man admirably gifted, in France by King Francis, a man as it were
+born for this task, who besides offers splendid rewards to attract and
+entice men distinguished for virtue and learning from all parts, in
+Germany by many excellent princes and bishops and above all by the
+Emperor Maximilian, who, wearied in his old age of all these wars, has
+resolved to find rest in the arts of peace: a resolve at once more
+becoming to himself at his age and more fortunate for Christendom. It is
+to these men's piety then that we owe it that all over the world, as if
+on a given signal, splendid talents are stirring and awakening and
+conspiring together to revive the best learning. For what else is this
+but a conspiracy, when all these great scholars from different lands
+share out the work among themselves and set about this noble task, not
+merely with enthusiasm but with a fair measure of success, so that we
+have an almost certain prospect of seeing all disciplines emerge once
+more into the light of day in a far purer and more genuine form? In the
+first place polite letters, for long reduced almost to extinction, are
+being taken up and cultivated by the Scots, the Danes and the Irish. As
+for medicine, how many champions has she found! Nicholas Leonicenus[60]
+in Rome, Ambrose Leo of Nola[61] at Venice, William Cop[62] and John
+Ruell[63] in France, and Thomas Linacre in England. Roman law is being
+revived in Paris by William Budaeus[64] and in Germany by Ulrich
+Zasius,[65] mathematics at Basle by Henry Glareanus.[66]
+
+In theology there was more to do, for up till now its professors have
+almost always been men with an ingrained loathing for good learning, men
+who conceal their ignorance the more successfully as they do this on
+what they call a religious pretext, so that the ignorant herd is
+persuaded by them to believe it a violation of religion if anyone
+proceeds to attack their barbarism; for they prefer to wail for help to
+the uneducated mob and incite it to stone-throwing if they see any
+danger of their ignorance on any point coming to light. But I am
+confident that here, too, all will go well as soon as the knowledge of
+the three languages [Greek, Latin and Hebrew] becomes accepted publicly
+in the schools, as it has begun to be.... The humblest share in this
+work has fallen on me, as is fitting; I know not whether I have
+contributed anything of value; at all events I have infuriated those who
+do not want the world to come to its senses, so that it seems as if my
+poor efforts also have not been ineffective: although I have not
+undertaken the work in the belief that, I could teach anything
+magnificent, but I wanted to open a road for others, destined to attempt
+greater things, that they might with greater ease ascend the shining
+heights without running into so many rough and quaggy places. Yet this
+humble diligence of mine is not disdained by the honest and learned, and
+none complain of it but a few so stupid that they are hissed off the
+stage by even ordinary persons of any intelligence. Here not long ago
+someone complained tearfully before the people, in a sermon of course,
+that it was all over with the Scriptures and the theologians who had
+hitherto upheld the Christian faith on their shoulders, now that men had
+arisen to emend the Holy Gospel and the very words of Our Lord: just as
+if I was rebuking Matthew or Luke instead of those whose ignorance or
+negligence had corrupted what they wrote correctly. In England one or
+two persons complain loudly that it is a shameful thing that _I_ should
+dare to teach a great man like St. Jerome: as if I had changed what St.
+Jerome wrote, instead of restoring it!
+
+Yet those who snarl out suchlike dirges, which any laundryman with a
+little sense would scoff at, think themselves great theologians ... Not
+that I want the kind of theology which is customary in the schools
+nowadays consigned to oblivion; I wish it to be rendered more
+trustworthy and more correct by the accession of the old, true learning.
+It will not weaken the authority of the Scriptures or theologians if
+certain passages hitherto considered corrupt are henceforth read in an
+emended form, or if passages are more correctly understood on which up
+till now the mass of theologians have entertained delusions: no, it will
+give greater weight to their authority, the more genuine their
+understanding of the Scriptures. I have sustained the shock of the first
+meeting, which Terence calls the sharpest.... One doubt still troubles
+me; I fear that under cover of the rebirth of ancient learning paganism
+may seek to rear its head, as even among Christians there are those who
+acknowledge Christ in name only, but in their hearts are Gentiles; or
+that with the renascence of Hebrew studies Judaism may seek to use this
+opportunity of revival; and there can be nothing more contrary or more
+hostile to the teaching of Christ than this plague. This is the nature
+of human affairs--nothing good has ever so flourished but some evil has
+attempted to use it as a pretext for insinuating itself. I could wish
+that those dreary quibblings could be either done away with or at least
+cease to be the sole activity of theologians, and that the simplicity
+and purity of Christ could penetrate deeply into the minds of men; and
+this I think can best be brought to pass if with the help provided by
+the three languages we exercise our minds in the actual sources. But I
+pray that we may avoid this evil without falling into another perhaps
+graver error. Recently several pamphlets have been published reeking of
+unadulterated Judaism.
+
+
+XII. TO THOMAS MORE
+
+Louvain, 5 March 1518
+
+To his friend More, greeting:
+
+... First of all I ask you to entrust to the bearer, my servant John,
+any letters of mine or yours which you consider fit for publication with
+the alteration of some passages; I am simply compelled to publish my
+letters whether I like it or not. Send off the lad so that he returns
+here as quickly as possible. If you discover that Urswick is
+ill-disposed towards me perhaps he should not be troubled; otherwise,
+help me in the matter of a horse--I shall need one just now when I am
+about to go to Basle or Venice, chiefly for the purpose of bringing out
+the New Testament.[67] Such is my fate, dear More. I shall enact this
+part of my play also. Afterwards, I almost feel inclined to sing 'for
+myself and the Muses'; my age and my health, which grows daily worse,
+almost require this. Over here scoundrels in disguise are so
+all-powerful, and no one here makes money but innkeepers, advocates, and
+begging friars. It is unendurable when many speak ill and none do good.
+
+At Basle they make the elegant preface added by Budaeus the excuse for
+the delay over your Utopia. They have now received it and have started
+on the work. Then Froben's father-in-law Lachner died. But Froben's
+press will be sweating over our studies none the less. I have not yet
+had a chance of seeing Linacre's _Therapeutice_,[68] through some
+conspiracy of the Parisians against me. Inquire courteously of Lupset on
+the Appendix[69] to my _Copia_ and send it.
+
+The Pope and the princes are up to some new tricks on the pretext of the
+savagery of the war against the Turks. Wretched Turks! May we Christians
+not be too cruel! Even wives are affected. All married men between the
+ages of twenty-six and fifty will be compelled to take up arms.
+Meanwhile the Pope forbids the wives of men absent at the war to indulge
+in pleasure at home; they are to eschew elegant apparel, must not wear
+silk, gold or any jewellery, must not touch rouge or drink wine, and
+must fast every other day, that God may favour their husbands engaged in
+this cruel war. If there are men tied at home by necessary business,
+their wives must none the less observe the same rules as they would have
+had to observe if their husbands had gone to the war. They are to sleep
+in the same room but in different beds; and not a kiss is to be given
+meanwhile until this terrible war reaches a successful conclusion under
+Christ's favour. I know that these enactments will irritate wives who do
+not sufficiently ponder the importance of the business; though I know
+that your wife, sensible as she is, and obedient in regard to a matter
+of Christian observance, will even be glad to obey.
+
+I send Pace's pamphlet, the _Conclusions on Papal Indulgences_,[70] and
+the _Proposal for Undertaking a War against the Turks_,[71] as I suspect
+that they have not yet reached England. They write from Cologne that
+some pamphlet about an argument between Julius and Peter at the gates of
+Paradise[72] has now been printed; they do not add the author's name.
+The German presses will not cease from their mad pranks until their
+rashness is restrained by some law; this does me much harm, who am
+endeavouring to help the world....
+
+I beg you to let my servant sleep one or two nights with yours, to
+prevent his chancing on an infected house, and to afford him anything he
+may need, although I have supplied him with travelling money myself. I
+have at last seen the _Utopia_ at Paris printed, but with many
+misprints. It is now in the press at Basle; I had threatened to break
+with them unless they took more trouble with that business than with
+mine. Farewell, most sincere of friends.
+
+
+XIII. TO BEATUS RHENANUS[73]
+
+Louvain [_c._ 15 October] 1518
+
+To his friend Rhenanus, greetings:
+
+... Let me describe to you, my dear Beatus, the whole tragi-comedy of my
+journey. I was still weak and listless, as you know, when I left Basle,
+not having come to terms with the climate, after skulking at home so
+long, and occupied in uninterrupted labors at that. The river voyage was
+not unpleasant, but that around midday the heat of the sun was somewhat
+trying. We had a meal at Breisach, the most unpleasant meal I have ever
+had. The smell of food nearly finished me, and then the flies, worse
+than the smell. We sat at table doing nothing for more than half an
+hour, waiting for them to produce their banquet, if you please. In the
+end nothing fit to eat was served; filthy porridge with lumps in it and
+salt fish reheated not for the first time, enough to make one sick. I
+did not call on Gallinarius. The man who brought word that he was
+suffering from a slight fever also told me a pretty story; that Minorite
+theologian with whom I had disputed about _heceitas_[74] had taken it on
+himself to pawn the church chalices. Scotist ingenuity! Just before
+nightfall we were put out at a dull village; I did not feel like
+discovering its name, and if I knew I should not care to tell you it. I
+nearly perished there. We had supper in a small room like a
+sweating-chamber, more than sixty of us, I should say, an indiscriminate
+collection of rapscallions, and this went on till nearly ten o'clock;
+oh, the stench, and the noise, particularly after they had become
+intoxicated! Yet we had to remain sitting to suit their clocks.
+
+In the morning while it was still quite dark we were driven from bed by
+the shouting of the sailors. I went on board without having either
+supped or slept. We reached Strasbourg before lunch, at about nine
+o'clock; there we had a more comfortable reception, particularly as
+Schürer produced some wine. Some of the Society[75] were there, and
+afterwards they all came to greet me, Gerbel outdoing all the rest in
+politeness. Gebwiler and Rudolfingen did not want me to pay, no new
+thing with them. Thence we proceeded on horseback as far as Speyer; we
+saw no sign of soldiers anywhere, although there had been alarming
+rumours. The English horse completely collapsed and hardly got to
+Speyer; that criminal smith had handled him so badly that he ought to
+have both his ears branded with red-hot iron. At Speyer I slipped away
+from the inn and took myself to my neighbour Maternus. There Decanus, a
+learned and cultivated man, entertained me courteously and agreeably for
+two days. Here I accidentally found Hermann Busch.
+
+From Speyer I travelled by carriage to Worms, and from there again to
+Mainz. There was an Imperial secretary, Ulrich Varnbüler,[76] travelling
+by chance in the same carriage. He devoted himself to me with incredible
+assiduity over the whole journey, and at Mainz would not allow me to go
+into the inn but took me to the house of a canon; on my departure he
+accompanied me to the boat. The voyage was not unpleasant as the weather
+was fine, excepting that the crew took care to make it somewhat long; in
+addition to this the stench of the horses incommoded me. For the first
+day John Langenfeld, who formerly taught at Louvain, and a lawyer friend
+of his came with me as a mark of politeness. There was also a
+Westphalian, John, a canon at St. Victor's outside Mainz, a most
+agreeable and entertaining man.
+
+After arriving at Boppard, as I was taking a walk along the bank while a
+boat was being procured, someone recognized me and betrayed me to the
+customs officer, 'That is the man.' The customs officer's name is, if I
+mistake not, Christopher Cinicampius, in the common speech Eschenfelder.
+You would not believe how the man jumped for joy. He dragged me into his
+house. Books by Erasmus were lying on a small table amongst the customs
+agreements. He exclaimed at his good fortune and called in his wife and
+children and all his friends. Meanwhile he sent out to the sailors who
+were calling for me two tankards of wine, and another two when they
+called out again, promising that when he came back he would remit the
+toll to the man who had brought him a man like myself. From Boppard John
+Flaminius, chaplain to the nuns there, a man of angelic purity, of sane
+and sober judgement and no common learning, accompanied me as far as
+Coblenz. At Coblenz Matthias, Chancellor to the Bishop, swept us off to
+his house--he is a young man but of staid manners, and has an accurate
+knowledge of Latin, besides being a skilled lawyer. There we supped
+merrily.
+
+At Bonn the canon left us, to avoid Cologne: I wanted to avoid Cologne
+myself, but the servant had preceded me thither with the horses, and
+there was no reliable person in the boat whom I could have charged with
+the business of calling back my servant; I did not trust the sailors. So
+we docked at Cologne before six o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, the
+weather being by now pestilential. I went into an inn and gave orders to
+the ostlers to hire me a carriage and pair, ordering a meal to be made
+ready by ten o'clock. I attended Divine Service, the lunch was delayed.
+I had no luck with the carriage and pair. I tried to hire a horse; my
+own were useless. Everything failed. I realized what was up; they were
+trying to make me stop there. I immediately ordered my horses to be
+harnessed, and one bag to be loaded; the other bag I entrusted to the
+innkeeper, and on my lame horse rode quickly to the Count of
+Neuenahr's[77]--a five-hour journey. He was staying at Bedburg.
+
+With the Count I stayed five days very pleasantly, in such peace and
+quiet that while staying with him I completed a good part of the
+revision--I had taken that part of the New Testament with me. Would that
+you knew him, my dear Beatus! He is a young man but of rare good sense,
+more than you would find in an old man; he speaks little, but as Homer
+says of Menelaus, he speaks 'in clear tones,' and intelligently too; he
+is learned without pretentiousness in more than one branch of study,
+wholly sincere and a good friend. By now I was strong and lusty, and
+well pleased with myself, and was hoping to be in a good state when I
+visited the Bishop of Liége and to return hale and hearty to my friends
+in Brabant. What dinner-parties, what felicitations, what discussions I
+promised myself! But ah, deceptive human hopes! ah, the sudden and
+unexpected vicissitudes of human affairs! From these high dreams of
+happiness I was hurled to the depths of misfortune.
+
+I had hired a carriage and pair for the next day. My companion, not
+wanting to say goodbye before night, announced that he would see me in
+the morning before my departure. That night a wild hurricane sprang up,
+which had passed before the next morning. Nevertheless I rose after
+midnight, to make some notes for the Count: when it was already seven
+o'clock and the Count did not emerge, I asked for him to be waked. He
+came, and in his customary shy and modest way asked me whether I meant
+to leave in such bad weather, saying he was afraid for me. At that
+point, my dear Beatus, some god or bad angel deprived me, not of the
+half of my senses, as Hesiod says, but of the whole: for he had deprived
+me of half my senses when I risked going to Cologne. I wish that either
+my friend had warned me more sharply or that I had paid more attention
+to his most affectionate remonstrances! I was seized by the power of
+fate: what else am I to say? I climbed into an uncovered carriage, the
+wind blowing 'strong as when in the high mountains it shivers the
+trembling holm-oaks.' It was a south wind and blowing like the very
+pest. I thought I was well protected by my wrappings, but it went
+through everything with its violence. Towards nightfall a light rain
+came on, more noxious than the wind that preceded it: I arrived at
+Aachen exhausted from the shaking of the carriage, which was so trying
+to me on the stone-paved road that I should have preferred sitting on my
+horse, lame as he was. Here I was carried off from the inn by a canon,
+to whom the Count had recommended me, to Suderman's house. There several
+canons were holding their usual drinking-party. My appetite had been
+sharpened by a very light lunch; but at the time they had nothing by
+them but carp, and cold carp at that. I ate to repletion. The drinking
+went on well into the night. I excused myself and went to bed, as I had
+had very little sleep the night before.
+
+On the following day I was taken to the Vice-Provost's house; it was his
+turn to offer hospitality. As there was no fish there apart from eel
+(this was certainly the fault of the storm, as he is a magnificent host
+otherwise) I lunched off a fish dried in the open air, which the Germans
+call _Stockfisch_, from the rod used to beat it--it is a fish which I
+enjoy at other times: but I discovered that part of this one had not
+been properly cured. After lunch, as the weather was appalling, I took
+myself off to the inn and ordered a fire to be lit. The canon whom I
+mentioned, a most cultured man, stayed talking with me for about an hour
+and a half. Meanwhile I began to feel very uncomfortable inside; as this
+continued, I sent him away and went to the privy. As this gave my
+stomach no relief I inserted my finger into my mouth, and the uncured
+fish came up, but that was all. I lay down afterwards, not so much
+sleeping as resting, without any pain in my head or body; then, having
+struck a bargain with the coachman over the bags, I received an
+invitation to the evening compotation. I excused myself, without
+success. I knew that my stomach would not stand anything but a few sups
+of warmed liquor.... On this occasion there was a magnificent spread,
+but it was wasted on me. After comforting my stomach with a sup of wine,
+I went home; I was sleeping at Suderman's house. As soon as I went out
+of doors my empty body shivered fearfully in the night air.
+
+On the morning of the next day, after taking a little warmed ale and a
+few morsels of bread, I mounted my horse, who was lame and ailing, which
+made riding more uncomfortable. By now I was in such a state that I
+would have been better keeping warm in bed than mounted on horseback.
+But that district is the most countrified, roughest, barren and
+unattractive imaginable, the inhabitants are so idle; so that I
+preferred to run away. The danger of brigands--it was very great in
+those parts--or at least my fear of them, was driven out of my mind by
+the discomfort of my illness.... After covering four miles on this ride
+I reached Maastricht. There after a drink to soothe my stomach I
+remounted and came to Tongres, about three miles away. This last ride
+was by far the most painful to me. The awkward gait of the horse gave me
+excruciating pains in the kidneys. It would have been easier to walk,
+but I was afraid of sweating, and there was a danger of the night
+catching us still out in the country. So I reached Tongres with my whole
+body in a state of unbelievable agony. By now, owing to lack of food and
+the exertion in addition, all my muscles had given way, so that I could
+not stand or walk steadily. I concealed the severity of my illness by my
+tongue--that was still working. Here I took a sup of ale to soothe my
+stomach and retired to bed.
+
+In the morning I ordered them to hire a carriage. I decided to go on
+horseback, on account of the paving stones, until we reached an unpaved
+road. I mounted the bigger horse, thinking that he would go better on
+the paving and be more sure-footed. I had hardly mounted when I felt my
+eyes clouding over as I met the cold air, and asked for a cloak. But
+soon after this I fainted; I could be roused by a touch. Then my servant
+John and the others standing by let me come to myself naturally, still
+sitting on the horse. After coming to myself I got into the carriage....
+By now we were approaching the town of St. Trond. I mounted once more,
+not to appear an invalid, riding in a carriage. Once again the evening
+air made me feel sick, but I did not faint. I offered the coachman
+double the fare if he would take me the next day as far as Tirlemont, a
+town six miles from Tongres. He accepted the terms. Here a guest whom I
+knew told me how ill the Bishop of Liége had taken my leaving for Basle
+without calling on him. After soothing my stomach with a drink I went to
+bed, and had a very bad night.... Here by chance I found a coach going
+to Louvain, six miles away, and threw myself into it. I made the journey
+in incredible and almost unendurable discomfort; however we reached
+Louvain by seven o'clock on that day.
+
+I had no intention of going to my own room, whether because I had a
+suspicion that all would be cold there, or that I did not want to run
+the risk of interfering with the amenities of the College in any way, if
+I started a rumour of the plague. I went to Theodoric the printer's....
+During the night a large ulcer broke without my feeling it, and the pain
+had died down. The next day I called a surgeon. He applied poultices. A
+third ulcer had appeared on my back, caused by a servant at Tongres when
+he was anointing me with oil of roses for the pain in the kidneys and
+rubbed one of my ribs too hard with a horny finger.... The surgeon on
+his way out told Theodoric and his servant secretly that it was the
+plague; he would send poultices, but would not come to see me
+himself.... When the surgeon failed to return after a day or two, I
+asked Theodoric the reason. He made some excuse. But I, suspecting what
+the matter was, said 'What, does he think it is the plague?'
+'Precisely,' said he, 'he insists that you have three plague-sores.' I
+laughed, and did not allow myself even to imagine that I had the plague.
+After some days the surgeon's father came, examined me, and assured me
+that it was the true plague. Even so, I could not be convinced. I
+secretly sent for another doctor who had a great reputation. He examined
+me, and being something of a clown said, 'I should not be afraid to
+sleep with you--and make love to you too, if you were a woman....'
+[Still another doctor is summoned but does not return as promised,
+sending his servant instead.] I dismissed the man and losing my temper
+with the doctors, commended myself to Christ as my doctor.
+
+My appetite came back within three days.... I then immediately returned
+to my studies and completed what was still wanting to my New
+Testament.... I had given orders as soon as I arrived that no one was to
+visit me unless summoned by name, lest I should frighten anyone or
+suffer inconvenience from anyone's assiduity; but Dorp forced his way in
+first of all, then Ath. Mark Laurin and Paschasius Berselius, who came
+every day, did much to make me well with their delightful company.
+
+My dear Beatus, who would have believed that this meagre delicate body
+of mine, weakened now by age also, could have succeeded, after all the
+troubles of travel and all my studious exertions, in standing up to all
+these physical ills as well? You know how ill I was not long ago at
+Basle, more than once. I was beginning to suspect that that year would
+be fatal to me: illness followed illness, always more severe. But, at
+the very time when this illness was at its height, I felt no torturing
+desire to live and no trepidation at the fear of death. My whole hope
+was in Christ alone, and I prayed only that he would give me what he
+judged most salutary for me. In my youth long ago, as I remember, I
+would shiver at the very name of death. This at least I have achieved as
+I have grown older, that I do not greatly fear death, and I do not
+measure man's happiness by number of days. I have passed my fiftieth
+year; as so few out of so many reach this age, I cannot rightly complain
+that I have not lived long enough. And then, if this has any relevance,
+I have by now already prepared a monument to bear witness to posterity
+that I have lived. And perhaps if, as the poets tell, jealousy falls
+silent after death, fame will shine out the more brightly: although it
+ill becomes a Christian heart to be moved by human glory; may I have the
+glory of pleasing Christ! Farewell, my dearest Beatus. The rest you will
+learn from my letter to Capito.
+
+
+XIV. TO MARTIN LUTHER
+
+Louvain, 30 May 1519
+
+Best greetings, most beloved brother in Christ. Your letter was most
+welcome to me, displaying a shrewd wit and breathing a Christian spirit.
+
+I could never find words to express what commotions your books have
+brought about here. They cannot even now eradicate from their minds the
+most false suspicion that your works were composed with my aid, and that
+I am the standard-bearer of this party, as they call it. They thought
+that they had found a handle wherewith to crush good learning--which
+they mortally detest as threatening to dim the majesty of theology, a
+thing they value far above Christ--and at the same time to crush me,
+whom they consider as having some influence on the revival of studies.
+The whole affair was conducted with such clamourings, wild talk,
+trickery, detraction and cunning that, had I not been present and
+witnessed, nay, _felt_ all this, I should never have taken any man's
+word for it that theologians could act so madly. You would have thought
+it some mortal plague. And yet the poison of this evil beginning with a
+few has spread so far abroad that a great part of this University was
+running mad with the infection of this not uncommon disease.
+
+I declared that you were quite unknown to me, that I had not yet read
+your books, and accordingly neither approved nor disapproved of anything
+in them. I only warned them not to clamour before the populace in so
+hateful a manner without having yet read your books: this matter was
+_their_ concern, whose judgement should carry the greatest weight.
+Further I begged them to consider also whether it were expedient to
+traduce before a mixed multitude views which were more properly refuted
+in books or discussed between educated persons, particularly as the
+author's way of life was extolled by one and all. I failed miserably; up
+to this day they continue to rave in their insinuating, nay, slanderous
+disputations. How often have we agreed to make peace! How often have
+they stirred up new commotions from some rashly conceived shred of
+suspicion! And these men think themselves theologians! Theologians are
+not liked in Court circles here; this too they put down to me. The
+bishops all favour me greatly. These men put no trust in books, their
+hope of victory is based on cunning alone. I disdain them, relying on my
+knowledge that I am in the right. They are becoming a little milder
+towards yourself. They fear my pen, because of their bad conscience; and
+I would indeed paint them in their true colours, as they deserve, did
+not Christ's teaching and example summon me elsewhere. Wild beasts can
+be tamed by kindness, which makes these men wild.
+
+There are persons in England, and they in the highest positions, who
+think very well of your writings. Here, too, there are people, among
+them the Bishop of Liége, who favour your followers. As for me, I keep
+myself as far as possible neutral, the better to assist the new
+flowering of good learning; and it seems to me that more can be done by
+unassuming courteousness than by violence. It was thus that Christ
+brought the world under His sway, and thus that Paul made away with the
+Jewish Law, by interpreting all things allegorically. It is wiser to cry
+out against those who abuse the Popes' authority than against the Popes
+themselves: and I think that we should act in the same way with the
+Kings. As for the schools, we should not so much reject them as recall
+them to more reasonable studies. Where things are too generally accepted
+to be suddenly eradicated from men's minds, we must argue with repeated
+and efficacious proofs and not make positive assertions. The poisonous
+contentions of certain persons are better ignored than refuted. We must
+everywhere take care never to speak or act arrogantly or in a party
+spirit: this I believe is pleasing to the spirit of Christ. Meanwhile we
+must preserve our minds from being seduced by anger, hatred or ambition;
+these feelings are apt to lie in wait for us in the midst of our
+strivings after piety.
+
+I am not advising you to do this, but only to continue doing what you
+are doing. I have looked into your Commentaries on the Psalms;[78] I am
+delighted with them, and hope that they will do much good. At Antwerp we
+have the Prior of the Monastery,[79] a Christian without spot, who loves
+you exceedingly, an old pupil of yours as he says. He is almost alone of
+them all in preaching Christ: the others preach human trivialities or
+their own gain.
+
+I have written to Melanchthon. The Lord Jesus impart you His spirit each
+day more bountifully, to His own glory and the good of all. I had not
+your letter at hand when writing this.
+
+
+XV. TO ULRICH HUTTEN[80]
+
+Antwerp, 23 July 1519
+
+To the illustrious knight Ulrich Hutten, greetings:
+
+... As to your demand for a complete portrait, as it were, of More,
+would that I could execute it with a perfection to match the intensity
+of your desire! It will be a pleasure, for me as well, to dwell for a
+space on the contemplation of by far the sweetest friend of all. But in
+the first place, it is not given to every man to explore all More's
+gifts. And then I wonder whether he will tolerate being depicted by an
+indifferent artist; for I think it no less a task to portray More than
+it would be to portray Alexander the Great or Achilles, and they were no
+more deserving of immortality than he is. Such a subject requires in
+short the pencil of an Apelles; but I fear that I am more like Horace's
+gladiators[81] than Apelles. Nevertheless, I shall try to sketch you an
+image rather than a full portrait of the whole man, so far as my
+observation or recollection from long association with him in his home
+has made this possible. If ever you meet him on some embassy you will
+then for the first time understand how unskilled an artist you have
+chosen for this commission; and I am downright afraid of your accusing
+me of jealousy or blindness, that out of so many excellences so few have
+been perceived by my poor sight or recorded by my jealousy.
+
+But to begin with that side of More of which you know nothing, in height
+and stature he is not tall, nor again noticeably short, but there is
+such symmetry in all his limbs as leaves nothing to be desired here. He
+has a fair skin, his complexion glowing rather than pale, though far
+from ruddy, but for a very faint rosiness shining through. His hair is
+of a darkish blond, or if you will, a lightish brown, his beard scanty,
+his eyes bluish grey, with flecks here and there: this usually denotes a
+happy nature and is also thought attractive by the English, whereas we
+are more taken by dark eyes. It is said that no type of eyes is less
+subject to defects. His expression corresponds to his character, always
+showing a pleasant and friendly gaiety, and rather set in a smiling
+look; and, to speak honestly, better suited to merriment than to
+seriousness and solemnity, though far removed from silliness or
+buffoonery. His right shoulder seems a little higher than the left,
+particularly when he is walking: this is not natural to him but due to
+force of habit, like many of the little habits which we pick up. There
+is nothing to strike one in the rest of his body; only his hands are
+somewhat clumsy, but only when compared with the rest of his appearance.
+He has always from a boy been very careless of everything to do with
+personal adornment, to the point of not greatly caring for those things
+which according to Ovid's teaching should be the sole care of men. One
+can tell even now, from his appearance in maturity, how handsome he must
+have been as a young man: although when I first came to know him he was
+not more than three and twenty years old, for he is now barely
+forty.[82]
+
+His health is not so much robust as satisfactory, but equal to all tasks
+becoming an honourable citizen, subject to no, or at least very few,
+diseases: there is every prospect of his living long, as he has a father
+of great age[83]--but a wondrously fresh and green old age. I have never
+yet seen anyone less fastidious in his choice of food. Until he grew up
+he liked water to drink; in this he took after his father. But so as to
+avoid irritating anyone over this, he would deceive his comrades by
+drinking from a pewter pot ale that was very nearly all water, often
+pure water. Wine--the custom in England is to invite each other to drink
+from the same goblet--he would often sip with his lips, not to give the
+appearance of disliking it, and at the same time to accustom himself to
+common ways. He preferred beef, salt fish, and bread of the second
+quality, well risen, to the foods commonly regarded as delicacies:
+otherwise he was by no means averse to all sources of innocent pleasure,
+even to the appetite. He has always had a great liking for milk foods
+and fruit: he enjoys eating eggs. His voice is neither strong nor at all
+weak, but easily audible, by no means soft or melodious, but the voice
+of a clear speaker; for he seems to have no natural gift for vocal
+music, although he delights in every kind of music. His speech is
+wonderfully clear and distinct, with no trace of haste or hesitation.
+
+He likes to dress simply and does not wear silk or purple or gold
+chains, excepting where it would not be decent not to wear them. It is
+strange how careless he is of the formalities by which the vulgar judge
+good manners. He neither insists on these from any, nor does he
+anxiously force them on others whether at meetings or at entertainments,
+although he knows them well enough, should he choose to indulge in them;
+but he considers it effeminate and not becoming masculine dignity to
+waste a good part of one's time in suchlike inanities.
+
+Formerly he disliked Court life and the company of princes, for the
+reason that he has always had a peculiar loathing for tyranny, just as
+he has always loved equality. (Now you will hardly find any court so
+modest that has not about it much noisy ostentation, dissimulation and
+luxury, while yet being quite free of any kind of tyranny.) Indeed it
+was only with great difficulty that he could be dragged into the Court
+of Henry VIII, although nothing more courteous and unassuming than this
+prince could be desired. He is by nature somewhat greedy of independence
+and leisure; but while he gladly takes advantage of leisure when it
+comes his way, none is more careful or patient whenever business demands
+it.
+
+He seems born and created for friendship, which he cultivates most
+sincerely and fosters most steadfastly. He is not one to be afraid of
+the 'abundance of friends' which Hesiod does not approve; he is ready to
+enter into friendly relations with any. He is in no way fastidious in
+choosing friends, accommodating in maintaining them, constant in keeping
+them. If he chances on anyone whose defects he cannot mend, he dismisses
+him when the opportunity offers, not breaking but gradually dissolving
+the friendship. Whenever he finds any sincere and suited to his
+disposition he so delights in their company and conversation that he
+appears to make this his chief pleasure in life. He loathes ball-games,
+cards and gambling, and the other games with which the ordinary run of
+men of rank are used to kill time. Furthermore, while he is somewhat
+careless of his own affairs, there is none more diligent in looking
+after his friends' affairs. Need I continue? Should anyone want a
+finished example of true friendship he could not do better than seek it
+in More.
+
+In social intercourse he is of so rare a courtesy and charm of manners
+that there is no man so melancholy that he does not gladden, no subject
+so forbidding that he does not dispel the tedium of it. From his boyhood
+he has loved joking, so that he might seem born for this, but in his
+jokes he has never descended to buffoonery, and has never loved the
+biting jest. As a youth he both composed and acted in little comedies.
+Any witty remark he would still enjoy, even were it directed against
+himself, such is his delight in clever sallies of ingenious flavour. As
+a result he wrote epigrams as a young man, and delighted particularly in
+Lucian; indeed he was responsible for my writing the _Praise of Folly_,
+that is for making the camel dance.
+
+In human relations he looks for pleasure in everything he comes across,
+even in the gravest matters. If he has to do with intelligent and
+educated men, he takes pleasure in their brilliance; if with the
+ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their folly. He is not put out by
+perfect fools, and suits himself with marvellous dexterity to all men's
+feelings. For women generally, even for his wife, he has nothing but
+jests and merriment. You could say he was a second Democritus, or
+better, that Pythagorean philosopher who saunters through the
+market-place with a tranquil mind gazing on the uproar of buyers and
+sellers. None is less guided by the opinion of the herd, but again none
+is less remote from the common feelings of humanity.
+
+He takes an especial pleasure in watching the appearance, characters and
+behaviour of various creatures; accordingly there is almost no kind of
+bird which he does not keep at his home, and various other animals not
+commonly found, such as apes, foxes, ferrets, weasels and their like.
+Added to this, he eagerly buys anything foreign or otherwise worth
+looking at which comes his way, and he has the whole house stocked with
+these objects, so that wherever the visitor looks there is something to
+detain him; and his own pleasure is renewed whenever he sees others
+enjoying these sights.
+
+When he was of an age for it, he was not averse to love-affairs with
+young women, but kept them honourable, preferring the love that was
+offered to that which he must chase after, and was more drawn by
+spiritual than by physical intercourse.
+
+He had devoured classical literature from his earliest years. As a lad
+he applied himself to the study of Greek literature and philosophy; his
+father, so far from helping him (although he is otherwise a good and
+sensible man), deprived him of all support in this endeavour; and he was
+almost regarded as disowned, because he seemed to be deserting his
+father's studies--the father's profession is English jurisprudence. This
+profession is quite unconnected with true learning, but in Britain those
+who have made themselves authorities in it are particularly highly
+regarded, and this is there considered the most suitable road to fame,
+since most of the nobility of that island owe their origin to this
+branch of study. It is said that none can become perfect in it without
+many years of hard work. So, although the young man's mind born for
+better things not unreasonably revolted from it, nevertheless, after
+sampling the scholastic disciplines he worked at the law with such
+success that none was more gladly consulted by litigants, and he made a
+better living at it than any of those who did nothing else, so quick and
+powerful was his intellect.
+
+He also devoted much strenuous attention to studying the ecclesiastical
+writers. He lectured publicly to a crowded audience on Augustine's _City
+of God_ while still little more than a lad; and priests and elderly men
+were neither sorry nor ashamed to learn sacred matters from a youthful
+layman. For a time he gave his whole mind to the study of piety,
+practising himself for the priesthood in watchings, fastings and prayer,
+and other like preliminary exercises; in which matter he was far more
+sensible than most of those who rashly hurl themselves into this arduous
+calling without having previously made any trial of themselves. The only
+obstacle to his devoting himself to this mode of life was his inability
+to shake off his longing for a wife. He therefore chose to be a chaste
+husband rather than an unchaste priest.
+
+Still, he married a girl,[84] as yet very young, of good family, but
+still untrained--she had always lived in the country with her parents
+and sisters--so that he could better fashion her to his own ways. He had
+her taught literature and made her skilled in all kinds of music; and he
+had really almost made her such as he would have cared to spend all his
+life with, had not an untimely death carried her off while still a girl,
+but after she had borne him several children: of whom there survive
+three girls, Margaret, Alice[85] and Cecily, and one boy, John. He would
+not endure to live long a widower, although his friends counselled
+otherwise. Within a few months of his wife's death he married a
+widow,[86] more for the care of the household than for his pleasure, as
+she was not precisely beautiful nor, as he jokingly says himself, a
+girl, but a keen and watchful housewife;[87] with whom he yet lives as
+pleasantly and agreeably as if she were a most charming young girl.
+Hardly any husband gets so much obedience from his wife by stern orders
+as he does by jests and cajolery. How could he fail to do so, after
+having induced a woman on the verge of old age, also by no means a
+docile character, and lastly most attentive to her business, to learn to
+play the cithern, the lute, the monochord and the recorders, and perform
+a daily prescribed exercise in this at her husband's wish?
+
+[Illustration: XXIX. SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS FAMILY, 1527]
+
+He rules his whole household as agreeably, no quarrels or disturbances
+arise there. If any quarrel does arise he at once heals or settles the
+difference; and he has never let anyone leave his house in anger. His
+house seems blest indeed with a lucky fate, for none has lived there
+without rising to better fortune, and none has ever acquired a stain on
+his reputation there. One would be hard put to it to find any agree as
+well with their mothers as he with his stepmother--his father had
+already given him two, and he loved both of them as truly as he loved
+his mother. Recently his father gave him a third stepmother: More swears
+his Bible oath he has never seen a better. Moreover, he is so disposed
+towards his parents and children as to be neither tiresomely
+affectionate nor ever failing in any family duty.
+
+He has a mind altogether opposed to sordid gain. He has put aside from
+his fortune for his children an amount which he considers sufficient for
+them; the rest he gives away lavishly. While he still made his living at
+the Bar he gave sincere and friendly counsel to all, considering his
+clients' interests rather than his own; he would persuade most of them
+to settle their differences--this would be cheaper. If he failed to
+achieve this, he would then show them a method of going to law at the
+least possible expense--some people here are so minded that they
+actually enjoy litigation. In the City of London, where he was born, he
+acted for some years as a judge in civil causes.[88] This office is not
+at all onerous--the court sits only on Thursday mornings--but is
+regarded as one of the most honourable. None dealt with so many cases as
+he, nor behaved with such integrity; he usually remitted the charge
+customarily due from litigants (as before the formal entering of the
+suit the plaintiff pays into court three shillings, the defendant
+likewise, and it is incorrect to demand more). By this behaviour he won
+the deep affection of the City.
+
+He had made up his mind to rest content with this position, which was
+sufficiently influential and yet not exposed to grave dangers. Twice he
+was forced into embassies; as he acted in these with great sagacity.
+King Henry VIII would not rest until he could drag More to Court. Why
+not call it 'drag'? No man ever worked so assiduously to gain admission
+to the Court as he studied to escape it. But when the King decided to
+fill his household with men of weight, learning, sagacity and integrity,
+More was one of the first among many summoned by him: he regards More so
+much as one of his intimate circle that he never lets him depart from
+him. If serious matters are to be discussed, there is none more skilled
+than he; or if the King decides to relax in pleasant gossiping, there is
+no merrier companion. Often difficult affairs require a weighty and
+sagacious arbitrator; More solves these matters with such success that
+both parties are grateful. Yet no one has ever succeeded in persuading
+him to accept a present from anyone. How happy the states would be if
+the ruler everywhere put magistrates like More in office! Meanwhile he
+has acquired no trace of haughtiness.
+
+Amid all these official burdens he does not forget his old friends and
+from time to time returns to his beloved literature. All the authority
+of his office, all his influence with the King, is devoted to the
+service of the State and of his friends. His mind, eager to serve all
+and wondrously prone to pity, has ever been present to help: he will now
+be better able to help others, as he has greater power. Some he assists
+with money, some he protects with his authority, others he advances by
+introductions; those whom he cannot help otherwise he aids with counsel,
+and he has never sent anyone away disappointed. You might call More the
+common advocate of all those in need. He regards himself as greatly
+enriched when he assists the oppressed, extricates the perplexed and
+involved, or reconciles the estranged. None confers a benefit so gladly,
+none is so slow to upbraid. And although he is fortunate on so many
+counts, and good fortune is often associated with boastfulness, it has
+never yet been my lot to meet any man so far removed from this vice.
+
+But I must return to recounting his studies--it was these which chiefly
+brought More and myself together. In his youth he chiefly practised
+verse composition, afterwards he worked hard and long to polish his
+prose, practising his style in all kinds of composition. What that style
+is like, I need not describe--particularly not to you, who always have
+his books in your hands. He especially delighted in composing
+declamations, and in these liked paradoxical themes, for the reason that
+this offers keener practice to the wits. This caused him, while still a
+youth, to compose a dialogue in which he defended Plato's Communism,
+even to the community of wives. He wrote a rejoinder to Lucian's
+_Tyrannicide_; in this theme he desired to have me as his antagonist, to
+make a surer trial of his progress in this branch of letters. His
+_Utopia_ was published with the aim of showing the causes of the bad
+condition of states; but was chiefly a portrait of the British State,
+which he has thoroughly studied and explored. He had written the second
+book first in his leisure hours, and added the first book on the spur of
+the moment later, when the occasion offered. Some of the unevenness of
+the style is due to this.
+
+One could hardly find a better _ex tempore_ speaker: a happy talent has
+complete command of a happy turn of speech. He has a present wit, always
+flying ahead, and a ready memory; and having all this ready to hand, he
+can promptly and unhesitatingly produce whatever the subject or occasion
+requires. In arguments he is unimaginably acute, so that he often
+puzzles the best theologians on their own ground. John Colet, a man of
+keen and exact judgement, often observes in intimate conversation that
+Britain has only one genius: although this island is rich in so many
+fine talents.
+
+[Illustration: XXX. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 54]
+
+He diligently cultivates true piety, while being remote from all
+superstitious observance. He has set hours in which he offers to God not
+the customary prayers but prayers from the heart. With his friends he
+talks of the life of the world to come so that one sees that he speaks
+sincerely and not without firm hope. Such is More even in the Court. And
+then there are those who think that Christians are to be found only in
+monasteries!... There you have a portrait not very well drawn by a very
+bad artist from a most excellent model. You will like it less if you
+happen to come to know More better. But for the time being I have
+prevented your being able to cast in my teeth my failure to obey you,
+and always accusing me of writing too short letters. Still, this did not
+seem long to me as I was writing it, and I know that you will not find
+it long drawn out as you read it: our friend More's charm will see to
+that. Farewell.
+
+
+XVI. TO WILLIBALD PIRCKHEIMER[89]
+
+Basle, 14 March 1525
+
+To the illustrious Willibald Pirckheimer, greetings:
+
+... I received safely the very pretty ring which you desired me to have
+as a memento of you. I know that gems are prized as bringing safety when
+one has a fall. But they say too, that if the fall was likely to be
+fatal, the evil is diverted on to the gem, so that it is seen to be
+broken after the accident. Once in Britain I fell with my horse from a
+fairly high bank: no damage was found to me or my horse, yet the gem I
+was wearing was whole. It was a present from Alexander, Archbishop of
+St. Andrews,[90] whom I think you know from my writings. When I left him
+at Siena, he drew it off his finger and handing it to me said: 'Take
+this as a pledge of our friendship that will never die.' And I kept my
+pledged faith with him even after his death, celebrating my friend's
+memory in my writings. There is no part of life into which magical
+superstition has not insinuated itself: if gems have some great virtue,
+I could have wished in these days for a ring with an efficacious remedy
+against 'slander's tooth.' As to the belief about falls, I shall follow
+your advice--I shall prefer to believe rather than risk myself.
+
+Portraits are less precious than jewels--I have received from you a
+medallic and a painted portrait--but at least they bring my Willibald
+more vividly before me. Alexander the Great would only allow himself to
+be painted by Apelles's hand. You have found your Apelles in Albrecht
+Dürer,[91] an artist of the first rank and no less to be admired for his
+remarkable good sense. If only you had likewise found some Lysippus[92]
+to cast the medal! I have the medal of you on the righthand wall of my
+bedroom, the painting on the left; whether writing or walking up and
+down, I have Willibald before my eyes, so that if I wanted to forget you
+I could not. Though I have a more retentive memory for friends than for
+anything else. Certainly Willibald could not be forgotten by me, even
+were there no memento, no portraits, no letters to refresh my memory of
+him. There is another very pleasant thing--the portraits often occasion
+a talk about you when my friends come to visit me. If only our letters
+travelled safely, how little we should miss of each other! You have a
+medal of me. I should not object to having my portrait painted by
+Dürer,[93] that great artist; but how this can be done I do not see.
+Once at Brussels he sketched me, but after a start had been made the
+work was interrupted by callers from the Court. Though I have long been
+a sad model for painters, and am likely to become a sadder one still as
+the days go on.[94] I read with pleasure what you write, as witty as it
+is wise, on the agitations of certain persons who are destroying the
+evangelical movement, to which they imagine themselves to be doing
+splendid service: and I have much to tell you in my turn about this. But
+this will be another time, when I have more leisure. Farewell.
+
+
+XVII. TO MARTIN LUTHER
+
+Basle, 11 April 1526
+
+To Martin Luther, greetings:
+
+... Your letter has been delivered too late;[95] but had it arrived in
+the best of time, it would not have moved me one whit. I am not so
+simple as to be appeased by one or two pleasantries or soothed by
+flattery after receiving so many more than mortal wounds. Your nature is
+by now known to all the world, but you have so tempered your pen that
+never have you written against anyone so frenziedly, nay, what is more
+abominable, so maliciously. Now it occurs to you that you are a weak
+sinner, whereas at other times you insist almost on being taken for God.
+You are a man, as you write, of violent temperament, and you take
+pleasure in this remarkable argument. Why then did you not pour forth
+this marvellous piece of invective on the Bishop of Rochester[96] or on
+Cochleus?[97] They attack you personally and provoke you with insults,
+while my _Diatribe_[98] was a courteous disputation. And what has all
+this to do with the subject--all this facetious abuse, these slanderous
+lies, charging me with atheism, Epicureanism, scepticism in articles of
+the Christian profession, blasphemy, and what not--besides many other
+points on which I[99] am silent? I take these charges the less hardly,
+because in all this there is nothing to make my conscience disturb me.
+If I did not think as a Christian of God and the Holy Scriptures, I
+could not wish my life prolonged even until tomorrow. If you had
+conducted your case with your usual vehemence, without frenzied abuse,
+you would have provoked fewer men against you: as things are, you have
+been pleased to fill more than a third part of the volume with such
+abuse, giving free rein to your feelings. How far you have given way to
+me the facts themselves show--so many palpable crimes do you fasten on
+me; while my _Diatribe_ was not even intended to stir up those matters
+which the world itself knows of.
+
+You imagine, I suppose, that Erasmus has no supporters. More than you
+think. But it does not matter what happens to us two, least of all to
+myself who must shortly go hence, even if the whole world were
+applauding us: it is _this_ that distresses me, and all the best spirits
+with me, that with that arrogant, impudent, seditious temperament of
+yours you are shattering the whole globe in ruinous discord, exposing
+good men and lovers of good learning to certain frenzied Pharisees,
+arming for revolt the wicked and the revolutionary, and in short so
+carrying on the cause of the Gospel as to throw all things sacred and
+profane into chaos; as if you were eager to prevent this storm from
+turning at last to a happy issue; I have ever striven towards such an
+opportunity. What you owe me, and in what coin you have repaid me--I do
+not go into that. All that is a private matter; it is the public
+disaster which distresses me, and the irremediable confusion of
+everything, for which we have to thank only your uncontrolled nature,
+that will not be guided by the wise counsel of friends, but easily turns
+to any excess at the prompting of certain inconstant swindlers. I know
+not whom you have saved from the power of darkness; but you should have
+drawn the sword of your pen against those ungrateful wretches and not
+against a temperate disputation. I would have wished you a better mind,
+were you not so delighted with your own. Wish me what you will, only not
+your mind, unless God has changed it for you.
+
+
+XVIII. TO THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS[100]
+
+Basle, _c._ March 1527
+
+To the most skilled physician Theophrastus of Einsiedeln, etc.,
+greetings:
+
+... It is not incongruous to wish continued spiritual health to the
+medical man through whom God gives us physical health. I wonder how you
+know me so thoroughly, having seen me once only. I recognize how very
+true are your dark sayings, not by the art of medicine, which I have
+never learned, but from my own wretched sensations. I have felt pains in
+the region of the liver in the past, and could not divine the source of
+the trouble. I have seen the fat from the kidneys in my water many years
+ago. Your third point[101] I do not quite understand, nevertheless it
+appears to be convincing.
+
+As I told you, I have no time for the next few days to be doctored, or
+to be ill, or to die, so overwhelmed am I with scholarly work. But if
+there is anything which can alleviate the trouble without weakening the
+body, I beg you to inform me. If you will be so good as to explain at
+greater length your very concise and more than laconic notes, and
+prescribe other remedies which I can take until I am free, I cannot
+promise you a fee to match your art or the trouble you have taken, but I
+do at least promise you a grateful heart.
+
+You have resurrected Froben[102], that is, my other half: if you restore
+me also, you will have restored both of us by treating each of us
+singly. May we have the good fortune to keep you in Basle!
+
+I fear you may not be able to read this letter dashed off immediately
+[after receiving yours]. Farewell.
+
+Erasmus of Rotterdam, by his own hand.
+
+
+XIX. TO MARTIN BUCER[103]
+
+Basle, 11 November 1527
+
+Best greetings:
+
+You plead the cause of Capito with some rhetorical skill; but I see
+that, eloquent advocate as you are otherwise, you are not sufficiently
+well equipped to undertake his defence. Were I to advance my battle-line
+of conjectures and proofs, you would realize that you had to devise a
+different speech. But I have had too much of squabbling, and do not
+easily bestir myself against men whom I once sincerely loved. What the
+Knight of Eppendorff[104] ventures or does not venture to do is his
+concern; only that he returns too frequently to this game. I shall not
+involve Capito in the drama unless he involves himself again; let him
+not think me such a fool as not to know what is in question. But I have
+written myself on these matters. Furthermore, as to your pleading your
+own cause and that of your church, I think it better not to give any
+answer, because this matter would require a very lengthy oration, even
+if it were not a matter of controversy. This is merely a brief answer on
+scattered points.
+
+The person who informed me about 'languages'[105] is one whose
+trustworthiness not even you would have esteemed lightly; and he thinks
+no ill of you. Indeed I have never disliked you as far as concerns
+private feelings. There are persons living in your town who were
+chattering here about 'all the disciplines having been invented by
+godforsaken wretches'. Certainly persons of this description, whatever
+name must be given them, are in the ascendancy everywhere, all studies
+are neglected and come to a standstill. At Nuremberg the City Treasury
+has hired lecturers, but there is no one to attend their lectures.
+
+You assemble a number of conjectures as to why I have not joined your
+church. But you must know that the first and most important of all the
+reasons which withheld me from associating myself with it was my
+conscience: if my conscience could have been persuaded that this
+movement proceeded from God, I should have been now long since a soldier
+in your camp. The second reason is that I see many in your group who are
+strangers to all Evangelical soundness. I make no mention of rumours and
+suspicions, I speak of things learned from experience, nay, learned to
+my own injury; things experienced not merely from the mob, but from men
+who appear to be of some worth, not to mention the leading men. It is
+not for me to judge of what I know not: the world is wide. I know some
+as excellent men before they became devotees of your faith, what they
+are now like I do not know: at all events I have learned that several of
+them have become worse and none better, so far as human judgement can
+discern.
+
+The third thing which deterred me is the intense discord between the
+leaders of the movement. Not to mention the Prophets and the
+Anabaptists, what embittered pamphlets Zwingli, Luther and Osiander
+write against each other! I have never approved the ferocity of the
+leaders, but it is provoked by the behaviour of certain persons; when
+they ought to have made the Gospel acceptable by holy and forbearing
+conduct, if you really had what you boast of. Not to speak of the
+others, of what use was it for Luther to indulge in buffoonery in that
+fashion against the King of England, when he had undertaken a task so
+arduous with the general approval? Was he not reflecting as to the role
+he was sustaining? Did he not realize that the whole world had its eyes
+turned on him alone? And this is the chief of this movement; I am not
+particularly angry with him for treating me so scurrilously: but his
+betrayal of the cause of the Gospel, his letting loose princes, bishops,
+pseudo-monks and pseudo-theologians against good men, his having made
+doubly hard our slavery, which is already intolerable--that is what
+tortures my mind. And I seem to see a cruel and bloody century ahead, if
+the provoked section gets its breath again, which it is certainly now
+doing. You will say that there is no crowd without an admixture of
+wicked men. Certainly it was the duty of the principal men to exercise
+special care in matters of conduct, and not be even on speaking terms
+with liars, perjurors, drunkards and fornicators. As it is I hear and
+almost _see_, that things are far otherwise. If the husband had found
+his wife more amenable, the teacher his pupil more obedient, the
+magistrate the citizen more tractable, the employer his workman more
+trustworthy, the buyer the seller less deceitful, it would have been
+great recommendation for the Gospels. As things are, the behaviour of
+certain persons has had the effect of cooling the zeal of those who at
+first, owing to their love of piety and abhorrence of Pharisaism, looked
+with favour on this movement; and the princes, seeing a disorderly host
+springing up in its wake made up of vagabonds, fugitives, bankrupts,
+naked, wretched and for the most part even wicked men, are cursing, even
+those who in the beginning had been hopeful.
+
+It is not without deep sorrow that I speak of all this, not only because
+I foresee that a business wrongly handled will go from bad to worse, but
+also because at last I shall myself have to suffer for it. Certain
+rascals say that my writings are to blame for the fact that the
+scholastic theologians and monks are in several places becoming less
+esteemed than they would like, that ceremonies are neglected, and that
+the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff is disregarded; when it is quite dear
+from what source this evil has sprung. They were stretching too tight
+the rope which is now breaking. They almost set the Pope's authority
+above Christ's, they measured all piety by ceremonies, and tightened the
+hold of the confession to an enormous extent, while the monks lorded it
+without fear of punishment, by now meditating open tyranny. As a result
+'the stretched string snapped', as the proverb has it; it could not be
+otherwise. But I sorely fear that the same will happen one day to the
+princes, if they too continue to stretch _their_ rope too tightly.
+Again, the other side having commenced the action of their drama as they
+did, no different ending was possible. May we not live to see worse
+horrors!
+
+However it was the duty of the leaders of this movement, if Christ was
+their goal, to refrain not only from vice, but even from every
+appearance of evil; and to offer not the slightest stumbling block to
+the Gospel, studiously avoiding even practices which, although allowed,
+are yet not expedient. Above all they should have guarded against all
+sedition. If they had handled the matter with sincerity and moderation,
+they would have won the support of the princes and bishops: for they
+have not all been given up for lost. And they should not have heedlessly
+wrecked anything without having something better ready to put in its
+place. As it is, those who have abandoned the Hours do not pray at all.
+Many who have put off pharisaical clothing are worse in other matters
+than they were before. Those who disdain the episcopal regulations do
+not even obey the commandments of God. Those who disregard the careful
+choice of foods indulge in greed and gluttony. It is a long-drawn-out
+tragedy, which every day we partly hear ourselves and partly learn of
+from others. I never approved of the abolition of the Mass, even though
+I have always disliked these mean and money-grabbing mass-priests. There
+were other things also which could have been altered without causing
+riots. As things are, certain persons are not satisfied with any of the
+accepted practices; as if a new world could be built of a sudden. There
+will always be things which the pious must endure. If anyone thinks that
+Mass ought to be abolished because many misuse it, then the Sermon
+should be abolished also, which is almost the only custom accepted by
+your party. I feel the same about the invocation of the saints and about
+images.
+
+Your letter demanded a lengthy reply, but even this letter is very long,
+with all that I have to do. I am told that you have a splendid gift for
+preaching the Word of the Gospel, and that you conduct yourself more
+courteously than do many. So I could wish that with your good sense you
+would strive to the end that this movement, however it began, may
+through firmness and moderation in doctrine and integrity of conduct be
+brought to a conclusion worthy of the Gospel. To this end I shall help
+you to the best of my ability. As it is, although the host of monks and
+certain theologians assail me with all their artifices, nothing will
+induce me wittingly to cast away my soul. You will have the good sense
+not to circulate this letter, lest it cause any disturbance. We would
+have more discussions if we could meet. Farewell. I had no time to read
+this over.
+
+Erasmus of Rotterdam, by my own hand.
+
+[Illustration: XXXI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 60]
+
+
+XX. TO ALFONSO VALDES[106]
+
+Basle, 1 August 1528
+
+To the most illustrious Alfonso Valdes, Secretary to His Imperial
+Majesty, greetings:
+
+... I have learned very plainly from other men's letters what you
+indicate very discreetly, as is your way--that there are some who seek
+to make _Terminus_,[107] the seal on my ring, an occasion for slander,
+protesting that the addition of the device _Concedo nulli_ [I yield to
+none] shows intolerable arrogance. What is this but some fatal malady,
+consisting in misrepresenting everything? Momus[108] is ridiculed for
+criticizing Venus's slipper; but these men outdo Momus himself, finding
+something to carp at in a ring. I would have called _them_ Momuses, but
+Momus carps at nothing but what he has first carefully inspected. These
+fault-finders, or rather false accusers, criticize with their eyes shut
+what they neither see nor understand: so violent is the disease. And
+meanwhile they think themselves pillars of the Church, whereas all they
+do is to expose their stupidity combined with a malice no less extreme,
+when they are already more notorious than they should be. They are
+dreaming if they think it is Erasmus who says _Concedo nulli_. But if
+they read my writings they would see that there is none so humble that I
+rank myself above him, being more liable to yield to all than to none.
+
+[Illustration: XXXII. ERASMUS'S DEVICE]
+
+Now those who know me intimately from close association will attribute
+any vice to me sooner than arrogance, and will acknowledge that I am
+closer to the Socratic utterance, 'This alone I know, that I know
+nothing,' than to this, 'I yield to none.' But if they imagine that I
+have so insolent a mind as to put myself before all others, do they also
+think me such a fool as to profess this in a device? If they had any
+Christian feeling they would understand those words either as not mine
+or as bearing another meaning. They see there a sculptured figure, in
+its lower part a stone, in its upper part a youth with flying hair. Does
+this look like Erasmus in any respect? If this is not enough, they see
+written on the stone itself _Terminus_: if one takes this as the last
+word, that will make an iambic dimeter acatalectic, _Concedo nulli
+Terminus_; if one begins with this word, it will be a trochaic dimeter
+acatalectic, _Terminus concedo nulli_. What if I had painted a lion and
+added as a device 'Flee, unless you prefer to be torn to pieces'? Would
+they attribute these words to me instead of the lion? But what they are
+doing now is just as foolish; for if I mistake not, I am more like a
+lion than a stone.
+
+They will argue, 'We did not notice that it was verse, and we know
+nothing about Terminus.' Is it then to be a crime henceforward to have
+written verse, because _they_ have not learned the theory of metre? At
+least, as they knew that in devices of this kind one actually aims at a
+certain degree of obscurity in order to exercise the guessing powers of
+those who look at them, if they did not know of Terminus--although they
+could have learned of him from the books of Augustine or Ambrose--they
+should have inquired of experts in this kind of matter. In former times
+field boundaries were marked with some sign. This was a stone projecting
+above the earth, which the laws of the ancients ordered never to be
+moved; here belongs the Platonic utterance, 'Remove not what thou hast
+not planted.' The law was reinforced by a religious awe, the better to
+deter the ignorant multitude from daring to remove the stone, by making
+it believe that to violate the stone was to violate a god in it, whom
+the Romans call Terminus, and to him there was also dedicated a shrine
+and a festival, the Terminalia. This god Terminus, as the Roman
+historian has it, was alone in refusing to yield to Jupiter because
+'while the birds allowed the deconsecration of all the other
+sanctuaries, in the shrine of Terminus alone they were
+unpropitious.'[109] Livy tells this story in the first book of his
+_History_, and again in Book 5 he narrates how 'when after the taking of
+auguries the Capitol was being cleared, Juventas [Youth] and Terminus
+would not allow themselves to be moved.'[110] This omen was welcomed
+with universal rejoicing, for they believed that it portended an eternal
+empire. The _youth_ is useful for war, and _Terminus_ is fixed.
+
+Here they will exclaim perchance, 'What have _you_ to do with a mythical
+god?' He came to me, I did not adopt him. When I was called to Rome, and
+Alexander, titular Archbishop of St. Andrews,[111] was summoned home
+from Siena by his father King James of Scotland, as a grateful and
+affectionate pupil he gave me several rings for a memento of our time
+together. Among these was one which had _Terminus_ engraved on the
+jewel; an Italian interested in antiquities had pointed this out, which
+I had not known before. I seized on the omen and interpreted it as a
+warning that the term of my existence was not far off--at that time I
+was in about my fortieth year. To keep this thought in my mind I began
+to seal my letters with this sign. I added the verse, as I said before.
+And so from a heathen god I made myself a device, exhorting me to
+correct my life. For Death is truly a boundary which knows no yielding
+to any. But in the medal there is added in Greek, [Greek: Ora telos
+makrou biou], that is, 'Consider the end of a long life,' in Latin _Mors
+ultima linea rerum_. They will say, 'You could have carved on it a dead
+man's skull.' Perhaps I should have accepted that, if it had come my
+way: but this pleased me, because it came to me by chance, and then
+because it had a double charm for me; from the allusion to an ancient
+and famous story, and from its obscurity, a quality specially belonging
+to devices.
+
+There is my defence on _Terminus_, or better say on hair-splitting. And
+if only they would at last set a _term_ to their misrepresentations! I
+will gladly come to an agreement with them to change my device, if they
+will change their malady. Indeed by so doing they would be doing more
+for their own authority, which they complain is being undermined by the
+lovers of good learning. I myself am assuredly so far from desiring to
+injure their reputation that I am deeply pained at their delivering
+themselves over to the ridicule of the whole world by these stupid
+tricks, and not blushing to find themselves confuted with mockery on
+every occasion. The Lord keep you safe in body and soul, my beloved
+friend in Christ.
+
+
+XXI. TO CHARLES BLOUNT[112]
+
+Freiburg im Breisgau, 1 March 1531
+
+To the noble youth Charles Mountjoy, greetings:
+
+... I have determined to dedicate to you Livy, the prince of Latin
+history; already many times printed, but never before in such a
+magnificent or accurate edition: and if this is not enough, augmented by
+five books recently discovered; these were found by some good genius in
+the library of the monastery at Lorsch by Simon Grynaeus,[113] a man at
+once learned without arrogance in all branches of literature and at the
+same time born for the advancement of liberal studies. Now this
+monastery was built opposite Worms, or Berbethomagium, by Charlemagne
+seven hundred years and more ago, and equipped with great store of
+books; for this was formerly the special care of princes, and this is
+usually the most precious treasure of the monasteries. The original
+manuscript was one of marvellous antiquity, painted[114] in the antique
+fashion with the letters in a continuous series, so that it has proved
+very difficult to separate word from word, unless one is knowledgeable,
+careful and trained for this very task. This caused much trouble in
+preparing a copy to be handed to the printer's men for their use; a
+careful and faithful watch was kept to prevent any departure from the
+original in making the copy. So if the poor fragment which came to us
+recently from Mainz was justly welcomed by scholars with great
+rejoicing,[115] what acclamation should greet this large addition to
+Livy's _History_?
+
+Would to God that this author could be restored to us complete and
+entire. There are rumours flying round that give some hope of this: men
+boast of unpublished Liviana existing, now in Denmark, now in Poland,
+now in Germany. At least now that fortune has given us these remnants
+against all men's expectations, I do not see why we should despair of
+the possibility of finding still more. And here, in my opinion at least,
+the princes would be acting worthily if they offered rewards and
+attracted scholars to the search for such a treasure, or prevailed upon
+them to publish--if there are perchance any who are suppressing and
+hiding away to the great detriment of studies something in a fit state
+to be of public utility. For it seems perfectly absurd that men will dig
+through the bowels of the earth almost down to Hades at vast peril and
+expense in order to find a little gold or silver: and yet will utterly
+disregard treasures of this kind, as far above those others in value as
+the soul excels the body, and not consider them worth searching for.
+This is the spirit of Midases, not of princes; and as I know that your
+character is utterly at variance with this spirit, I doubt not that you
+will most eagerly welcome this great gain. Now, there are chiefly two
+considerations which remove all possible doubt as to this half-decade's
+being genuinely by Livy: in the first place that of the diction itself,
+which in all features recalls its author: secondly that of the arguments
+or epitomes of Floras, which correspond exactly with these books.
+
+And so, knowing that there is no kind of reading more fitting for men of
+note than that of the historians, of whom Livy is easily the chief (I
+speak of the Roman historians), particularly as we have nothing of
+Sallust beyond two fragments, and bearing in mind what an insatiable
+glutton, so to speak, your father has always been for history (and I
+doubt not that you resemble him in this also): I thought I should not be
+acting incongruously in publishing these five books with a special
+dedication to you. Although in this point I should not wish you to
+resemble your father too closely. He is in the way of poring over his
+books every day from dinner until midnight, which is wearisome to his
+wife and attendants and a cause of much grumbling among the servants; so
+far he has been able to do this without loss of health; still, I do not
+think it wise for you to take the same risk, which may not turn out as
+successfully. Certainly when your father was studying along with the
+present king while still a young man, they read chiefly history, with
+the strong approval of his father Henry VII, a king of remarkable
+judgement and good sense.
+
+Joined to this edition is the Chronology of Henry Glareanus, a man of
+exquisite and many-sided learning, whose indefatigable industry refines,
+adorns and enriches with the liberal disciplines not the renowned
+Gymnasium at Freiburg alone, but this whole region as well. The
+Chronology shows the order of events, the details of the wars, and the
+names of persons, in which up till now there has reigned astonishing
+confusion, brought about through the fault of the scribes and dabblers
+in learning. Yet this was the sole guiding light of history! Without
+this Pole star our navigation on the ocean of history is completely
+blind: and without this thread to help him, the reader becomes involved
+in an inextricable maze, learned though he be, in these labyrinths of
+events. If you consider your letter well repaid by this gift, it will
+now be your turn to write me a letter. Farewell.
+
+
+XXII. TO BARTHOLOMEW LATOMUS[116]
+
+Basle, 24 August 1535
+
+To Bartholomew Latomus, greetings:
+
+... In apologizing for your silence you are wasting your time, believe
+me; I am not in the habit of judging tried friends by this common
+courtesy. It would be impudent of me to charge you with an omission
+which you have an equal right to accuse me of in turn.... The heads of
+the colleges are not doing anything new. They are afraid of their own
+revenues suffering, this being the sole aim of most of them. You would
+scarcely believe to what machinations they stooped at Louvain in their
+efforts to prevent a trilingual college being established. I worked
+strenuously in the matter, and have made myself accordingly very
+unpopular. There was an attempt to set up a chair of languages at
+Tournai, but the University of Louvain and the Franciscans at Tournai
+did not rest until the project was abandoned. The house erected for this
+purpose overlooked the Franciscans' garden--that was the cause of the
+trouble....
+
+I have had a long life, counting in years; but were I to calculate the
+time spent in wrestling with fever, the stone and the gout, I have not
+lived long. But we must patiently bear whatever the Lord has sent upon
+us, Whose will no one can resist, and Who alone knows what is good for
+us.... The glory [of an immortal name] moves me not at all, I am not
+anxious over the applause of posterity. My one concern and desire is to
+depart hence with Christ's favour.
+
+Many French nobles have fled here for fear of the winter storm, after
+having been recalled.[117] 'The lion shall roar, who shall not fear?'
+says the Prophet.[118] A like terror has seized the English, from an
+unlike cause. Certain monks have been beheaded and among them a monk of
+the Order of St. Bridget[119] was dragged along the ground, then hanged,
+and finally drawn and quartered. There is a firm and probable rumour
+here that the news of the Bishop of Rochester having been co-opted by
+Paul III as a cardinal caused the King to hasten his being dragged out
+of prison and beheaded--his method of conferring the scarlet hat. It is
+all too true that Thomas More has been long in prison and his fortune
+confiscated. It was being said that he too had been executed, but I have
+no certain news as yet.[120] Would that he had never embroiled himself
+in this perilous business and had left the theological cause to the
+theologians. The other friends who from time to time honoured me with
+letters and gifts now send nothing and write nothing from fear, and
+accept nothing from anyone, as if under every stone there slept a
+scorpion.
+
+It seems that the Pope is seriously thinking of a Council here. But I do
+not see how it is to meet in the midst of such dissension between
+princes and lands. The whole of Lower Germany is astonishingly infected
+with Anabaptists: in Upper Germany they pretend not to notice them. They
+are pouring in here in droves; some are on their way to Italy. The
+Emperor is besieging Goletta; in my opinion there is more danger from
+the Anabaptists.
+
+I do not think that France is entirely free of this plague; but they are
+silent there for fear of the cudgel....
+
+Now I must tell you something about my position which will amuse you. I
+had written to Paul III at the instance of Louis Ber, the distinguished
+theologian. Before unsealing the letter he spoke of me with great
+respect. And as he had to make several scholars cardinals for the coming
+Council, the name of Erasmus was proposed among others. But obstacles
+were mentioned, my health, not strong enough for the duties, and my low
+income; for they say there is a decree which excludes from this office
+those whose annual income is less than 3,000 ducats. Now they are busy
+heaping benefices on me, so that I can acquire the proper income from
+these and receive the red hat. The proverbial cat in court-dress. I have
+a friend in Rome who is particularly active in the business; in vain
+have I warned him more than once by letter that I want no cures or
+pensions, that I am a man who lives from day to day, and every day
+expecting death, often longing for it, so horrible sometimes are the
+pains. It is hardly safe for me to put a foot outside my bedroom, and
+even the merest trifle upsets me.[121] With my peculiar, emaciated body
+I can only stand warm air. And in this condition they want to push me
+forward as a candidate for benefices and cardinals' hats! But meanwhile
+I am gratified by the Supreme Pontiff's delusions about me and his
+feelings towards me. But I am being more wordy than I intended. I should
+easily forgive your somewhat lengthy letter, if you were to repeat that
+fault often.... Farewell.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Servatius Roger (d. 1540), whom Erasmus came to know as a young
+monk soon after his entry into Steyn, became eighth Prior of Steyn; it
+was as Prior that he wrote to Erasmus in 1514 to urge him to return to
+the monastery, see pp. 11, 87 f., 212 ff.
+
+[22] Juvenal, ix. 18-20.
+
+[23] N. Werner (d. 5 September 1504), later Prior of Steyn.
+
+[24] Probably James Stuart, brother of James IV of Scotland, Archbishop
+of St. Andrews, 1497, aged about twenty-one at this time.
+
+[25] Relative of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Took his doctor's
+degree in Italy, returned to England 1507.
+
+[26] William Grocyn (_c._ 1446-1519), Fellow of New College, one of the
+first to teach Greek in Oxford.
+
+[27] Thomas Linacre (_c._ 1460-1524), Fellow of All Souls College,
+Oxford, 1484. Translator of Galen. Helped to found the College of
+Physicians, 1518.
+
+[28] James Batt (1464?-1502), secretary to the council of the town of
+Bergen.
+
+[29] Anne of Burgundy, the Lady of Veere (1469?-1518), patroness of
+Erasmus until 1501-2, when she remarried.
+
+[30] i.e. to replace Greek words either corrupted or omitted. Erasmus is
+here referring probably to the text of the _Letters_ of Jerome; he uses
+the same expression in his letter of 21 May 1515 to Leo X (Allen 335, v.
+268 ff.): 'I have purified the text of the Letters ... and carefully
+restored the Greek, which was either missing altogether or inserted
+incorrectly'.
+
+[31] Brother of Henry of Bergen (Bishop of Cambrai) and by this time
+Abbot of St. Bertin at St. Omer, where he was forcibly installed by his
+brother the bishop in 1493.
+
+[32] 'And my sin is ever before me,' where _contra_ could be rendered as
+either 'before' or 'against'; the ambiguity is resolved by referring to
+the Greek, where [Greek: enôpion] = face to face with.
+
+[33] Apparently a loose statement of the _Constitutions_ of Clement V,
+promulgated after the Council of Vienne, 1311-12, Bk. 5, tit. 1, cap. 1,
+in which for the better conversion of infidels it was ordained that two
+teachers for each of the three languages, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaean
+be appointed in each of the four Universities, Paris, Oxford, Bologna
+and Salamanca. Greek was included in the original list, but afterwards
+omitted.
+
+[34] Probably George Hermonymus of Sparta.
+
+[35] Cf. Juvenal, iii.78. (_Graeculus esuriens_.)
+
+[36] William Warham (1450?-1532) became Archbishop of Canterbury in
+1503, Lord Chancellor of England, 1504-15, Chancellor of Oxford
+University from 1506. This letter forms the preface to _Hecuba_ in
+_Euripidis_ ... _Hecuba et Iphigenia; Latinae factae Erasmo Roterodamo
+interprete_, Paris, J. Badius, September 1506.
+
+[37] [Greek: en tô pithô tên kerameian], i.e., to run before one can
+walk, to make a winejar being the most advanced job in pottery.
+
+[38] Politian translated parts of Iliad, 2-5 into Latin hexameters,
+dedicating the work to Lorenzo dei Medici. Published by A. Mai,
+Spicilegium Romanum, ii.
+
+[39] Nicholas de Valle translated the _Works and Days_ (_Georgica_),
+Bonninus Mombritius the _Theogonia_.
+
+[40] Martin Phileticus.
+
+[41] No. 3; his Funeral Orations were printed _c._ 1481 at Milan.
+
+[42] Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) founded the Aldine Press at Venice,
+1494.
+
+[43] Published by Aldus, 1513.
+
+[44] Published by Aldus, 1528.
+
+[45] Published by Aldus, 1518, although projected in 1499.
+
+[46] _Euripidis ... Hecuba et Iphigenia_ [in Aulide]; _Latinae factae
+Erasmo Roterodamo interprete_, Paris, J. Badius, 13 September 1506.
+Reprinted by Aldus at Venice, December 1507 (and by Froben at Basle in
+1518 and 1524).
+
+[47] Thomas More (1478-1535). This letter is the preface to the _Moriae
+Encomium_, published by Gilles Gourmont at Paris without date, reprinted
+by Schürer at Strasbourg, August 1511.
+
+[48] The Greek 'laughing philosopher'.
+
+[49] John Colet (1466?-1519), Dean of St. Paul's 1504, had founded St.
+Paul's School in the previous year (1510).
+
+[50] Raffaele Riario (1461-1521), Leo X's most formidable rival in the
+election of 1513.
+
+[51] Francesco Alidosi of Imola, d. 1511.
+
+[52] Robert Guibé(_c._ 1456-1513), Cardinal of St. Anastasia and Bishop
+of Nantes (1507).
+
+[53] Leo X.
+
+[54] Wolsey.
+
+[55] _Enchiridion militis Christiani_, printed in _Lucubratiunculae_,
+1503.
+
+[56] A new and enlarged edition under the title _Adagiorum Chiliades_,
+printed by Aldus in 1508.
+
+[57] _De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo_, Paris,
+Badius, 1512.
+
+[58] The Hebrew scholar, who adhered to the Reformation, 1523.
+
+[59] F. Ximenes (1436-1517), confessor of Queen Isabella, Archbishop of
+Toledo, 1495, founded Alcalá University, 1500; he promoted the Polyglot
+Bible.
+
+[60] (1428-1524), taught medicine at Ferrara and made translations from
+Aristotle, Dio Cassius, Galen and Hippocrates.
+
+[61] (d. 1525) Professor of Medicine at Naples, and from 1507 at Venice;
+physician to Aldus's household, where he met Erasmus.
+
+[62] (1466-1532), physician, astronomer and humanist; learned Greek with
+Erasmus in Paris. He was physician to the Court of Francis I.
+
+[63] (1479-1537), Dean of the Medical Faculty at Paris, 1508-9, and
+Physician to Francis I.
+
+[64] (1467/8-1540), the Parisian humanist, whose _Annotationes in xxiv
+Pandectarum libros_ were published by Badius in 1508.
+
+[65] Ulrich Zäsi or Zasius (1461-1535) Lector Ordinarius in Laws at
+Freiburg from 1506 until his death.
+
+[66] Henry Loriti of canton Glarus, usually known as Glareanus
+(1488-1563), had an academy at Basle where he took in thirty boarders.
+
+[67] Published at Basle, March 1519.
+
+[68] A translation of Galen's _Methodus medendi_, not printed until June
+1519. Lupset supervised the printing.
+
+[69] This may be the _De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis_,
+composed in Italy. More writes to Erasmus in 1516 (Allen 502) that he
+has received part of the MS. from Lupset, but it was not published until
+1529.
+
+[70] Luther's _Theses_, posted 31 October 1517 and printed shortly
+afterwards at Wittenberg.
+
+[71] The proposals for a crusade drawn up at Rome, 16 November 1517.
+
+[72] The _Julius Exclusus_, an attack on Pope Julius II, who died 1513.
+Erasmus never directly denied his authorship, and More speaks of a copy
+in Erasmus's hand (Allen 502).
+
+[73] Beat Bild (1485-1547), whose family came from Rheinau near
+Schlettstadt, became M.A., Paris, in 1505. He worked as a corrector at
+Henry Stephanus's press in Paris, with Schürer in Strasbourg, and from
+1511 for fifteen years with Amerbach and Froben in Basle, where he
+edited and superintended the publication of numerous books.
+
+[74] Haecceity, 'thisness', 'individuality', t.t. of Scotistic
+philosophy, cf. quiddity, 'essence'.
+
+[75] I.e. the Literary Society of Strasbourg. A letter survives,
+addressed to Erasmus in the name of this Society, dated 1 September
+1514, in which occur all the names mentioned here, with the exception of
+Gerbel's.
+
+[76] A portrait drawing of Varnbüler by Albrecht Dürer is in the
+Albertina, Vienna; Dürer made also a woodcut from it.
+
+[77] Hermann, Count of Neuenahr (1492-1530), a pupil of Caesarius, with
+whom he visited Italy in 1508-9. In 1517 he lectured in Cologne on Greek
+and Hebrew, and became later Chancellor of the University. Among his
+works is a letter in defence of Erasmus.
+
+[78] _Operationes in Psalmos_. Wittenberg, 1519.
+
+[79] James Probst or Proost (Præpositus) of Ypres (1486-1562).
+
+[80] Ulrich Hutten (1488-1523), the German knight and humanist.
+
+[81] Satires 2, vii. 96 (where however the gladiators are the subject,
+and not the artists, of a crude charcoal sketch).
+
+[82] Sir Thomas More's portrait at the age of fifty was painted by Hans
+Holbein; it is now in the Frick Collection, New York. Two portrait
+drawings of him by Holbein are in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.
+See also p. 236, note 4.
+
+[83] John More (1453?-1530), at this time a Judge of Common Pleas,
+promoted to the King's Bench in 1523.
+
+[84] Jane Colt (_c._ 1487-1511).
+
+[85] More's second daughter was Elizabeth; Alice was the name of his
+stepdaughter.
+
+[86] Alice Middleton.
+
+[87] A group portrait of Sir Thomas More with his entire family was
+painted by Hans Holbein about 1527-8 at More's house in Chelsea. It was
+commissioned from the artist at the recommendation of Erasmus. The
+original has been lost; see Plate XXIX and p. 260.
+
+[88] More was elected Under-Sheriff, 1510.
+
+[89] W. Pirckheimer (1470-1530), humanist. After studying law and Greek
+in Italy he settled at Nuremberg. Some of his works were illustrated by
+Dürer.
+
+[90] Alexander Stewart (_c._ 1493-1513), natural son of James IV of
+Scotland, fell at Flodden. Erasmus was his tutor in Italy in 1508-9. For
+details of this ring see p. 247 f.
+
+[91] Dürer made three portraits of him, two drawings (now in Berlin and
+in Brunswick) and an engraving.
+
+[92] The Greek sculptor, _c._ 350 B.C. In a letter to Pirckheimer dated
+8 January 1523-4 (Allen 1408, 29 n.) Erasmus appears dissatisfied with
+the reverse of the medal cast by Metsys in 1519. Extant examples all
+show a reverse revised in accordance with his suggestions.
+
+[93] A drawing of Erasmus was made by Dürer in 1520 (now in the Louvre),
+and an engraving in 1526.
+
+[94] Erasmus had his portrait painted by Holbein several times in 1523-4
+and 1530-1. A number of originals and copies are still extant.
+
+[95] Luther's letter, in which he evidently attempted to mitigate
+Erasmus's indignation against his _De Servo Arbitrio_ (The Will not
+free), which was a reply to Erasmus's _De Libero Arbitrio_ (On free
+Will), 1524. Luther's letter came 'too late' because Erasmus had already
+composed the _Hyperaspistes Diatribe adversus Servum Arbitrium Martini
+Lutheri_, Basle, Froben, 1526.
+
+[96] John Fisher (1459?-1535).
+
+[97] John Dobeneck of Wendelstein.
+
+[98] i.e., the _De Libero Arbitrio_.
+
+[99] Reading _reticeo_ for _retices_.
+
+[100] Theophrastus Bombast of Einsiedeln (also known as Theophrastus of
+Hohenheim, whence his ancestors came), 1493-1541. The name Paracelsus
+may be a translation of Hohenheim, or may signify a claim to be greater
+than Celsus, the Roman physician. Appointed _physicus et ordinarius
+Basiliensis_ in 1527.
+
+[101] Paracelsus had diagnosed the stone, from which Erasmus suffered,
+as being due to crystallization of salt in the kidneys.
+
+[102] Froben died before the year was out.
+
+[103] Martin Butzer (_c._ 1491-1551), later Bucer, a Dominican, who
+obtained dispensation from his vows in 1521 and adhered to the
+Reformation. At this time he was a member of the Strasbourg party, and
+this letter is probably an answer to a request for an interview for
+Bucer and other Strasbourg delegates on their way through Basle to
+Berne. He eventually became Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge
+under Edward VI.
+
+[104] Henry of Eppendorff, a former friend who followed Hutten on his
+quarrel with Erasmus.
+
+[105] Erasmus stated in the _Responsio_ of 1 August 1530, that in the
+Reformed schools little was taught beyond _dogmata et linguae_ and it
+may be some such criticism, based on what he had heard from a reliable
+source (perhaps Pirckheimer at Nuremberg), to which Bucer had taken
+exception in his letter.
+
+[106] Alfonso Valdes (1490?-1532), a devoted admirer of Erasmus, was
+from 1522 onwards one of Charles V's secretaries. He wrote two dialogues
+in defence of the Emperor.
+
+[107] On this gem see Edgar Wind, 'Aenigma Termini,' in _Journ. of the
+Warburg Institute_, I (1937-8), p. 66.
+
+[108] Greek god of ridicule.
+
+[109] Livy, I, 55, 3. Livy refers to the clearing of the Tarpeian rock
+by Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 B.C.), involving the deconsecration of
+existing shrines, as a preliminary to the building of the temple of
+Juppiter Capitolinus. The auguries allowed the evacuation of the other
+gods, Terminus and Juventas alone refusing to depart.
+
+[110] Livy, 5, 54, 7.
+
+[111] See p. 66.
+
+[112] Preface to _T. Livii ... historiæ_, Basle, Froben, 1531. Charles
+Blount (b. 1518), eldest son of William Blount, Lord Mountjoy.
+
+[113] _c._ 1495-1541, Professor of Greek at Basle, 1529. He found the
+MS. containing Livy, Bks. 41-5, in 1527.
+
+[114] Not 'illuminated.' Erasmus refers elsewhere (Allen 919. 55) to a
+codex as _non scripto sed picto_.
+
+[115] The MS., now lost, containing Bks. 33, 17-49 and 40, 37-59, found
+in the cathedral library at Mainz, published in Mainz, J. Schoeffer,
+November 1518.
+
+[116] (1498?-1570). Taught Latin and Greek at Freiburg and became head
+of a college there; in 1534 became the first Professor of Latin in the
+Collège de France. Retired to Coblenz in 1542.
+
+[117] By the Edict of Courcy.
+
+[118] Amos iii. 8.
+
+[119] Richard Reynolds of the Bridgettine Syon College at Isleworth.
+
+[120] More had been executed 6 July 1535.
+
+[121] Lit. 'not even the peeping of an ass is safe.' This Greek proverb,
+used of those who go to law about trifles, refers to the story of a
+potter whose wares were smashed by a donkey in the workshop going to
+look out of the window. In court the potter, asked of what he
+complained, replied: 'Of the peeping of an ass.' See Apuleius, _Met._
+IX., 42.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+I. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. By Quentin Metsys. 1517. Rome, Galleria Corsini.
+_Facing p. 14_
+
+One half of a diptych, the pendant being a portrait of Erasmus's friend,
+Pierre Gilles (Petrus Aegidius), town clerk of Antwerp. The diptych was
+sent to Sir Thomas More in London; the portrait of Gilles is now in the
+collection of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle.
+
+II. VIEW OF ROTTERDAM at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
+Contemporary engraving, hand-coloured. _Facing p. 15_
+
+III. PORTRAIT BUST OF JOHN COLET, Dean of St. Paul's (1467-1519). By
+Pietro Torrigiano. St. Paul's School, Hammersmith, London. _Facing p.
+30_
+
+John Colet, a close friend of Erasmus (see pp. 30-1), founded St. Paul's
+School. The artist, a Florentine sculptor, was active in London for many
+years and is best known for his effigies on some of the royal tombs in
+Westminster Abbey. The attribution of this bust is due to F. Grossmann
+(_Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_, XIII, July 1950),
+who identified it as a cast from Torrigiano's original bust on Colet's
+tomb (destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666) and also pointed out that
+Holbein's drawing of Colet in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (No.
+12199) was made from the lost monument after Colet's death.
+
+IV. PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS MORE (1477-1535). Dated 1527. By Hans
+Holbein. New York, Frick Collection. _Facing p. 31_
+
+See also Holbein's drawing of Thomas More with his family, Pl. XXIX.
+
+V. Pen and ink sketches by Erasmus. 1514. Basle, University Library (MS
+A. IX. 56). _Facing p. 46_
+
+These doodles of grotesque heads and other scribbles are found in
+Erasmus's manuscript copy of the _Scholia to the Letters of St. Jerome_,
+preserved in the Library of Basle University and published by Emil Major
+(_Handzeichnungen des Erasmus von Rotterdam_, Basle, 1933). Erasmus
+worked on this manuscript shortly after his arrival in Basle in August
+1514. His edition of the _Letters of Jerome_ was published by Froben in
+1516 (see p. 90).
+
+VI. A Manuscript Page of Erasmus. Basle, University Library. _Facing p.
+47_
+
+See note on Pl. V.
+
+VII. Title-page of the _Adagia_, printed by Aldus Manutius in 1508.
+_Facing p. 62_
+
+The printing of this edition was supervised by Erasmus during his visit
+to Venice (see pp. 64-5). On this title-page is the emblem of the Aldine
+Press, which is found again on the reverse of Aldus's portrait medal
+(Pl. IX).
+
+VIII. VIEW OF VENICE, 1493. Woodcut. _After p. 62_
+
+From Schedel's _Weltchronik_, Nuremberg, 1493.
+
+IX. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS. By an unknown Venetian medallist.
+Venice, Museo Correr. _After p. 62_
+
+On the reverse, the emblem adopted by Aldus in 1495 from an antique
+coin, an anchor entwined by a dolphin. The Greek inscription, [Greek:
+Speude bradeos] (Hasten slowly), is also of antique origin. Cf. Hill,
+_Corpus of Italian Medals_, 1930, No. 536.
+
+X. A page from the printed copy of the _Praise of Folly_ with a drawing
+by Hans Holbein. Basle, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing
+p. 63_
+
+This copy of the _Laus Stultitiae_, which Holbein decorated with
+marginal drawings in 1515, belonged at that time to Oswald Myconius, a
+friend of Froben's. Apparently not all the drawings in the book are by
+Hans Holbein.
+
+The drawing shows Erasmus working at his desk, fol. S.3 recto. Above
+this thumbnail sketch there is a Latin note in the handwriting of
+Myconius: 'When Erasmus came here and saw this portrait, he exclaimed,
+"Heigh-ho, if Erasmus still looked like that, he would quickly find
+himself a wife!"'
+
+XI. A page from the printed copy of the _Praise of Folly_ with a drawing
+by Hans Holbein. Basle, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing
+p. 78_
+
+See note on Pl. X. This is the last page of the book, fol. X.4 recto;
+the drawing shows Folly descending from the pulpit at the close of her
+discourse.
+
+XII. THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS. Woodcut by Albrecht Dürer,
+1520-1. _Facing p. 79_
+
+Josse Badius of Brabant had established in Paris the Ascensian Press
+(named after his native place, Assche); he printed many books by
+Erasmus. See pp. 60, 79-83.
+
+XIII. PORTRAIT OF JOHANNES FROBEN (1460-1527). By Hans Holbein. About
+1522-3. Hampton Court, H.M. The Queen. _Facing p. 86_
+
+On this portrait of Erasmus's printer, publisher and friend, see Paul
+Ganz, _The Paintings of Hans Holbein_, 1950, Cat. No. 33.
+
+XIV. DESIGN FOR THE PRINTER'S EMBLEM OF JOHANNES FROBEN. Tempera on
+canvas, heightened with gold. By Hans Holbein. 1523. Basle, Öffentliche
+Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 87_
+
+The emblem shows the wand of Mercury, and two serpents with a dove, an
+allusion to the Gospel of St. Matthew, x. 16: 'Be ye therefore wise as
+serpents and harmless as doves.'
+
+XV. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS. Drawing by Hans Holbein. 1523. Paris, Louvre.
+_Facing p. 102_
+
+These studies were used by Holbein for his portraits of Erasmus now at
+Longford Castle (Pl. XVI) and in the Louvre (Pl. XXVIII).
+
+XVI. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57. Dated 1523. By Hans Holbein.
+Longford Castle, Earl of Radnor. _Facing p. 103_
+
+The Greek inscription, 'The Labours of Hercules', alludes to Erasmus's
+own view of his life (see p. 125). On this portrait see P. Ganz, op.
+cit., Cat. No. 34.
+
+XVII. VIEW OF BASLE. Woodcut. _Facing p. 134_
+
+From the _Chronik_ by Johann Stumpf, 1548.
+
+XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament, printed by Froben in 1520.
+Designed by Hans Holbein. _Facing p. 135_
+
+XIX. THE ERASMUS HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT NEAR BRUSSELS. _Facing p. 150_
+
+From May to November 1521 Erasmus stayed here as the guest of his
+friend, the canon Pierre Wichmann. The house was built in 1515 under the
+sign of the Swan. It is now a museum in which are preserved numerous
+relics of Erasmus and his age.
+
+XX. The Room used by Erasmus as study during his stay at Anderlecht.
+_Facing p. 151_
+
+XXI. PORTRAIT OF MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK. Engraving by Lucas Cranach.
+1520. _Facing p. 158_
+
+XXII. PORTRAIT OF ULRICH VON HUTTEN (1488-1523). Anonymous German
+woodcut. _Facing p. 159_
+
+XXIII. THE HOUSE 'ZUM WALFISCH' AT FREIBURG-IM-BREISGAU. _Facing p. 174_
+
+When Erasmus arrived in Freiburg in 1529, he was invited by the Town
+Council to live in this house, which had been built for the Emperor
+Maximilian. See p. 176.
+
+XXIV. PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL HIERONYMUS ALEANDER. Drawing. Arras, Library.
+_Facing p. 175_
+
+One of the 280 portrait drawings collected in the codex known as the
+_Recueil d'Arras_.
+
+XXV. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. By Hans Holbein. 1531-2. Basle, Öffentliche
+Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 190_
+
+'Holbein may have painted this little roundel on the occasion of a visit
+to Erasmus at Freiburg' (P. Ganz, op. cit.).
+
+XXVI. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY. Woodcut, 1530. _Facing p. 191_
+
+The woodcut shows the aged Erasmus dictating to his amanuensis Gilbertus
+Cognatus in a room of the University of Freiburg. From _Effigies
+Desiderii Erasmi Roterdami ... & Gilberti Cognati Nozereni_, Basle, Joh.
+Oporinus, 1533.
+
+XXVII. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ERASMUS. By Quentin Metsys. 1519. London,
+British Museum. _Facing p. 206_
+
+The reverse shows Erasmus's device, Terminus, and the motto _Concedo
+nulli_, both of which were also engraved on his sealing ring. For
+Erasmus's own interpretation see his letter, pp. 246-8. The Greek
+inscription means, 'His writings will give you a better picture of him'.
+
+XXVIII. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. After 1523. By Hans Holbein. Paris, Louvre.
+_Facing p. 207_
+
+XXIX. THOMAS MORE AND HIS FAMILY. Pen and ink sketch by Hans Holbein,
+1527. Basle, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 238_
+
+'The portrait, probably commissioned on the occasion of the scholar's
+fiftieth birthday, shows him surrounded by his large family. It is the
+first example of an intimate group portrait not of devotional or
+ceremonial character painted this side of the Alps. At that time Thomas
+More was living in his country house at Chelsea with his second wife,
+Alice, his father, his only son and his son's fiancée, three married
+daughters, eleven grandchildren and a relative, Margaret Giggs. The
+artist, who had been recommended to him by his friend Erasmus, was also
+enjoying his hospitality.' (P. Ganz, op. cit., Cat. No. 175).
+
+The original painting is lost; a copy by Richard Locky, dated 1530, is
+at Nostell Priory. The drawing was sent by More to Erasmus at Basle so
+as to introduce his family, for which purpose the names and ages were
+inscribed. In two letters to Sir Thomas and his daughter, dated 5 and 6
+September 1530, Erasmus sent his enthusiastic thanks: 'I cannot put into
+words the deep pleasure I felt when the painter Holbein gave me the
+picture of your whole family, which is so completely successful that I
+should scarcely be able to see you better if I were with you.' (Allen,
+vol. 8, Nos. 2211-2).
+
+Compare also Erasmus's pen portrait of Sir Thomas More in his letter to
+Hutten, pp. 231-9.
+
+XXX. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. Charcoal drawing by Albrecht Dürer, dated
+1520. Paris, Louvre. _Facing p. 239_
+
+Drawn at Antwerp, during Dürer's journey to the Netherlands. When he
+received the false news of the murder of Luther at Whitsuntide 1521,
+Dürer wrote in his diary: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou?
+Listen, thou Knight of Christ, ride out with the Lord Christ, defend the
+truth and earn for thyself the martyr's crown!'
+
+XXXI. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. Engraving by Albrecht Dürer, dated 1526.
+_Facing p. 246_
+
+In his _Diary of a Journey to the Netherlands_, Dürer noted in late
+August 1520: 'I have taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait once more',
+but he does not say when he took his first portrait. The earlier work is
+assumed to have been done one month before, and to be identical with the
+drawing in the Louvre (Pl. XXX). This drawing is mentioned by Erasmus
+himself in a letter to Pirckheimer of 1525 (p. 240); in an earlier
+letter to the same friend (1522) he says that Dürer had started to paint
+him in 1520. The second portrait drawing is lost; hence it cannot be
+proved that this second portrait was made in metal point--as is usually
+assumed--and not in charcoal, or that the engraving here reproduced was
+based on it.
+
+XXXII. TERMINUS. Erasmus's device. Pen and ink drawing by Hans Holbein.
+Basle, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 247_
+
+_Frontispiece_: DECORATIVE PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS WITH HIS DEVICE,
+TERMINUS. Engraving by Hans Holbein, 1535.
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+
+For help in the collection of illustrations we are specially indebted to
+M. Daniel van Damme, Curator of the Erasmus Museum at Anderlecht and
+author of the _Ephéméride illustrée de la Vie d'Erasme_, published in
+1936 on the occasion of the fourth centenary of Erasmus's death. For
+photographs and permission to reproduce we have to thank also the Frick
+Collection, New York (Pl. iv), the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle (Pl.
+X-XI, XIV, XXV, XXIX, XXXII), the Library of Basle University (Pl.
+V-VI), and the Warburg Institute, University of London (Pl. iii). The
+photographs for Pl. II, VII, XVIII-XX and XXVI are by M. Mauhin,
+Anderlecht, those for Plates VIII and XVII by Dr. F. Stoedtner,
+Düsseldorf, and that for Plate IX by Fiorentini, Venice.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF NAMES
+
+
+Adrian of Utrecht, Dean, later Pope, 55, 131, 162
+
+Agricola, Rudolf, 7
+
+Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mayence, 140, 145
+
+Aldus Manutius, 63, 64, 81, 207
+
+Aleander, Hieronymus, 64, 124, 147, 149, 171, 184, 187
+
+Alidosi, Francesco, 214n.
+
+Amerbach, Bonifacius, 176, 186, 223n.
+
+Amerbach, Johannes, 83, 90
+
+Ammonius, Andrew, 37, 58, 67, 79, 80, 81, 83, 86, 90, 93, 94, 119, 123,
+  134
+
+Andrelinus, Faustus, 21, 25, 26, 29, 47
+
+Anna of Borselen, Lady of Veere, 27, 28, 35, 37, 38, 55, 62, 200-1
+
+Asolani, Andrea, 64
+
+Ath, Jean Briard of, 131, 133, 134, 135, 137, 229
+
+Aurelius (Cornelius Gerard of Gouda), 11, 13, 14, 33, 44
+
+
+Badius, Josse, 57, 60, 79, 81, 82, 83, 90, 133, 208, 219n.
+
+Balbi, Girolamo, 20
+
+Barbaro, Ermolao, 21
+
+Batt, James, 18, 19, 27, 28, 37, 38, 47, 48, 49, 55, 200
+
+Beatus Rhenanus, 39, 64, 83, 96, 119, 156, 177, 184, 186, 187, 223
+
+Becar, John, 181
+
+Beda (Noel Bedier), 120, 125, 157, 158
+
+Bembo, 173
+
+Ber, Louis, 186, 253
+
+Berckman, Francis, 82, 83
+
+Bergen, Anthony of, 85, 202
+
+Berquin, Louis de, 158
+
+Berselius, Paschasius, 229
+
+Blount, Charles, 249
+
+Blount, William, Lord Mountjoy, 27-8, 30, 35, 36, 37, 58, 59n., 67, 68,
+  79, 86, 87, 95, 184, 199, 215, 251
+
+Boerio, Giovanni Battista, 60
+
+Bombasius, Paul, 63
+
+Bouts, Dirck, 3
+
+Boys, Hector, 25
+
+Brie, Germain de, 96
+
+Bucer (Butzer), Martin, 177, 243
+
+Budaeus, William, 94, 95, 96, 97, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 132, 153,
+  173, 219, 221
+
+Busch, Hermann, 224
+
+Busleiden, Francis of, archbishop of Besançon, 55, 135
+
+Busleiden, Jerome, 135
+
+
+Cajetanus, 141
+
+Calvin, 165, 167, 182
+
+Caminade, Augustine, 37, 47, 48, 155
+
+Canossa, Count, 86
+
+Capito, Wolfgang Fabricius, 96, 132, 140, 165, 166, 171, 218, 243
+
+Catherine of Aragon, 168
+
+Charles V, 92, 95, 99, 145-6, 218
+
+Charnock, prior, 31
+
+Cinicampius, _see_ Eschenfelder
+
+Clement VII, 184
+
+Clyfton, tutor, 63
+
+Cochleus, 241
+
+Colet, John, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 56, 57, 58, 80, 81, 91, 92, 96,
+  104, 109, 141, 144, 154, 181, 200, 211, 215
+
+Cop, William, 49, 61, 94, 219
+
+Cornelius, _see_ Aurelius
+
+Cratander, 85
+
+David of Burgundy, bishop of Utrecht, 16
+
+Decanus, 224
+
+Denk, Hans, 178
+
+Dirks, Vincent, 137, 149, 157, 158
+
+Dobeneck, John, _see_ Cochleus
+
+Dorp, Martin van, 77, 94, 126, 131, 133, 134
+
+Dürer, Albrecht, 148-9, 240, 224n.
+
+
+Eck, Johannes, 98, 141
+
+Egmond, Nicholas of (Egmondanus), 119, 133, 137, 148, 149, 158, 161
+
+Egnatius, Baptista, 64
+
+Episcopius, Nicholas, 186
+
+Eppendorff, Henry of, 124, 159, 160, 243
+
+Eschenfelder, Christopher, 186, 224
+
+Étienne, _see_ Stephanus
+
+
+Faber, _see_ Lefèvre
+
+Farel, Guillaume, 166, 167
+
+Ferdinand, archduke, 175
+
+Ficino, Marsilio, 21
+
+Filelfo, Francesco, 205
+
+Fisher, John, bishop of Rochester, 58, 80, 92, 119, 181, 182, 214n.
+
+Fisher, Robert, 26, 27, 34, 199
+
+Flaminius, John, 225
+
+Foxe, Richard, 58, 59
+
+Francis I, 94, 99, 144, 145, 218-19
+
+Frederick of Saxony, 139, 143, 147
+
+Froben, Johannes, 83, 83, 87, 89, 90, 91, 134, 143, 156, 170, 182, 221,
+  223n., 243
+
+Froben, Johannes Erasmius, 156, 183, 186
+
+Fugger, Anthony, 176
+
+
+Gaguin, Robert, 21, 24, 25, 26, 125
+
+Gallinarius, 223
+
+Gebwiler, 224
+
+George of Saxony, 162
+
+Gerard, Cornelius, _see_ Aurelius
+
+Gerard, Erasmus's father, 6
+
+Gerbel, 224
+
+Gigli, Silvestro, bishop of Worcester, 93
+
+Gilles, Peter, 66, 86, 92, 94, 107, 119, 133, 184
+
+Glareanus, Henri (Loriti), 96, 219, 251
+
+Gourmont, Gilles, 79, 80, 82, 209n.
+
+Grey, Thomas, 23, 26
+
+Grimani, Domenico, 66, 67n., 68, 214
+
+Grocyn, William, 34, 58, 200, 208
+
+Groote, Geert 3
+
+Grunnius, Lambertus, 93
+
+Grynaeus, Simon, 249
+
+Guibé, Robert, bishop of Nantes, 215n.
+
+
+Hegius, Alexander, 7
+
+Henry of Bergen, bishop of Cambray, 16, 17, 25, 27, 35, 38, 47, 55
+
+Henry VII, 58, 67, 251
+
+Henry VIII, 30, 37, 67, 84, 99, 144, 145, 146, 162, 182, 218, 251
+
+Hermans, William, 11, 13, 16, 18, 26, 28, 38, 44, 47, 49
+
+Hermonymus, George, 204n.
+
+Holbein, Hans, 114, 121, 151, 232n., 236n.
+
+Hollonius, Lambert, 156
+
+Hoogstraten, Jacob, 145
+
+Hutten, Ulrich von, 96, 118, 119, 125, 128-9, 140, 148, 159, 231
+
+
+James IV, 66, 84
+
+John of Trazegnies, 50n.
+
+Julius II, 58, 62, 84, 93, 152, 217
+
+
+Karlstadt, Andreas, 141
+
+Lachner, 221
+
+Lang, John, 141, 142, 144
+
+Langenfeld, John, 224
+
+Lascaris, Johannes, 64
+
+Lasco, Johannes a, 186
+
+Latimer, William, 58, 208
+
+Latomus, Bartholomew, 251
+
+Latomus, James, 133, 135, 149
+
+Laurin, Mark, 229
+
+Lee, Edward, 119, 122, 128, 133, 134, 135, 145, 157
+
+Lefèvre d'Étaples, Jacques, 21, 119, 120, 132, 133
+
+Leo, Ambrose, 219
+
+Leo X, 66, 93, 94, 134, 140, 144, 146, 215, 218
+
+Leonicenus, Nicholas, 219
+
+Linacre, Thomas, 34, 58, 200, 208, 219, 221
+
+Longolius, Christopher, 172, 173
+
+Loriti, _see_ Glareanus
+
+Loyola, Ignatius of, 189
+
+Lupset, 221n., 222
+
+Luther, Martin, 54, 96, 120, 128, 131, 135, 138, 139-50, 159, 161-5,
+  177, 178, 179, 209, 229, 240, 244
+
+Lypsius, Martin, 125, 134
+
+Lyra, Nicholas of, 57
+
+
+Maertensz, Dirck, 66, 90, 92, 134, 156
+
+Manutius, _see_ Aldus
+
+Mary of Hungary, 168, 187
+
+Maternus, 224
+
+Matthias, 225
+
+Maximilian, emperor, 84, 99, 141, 147, 176, 218, 219
+
+Medici, Giovanni de', _see_ Leo X
+
+Melanchthon, 145, 152, 165, 178, 180, 231
+
+Metsys, Quentin, 92, 240n.
+
+More, Thomas, 29, 30, 34, 35, 58, 69, 70, 92, 107, 119, 126, 127, 141,
+  146, 148, 153, 154, 182, 183, 200, 209, 221, 231-9, 252
+
+Mountjoy, _see_ Blount
+
+Musurus, Marcus, 64
+
+Mutianus, 165
+
+
+Neuenahr, Hermann Count of, 225, 226
+
+Northoff, brothers, 26, 27
+
+
+Obrecht, Johannes, 62
+
+Oecolampadius, 157, 166, 167, 168, 174, 175, 180
+
+Osiander, 244
+
+
+Pace, Richard, 159, 222
+
+Paludanus, Johannes, 131
+
+Paracelsus, Theophrastus, 242
+
+Paul III, 184, 185, 253
+
+Peter Gerard, Erasmus's brother, 5-10
+
+Phileticus, Martin, 205n.
+
+Philip le Beau, 56, 59n.
+
+Philippi, John, 58
+
+Pico della Mirandola, 21
+
+Pio, Alberto, 77, 158, 167
+
+Pirckheimer, Willibald, 95, 165, 184, 239
+
+Platter, Thomas, 182
+
+Politian, 205
+
+Poncher, Étienne, 94, 96
+
+Probst (Proost), James, 231n.
+
+
+Reuchlin, 90, 94, 128, 145
+
+Reynolds, Richard, 252n.
+
+Riario, Raffaele, 67, 214n.
+
+Roger, _see_ Gerard
+
+Rombout, 8
+
+Rudolfingen, 224
+
+Ruell, John, 219
+
+
+Sadolet, 93, 94, 164, 173, 177
+
+Sapidus, Johannes, 98
+
+Sasboud, 15
+
+Sauvage, John le, 92
+
+Scaliger, 173
+
+Schürer, M., 90, 209n., 223n., 224
+
+Servatius Roger, 11, 12, 58, 59, 60, 62, 87, 93, 119, 197, 212
+
+Sixtin, John, 31
+
+Sluter, 3
+
+Spalatinus, George, 139
+
+Stadion, Christopher of, bishop of Augsburg, 182
+
+Standonck, John, 21, 22, 38
+
+Stephanus, Henricus, 223n.
+
+Stewart, Alexander, archbishop of St. Andrews, 66, 67, 84
+
+Stewart, James, 198n.
+
+Stunica, _see_ Zuñiga
+
+Suderman, 226, 227
+
+Synthen, Johannes, 7
+
+
+Talesius, Quirin, 184, 193
+
+Tapper, Ruurd, 137
+
+Theodoric, 228
+
+Thomas à Kempis, 4, 54
+
+Tunstall, Cuthbert, 58, 96, 97, 132, 162, 208
+
+
+Urswick, 221
+
+Utenheim, Christopher of, bishop of Basle, 166, 173
+
+Utenhove, Charles, 184, 193
+
+Valdes, Alfonso, 246
+
+Valla, Lorenzo, 27, 57, 58, 90
+
+Varnbüler, Ulrich, 224
+
+Veere, _see_ Anna of Borselen
+
+Vianen, William of, 137
+
+Vincent, Augustine, 26
+
+Vitrier, Jean, 50, 181
+
+Vives, 161, 164
+
+Voecht, Jacobus, 38
+
+
+Warham, William, archbishop of Canterbury, 58, 59, 68, 81, 92, 95, 184,
+  204, 215
+
+Watson, John, 98
+
+Werner, Nicholas, 198, 216
+
+William of Orange, 193
+
+Wimpfeling, Jacob, 80, 166
+
+Winckel, Peter, 8
+
+Woerden, Cornelius of, 212
+
+Wolsey, Cardinal, 31, 95, 137, 145, 215n.
+
+
+Ximenes, F., archbishop of Toledo, 95, 130, 158, 218n.
+
+
+Zasius, Ulrich, 96, 153, 165, 187, 219
+
+Zuñiga, Diego Lopez, 158
+
+Zwingli, Ulrich, 96, 177, 179, 180, 244
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, by 
+Johan Huizinga
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+Project Gutenberg's Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, by Johan Huizinga
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+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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+Title: Erasmus and the Age of Reformation
+
+Author: Johan Huizinga
+
+Release Date: October 5, 2007 [EBook #22900]
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+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION</h1>
+<h3>By</h3>
+<h2>JOHAN HUIZINGA</h2>
+
+<h3>with a selection from
+the letters of Erasmus</h3>
+
+
+<p class="center">HARPER TORCHBOOKS / The Cloister Library<br/>
+HARPER &amp; ROW, PUBLISHERS<br/>
+<br/>
+NEW YORK, EVANSTON, AND LONDON</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/frontispiece.png">
+<img src="images/frontispiece-th.png" width="250" height="465" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">WOODCUT BY HANS HOLBEIN. 1535</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></p>
+
+<p>Huizinga's text was translated from the Dutch
+by F. Hopman and first published by Charles
+Scribner's Sons in 1924. The section from
+the Letters of Erasmus was translated by
+Barbara Flower.</p>
+
+<p>Reprinted by arrangement with Phaidon
+Press, Ltd., London</p>
+
+<p>Originally published under the title: "Erasmus
+of Rotterdam"</p>
+
+<p>First <span class="smcap">HARPER TORCHBOOK</span> edition published 1957</p>
+
+<p>Library of Congress catalogue card number 57-10119<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<p><a href="#preface"><i>Preface by G. N. Clark</i></a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_i">Chapter I. CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH, 1466-88</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_ii">Chapter II. IN THE MONASTERY, 1488-95</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_iii">Chapter III. THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, 1495-9</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_iv">Chapter IV. FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND, 1499-1500</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_v">Chapter V. ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_vi">Chapter VI. THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS, 1501</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_vii">Chapter VII. YEARS OF TROUBLE&mdash;LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND, 1502-6</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_viii">Chapter VIII. IN ITALY, 1506-9</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_ix">Chapter IX. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_x">Chapter X. THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND, 1509-14</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xi">Chapter XI. A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY, 1514-16</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xii">Chapter XII. ERASMUS'S MIND</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xiii">Chapter XIII. ERASMUS'S MIND (<i>continued</i>)</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xiv">Chapter XIV. ERASMUS'S CHARACTER</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xv">Chapter XV. AT LOUVAIN, 1517-18</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xvi">Chapter XVI. FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xvii">Chapter XVII. ERASMUS AT BASLE, 1521-9</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xviii">Chapter XVIII. CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER AND GROWING CONSERVATISM, 1524-6</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xix">Chapter XIX. AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS, 1528-9</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xx">Chapter XX. LAST YEARS</a></p>
+<p><a href="#chapter_xxi">Chapter XXI. CONCLUSION</a></p>
+<p><a href="#letters">SELECTED LETTERS OF ERASMUS</a></p>
+<p><a href="#illustrations">List of Illustrations</a></p>
+<p><a href="#index">Index of Names</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="preface" id="preface"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p><i>by G.N. Clark, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford</i></p>
+
+
+<p>Rather more than twenty years ago, on a spring morning
+of alternate cloud and sunshine, I acted as guide to Johan
+Huizinga, the author of this book, when he was on a visit
+to Oxford. As it was not his first stay in the city, and he knew
+the principal buildings already, we looked at some of the less
+famous. Even with a man who was well known all over the
+world as a writer, I expected that these two or three hours
+would be much like the others I had spent in the same capacity
+with other visitors; but this proved to be a day to remember.
+He understood the purposes of these ancient buildings, the
+intentions of their founders and builders; but that was to be
+expected from an historian who had written upon the history
+of universities and learning. What surprised and delighted me
+was his seeing eye. He told me which of the decorative <i>motifs</i>
+on the Tower of the Four Orders were usual at the time when
+it was built, and which were less common. At All Souls he
+pointed out the seldom appreciated merits of Hawksmoor's
+twin towers. His eye was not merely informed but sensitive.
+I remembered that I had heard of his talent for drawing, and
+as we walked and talked I felt the influence of a strong, quiet
+personality deep down in which an artist's perceptiveness was
+fused with a determination to search for historical truth.</p>
+
+<p>Huizinga's great success and reputation came suddenly
+when he was over forty. Until that time his powers were
+ripening, not so much slowly as secretly. His friends knew
+that he was unique, but neither he nor they foresaw what
+direction his studies would take. He was born in 1872 in
+Groningen, the most northerly of the chief towns of the
+Netherlands, and there he went to school and to the University.
+He studied Dutch history and literature and also Oriental
+languages and mythology and sociology; he was a good
+linguist and he steadily accumulated great learning, but he
+was neither an infant prodigy nor a universal scholar. Science<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>
+and current affairs scarcely interested him, and until his
+maturity imagination seemed to satisfy him more than
+research. Until he was over thirty he was a schoolmaster at
+Haarlem, a teacher of history; but it was still uncertain
+whether European or Oriental studies would claim him in
+the end. For two or three years before giving up school-teaching
+he lectured in the University of Amsterdam on
+Sanskrit, and it was almost an accident that he became
+professor of history in the University of his native town. All
+through his life it was characteristic of him that after a spell
+of creative work, when he had finished a book, he would
+turn aside from the subject that had absorbed him and plunge
+into some other subject or period, so that the books and
+articles in the eight volumes of his collected works (with one
+more volume still to come) cover a very wide range. As time
+went on he examined aspects of history which at first he had
+passed over, and he acquired a clear insight into the political
+and economic life of the past. It has been well said of him that
+he never became either a pedant or a doctrinaire. During the
+ten years that he spent as professor at Groningen, he found
+himself. He was happily married, with a growing family, and
+the many elements of his mind drew together into a unity.
+His sensitiveness to style and beauty came to terms with his
+conscientious scholarship. He was rooted in the traditional
+freedoms of his national and academic environment, but his
+curiosity, like the historical adventures of his people and his
+profession, was not limited by time or space or prejudice. He
+came more and more definitely to find his central theme in
+civilization as a realized ideal, something that men have
+created in an endless variety of forms, but always in order
+to raise the level of their lives.</p>
+
+<p>While this interior fulfilment was bringing Huizinga to his
+best, the world about him changed completely. In 1914,
+Holland became a neutral country surrounded by nations at
+war. In 1914, also, his wife died, and it was as a lonely widower
+that he was appointed in the next year to the chair of general
+history at Leyden, which he was to hold for the rest of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>
+academic life. Yet the year after the end of the war saw the
+publication of his masterpiece, the book which gave him his
+high place among historical writers and was translated as
+<i>The Waning of the Middle Ages</i>. This is a study of the forms of
+life and thought in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries, the last phase of one of the great
+European eras of civilization. In England, where the Middle
+Ages had been idealized for generations, some of its leading
+thoughts did not seem so novel as they did in Holland, where
+many people regarded the Renaissance and more still regarded
+the Reformation as a new beginning of a better world; but in
+England and America, which had been drawn, unlike Holland,
+into the vortex of war, it had the poignancy of a recall to the
+standards of reasonableness. It will long maintain its place as
+a historical book and as a work of literature.</p>
+
+<p>The shorter book on Erasmus is a companion to this great
+work. It was first published in 1924 and so belongs to the same
+best period of the author. Its subject is the central intellectual
+figure of the next generation after the period which Huizinga
+called the waning, or rather the autumn, of the Middle Ages;
+but Erasmus was also, as will appear from many of its pages,
+a man for whom he had a very special sympathy. Something
+of what he wrote about Erasmus might also have been written
+about himself, or at least about his own response to the
+transformation of the world that he had known.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place for an analysis of that questioning and
+illuminating response, nor for a considered estimate of
+Huizinga's work as a whole; but there is room for a word
+about his last years. He was recognized as one of the intellectual
+leaders of his country, and a second marriage in 1937
+brought back his private happiness; but the shadows were
+darkening over the western world. From the time when
+national socialism began to reveal itself in Germany, he took
+his stand against it with perfect simplicity and calm. After the
+invasion of Holland he addressed these memorable words to
+some of his colleagues: 'When it comes, as it soon will, to
+defending our University and the freedom of science and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>
+learning in the Netherlands, we must be ready to give everything
+for that: our possessions, our freedom, and even our
+lives'. The Germans closed the University. For a time they
+held Johan Huizinga, now an old man and in failing health,
+as a hostage; then they banished him to open arrest in a remote
+parish in the eastern part of the country. Even in these conditions
+he still wrote, and wrote well. In the last winter of the
+war the liberating armies approached and he suffered the
+hardships of the civilian population in a theatre of war; but
+his spirit was unbroken. He died on 1 February 1945, a few
+weeks before his country was set free.</p>
+
+<p>G. N. CLARK</p>
+
+<p>Oriel College, Oxford</p>
+
+<p>April 1952<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_i" id="chapter_i"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH</h3>
+
+<h3>1466-88</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Low Countries in the fifteenth century&mdash;The Burgundian power&mdash;Connections
+with the German Empire and with France&mdash;The northern
+Netherlands outskirts in every sense&mdash;Movement of <i>Devotio moderna</i>:
+brethren of the Common Life and Windesheim monasteries&mdash;Erasmus's
+birth: 1466&mdash;His relations and name&mdash;At school at Gouda, Deventer and
+Bois-le-Duc&mdash;He takes the vows: probably in 1488</p></div>
+
+
+<p>When Erasmus was born Holland had for about twenty years
+formed part of the territory which the dukes of Burgundy had
+succeeded in uniting under their dominion&mdash;that complexity
+of lands, half French in population, like Burgundy, Artois,
+Hainault, Namur; half Dutch like Flanders, Brabant, Zealand,
+Holland. The appellation 'Holland' was, as yet, strictly limited
+to the county of that name (the present provinces of North and
+South Holland), with which Zealand, too, had long since been
+united. The remaining territories which, together with those
+last mentioned, make up the present kingdom of the Netherlands,
+had not yet been brought under Burgundian dominion,
+although the dukes had cast their eyes on them. In the bishopric
+of Utrecht, whose power extended to the regions on the far
+side of the river Ysel, Burgundian influence had already begun
+to make itself manifest. The projected conquest of Friesland
+was a political inheritance of the counts of Holland, who preceded
+the Burgundians. The duchy of Guelders, alone, still
+preserved its independence inviolate, being more closely
+connected with the neighbouring German territories, and
+consequently with the Empire itself.</p>
+
+<p>All these lands&mdash;about this time they began to be regarded
+collectively under the name of 'Low Countries by the Sea'&mdash;had
+in most respects the character of outskirts. The authority
+of the German emperors had for some centuries been little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+more than imaginary. Holland and Zealand hardly shared the
+dawning sense of a national German union. They had too long
+looked to France in matters political. Since 1299 a French-speaking
+dynasty, that of Hainault, had ruled Holland. Even
+the house of Bavaria that succeeded it about the middle of the
+fourteenth century had not restored closer contact with the
+Empire, but had itself, on the contrary, early become Gallicized,
+attracted as it was by Paris and soon twined about by
+the tentacles of Burgundy to which it became linked by means
+of a double marriage.</p>
+
+<p>The northern half of the Low Countries were 'outskirts'
+also in ecclesiastical and cultural matters. Brought over rather
+late to the cause of Christianity (the end of the eighth century),
+they had, as borderlands, remained united under a single
+bishop: the bishop of Utrecht. The meshes of ecclesiastical
+organization were wider here than elsewhere. They had no
+university. Paris remained, even after the designing policy of
+the Burgundian dukes had founded the university of Louvain
+in 1425, the centre of doctrine and science for the northern
+Netherlands. From the point of view of the wealthy towns of
+Flanders and Brabant, now the heart of the Burgundian possessions,
+Holland and Zealand formed a wretched little country
+of boatmen and peasants. Chivalry, which the dukes of
+Burgundy attempted to invest with new splendour, had but
+moderately thrived among the nobles of Holland. The Dutch
+had not enriched courtly literature, in which Flanders and
+Brabant zealously strove to follow the French example, by
+any contribution worth mentioning.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever was coming up in Holland flowered unseen; it
+was not of a sort to attract the attention of Christendom. It
+was a brisk navigation and trade, mostly transit trade, by
+which the Hollanders already began to emulate the German
+Hansa, and which brought them into continual contact with
+France and Spain, England and Scotland, Scandinavia, North
+Germany and the Rhine from Cologne upward. It was herring
+fishery, a humble trade, but the source of great prosperity&mdash;a
+rising industry, shared by a number of small towns.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Not one of those towns in Holland and Zealand, neither
+Dordrecht nor Leyden, Haarlem, Middelburg, Amsterdam,
+could compare with Ghent, Bruges, Lille, Antwerp or Brussels
+in the south. It is true that in the towns of Holland also the
+highest products of the human mind germinated, but those
+towns themselves were still too small and too poor to be
+centres of art and science. The most eminent men were irresistibly
+drawn to one of the great foci of secular and ecclesiastical
+culture. Sluter, the great sculptor, went to Burgundy,
+took service with the dukes, and bequeathed no specimen of
+his art to the land of his birth. Dirk Bouts, the artist of Haarlem,
+removed to Louvain, where his best work is preserved;
+what was left at Haarlem has perished. At Haarlem, too, and
+earlier, perhaps, than anywhere else, obscure experiments were
+being made in that great art, craving to be brought forth,
+which was to change the world: the art of printing.</p>
+
+<p>There was yet another characteristic spiritual phenomenon,
+which originated here and gave its peculiar stamp to life in
+these countries. It was a movement designed to give depth and
+fervour to religious life; started by a burgher of Deventer,
+Geert Groote, toward the end of the fourteenth century. It had
+embodied itself in two closely connected forms&mdash;the fraterhouses,
+where the brethren of the Common Life lived together
+without altogether separating from the world, and the congregation
+of the monastery of Windesheim, of the order of
+the regular Augustinian canons. Originating in the regions on
+the banks of the Ysel, between the two small towns of Deventer
+and Zwolle, and so on the outskirts of the diocese of
+Utrecht, this movement soon spread, eastward to Westphalia,
+northward to Groningen and the Frisian country, westward
+to Holland proper. Fraterhouses were erected everywhere and
+monasteries of the Windesheim congregation were established
+or affiliated. The movement was spoken of as 'modern devotion',
+<i>devotio moderna</i>. It was rather a matter of sentiment and
+practice than of definite doctrine. The truly Catholic character
+of the movement had early been acknowledged by the church
+authorities. Sincerity and modesty, simplicity and industry,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+and, above all, constant ardour of religious emotion and
+thought, were its objects. Its energies were devoted to tending
+the sick and other works of charity, but especially to instruction
+and the art of writing. It is in this that it especially differed
+from the revival of the Franciscan and Dominican orders of
+about the same time, which turned to preaching. The Windesheimians
+and the Hieronymians (as the brethren of the Common
+Life were also called) exerted their crowning activities
+in the seclusion of the schoolroom and the silence of the writing
+cell. The schools of the brethren soon drew pupils from a wide
+area. In this way the foundations were laid, both here in the
+northern Netherlands and in lower Germany, for a generally
+diffused culture among the middle classes; a culture of a very
+narrow, strictly ecclesiastical nature, indeed, but which for
+that very reason was fit to permeate broad layers of the people.</p>
+
+<p>What the Windesheimians themselves produced in the way
+of devotional literature is chiefly limited to edifying booklets
+and biographies of their own members; writings which were
+distinguished rather by their pious tenor and sincerity than by
+daring or novel thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>But of them all, the greatest was that immortal work of
+Thomas &agrave; Kempis, Canon of Saint Agnietenberg, near Zwolle,
+the <i>Imitatio Christi</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Foreigners visiting these regions north of the Scheldt and
+the Meuse laughed at the rude manners and the deep drinking
+of the inhabitants, but they also mentioned their sincere piety.
+These countries were already, what they have ever remained,
+somewhat contemplative and self-contained, better adapted
+for speculating on the world and for reproving it than for
+astonishing it with dazzling wit.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Rotterdam and Gouda, situated upward of twelve miles
+apart in the lowest region of Holland, an extremely watery
+region, were not among the first towns of the county. They
+were small country towns, ranking after Dordrecht, Haarlem,
+Leyden, and rapidly rising Amsterdam. They were not centres
+of culture. Erasmus was born at Rotterdam on 27 October,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+most probably in the year 1466. The illegitimacy of his birth
+has thrown a veil of mystery over his descent and kinship. It is
+possible that Erasmus himself learned the circumstances of his
+coming into the world only in his later years. Acutely sensitive
+to the taint in his origin, he did more to veil the secret than to
+reveal it. The picture which he painted of it in his ripe age was
+romantic and pathetic. He imagined that his father when a
+young man made love to a girl, a physician's daughter, in the
+hope of marrying her. The parents and brothers of the young
+fellow, indignant, tried to persuade him to take holy orders.
+The young man fled before the child was born. He went to
+Rome and made a living by copying. His relations sent him
+false tidings that his beloved had died; out of grief he became
+a priest and devoted himself to religion altogether. Returned
+to his native country he discovered the deceit. He abstained
+from all contact with her whom he now could no longer
+marry, but took great pains to give his son a liberal education.
+The mother continued to care for the child, till an early death
+took her from him. The father soon followed her to the grave.
+To Erasmus's recollection he was only twelve or thirteen years
+old when his mother died. It seems to be practically certain
+that her death did not occur before 1483, when, therefore, he
+was already seventeen years old. His sense of chronology was
+always remarkably ill developed.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately it is beyond doubt that Erasmus himself
+knew, or had known, that not all particulars of this version
+were correct. In all probability his father was already a priest
+at the time of the relationship to which he owed his life; in any
+case it was not the impatience of a betrothed couple, but an
+irregular alliance of long standing, of which a brother, Peter,
+had been born three years before.</p>
+
+<p>We can only vaguely discern the outlines of a numerous and
+commonplace middle-class family. The father had nine
+brothers, who were all married. The grandparents on his
+father's side and the uncles on his mother's side attained to a
+very great age. It is strange that a host of cousins&mdash;their progeny&mdash;has
+not boasted of a family connection with the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+Erasmus. Their descendants have not even been traced. What
+were their names? The fact that in burgher circles family
+names had, as yet, become anything but fixed, makes it difficult
+to trace Erasmus's kinsmen. Usually people were called by
+their own and their father's name; but it also happened that
+the father's name became fixed and adhered to the following
+generation. Erasmus calls his father Gerard, his brother Peter
+Gerard, while a papal letter styles Erasmus himself Erasmus
+Rogerii. Possibly the father was called Roger Gerard or
+Gerards.</p>
+
+<p>Although Erasmus and his brother were born at Rotterdam,
+there is much that points to the fact that his father's kin did
+not belong there, but at Gouda. At any rate they had near
+relatives at Gouda.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus was his Christian name. There is nothing strange
+in the choice, although it was rather unusual. St. Erasmus was
+one of the fourteen Holy Martyrs, whose worship so much
+engrossed the attention of the multitude in the fifteenth
+century. Perhaps the popular belief that the intercession of St.
+Erasmus conferred wealth, had some weight in choosing the
+name. Up to the time when he became better acquainted with
+Greek, he used the form Herasmus. Later on he regretted that
+he had not also given that name the more correct and melodious
+form Erasmius. On a few occasions he half jocularly
+called himself so, and his godchild, Johannes Froben's son,
+always used this form.</p>
+
+<p>It was probably for similar aesthetic considerations that he
+soon altered the barbaric Rotterdammensis to Roterdamus,
+later Roterodamus, which he perhaps accentuated as a proparoxytone.
+Desiderius was an addition selected by himself,
+which he first used in 1496; it is possible that the study of his
+favourite author Jerome, among whose correspondents there
+is a Desiderius, suggested the name to him. When, therefore,
+the full form, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, first appears,
+in the second edition of the <i>Adagia</i>, published by Josse Badius
+at Paris in 1506, it is an indication that Erasmus, then forty
+years of age, had found himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Circumstances had not made it easy for him to find his way.
+Almost in his infancy, when hardly four years old, he thinks,
+he had been put to school at Gouda, together with his brother.
+He was nine years old when his father sent him to Deventer to
+continue his studies in the famous school of the chapter of
+St. Lebuin. His mother accompanied him. His stay at Deventer
+must have lasted, with an interval during which he was a choir
+boy in the minster at Utrecht, from 1475 to 1484. Erasmus's
+explicit declaration that he was fourteen years old when he
+left Deventer may be explained by assuming that in later years
+he confused his temporary absence from Deventer (when at
+Utrecht) with the definite end of his stay at Deventer. Reminiscences
+of his life there repeatedly crop up in Erasmus's writings.
+Those concerning the teaching he got inspired him with
+little gratitude; the school was still barbaric, then, he said;
+ancient medieval text-books were used there of whose silliness
+and cumbrousness we can hardly conceive. Some of the
+masters were of the brotherhood of the Common Life. One
+of them, Johannes Synthen, brought to his task a certain degree
+of understanding of classic antiquity in its purer form. Toward
+the end of Erasmus's residence Alexander Hegius was placed at
+the head of the school, a friend of the Frisian humanist, Rudolf
+Agricola, who on his return from Italy was gaped at by his
+compatriots as a prodigy. On festal days, when the rector made
+his oration before all the pupils, Erasmus heard Hegius; on one
+single occasion he listened to the celebrated Agricola himself,
+which left a deep impression on his mind.</p>
+
+<p>His mother's death of the plague that ravaged the town
+brought Erasmus's school-time at Deventer to a sudden close.
+His father called him and his brother back to Gouda, only to die
+himself soon afterwards. He must have been a man of culture.
+For he knew Greek, had heard the famous humanists in Italy,
+had copied classic authors and left a library of some value.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus and his brother were now under the protection of
+three guardians whose care and intentions he afterwards placed
+in an unfavourable light. How far he exaggerated their treatment
+of him it is difficult to decide. That the guardians, among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+whom one Peter Winckel, schoolmaster at Gouda, occupied
+the principal place, had little sympathy with the new classicism,
+about which their ward already felt enthusiastic, need
+not be doubted. 'If you should write again so elegantly, please
+to add a commentary', the schoolmaster replied grumblingly
+to an epistle on which Erasmus, then fourteen years old, had
+expended much care. That the guardians sincerely considered
+it a work pleasing to God to persuade the youths to enter a
+monastery can no more be doubted than that this was for
+them the easiest way to get rid of their task. For Erasmus this
+pitiful business assumes the colour of a grossly selfish attempt
+to cloak dishonest administration; an altogether reprehensible
+abuse of power and authority. More than this: in later years it
+obscured for him the image of his own brother, with whom
+he had been on terms of cordial intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>Winckel sent the two young fellows, twenty-one and
+eighteen years old, to school again, this time at Bois-le-Duc.
+There they lived in the Fraterhouse itself, to which the school
+was attached. There was nothing here of the glory that had
+shone about Deventer. The brethren, says Erasmus, knew of
+no other purpose than that of destroying all natural gifts, with
+blows, reprimands and severity, in order to fit the soul for the
+monastery. This, he thought, was just what his guardians were
+aiming at; although ripe for the university they were deliberately
+kept away from it. In this way more than two years
+were wasted.</p>
+
+<p>One of his two masters, one Rombout, who liked young
+Erasmus, tried hard to prevail on him to join the brethren of
+the Common Life. In later years Erasmus occasionally regretted
+that he had not yielded; for the brethren took no such
+irrevocable vows as were now in store for him.</p>
+
+<p>An epidemic of the plague became the occasion for the
+brothers to leave Bois-le-Duc and return to Gouda. Erasmus
+was attacked by a fever that sapped his power of resistance, of
+which he now stood in such need. The guardians (one of the
+three had died in the meantime) now did their utmost to make
+the two young men enter a monastery. They had good cause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+for it, as they had ill administered the slender fortune of their
+wards, and, says Erasmus, refused to render an account. Later
+he saw everything connected with this dark period of his life
+in the most gloomy colours&mdash;except himself. Himself he sees
+as a boy of not yet sixteen years (it is nearly certain that he
+must have been twenty already) weakened by fever, but nevertheless
+resolute and sensible in refusing. He has persuaded his
+brother to fly with him and to go to a university. The one
+guardian is a narrow-minded tyrant, the other, Winckel's
+brother, a merchant, a frivolous coaxer. Peter, the elder of the
+youths, yields first and enters the monastery of Sion, near
+Delft (of the order of the regular Augustinian canons), where
+the guardian had found a place for him. Erasmus resisted
+longer. Only after a visit to the monastery of Steyn or Emmaus,
+near Gouda, belonging to the same order, where he
+found a schoolfellow from Deventer, who pointed out the
+bright side of monastic life, did Erasmus yield and enter
+Steyn, where soon after, probably in 1488, he took the vows.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_ii" id="chapter_ii"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE MONASTERY</h3>
+
+<h3>1488-95</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus as an Augustinian canon at Steyn&mdash;His friends&mdash;Letters to
+Servatius&mdash;Humanism in the monasteries: Latin poetry&mdash;Aversion to
+cloister-life&mdash;He leaves Steyn to enter the service of the Bishop of Cambray:
+1493&mdash;James Batt&mdash;<i>Antibarbari</i>&mdash;He gets leave to study at Paris: 1495</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In his later life&mdash;under the influence of the gnawing regret
+which his monkhood and all the trouble he took to escape
+from it caused him&mdash;the picture of all the events leading up
+to his entering the convent became distorted in his mind.
+Brother Peter, to whom he still wrote in a cordial vein
+from Steyn, became a worthless fellow, even his evil spirit, a
+Judas. The schoolfellow whose advice had been decisive now
+appeared a traitor, prompted by self-interest, who himself had
+chosen convent-life merely out of laziness and the love of good
+cheer.</p>
+
+<p>The letters that Erasmus wrote from Steyn betray no vestige
+of his deep-seated aversion to monastic life, which afterwards
+he asks us to believe he had felt from the outset. We may, of
+course, assume that the supervision of his superiors prevented
+him from writing all that was in his heart, and that in the
+depths of his being there had always existed the craving for
+freedom and for more civilized intercourse than Steyn could
+offer. Still he must have found in the monastery some of the
+good things that his schoolfellow had led him to expect. That
+at this period he should have written a 'Praise of Monastic
+Life', 'to please a friend who wanted to decoy a cousin', as he
+himself says, is one of those na&iuml;ve assertions, invented afterwards,
+of which Erasmus never saw the unreasonable quality.</p>
+
+<p>He found at Steyn a fair degree of freedom, some food for
+an intellect craving for classic antiquity, and friendships with
+men of the same turn of mind. There were three who especially
+attracted him. Of the schoolfellow who had induced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+him to become a monk, we hear no more. His friends are
+Servatius Roger of Rotterdam and William Hermans of
+Gouda, both his companions at Steyn, and the older Cornelius
+Gerard of Gouda, usually called Aurelius (a quasi-latinization
+of Goudanus), who spent most of his time in the monastery of
+Lopsen, near Leyden. With them he read and conversed
+sociably and jestingly; with them he exchanged letters when
+they were not together.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the letters to Servatius there rises the picture of an
+Erasmus whom we shall never find again&mdash;a young man of
+more than feminine sensitiveness; of a languishing need for
+sentimental friendship. In writing to Servatius, Erasmus runs
+the whole gamut of an ardent lover. As often as the image of
+his friend presents itself to his mind tears break from his eyes.
+Weeping he re-reads his friend's letter every hour. But he is
+mortally dejected and anxious, for the friend proves averse to
+this excessive attachment. 'What do you want from me?' he
+asks. 'What is wrong with you?' the other replies. Erasmus
+cannot bear to find that this friendship is not fully returned.
+'Do not be so reserved; do tell me what is wrong! I repose my
+hope in you alone; I have become yours so completely that you
+have left me naught of myself. You know my pusillanimity,
+which when it has no one on whom to lean and rest, makes
+me so desperate that life becomes a burden.'</p>
+
+<p>Let us remember this. Erasmus never again expresses himself
+so passionately. He has given us here the clue by which we
+may understand much of what he becomes in his later years.</p>
+
+<p>These letters have sometimes been taken as mere literary
+exercises; the weakness they betray and the complete absence
+of all reticence, seem to tally ill with his habit of cloaking his
+most intimate feelings which, afterwards, Erasmus never quite
+relinquishes. Dr. Allen, who leaves this question undecided,
+nevertheless inclines to regard the letters as sincere effusions,
+and to me they seem so, incontestably. This exuberant friendship
+accords quite well with the times and the person.</p>
+
+<p>Sentimental friendships were as much in vogue in secular
+circles during the fifteenth century as towards the end of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+eighteenth century. Each court had its pairs of friends, who
+dressed alike, and shared room, bed, and heart. Nor was this
+cult of fervent friendship restricted to the sphere of aristocratic
+life. It was among the specific characteristics of the <i>devotio
+moderna</i>, as, for the rest, it seems from its very nature to be
+inseparably bound up with pietism. To observe one another
+with sympathy, to watch and note each other's inner life, was
+a customary and approved occupation among the brethren of
+the Common Life and the Windesheim monks. And though
+Steyn and Sion were not of the Windesheim congregation, the
+spirit of the <i>devotio moderna</i> was prevalent there.</p>
+
+<p>As for Erasmus himself, he has rarely revealed the foundation
+of his character more completely than when he declared
+to Servatius: 'My mind is such that I think nothing can rank
+higher than friendship in this life, nothing should be desired
+more ardently, nothing should be treasured more jealously'.
+A violent affection of a similar nature troubled him even at a
+later date when the purity of his motives was questioned.
+Afterwards he speaks of youth as being used to conceive a
+fervent affection for certain comrades. Moreover, the classic
+examples of friends, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias,
+Theseus and Pirithous, as also David and Jonathan, were ever
+present before his mind's eye. A young and very tender heart,
+marked by many feminine traits, replete with all the sentiment
+and with all the imaginings of classic literature, who was debarred
+from love and found himself placed against his wish in a
+coarse and frigid environment, was likely to become somewhat
+excessive in his affections.</p>
+
+<p>He was obliged to moderate them. Servatius would have
+none of so jealous and exacting a friendship and, probably at
+the cost of more humiliation and shame than appears in his
+letters, young Erasmus resigns himself, to be more guarded in
+expressing his feelings in the future. The sentimental Erasmus
+disappears for good and presently makes room for the witty
+latinist, who surpasses his older friends, and chats with them
+about poetry and literature, advises them about their Latin
+style, and lectures them if necessary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The opportunities for acquiring the new taste for classic
+antiquity cannot have been so scanty at Deventer, and in the
+monastery itself, as Erasmus afterwards would have us believe,
+considering the authors he already knew at this time.
+We may conjecture, also, that the books left by his father,
+possibly brought by him from Italy, contributed to Erasmus's
+culture, though it would be strange that, prone as he was to
+disparage his schools and his monastery, he should not have
+mentioned the fact. Moreover, we know that the humanistic
+knowledge of his youth was not exclusively his own, in spite
+of all he afterwards said about Dutch ignorance and obscurantism.
+Cornelius Aurelius and William Hermans likewise
+possessed it.</p>
+
+<p>In a letter to Cornelius he mentions the following authors
+as his poetic models&mdash;Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Statius,
+Martial, Claudian, Persius, Lucan, Tibullus, Propertius. In
+prose he imitates Cicero, Quintilian, Sallust, and Terence,
+whose metrical character had not yet been recognized. Among
+Italian humanists he was especially acquainted with Lorenzo
+Valla, who on account of his <i>Elegantiae</i> passed with him for
+the pioneer of <i>bonae literae</i>; but Filelfo, Aeneas Sylvius,
+Guarino, Poggio, and others, were also not unknown to him.
+In ecclesiastical literature he was particularly well read in
+Jerome. It remains remarkable that the education which
+Erasmus received in the schools of the <i>devotio moderna</i> with
+their ultra-puritanical object, their rigid discipline intent
+on breaking the personality, could produce such a mind as he
+manifests in his monastic period&mdash;the mind of an accomplished
+humanist. He is only interested in writing Latin verses and in
+the purity of his Latin style. We look almost in vain for piety in
+the correspondence with Cornelius of Gouda and William
+Hermans. They manipulate with ease the most difficult Latin
+metres and the rarest terms of mythology. Their subject-matter
+is bucolic or amatory, and, if devotional, their classicism deprives
+it of the accent of piety. The prior of the neighbouring
+monastery of Hem, at whose request Erasmus sang the
+Archangel Michael, did not dare to paste up his Sapphic ode:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+it was so 'poetic', he thought, as to seem almost Greek. In
+those days poetic meant classic. Erasmus himself thought he
+had made it so bald that it was nearly prose&mdash;'the times were
+so barren, then', he afterwards sighed.</p>
+
+<p>These young poets felt themselves the guardians of a new
+light amidst the dullness and barbarism which oppressed them.
+They readily believed each other's productions to be immortal,
+as every band of youthful poets does, and dreamt of a
+future of poetic glory for Steyn by which it would vie with
+Mantua. Their environment of clownish, narrow-minded
+conventional divines&mdash;for as such they saw them&mdash;neither
+acknowledged nor encouraged them. Erasmus's strong propensity
+to fancy himself menaced and injured tinged this position
+with the martyrdom of oppressed talent. To Cornelius
+he complains in fine Horatian measure of the contempt in
+which poetry was held; his fellow-monk orders him to let his
+pen, accustomed to writing poetry, rest. Consuming envy
+forces him to give up making verses. A horrid barbarism prevails,
+the country laughs at the laurel-bringing art of high-seated
+Apollo; the coarse peasant orders the learned poet to
+write verses. 'Though I had mouths as many as the stars that
+twinkle in the silent firmament on quiet nights, or as many as
+the roses that the mild gale of spring strews on the ground, I
+could not complain of all the evils by which the sacred art of
+poetry is oppressed in these days. I am tired of writing poetry.'
+Of this effusion Cornelius made a dialogue which highly
+pleased Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>Though in this art nine-tenths may be rhetorical fiction and
+sedulous imitation, we ought not, on that account, to undervalue
+the enthusiasm inspiring the young poets. Let us, who
+have mostly grown blunt to the charms of Latin, not think too
+lightly of the elation felt by one who, after learning this language
+out of the most absurd primers and according to the
+most ridiculous methods, nevertheless discovered it in its
+purity, and afterwards came to handle it in the charming
+rhythm of some artful metre, in the glorious precision of its
+structure and in all the melodiousness of its sound.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+<a href="images/plate-i.png">
+<img src="images/plate-i.png" width="40%" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate I. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 51</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/plate-ii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-ii-th.png" width="600" height="224" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate II. VIEW OF ROTTERDAM, EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nec si quot placidis ignea noctibus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scintillant tacito sydera culmine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nec si quot tepidum flante Favonio<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ver suffundit humo rosas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tot sint ora mihi...<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Was it strange that the youth who could say this felt himself
+a poet?&mdash;or who, together with his friend, could sing of spring
+in a Meliboean song of fifty distichs? Pedantic work, if you
+like, laboured literary exercises, and yet full of the freshness
+and the vigour which spring from the Latin itself.</p>
+
+<p>Out of these moods was to come the first comprehensive
+work that Erasmus was to undertake, the manuscript of which
+he was afterwards to lose, to recover in part, and to publish
+only after many years&mdash;the <i>Antibarbari</i>, which he commenced
+at Steyn, according to Dr. Allen. In the version in which eventually
+the first book of the <i>Antibarbari</i> appeared, it reflects, it is
+true, a somewhat later phase of Erasmus's life, that which
+began after he had left the monastery; neither is the comfortable
+tone of his witty defence of profane literature any longer
+that of the poet at Steyn. But the ideal of a free and noble life
+of friendly intercourse and the uninterrupted study of the
+Ancients had already occurred to him within the convent
+walls.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of years those walls probably hemmed him in
+more and more closely. Neither learned and poetic correspondence
+nor the art of painting with which he occupied himself,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+together with one Sasboud, could sweeten the oppression of
+monastic life and a narrow-minded, unfriendly environment.
+Of the later period of his life in the monastery, no letters at all
+have been preserved, according to Dr. Allen's carefully considered
+dating. Had he dropped his correspondence out of
+spleen, or had his superiors forbidden him to keep it up, or are
+we merely left in the dark because of accidental loss? We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+know nothing about the circumstances and the frame of mind
+in which Erasmus was ordained on 25 April 1492, by the
+Bishop of Utrecht, David of Burgundy. Perhaps his taking
+holy orders was connected with his design to leave the monastery.
+He himself afterwards declared that he had but rarely
+read mass. He got his chance to leave the monastery when
+offered the post of secretary to the Bishop of Cambray, Henry
+of Bergen. Erasmus owed this preferment to his fame as a
+Latinist and a man of letters; for it was with a view to a journey
+to Rome, where the bishop hoped to obtain a cardinal's
+hat, that Erasmus entered his service. The authorization of the
+Bishop of Utrecht had been obtained, and also that of the prior
+and the general of the order. Of course, there was no question
+yet of taking leave for good, since, as the bishop's servant,
+Erasmus continued to wear his canon's dress. He had prepared
+for his departure in the deepest secrecy. There is something
+touching in the glimpse we get of his friend and fellow-poet,
+William Hermans, waiting in vain outside of Gouda to see his
+friend just for a moment, when on his way south he would
+pass the town. It seems there had been consultations between
+them as to leaving Steyn together, and Erasmus, on his part,
+had left him ignorant of his plans. William had to console himself
+with the literature that might be had at Steyn.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Erasmus, then twenty-five years old&mdash;for in all probability
+the year when he left the monastery was 1493&mdash;now set foot
+on the path of a career that was very common and much
+coveted at that time: that of an intellectual in the shadow of the
+great. His patron belonged to one of the numerous Belgian
+noble families, which had risen in the service of the Burgundians
+and were interestedly devoted to the prosperity of that
+house. The Glimes were lords of the important town of
+Bergen-op-Zoom, which, situated between the River Scheldt
+and the Meuse delta, was one of the links between the northern
+and the southern Netherlands. Henry, the Bishop of
+Cambray, had just been appointed chancellor of the Order of
+the Golden Fleece, the most distinguished spiritual dignity at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+court, which although now Habsburg in fact, was still named
+after Burgundy. The service of such an important personage
+promised almost unbounded honour and profit. Many a man
+would under the circumstances, at the cost of some patience,
+some humiliation, and a certain laxity of principle, have risen
+even to be a bishop. But Erasmus was never a man to make the
+most of his situation.</p>
+
+<p>Serving the bishop proved to be rather a disappointment.
+Erasmus had to accompany him on his frequent migrations
+from one residence to another in Bergen, Brussels, or Mechlin.
+He was very busy, but the exact nature of his duties is unknown.
+The journey to Rome, the acme of things desirable
+to every divine or student, did not come off. The bishop,
+although taking a cordial interest in him for some months, was
+less accommodating than he had expected. And so we shortly
+find Erasmus once more in anything but a cheerful frame of
+mind. 'The hardest fate,' he calls his own, which robs him of
+all his old sprightliness. Opportunities to study he has none.
+He now envies his friend William, who at Steyn in the little
+cell can write beautiful poetry, favoured by his 'lucky stars'.
+It befits him, Erasmus, only to weep and sigh; it has already so
+dulled his mind and withered his heart that his former studies
+no longer appeal to him. There is rhetorical exaggeration in
+this and we shall not take his pining for the monastery too
+seriously, but still it is clear that deep dejection had mastered
+him. Contact with the world of politics and ambition had
+probably unsettled Erasmus. He never had any aptitude for it.
+The hard realities of life frightened and distressed him. When
+forced to occupy himself with them he saw nothing but bitterness
+and confusion about him. 'Where is gladness or repose?
+Wherever I turn my eyes I only see disaster and harshness.
+And in such a bustle and clamour about me you wish me to
+find leisure for the work of the Muses?'</p>
+
+<p>Real leisure Erasmus was never to find during his life. All
+his reading, all his writing, he did hastily, <i>tumultuarie</i>, as he
+calls it repeatedly. Yet he must nevertheless have worked with
+intensest concentration and an incredible power of assimilation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+Whilst staying with the bishop he visited the monastery of
+Groenendael near Brussels, where in former times Ruysbroeck
+wrote. Possibly Erasmus did not hear the inmates speak of
+Ruysbroeck and he would certainly have taken little pleasure
+in the writings of the great mystic. But in the library he found
+the works of St. Augustine and these he devoured. The monks
+of Groenendael were surprised at his diligence. He took the
+volumes with him even to his bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>He occasionally found time to compose at this period. At
+Halsteren, near Bergen-op-Zoom, where the bishop had a
+country house, he revised the <i>Antibarbari</i>, begun at Steyn, and
+elaborated it in the form of a dialogue. It would seem as if he
+sought compensation for the agitation of his existence in an
+atmosphere of idyllic repose and cultured conversation. He
+conveys us to the scene (he will afterwards use it repeatedly)
+which ever remained the ideal pleasure of life to him: a garden
+or a garden house outside the town, where in the gladness of
+a fine day a small number of friends meet to talk during a
+simple meal or a quiet walk, in Platonic serenity, about things
+of the mind. The personages whom he introduces, besides
+himself, are his best friends. They are the valued and faithful
+friend whom he got to know at Bergen, James Batt, schoolmaster
+and afterwards also clerk of that town, and his old
+friend William Hermans of Steyn, whose literary future he
+continued somewhat to promote. William, arriving unexpectedly
+from Holland, meets the others, who are later joined
+by the Burgomaster of Bergen and the town physician. In a
+lightly jesting, placid tone they engage in a discussion about
+the appreciation of poetry and literature&mdash;Latin literature.
+These are not incompatible with true devotion, as barbarous
+dullness wants us to believe. A cloud of witnesses is there to
+prove it, among them and above all St. Augustine, whom
+Erasmus had studied recently, and St. Jerome, with whom
+Erasmus had been longer acquainted and whose mind was,
+indeed, more congenial to him. Solemnly, in ancient Roman
+guise, war is declared on the enemies of classic culture. O ye
+Goths, by what right do you occupy, not only the Latin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+provinces (the <i>disciplinae liberales</i> are meant) but the capital,
+that is Latinity itself?</p>
+
+<p>It was Batt who, when his prospects with the Bishop of
+Cambray ended in disappointment, helped to find a way out
+for Erasmus. He himself had studied at Paris, and thither
+Erasmus also hoped to go, now that Rome was denied him.
+The bishop's consent and the promise of a stipend were obtained
+and Erasmus departed for the most famous of all universities,
+that of Paris, probably in the late summer of 1495.
+Batt's influence and efforts had procured him this lucky chance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Allen No. 16.12 cf. IV p. xx, and <i>vide</i> LB. IV 756, where surveying
+the years of his youth he also writes 'Pingere dum meditor tenueis sine
+corpore formas'.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_iii" id="chapter_iii"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS</h3>
+
+<h3>1495-9</h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The University of Paris&mdash;Traditions and schools of Philosophy and
+Theology&mdash;The College of Montaigu&mdash;Erasmus's dislike of scholasticism&mdash;Relations
+with the humanist, Robert Gaguin, 1495&mdash;How to earn a living&mdash;First
+drafts of several of his educational works&mdash;Travelling to Holland and
+back&mdash;Batt and the Lady of Veere&mdash;To England with Lord Mountjoy: 1499</p></div>
+
+<p>The University of Paris was, more than any other place in
+Christendom, the scene of the collision and struggle of opinions
+and parties. University life in the Middle Ages was in general
+tumultuous and agitated. The forms of scientific intercourse
+themselves entailed an element of irritability: never-ending
+disputations, frequent elections and rowdyism of the students.
+To those were added old and new quarrels of all sorts of orders,
+schools and groups. The different colleges contended among
+themselves, the secular clergy were at variance with the
+regular. The Thomists and the Scotists, together called the
+Ancients, had been disputing at Paris for half a century with
+the Terminists, or Moderns, the followers of Ockam and
+Buridan. In 1482 some sort of peace was concluded between
+those two groups. Both schools were on their last legs, stuck
+fast in sterile technical disputes, in systematizing and subdividing,
+a method of terms and words by which science and
+philosophy benefited no longer. The theological colleges of
+the Dominicans and Franciscans at Paris were declining; theological
+teaching was taken over by the secular colleges of
+Navarre and Sorbonne, but in the old style.</p>
+
+<p>The general traditionalism had not prevented humanism
+from penetrating Paris also during the last quarter of the
+fifteenth century. Refinement of Latin style and the taste for
+classic poetry here, too, had their fervent champions, just as
+revived Platonism, which had sprung up in Italy. The
+Parisian humanists were partly Italians as Girolamo Balbi and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+Fausto Andrelini, but at that time a Frenchman was considered
+to be their leader, Robert Gaguin, general of the order of the
+Mathurins or Trinitarians, diplomatist, French poet and
+humanist. Side by side with the new Platonism a clearer understanding
+of Aristotle penetrated, which had also come from
+Italy. Shortly before Erasmus's arrival Jacques Lef&egrave;vre d'&Eacute;taples
+had returned from Italy, where he had visited the Platonists,
+such as Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Ermolao
+Barbaro, the reviver of Aristotle. Though theoretical theology
+and philosophy generally were conservative at Paris, yet here
+as well as elsewhere movements to reform the Church were
+not wanting. The authority of Jean Gerson, the University's
+great chancellor (about 1400), had not yet been forgotten. But
+reform by no means meant inclination to depart from the
+doctrine of the Church; it aimed, in the first place, at restoration
+and purification of the monastic orders and afterwards at
+the extermination of abuses which the Church acknowledged
+and lamented as existing within its fold. In that spirit of reformation
+of spiritual life the Dutch movement of the <i>devotio
+moderna</i> had recently begun to make itself felt, also, at Paris.
+The chief of its promoters was John Standonck of Mechlin,
+educated by the brethren of the Common Life at Gouda and
+imbued with their spirit in its most rigorous form. He was an
+ascetic more austere than the spirit of the Windesheimians,
+strict indeed but yet moderate, required; far beyond ecclesiastical
+circles his name was proverbial on account of his abstinence&mdash;he
+had definitely denied himself the use of meat. As
+provisor of the college of Montaigu he had instituted the most
+stringent rules there, enforced by chastisement for the slightest
+faults. To the college he had annexed a home for poor scholars,
+where they lived in a semi-monastic community.</p>
+
+<p>To this man Erasmus had been recommended by the Bishop
+of Cambray. Though he did not join the community of poor
+students&mdash;he was nearly thirty years old&mdash;he came to know all
+the privations of the system. They embittered the earlier part
+of his stay at Paris and instilled in him a deep, permanent
+aversion to abstinence and austerity. Had he come to Paris for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+this&mdash;to experience the dismal and depressing influences of his
+youth anew in a more stringent form?</p>
+
+<p>The purpose for which Erasmus went to Paris was chiefly to
+obtain the degree of doctor of theology. This was not too
+difficult for him: as a regular he was exempt from previous
+study in the faculty of arts, and his learning and astonishing
+intelligence and energy enabled him to prepare in a short time
+for the examinations and disputations required. Yet he did not
+attain this object at Paris. His stay, which with interruptions
+lasted, first till 1499, to be continued later, became to him a
+period of difficulties and exasperations, of struggle to make his
+way by all the humiliating means which at the time were indispensable
+to that end; of dawning success, too, which, however,
+failed to gratify him.</p>
+
+<p>The first cause of his reverses was a physical one; he could
+not endure the hard life in the college of Montaigu. The
+addled eggs and squalid bedrooms stuck in his memory all his
+life; there he thinks he contracted the beginnings of his later
+infirmity. In the <i>Colloquia</i> he has commemorated with abhorrence
+Standonck's system of abstinence, privation and
+chastisement. For the rest his stay there lasted only until the
+spring of 1496.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he had begun his theological studies. He attended
+lectures on the Bible and on the Book of the Sentences, the
+medieval handbook of theology and still the one most frequently
+used. He was even allowed to give some lessons in the
+college on Holy Scripture. He preached a few sermons in
+honour of the Saints, probably in the neighbouring abbey of
+St. Genevi&egrave;ve. But his heart was not in all this. The subtleties
+of the schools could not please him. That aversion to all
+scholasticism, which he rejected in one sweeping condemnation,
+struck root in his mind, which, however broad, always
+judged unjustly that for which it had no room. 'Those studies
+can make a man opinionated and contentious; can they make
+him wise? They exhaust the mind by a certain jejune and
+barren subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By their
+stammering and by the stains of their impure style they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+disfigure theology which had been enriched and adorned by
+the eloquence of the ancients. They involve everything whilst
+trying to resolve everything.' 'Scotist', with Erasmus, became
+a handy epithet for all schoolmen, nay, for everything superannuated
+and antiquated. He would rather lose the whole of
+Scotus than Cicero's or Plutarch's works. These he feels the
+better for reading, whereas he rises from the study of scholasticism
+frigidly disposed towards true virtue, but irritated into
+a disputatious mood.</p>
+
+<p>It would, no doubt, have been difficult for Erasmus to find
+in the arid traditionalism which prevailed in the University of
+Paris the heyday of scholastic philosophy and theology. From
+the disputations which he heard in the Sorbonne he brought
+back nothing but the habit of scoffing at doctors of theology,
+or as he always ironically calls them by their title of honour:
+<i>Magistri nostri</i>. Yawning, he sat among 'those holy Scotists'
+with their wrinkled brows, staring eyes, and puzzled faces, and
+on his return home he writes a disrespectful fantasy to his
+young friend Thomas Grey, telling him how he sleeps the
+sleep of Epimenides with the divines of the Sorbonne. Epimenides
+awoke after his forty-seven years of slumber, but the
+majority of our present theologians will never wake up. What
+may Epimenides have dreamt? What but subtleties of the
+Scotists: quiddities, formalities, etc.! Epimenides himself was
+reborn in Scotus, or rather, Epimenides was Scotus's prototype.
+For did not he, too, write theological books, in which he tied
+such syllogistic knots as he would never have been able to
+loosen? The Sorbonne preserves Epimenides's skin written
+over with mysterious letters, as an oracle which men may only
+see after having borne the title of <i>Magister noster</i> for fifteen
+years.</p>
+
+<p>It is not a far cry from caricatures like these to the <i>Sorbonistres</i>
+and the <i>Barbouillamenta Scoti</i> of Rabelais. 'It is said', thus
+Erasmus concludes his <i>boutade</i>, 'that no one can understand
+the mysteries of this science who has had the least intercourse
+with the Muses or the Graces. All that you have learned in the
+way of <i>bonae literae</i> has to be unlearned first; if you have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+drunk of Helicon you must first vomit the draught. I do my
+utmost to say nothing according to the Latin taste, and nothing
+graceful or witty; and I am already making progress, and there
+is hope that one day they will acknowledge Erasmus.'</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the dryness of the method and the barrenness
+of the system which revolted Erasmus. It was also the
+qualities of his own mind, which, in spite of all its breadth and
+acuteness, did not tend to penetrate deeply into philosophical
+or dogmatic speculations. For it was not only scholasticism
+that repelled him; the youthful Platonism and the rejuvenated
+Aristotelianism taught by Lef&egrave;vre d'&Eacute;taples also failed to
+attract him. For the present he remained a humanist of
+aesthetic bias, with the substratum of a biblical and moral disposition,
+resting mainly on the study of his favourite Jerome.
+For a long time to come Erasmus considered himself, and also
+introduced himself, as a poet and an orator, by which latter
+term he meant what we call a man of letters.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately on arriving at Paris he must have sought contact
+with the headquarters of literary humanism. The obscure
+Dutch regular introduced himself in a long letter (not preserved)
+full of eulogy, accompanied by a much-laboured
+poem, to the general, not only of the Trinitarians but, at the
+same time, of Parisian humanists, Robert Gaguin. The great
+man answered very obligingly: 'From your lyrical specimen I
+conclude that you are a scholar; my friendship is at your disposal;
+do not be so profuse in your praise, that looks like
+flattery'. The correspondence had hardly begun when Erasmus
+found a splendid opportunity to render this illustrious personage
+a service and, at the same time, in the shadow of his name,
+make himself known to the reading public. The matter is also
+of importance because it affords us an opportunity, for the first
+time, to notice the connection that is always found between
+Erasmus's career as a man of letters and a scholar and the
+technical conditions of the youthful art of printing.</p>
+
+<p>Gaguin was an all-round man and his Latin text-book of the
+history of France, <i>De origine et gestis Francorum Compendium</i>,
+was just being printed. It was the first specimen of humanistic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+historiography in France. The printer had finished his work
+on 30 September 1495, but of the 136 leaves, two remained
+blank. This was not permissible according to the notions of
+that time. Gaguin was ill and could not help matters. By
+judicious spacing the compositor managed to fill up folio 135
+with a poem by Gaguin, the colophon and two panegyrics by
+Faustus Andrelinus and another humanist. Even then there
+was need of matter, and Erasmus dashed into the breach and
+furnished a long commendatory letter, completely filling the
+superfluous blank space of folio 136.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> In this way his name and
+style suddenly became known to the numerous public which
+was interested in Gaguin's historical work, and at the same
+time he acquired another title to Gaguin's protection, on
+whom the exceptional qualities of Erasmus's diction had evidently
+not been lost. That his history would remain known
+chiefly because it had been a stepping stone to Erasmus,
+Gaguin could hardly have anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>Although Erasmus had now, as a follower of Gaguin, been
+introduced into the world of Parisian humanists, the road to
+fame, which had latterly begun to lead through the printing
+press, was not yet easy for him. He showed the <i>Antibarbari</i> to
+Gaguin, who praised them, but no suggestion of publication
+resulted. A slender volume of Latin poems by Erasmus was
+published in Paris in 1496, dedicated to Hector Boys, a Scotchman,
+with whom he had become acquainted at Montaigu.
+But the more important writings at which he worked during
+his stay in Paris all appeared in print much later.</p>
+
+<p>While intercourse with men like Robert Gaguin and Faustus
+Andrelinus might be honourable, it was not directly profitable.
+The support of the Bishop of Cambray was scantier than
+he wished. In the spring of 1496 he fell ill and left Paris. Going
+first to Bergen, he had a kind welcome from his patron, the
+bishop; and then, having recovered his health, he went on to
+Holland to his friends. It was his intention to stay there, he says.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+The friends themselves, however, urged him to return to
+Paris, which he did in the autumn of 1496. He carried poetry
+by William Hermans and a letter from this poet to Gaguin. A
+printer was found for the poems and Erasmus also brought his
+friend and fellow-poet into contact with Faustus Andrelinus.</p>
+
+<p>The position of a man who wished to live by intellectual
+labour was far from easy at that time and not always dignified.
+He had either to live on church prebends or on distinguished
+patrons, or on both. But such a prebend was difficult to get
+and patrons were uncertain and often disappointing. The publishers
+paid considerable copy-fees only to famous authors. As
+a rule the writer received a number of copies of his work and
+that was all. His chief advantage came from a dedication to
+some distinguished personage, who could compliment him
+for it with a handsome gift. There were authors who made it a
+practice to dedicate the same work repeatedly to different
+persons. Erasmus has afterwards defended himself explicitly from
+that suspicion and carefully noted how many of those whom
+he honoured with a dedication gave nothing or very little.</p>
+
+<p>The first need, therefore, to a man in Erasmus's circumstances
+was to find a Maecenas. Maecenas with the humanists was
+almost synonymous with paymaster. Under the adage <i>Ne
+bos quidem pereat</i> Erasmus has given a description of the
+decent way of obtaining a Maecenas. Consequently, when his
+conduct in these years appears to us to be actuated, more than
+once, by an undignified pushing spirit, we should not gauge it
+by our present standards. These were his years of weakness.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to Paris he did not again lodge in Montaigu.
+He tried to make a living by giving lessons to young men of
+fortune. A merchant's sons of L&uuml;beck, Christian and Henry
+Northoff, who lodged with one Augustine Vincent, were his
+pupils. He composed beautiful letters for them, witty, fluent
+and a trifle scented. At the same time he taught two young
+Englishmen, Thomas Grey and Robert Fisher, and conceived
+such a doting affection for Grey as to lead to trouble with
+the youth's guardian, a Scotchman, by whom Erasmus was
+excessively vexed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Paris did not fail to exercise its refining influence on Erasmus.
+It made his style affectedly refined and sparkling&mdash;he pretends
+to disdain the rustic products of his youth in Holland. In the
+meantime, the works through which afterwards his influence
+was to spread over the whole world began to grow, but only
+to the benefit of a few readers. They remained unprinted as
+yet. For the Northoffs was composed the little compendium
+of polite conversation (in Latin), <i>Familiarium colloquiorum
+formulae</i>, the nucleus of the world-famous <i>Colloquia</i>. For
+Robert Fisher he wrote the first draft of <i>De conscribendis
+epistolis</i>, the great dissertation on the art of letter-writing
+(Latin letters), probably also the paraphrase of Valla's <i>Elegantiae</i>,
+a treatise on pure Latin, which had been a beacon-light of
+culture to Erasmus in his youth. <i>De copia verborum ac rerum</i> was
+also such a help for beginners, to provide them with a vocabulary
+and abundance of turns and expressions; and also the germs
+of a larger work: <i>De ratione studii</i>, a manual for arranging
+courses of study, lay in the same line.</p>
+
+<p>It was a life of uncertainty and unrest. The bishop gave but
+little support. Erasmus was not in good health and felt continually
+depressed. He made plans for a journey to Italy, but
+did not see much chance of effecting them. In the summer of
+1498 he again travelled to Holland and to the bishop. In
+Holland his friends were little pleased with his studies. It was
+feared that he was contracting debts at Paris. Current reports
+about him were not favourable. He found the bishop, in the
+commotion of his departure for England on a mission, irritable
+and full of complaints. It became more and more evident
+that he would have to look out for another patron. Perhaps he
+might turn to the Lady of Veere, Anna of Borselen, with
+whom his faithful and helpful friend Batt had now taken
+service, as a tutor to her son, in the castle of Tournehem,
+between Calais and Saint Omer.</p>
+
+<p>Upon his return to Paris, Erasmus resumed his old life, but
+it was hateful slavery to him. Batt had an invitation for him
+to come to Tournehem, but he could not yet bear to leave
+Paris. Here he had now as a pupil the young Lord Mountjoy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+William Blount. That meant two strings to his bow. Batt is
+incited to prepare the ground for him with Anna of Veere;
+William Hermans is charged with writing letters to Mountjoy,
+in which he is to praise the latter's love of literature. 'You
+should display an erudite integrity, commend me, and proffer
+your services kindly. Believe me, William, your reputation,
+too, will benefit by it. He is a young man of great authority
+with his own folk; you will have some one to distribute your
+writings in England. I pray you again and again, if you love
+me, take this to heart.'</p>
+
+<p>The visit to Tournehem took place at the beginning of
+1499, followed by another journey to Holland. Henceforward
+Anna of Veere passed for his patroness. In Holland he saw his
+friend William Hermans and told him that he thought of
+leaving for Bologna after Easter. The Dutch journey was one
+of unrest and bustle; he was in a hurry to return to Paris, not to
+miss any opportunity which Mountjoy's affection might offer
+him. He worked hard at the various writings on which he was
+engaged, as hard as his health permitted after the difficult
+journey in winter. He was busily occupied in collecting the
+money for travelling to Italy, now postponed until August.
+But evidently Batt could not obtain as much for him as he had
+hoped, and, in May, Erasmus suddenly gave up the Italian plan,
+and left for England with Mountjoy at the latter's request.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Allen No. 43, p. 145, where the particulars of the case are expounded
+with peculiar acuteness and conclusions drawn with regard to the
+chronology of Erasmus's stay at Paris.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_iv" id="chapter_iv"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND</h3>
+
+<h3>1499-1500</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>First stay in England: 1499-1500&mdash;Oxford: John Colet&mdash;Erasmus's
+aspirations directed towards divinity&mdash;He is as yet mainly a literate&mdash;Fisher
+and More&mdash;Mishap at Dover when leaving England: 1500&mdash;Back in France
+he composes the <i>Adagia</i>&mdash;Years of trouble and penury</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Erasmus's first stay in England, which lasted from the early
+summer of 1499 till the beginning of 1500, was to become for
+him a period of inward ripening. He came there as an erudite
+poet, the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of a nobleman of rank, on the road to closer
+contact with the great world which knew how to appreciate
+and reward literary merit. He left the country with the fervent
+desire in future to employ his gifts, in so far as circumstances
+would permit, in more serious tasks. This change was brought
+about by two new friends whom he found in England, whose
+personalities were far above those who had hitherto crossed
+his path: John Colet and Thomas More.</p>
+
+<p>During all the time of his sojourn in England Erasmus is in
+high spirits, for him. At first it is still the man of the world who
+speaks, the refined man of letters, who must needs show his
+brilliant genius. Aristocratic life, of which he evidently had
+seen but little at the Bishop of Cambray's and the Lady of
+Veere's at Tournehem, pleased him fairly well, it seems. 'Here
+in England', he writes in a light vein to Faustus Andrelinus,
+'we have, indeed, progressed somewhat. The Erasmus whom
+you know is almost a good hunter already, not too bad a
+horseman, a not unpractised courtier. He salutes a little more
+courteously, he smiles more kindly. If you are wise, you also
+will alight here.' And he teases the volatile poet by telling him
+about the charming girls and the laudable custom, which he
+found in England, of accompanying all compliments by kisses.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+<p>It even fell to his lot to make the acquaintance of royalty.
+From Mountjoy's estate at Greenwich, More, in the course of
+a walk, took him to Eltham Palace, where the royal children
+were educated. There he saw, surrounded by the whole royal
+household, the youthful Henry, who was to be Henry VIII,
+a boy of nine years, together with two little sisters and a young
+prince, who was still an infant in arms. Erasmus was ashamed
+that he had nothing to offer and, on returning home, he composed
+(not without exertion, for he had not written poetry at
+all for some time) a panegyric on England, which he presented
+to the prince with a graceful dedication.</p>
+
+<p>In October Erasmus was at Oxford which, at first, did not
+please him, but whither Mountjoy was to follow him. He had
+been recommended to John Colet, who declared that he
+required no recommendations: he already knew Erasmus from
+the letter to Gaguin in the latter's historical work and thought
+very highly of his learning. There followed during the remainder
+of Erasmus's stay at Oxford a lively intercourse, in
+conversation and in correspondence, which definitely decided
+the bent of Erasmus's many-sided mind.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/plate-iii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-iii-th.png" width="300" height="344" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate III. JOHN COLET, DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S</p>
+
+<p>John Colet, who did not differ much from Erasmus in
+point of age, had found his intellectual path earlier and more
+easily. Born of well-to-do parents (his father was a London
+magistrate and twice lord mayor), he had been able leisurely
+to prosecute his studies. Not seduced by quite such a brilliant
+genius as Erasmus possessed into literary digressions, he had
+from the beginning fixed his attention on theology. He knew
+Plato and Plotinus, though not in Greek, was very well read
+in the older Fathers and also respectably acquainted with
+scholasticism, not to mention his knowledge of mathematics,
+law, history and the English poets. In 1496 he had established
+himself at Oxford. Without possessing a degree in divinity, he
+expounded St. Paul's epistles. Although, owing to his
+ignorance of Greek, he was restricted to the Vulgate, he tried
+to penetrate to the original meaning of the sacred texts,
+discarding the later commentaries.</p>
+
+<p>Colet had a deeply serious nature, always warring against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+the tendencies of his vigorous being, and he kept within
+bounds his pride and the love of pleasure. He had a keen
+sense of humour, which, without doubt, endeared him to
+Erasmus. He was an enthusiast. When defending a point in
+theology his ardour changed the sound of his voice, the look
+in his eyes, and a lofty spirit permeated his whole person.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100%;">
+<a href="images/plate-iv.png">
+<img src="images/plate-iv.png" width="40%" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate IV. SIR THOMAS MORE, 1527</p>
+
+<p>Out of his intercourse with Colet came the first of Erasmus's
+theological writings. At the end of a discussion regarding
+Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane, in which Erasmus
+had defended the usual view that Christ's fear of suffering
+proceeded from his human nature, Colet had exhorted him to
+think further about the matter. They exchanged letters about
+it and finally Erasmus committed both their opinions to paper
+in the form of a 'Little disputation concerning the anguish,
+fear and sadness of Jesus', <i>Disputatiuncula de tedio, pavore,
+tristicia Jesu</i>, etc., being an elaboration of these letters.</p>
+
+<p>While the tone of this pamphlet is earnest and pious, it is
+not truly fervent. The man of letters is not at once and completely
+superseded. 'See, Colet,' thus Erasmus ends his first
+letter, referring half ironically to himself, 'how I can observe
+the rules of propriety in concluding such a theologic disputation
+with poetic fables (he had made use of a few mythologic
+metaphors). But as Horace says, <i>Naturam expellas furca, tamen
+usque recurret</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>This ambiguous position which Erasmus still occupied, also
+in things of the mind, appears still more clearly from the
+report which he sent to his new friend, the Frisian John Sixtin,
+a Latin poet like himself, of another disputation with Colet,
+at a repast, probably in the hall of Magdalen College, where
+Wolsey, too, was perhaps present. To his fellow-poet, Erasmus
+writes as a poet, loosely and with some affectation. It was a
+meal such as he liked, and afterwards frequently pictured in
+his <i>Colloquies</i>: cultured company, good food, moderate
+drinking, noble conversation. Colet presided. On his right
+hand sat the prior Charnock of St. Mary's College, where
+Erasmus resided (he had also been present at the disputation
+about Christ's agony). On his left was a divine whose name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+is not mentioned, an advocate of scholasticism; next to him
+came Erasmus, 'that the poet should not be wanting at the
+banquet'. The discussion was about Cain's guilt by which he
+displeased the Lord. Colet defended the opinion that Cain had
+injured God by doubting the Creator's goodness, and, in
+reliance on his own industry, tilling the earth, whereas Abel
+tended the sheep and was content with what grew of itself.
+The divine contended with syllogisms, Erasmus with arguments
+of 'rhetoric'. But Colet kindled, and got the better of
+both. After a while, when the dispute had lasted long enough
+and had become more serious than was suitable for table-talk&mdash;'then
+I said, in order to play my part, the part of the poet
+that is&mdash;to abate the contention and at the same time cheer the
+meal with a pleasant tale: "it is a very old story, it has to be
+unearthed from the very oldest authors. I will tell you what I
+found about it in literature, if you will promise me first that
+you will not look upon it as a fable."'</p>
+
+<p>And now he relates a witty story of some very ancient
+codex in which he had read how Cain, who had often heard
+his parents speak of the glorious vegetation of Paradise, where
+the ears of corn were as high as the alders with us, had prevailed
+upon the angel who guarded it, to give him some
+Paradisal grains. God would not mind it, if only he left the
+apples alone. The speech by which the angel is incited to disobey
+the Almighty is a masterpiece of Erasmian wit. 'Do you
+find it pleasant to stand there by the gate with a big sword?
+We have just begun to use dogs for that sort of work. It is not
+so bad on earth and it will be better still; we shall learn, no
+doubt, to cure diseases. What that forbidden knowledge
+matters I do not see very clearly. Though, in that matter,
+too, unwearied industry surmounts all obstacles.' In this
+way the guardian is seduced. But when God beholds the
+miraculous effect of Cain's agricultural management, punishment
+does not fail to ensue. A more delicate way of combining
+Genesis and the Prometheus myth no humanist had
+yet invented.</p>
+
+<p>But still, though Erasmus went on conducting himself as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+man of letters among his fellow-poets, his heart was no longer
+in those literary exercises. It is one of the peculiarities of
+Erasmus's mental growth that it records no violent crises. We
+never find him engaged in those bitter inward struggles which
+are in the experience of so many great minds. His transition
+from interest in literary matters to interest in religious matters
+is not in the nature of a process of conversion. There is no
+Tarsus in Erasmus's life. The transition takes place gradually
+and is never complete. For many years to come Erasmus can,
+without suspicion of hypocrisy, at pleasure, as his interests or
+his moods require, play the man of letters or the theologian.
+He is a man with whom the deeper currents of the soul
+gradually rise to the surface; who raises himself to the height
+of his ethical consciousness under the stress of circumstances,
+rather than at the spur of some irresistible impulse.</p>
+
+<p>The desire to turn only to matters of faith he shows early.
+'I have resolved', he writes in his monastic period to Cornelius
+of Gouda, 'to write no more poems in the future, except such
+as savour of praise of the saints, or of sanctity itself.' But that
+was the youthful pious resolve of a moment. During all the
+years previous to the first voyage to England, Erasmus's writings,
+and especially his letters, betray a worldly disposition. It
+only leaves him in moments of illness and weariness. Then
+the world displeases him and he despises his own ambition; he
+desires to live in holy quiet, musing on Scripture and shedding
+tears over his old errors. But these are utterances inspired by
+the occasion, which one should not take too seriously.</p>
+
+<p>It was Colet's word and example which first changed
+Erasmus's desultory occupation with theological studies into a
+firm and lasting resolve to make their pursuit the object of his
+life. Colet urged him to expound the Pentateuch or the prophet
+Isaiah at Oxford, just as he himself treated of Paul's
+epistles. Erasmus declined; he could not do it. This bespoke
+insight and self-knowledge, by which he surpassed Colet. The
+latter's intuitive Scripture interpretation without knowledge
+of the original language failed to satisfy Erasmus. 'You are
+acting imprudently, my dear Colet, in trying to obtain water<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+from a pumice-stone (in the words of Plautus). How shall I
+be so impudent as to teach that which I have not learned myself?
+How shall I warm others while shivering and trembling
+with cold?... You complain that you find yourself deceived
+in your expectations regarding me. But I have never promised
+you such a thing; you have deceived yourself by refusing to
+believe me when I was telling you the truth regarding myself.
+Neither did I come here to teach poetics or rhetoric (Colet had
+hinted at that); these have ceased to be sweet to me, since they
+ceased to be necessary to me. I decline the one task because it
+does not come up to my aim in life; the other because it is
+beyond my strength ... But when, one day, I shall be conscious
+that the necessary power is in me, I, too, shall choose
+your part and devote to the assertion of divinity, if no excellent,
+yet sincere labour.'</p>
+
+<p>The inference which Erasmus drew first of all was that he
+should know Greek better than he had thus far been able to
+learn it.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile his stay in England was rapidly drawing to a
+close; he had to return to Paris. Towards the end of his sojourn
+he wrote to his former pupil, Robert Fisher, who was in Italy,
+in a high-pitched tone about the satisfaction which he experienced
+in England. A most pleasant and wholesome climate
+(he was most sensitive to it); so much humanity and erudition&mdash;not
+of the worn-out and trivial sort, but of the recondite,
+genuine, ancient, Latin and Greek stamp&mdash;that he need hardly
+any more long to go to Italy. In Colet he thought he heard
+Plato himself. Grocyn, the Grecian scholar; Linacre, the
+learned physician, who would not admire them! And whose
+spirit was ever softer, sweeter or happier than that of Thomas
+More!</p>
+
+<p>A disagreeable incident occurred as Erasmus was leaving
+English soil in January 1500. Unfortunately it not only obscured
+his pleasant memories of the happy island, but also
+placed another obstacle in the path of his career, and left in
+his supersensitive soul a sting which vexed him for years
+afterwards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The livelihood which he had been gaining at Paris of late
+years was precarious. The support from the bishop had
+probably been withdrawn; that of Anna of Veere had trickled
+but languidly; he could not too firmly rely on Mountjoy.
+Under these circumstances a modest fund, some provision
+against a rainy day, was of the highest consequence. Such
+savings he brought from England, twenty pounds. An act of
+Edward III, re-enacted by Henry VII not long before, prohibited
+the export of gold and silver, but More and Mountjoy
+had assured Erasmus that he could safely take his money with
+him, if only it was not in English coin. At Dover he learned
+that the custom-house officers were of a different opinion. He
+might only keep six 'angels'&mdash;the rest was left behind in the
+hands of the officials and was evidently confiscated.</p>
+
+<p>The shock which this incident gave him perhaps contributed
+to his fancying himself threatened by robbers and murderers
+on the road from Calais to Paris. The loss of his money
+plunged him afresh into perplexity as to his support from day
+to day. It forced him to resume the profession of a <i>bel esprit</i>,
+which he already began to loathe, and to take all the humiliating
+steps to get what was due to it from patrons. And, above
+all, it affected his mental balance and his dignity. Yet this mishap
+had its great advantage for the world, and for Erasmus,
+too, after all. To it the world owes the <i>Adagia</i>; and he the
+fame, which began with this work.</p>
+
+<p>The feelings with which his misfortune at Dover inspired
+Erasmus were bitter anger and thirst for revenge. A few
+months later he writes to Batt: 'Things with me are as they
+are wont to be in such cases: the wound received in England
+begins to smart only now that it has become inveterate, and
+that the more as I cannot have my revenge in any way'. And
+six months later, 'I shall swallow it. An occasion may offer
+itself, no doubt, to be even with them.' Yet meanwhile true
+insight told this man, whose strength did not always attain to
+his ideals, that the English, whom he had just seen in such a
+favourable light, let alone his special friends among them,
+were not accessories to the misfortune. He never reproached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+More and Mountjoy, whose inaccurate information, he tells
+us, had done the harm. At the same time his interest, which he
+always saw in the garb of virtue, told him that now especially
+it would be essential not to break off his relations with
+England, and that this gave him a splendid chance of strengthening
+them. Afterwards he explained this with a na&iuml;vet&eacute; which
+often causes his writings, especially where he tries to suppress
+or cloak matters, to read like confessions.</p>
+
+<p>'Returning to Paris a poor man, I understood that many
+would expect I should take revenge with my pen for this
+mishap, after the fashion of men of letters, by writing something
+venomous against the king or against England. At the
+same time I was afraid that William Mountjoy, having indirectly
+caused my loss of money, would be apprehensive of
+losing my affection. In order, therefore, both to put the expectations
+of those people to shame, and to make known that I
+was not so unfair as to blame the country for a private wrong,
+or so inconsiderate as, because of a small loss, to risk making
+the king displeased with myself or with my friends in England,
+and at the same time to give my friend Mountjoy a proof that
+I was no less kindly disposed towards him than before, I
+resolved to publish something as quickly as possible. As I had
+nothing ready, I hastily brought together, by a few days'
+reading, a collection of Adagia, in the supposition that such a
+booklet, however it might turn out, by its mere usefulness
+would get into the hands of students. In this way I demonstrated
+that my friendship had not cooled off at all. Next, in a
+poem I subjoined, I protested that I was not angry with the
+king or with the country at being deprived of my money. And
+my scheme was not ill received. That moderation and candour
+procured me a good many friends in England at the time&mdash;erudite,
+upright and influential men.'</p>
+
+<p>This is a characteristic specimen of semi-ethical conduct. In
+this way Erasmus succeeded in dealing with his indignation,
+so that later on he could declare, when the recollection came
+up occasionally, 'At one blow I had lost all my fortune, but I
+was so unconcerned that I returned to my books all the more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+cheerfully and ardently'. But his friends knew how deep the
+wound had been. 'Now (on hearing that Henry VIII had
+ascended the throne) surely all bitterness must have suddenly
+left your soul,' Mountjoy writes to him in 1509, possibly
+through the pen of Ammonius.</p>
+
+<p>The years after his return to France were difficult ones. He
+was in great need of money and was forced to do what he
+could, as a man of letters, with his talents and knowledge.
+He had again to be the <i>homo poeticus</i> or <i>rhetoricus</i>. He writes
+polished letters full of mythology and modest mendicity. As a
+poet he had a reputation; as a poet he could expect support.
+Meanwhile the elevating picture of his theological activities
+remained present before his mind's eye. It nerves him to
+energy and perseverance. 'It is incredible', he writes to Batt,
+'how my soul yearns to finish all my works, at the same time
+becoming somewhat proficient in Greek, and afterwards to
+devote myself entirely to the sacred learning after which my
+soul has been hankering for a long time. I am in fairly good
+health, so I shall have to strain every nerve this year (1501) to
+get the work we gave the printer published, and by dealing
+with theological problems, to expose our cavillers, who are
+very numerous, as they deserve. If three more years of life are
+granted me, I shall be beyond the reach of envy.'</p>
+
+<p>Here we see him in a frame of mind to accomplish great
+things, though not merely under the impulse of true devotion.
+Already he sees the restoration of genuine divinity as his task;
+unfortunately the effusion is contained in a letter in which he
+instructs the faithful Batt as to how he should handle the Lady
+of Veere in order to wheedle money out of her.</p>
+
+<p>For years to come the efforts to make a living were to cause
+him almost constant tribulations and petty cares. He had had
+more than enough of France and desired nothing better than
+to leave it. Part of the year 1500 he spent at Orl&eacute;ans. Adversity
+made him narrow. There is the story of his relations with
+Augustine Vincent Caminade, a humanist of lesser rank (he
+ended as syndic of Middelburg), who took young men as
+lodgers. It is too long to detail here, but remarkable enough as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+revealing Erasmus's psychology, for it shows how deeply he
+mistrusted his friends. There are also his relations with
+Jacobus Voecht, in whose house he evidently lived gratuitously
+and for whom he managed to procure a rich lodger in the
+person of an illegitimate brother of the Bishop of Cambray.
+At this time, Erasmus asserts, the bishop (Antimaecenas he
+now calls him) set Standonck to dog him in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Much bitterness there is in the letters of this period. Erasmus
+is suspicious, irritable, exacting, sometimes rude in writing to
+his friends. He cannot bear William Hermans any longer
+because of his epicureanism and his lack of energy, to which
+he, Erasmus, certainly was a stranger. But what grieves us
+most is the way he speaks to honest Batt. He is highly praised,
+certainly. Erasmus promises to make him immortal, too. But
+how offended he is, when Batt cannot at once comply with his
+imperious demands. How almost shameless are his instructions
+as to what Batt is to tell the Lady of Veere, in order to solicit
+her favour for Erasmus. And how meagre the expressions of
+his sorrow, when the faithful Batt is taken from him by death
+in the first half of 1502.</p>
+
+<p>It is as if Erasmus had revenged himself on Batt for having
+been obliged to reveal himself to his true friend in need more
+completely than he cared to appear to anyone; or for having
+disavowed to Anna of Borselen his fundamental convictions,
+his most refined taste, for the sake of a meagre gratuity. He has
+paid homage to her in that ponderous Burgundian style with
+which dynasties in the Netherlands were familiar, and which
+must have been hateful to him. He has flattered her formal
+piety. 'I send you a few prayers, by means of which you could,
+as by incantations, call down, even against her will, from
+Heaven, so to say, not the moon, but her who gave birth to
+the sun of justice.'</p>
+
+<p>Did you smile your delicate smile, O author of the <i>Colloquies</i>,
+while writing this? So much the worse for you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Allen No. 103.17. Cf. <i>Chr. Matrim. inst.</i> LB. V. 678 and <i>Cent
+nouvelles</i> 2.63, 'ung baiser, dont les dames et demoiselles du dit pays
+d'Angleterre sont assez lib&eacute;rales de l'accorder'.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_v" id="chapter_v"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Significance of the <i>Adagia</i> and similar works of later years&mdash;Erasmus as a
+divulger of classical culture&mdash;Latin&mdash;Estrangement from Holland&mdash;Erasmus
+as a Netherlander</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Meanwhile renown came to Erasmus as the fruit of those
+literary studies which, as he said, had ceased to be dear to him.
+In 1500 that work appeared which Erasmus had written after
+his misfortune at Dover, and had dedicated to Mountjoy, the
+<i>Adagiorum Collectanea</i>. It was a collection of about eight
+hundred proverbial sayings drawn from the Latin authors of
+antiquity and elucidated for the use of those who aspired to
+write an elegant Latin style. In the dedication Erasmus pointed
+out the profit an author may derive, both in ornamenting his
+style and in strengthening his argumentation, from having at
+his disposal a good supply of sentences hallowed by their
+antiquity. He proposes to offer such a help to his readers.
+What he actually gave was much more. He familiarized a much
+wider circle than the earlier humanists had reached with the
+spirit of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Until this time the humanists had, to some extent, monopolized
+the treasures of classic culture, in order to parade their
+knowledge of which the multitude remained destitute, and so
+to become strange prodigies of learning and elegance. With
+his irresistible need of teaching and his sincere love for
+humanity and its general culture, Erasmus introduced the
+classic spirit, in so far as it could be reflected in the soul of a
+sixteenth-century Christian, among the people. Not he alone;
+but none more extensively and more effectively. Not among
+all the people, it is true, for by writing in Latin he limited his
+direct influence to the educated classes, which in those days
+were the upper classes.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus made current the classic spirit. Humanism ceased
+to be the exclusive privilege of a few. According to Beatus
+Rhenanus he had been reproached by some humanists, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+about to publish the <i>Adagia</i>, for divulging the mysteries of
+their craft. But he desired that the book of antiquity should
+be open to all.</p>
+
+<p>The literary and educational works of Erasmus, the chief of
+which were begun in his Parisian period, though most of them
+appeared much later, have, in truth, brought about a transmutation
+of the general modes of expression and of argumentation.
+It should be repeated over and over again that this was
+not achieved by him single-handed; countless others at that
+time were similarly engaged. But we have only to cast an eye
+on the broad current of editions of the <i>Adagia</i>, of the <i>Colloquia</i>,
+etc., to realize of how much greater consequence he was in
+this respect than all the others. 'Erasmus' is the only name in
+all the host of humanists which has remained a household
+word all over the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Here we will anticipate the course of Erasmus's life for a
+moment, to enumerate the principal works of this sort. Some
+years later the <i>Adagia</i> increased from hundreds to thousands,
+through which not only Latin, but also Greek, wisdom spoke.
+In 1514 he published in the same manner a collection of
+similitudes, <i>Parabolae</i>. It was a partial realization of what he
+had conceived to supplement the <i>Adagia</i>&mdash;metaphors, saws,
+allusions, poetical and scriptural allegories, all to be dealt with
+in a similar way. Towards the end of his life he published a
+similar thesaurus of the witty anecdotes and the striking words
+or deeds of wisdom of antiquity, the <i>Apophthegmata</i>. In addition
+to these collections, we find manuals of a more grammatical
+nature, also piled up treasury-like: 'On the stock of
+expressions', <i>De copia verborum et rerum</i>, 'On letter-writing',
+<i>De conscribendis epistolis</i>, not to mention works of less importance.
+By a number of Latin translations of Greek authors
+Erasmus had rendered a point of prospect accessible to those
+who did not wish to climb the whole mountain. And, finally,
+as inimitable models of the manner in which to apply all
+that knowledge, there were the <i>Colloquia</i> and that almost
+countless multitude of letters which have flowed from
+Erasmus's pen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All this collectively made up antiquity (in such quantity and
+quality as it was obtainable in the sixteenth century) exhibited
+in an emporium where it might be had at retail. Each
+student could get what was to his taste; everything was to be
+had there in a great variety of designs. 'You may read my
+<i>Adagia</i> in such a manner', says Erasmus (of the later augmented
+edition), 'that as soon as you have finished one, you
+may imagine you have finished the whole book.' He himself
+made indices to facilitate its use.</p>
+
+<p>In the world of scholasticism he alone had up to now been
+considered an authority who had mastered the technicalities
+of its system of thought and its mode of expression in all its
+details and was versed in biblical knowledge, logic and philosophy.
+Between scholastic parlance and the spontaneously
+written popular languages, there yawned a wide gulf. Humanism
+since Petrarch had substituted for the rigidly syllogistic
+structure of an argument the loose style of the antique, free,
+suggestive phrase. In this way the language of the learned
+approached the natural manner of expression of daily life and
+raised the popular languages, even where it continued to use
+Latin, to its own level.</p>
+
+<p>The wealth of subject-matter was found with no one in
+greater abundance than with Erasmus. What knowledge of
+life, what ethics, all supported by the indisputable authority of
+the Ancients, all expressed in that fine, airy form for which he
+was admired. And such knowledge of antiquities in addition
+to all this! Illimitable was the craving for and illimitable the
+power to absorb what is extraordinary in real life. This was
+one of the principal characteristics of the spirit of the Renaissance.
+These minds never had their desired share of striking
+incidents, curious details, rarities and anomalies. There was, as
+yet, no symptom of that mental dyspepsia of later periods,
+which can no longer digest reality and relishes it no more.
+Men revelled in plenty.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, were not Erasmus and his fellow-workers as
+leaders of civilization on a wrong track? Was it true reality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+they were aiming at? Was their proud Latinity not a fatal
+error? There is one of the crucial points of history.</p>
+
+<p>A present-day reader who should take up the <i>Adagia</i> or the
+<i>Apophthegmata</i> with a view to enriching his own life (for they
+were meant for this purpose and it is what gave them value),
+would soon ask himself: 'What matter to us, apart from strictly
+philological or historical considerations, those endless details
+concerning obscure personages of antique society, of Phrygians,
+of Thessalians? They are nothing to me.' And&mdash;he will
+continue&mdash;they really mattered nothing to Erasmus's contemporaries
+either. The stupendous history of the sixteenth
+century was not enacted in classic phrases or turns; it was not
+based on classic interests or views of life. There were no
+Phrygians and Thessalians, no Agesilauses or Dionysiuses. The
+humanists created out of all this a mental realm, emancipated
+from the limitations of time.</p>
+
+<p>And did their own times pass without being influenced by
+them? That is the question, and we shall not attempt to answer
+it: to what extent did humanism influence the course of events?</p>
+
+<p>In any case Erasmus and his coadjutors greatly heightened
+the international character of civilization which had existed
+throughout the Middle Ages because of Latin and of the
+Church. If they thought they were really making Latin a
+vehicle for daily international use, they overrated their power.
+It was, no doubt, an amusing fancy and a witty exercise to
+plan, in such an international <i>milieu</i> as the Parisian student
+world, such models of sports and games in Latin as the <i>Colloquiorum
+formulae</i> offered. But can Erasmus have seriously
+thought that the next generation would play at marbles in
+Latin?</p>
+
+<p>Still, intellectual intercourse undoubtedly became very
+easy in so wide a circle as had not been within reach in Europe
+since the fall of the Roman Empire. Henceforth it was no
+longer the clergy alone, and an occasional literate, but a
+numerous multitude of sons of burghers and nobles, qualifying
+for some magisterial office, who passed through a
+grammar-school and found Erasmus in their path.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Erasmus could not have attained to his world-wide celebrity
+if it had not been for Latin. To make his native tongue a universal
+language was beyond him. It may well puzzle a fellow-countryman
+of Erasmus to guess what a talent like his, with
+his power of observation, his delicacy of expression, his gusto
+and wealth, might have meant to Dutch literature. Just imagine
+the <i>Colloquia</i> written in the racy Dutch of the sixteenth
+century! What could he not have produced if, instead of gleaning
+and commenting upon classic Adagia, he had, for his
+themes, availed himself of the proverbs of the vernacular?
+To us such a proverb is perhaps even more sapid than the
+sometimes slightly finical turns praised by Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, is to reason unhistorically; this was not what
+the times required and what Erasmus could give. It is quite
+clear why Erasmus could only write in Latin. Moreover, in
+the vernacular everything would have appeared too direct,
+too personal, too real, for his taste. He could not do without
+that thin veil of vagueness, of remoteness, in which everything
+is wrapped when expressed in Latin. His fastidious mind would
+have shrunk from the pithy coarseness of a Rabelais, or the
+rustic violence of Luther's German.</p>
+
+<p>Estrangement from his native tongue had begun for Erasmus
+as early as the days when he learned reading and writing.
+Estrangement from the land of his birth set in when he left the
+monastery of Steyn. It was furthered not a little by the ease
+with which he handled Latin. Erasmus, who could express
+himself as well in Latin as in his mother tongue, and even
+better, consequently lacked the experience of, after all, feeling
+thoroughly at home and of being able to express himself fully,
+only among his compatriots. There was, however, another
+psychological influence which acted to alienate him from
+Holland. After he had seen at Paris the perspectives of his own
+capacities, he became confirmed in the conviction that
+Holland failed to appreciate him, that it distrusted and slandered
+him. Perhaps there was indeed some ground for this
+conviction. But, partly, it was also a reaction of injured self-love.
+In Holland people knew too much about him. They had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+seen him in his smallnesses and feebleness. There he had been
+obliged to obey others&mdash;he who, above all things, wanted to
+be free. Distaste of the narrow-mindedness, the coarseness and
+intemperance which he knew to prevail there, were summed
+up, within him, in a general condemnatory judgement of the
+Dutch character.</p>
+
+<p>Henceforth he spoke as a rule about Holland with a sort of
+apologetic contempt. 'I see that you are content with Dutch
+fame,' he writes to his old friend William Hermans, who like
+Cornelius Aurelius had begun to devote his best forces to the
+history of his native country. 'In Holland the air is good for
+me,' he writes elsewhere, 'but the extravagant carousals annoy
+me; add to this the vulgar uncultured character of the people,
+the violent contempt of study, no fruit of learning, the most
+egregious envy.' And excusing the imperfection of his juvenilia,
+he says: 'At that time I wrote not for Italians, but for
+Hollanders, that is to say, for the dullest ears'. And, in another
+place, 'eloquence is demanded from a Dutchman, that is, from
+a more hopeless person than a B[oe]otian'. And again, 'If the
+story is not very witty, remember it is a Dutch story'. No
+doubt, false modesty had its share in such sayings.</p>
+
+<p>After 1496 he visited Holland only on hasty journeys. There
+is no evidence that after 1501 he ever set foot on Dutch soil.
+He dissuaded his own compatriots abroad from returning to
+Holland.</p>
+
+<p>Still, now and again, a cordial feeling of sympathy for his
+native country stirred within him. Just where he would have
+had an opportunity, in explaining Martial's <i>Auris Batava</i> in the
+<i>Adagia</i>, for venting his spleen, he availed himself of the chance
+of writing an eloquent panegyric on what was dearest to him
+in Holland, 'a country that I am always bound to honour and
+revere, as that which gave me birth. Would I might be a
+credit to it, just as, on the other hand, I need not be ashamed
+of it.' Their reputed boorishness rather redounds to their
+honour. 'If a "Batavian ear" means a horror of Martial's
+obscene jokes, I could wish that all Christians might have
+Dutch ears. When we consider their morals, no nation is more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+inclined to humanity and benevolence, less savage or cruel.
+Their mind is upright and void of cunning and all humbug.
+If they are somewhat sensual and excessive at meals, it results
+partly from their plentiful supply: nowhere is import so easy
+and fertility so great. What an extent of lush meadows, how
+many navigable rivers! Nowhere are so many towns crowded
+together within so small an area; not large towns, indeed, but
+excellently governed. Their cleanliness is praised by everybody.
+Nowhere are such large numbers of moderately learned
+persons found, though extraordinary and exquisite erudition
+is rather rare.'</p>
+
+<p>They were Erasmus's own most cherished ideals which he
+here ascribes to his compatriots&mdash;gentleness, sincerity, simplicity,
+purity. He sounds that note of love for Holland on
+other occasions. When speaking of lazy women, he adds: 'In
+France there are large numbers of them, but in Holland we
+find countless wives who by their industry support their idling
+and revelling husbands'. And in the colloquy entitled 'The
+Shipwreck', the people who charitably take in the castaways
+are Hollanders. 'There is no more humane people than this,
+though surrounded by violent nations.'</p>
+
+<p>In addressing English readers it is perhaps not superfluous
+to point out once again that Erasmus when speaking of
+Holland, or using the epithet 'Batavian', refers to the county
+of Holland, which at present forms the provinces of North
+and South Holland of the kingdom of the Netherlands, and
+stretches from the Wadden islands to the estuaries of the
+Meuse. Even the nearest neighbours, such as Zealanders and
+Frisians, are not included in this appellation.</p>
+
+<p>But it is a different matter when Erasmus speaks of <i>patria</i>,
+the fatherland, or of <i>nostras</i>, a compatriot. In those days a
+national consciousness was just budding all over the Netherlands.
+A man still felt himself a Hollander, a Frisian, a Fleming,
+a Brabantine in the first place; but the community of language
+and customs, and still more the strong political influence which
+for nearly a century had been exercised by the Burgundian
+dynasty, which had united most of these low countries under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+its sway, had cemented a feeling of solidarity which did not
+even halt at the linguistic frontier in Belgium. It was still
+rather a strong Burgundian patriotism (even after Habsburg
+had <i>de facto</i> occupied the place of Burgundy) than a strictly
+Netherlandish feeling of nationality. People liked, by using
+a heraldic symbol, to designate the Netherlander as 'the
+Lions'. Erasmus, too, employs the term. In his works we
+gradually see the narrower Hollandish patriotism gliding into
+the Burgundian Netherlandish. In the beginning, <i>patria</i> with
+him still means Holland proper, but soon it meant the Netherlands.
+It is curious to trace how by degrees his feelings regarding
+Holland, made up of disgust and attachment, are transferred
+to the Low Countries in general. 'In my youth', he says
+in 1535, repeating himself, 'I did not write for Italians but
+for Hollanders, the people of Brabant and Flemings.' So they
+now all share the reputation of bluntness. To Louvain is applied
+what formerly was said of Holland: there are too many compotations;
+nothing can be done without a drinking bout. Nowhere,
+he repeatedly complains, is there so little sense of the
+<i>bonae literae</i>, nowhere is study so despised as in the Netherlands,
+and nowhere are there more cavillers and slanderers.
+But also his affection has expanded. When Longolius of
+Brabant plays the Frenchman, Erasmus is vexed: 'I devoted
+nearly three days to Longolius; he was uncommonly pleasing,
+except only that he is too French, whereas it is well known
+that he is one of us'.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> When Charles V has obtained the crown
+of Spain, Erasmus notes: 'a singular stroke of luck, but I pray
+that it may also prove a blessing to the fatherland, and not only
+to the prince'. When his strength was beginning to fail he
+began to think more and more of returning to his native
+country. 'King Ferdinand invites me, with large promises, to
+come to Vienna,' he writes from Basle, 1 October 1528, 'but
+nowhere would it please me better to rest than in Brabant.'</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/plate-v.png">
+<img src="images/plate-v-th.png" width="300" height="379" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate V. Doodles by Erasmus in the margin of one of his manuscripts.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-vi.png">
+<img src="images/plate-vi-th.png" width="250" height="293" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate VI. A manuscript page of Erasmus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Allen No. 1026.4, cf. 914, intr. p. 473. Later Erasmus was made to
+believe that Longolius was a Hollander, cf. LBE. 1507 A.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_vi" id="chapter_vi"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS</h3>
+
+<h3>1501</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>At Tournehem: 1501&mdash;The restoration of theology now the aim of his
+life&mdash;He learns Greek&mdash;John Vitrier&mdash;<i>Enchiridion Militis Christiani</i></p></div>
+
+
+<p>The lean years continued with Erasmus. His livelihood remained
+uncertain, and he had no fixed abode. It is remarkable
+that, in spite of his precarious means of support, his movements
+were ever guided rather by the care for his health than for his
+sustenance, and his studies rather by his burning desire to
+penetrate to the purest sources of knowledge than by his
+advantage. Repeatedly the fear of the plague drives him on:
+in 1500 from Paris to Orl&eacute;ans, where he first lodges with
+Augustine Caminade; but when one of the latter's boarders
+falls ill, Erasmus moves. Perhaps it was the impressions dating
+from his youth at Deventer that made him so excessively
+afraid of the plague, which in those days raged practically
+without intermission. Faustus Andrelinus sent a servant to
+upbraid him in his name with cowardice: 'That would be an
+intolerable insult', Erasmus answers, 'if I were a Swiss soldier,
+but a poet's soul, loving peace and shady places, is proof against
+it'. In the spring of 1501 he leaves Paris once more for fear of
+the plague: 'the frequent burials frighten me', he writes to
+Augustine.</p>
+
+<p>He travelled first to Holland, where, at Steyn, he obtained
+leave to spend another year outside the monastery, for the sake
+of study; his friends would be ashamed if he returned, after
+so many years of study, without having acquired some
+authority. At Haarlem he visited his friend William Hermans,
+then turned to the south, once again to pay his respects to the
+Bishop of Cambray, probably at Brussels. Thence he went to
+Veere, but found no opportunity to talk to his patroness. In
+July 1501, he subsided into quietness at the castle of Tournehem
+with his faithful friend Batt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In all his comings and goings he does not for a moment lose
+sight of his ideals of study. Since his return from England he is
+mastered by two desires: to edit Jerome, the great Father of
+the Church, and, especially, to learn Greek thoroughly. 'You
+understand how much all this matters to my fame, nay, to my
+preservation,' he writes (from Orl&eacute;ans towards the end of
+1500) to Batt. But, indeed, had Erasmus been an ordinary
+fame and success hunter he might have had recourse to plenty
+of other expedients. It was the ardent desire to penetrate to the
+source and to make others understand that impelled him, even
+when he availed himself of these projects of study to raise a
+little money. 'Listen,' he writes to Batt, 'to what more I desire
+from you. You must wrest a gift from the abbot (of Saint
+Bertin). You know the man's disposition; invent some modest
+and plausible reason for begging. Tell him that I purpose
+something grand, viz., to restore the whole of Jerome, however
+comprehensive he may be, and spoiled, mutilated, entangled
+by the ignorance of divines; and to re-insert the Greek
+passages. I venture to say, I shall be able to lay open the antiquities
+and the style of Jerome, understood by no one as yet.
+Tell him that I shall want not a few books for the purpose, and
+moreover the help of Greeks, and that therefore I require
+support. In saying this, Battus, you will be telling no lies. For
+I really mean to do all this.'</p>
+
+<p>He was, indeed, in a serious mood on this point, as he was
+soon to prove to the world. His conquest of Greek was a
+veritable feat of heroism. He had learned the simplest rudiments
+at Deventer, but these evidently amounted to very
+little. In March, 1500, he writes to Batt: 'Greek is nearly killing
+me, but I have no time and I have no money to buy books
+or to take a master'. When Augustine Caminade wants his
+Homer back which he had lent to him, Erasmus complains:
+'You deprive me of my sole consolation in my tedium. For I
+so burn with love for this author, though I cannot understand
+him, that I feast my eyes and re-create my mind by looking at
+him.' Was Erasmus aware that in saying this he almost literally
+reproduced feelings which Petrarch had expressed a hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+and fifty years before? But he had already begun to study.
+Whether he had a master is not quite clear, but it is probable.
+He finds the language difficult at first. Then gradually he ventures
+to call himself 'a candidate in this language', and he
+begins with more confidence to scatter Greek quotations
+through his letters. It occupies him night and day and he urges
+all his friends to procure Greek books for him. In the autumn
+of 1502 he declares that he can properly write all he wants in
+Greek, and that extempore. He was not deceived in his expectation
+that Greek would open his eyes to the right understanding
+of Holy Scripture. Three years of nearly uninterrupted study
+amply rewarded him for his trouble. Hebrew, which he had
+also taken up, he abandoned. At that time (1504) he made
+translations from the Greek, he employed it critically in his
+theological studies, he taught it, amongst others, to William
+Cop, the French physician-humanist. A few years later he
+was to find little in Italy to improve his proficiency in Greek;
+he was afterwards inclined to believe that he carried more of
+the two ancient languages to that country than he brought back.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing testifies more to the enthusiasm with which
+Erasmus applied himself to Greek than his zeal to make his
+best friends share in its blessings. Batt, he decided, should learn
+Greek. But Batt had no time, and Latin appealed more to him.
+When Erasmus goes to Haarlem to visit William Hermans, it
+is to make him a Greek scholar too; he has brought a handbag
+full of books. But he had only his trouble for his pains.
+William did not take at all kindly to this study and Erasmus
+was so disappointed that he not only considered his money and
+trouble thrown away, but also thought he had lost a friend.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he was still undecided where he should go in the
+near future. To England, to Italy, or back to Paris? In the end
+he made a fairly long stay as a guest, from the autumn of 1501
+till the following summer, first at Saint Omer, with the prior
+of Saint Bertin, and afterwards at the castle of Courtebourne,
+not far off.</p>
+
+<p>At Saint Omer, Erasmus became acquainted with a man
+whose image he was afterwards to place beside that of Colet as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+that of a true divine, and of a good monk at the same time:
+Jean Vitrier, the warden of the Franciscan monastery at Saint
+Omer. Erasmus must have felt attracted to a man who was
+burdened with a condemnation pronounced by the Sorbonne
+on account of his too frank expressions regarding the abuses
+of monastic life. Vitrier had not given up the life on that
+account, but he devoted himself to reforming monasteries and
+convents. Having progressed from scholasticism to Saint Paul,
+he had formed a very liberal conception of Christian life,
+strongly opposed to practices and ceremonies. This man,
+without doubt, considerably influenced the origin of one of
+Erasmus's most celebrated and influential works, the <i>Enchiridion
+militis Christiani</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus himself afterwards confessed that the <i>Enchiridion</i>
+was born by chance. He did not reflect that some outward
+circumstance is often made to serve an inward impulse. The
+outward circumstance was that the castle of Tournehem was
+frequented by a soldier, a friend of Batt, a man of very dissolute
+conduct, who behaved very badly towards his pious wife,
+and who was, moreover, an uncultured and violent hater of
+priests.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> For the rest he was of a kindly disposition and excepted
+Erasmus from his hatred of divines. The wife used her
+influence with Batt to get Erasmus to write something which
+might bring her husband to take an interest in religion. Erasmus
+complied with the request and Jean Vitrier concurred so
+cordially with the views expressed in these notes that Erasmus
+afterwards elaborated them at Louvain; in 1504 they were
+published at Antwerp by Dirck Maertensz.</p>
+
+<p>This is the outward genesis of the <i>Enchiridion</i>. But the inward
+cause was that sooner or later Erasmus was bound to
+formulate his attitude towards the religious conduct of the
+life of his day and towards ceremonial and soulless conceptions
+of Christian duty, which were an eyesore to him.</p>
+
+<p>In point of form the <i>Enchiridion</i> is a manual for an illiterate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+soldier to attain to an attitude of mind worthy of Christ; as
+with a finger he will point out to him the shortest path to
+Christ. He assumes the friend to be weary of life at court&mdash;a
+common theme of contemporary literature. Only for a few
+days does Erasmus interrupt the work of his life, the purification
+of theology, to comply with his friend's request for
+instruction. To keep up a soldierly style he chooses the title,
+<i>Enchiridion</i>, the Greek word that even in antiquity meant both
+a poniard and a manual:<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 'The poniard of the militant Christian'.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+He reminds him of the duty of watchfulness and enumerates
+the weapons of Christ's militia. Self-knowledge is the
+beginning of wisdom. The general rules of the Christian
+conduct of life are followed by a number of remedies for
+particular sins and faults.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the outward frame. But within this scope Erasmus
+finds an opportunity, for the first time, to develop his theological
+programme. This programme calls upon us to return
+to Scripture. It should be the endeavour of every Christian to
+understand Scripture in its purity and original meaning. To
+that end he should prepare himself by the study of the
+Ancients, orators, poets, philosophers; Plato especially. Also
+the great Fathers of the Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine
+will be found useful, but not the large crowd of subsequent
+exegetists. The argument chiefly aims at subverting the conception
+of religion as a continual observance of ceremonies.
+This is Judaic ritualism and of no value. It is better to understand
+a single verse of the psalms well, by this means to deepen
+one's understanding of God and of oneself, and to draw a
+moral and line of conduct from it, than to read the whole
+psalter without attention. If the ceremonies do not renew the
+soul they are valueless and hurtful. 'Many are wont to count<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+how many masses they have heard every day, and referring to
+them as to something very important, as though they owed
+Christ nothing else, they return to their former habits after
+leaving church.' 'Perhaps you sacrifice every day and yet you
+live for yourself. You worship the saints, you like to touch
+their relics; do you want to earn Peter and Paul? Then copy
+the faith of the one and the charity of the other and you will
+have done more than if you had walked to Rome ten times.'
+He does not reject formulae and practices; he does not want to
+shake the faith of the humble but he cannot suffer that Christ
+is offered a cult made up of practices only. And why is it the
+monks, above all, who contribute to the deterioration of
+faith? 'I am ashamed to tell how superstitiously most of them
+observe certain petty ceremonies, invented by puny human
+minds (and not even for this purpose), how hatefully they
+want to force others to conform to them, how implicitly they
+trust them, how boldly they condemn others.'</p>
+
+<p>Let Paul teach them true Christianity. 'Stand fast therefore
+in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
+entangled again with the yoke of bondage.' This word to the
+Galatians contains the doctrine of Christian liberty, which
+soon at the Reformation was to resound so loudly. Erasmus
+did not apply it here in a sense derogatory to the dogmatics of
+the Catholic Church; but still it is a fact that the <i>Enchiridion</i>
+prepared many minds to give up much that he still wanted to
+keep.</p>
+
+<p>The note of the <i>Enchiridion</i> is already what was to remain
+the note of Erasmus's life-work: how revolting it is that in this
+world the substance and the shadow differ so and that the
+world reverences those whom it should not reverence; that a
+hedge of infatuation, routine and thoughtlessness prevents
+mankind from seeing things in their true proportions. He
+expresses it later in the <i>Praise of Folly</i> and in the <i>Colloquies</i>.
+It is not merely religious feeling, it is equally social feeling that
+inspired him. Under the heading: Opinions worthy of a
+Christian, he laments the extremes of pride of class, national
+hostility, professional envy, and rivalry between religious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+orders, which keep men apart. Let everybody sincerely concern
+himself about his brother. 'Throwing dice cost you a
+thousand gold pieces in one night, and meanwhile some
+wretched girl, compelled by poverty, sold her modesty; and a
+soul is lost for which Christ gave his own. You say, what is
+that to me? I mind my own business, according to my lights.
+And yet you, holding such opinions, consider yourself a Christian,
+who are not even a man!'</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Enchiridion</i> of the militant Christian, Erasmus had for
+the first time said the things which he had most at heart, with
+fervour and indignation, with sincerity and courage. And yet
+one would hardly say that this booklet was born of an irresistible
+impulse of ardent piety. Erasmus treats it, as we have
+seen, as a trifle, composed at the request of a friend in a couple
+of days stolen from his studies (though, strictly speaking, this
+only holds good of the first draft, which he elaborated afterwards).
+The chief object of his studies he had already conceived
+to be the restoration of theology. One day he will
+expound Paul, 'that the slanderers who consider it the height
+of piety to know nothing of <i>bonae literae</i>, may understand that
+we in our youth embraced the cultured literature of the
+Ancients, and that we acquired a correct knowledge of the
+two languages, Greek and Latin&mdash;not without many vigils&mdash;not
+for the purpose of vainglory or childish satisfaction, but
+because, long before, we premeditated adorning the temple of
+the Lord (which some have too much desecrated by their
+ignorance and barbarism) according to our strength, with
+help from foreign parts, so that also in noble minds the love of
+Holy Scripture may be kindled'. Is it not still the Humanist
+who speaks?</p>
+
+<p>We hear, moreover, the note of personal justification. It is
+sounded also in a letter to Colet written towards the close of
+1504, accompanying the edition of the <i>Lucubrationes</i> in which
+the <i>Enchiridion</i> was first published. 'I did not write the
+<i>Enchiridion</i> to parade my invention or eloquence, but only
+that I might correct the error of those whose religion is usually
+composed of more than Judaic ceremonies and observances of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+a material sort, and who neglect the things that conduce to
+piety.' He adds, and this is typically humanistic, 'I have tried
+to give the reader a sort of art of piety, as others have written
+the theory of certain sciences'.</p>
+
+<p>The art of piety! Erasmus might have been surprised had he
+known that another treatise, written more than sixty years
+before, by another canon of the Low Countries would continue
+to appeal much longer and much more urgently to the
+world than his manual: the <i>Imitatio Christi</i> by Thomas &agrave;
+Kempis.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Enchiridion</i>, collected with some other pieces into a
+volume of <i>Lucubrationes</i>, did not meet with such a great and
+speedy success as had been bestowed upon the <i>Adagia</i>. That
+Erasmus's speculations on true piety were considered too bold
+was certainly not the cause. They contained nothing antagonistic
+to the teachings of the Church, so that even at the
+time of the Counter-Reformation, when the Church had
+become highly suspicious of everything that Erasmus had
+written, the divines who drew up the <i>index expurgatorius</i> of
+his work found only a few passages in the <i>Enchiridion</i> to expunge.
+Moreover, Erasmus had inserted in the volume some
+writings of unsuspected Catholic tenor. For a long time it was
+in great repute, especially with theologians and monks. A
+famous preacher at Antwerp used to say that a sermon might
+be found in every page of the <i>Enchiridion</i>. But the book only
+obtained its great influence in wide cultured circles when,
+upheld by Erasmus's world-wide reputation, it was available
+in a number of translations, English, Czech, German, Dutch,
+Spanish, and French. But then it began to fall under suspicion,
+for that was the time when Luther had unchained the great
+struggle. 'Now they have begun to nibble at the <i>Enchiridion</i>
+also, that used to be so popular with divines,' Erasmus writes
+in 1526. For the rest it was only two passages to which the
+orthodox critics objected.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> That this man should have been John of Trazegnies as Allen thinks
+possible and Renaudet accepts, is still all too uncertain; A. 164 t. I. p.
+373; Renaudet, Pr&eacute;r&eacute;forme 428.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> In 1500 (A. 123.21) Erasmus speaks of the <i>Enchiridion</i> of the Father
+Augustine, cf. 135, 138; in 1501, A. 152.33, he calls the <i>Officia</i> of Cicero
+a 'pugiunculus'&mdash;a dagger. So the appellation had been in his mind for
+some time.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Miles</i> with Erasmus has no longer the meaning of 'knight' which it
+had in medieval Latin.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_vii" id="chapter_vii"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>YEARS OF TROUBLE&mdash;LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND</h3>
+
+<h3>1502-6</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Death of Batt: 1502&mdash;First stay at Louvain: 1502-4&mdash;Translations from the
+Greek&mdash;At Paris again&mdash;Valla's <i>Annotationes</i> on the New Testament&mdash;Second
+stay in England: 1505-6&mdash;More patrons and friends&mdash;Departure for
+Italy: 1506&mdash;<i>Carmen Alpestre</i></p></div>
+
+
+<p>Circumstances continued to remain unfavourable for
+Erasmus. 'This year fortune has truly been raging violently
+against me,' he writes in the autumn of 1502. In the spring his
+good friend Batt had died. It is a pity that no letters written by
+Erasmus directly after his bereavement have come down to us.
+We should be glad to have for that faithful helper a monument
+in addition to that which Erasmus erected to his memory
+in the <i>Antibarbari</i>. Anna of Veere had remarried and, as a
+patroness, might henceforth be left out of account. In October
+1502, Henry of Bergen passed away. 'I have commemorated
+the Bishop of Cambray in three Latin epitaphs and a Greek
+one; they sent me but six guilders, that also in death he should
+remain true to himself.' In Francis of Busleiden, Archbishop of
+Besan&ccedil;on, he lost at about the same time a prospective new
+patron. He still felt shut out from Paris, Cologne and England
+by the danger of the plague.</p>
+
+<p>In the late summer of 1502 he went to Louvain, 'flung
+thither by the plague,' he says. The university of Louvain,
+established in 1425 to wean the Netherlands in spiritual
+matters from Paris, was, at the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, one of the strongholds of theological tradition, which,
+however, did not prevent the progress of classical studies. How
+else should Adrian of Utrecht, later pope but at that time Dean
+of Saint Peter's and professor of theology, have forthwith
+undertaken to get him a professorship? Erasmus declined the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+offer, however, 'for certain reasons,' he says. Considering his
+great distress, the reasons must have been cogent indeed. One
+of them which he mentioned is not very clear to us: 'I am here
+so near to Dutch tongues which know how to hurt much, it is
+true, but have not learned to profit any one'. His spirit of
+liberty and his ardent love of the studies to which he wanted
+to devote himself entirely, were, no doubt, his chief reasons
+for declining.</p>
+
+<p>But he had to make a living. Life at Louvain was expensive
+and he had no regular earnings. He wrote some prefaces and
+dedicated to the Bishop of Arras, Chancellor of the University,
+the first translation from the Greek: some <i>Declamationes</i> by
+Libanius. When in the autumn of 1503 Philip le Beau was
+expected back in the Netherlands from his journey to Spain
+Erasmus wrote, with sighs of distaste, a panegyric to celebrate
+the safe return of the prince. It cost him much trouble. 'It
+occupies me day and night,' says the man who composed with
+such incredible facility, when his heart was in the work.
+'What is harder than to write with aversion; what is more useless
+than to write something by which we unlearn good
+writing?' It must be acknowledged that he really flattered as
+sparingly as possible; the practice was so repulsive to him that
+in his preface he roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this
+whole class of composition was not to his taste.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of 1504 Erasmus was back at Paris, at last.
+Probably he had always meant to return and looked upon his
+stay at Louvain as a temporary exile. The circumstances under
+which he left Louvain are unknown to us, because of the
+almost total lack of letters of the year 1504. In any case, he
+hoped that at Paris he would sooner be able to attain his great
+end of devoting himself entirely to the study of theology. 'I
+cannot tell you, dear Colet,' he writes towards the end of
+1504, 'how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature; how
+I dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me. But the
+disfavour of Fortune, who always looks at me with the same
+face, has been the reason why I have not been able to get clear
+of those vexations. So I returned to France with the purpose,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+if I cannot solve them, at any rate of ridding myself of them in
+one way or another. After that I shall devote myself, with all
+my heart, to the <i>divinae literae</i>, to give up the remainder of my
+life to them.' If only he can find the means to work for some
+months entirely for himself and disentangle himself from profane
+literature. Can Colet not find out for him how matters
+stand with regard to the proceeds of the hundred copies of the
+<i>Adagia</i> which, at one time, he sent to England at his own
+expense? The liberty of a few months may be bought for little
+money.</p>
+
+<p>There is something heroic in Erasmus scorning to make
+money out of his facile talents and enviable knowledge of the
+humanities, daring indigence so as to be able to realize his
+shining ideal of restoring theology.</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable that the same Italian humanist who in his
+youth had been his guide and example on the road to pure
+Latinity and classic antiquity, Lorenzo Valla, by chance became
+his leader and an outpost in the field of critical theology.
+In the summer of 1504, hunting in the old library of the
+Premonstratensian monastery of Parc, near Louvain ('in no
+preserves is hunting a greater delight'), he found a manuscript
+of Valla's <i>Annotationes</i> on the New Testament. It was a
+collection of critical notes on the text of the Gospels, the
+Epistles and Revelation. That the text of the Vulgate was not
+stainless had been acknowledged by Rome itself as early as the
+thirteenth century. Monastic orders and individual divines had
+set themselves to correct it, but that purification had not
+amounted to much, in spite of Nicholas of Lyra's work in the
+fourteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>It was probably the falling in with Valla's <i>Annotationes</i> which
+led Erasmus, who was formerly more inspired with the resolution
+to edit Jerome and to comment upon Paul (he was to do
+both at a later date), to turn to the task of taking up the New
+Testament as a whole, in order to restore it in its purity. In
+March 1505 already Josse Badius at Paris printed Valla's
+<i>Annotationes</i> for Erasmus, as a sort of advertisement of what he
+himself one day hoped to achieve. It was a feat of courage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+Erasmus did not conceal from himself that Valla, the humanist,
+had an ill name with divines, and that there would be an outcry
+about 'the intolerable temerity of the <i>homo grammaticus</i>, who
+after having harassed all the <i>disciplinae</i>, did not scruple to assail
+holy literature with his petulant pen'. It was another programme
+much more explicit and defiant than the <i>Enchiridion</i> had been.</p>
+
+<p>Once more it is not clear why and how Erasmus left Paris
+again for England in the autumn of 1505. He speaks of serious
+reasons and the advice of sensible people. He mentions one
+reason: lack of money. The reprint of the <i>Adagia</i>, published by
+John Philippi at Paris in 1505, had probably helped him
+through, for the time being; the edition cannot have been to
+his taste, for he had been dissatisfied with his work and wanted
+to extend it by weaving his new Greek knowledge into it.
+From Holland a warning voice had sounded, the voice of his
+superior and friend Servatius, demanding an account of his
+departure from Paris. Evidently his Dutch friends had still no
+confidence in Erasmus, his work, and his future.</p>
+
+<p>In many respects that future appeared more favourable to
+him in England than it had seemed anywhere, thus far. There
+he found the old friends, men of consideration and importance:
+Mountjoy, with whom, on his arrival, he stayed some months,
+Colet, and More. There he found some excellent Greek
+scholars, whose conversation promised to be profitable and
+amusing; not Colet, who knew little Greek, but More,
+Linacre, Grocyn, Latimer, and Tunstall. He soon came in
+contact with some high ecclesiastics who were to be his
+friends and patrons: Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester,
+John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and William Warham,
+Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon he would also find a friend
+whose congenial spirit and interests, to some extent, made up
+for the loss of Batt: the Italian Andrew Ammonius, of Lucca.
+And lastly, the king promised him an ecclesiastical benefice. It
+was not long before Erasmus was armed with a dispensation
+from Pope Julius II, dated 4 January 1506, cancelling the
+obstacles in the way of accepting an English benefice.</p>
+
+<p>Translations from Greek into Latin were for him an easy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+and speedy means to obtain favour and support: a dialogue by
+Lucian, followed by others, for Foxe; the <i>Hecuba</i> and the
+<i>Iphigenia</i> of Euripides for Warham. He now also thought of
+publishing his letters.</p>
+
+<p>Clearly his relations with Holland were not yet satisfactory.
+Servatius did not reply to his letters. Erasmus ever felt hanging
+over him a menace to his career and his liberty embodied in
+the figure of that friend, to whom he was linked by so many
+silken ties, yonder in the monastery of Steyn, where his return
+was looked forward to, sooner or later, as a beacon-light of
+Christendom. Did the prior know of the papal dispensation
+exempting Erasmus from the 'statutes and customs of the
+monastery of Steyn in Holland, of the order of Saint Augustine?'
+Probably he did. On 1 April 1506, Erasmus writes to
+him: 'Here in London I am, it seems, greatly esteemed by
+the most eminent and erudite men of all England. The king
+has promised me a curacy: the visit of the prince necessitated
+a postponement of this business.'<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>He immediately adds: 'I am deliberating again how best to
+devote the remainder of my life (how much that will be, I do
+not know) entirely to piety, to Christ. I see life, even when it
+is long, as evanescent and dwindling; I know that I am of a
+delicate constitution and that my strength has been encroached
+upon, not a little, by study and also, somewhat, by misfortune.
+I see that no deliverance can be hoped from study,
+and that it seems as if we had to begin over again, day after
+day. Therefore I have resolved, content with my mediocrity
+(especially now that I have learned as much Greek as suffices
+me), to apply myself to meditation about death and the training
+of my soul. I should have done so before and have husbanded
+the precious years when they were at their best. But
+though it is a tardy husbandry that people practise when only
+little remains at the bottom, we should be the more economical
+accordingly as the quantity and quality of what is left
+diminishes.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Was it a fit of melancholy which made Erasmus write those
+words of repentance and renunciation? Was he surprised in
+the middle of the pursuit of his life's aim by the consciousness
+of the vanity of his endeavours, the consciousness, too, of a
+great fatigue? Is this the deepest foundation of Erasmus's being,
+which he reveals for a moment to his old and intimate friend?
+It may be doubted. The passage tallies very ill with the first
+sentences of the letter, which are altogether concerned with
+success and prospects. In a letter he wrote the next day, also
+to Gouda and to a trusted friend, there is no trace of the mood:
+he is again thinking of his future. We do not notice that the
+tremendous zeal with which he continues his studies is relaxed
+for a moment. And there are other indications that towards
+Servatius, who knew him better than he could wish, and who,
+moreover, as prior of Steyn, had a threatening power over
+him, he purposely demeaned himself as though he despised
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile nothing came of the English prebend. But suddenly
+the occasion offered to which Erasmus had so often
+looked forward: the journey to Italy. The court-physician of
+Henry VII, Giovanni Battista Boerio, of Genoa, was looking
+for a master to accompany his sons in their journey to the
+universities of Italy. Erasmus accepted the post, which charged
+him neither with the duties of tuition nor with attending to
+the young fellows, but only with supervising and guiding
+their studies. In the beginning of June 1506, he found himself
+on French soil once more. For two summer months the party
+of travellers stayed at Paris and Erasmus availed himself of the
+opportunity to have several of his works, which he had
+brought from England, printed at Paris. He was by now a
+well-known and favourite author, gladly welcomed by the
+old friends (he had been reputed dead) and made much of.
+Josse Badius printed all Erasmus offered him: the translations
+of Euripides and Lucian, a collection of <i>Epigrammata</i>, a new
+but still unaltered edition of the <i>Adagia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In August the journey was continued. As he rode on horseback
+along the Alpine roads the most important poem Erasmus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+has written, the echo of an abandoned pursuit, originated.
+He had been vexed about his travelling company, had abstained
+from conversing with them, and sought consolation in
+composing poetry. The result was the ode which he called
+<i>Carmen equestre vel potius alpestre</i>, about the inconveniences of
+old age, dedicated to his friend William Cop.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus was one of those who early feel old. He was not
+forty and yet fancied himself across the threshold of old age.
+How quickly it had come! He looks back on the course of his
+life: he sees himself playing with nuts as a child, as a boy eager
+for study, as a youth engrossed in poetry and scholasticism,
+also in painting. He surveys his enormous erudition, his study
+of Greek, his aspiration to scholarly fame. In the midst of all
+this, old age has suddenly come. What remains to him? And
+again we hear the note of renunciation of the world and of
+devotion to Christ. Farewell jests and trifles, farewell philosophy
+and poetry, a pure heart full of Christ is all he desires
+henceforward.</p>
+
+<p>Here, in the stillness of the Alpine landscape, there arose
+something more of Erasmus's deepest aspirations than in the
+lament to Servatius. But in this case, too, it is a stray element
+of his soul, not the strong impulse that gave direction and fullness
+to his life and with irresistible pressure urged him on to
+ever new studies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> A. 189, Philip le Beau, who had unexpectedly come to England
+because of a storm, which obliged Mountjoy to do court-service.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_viii" id="chapter_viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>IN ITALY</h3>
+
+<h3>1506-9</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus in Italy: 1506-9&mdash;He takes his degree at Turin&mdash;Bologna and
+Pope Julius II&mdash;Erasmus in Venice with Aldus: 1507-8&mdash;The art of
+printing&mdash;Alexander Stewart&mdash;To Rome: 1509&mdash;News of Henry VIII's
+accession&mdash;Erasmus leaves Italy</p></div>
+
+
+<p>At Turin Erasmus received, directly upon his arrival, on
+4 September 1506, the degree of doctor of theology. That he
+did not attach much value to the degree is easy to understand.
+He regarded it, however, as an official warrant of his competence
+as a writer on theological subjects, which would
+strengthen his position when assailed by the suspicion of
+his critics. He writes disdainfully about the title, even to his
+Dutch friends who in former days had helped him on in his
+studies for the express purpose of obtaining the doctor's
+degree. As early as 1501, to Anna of Borselen he writes, 'Go
+to Italy and obtain the doctor's degree? Foolish projects, both
+of them. But one should conform to the customs of the times.'
+Again to Servatius and Johannes Obrecht, half apologetically,
+he says: 'I have obtained the doctor's degree in theology, and
+that quite contrary to my intention, only because I was overcome
+by the prayers of friends.'</p>
+
+<p>Bologna was now the destination of his journey. But when
+Erasmus arrived there, a war was in progress which forced
+him to retire to Florence for a time. Pope Julius II, allied with
+the French, at the head of an army, marched on Bologna to
+conquer it from the Bentivogli. This purpose was soon
+attained, and Bologna was a safe place to return to. On
+11 November 1506, Erasmus witnessed the triumphal entry of
+the martial pope.</p>
+
+<p>Of these days nothing but short, hasty letters of his have
+come down to us. They speak of unrest and rumours of war.
+There is nothing to show that he was impressed by the beauty
+of the Italy of the Renaissance. The scanty correspondence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+dating from his stay in Italy mentions neither architecture, nor
+sculpture, nor pictures. When much later he happened to
+remember his visit to the Chartreuse of Pavia, it is only to give
+an instance of useless waste and magnificence. Books alone
+seemed to occupy and attract Erasmus in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>At Bologna, Erasmus served as a mentor to the young
+Boerios to the end of the year for which he had bound himself.
+It seemed a very long time to him. He could not stand
+any encroachment upon his liberty. He felt caught in the contract
+as in a net. The boys, it seems, were intelligent enough, if
+not so brilliant as Erasmus had seen them in his first joy; but
+with their private tutor Clyfton, whom he at first extolled to the
+sky, he was soon at loggerheads. At Bologna he experienced
+many vexations for which his new relations with Paul
+Bombasius could only in part indemnify him. He worked
+there at an enlarged edition of his <i>Adagia</i>, which now, by the
+addition of the Greek ones, increased from eight hundred to
+some thousands of items.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-vii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-vii-th.png" width="250" height="323" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate VII. Title-page of the <i>Adagia</i>, printed by Aldus Manutius in 1508</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a href="images/plate-viii-1.png">
+<img src="images/plate-viii-1-th.png" width="400" height="306" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a href="images/plate-viii-2.png">
+<img src="images/plate-viii-2-th.png" width="400" height="293" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate VIII. VIEW OF VENICE, 1493</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 336px;">
+<img src="images/plate-ix-1.png" width="336" height="324" alt="" title=""/>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 342px;">
+<img src="images/plate-ix-2.png" width="342" height="316" alt="" title=""/>
+</div>
+<p class="center">Plate IX. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS.
+On the reverse the Aldine emblem</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-x.png">
+<img src="images/plate-x-th.png" width="250" height="334" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate X. A page from the <i>Praise of Folly</i> with a drawing
+by Holbein of Erasmus at his desk.</p>
+
+<p>From Bologna, in October 1507, Erasmus addressed a letter
+to the famous Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius, in which he
+requested him to publish, anew, the two translated dramas of
+Euripides, as the edition of Badius was out of print and too
+defective for his taste. What made Aldus attractive in his eyes
+was, no doubt, besides the fame of the business, though it was
+languishing at the time, the printer's beautiful type&mdash;'those
+most magnificent letters, especially those very small ones'.
+Erasmus was one of those true book-lovers who pledge their
+heart to a type or a size of a book, not because of any artistic
+preference, but because of readableness and handiness, which
+to them are of the very greatest importance. What he asked of
+Aldus was a small book at a low price. Towards the end of the
+year their relations had gone so far that Erasmus gave up his
+projected journey to Rome, for the time, to remove to Venice,
+there personally to superintend the publication of his works.
+Now there was no longer merely the question of a little book
+of translations, but Aldus had declared himself willing to print
+the enormously increased collection of the <i>Adagia</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Beatus Rhenanus tells a story which, no doubt, he had heard
+from Erasmus himself: how Erasmus on his arrival at Venice
+had gone straight to the printing-office and was kept waiting
+there for a long time. Aldus was correcting proofs and thought
+his visitor was one of those inquisitive people by whom he
+used to be pestered. When he turned out to be Erasmus, he
+welcomed him cordially and procured him board and lodging
+in the house of his father-in-law, Andrea Asolani. Fully eight
+months did Erasmus live there, in the environment which, in
+future, was to be his true element: the printing-office. He was
+in a fever of hurried work, about which he would often sigh,
+but which, after all, was congenial to him. The augmented
+collection of the <i>Adagia</i> had not yet been made ready for the
+press at Bologna. 'With great temerity on my part,' Erasmus
+himself testifies, 'we began to work at the same time, I to
+write, Aldus to print.' Meanwhile the literary friends of the
+New Academy whom he got to know at Venice, Johannes
+Lascaris, Baptista Egnatius, Marcus Musurus and the young
+Jerome Aleander, with whom, at Asolani's, he shared room
+and bed, brought him new Greek authors, unprinted as yet,
+furnishing fresh material for augmenting the <i>Adagia</i>. These
+were no inconsiderable additions: Plato in the original,
+Plutarch's <i>Lives</i> and <i>Moralia</i>, Pindar, Pausanias, and others.
+Even people whom he did not know and who took an interest
+in his work, brought new material to him. Amid the noise of
+the press-room, Erasmus, to the surprise of his publisher, sat
+and wrote, usually from memory, so busily occupied that, as
+he picturesquely expressed it, he had no time to scratch his
+ears. He was lord and master of the printing-office. A special
+corrector had been assigned to him; he made his textual
+changes in the last impression. Aldus also read the proofs.
+'Why?' asked Erasmus. 'Because I am studying at the same
+time,' was the reply. Meanwhile Erasmus suffered from the
+first attack of his tormenting nephrolithic malady; he ascribed
+it to the food he got at Asolani's and later took revenge by
+painting that boarding-house and its landlord in very spiteful
+colours in the <i>Colloquies</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When in September 1508, the edition of the <i>Adagia</i> was
+ready, Aldus wanted Erasmus to remain in order to write more
+for him. Till December he continued to work at Venice on
+editions of Plautus, Terence, and Seneca's tragedies. Visions of
+joint labour to publish all that classic antiquity still held in the
+way of hidden treasures, together with Hebrew and Chaldean
+stores, floated before his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus belonged to the generation which had grown up
+together with the youthful art of printing. To the world of
+those days it was still like a newly acquired organ; people felt
+rich, powerful, happy in the possession of this 'almost divine
+implement'. The figure of Erasmus and his <i>[oe]uvre</i> were only
+rendered possible by the art of printing. He was its glorious
+triumph and, equally, in a sense, its victim. What would
+Erasmus have been without the printing-press? To broadcast
+the ancient documents, to purify and restore them was his life's
+passion. The certainty that the printed book places exactly the
+same text in the hands of thousands of readers, was to him a
+consolation that former generations had lacked.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus is one of the first who, after his name as an author
+was established, worked directly and continually for the press.
+It was his strength, but also his weakness. It enabled him to
+exercise an immediate influence on the reading public of Europe
+such as had emanated from none before him; to become
+a focus of culture in the full sense of the word, an intellectual
+central station, a touchstone of the spirit of the time. Imagine
+for a moment what it would have meant if a still greater
+mind than his, say Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, that universal
+spirit who had helped in nursing the art of printing in its
+earliest infancy, could have availed himself of the art as it
+was placed at the disposal of Erasmus!</p>
+
+<p>The dangerous aspect of this situation was that printing
+enabled Erasmus, having once become a centre and an
+authority, to address the world at large immediately about all
+that occurred to him. Much of his later mental labour is, after
+all, really but repetition, ruminating digression, unnecessary
+vindication from assaults to which his greatness alone would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+have been a sufficient answer, futilities which he might have
+better left alone. Much of this work written directly for the
+press is journalism at bottom, and we do Erasmus an injustice
+by applying to it the tests of lasting excellence. The consciousness
+that we can reach the whole world at once with our
+writings is a stimulant which unwittingly influences our mode
+of expression, a luxury that only the highest spirits can bear
+with impunity.</p>
+
+<p>The link between Erasmus and book-printing was Latin.
+Without his incomparable Latinity his position as an author
+would have been impossible. The art of printing undoubtedly
+furthered the use of Latin. It was the Latin publications which
+in those days promised success and a large sale for a publisher,
+and established his reputation, for they were broadcast all over
+the world. The leading publishers were themselves scholars
+filled with enthusiasm for humanism. Cultured and well-to-do
+people acted as proof-readers to printers; such as Peter Gilles,
+the friend of Erasmus and More, the town clerk of Antwerp,
+who corrected proof-sheets for Dirck Maertensz. The great
+printing-offices were, in a local sense, too, the foci of intellectual
+intercourse. The fact that England had lagged behind, thus far,
+in the evolution of the art of printing, contributed not a little,
+no doubt, to prevent Erasmus from settling there, where so
+many ties held and so many advantages allured him.</p>
+
+<p>To find a permanent place of residence was, indeed, and
+apart from this fact, very hard for him. Towards the end of
+1508 he accepted the post of tutor in rhetorics to the young
+Alexander Stewart, a natural son of James IV of Scotland, and
+already, in spite of his youth, Archbishop of Saint Andrews,
+now a student at Padua. The danger of war soon drove them
+from upper Italy to Siena. Here Erasmus obtained leave to
+visit Rome. He arrived there early in 1509, no longer an unknown
+canon from the northern regions but a celebrated and
+honoured author. All the charms of the Eternal City lay open
+to him and he must have felt keenly gratified by the consideration
+and courtesy with which cardinals and prelates, such
+as Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards Leo X, Domenico Grimani,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+Riario and others, treated him. It seems that he was even
+offered some post in the curia. But he had to return to his
+youthful archbishop with whom he thereupon visited Rome
+again, incognito, and afterwards travelled in the neighbourhood
+of Naples. He inspected the cave of the Sibylla of
+Cumae, but what it meant to him we do not know. This entire
+period following his departure from Padua and all that follows
+till the spring of 1511&mdash;in certain respects the most important
+part of his life&mdash;remains unrecorded in a single letter
+that has come down to us. Here and there he has occasionally,
+and at a much later date, touched upon some impressions of
+Rome,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> but the whole remains vague and dim. It is the incubation
+period of the <i>Praise of Folly</i> that is thus obscured from
+view.</p>
+
+<p>On 21 April 1509, King Henry VII of England died. His
+successor was the young prince whom Erasmus had saluted at
+Eltham in 1499, to whom he had dedicated his poem in praise
+of Great Britain, and who, during his stay at Bologna, had
+distinguished him by a Latin letter as creditable to Erasmus as
+to the fifteen-year-old royal latinist.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> If ever the chance of
+obtaining a patron seemed favourable, it was now, when this
+promising lover of letters ascended the throne as Henry VIII.
+Lord Mountjoy, Erasmus's most faithful Maecenas, thought so,
+too, and pointed out the fact to him in a letter of 27 May 1509.
+It was a pleasure to see, he wrote, how vigorous, how upright
+and just, how zealous in the cause of literature and men of
+letters was the conduct of the youthful prince. Mountjoy&mdash;or
+Ammonius, who probably drew up the flowery document for
+him&mdash;was exultant. A laughing sky and tears of joy are the
+themes of the letter. Evidently, however, Erasmus himself
+had, on his side, already sounded Mountjoy as to his chances,
+as soon as the tidings of Henry VII's death became known at
+Rome; not without lamentations about cares and weakened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+health. 'The Archbishop of Canterbury', Mountjoy was able
+to apprise Erasmus, 'is not only continually engrossed in your
+<i>Adagia</i> and praises you to the skies, but he also promises you
+a benefice on your return and sends you five pounds for
+travelling expenses,' which sum was doubled by Mountjoy.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know whether Erasmus really hesitated before
+he reached his decision. Cardinal Grimani, he asserts, tried to
+hold him back, but in vain, for in July, 1509, he left Rome and
+Italy, never to return.</p>
+
+<p>As he crossed the Alps for the second time, not on the
+French side now, but across the Spl&uuml;gen, through Switzerland,
+his genius touched him again, as had happened in those high
+regions three years before on the road to Italy. But this time
+it was not in the guise of the Latin Muse, who then drew from
+him such artful and pathetic poetical meditations about his
+past life and pious vows for the future;&mdash;it was something
+much more subtle and grand: the <i>Praise of Folly</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> LBE. No. 1175 <i>c.</i> 1375, visit to Grimani.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> A. 206, where from Allen's introduction one can form an opinion
+about the prince's share in the composition.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_ix" id="chapter_ix"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PRAISE OF FOLLY</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Moriae Encomium, The Praise of Folly</i>: 1509, as a work of art&mdash;Folly,
+the motor of all life: Indispensable, salutary, cause and support of states and
+of heroism&mdash;Folly keeps the world going&mdash;Vital energy incorporated with
+folly&mdash;Lack of folly makes unfit for life&mdash;Need of self-complacency&mdash;Humbug
+beats truth&mdash;Knowledge a plague&mdash;Satire of all secular and
+ecclesiastical vocations&mdash;Two themes throughout the work&mdash;The highest
+folly: Ecstasy&mdash;The <i>Moria</i> to be taken as a gay jest&mdash;Confusion of fools
+and lunatics&mdash;Erasmus treats his <i>Moria</i> slightingly&mdash;Its value</p></div>
+
+
+<p>While he rode over the mountain passes,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Erasmus's restless
+spirit, now unfettered for some days by set tasks, occupied
+itself with everything he had studied and read in the last few
+years, and with everything he had seen. What ambition, what
+self-deception, what pride and conceit filled the world! He
+thought of Thomas More, whom he was now to see again&mdash;that
+most witty and wise of all his friends, with that curious
+name <i>Moros</i>, the Greek word for a fool, which so ill became his
+personality. Anticipating the gay jests which More's conversation
+promised, there grew in his mind that masterpiece of
+humour and wise irony, <i>Moriae Encomium</i>, the <i>Praise of Folly</i>.
+The world as the scene of universal folly; folly as the indispensable
+element making life and society possible and all this
+put into the mouth of Stultitia&mdash;Folly&mdash;itself (true antitype of
+Minerva), who in a panegyric on her own power and usefulness,
+praises herself. As to form it is a <i>Declamatio</i>, such as he
+had translated from the Greek of Libanius. As to the spirit,
+a revival of Lucian, whose <i>Gallus</i>, translated by him three
+years before, may have suggested the theme. It must have been
+in the incomparably lucid moments of that brilliant intellect.
+All the particulars of classic reading which the year before he
+worked up in the new edition of the <i>Adagia</i> were still at his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+immediate disposal in that retentive and capacious memory.
+Reflecting at his ease on all that wisdom of the ancients, he
+secreted the juices required for his expostulation.</p>
+
+<p>He arrived in London, took up his abode in More's house
+in Bucklersbury, and there, tortured by nephritic pains, he
+wrote down in a few days, without having his books with
+him, the perfect work of art that must have been ready in his
+mind. Stultitia was truly born in the manner of her serious
+sister Pallas.</p>
+
+<p>As to form and imagery the <i>Moria</i> is faultless, the product of
+the inspired moments of creative impulse. The figure of an
+orator confronting her public is sustained to the last in a
+masterly way. We see the faces of the auditors light up with
+glee when Folly appears in the pulpit; we hear the applause
+interrupting her words. There is a wealth of fancy, coupled
+with so much soberness of line and colour, such reserve, that
+the whole presents a perfect instance of that harmony which
+is the essence of Renaissance expression. There is no exuberance,
+in spite of the multiplicity of matter and thought, but a
+temperateness, a smoothness, an airiness and clearness which
+are as gladdening as they are relaxing. In order perfectly to
+realize the artistic perfection of Erasmus's book we should
+compare it with Rabelais.</p>
+
+<p>'Without me', says Folly, 'the world cannot exist for a
+moment. For is not all that is done at all among mortals, full of
+folly; is it not performed by fools and for fools?' 'No society,
+no cohabitation can be pleasant or lasting without folly; so
+much so, that a people could not stand its prince, nor the
+master his man, nor the maid her mistress, nor the tutor his
+pupil, nor the friend his friend, nor the wife her husband for a
+moment longer, if they did not now and then err together,
+now flatter each other; now sensibly conniving at things, now
+smearing themselves with some honey of folly.' In that sentence
+the summary of the <i>Laus</i> is contained. Folly here is
+worldly wisdom, resignation and lenient judgement.</p>
+
+<p>He who pulls off the masks in the comedy of life is ejected.
+What is the whole life of mortals but a sort of play in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+each actor appears on the boards in his specific mask and acts
+his part till the stage-manager calls him off? He acts wrongly
+who does not adapt himself to existing conditions, and demands
+that the game shall be a game no longer. It is the part
+of the truly sensible to mix with all people, either conniving
+readily at their folly, or affably erring like themselves.</p>
+
+<p>And the necessary driving power of all human action is
+'Philautia', Folly's own sister: self-love. He who does not
+please himself effects little. Take away that condiment of life
+and the word of the orator cools, the poet is laughed at, the
+artist perishes with his art.</p>
+
+<p>Folly in the garb of pride, of vanity, of vainglory, is the
+hidden spring of all that is considered high and great in this
+world. The state with its posts of honour, patriotism and
+national pride; the stateliness of ceremonies, the delusion of
+caste and nobility&mdash;what is it but folly? War, the most foolish
+thing of all, is the origin of all heroism. What prompted the
+Deciuses, what Curtius, to sacrifice themselves? Vainglory. It
+is this folly which produces states; through her, empires,
+religion, law-courts, exist.</p>
+
+<p>This is bolder and more chilling than Machiavelli, more
+detached than Montaigne. But Erasmus will not have it
+credited to him: it is Folly who speaks. He purposely makes us
+tread the round of the <i>circulus vitiosus</i>, as in the old saw: A
+Cretan said, all Cretans are liars.</p>
+
+<p>Wisdom is to folly as reason is to passion. And there is much
+more passion than reason in the world. That which keeps the
+world going, the fount of life, is folly. For what else is love?
+Why do people marry, if not out of folly, which sees no objections?
+All enjoyment and amusement is only a condiment of
+folly. When a wise man wishes to become a father, he has first
+to play the fool. For what is more foolish than the game of
+procreation?</p>
+
+<p>Unperceived the orator has incorporated here with folly
+all that is vitality and the courage of life. Folly is spontaneous
+energy that no one can do without. He who is perfectly
+sensible and serious cannot live. The more people get away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+from me, Stultitia, the less they live. Why do we kiss and
+cuddle little children, if not because they are still so delightfully
+foolish. And what else makes youth so elegant?</p>
+
+<p>Now look at the truly serious and sensible. They are awkward
+at everything, at meal-time, at a dance, in playing, in
+social intercourse. If they have to buy, or to contract, things
+are sure to go wrong. Quintilian says that stage fright bespeaks
+the intelligent orator, who knows his faults. Right! But does
+not, then, Quintilian confess openly that wisdom is an impediment
+to good execution? And has not Stultitia the right
+to claim prudence for herself, if the wise, out of shame, out of
+bashfulness, undertake nothing in circumstances where fools
+pluckily set to work?</p>
+
+<p>Here Erasmus goes to the root of the matter in a psychological
+sense. Indeed the consciousness of falling short in
+achievement is the brake clogging action, is the great inertia
+retarding the progress of the world. Did he know himself for
+one who is awkward when not bending over his books, but
+confronting men and affairs?</p>
+
+<p>Folly is gaiety and lightheartedness, indispensable to happiness.
+The man of mere reason without passion is a stone
+image, blunt and without any human feeling, a spectre or
+monster, from whom all fly, deaf to all natural emotions,
+susceptible neither to love nor compassion. Nothing escapes
+him, in nothing he errs; he sees through everything, he weighs
+everything accurately, he forgives nothing, he is only satisfied
+with himself; he alone is healthy; he alone is king, he alone is
+free. It is the hideous figure of the doctrinaire which Erasmus
+is thinking of. Which state, he exclaims, would desire such an
+absolutely wise man for a magistrate?</p>
+
+<p>He who devotes himself to tasting all the bitterness of life
+with wise insight would forthwith deprive himself of life.
+Only folly is a remedy: to err, to be mistaken, to be ignorant
+is to be human. How much better it is in marriage to be blind
+to a wife's shortcomings than to make away with oneself out
+of jealousy and to fill the world with tragedy! Adulation is
+virtue. There is no cordial devotion without a little adulation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+It is the soul of eloquence, of medicine and poetry; it is the
+honey and the sweetness of all human customs.</p>
+
+<p>Again a series of valuable social qualities is slyly incorporated
+with folly: benevolence, kindness, inclination to
+approve and to admire.</p>
+
+<p>But especially to approve of oneself. There is no pleasing
+others without beginning by flattering ourselves a little and
+approving of ourselves. What would the world be if everyone
+was not proud of his standing, his calling, so that no
+person would change places with another in point of good
+appearance, of fancy, of good family, of landed property?</p>
+
+<p>Humbug is the right thing. Why should any one desire true
+erudition? The more incompetent a man, the pleasanter his
+life is and the more he is admired. Look at professors, poets,
+orators. Man's mind is so made that he is more impressed by
+lies than by the truth. Go to church: if the priest deals with
+serious subjects the whole congregation is dozing, yawning,
+feeling bored. But when he begins to tell some cock-and-bull
+story, they awake, sit up, and hang on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>To be deceived, philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not
+to be deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err,
+why should a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he
+was so born and made, and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a
+man because he cannot fly or does not walk on four legs? We
+might as well call the horse unhappy because it does not learn
+grammar or eat cakes. No creature is unhappy, if it lives
+according to its nature. The sciences were invented to our
+utmost destruction; far from conducing to our happiness, they
+are even in its way, though for its sake they are supposed to
+have been invented. By the agency of evil demons they have
+stolen into human life with the other pests. For did not the
+simple-minded people of the Golden Age live happily, unprovided
+with any science, only led by nature and instinct?
+What did they want grammar for, when all spoke the same
+language? Why have dialectics, when there were no quarrels
+and no differences of opinion? Why jurisprudence, when there
+were no bad morals from which good laws sprang? They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+were too religious to investigate with impious curiosity the
+secrets of nature, the size, motions, influence of the stars, the
+hidden cause of things.</p>
+
+<p>It is the old idea, which germinated in antiquity, here lightly
+touched upon by Erasmus, afterwards proclaimed by Rousseau
+in bitter earnest: civilization is a plague.</p>
+
+<p>Wisdom is misfortune, but self-conceit is happiness. Grammarians,
+who wield the sceptre of wisdom&mdash;schoolmasters,
+that is&mdash;would be the most wretched of all people if I, Folly,
+did not mitigate the discomforts of their miserable calling by a
+sort of sweet frenzy. But what holds good of schoolmasters,
+also holds good of poets, orators, authors. For them, too, all
+happiness merely consists in vanity and delusion. The lawyers are
+no better off and after them come the philosophers. Next there
+is a numerous procession of clergy: divines, monks, bishops,
+cardinals, popes, only interrupted by princes and courtiers.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapters<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> which review these offices and callings, satire
+has shifted its ground a little. Throughout the work two themes
+are intertwined: that of salutary folly, which is true wisdom,
+and that of deluded wisdom, which is pure folly. As they are
+both put into the mouth of Folly, we should have to invert
+them both to get truth, if Folly ... were not wisdom. Now
+it is clear that the first is the principal theme. Erasmus starts
+from it; and he returns to it. Only in the middle, as he reviews
+human accomplishments and dignities in their universal
+foolishness, the second theme predominates and the book
+becomes an ordinary satire on human folly, of which there
+are many though few are so delicate. But in the other parts it
+is something far deeper.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally the satire runs somewhat off the line, when
+Stultitia directly censures what Erasmus wishes to censure; for
+instance, indulgences, silly belief in wonders, selfish worship
+of the saints; or gamblers whom she, Folly, ought to praise; or
+the spirit of systematizing and levelling, and the jealousy of
+the monks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For contemporary readers the importance of the <i>Laus
+Stultitiae</i> was, to a great extent, in the direct satire. Its lasting
+value is in those passages where we truly grant that folly is
+wisdom and the reverse. Erasmus knows the aloofness of the
+ground of all things: all consistent thinking out of the dogmas
+of faith leads to absurdity. Only look at the theological quiddities
+of effete scholasticism. The apostles would not have
+understood them: in the eyes of latter-day divines they would
+have been fools. Holy Scripture itself sides with folly. 'The
+foolishness of God is wiser than men,' says Saint Paul. 'But
+God hath chosen the foolish things of the world.' 'It pleased
+God by the foolishness (of preaching) to save them that
+believe.' Christ loved the simple-minded and the ignorant:
+children, women, poor fishermen, nay, even such animals as
+are farthest removed from vulpine cunning: the ass which he
+wished to ride, the dove, the lamb, the sheep.</p>
+
+<p>Here there is a great deal behind the seemingly light jest:
+'Christian religion seems in general to have some affinity
+with a certain sort of folly'. Was it not thought the apostles
+were full of new wine? And did not the judge say: 'Paul, thou
+art beside thyself'? When are we beside ourselves? When the
+spirit breaks its fetters and tries to escape from its prison and
+aspires to liberty. That is madness, but it is also other-worldliness
+and the highest wisdom. True happiness is in selflessness,
+in the furore of lovers, whom Plato calls happiest of all.
+The more absolute love is, the greater and more rapturous
+is the frenzy. Heavenly bliss itself is the greatest insanity;
+truly pious people enjoy its shadow on earth already in their
+meditations.</p>
+
+<p>Here Stultitia breaks off her discourse, apologizing in a few
+words in case she may have been too petulant or talkative, and
+leaves the pulpit. 'So farewell, applaud, live happily, and drink,
+Moria's illustrious initiates.'</p>
+
+<p>It was an unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters
+neither to lose the light comical touch, nor to lapse into undisguised
+profanation. It was only feasible by veritable dancing
+on the tight-rope of sophistry. In the <i>Moria</i> Erasmus is all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+the time hovering on the brink of profound truths. But what a
+boon it was&mdash;still granted to those times&mdash;to be able to treat
+of all this in a vein of pleasantry. For this should be impressed
+upon our minds: that the <i>Moriae Encomium</i> is a true, gay jest.
+The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty than Rabelais's.
+'Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite.' 'All common people abound
+to such a degree, and everywhere, in so many forms of folly
+that a thousand Democrituses would be insufficient to laugh at
+them all (and they would require another Democritus to laugh
+at them).'</p>
+
+<p>How could one take the <i>Moria</i> too seriously, when even
+More's <i>Utopia</i>, which is a true companion-piece to it and makes
+such a grave impression on us, is treated by its author and
+Erasmus as a mere jest? There is a place where the <i>Laus</i> seems
+to touch both More and Rabelais; the place where Stultitia
+speaks of her father, Plutus, the god of wealth, at whose beck
+all things are turned topsy-turvy, according to whose will all
+human affairs are regulated&mdash;war and peace, government and
+counsel, justice and treaties. He has begotten her on the
+nymph Youth, not a senile, purblind Plutus, but a fresh god,
+warm with youth and nectar, like another Gargantua.</p>
+
+<p>The figure of Folly, of gigantic size, looms large in the
+period of the Renaissance. She wears a fool's cap and bells.
+People laughed loudly and with unconcern at all that was
+foolish, without discriminating between species of folly. It is
+remarkable that even in the <i>Laus</i>, delicate as it is, the author
+does not distinguish between the unwise or the silly, between
+fools and lunatics. Holbein, illustrating Erasmus, knows but of
+one representation of a fool: with a staff and ass's ears. Erasmus
+speaks without clear transition, now of foolish persons and
+now of real lunatics. They are happiest of all, he makes Stultitia
+say: they are not frightened by spectres and apparitions;
+they are not tortured by the fear of impending calamities;
+everywhere they bring mirth, jests, frolic and laughter. Evidently
+he here means harmless imbeciles, who, indeed, were
+often used as jesters. This identification of denseness and
+insanity is kept up, however, like the confusion of the comic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+and the simply ridiculous, and all this is well calculated to
+make us feel how wide the gap has already become that
+separates us from Erasmus.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In later years he always spoke slightingly of his <i>Moria</i>. He
+considered it so unimportant, he says, as to be unworthy of
+publication, yet no work of his had been received with such
+applause. It was a trifle and not at all in keeping with his
+character. More had made him write it, as if a camel were
+made to dance. But these disparaging utterances were not
+without a secondary purpose. The <i>Moria</i> had not brought him
+only success and pleasure. The exceedingly susceptible age in
+which he lived had taken the satire in very bad part, where it
+seemed to glance at offices and orders, although in his preface
+he had tried to safeguard himself from the reproach of
+irreverence. His airy play with the texts of Holy Scripture had
+been too venturesome for many. His friend Martin van Dorp
+upbraided him with having made a mock of eternal life.
+Erasmus did what he could to convince evil-thinkers that the
+purpose of the <i>Moria</i> was no other than to exhort people to be
+virtuous. In affirming this he did his work injustice: it was
+much more than that. But in 1515 he was no longer what he
+had been in 1509. Repeatedly he had been obliged to defend
+his most witty work. Had he known that it would offend, he
+might have kept it back, he writes in 1517 to an acquaintance
+at Louvain. Even towards the end of his life, he warded off the
+insinuations of Alberto Pio of Carpi in a lengthy expostulation.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus made no further ventures in the genre of the
+<i>Praise of Folly</i>. One might consider the treatise <i>Lingua</i>, which
+he published in 1525, as an attempt to make a companion-piece
+to the <i>Moria</i>. The book is called <i>Of the Use and Abuse
+of the Tongue</i>. In the opening pages there is something that
+reminds us of the style of the <i>Laus</i>, but it lacks all the charm
+both of form and of thought.</p>
+
+<p>Should one pity Erasmus because, of all his publications,
+collected in ten folio volumes, only the <i>Praise of Folly</i> has
+remained a really popular book? It is, apart from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+<i>Colloquies</i>, perhaps the only one of his works that is still
+read for its own sake. The rest is now only studied from a
+historical point of view, for the sake of becoming acquainted
+with his person or his times. It seems to me that perfect justice
+has been done in this case. The <i>Praise of Folly</i> is his best
+work. He wrote other books, more erudite, some more pious&mdash;some
+perhaps of equal or greater influence on his time.
+But each has had its day. <i>Moriae Encomium</i> alone was to be
+immortal. For only when humour illuminated that mind did it
+become truly profound. In the <i>Praise of Folly</i> Erasmus gave
+something that no one else could have given to the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 225px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xi.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xi-th.png" width="225" height="343" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XI. The last page of the <i>Praise of Folly</i>, with
+Holbein's drawing of Folly descending from the pulpit</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xii-th.png" width="250" height="376" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XII. THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> That he conceived the work in the Alps follows from the fact that
+he tells us explicitly that it happened while riding, whereas, after passing
+through Switzerland, he travelled by boat. A. 1, IV 216.62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Erasmus did not divide the book into chapters. It was done by an
+editor as late as 1765.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_x" id="chapter_x"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND</h3>
+
+<h3>1509-14</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Third stay in England: 1509-14&mdash;No information about two years of
+Erasmus's life: 1509 summer, till 1511 spring&mdash;Poverty&mdash;Erasmus at
+Cambridge&mdash;Relations with Badius, the Paris publisher&mdash;A mistake profitable
+to Johannes Froben at Basle&mdash;Erasmus leaves England: 1514&mdash;<i>Julius
+Exclusus</i>&mdash;Epistle against war</p></div>
+
+
+<p>From the moment when Erasmus, back from Italy in the
+early summer of 1509, is hidden from view in the house of
+More, to write the <i>Praise of Folly</i>, until nearly two years
+later when he comes to view again on the road to Paris to have
+the book printed by Gilles Gourmont, every trace of his life
+has been obliterated. Of the letters which during that period
+he wrote and received, not a single one has been preserved.
+Perhaps it was the happiest time of his life, for it was partly
+spent with his tried patron, Mountjoy, and also in the house
+of More in that noble and witty circle which to Erasmus
+appeared ideal. That house was also frequented by the friend
+whom Erasmus had made during his former sojourn in
+England, and whose mind was perhaps more congenial to
+him than any other, Andrew Ammonius. It is not improbable
+that during these months he was able to work without interruption
+at the studies to which he was irresistibly attracted,
+without cares as to the immediate future, and not yet burdened
+by excessive renown, which afterwards was to cause
+him as much trouble and loss as joy.</p>
+
+<p>That future was still uncertain. As soon as he no longer
+enjoys More's hospitality, the difficulties and complaints
+recommence. Continual poverty, uncertainty and dependence
+were extraordinarily galling to a mind requiring above all
+things liberty. At Paris he charged Badius with a new, revised
+edition of the <i>Adagia</i>, though the Aldine might still be had
+there at a moderate price. The <i>Laus</i>, which had just appeared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+at Gourmont's, was reprinted at Strassburg as early as 1511,
+with a courteous letter by Jacob Wimpfeling to Erasmus, but
+evidently without his being consulted in the matter. By that
+time he was back in England, had been laid up in London with
+a bad attack of the sweating sickness, and thence had gone to
+Queens' College, Cambridge, where he had resided before.
+From Cambridge he writes to Colet, 24 August 1511, in a vein
+of comical despair. The journey from London had been disastrous:
+a lame horse, no victuals for the road, rain and thunder.
+'But I am almost pleased at this, I see the track of Christian
+poverty.' A chance to make some money he does not see; he
+will be obliged to spend everything he can wrest from his
+Maecenases&mdash;he, born under a wrathful Mercury.</p>
+
+<p>This may sound somewhat gloomier than it was meant, but
+a few weeks later he writes again: 'Oh, this begging; you laugh
+at me, I know. But I hate myself for it and am fully determined,
+either to obtain some fortune, which will relieve me
+from cringing, or to imitate Diogenes altogether.' This refers
+to a dedication of a translation of Basilius's Commentaries on
+Isaiah to John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester.</p>
+
+<p>Colet, who had never known pecuniary cares himself, did
+not well understand these sallies of Erasmus. He replies to
+them with delicate irony and covert rebuke, which Erasmus,
+in his turn, pretends not to understand. He was now 'in want
+in the midst of plenty', <i>simul et in media copia et in summa inopia</i>.
+That is to say, he was engaged in preparing for Badius's press
+the <i>De copia verborum ac rerum</i>, formerly begun at Paris; it was
+dedicated to Colet. 'I ask you, who can be more impudent or
+abject than I, who for such a long time already have been
+openly begging in England?'</p>
+
+<p>Writing to Ammonius he bitterly regrets having left Rome
+and Italy; how prosperity had smiled upon him there! In the
+same way he would afterwards lament that he had not
+permanently established himself in England. If he had only
+embraced the opportunity! he thinks. Was not Erasmus rather
+one of those people whom good fortune cannot help?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+He remained in trouble and his tone grows more bitter. 'I
+am preparing some bait against the 1st of January, though it is
+pretty sure to be in vain,' he writes to Ammonius, referring to
+new translations of Lucian and Plutarch.</p>
+
+<p>At Cambridge Erasmus lectured on divinity and Greek, but
+it brought him little success and still less profit. The long-wished-for
+prebend, indeed, had at last been given him, in the
+form of the rectory of Aldington, in Kent, to which Archbishop
+William Warham, his patron, appointed him in 1512.
+Instead of residing he was allowed to draw a pension of
+twenty pounds a year. The archbishop affirms explicitly that,
+contrary to his custom, he had granted this favour to Erasmus,
+because he, 'a light of learning in Latin and Greek literature,
+had, out of love for England, disdained to live in Italy,
+France, or Germany, in order to pass the rest of his life here,
+with his friends'. We see how nations already begin to vie
+with each other for the honour of sheltering Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>Relief from all cares the post did not bring. Intercourse and
+correspondence with Colet was a little soured under the light
+veil of jests and kindness by his constant need of money. Seeking
+new resources by undertaking new labours, or preparing
+new editions of his old books, remained a hard necessity for
+Erasmus. The great works upon which he had set his heart,
+and to which he had given all his energies at Cambridge, held
+out no promise of immediate profit. His serious theological
+labours ranked above all others; and in these hard years, he
+devoted his best strength to preparation for the great edition
+of Jerome's works and emendation of the text of the New
+Testament, a task inspired, encouraged and promoted by Colet.</p>
+
+<p>For his living other books had to serve. He had a sufficient
+number now, and the printers were eager enough about them,
+though the profit which the author made by them was not
+large. After leaving Aldus at Venice, Erasmus had returned to
+the publisher who had printed for him as early as 1505&mdash;Josse
+Badius, of Brabant, who, at Paris, had established the Ascensian
+Press (called after his native place, Assche) and who, a scholar
+himself, rivalled Aldus in point of the accuracy of his editions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+of the classics. At the time when Erasmus took the <i>Moria</i> to
+Gourmont, at Paris, he had charged Badius with a new edition,
+still to be revised, of the <i>Adagia</i>. Why the <i>Moria</i> was published
+by another, we cannot tell; perhaps Badius did not like it at
+first. From the <i>Adagia</i> he promised himself the more profit,
+but that was a long work, the alterations and preface of which
+he was still waiting for Erasmus to send. He felt very sure of
+his ground, for everyone knew that he, Badius, was preparing
+the new edition. Yet a rumour reached him that in Germany
+the Aldine edition was being reprinted. So there was some
+hurry to finish it, he wrote to Erasmus in May 1512.</p>
+
+<p>Badius, meanwhile, had much more work of Erasmus in
+hand, or on approval: the <i>Copia</i>, which, shortly afterwards,
+was published by him; the <i>Moria</i>, of which, at the same time,
+a new edition, the fifth, already had appeared; the dialogues by
+Lucian; the Euripides and Seneca translations, which were to
+follow. He hoped to add Jerome's letters to these. For the
+<i>Adagia</i> they had agreed upon a copy-fee of fifteen guilders; for
+Jerome's letters Badius was willing to give the same sum and
+as much again for the rest of the consignment. 'Ah, you will
+say, what a very small sum! I own that by no remuneration
+could your genius, industry, knowledge and labour be requited,
+but the gods will requite you and your own virtue will
+be the finest reward. You have already deserved exceedingly
+well of Greek and Roman literature; you will in this same way
+deserve well of sacred and divine, and you will help your little
+Badius, who has a numerous family and no earnings besides
+his daily trade.'</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus must have smiled ruefully on receiving Badius's
+letter. But he accepted the proposal readily. He promised to
+prepare everything for the press and, on 5 January 1513, he
+finished, in London, the preface to the revised <i>Adagia</i>, for
+which Badius was waiting. But then something happened. An
+agent who acted as a mediator with authors for several publishers
+in Germany and France, one Francis Berckman, of
+Cologne, took the revised copy of the <i>Adagia</i> with the preface
+entrusted to him by Erasmus to hand over to Badius, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+to Paris, but to Basle, to Johannes Froben, who had just, without
+Erasmus's leave, reprinted the Venetian edition! Erasmus
+pretended to be indignant at this mistake or perfidy, but it is
+only too clear that he did not regret it. Six months later he
+betook himself with bag and baggage to Basle, to enter with
+that same Froben into those most cordial relations by which
+their names are united. Beatus Rhenanus, afterwards, made no
+secret of the fact that a connection with the house of Froben,
+then still called Amerbach and Froben, had seemed attractive
+to Erasmus ever since he had heard of the <i>Adagia</i> being
+reprinted.</p>
+
+<p>Without conclusive proofs of his complicity, we do not like
+to accuse Erasmus of perfidy towards Badius, though his attitude
+is curious, to say the least. But we do want to commemorate
+the dignified tone in which Badius, who held strict
+notions, as those times went, about copyright, replied, when
+Berckman afterwards had come to offer him a sort of explanation
+of the case. He declares himself satisfied, though Erasmus
+had, since that time, caused him losses in more ways, amongst
+others by printing a new edition of the <i>Copia</i> at Strassburg.
+'If, however, it is agreeable to your interests and honour, I
+shall suffer it, and that with equanimity.' Their relations were
+not broken off. In all this we should not lose sight of the fact
+that publishing at that time was yet a quite new commercial
+phenomenon and that new commercial forms and relations of
+trade are wont to be characterized by uncertainty, confusion
+and lack of established business morals.</p>
+
+<p>The stay at Cambridge gradually became irksome to
+Erasmus. 'For some months already', he writes to Ammonius
+in November 1513, 'we have been leading a true snail's life,
+staying at home and plodding. It is very lonely here; most
+people have gone for fear of the plague, but even when they
+are all here, it is lonely.' The cost of sustenance is unbearable
+and he makes no money at all. If he does not succeed, that
+winter, in making a nest for himself, he is resolved to fly
+away, he does not know where. 'If to no other end, to die
+elsewhere.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Added to the stress of circumstances, the plague, reappearing
+again and again, and attacks of his kidney-trouble, there
+came the state of war, which depressed and alarmed Erasmus.
+In the spring of 1513 the English raid on France, long prepared,
+took place. In co-operation with Maximilian's army
+the English had beaten the French near Guinegate and compelled
+Therouanne to surrender, and afterwards Tournay.
+Meanwhile the Scotch invaded England, to be decisively
+beaten near Flodden. Their king, James IV, perished together
+with his natural son, Erasmus's pupil and travelling companion
+in Italy, Alexander, Archbishop of Saint Andrews.</p>
+
+<p>Crowned with martial fame, Henry VIII returned in
+November to meet his parliament. Erasmus did not share the
+universal joy and enthusiastic admiration. 'We are circumscribed
+here by the plague, threatened by robbers; we drink
+wine of the worst (because there is no import from France),
+but, <i>io triumphe!</i> we are the conquerors of the world!'</p>
+
+<p>His deep aversion to the clamour of war, and all it represented,
+stimulated Erasmus's satirical faculties. It is true that he
+flattered the English national pride by an epigram on the rout
+of the French near Guinegate, but soon he went deeper. He
+remembered how war had impeded his movements in Italy;
+how the entry of the pope-conqueror, Julius II, into Bologna
+had outraged his feelings. 'The high priest Julius wages
+war, conquers, triumphs and truly plays the part of Julius
+(Caesar)' he had written then. Pope Julius, he thought,
+had been the cause of all the wars spreading more and more
+over Europe. Now the Pope had died in the beginning of the
+year 1513.</p>
+
+<p>And in the deepest secrecy, between his work on the New
+Testament and Jerome, Erasmus took revenge on the martial
+Pope, for the misery of the times, by writing the masterly
+satire, entitled <i>Julius exclusus</i>, in which the Pope appears in all
+his glory before the gate of the Heavenly Paradise to plead his
+cause and find himself excluded. The theme was not new to
+him; for had he not made something similar in the witty Cain
+fable, by which, at one time, he had cheered a dinner-party at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+Oxford? But that was an innocent jest to which his pious
+fellow-guests had listened with pleasure. To the satire about
+the defunct Pope many would, no doubt, also gladly listen,
+but Erasmus had to be careful about it. The folly of all the
+world might be ridiculed, but not the worldly propensities of
+the recently deceased Pope. Therefore, though he helped in
+circulating copies of the manuscript, Erasmus did his utmost,
+for the rest of his life, to preserve its anonymity, and when it
+was universally known and had appeared in print, and he was
+presumed to be the author, he always cautiously denied the
+fact; although he was careful to use such terms as to avoid a
+formal denial. The first edition of the <i>Julius</i> was published at
+Basle, not by Froben, Erasmus's ordinary publisher, but by
+Cratander, probably in the year 1518.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's need of protesting against warfare had not been
+satisfied by writing the <i>Julius</i>. In March 1514, no longer at
+Cambridge, but in London, he wrote a letter to his former
+patron, the Abbot of Saint Bertin, Anthony of Bergen, in
+which he enlarges upon the folly of waging war. Would that
+a Christian peace were concluded between Christian princes!
+Perhaps the abbot might contribute to that consummation
+through his influence with the youthful Charles V and especially
+with his grandfather Maximilian. Erasmus states quite
+frankly that the war has suddenly changed the spirit of
+England. He would like to return to his native country if the
+prince would procure him the means to live there in peace. It
+is a remarkable fact and of true Erasmian na&iuml;vet&eacute; that he cannot
+help mixing up his personal interests with his sincere
+indignation at the atrocities disgracing a man and a Christian.
+'The war has suddenly altered the spirit of this island. The cost
+of living rises every day and generosity decreases. Through
+lack of wine I nearly perished by gravel, contracted by taking
+bad stuff. We are confined in this island, more than ever, so
+that even letters are not carried abroad.'</p>
+
+<p>This was the first of Erasmus's anti-war writings. He expanded
+it into the adage <i>Dulce bellum inexpertis</i>, which was
+inserted into the <i>Adagia</i> edition of 1515, published by Froben<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+and afterwards also printed separately. Hereafter we shall
+follow up this line of Erasmus's ideas as a whole.</p>
+
+<p>Though the summer of 1514 was to bring peace between
+England and France, Erasmus had now definitely made up his
+mind to leave England. He sent his trunks to Antwerp, to his
+friend Peter Gilles and prepared to go to the Netherlands, after
+a short visit to Mountjoy at the castle of Hammes near Calais.
+Shortly before his departure from London he had a curious
+interview with a papal diplomat, working in the cause of peace,
+Count Canossa, at Ammonius's house on the Thames.
+Ammonius passed him off on Erasmus as a merchant. After
+the meal the Italian sounded him as to a possible return to
+Rome, where he might be the first in place instead of living
+alone among a barbarous nation. Erasmus replied that he lived
+in a land that contained the greatest number of excellent
+scholars, among whom he would be content with the humblest
+place. This compliment was his farewell to England, which
+had favoured him so. Some days later, in the first half of
+July 1514, he was on the other side of the Channel. On three
+more occasions he paid short visits to England, but he lived
+there no more.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 325px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xiii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xiii-th.png" width="325" height="512" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XIII. JOHANNES FROBEN, 1522-3.
+Reproduced by gracious permission of H.M. The Queen</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 325px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xiv.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xiv-th.png" width="325" height="481" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XIV. THE PRINTER'S EMBLEM OF JOHANNES FROBEN<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xi" id="chapter_xi"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY</h3>
+
+<h3>1514-16</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>On the way to success and satisfaction&mdash;His Prior calls him back to Steyn&mdash;He
+refuses to comply&mdash;First journey to Basle: 1514-16&mdash;Cordial welcome in
+Germany&mdash;Johannes Froben&mdash;Editions of Jerome and the New Testament&mdash;A
+Councillor to Prince Charles: <i>Institutio Principis Christiani</i>, 1515&mdash;Definitive
+dispensation from Monastic Vows: 1517&mdash;Fame&mdash;Erasmus as
+a spiritual centre&mdash;His correspondence&mdash;Letter-writing as an art&mdash;Its
+dangers&mdash;A glorious age at hand</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Erasmus had, as was usual with him, enveloped his departure
+from England with mystery. It was given out that he was
+going to Rome to redeem a pledge. Probably he had already
+determined to try his fortune in the Netherlands; not in
+Holland, but in the neighbourhood of the princely court in
+Brabant. The chief object of his journey, however, was to visit
+Froben's printing-office at Basle, personally to supervise the
+publication of the numerous works, old and new, which he
+brought with him, among them the material for his chosen
+task, the New Testament and Jerome, by which he hoped to
+effect the restoration of theology, which he had long felt to be
+his life-work. It is easy thus to imagine his anxiety when during
+the crossing he discovered that his hand-bag, containing the
+manuscripts, was found to have been taken on board another
+ship. He felt bereft, having lost the labour of so many years; a
+sorrow so great, he writes, as only parents can feel at the loss of
+their children.</p>
+
+<p>To his joy, however, he found his manuscripts safe on the
+other side. At the castle of Hammes near Calais, he stayed for
+some days, the guest of Mountjoy. There, on 7 July, a letter
+found him, written on 18 April by his superior, the prior of
+Steyn, his old friend Servatius Rogerus, recalling him to the
+monastery after so many years of absence. The letter had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+already been in the hands of more than one prying person,
+before it reached him by mere chance.</p>
+
+<p>It was a terrific blow, which struck him in the midst of his
+course to his highest aspirations. Erasmus took counsel for a
+day and then sent a refusal. To his old friend, in addressing
+whom he always found the most serious accents of his being,
+he wrote a letter which he meant to be a justification and which
+was self-contemplation, much deeper and more sincere than
+the one which, at a momentous turning-point of his life, had
+drawn from him his <i>Carmen Alpestre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He calls upon God to be his witness that he would follow
+the purest inspiration of his life. But to return to the monastery!
+He reminds Servatius of the circumstances under which he
+entered it, as they lived in his memory: the pressure of his
+relations, his false modesty. He points out to him how ill
+monastic life had suited his constitution, how it outraged his
+love of freedom, how detrimental it would be to his delicate
+health, if now resumed. Had he, then, lived a worse life in the
+world? Literature had kept him from many vices. His restless
+life could not redound to his dishonour, though only with
+diffidence did he dare to appeal to the examples of Solon,
+Pythagoras, St. Paul and his favourite Jerome. Had he not
+everywhere won recognition from friends and patrons? He
+enumerates them: cardinals, archbishops, bishops, Mountjoy, the
+Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and, lastly, John Colet.
+Was there, then, any objection to his works: the <i>Enchiridion</i>,
+the <i>Adagia</i>? (He did not mention the <i>Moria</i>.) The best was still
+to follow: Jerome and the New Testament. The fact that,
+since his stay in Italy, he had laid aside the habit of his order
+and wore a common clerical dress, he could excuse on a
+number of grounds.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion was: I shall not return to Holland. 'I know
+that I shall not be able to stand the air and the food there; all
+eyes will be directed to me. I shall return to the country, an
+old and grey man, who left it as a youth; I shall return a
+valetudinarian; I shall be exposed to the contempt even of the
+lowest, I, who am accustomed to be honoured even by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+greatest.' 'It is not possible', he concludes, 'to speak out
+frankly in a letter. I am now going to Basle and thence to
+Rome, perhaps, but on my return I shall try to visit you ... I
+have heard of the deaths of William, Francis and Andrew (his
+old Dutch friends). Remember me to Master Henry and the
+others who live with you; I am disposed towards them as
+befits me. For those old tragedies I ascribe to my errors, or if
+you like to my fate. Do not omit to commend me to Christ in
+your prayers. If I knew for sure that it would be pleasing to
+Him that I should return to live with you, I should prepare
+for the journey this very day. Farewell, my former sweetest
+companion, now my venerable father.'</p>
+
+<p>Underlying the immediate motives of his high theological
+aspirations, this refusal was doubtless actuated by his ancient,
+inveterate, psychological incentives of disgust and shame.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Through the southern Netherlands, where he visited several
+friends and patrons and renewed his acquaintance with the
+University of Louvain, Erasmus turned to the Rhine and
+reached Basle in the second half of August 1514. There such
+pleasures of fame awaited him as he had never yet tasted.
+The German humanists hailed him as the light of the world&mdash;in
+letters, receptions and banquets. They were more solemn
+and enthusiastic than Erasmus had found the scholars of
+France, England and Italy, to say nothing of his compatriots;
+and they applauded him emphatically as being a German himself
+and an ornament of Germany. At his first meeting with
+Froben, Erasmus permitted himself the pleasure of a jocular
+deception: he pretended to be a friend and agent of himself, to
+enjoy to the full the joy of being recognized. The German
+environment was rather to his mind: '<i>My</i> Germany, which to
+my regret and shame I got to know so late'.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the work for which he had come was in full swing. He
+was in his element once more, as he had been at Venice six
+years before: working hard in a large printing-office, surrounded
+by scholars, who heaped upon him homage and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+kindness in those rare moments of leisure which he permitted
+himself. 'I move in a most agreeable Museon: so many men of
+learning, and of such exceptional learning!'</p>
+
+<p>Some translations of the lesser works of Plutarch were published
+by Froben in August. The <i>Adagia</i> was passing through
+the press again with corrections and additions, and the preface
+which was originally destined for Badius. At the same time
+Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, was also at work for Erasmus,
+who had, on passing through the town, entrusted him with a
+collection of easy Latin texts; also M. Sch&uuml;rer at Strassburg,
+who prepared the <i>Parabolae sive similia</i> for him. For Froben,
+too, Erasmus was engaged on a Seneca, which appeared in
+1515, together with a work on Latin construction. But Jerome
+and the New Testament remained his chief occupation.</p>
+
+<p>Jerome's works had been Erasmus's love in early youth,
+especially his letters. The plan of preparing a correct edition of
+the great Father of the Church was conceived in 1500, if not
+earlier, and he had worked at it ever since, at intervals. In 1513
+he writes to Ammonius: 'My enthusiasm for emending and
+annotating Jerome is such that I feel as though inspired by
+some god. I have almost completely emended him already by
+collating many old manuscripts. And this I do at incredibly
+great expense.' In 1512 he negotiated with Badius about an
+edition of the letters. Froben's partner, Johannes Amerbach,
+who died before Erasmus's arrival, had been engaged for years
+on an edition of Jerome. Several scholars, Reuchlin among
+others, had assisted in the undertaking when Erasmus offered
+himself and all his material. He became the actual editor. Of
+the nine volumes, in which Froben published the work in
+1516, the first four contained Erasmus's edition of Jerome's
+letters; the others had been corrected by him and provided
+with forewords.</p>
+
+<p>His work upon the New Testament was, if possible, still
+nearer his heart. By its growth it had gradually changed its
+nature. Since the time when Valla's <i>Annotationes</i> had directed
+his attention to textual criticism of the Vulgate, Erasmus had,
+probably during his second stay in England from 1505 to 1506,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+at the instance of Colet, made a new translation of the New
+Testament from the Greek original, which translation differed
+greatly from the Vulgate. Besides Colet, few had seen it. Later,
+Erasmus understood it was necessary to publish also a new
+edition of the Greek text, with his notes. As to this he had
+made a provisional arrangement with Froben, shortly after
+his arrival at Basle. Afterwards he considered that it would be
+better to have it printed in Italy, and was on the point of going
+there when, possibly persuaded by new offers from Froben, he
+suddenly changed his plan of travel and in the spring of 1515
+made a short trip to England&mdash;probably, among other reasons,
+for the purpose of securing a copy of his translation of the New
+Testament, which he had left behind there. In the summer he
+was back at Basle and resumed the work in Froben's printing-office.
+In the beginning of 1516 the <i>Novum Instrumentum</i>
+appeared, containing the purified Greek text with notes,
+together with a Latin translation in which Erasmus had altered
+too great deviations from the Vulgate.</p>
+
+<p>From the moment of the appearance of two such important
+and, as regards the second, such daring theological
+works by Erasmus as Jerome and the New Testament, we
+may say that he had made himself the centre of the scientific
+study of divinity, as he was at the same time the centre and
+touchstone of classic erudition and literary taste. His authority
+constantly increased in all countries, his correspondence was
+prodigiously augmented.</p>
+
+<p>But while his mental growth was accomplished, his financial
+position was not assured. The years 1515 to 1517 are
+among the most restless of his life; he is still looking out for
+every chance which presents itself, a canonry at Tournay, a
+prebend in England, a bishopric in Sicily, always half jocularly
+regretting the good chances he missed in former times,
+jesting about his pursuit of fortune, lamenting about his
+'spouse, execrable poverty, which even yet I have not succeeded
+in shaking off my shoulders'. And, after all, ever more
+the victim of his own restlessness than of the disfavour of fate.
+He is now fifty years old and still he is, as he says, 'sowing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+without knowing what I shall reap'. This, however, only refers
+to his career, not to his life-work.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of 1515 a new and promising patron, John
+le Sauvage, Chancellor of Brabant, had succeeded in procuring
+for him the title of councillor of the prince, the youthful
+Charles V. In the beginning of 1516 he was nominated: it was
+a mere title of honour, promising a yearly pension of 200
+florins, which, however, was paid but irregularly. To habilitate
+himself as a councillor of the prince, Erasmus wrote the
+<i>Institutio Principis Christiani</i>, a treatise about the education of
+a prince, which in accordance with Erasmus's nature and
+inclination deals rather with moral than with political matters,
+and is in striking contrast with that other work, written some
+years earlier, <i>il Principe</i> by Machiavelli.</p>
+
+<p>When his work at Basle ceased for the time being, in the
+spring of 1516, Erasmus journeyed to the Netherlands. At
+Brussels he met the chancellor, who, in addition to the prince's
+pension, procured him a prebend at Courtray, which, like the
+English benefice mentioned above, was compounded for by
+money payments. At Antwerp lived one of the great friends
+who helped in his support all his life: Peter Gilles, the young
+town clerk, in whose house he stayed as often as he came to
+Antwerp. Peter Gilles is the man who figures in More's
+<i>Utopia</i> as the person in whose garden the sailor tells his
+experiences; it was in these days that Gilles helped Dirck
+Maertensz, at Louvain, to pass the first edition of the <i>Utopia</i>
+through the press. Later Quentin Metsys was to paint him and
+Erasmus, joined in a diptych; a present for Thomas More and
+for us a vivid memorial of one of the best things Erasmus ever
+knew: this triple friendship.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1516 Erasmus made another short trip to
+England. He stayed with More, saw Colet again, also Warham,
+Fisher, and the other friends. But it was not to visit old
+friends that he went there. A pressing and delicate matter impelled
+him. Now that prebends and church dignities began to
+be presented to him, it was more urgent than ever that the
+impediments in the way of a free ecclesiastical career should be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+permanently obviated. He was provided with a dispensation
+of Pope Julius II, authorizing him to accept English prebends,
+and another exempting him from the obligation of wearing
+the habit of his order. But both were of limited scope, and
+insufficient. The fervent impatience with which he conducted
+this matter of his definite discharge from the order makes it
+probable that, as Dr. Allen presumes, the threat of his recall to
+Steyn had, since his refusal to Servatius in 1514, hung over his
+head. There was nothing he feared and detested so much.</p>
+
+<p>With his friend Ammonius he drew up, in London, a very
+elaborate paper, addressed to the apostolic chancery, in which
+he recounts the story of his own life as that of one Florentius:
+his half-enforced entrance to the monastery, the troubles
+which monastic life had brought him, the circumstances which
+had induced him to lay his monk's dress aside. It is a passionate
+apology, pathetic and ornate. The letter, as we know it,
+does not contain a direct request. In an appendix at the end,
+written in cipher, of which he sent the key in sympathetic ink
+in another letter, the chancery was requested to obviate the
+impediments which Erasmus's illegitimate birth placed in the
+way of his promotion. The addressee, Lambertus Grunnius,
+apostolic secretary, was most probably an imaginary personage.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+So much mystery did Erasmus use when his vital
+interests were at stake.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop of Worcester, Silvestro Gigli, who was setting
+out to the Lateran Council, as the envoy of England, took
+upon himself to deliver the letter and to plead Erasmus's cause.
+Erasmus, having meanwhile at the end of August returned to
+the Netherlands, awaited the upshot of his kind offices in the
+greatest suspense. The matter was finally settled in January
+1517. In two letters bearing the signature of Sadolet, Leo X
+condoned Erasmus's transgressions of ecclesiastical law,
+relieved him of the obligation to wear the dress of his order,
+allowed him to live in the world and authorized him to hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+church benefices in spite of any disqualifications arising from
+illegitimacy of birth.</p>
+
+<p>So much his great fame had now achieved. The Pope had
+moreover accepted the dedication of the edition of the New
+Testament, and had, through Sadolet, expressed himself in
+very gracious terms about Erasmus's work in general. Rome
+itself seemed to further his endeavours in all respects.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus now thought of establishing himself permanently
+in the Netherlands, to which everything pointed. Louvain
+seemed to be the most suitable abode, the centre of studies,
+where he had already spent two years in former times. But
+Louvain did not attract him. It was the stronghold of conservative
+theology. Martin van Dorp, a Dutchman like
+Erasmus, and professor of divinity at Louvain, had, in 1514,
+in the name of his faculty, rebuked Erasmus in a letter for the
+audacity of the <i>Praise of Folly</i>, his derision of divines and
+also his temerity in correcting the text of the New Testament.
+Erasmus had defended himself elaborately. At present war was
+being waged in a much wider field: for or against Reuchlin,
+the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors of the
+<i>Epistolae obscurorum virorum</i> had so sensationally taken up the
+cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded with the same
+suspicion with which he distrusted Dorp and the other Louvain
+divines. He stayed during the remainder of 1516 and the
+first half of 1517 at Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent, often in the
+house of Peter Gilles. In February 1517, there came tempting
+offers from France. Budaeus, Cop, &Eacute;tienne Poncher, Bishop of
+Paris, wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I,
+would present him with a generous prebend if he would come
+to Paris. Erasmus, always shy of being tied down, only wrote
+polite, evasive answers, and did not go.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the meantime he received the news of the papal absolution.
+In connection with this he had, once more, to visit
+England, little dreaming that it would be the last time he should
+set foot on British soil. In Ammonius's house of Saint Stephen's
+Chapel at Westminster on 9 April 1517, the ceremony of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+absolution took place, ridding Erasmus for good of the nightmare
+which had oppressed him since his youth. At last he
+was free!</p>
+
+<p>Invitations and specious promises now came to him from all
+sides. Mountjoy and Wolsey spoke of high ecclesiastical
+honours which awaited him in England. Budaeus kept pressing
+him to remove to France. Cardinal Ximenes wanted to
+attach him to the University of Alcal&aacute;, in Spain. The Duke of
+Saxony offered him a chair at Leipzig. Pirckheimer boasted of
+the perfections of the free imperial city of Nuremberg.
+Erasmus, meanwhile, overwhelmed again with the labour of
+writing and editing, according to his wont, did not definitely
+decline any of these offers; neither did he accept any. He
+always wanted to keep all his strings on his bow at the same
+time. In the early summer of 1517 he was asked to accompany
+the court of the youthful Charles, who was on the point of
+leaving the Netherlands for Spain. But he declined. His
+departure to Spain would have meant a long interruption of
+immediate contact with the great publishing centres, Basle,
+Louvain, Strassburg, Paris, and that, in turn, would have
+meant postponement of his life-work. When, in the beginning
+of July, the prince set out for Middelburg, there to take ship
+for Spain, Erasmus started for Louvain.</p>
+
+<p>He was thus destined to go to this university environment,
+although it displeased him in so many respects. There he
+would have academic duties, young latinists would follow him
+about to get their poems and letters corrected by him and all
+those divines, whom he distrusted, would watch him at close
+quarters. But it was only to be for a few months. 'I have
+removed to Louvain', he writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
+'till I shall decide which residence is best suited to old
+age, which is already knocking at the gate importunately.'</p>
+
+<p>As it turned out, he was to spend four years (1517-21) at
+Louvain. His life was now becoming more stationary, but
+because of outward circumstances rather than of inward quiet.
+He kept deliberating all those years whether he should go to
+England, Germany or France, hoping at last to find the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+brilliant position which he had always coveted and never had
+been able or willing to grasp.</p>
+
+<p>The years 1516-18 may be called the culmination of
+Erasmus's career. Applauding crowds surrounded him more
+and more. The minds of men were seemingly prepared for
+something great to happen and they looked to Erasmus as the
+man! At Brussels, he was continually bothered with visits from
+Spaniards, Italians and Germans who wanted to boast of
+their interviews with him. The Spaniards, with their verbose
+solemnity, particularly bored him. Most exuberant of all were
+the eulogies with which the German humanists greeted him in
+their letters. This had begun already on his first journey to
+Basle in 1514. 'Great Rotterdamer', 'ornament of Germany',
+'ornament of the world' were some of the simplest effusions.
+Town councils waited upon him, presents of wine and public
+banquets were of common occurrence. No one expresses himself
+so hyperbolically as the jurist Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg. 'I
+am pointed out in public', he asserts, 'as the man who has
+received a letter from Erasmus.' 'Thrice greatest hero, you
+great Jove' is a moderate apostrophe for him. 'The Swiss',
+Zwingli writes in 1516, 'account it a great glory to have seen
+Erasmus.' 'I know and I teach nothing but Erasmus now,'
+writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and Henry
+Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside Erasmus,
+as Alcibiades stood beside Socrates. And Beatus Rhenanus
+devotes to him a life of earnest admiration and helpfulness that
+was to prove of much more value than these exuberant
+panegyrics. There is an element of national exaltation in this
+German enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently stimulated
+mood into which Luther's word will fall anon.</p>
+
+<p>The other nations also chimed in with praise, though a little
+later and a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall promise him
+immortality, &Eacute;tienne Poncher exalts him above the celebrated
+Italian humanists, Germain de Brie declares that French
+scholars have ceased reading any authors but Erasmus, and
+Budaeus announces that all Western Christendom resounds
+with his name.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This increase of glory manifested itself in different ways.
+Almost every year the rumour of his death was spread abroad,
+malignantly, as he himself thinks. Again, all sorts of writings
+were ascribed to him in which he had no share whatever,
+amongst others the <i>Epistolae obscurorum virorum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. The
+time was long since past when he asked More to procure him
+more correspondents. Letters now kept pouring in to him,
+from all sides, beseeching him to reply. A former pupil
+laments with tears that he cannot show a single note written
+by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully sought an introduction from
+one of his friends, before venturing to address him. In this
+respect Erasmus was a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to
+answer what he could, although so overwhelmed by letters
+every day that he hardly found time to read them. 'If I do not
+answer, I seem unkind,' says Erasmus, and that thought was
+intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that time,
+occupied more or less the place of the newspaper at present, or
+rather of the literary monthly, which arose fairly directly out
+of erudite correspondence. It was, as in antiquity&mdash;which in
+this respect was imitated better and more profitably, perhaps,
+than in any other sphere&mdash;an art. Even before 1500 Erasmus
+had, at Paris, described that art in the treatise, <i>De conscribendis
+epistolis</i>, which was to appear in print in 1522. People wrote,
+as a rule, with a view to later publication, for a wider circle, or
+at any rate, with the certainty that the recipient would show
+the letter to others. A fine Latin letter was a gem, which a man
+envied his neighbour. Erasmus writes to Budaeus: 'Tunstall
+has devoured your letter to me and re-read it as many as three
+or four times; I had literally to tear it from his hands.'</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately fate did not always take into consideration
+the author's intentions as to publicity, semi-publicity or strict
+secrecy. Often letters passed through many hands before
+reaching their destination, as did Servatius's letter to Erasmus
+in 1514. 'Do be careful about letters,' he writes more than
+once; 'waylayers are on the lookout to intercept them.' Yet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+with the curious precipitation that characterizes him, Erasmus
+was often very careless as to what he wrote. From an early age
+he preserved and cared for his letters, yet nevertheless, through
+his itinerant life, many were lost. He could not control their
+publication. As early as 1509 a friend sent him a manuscript
+volume of his own (Erasmus's) letters, that he had picked up
+for sale at Rome. Erasmus had it burnt at once. Since 1515 he
+himself superintended the publication of his letters; at first
+only a few important ones; afterwards in 1516 a selection of
+letters from friends to him, and after that ever larger collections
+till, at the end of his life, there appeared a new collection
+almost every year. No article was so much in demand on
+the book market as letters by Erasmus, and no wonder. They
+were models of excellent style, tasteful Latin, witty expression
+and elegant erudition.</p>
+
+<p>The semi-private, semi-public character of the letters often
+made them compromising. What one could say to a friend in
+confidence might possibly injure when many read it. Erasmus,
+who never was aware how injuriously he expressed himself,
+repeatedly gave rise to misunderstanding and estrangement.
+Manners, so to say, had not yet adapted themselves to the new
+art of printing, which increased the publicity of the written
+word a thousandfold. Only gradually under this new influence
+was the separation effected between the public word, intended
+for the press, and the private communication, which remains
+in writing and is read only by the recipient.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, with the growth of Erasmus's fame, his earlier
+writings, too, had risen in the public estimation. The great
+success of the <i>Enchiridion militis christiani</i> had begun about
+1515, when the times were much riper for it than eleven years
+before. 'The <i>Moria</i> is embraced as the highest wisdom,' writes
+John Watson to him in 1516. In the same year we find a word
+used, for the first time, which expresses better than anything
+else how much Erasmus had become a centre of authority:
+<i>Erasmiani</i>. So his German friends called themselves, according
+to Johannes Sapidus. More than a year later Dr. Johannes Eck
+employs the word still in a rather friendly sense, as a generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+current term: 'all scholars in Germany are Erasmians,' he says.
+But Erasmus did not like the word. 'I find nothing in myself',
+he replies, 'why anyone should wish to be an Erasmicus, and,
+altogether, I hate those party names. We are all followers of
+Christ, and to His glory we all drudge, each for his part.' But
+he knows that now the question is: for or against him! From
+the brilliant latinist and the man of wit of his prime he had
+become the international pivot on which the civilization of his
+age hinged. He could not help beginning to feel himself the
+brain, the heart and the conscience of his times. It might even
+appear to him that he was called to speak the great redeeming
+word or, perhaps, that he had already spoken it. The faith in
+an easy triumph of pure knowledge and Christian meekness in
+a near future speaks from the preface of Erasmus's edition of
+the New Testament.</p>
+
+<p>How clear did the future look in those years! In this period
+Erasmus repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of a golden age,
+which is on the point of dawning. Perennial peace is before
+the door. The highest princes of the world, Francis I of France,
+Charles, King of Spain, Henry VIII of England, and the emperor
+Maximilian have ensured peace by the strongest ties.
+Uprightness and Christian piety will flourish together with
+the revival of letters and the sciences. As at a given signal the
+mightiest minds conspire to restore a high standard of culture.
+We may congratulate the age, it will be a golden one.</p>
+
+<p>But Erasmus does not sound this note long. It is heard for
+the last time in 1519; after which the dream of universal happiness
+about to dawn gives place to the usual complaint about
+the badness of the times everywhere.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> For a full translation of this important letter see pp. <a href="#Page_212">212-18</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The name Grunnius may have been taken from Jerome's epistles,
+where it is a nickname for a certain Ruffinus, whom Jerome disliked
+very much. It appears again in a letter of 5 March 1531, LB. X 1590 A.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xii" id="chapter_xii"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>ERASMUS'S MIND</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus's mind: Ethical and aesthetic tendencies, aversion to all that is
+unreasonable, silly and cumbrous&mdash;His vision of antiquity pervaded by
+Christian faith&mdash;Renascence of good learning&mdash;The ideal life of serene
+harmony and happy wisdom&mdash;Love of the decorous and smooth&mdash;His mind
+neither philosophic nor historical, but strongly philological and moralistic&mdash;Freedom,
+clearness, purity, simplicity&mdash;Faith in nature&mdash;Educational
+and social ideas</p></div>
+
+
+<p>What made Erasmus the man from whom his contemporaries
+expected their salvation, on whose lips they hung to
+catch the word of deliverance? He seemed to them the bearer
+of a new liberty of the mind, a new clearness, purity and simplicity
+of knowledge, a new harmony of healthy and right
+living. He was to them as the possessor of newly discovered,
+untold wealth which he had only to distribute.</p>
+
+<p>What was there in the mind of the great Rotterdamer which
+promised so much to the world?</p>
+
+<p>The negative aspect of Erasmus's mind may be defined as a
+heartfelt aversion to everything unreasonable, insipid, purely
+formal, with which the undisturbed growth of medieval
+culture had overburdened and overcrowded the world of
+thought. As often as he thinks of the ridiculous text-books out
+of which Latin was taught in his youth, disgust rises in his
+mind, and he execrates them&mdash;Mammetrectus, Brachylogus,
+Ebrardus and all the rest&mdash;as a heap of rubbish which ought to
+be cleared away. But this aversion to the superannuated,
+which had become useless and soulless, extended much
+farther. He found society, and especially religious life, full of
+practices, ceremonies, traditions and conceptions, from which
+the spirit seemed to have departed. He does not reject them offhand
+and altogether: what revolts him is that they are so often
+performed without understanding and right feeling. But to his
+mind, highly susceptible to the foolish and ridiculous things,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+and with a delicate need of high decorum and inward dignity,
+all that sphere of ceremony and tradition displays itself as a
+useless, nay, a hurtful scene of human stupidity and selfishness.
+And, intellectualist as he is, with his contempt for ignorance,
+he seems unaware that those religious observances, after all, may
+contain valuable sentiments of unexpressed and unformulated
+piety.</p>
+
+<p>Through his treatises, his letters, his <i>Colloquies</i> especially,
+there always passes&mdash;as if one was looking at a gallery of
+Brueghel's pictures&mdash;a procession of ignorant and covetous
+monks who by their sanctimony and humbug impose upon
+the trustful multitude and fare sumptuously themselves. As
+a fixed motif (such motifs are numerous with Erasmus)
+there always recurs his gibe about the superstition that a
+person was saved by dying in the gown of a Franciscan or a
+Dominican.</p>
+
+<p>Fasting, prescribed prayers, the observance of holy days,
+should not be altogether neglected, but they become displeasing
+to God when we repose our trust in them and forget
+charity. The same holds good of confession, indulgence, all
+sorts of blessings. Pilgrimages are worthless. The veneration
+of the Saints and of their relics is full of superstition and foolishness.
+The people think they will be preserved from disasters
+during the day if only they have looked at the painted image of
+Saint Christopher in the morning. 'We kiss the shoes of the
+saints and their dirty handkerchiefs and we leave their books,
+their most holy and efficacious relics, neglected.'</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's dislike of what seemed antiquated and worn out
+in his days, went farther still. It comprised the whole intellectual
+scheme of medieval theology and philosophy. In the
+syllogistic system he found only subtlety and arid ingenuity.
+All symbolism and allegory were fundamentally alien to him
+and indifferent, though he occasionally tried his hand at an
+allegory; and he never was mystically inclined.</p>
+
+<p>Now here it is just as much the deficiencies of his own mind
+as the qualities of the system which made him unable to
+appreciate it. While he struck at the abuse of ceremonies and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+of Church practices both with noble indignation and well-aimed
+mockery, a proud irony to which he was not fully
+entitled preponderates in his condemnation of scholastic
+theology which he could not quite understand. It was easy
+always to talk with a sneer of the conservative divines of his
+time as <i>magistri nostri</i>.</p>
+
+<p>His noble indignation hurt only those who deserved castigation
+and strengthened what was valuable, but his mockery
+hurt the good as well as the bad in spite of him, assailed both
+the institution and persons, and injured without elevating
+them. The individualist Erasmus never understood what it
+meant to offend the honour of an office, an order, or an establishment,
+especially when that institution is the most sacred of
+all, the Church itself.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's conception of the Church was no longer purely
+Catholic. Of that glorious structure of medieval-Christian
+civilization with its mystic foundation, its strict hierarchic
+construction, its splendidly fitting symmetry he saw hardly
+anything but its load of outward details and ornament. Instead
+of the world which Thomas Aquinas and Dante had described,
+according to their vision, Erasmus saw another world, full
+of charm and elevated feeling, and this he held up before his
+compatriots.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xv.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xv-th.png" width="250" height="340" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XV. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS</p>
+
+<p>It was the world of Antiquity, but illuminated throughout
+by Christian faith. It was a world that had never existed as
+such. For with the historical reality which the times of Constantine
+and the great fathers of the Church had manifested&mdash;that
+of declining Latinity and deteriorating Hellenism, the
+oncoming barbarism and the oncoming Byzantinism&mdash;it had
+nothing in common. Erasmus's imagined world was an amalgamation
+of pure classicism (this meant for him, Cicero,
+Horace, Plutarch; for to the flourishing period of the Greek
+mind he remained after all a stranger) and pure, biblical
+Christianity. Could it be a union? Not really. In Erasmus's
+mind the light falls, just as we saw in the history of his career,
+alternately on the pagan antique and on the Christian. But the
+warp of his mind is Christian; his classicism only serves him as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+a form, and from Antiquity he only chooses those elements
+which in ethical tendency are in conformity with his Christian
+ideal.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100%;">
+<a href="images/plate-xvi.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xvi.png" width="40%" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XVI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57</p>
+
+<p>And because of this, Erasmus, although he appeared after a
+century of earlier Humanism, is yet new to his time. The
+union of Antiquity and the Christian spirit which had haunted
+the mind of Petrarch, the father of Humanism, which was lost
+sight of by his disciples, enchanted as they were by the irresistible
+brilliance of the antique beauty of form, this union was
+brought about by Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>What pure Latinity and the classic spirit meant to Erasmus
+we cannot feel as he did because its realization does not mean
+to us, as to him, a difficult conquest and a glorious triumph.
+To feel it thus one must have acquired, in a hard school, the
+hatred of barbarism, which already during his first years of
+authorship had suggested the composition of the <i>Antibarbari</i>.
+The abusive term for all that is old and rude is already Gothic,
+Goths. The term barbarism as used by Erasmus comprised
+much of what we value most in the medieval spirit. Erasmus's
+conception of the great intellectual crisis of his day was distinctly
+dualistic. He saw it as a struggle between old and new,
+which, to him, meant evil and good. In the advocates of tradition
+he saw only obscurantism, conservatism, and ignorant
+opposition to <i>bonae literae</i>, that is, the good cause for which he
+and his partisans battled. Of the rise of that higher culture
+Erasmus had already formed the conception which has since
+dominated the history of the Renaissance. It was a revival,
+begun two or three hundred years before his time, in which,
+besides literature, all the plastic arts shared. Side by side with
+the terms restitution and reflorescence the word renascence
+crops up repeatedly in his writings. 'The world is coming to
+its senses as if awaking out of a deep sleep. Still there are some
+left who recalcitrate pertinaciously, clinging convulsively with
+hands and feet to their old ignorance. They fear that if <i>bonae
+literae</i> are reborn and the world grows wise, it will come to
+light that they have known nothing.' They do not know how
+pious the Ancients could be, what sanctity characterizes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+Socrates, Virgil, and Horace, or Plutarch's <i>Moralia</i>, how rich
+the history of Antiquity is in examples of forgiveness and true
+virtue. We should call nothing profane that is pious and conduces
+to good morals. No more dignified view of life was ever
+found than that which Cicero propounds in <i>De Senectute</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In order to understand Erasmus's mind and the charm which
+it had for his contemporaries, one must begin with the ideal
+of life that was present before his inward eye as a splendid
+dream. It is not his own in particular. The whole Renaissance
+cherished that wish of reposeful, blithe, and yet serious intercourse
+of good and wise friends in the cool shade of a house
+under trees, where serenity and harmony would dwell. The
+age yearned for the realization of simplicity, sincerity, truth
+and nature. Their imagination was always steeped in the
+essence of Antiquity, though, at heart, it is more nearly connected
+with medieval ideals than they themselves were aware.
+In the circle of the Medici it is the idyll of Careggi, in Rabelais
+it embodies itself in the fancy of the abbey of Th&eacute;l&egrave;me; it
+finds voice in More's <i>Utopia</i> and in the work of Montaigne.
+In Erasmus's writings that ideal wish ever recurs in the shape of
+a friendly walk, followed by a meal in a garden-house. It is
+found as an opening scene of the <i>Antibarbari</i>, in the numerous
+descriptions of meals with Colet, and the numerous <i>Convivia</i>
+of the <i>Colloquies</i>. Especially in the <i>Convivium religiosum</i>
+Erasmus has elaborately pictured his dream, and it would be
+worth while to compare it, on the one hand with Th&eacute;l&egrave;me,
+and on the other with the fantastic design of a pleasure garden
+which Bernard Palissy describes. The little Dutch eighteenth-century
+country-seats and garden-houses in which the national
+spirit took great delight are the fulfilment of a purely Erasmian
+ideal. The host of the <i>Convivium religiosum</i> says: 'To me
+a simple country-house, a nest, is pleasanter than any palace,
+and, if he be king who lives in freedom and according to his
+wishes, surely I am king here'.</p>
+
+<p>Life's true joy is in virtue and piety. If they are Epicureans
+who live pleasantly, then none are more truly Epicureans than
+they who live in holiness and piety.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The ideal joy of life is also perfectly idyllic in so far that it
+requires an aloofness from earthly concerns and contempt for
+all that is sordid. It is foolish to be interested in all that happens
+in the world; to pride oneself on one's knowledge of the
+market, of the King of England's plans, the news from Rome,
+conditions in Denmark. The sensible old man of the <i>Colloquium
+Senile</i> has an easy post of honour, a safe mediocrity, he
+judges no one and nothing and smiles upon all the world.
+Quiet for oneself, surrounded by books&mdash;that is of all things
+most desirable.</p>
+
+<p>On the outskirts of this ideal of serenity and harmony
+numerous flowers of aesthetic value blow, such as Erasmus's
+sense of decorum, his great need of kindly courtesy, his
+pleasure in gentle and obliging treatment, in cultured and
+easy manners. Close by are some of his intellectual peculiarities.
+He hates the violent and extravagant. Therefore the
+choruses of the Greek drama displease him. The merit of his
+own poems he sees in the fact that they pass passion by, they
+abstain from pathos altogether&mdash;'there is not a single storm
+in them, no mountain torrent overflowing its banks, no
+exaggeration whatever. There is great frugality in words. My
+poetry would rather keep within bounds than exceed them,
+rather hug the shore than cleave the high seas.' In another
+place he says: 'I am always most pleased by a poem that does
+not differ too much from prose, but prose of the best sort, be
+it understood. As Philoxenus accounted those the most palatable
+fishes that are no true fishes and the most savoury meat
+what is no meat, the most pleasant voyage, that along the
+shores, and the most agreeable walk, that along the water's
+edge; so I take especial pleasure in a rhetorical poem and a
+poetical oration, so that poetry is tasted in prose and the
+reverse.' That is the man of half-tones, of fine shadings, of the
+thought that is never completely expressed. But he adds: 'Farfetched
+conceits may please others; to me the chief concern
+seems to be that we draw our speech from the matter itself and
+apply ourselves less to showing off our invention than to
+present the thing.' That is the realist.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From this conception results his admirable, simple clarity,
+the excellent division and presentation of his argument. But it
+also causes his lack of depth and the prolixity by which he is
+characterized. His machine runs too smoothly. In the endless
+<i>apologiae</i> of his later years, ever new arguments occur to him;
+new passages to point, or quotations to support, his idea. He
+praises laconism, but never practises it. Erasmus never coins a
+sentence which, rounded off and pithy, becomes a proverb and
+in this manner lives. There are no current quotations from
+Erasmus. The collector of the <i>Adagia</i> has created no new
+ones of his own.</p>
+
+<p>The true occupation for a mind like his was paraphrasing,
+in which, indeed, he amply indulged. Soothing down and
+unfolding was just the work he liked. It is characteristic that he
+paraphrased the whole New Testament except the Apocalypse.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's mind was neither philosophic nor historic. His was
+neither the work of exact, logical discrimination, nor of grasping
+the deep sense of the way of the world in broad historical
+visions in which the particulars themselves, in their multiplicity
+and variegation, form the image. His mind is philological
+in the fullest sense of the word. But by that alone he
+would not have conquered and captivated the world. His
+mind was at the same time of a deeply ethical and rather strong
+aesthetic trend and those three together have made him great.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation of Erasmus's mind is his fervent desire of
+freedom, clearness, purity, simplicity and rest. It is an old
+ideal of life to which he gave new substance by the wealth of
+his mind. Without liberty, life is no life; and there is no liberty
+without repose. The fact that he never took sides definitely
+resulted from an urgent need of perfect independence. Each
+engagement, even a temporary one, was felt as a fetter by
+Erasmus. An interlocutor in the <i>Colloquies</i>, in which he so
+often, spontaneously, reveals his own ideals of life, declares
+himself determined neither to marry, nor to take holy orders,
+nor to enter a monastery, nor into any connection from which
+he will afterwards be unable to free himself&mdash;at least not before
+he knows himself completely. 'When will that be? Never,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+perhaps.' 'On no other account do I congratulate myself more
+than on the fact that I have never attached myself to any party,'
+Erasmus says towards the end of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Liberty should be spiritual liberty in the first place. 'But he
+that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no
+man,' is the word of Saint Paul. To what purpose should he
+require prescriptions who, of his own accord, does better
+things than human laws require? What arrogance it is to bind
+by institutions a man who is clearly led by the inspirations of
+the divine spirit!</p>
+
+<p>In Erasmus we already find the beginning of that optimism
+which judges upright man good enough to dispense with fixed
+forms and rules. As More, in <i>Utopia</i>, and Rabelais, Erasmus
+relies already on the dictates of nature, which produces man
+as inclined to good and which we may follow, provided we
+are imbued with faith and piety.</p>
+
+<p>In this line of confidence in what is natural and desire of the
+simple and reasonable, Erasmus's educational and social ideas
+lie. Here he is far ahead of his times. It would be an attractive
+undertaking to discuss Erasmus's educational ideals more fully.
+They foreshadow exactly those of the eighteenth century. The
+child should learn in playing, by means of things that are agreeable
+to its mind, from pictures. Its faults should be gently
+corrected. The flogging and abusive schoolmaster is Erasmus's
+abomination; the office itself is holy and venerable to him.
+Education should begin from the moment of birth. Probably
+Erasmus attached too much value to classicism, here as elsewhere:
+his friend Peter Gilles should implant the rudiments of
+the ancient languages in his two-year-old son, that he may
+greet his father with endearing stammerings in Greek and
+Latin. But what gentleness and clear good sense shines from
+all Erasmus says about instruction and education!</p>
+
+<p>The same holds good of his views about marriage and
+woman. In the problem of sexual relations he distinctly sides
+with the woman from deep conviction. There is a great deal
+of tenderness and delicate feeling in his conception of the
+position of the girl and the woman. Few characters of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+<i>Colloquies</i> have been drawn with so much sympathy as the girl
+with the lover and the cultured woman in the witty conversation
+with the abbot. Erasmus's ideal of marriage is truly
+social and hygienic. Let us beget children for the State and for
+Christ, says the lover, children endowed by their upright
+parents with a good disposition, children who see the good
+example at home which is to guide them. Again and again he
+reverts to the mother's duty to suckle the child herself. He
+indicates how the house should be arranged, in a simple and
+cleanly manner; he occupies himself with the problem of useful
+children's dress. Who stood up at that time, as he did, for
+the fallen girl, and for the prostitute compelled by necessity?
+Who saw so clearly the social danger of marriages of persons
+infected with the new scourge of Europe, so violently abhorred
+by Erasmus? He would wish that such a marriage should
+at once be declared null and void by the Pope. Erasmus does
+not hold with the easy social theory, still quite current in
+the literature of his time, which casts upon women all the
+blame of adultery and lewdness. With the savages who live in
+a state of nature, he says, the adultery of men is punished, but
+that of women is forgiven.</p>
+
+<p>Here it appears, at the same time, that Erasmus knew, be it
+half in jest, the conception of natural virtue and happiness of
+naked islanders in a savage state. It soon crops up again in
+Montaigne and the following centuries develop it into a
+literary dogma.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xiii" id="chapter_xiii"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ERASMUS'S MIND-CONTINUED</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus's mind: Intellectual tendencies&mdash;The world encumbered by beliefs
+and forms&mdash;Truth must be simple&mdash;Back to the pure sources&mdash;Holy
+Scripture in the original languages&mdash;Biblical humanism&mdash;Critical work on
+the texts of Scripture&mdash;Practice better than dogma&mdash;Erasmus's talent and
+wit&mdash;Delight in words and things&mdash;Prolixity&mdash;Observation of details&mdash;A
+veiled realism&mdash;Ambiguousness&mdash;The 'Nuance'&mdash;Inscrutability of the
+ultimate ground of all things</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness, those
+are to Erasmus the dominant requirements, also when we pass
+from his ethical and aesthetic concepts to his intellectual point
+of view; indeed, the two can hardly be kept apart.</p>
+
+<p>The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with human constitutions
+and opinions and scholastic dogmas, and overburdened
+with the tyrannical authority of orders, and because of
+all this the strength of gospel doctrine is flagging. Faith requires
+simplification, he argued. What would the Turks say of our
+scholasticism? Colet wrote to him one day: 'There is no end
+to books and science. Let us, therefore, leave all roundabout
+roads and go by a short cut to the truth.'</p>
+
+<p>Truth must be simple. 'The language of truth is simple, says
+Seneca; well then, nothing is simpler nor truer than Christ.'
+'I should wish', Erasmus says elsewhere, 'that this simple and
+pure Christ might be deeply impressed upon the mind of
+men, and that I deem best attainable in this way, that we,
+supported by our knowledge of the original languages, should
+philosophize <i>at the sources</i> themselves.'</p>
+
+<p>Here a new watchword comes to the fore: back to the
+sources! It is not merely an intellectual, philological requirement;
+it is equally an ethical and aesthetic necessity of life. The
+original and pure, all that is not yet overgrown or has not
+passed through many hands, has such a potent charm. Erasmus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+compared it to an apple which we ourselves pick off the tree.
+To recall the world to the ancient simplicity of science, to lead
+it back from the now turbid pools to those living and most
+pure fountain-heads, those most limpid sources of gospel doctrine&mdash;thus
+he saw the task of divinity. The metaphor of the
+limpid water is not without meaning here; it reveals the
+psychological quality of Erasmus's fervent principle.</p>
+
+<p>'How is it', he exclaims, 'that people give themselves so
+much trouble about the details of all sorts of remote philosophical
+systems and neglect to go to the sources of Christianity
+itself?' 'Although this wisdom, which is so excellent
+that once for all it put the wisdom of all the world to shame,
+may be drawn from these few books, as from a crystalline
+source, with far less trouble than is the wisdom of Aristotle
+from so many thorny books and with much more fruit....
+The equipment for that journey is simple and at everyone's
+immediate disposal. This philosophy is accessible to everybody.
+Christ desires that his mysteries shall be spread as widely
+as possible. I should wish that all good wives read the Gospel
+and Paul's Epistles; that they were translated into all languages;
+that out of these the husbandman sang while ploughing,
+the weaver at his loom; that with such stories the traveller
+should beguile his wayfaring.... This sort of philosophy is
+rather a matter of disposition than of syllogisms, rather of life
+than of disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition,
+rather of transformation than of logic.... What is the philosophy
+of Christ, which he himself calls <i>Renascentia</i>, but the
+insaturation of Nature created good?&mdash;moreover, though no
+one has taught us this so absolutely and effectively as Christ, yet
+also in pagan books much may be found that is in accordance
+with it.'</p>
+
+<p>Such was the view of life of this biblical humanist. As often
+as Erasmus reverts to these matters, his voice sounds clearest.
+'Let no one', he says in the preface to the notes to the New
+Testament, 'take up this work, as he takes up Gellius's <i>Noctes
+atticae</i> or Poliziano's Miscellanies.... We are in the presence
+of holy things; here it is no question of eloquence, these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+matters are best recommended to the world by simplicity and
+purity; it would be ridiculous to display human erudition here,
+impious to pride oneself on human eloquence.' But Erasmus
+never was so eloquent himself as just then.</p>
+
+<p>What here raises him above his usual level of force and
+fervour is the fact that he fights a battle, the battle for the right
+of biblical criticism. It revolts him that people should study
+Holy Scripture in the Vulgate when they know that the texts
+show differences and are corrupt, although we have the Greek
+text by which to go back to the original form and primary
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>He is now reproached because he dares, as a mere grammarian,
+to assail the text of Holy Scripture on the score of
+futile mistakes or irregularities. 'Details they are, yes, but
+because of these details we sometimes see even great divines
+stumble and rave.' Philological trifling is necessary. 'Why are
+we so precise as to our food, our clothes, our money-matters
+and why does this accuracy displease us in divine literature
+alone? He crawls along the ground, they say, he wearies himself
+out about words and syllables! Why do we slight any
+word of Him whom we venerate and worship under the name
+of the Word? But, be it so! Let whoever wishes imagine that
+I have not been able to achieve anything better, and out of
+sluggishness of mind and coldness of heart or lack of erudition
+have taken this lowest task upon myself; it is still a Christian
+idea to think all work good that is done with pious zeal. We
+bring along the bricks, but to build the temple of God.'</p>
+
+<p>He does not want to be intractable. Let the Vulgate be kept
+for use in the liturgy, for sermons, in schools, but he who, at
+home, reads our edition, will understand his own the better
+in consequence. He, Erasmus, is prepared to render account
+and acknowledge himself to have been wrong when convicted
+of error.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus perhaps never quite realized how much his philological-critical
+method must shake the foundations of the
+Church. He was surprised at his adversaries 'who could not
+but believe that all their authority would perish at once when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+the sacred books might be read in a purified form, and when
+people tried to understand them in the original'. He did not
+feel what the unassailable authority of a sacred book meant.
+He rejoices because Holy Scripture is approached so much
+more closely, because all sorts of shadings are brought to light
+by considering not only what is said but also by whom, for
+whom, at what time, on what occasion, what precedes and
+what follows, in short, by the method of historical philological
+criticism. To him it seemed so especially pious when reading
+Scripture and coming across a place which seemed contrary to
+the doctrine of Christ or the divinity of his nature, to believe
+rather that one did not understand the phrase <i>or that the text
+might be corrupt</i>. Unperceived he passed from emendation of
+the different versions to the correction of the contents. The
+epistles were not all written by the apostles to whom they are
+attributed. The apostles themselves made mistakes, at times.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation of his spiritual life was no longer a unity to
+Erasmus. It was, on the one hand, a strong desire for an upright,
+simple, pure and homely belief, the earnest wish to be
+a good Christian. But it was also the irresistible intellectual and
+aesthetic need of the good taste, the harmony, the clear and
+exact expression of the Ancients, the dislike of what was cumbrous
+and involved. Erasmus thought that good learning
+might render good service for the necessary purification of the
+faith and its forms. The measure of church hymns should be
+corrected. That Christian expression and classicism were incompatible,
+he never believed. The man who in the sphere of
+sacred studies asked every author for his credentials remained
+unconscious of the fact that he acknowledged the authority of
+the Ancients without any evidence. How na&iuml;vely he appeals to
+Antiquity, again and again, to justify some bold feat! He is
+critical, they say? Were not the Ancients critical? He permits
+himself to insert digressions? So did the Ancients, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus is in profound sympathy with that revered Antiquity
+by his fundamental conviction that it is the practice of
+life which matters. Not he is the great philosopher who knows
+the tenets of the Stoics or Peripatetics by rote&mdash;but he who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+expresses the meaning of philosophy by his life and his morals,
+for that is its purpose. He is truly a divine who teaches, not by
+artful syllogisms, but by his disposition, by his face and his
+eyes, by his life itself, that wealth should be despised. To live
+up to that standard is what Christ himself calls <i>Renascentia</i>.
+Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only. But in that
+sense it is closely allied to the idea of the Renaissance as a
+historical phenomenon. The worldly and pagan sides of the
+Renaissance have nearly always been overrated. Erasmus is,
+much more than Aretino or Castiglione, the representative of
+the spirit of his age, one over whose Christian sentiment the
+sweet gale of Antiquity had passed. And that very union of
+strong Christian endeavour and the spirit of Antiquity is the
+explanation of Erasmus's wonderful success.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The mere intention and the contents of the mind do not
+influence the world, if the form of expression does not cooperate.
+In Erasmus the quality of his talent is a very important
+factor. His perfect clearness and ease of expression, his
+liveliness, wit, imagination, gusto and humour have lent a
+charm to all he wrote which to his contemporaries was irresistible
+and captivates even us, as soon as we read him. In all
+that constitutes his talent, Erasmus is perfectly and altogether
+a representative of the Renaissance. There is, in the first place,
+his eternal <i>&agrave; propos</i>. What he writes is never vague, never
+dark&mdash;it is always plausible. Everything seemingly flows
+of itself like a fountain. It always rings true as to tone,
+turn of phrase and accent. It has almost the light harmony
+of Ariosto. And it is, like Ariosto, never tragic, never truly
+heroic. It carries us away, indeed, but it is never itself truly
+enraptured.</p>
+
+<p>The more artistic aspects of Erasmus's talent come out most
+clearly&mdash;though they are everywhere in evidence&mdash;in those
+two recreations after more serious labour, the <i>Moriae Encomium</i>
+and the <i>Colloquia</i>. But just those two have been of
+enormous importance for his influence upon his times. For
+while Jerome reached tens of readers and the New Testament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+hundreds, the <i>Moria</i> and <i>Colloquies</i> went out to thousands. And
+their importance is heightened in that Erasmus has nowhere
+else expressed himself so spontaneously.</p>
+
+<p>In each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely formulary
+ones, there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a
+satire. There is hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression
+without a vivid fancy. There are unrivalled niceties.
+The abbot of the <i>Abbatis et eruditae colloquium</i> is a Moli&egrave;re
+character. It should be noticed how well Erasmus always sustains
+his characters and his scenes, because he <i>sees</i> them. In
+'The woman in childbed' he never forgets for a moment that
+Eutrapelus is an artist. At the end of 'The game of knucklebones',
+when the interlocutors, after having elucidated the
+whole nomenclature of the Latin game of knuckle-bones, are
+going to play themselves, Carolus says: 'but shut the door
+first, lest the cook should see us playing like two boys'.</p>
+
+<p>As Holbein illustrated the <i>Moria</i>, we should wish to possess
+the <i>Colloquia</i> with illustrations by Brueghel, so closely allied is
+Erasmus's witty clear vision of incidents to that of this great
+master. The procession of drunkards on Palm Sunday, the
+saving of the shipwrecked crew, the old men waiting for the
+travelling cart while the drivers are still drinking, all these are
+Dutch genre pieces of the best sort.</p>
+
+<p>We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance. Erasmus
+is certainly a realist in the sense of having an insatiable hunger
+for knowledge of the tangible world. He wants to know things
+and their names: the particulars of each thing, be it never so
+remote, such as those terms of games and rules of games of the
+Romans. Read carefully the description of the decorative
+painting on the garden-house of the <i>Convivium religiosum</i>: it is
+nothing but an object lesson, a graphic representation of the
+forms of reality.</p>
+
+<p>In its joy over the material universe and the supple, pliant
+word, the Renaissance revels in a profusion of imagery and
+expressions. The resounding enumerations of names and
+things, which Rabelais always gives, are not unknown to
+Erasmus, but he uses them for intellectual and useful purposes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+In <i>De copia verborum ac rerum</i> one feat of varied power of expression
+succeeds another&mdash;he gives fifty ways of saying:
+'Your letter has given me much pleasure,' or, 'I think that it is
+going to rain'. The aesthetic impulse is here that of a theme
+and variations: to display all the wealth and mutations of the
+logic of language. Elsewhere, too, Erasmus indulges this proclivity
+for accumulating the treasures of his genius; he and his
+contemporaries can never restrain themselves from giving all
+the instances instead of one: in <i>Ratio verae theologiae</i>, in <i>De
+pronuntiatione</i>, in <i>Lingua</i>, in <i>Ecclesiastes</i>. The collections of
+<i>Adagia</i>, <i>Parabolae</i>, and <i>Apophthegmata</i> are altogether based on
+this eagerness of the Renaissance (which, by the way, was an
+inheritance of the Middle Ages themselves) to luxuriate in the
+wealth of the tangible world, to revel in words and things.</p>
+
+<p>The senses are open for the nice observation of the curious.
+Though Erasmus does not know that need of proving the
+secrets of nature, which inspired a Leonardo da Vinci, a
+Paracelsus, a Vesalius, he is also, by his keen observation, a
+child of his time. For peculiarities in the habits and customs of
+nations he has an open eye. He notices the gait of Swiss
+soldiers, how dandies sit, how Picards pronounce French. He
+notices that in old pictures the sitters are always represented
+with half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty,
+and how some Spaniards still honour this expression in life,
+while German art prefers lips pouting as for a kiss. His lively
+sense of anecdote, to which he gives the rein in all his writings,
+belongs here.</p>
+
+<p>And, in spite of all his realism, the world which Erasmus sees
+and renders, is not altogether that of the sixteenth century.
+Everything is veiled by Latin. Between the author's mind and
+reality intervenes his antique diction. At bottom the world of
+his mind is imaginary. It is a subdued and limited sixteenth-century
+reality which he reflects. Together with its coarseness
+he lacks all that is violent and direct in his times. Compared
+with the artists, with Luther and Calvin, with the statesmen,
+the navigators, the soldiers and the scientists, Erasmus confronts
+the world as a recluse. It is only the influence of Latin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+In spite of all his receptiveness and sensitiveness, Erasmus is
+never fully in contact with life. All through his work not a
+bird sings, not a wind rustles.</p>
+
+<p>But that reserve or fear of directness is not merely a negative
+quality. It also results from a consciousness of the indefiniteness
+of the ground of all things, from the awe of the ambiguity
+of all that is. If Erasmus so often hovers over the borderline
+between earnestness and mockery, if he hardly ever gives an
+incisive conclusion, it is not only due to cautiousness, and fear
+to commit himself. Everywhere he sees the shadings, the blending
+of the meaning of words. The terms of things are no
+longer to him, as to the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals
+mounted in gold, or as stars in the firmament. 'I like assertions
+so little that I would easily take sides with the sceptics whereever
+it is allowed by the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture
+and the decrees of the Church.' 'What is exempt from error?'
+All subtle contentions of theological speculation arise from a
+dangerous curiosity and lead to impious audacity. What have
+all the great controversies about the Trinity and the Virgin
+Mary profited? 'We have defined so much that without
+danger to our salvation might have remained unknown or
+undecided.... The essentials of our religion are peace and
+unanimity. These can hardly exist unless we make definitions
+about as few points as possible and leave many questions to
+individual judgement. Numerous problems are now postponed
+till the oecumenical Council. It would be much better to put
+off such questions till the time when the glass shall be removed
+and the darkness cleared away, and we shall see God face to
+face.'</p>
+
+<p>'There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has
+not willed that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate
+there, we grope in ever deeper darkness the farther we proceed,
+so that we recognize, in this manner, too, the inscrutable
+majesty of divine wisdom and the imbecility of human
+understanding.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xiv" id="chapter_xiv"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>ERASMUS'S CHARACTER</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness&mdash;Delicacy&mdash;Dislike of
+contention, need of concord and friendship&mdash;Aversion to disturbance of any
+kind&mdash;Too much concerned about other men's opinions&mdash;Need of self-justification&mdash;Himself
+never in the wrong&mdash;Correlation between inclinations
+and convictions&mdash;Ideal image of himself&mdash;Dissatisfaction with himself&mdash;Self-centredness&mdash;A
+solitary at heart&mdash;Fastidiousness&mdash;Suspiciousness&mdash;Morbid
+mistrust&mdash;Unhappiness&mdash;Restlessness&mdash;Unsolved contradictions of his being&mdash;Horror
+of lies&mdash;Reserve and insinuation</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Erasmus's powerful mind met with a great response in the
+heart of his contemporaries and had a lasting influence on the
+march of civilization. But one of the heroes of history he cannot
+be called. Was not his failure to attain to still loftier
+heights partly due to the fact that his character was not on a
+level with the elevation of his mind?</p>
+
+<p>And yet that character, a very complicated one, though he
+took himself to be the simplest man in the world, was determined
+by the same factors which determined the structure of
+his mind. Again and again we find in his inclinations the
+correlates of his convictions.</p>
+
+<p>At the root of his moral being we find&mdash;a key to the understanding
+of his character&mdash;that same profound need of purity
+which drove him to the sources of sacred science. Purity in the
+material and the moral sense is what he desires for himself and
+others, always and in all things. Few things revolt him so much
+as the practices of vintners who doctor wine and dealers who
+adulterate food. If he continually chastens his language and
+style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse
+which prompts his passionate desire for cleanliness and
+brightness, of the home and of the body. He has a violent dislike
+of stuffy air and smelly substances. He regularly takes a
+roundabout way to avoid a malodorous lane; he loathes
+shambles and fishmongers' shops. Fetors spread infection, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+thinks. Erasmus had, earlier than most people, antiseptic ideas
+about the danger of infection in the foul air of crowded inns,
+in the breath of confessants, in baptismal water. Throw aside
+common cups, he pleaded; let everybody shave himself, let us
+be cleanly as to bed-sheets, let us not kiss each other by way of
+greeting. The fear of the horrible venereal disease, imported
+into Europe during his lifetime, and of which Erasmus
+watched the unbridled propagation with solicitude, increases
+his desire for purity. Too little is being done to stop it, he
+thinks. He cautions against suspected inns; he wants to have
+measures taken against the marriages of syphilitic persons.
+In his undignified attitude towards Hutten his physical and
+moral aversion to the man's evil plays an unmistakable part.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus is a delicate soul in all his fibres. His body forces
+him to be that. He is highly sensitive, among other things very
+susceptible to cold, 'the scholars' disorder', as he calls it. Early
+in life already the painful malady of the stone begins to torment
+him, which he resisted so bravely when his work was at
+stake. He always speaks in a coddling tone about his little
+body, which cannot stand fasting, which must be kept fit by
+some exercise, namely riding, and for which he carefully tries
+to select a suitable climate. He is at times circumstantial in the
+description of his ailments.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> He has to be very careful in the
+matter of his sleep; if once he wakes up, he finds it difficult to
+go to sleep again, and because of that has often to lose the
+morning, the best time to work and which is so dear to him.
+He cannot stand cold, wind and fog, but still less overheated
+rooms. How he has execrated the German stoves, which are
+burned nearly all the year through and made Germany almost
+unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we have spoken above.
+It is not only the plague which he flees&mdash;for fear of catching
+cold he gives up a journey from Louvain to Antwerp, where
+his friend Peter Gilles is in mourning. Although he realizes
+quite well that 'often a great deal of the disease is in the
+imagination', yet his own imagination leaves him no peace.
+Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+<p>His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and fresh
+air, this last item in moderation: he takes the vicinity of the sea
+to be unwholesome and is afraid of draughts. His friend Gilles,
+who is ill, he advises: 'Do not take too much medicine, keep
+quiet and do not get angry'. Though there is a 'Praise of
+Medicine' among his works, he does not think highly of
+physicians and satirizes them more than once in the <i>Colloquies</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Also in his outward appearance there were certain features
+betraying his delicacy. He was of medium height, well-made,
+of a fair complexion with blond hair and blue eyes, a cheerful
+face, a very articulate mode of speech, but a thin voice.</p>
+
+<p>In the moral sphere Erasmus's delicacy is represented by his
+great need of friendship and concord, his dislike of contention.
+With him peace and harmony rank above all other considerations,
+and he confesses them to be the guiding principles
+of his actions. He would, if it might be, have all the world as a
+friend. 'Wittingly I discharge no one from my friendship,' he
+says. And though he was sometimes capricious and exacting
+towards his friends, yet a truly great friend he was: witness the
+many who never forsook him, or whom he, after a temporary
+estrangement, always won back&mdash;More, Peter Gilles, Fisher,
+Ammonius, Budaeus, and others too numerous to mention.
+'He was most constant in keeping up friendships,' says Beatus
+Rhenanus, whose own attachment to Erasmus is a proof of the
+strong affection he could inspire.</p>
+
+<p>At the root of this desire of friendship lies a great and sincere
+need of affection. Remember the effusions of almost feminine
+affection towards Servatius during his monastic period. But at
+the same time it is a sort of moral serenity that makes him so:
+an aversion to disturbance, to whatever is harsh and inharmonious.
+He calls it 'a certain occult natural sense' which
+makes him abhor strife. He cannot abide being at loggerheads
+with anyone. He always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep
+his pen unbloody, to attack no one, to provoke no one, even
+if he were attacked. But his enemies had not willed it, and in
+later years he became well accustomed to bitter polemics, with
+Lef&egrave;vre d'&Eacute;taples, with Lee, with Egmondanus, with Hutten,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+with Luther, with Beda, with the Spaniards, and the Italians.
+At first it is still noticeable how he suffers by it, how contention
+wounds him, so that he cannot bear the pain in silence.
+'Do let us be friends again,' he begs Lef&egrave;vre, who does not
+reply. The time which he had to devote to his polemics he
+regards as lost. 'I feel myself getting more heavy every day,'
+he writes in 1520, 'not so much on account of my age as
+because of the restless labour of my studies, nay more even
+by the weariness of disputes than by the work, which, in
+itself, is agreeable.' And how much strife was still in store for
+him then!</p>
+
+<p>If only Erasmus had been less concerned about public
+opinion! But that seemed impossible: he had a fear of men, or,
+we may call it, a fervent need of justification. He would always
+see beforehand, and usually in exaggerated colours, the effect
+his word or deed would have upon men. Of himself, it was
+certainly true as he once wrote: that the craving for fame has
+less sharp spurs than the fear of ignominy. Erasmus is with
+Rousseau among those who cannot bear the consciousness of
+guilt, out of a sort of mental cleanliness. Not to be able to repay
+a benefit with interest, makes him ashamed and sad. He cannot
+abide 'dunning creditors, unperformed duty, neglect of the
+need of a friend'. If he cannot discharge the obligation, he
+explains it away. The Dutch historian Fruin has quite correctly
+observed: 'Whatever Erasmus did contrary to his duty
+and his rightly understood interests was the fault of circumstances
+or wrong advice; he is never to blame himself'. And
+what he has thus justified for himself becomes with him universal
+law: 'God relieves people of pernicious vows, if only
+they repent of them,' says the man who himself had broken a
+vow.</p>
+
+<p>There is in Erasmus a dangerous fusion between inclination
+and conviction. The correlations between his idiosyncrasies
+and his precepts are undeniable. This has special reference to
+his point of view in the matter of fasting and abstinence from
+meat. He too frequently vents his own aversion to fish, or talks
+of his inability to postpone meals, not to make this connection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+clear to everybody. In the same way his personal experience in
+the monastery passes into his disapproval, on principle, of
+monastic life.</p>
+
+<p>The distortion of the image of his youth in his memory, to
+which we have referred, is based on that need of self-justification.
+It is all unconscious interpretation of the undeniable facts
+to suit the ideal which Erasmus had made of himself and to
+which he honestly thinks he answers. The chief features of
+that self-conceived picture are a remarkable, simple sincerity
+and frankness, which make it impossible to him to dissemble;
+inexperience and carelessness in the ordinary concerns of life
+and a total lack of ambition. All this is true in the first instance:
+there is a superficial Erasmus who answers to that image, but
+it is not the whole Erasmus; there is a deeper one who is almost
+the opposite and whom he himself does not know because he
+will not know him. Possibly because behind this there is a still
+deeper being, which is truly good.</p>
+
+<p>Does he not ascribe weaknesses to himself? Certainly. He is,
+in spite of his self-coddling, ever dissatisfied with himself and
+his work. <i>Putidulus</i>, he calls himself, meaning the quality of
+never being content with himself. It is that peculiarity which
+makes him dissatisfied with any work of his directly after it
+has appeared, so that he always keeps revising and supplementing.
+'Pusillanimous' he calls himself in writing to Colet.
+But again he cannot help giving himself credit for acknowledging
+that quality, nay, converting that quality itself into a
+virtue: it is modesty, the opposite of boasting and self-love.</p>
+
+<p>This bashfulness about himself is the reason that he does not
+love his own physiognomy, and is only persuaded with difficulty
+by his friends to sit for a portrait. His own appearance is
+not heroic or dignified enough for him, and he is not duped
+by an artist who flatters him: 'Heigh-ho,' he exclaims, on
+seeing Holbein's thumbnail sketch illustrating the <i>Moria</i>:
+'if Erasmus still looked like that, he would take a wife at
+once'. It is that deep trait of dissatisfaction that suggests the
+inscription on his portraits: 'his writings will show you a
+better image'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's modesty and the contempt which he displays of
+the fame that fell to his lot are of a somewhat rhetorical
+character. But in this we should not so much see a personal
+trait of Erasmus as a general form common to all humanists.
+On the other hand, this mood cannot be called altogether
+artificial. His books, which he calls his children, have not
+turned out well. He does not think they will live. He does not
+set store by his letters: he publishes them because his friends
+insist upon it. He writes his poems to try a new pen. He hopes
+that geniuses will soon appear who will eclipse him, so that
+Erasmus will pass for a stammerer. What is fame? A pagan
+survival. He is fed up with it to repletion and would do
+nothing more gladly than cast it off.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes another note escapes him. If Lee would help
+him in his endeavours, Erasmus would make him immortal,
+he had told the former in their first conversation. And he
+threatens an unknown adversary, 'If you go on so impudently
+to assail my good name, then take care that my gentleness
+does not give way and I cause you to be ranked, after a
+thousand years, among the venomous sycophants, among the
+idle boasters, among the incompetent physicians'.</p>
+
+<p>The self-centred element in Erasmus must needs increase
+accordingly as he in truth became a centre and objective point
+of ideas and culture. There really was a time when it must
+seem to him that the world hinged upon him, and that it
+awaited the redeeming word from him. What a widespread
+enthusiastic following he had, how many warm friends and
+venerators! There is something na&iuml;ve in the way in which he
+thinks it requisite to treat all his friends, in an open letter, to a
+detailed, rather repellent account of an illness that attacked
+him on the way back from Basle to Louvain. <i>His</i> part, <i>his</i>
+position, <i>his</i> name, this more and more becomes the aspect
+under which he sees world-events. Years will come in which
+his whole enormous correspondence is little more than one
+protracted self-defence.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this man who has so many friends is nevertheless solitary
+at heart. And in the depth of that heart he desires to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+alone. He is of a most retiring disposition; he is <i>a recluse</i>. 'I
+have always wished to be alone, and there is nothing I hate so
+much as sworn partisans.' Erasmus is one of those whom contact
+with others weakens. The less he has to address and to
+consider others, friends or enemies, the more truly he utters
+his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always
+causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry,
+reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore it should
+not be thought that we get to know him to the core from his
+letters. Natures like his, which all contact with men unsettles,
+give their best and deepest when they speak impersonally and
+to all.</p>
+
+<p>After the early effusions of sentimental affection he no longer
+opens his heart unreservedly to others. At bottom he feels
+separated from all and on the alert towards all. There is a great
+fear in him that others will touch his soul or disturb the image
+he has made of himself. The attitude of warding off reveals
+itself as fastidiousness and as bashfulness. Budaeus hit the mark
+when he exclaimed jocularly: '<i>Fastidiosule!</i> You little fastidious
+person!' Erasmus himself interprets the dominating trait
+of his being as maidenly coyness. The excessive sensitiveness to
+the stain attaching to his birth results from it. But his friend
+Ammonius speaks of his <i>subrustica verecundia</i>, his somewhat
+rustic <i>gaucherie</i>. There is, indeed, often something of the small
+man about Erasmus, who is hampered by greatness and
+therefore shuns the great, because, at bottom, they obsess him
+and he feels them to be inimical to his being.</p>
+
+<p>It seems a hard thing to say that genuine loyalty and fervent
+gratefulness were strange to Erasmus. And yet such was his
+nature. In characters like his a kind of mental cramp keeps
+back the effusions of the heart. He subscribes to the adage:
+'Love so, as if you may hate one day, and hate so, as if you
+may love one day'. He cannot bear benefits. In his inmost soul
+he continually retires before everybody. He who considers
+himself the pattern of simple unsuspicion, is indeed in the
+highest degree suspicious towards all his friends. The dead
+Ammonius, who had helped him so zealously in the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+delicate concerns, is not secure from it. 'You are always unfairly
+distrustful towards me,' Budaeus complains. 'What!'
+exclaims Erasmus, 'you will find few people who are so little
+distrustful in friendship as myself.'</p>
+
+<p>When at the height of his fame the attention of the world
+was indeed fixed on all he spoke or did, there was some
+ground for a certain feeling on his part of being always
+watched and threatened. But when he was yet an unknown
+man of letters, in his Parisian years, we continually find traces
+in him of a mistrust of the people about him that can only be
+regarded as a morbid feeling. During the last period of his life
+this feeling attaches especially to two enemies, Eppendorf and
+Aleander. Eppendorf employs spies everywhere who watch
+Erasmus's correspondence with his friends. Aleander continually
+sets people to combat him, and lies in wait for him wherever
+he can. His interpretation of the intentions of his assailants
+has the ingenious self-centred element which passes the
+borderline of sanity. He sees the whole world full of calumny
+and ambuscades threatening his peace: nearly all those who
+once were his best friends have become his bitterest enemies;
+they wag their venomous tongues at banquets, in conversation,
+in the confessional, in sermons, in lectures, at court, in
+vehicles and ships. The minor enemies, like troublesome
+vermin, drive him to weariness of life, or to death by insomnia.
+He compares his tortures to the martyrdom of Saint
+Sebastian, pierced by arrows. But his is worse, for there is no end
+to it. For years he has daily been dying a thousand deaths and
+that alone; for his friends, if such there are, are deterred by envy.</p>
+
+<p>He mercilessly pillories his patrons in a row for their stinginess.
+Now and again there suddenly comes to light an undercurrent
+of aversion and hatred which we did not suspect.
+Where had more good things fallen to his lot than in England?
+Which country had he always praised more? But suddenly
+a bitter and unfounded reproach escapes him. England is
+responsible for his having become faithless to his monastic
+vows, 'for no other reason do I hate Britain more than for this,
+though it has always been pestilent to me'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He seldom allows himself to go so far. His expressions of
+hatred or spite are, as a rule, restricted to the feline. They are
+aimed at friends and enemies, Budaeus, Lypsius, as well as
+Hutten and Beda. Occasionally we are struck by the expression
+of coarse pleasure at another's misfortune. But in all this,
+as regards malice, we should not measure Erasmus by our
+ideas of delicacy and gentleness. Compared with most of his
+contemporaries he remains moderate and refined.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Erasmus never felt happy, was never content. This may
+perhaps surprise us for a moment, when we think of his cheerful,
+never-failing energy, of his gay jests and his humour. But
+upon reflection this unhappy feeling tallies very well with his
+character. It also proceeds from his general attitude of warding
+off. Even when in high spirits he considers himself in all respects
+an unhappy man. 'The most miserable of all men, the
+thrice-wretched Erasmus,' he calls himself in fine Greek terms.
+His life 'is an Iliad of calamities, a chain of misfortunes. How
+can anyone envy <i>me</i>?' To no one has Fortune been so constantly
+hostile as to him. She has sworn his destruction, thus he
+sang in his youth in a poetical complaint addressed to Gaguin:
+from earliest infancy the same sad and hard fate has been constantly
+pursuing him. Pandora's whole box seems to have been
+poured out over him.</p>
+
+<p>This unhappy feeling takes the special form of his having
+been charged by unlucky stars with Herculean labour, without
+profit or pleasure to himself:<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> troubles and vexations
+without end. His life might have been so much easier if he had
+taken his chances. He should never have left Italy; or he ought
+to have stayed in England. 'But an immoderate love of liberty
+caused me to wrestle long with faithless friends and inveterate
+poverty.' Elsewhere he says more resignedly: 'But we are
+driven by fate'.</p>
+
+<p>That immoderate love of liberty had indeed been as fate to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+him. He had always been the great seeker of quiet and liberty
+who found liberty late and quiet never. By no means ever to
+bind himself, to incur no obligations which might become
+fetters&mdash;again that fear of the entanglements of life. Thus he
+remained the great restless one. He was never truly satisfied
+with anything, least of all with what he produced himself.
+'Why, then, do you overwhelm us with so many books',
+someone at Louvain objected, 'if you do not really approve of
+any of them?' And Erasmus answers with Horace's word: 'In
+the first place, because I cannot sleep'.</p>
+
+<p>A sleepless energy, it was that indeed. He cannot rest. Still
+half seasick and occupied with his trunks, he is already thinking
+about an answer to Dorp's letter, just received, censuring
+the <i>Moria</i>. We should fully realize what it means that time
+after time Erasmus, who, by nature, loved quiet and was fearful,
+and fond of comfort, cleanliness and good fare, undertakes
+troublesome and dangerous journeys, even voyages, which he
+detests, for the sake of his work and of that alone.</p>
+
+<p>He is not only restless, but also precipitate. Helped by an
+incomparably retentive and capacious memory he writes at
+haphazard. He never becomes anacoluthic; his talent is too
+refined and sure for that; but he does repeat himself and is
+unnecessarily circumstantial. 'I rather pour out than write
+everything,' he says. He compares his publications to parturitions,
+nay, to abortions. He does not select his subjects, he
+tumbles into them, and having once taken up a subject he
+finishes without intermission. For years he has read only
+<i>tumultuarie</i>, up and down all literature; he no longer finds time
+really to refresh his mind by reading, and to work so as to
+please himself. On that account he envied Budaeus.</p>
+
+<p>'Do not publish too hastily,' More warns him: 'you are
+watched to be caught in inexactitudes.' Erasmus knows it: he
+will correct all later, he will ever have to revise and to polish
+everything. He hates the labour of revising and correcting,
+but he submits to it, and works passionately, 'in the treadmill
+of Basle', and, he says, finishes the work of six years in eight
+months.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In that recklessness and precipitation with which Erasmus
+labours there is again one of the unsolved contradictions of his
+being. He <i>is</i> precipitate and careless; he <i>wants</i> to be careful and
+cautious; his mind drives him to be the first, his nature restrains
+him, but usually only after the word has been written and published.
+The result is a continual intermingling of explosion and
+reserve.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which Erasmus always tries to shirk definite
+statements irritates us. How carefully he always tries to represent
+the <i>Colloquies</i>, in which he had spontaneously revealed
+so much of his inner convictions, as mere trifling committed
+to paper to please his friends. They are only meant to teach
+correct Latin! And if anything is said in them touching matters
+of faith, it is not I who say it, is it? As often as he censures
+classes or offices in the <i>Adagia</i>, princes above all, he warns the
+readers not to regard his words as aimed at particular persons.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus was a master of reserve. He knew, even when he
+held definite views, how to avoid direct decisions, not only
+from caution, but also because he saw the eternal ambiguity of
+human issues.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus ascribes to himself an unusual horror of lies. On
+seeing a liar, he says, he was corporeally affected. As a boy he
+already violently disliked mendacious boys, such as the little
+braggart of whom he tells in the <i>Colloquies</i>. That this reaction
+of aversion is genuine is not contradicted by the fact
+that we catch Erasmus himself in untruths. Inconsistencies,
+flattery, pieces of cunning, white lies, serious suppression of
+facts, simulated sentiments of respect or sorrow&mdash;they may all
+be pointed out in his letters. He once disavowed his deepest
+conviction for a gratuity from Anne of Borselen by flattering
+her bigotry. He requested his best friend Batt to tell lies in his
+behalf. He most sedulously denied his authorship of the Julius
+dialogue, for fear of the consequences, even to More, and
+always in such a way as to avoid saying outright, 'I did not
+write it'. Those who know other humanists, and know how
+frequently and impudently they lied, will perhaps think more
+lightly of Erasmus's sins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For the rest, even during his lifetime he did not escape
+punishment for his eternal reserve, his proficiency in semi-conclusions
+and veiled truths, insinuations and slanderous
+allusions. The accusation of perfidy was often cast in his teeth,
+sometimes in serious indignation. 'You are always engaged in
+bringing suspicion upon others,' Edward Lee exclaims. 'How
+dare you usurp the office of a general censor, and condemn
+what you have hardly ever tasted? How dare you despise all
+but yourself? Falsely and insultingly do you expose your
+antagonist in the <i>Colloquia</i>.' Lee quotes the spiteful passage
+referring to himself, and then exclaims: 'Now from these
+words the world may come to know its divine, its censor, its
+modest and sincere author, that Erasmian diffidence, earnest,
+decency and honesty! Erasmian modesty has long been proverbial.
+You are always using the words "false accusations".
+You say: if I was consciously guilty of the smallest of all his
+(Lee's) false accusations, I should not dare to approach the
+Lord's table!&mdash;O man, who are you, to judge another, a
+servant who stands or falls before his Lord?'</p>
+
+<p>This was the first violent attack from the conservative side,
+in the beginning of 1520, when the mighty struggle which
+Luther's action had unchained kept the world in ever greater
+suspense. Six months later followed the first serious reproaches
+on the part of radical reformers. Ulrich von Hutten, the
+impetuous, somewhat foggy-headed knight, who wanted to
+see Luther's cause triumph as the national cause of Germany,
+turns to Erasmus, whom, at one time, he had enthusiastically
+acclaimed as the man of the new weal, with the urgent appeal
+not to forsake the cause of the reformation or to compromise
+it. 'You have shown yourself fearful in the affair of Reuchlin;
+now in that of Luther you do your utmost to convince his
+adversaries that you are altogether averse from it, though we
+know better. Do not disown us. You know how triumphantly
+certain letters of yours are circulated, in which, to
+protect yourself from suspicion, you rather meanly fasten it on
+others ... If you are now afraid to incur a little hostility for
+<i>my</i> sake, concede me at least that you will not allow yourself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+out of fear for another, to be tempted to renounce me; rather
+be silent about me.'</p>
+
+<p>Those were bitter reproaches. In the man who had to
+swallow them there was a puny Erasmus who deserved those
+reproaches, who took offence at them, but did not take them
+to heart, who continued to act with prudent reserve till
+Hutten's friendship was turned to hatred. In him was also a
+great Erasmus who knew how, under the passion and infatuation
+with which the parties combated each other, the Truth he
+sought, and the Love he hoped would subdue the world, were
+obscured; who knew the God whom he professed too high to
+take sides. Let us try ever to see of that great Erasmus as much
+as the petty one permits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Cf. the letter to Beatus Rhenanus, pp. <a href="#Page_227">227-8</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Ad. 2001 LB. II, 717B, 77 c. 58A. On the book which Erasmus holds
+in his hand in Holbein's portrait at Longford Castle, we read in Greek:
+The Labours of Hercules.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xv" id="chapter_xv"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>AT LOUVAIN</h3>
+
+<h3>1517-18</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus at Louvain, 1517&mdash;He expects the renovation of the Church as
+the fruit of good learning&mdash;Controversy with Lef&egrave;vre d'&Eacute;taples&mdash;Second
+journey to Basle, 1518&mdash;He revises the edition of the New Testament&mdash;Controversies
+with Latomus, Briard and Lee&mdash;Erasmus regards the opposition
+of conservative theology merely as a conspiracy against good learning</p></div>
+
+
+<p>When Erasmus established himself at Louvain in the summer
+of 1517 he had a vague presentiment that great changes were
+at hand. 'I fear', he writes in September, 'that a great subversion
+of affairs is being brought about here, if God's favour
+and the piety and wisdom of princes do not concern themselves
+about human matters.' But the forms which that great change
+would assume he did not in the least realize.</p>
+
+<p>He regarded his removal as merely temporary. It was only
+to last 'till we shall have seen which place of residence is best
+fit for old age, which is already knocking'. There is something
+pathetic in the man who desires nothing but quiet and
+liberty, and who through his own restlessness, and his inability
+not to concern himself about other people, never found a
+really fixed abode or true independence. Erasmus is one of
+those people who always seem to say: tomorrow, tomorrow!
+I must first deal with this, and then ... As soon as he shall be
+ready with the new edition of the New Testament and shall
+have extricated himself from troublesome and disagreeable
+theological controversies, in which he finds himself entangled
+against his wish, he will sleep, hide himself, 'sing for himself
+and the Muses'. But that time never came.</p>
+
+<p>Where to live when he shall be free? Spain, to which
+Cardinal Ximenes called him, did not appeal to him. From
+Germany, he says, the stoves and the insecurity deter him.
+In England the servitude which was required of him there
+revolted him. But in the Netherlands themselves, he did not feel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+at his ease, either: 'Here I am barked at a great deal, and there
+is no remuneration; though I desired it ever so much, I could
+not bear to stay there long'. Yet he remained for four years.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had good friends in the University of Louvain. At
+first he put up with his old host Johannes Paludanus, Rhetor
+of the University, whose house he exchanged that summer for
+quarters in the College of the Lily. Martin Dorp, a Dutchman
+like himself, had not been estranged from him by their polemics
+about the <i>Moria</i>; his good will was of great importance
+to Erasmus, because of the important place Dorp occupied in
+the theological faculty. And lastly, though his old patron,
+Adrian of Utrecht, afterwards Pope, had by that time been
+called away from Louvain to higher dignities, his influence
+had not diminished in consequence, but rather increased; for
+just about that time he had been made a cardinal.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus was received with great complaisance by the
+Louvain divines. Their leader, the vice-chancellor of the
+University, Jean Briard of Ath, repeatedly expressed his
+approval of the edition of the New Testament, to Erasmus's
+great satisfaction. Soon Erasmus found himself a member of
+the theological faculty. Yet he did not feel at his ease among
+the Louvain theologians. The atmosphere was a great deal less
+congenial to him than that of the world of the English scholars.
+Here he felt a spirit which he did not understand and distrusted
+in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>In the years in which the Reformation began, Erasmus was
+the victim of a great misunderstanding, the result of the fact
+that his delicate, aesthetic, hovering spirit understood neither
+the profoundest depths of the faith nor the hard necessities of
+human society. He was neither mystic nor realist. Luther was
+both. To Erasmus the great problem of Church and State and
+society, seemed simple. Nothing was required but restoration
+and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt sources
+of Christianity. A number of accretions to the faith, rather
+ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared away. All should
+be reduced to the nucleus of faith, Christ and the Gospel.
+Forms, ceremonies, speculations should make room for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+practice of true piety. The Gospel was easily intelligible to
+everybody and within everybody's reach. And the means to
+reach all this was good learning, <i>bonae literae</i>. Had he not himself,
+by his editions of the New Testament and of Jerome, and
+even earlier by the now famous <i>Enchiridion</i>, done most of
+what had to be done? 'I hope that what now pleases the
+upright, will soon please all.' As early as the beginning of 1517
+Erasmus had written to Wolfgang Fabricius Capito, in the
+tone of one who has accomplished the great task. 'Well then,
+take you the torch from us. The work will henceforth be a
+great deal easier and cause far less hatred and envy. <i>We</i> have
+lived through the first shock.'</p>
+
+<p>Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May 1517: 'Was anyone born
+under such inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure
+discipline (scholasticism) does not revolt him, since sacred
+literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's diligence, has regained
+its ancient purity and brightness? But it is still much greater
+that he should have effected by the same labour the emergence
+of sacred truth itself out of that Cimmerian darkness,
+even though divinity is not yet quite free from the dirt of the
+sophist school. If that should occur one day, it will be owing
+to the beginnings made in our times.' The philologist Budaeus
+believed even more firmly than Erasmus that faith was a
+matter of erudition.</p>
+
+<p>It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone accepted
+the cleansed truth at once. How could people continue to
+oppose themselves to what, to him, seemed as clear as daylight
+and so simple? He, who so sincerely would have liked to
+live in peace with all the world, found himself involved in a
+series of polemics. To let the opposition of opponents pass unnoticed
+was forbidden not only by his character, for ever
+striving to justify himself in the eyes of the world, but also by
+the custom of his time, so eager for dispute.</p>
+
+<p>There were, first of all, his polemics with Jacques Lef&egrave;vre
+d'&Eacute;taples, or in Latinized form, Faber Stapulensis, the Parisian
+theologian, who as a preparer of the Reformation may, more
+than anyone else, be ranked with Erasmus. At the moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+when Erasmus got into the travelling cart which was to take
+him to Louvain, a friend drew his attention to a passage in the
+new edition of Faber's commentary on St. Paul's epistles, in
+which he controverted Erasmus's note on the Second Epistle
+to the Hebrews, verse 7. Erasmus at once bought Faber's book,
+and soon published an <i>Apologia</i>. It concerned Christ's relation
+to God and the angels, but the dogmatic point at issue hinged,
+after all, on a philological interpretation of Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>Not yet accustomed to much direct wrangling, Erasmus was
+violently agitated by the matter, the more as he esteemed
+Faber highly and considered him a congenial spirit. 'What on
+earth has occurred to the man? Have others set him on
+against me? All theologians agree that I am right,' he asserts.
+It makes him nervous that Faber does not reply again at once.
+Badius has told Peter Gilles that Faber is sorry about it. Erasmus
+in a dignified letter appeals to their friendship; he will
+suffer himself to be taught and censured. Then again he growls:
+Let him be careful. And he thinks that his controversy
+with Faber keeps the world in suspense: there is not a
+meal at which the guests do not side with one or the other
+of them. But finally the combat abated and the friendship
+was preserved.</p>
+
+<p>Towards Easter 1518, Erasmus contemplated a new journey
+to Basle, there to pass through the press, during a few months
+of hard labour, the corrected edition of the New Testament.
+He did not fail to request the chiefs of conservative divinity at
+Louvain beforehand to state their objections to his work.
+Briard of Ath declared he had found nothing offensive in it,
+after he had first been told all sorts of bad things about it.
+'Then the new edition will please you much better,' Erasmus
+had said. His friend Dorp and James Latomus, also one of the
+chief divines, had expressed themselves in the same sense, and
+the Carmelite Nicholas of Egmond had said that he had never
+read Erasmus's work. Only a young Englishman, Edward
+Lee, who was studying Greek at Louvain, had summarized a
+number of criticisms into ten conclusions. Erasmus had got
+rid of the matter by writing to Lee that he had not been able to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+get hold of his conclusions and therefore could not make use of
+them. But his youthful critic had not put up with being slighted
+so, and worked out his objections in a more circumstantial
+treatise.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xvii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xvii-th.png" width="375" height="272" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XVII. VIEW OF BASLE, 1548</p>
+
+<p>Thus Erasmus set out for Basle once more in May 1518. He
+had been obliged to ask all his English friends (of whom
+Ammonius had been taken from him by death in 1517) for
+support to defray the expenses of the journey; he kept holding
+out to them the prospect that, after his work was finished, he
+would return to England. In a letter to Martin Lypsius, as he
+was going up the Rhine, he answered Lee's criticism, which
+had irritated him extremely. In revising his edition he not only
+took it but little into account, but ventured, moreover, this
+time to print his own translation of the New Testament of
+1506 without any alterations. At the same time he obtained
+for the new edition a letter of approval from the Pope, a
+redoubtable weapon against his cavillers.</p>
+
+<p>At Basle Erasmus worked again like a horse in a treadmill.
+But he was really in his element. Even before the second edition
+of the New Testament, the <i>Enchiridion</i> and the <i>Institutio
+Principis Christiani</i> were reprinted by Froben. On his return
+journey, Erasmus, whose work had been hampered all
+through the summer by indisposition, and who had, on that
+account, been unable to finish it, fell seriously ill. He reached
+Louvain with difficulty (21 September 1518). It might be the
+pestilence, and Erasmus, ever much afraid of contagion himself,
+now took all precautions to safeguard his friends against
+it. He avoided his quarters in the College of the Lily, and
+found shelter with his most trusted friend, Dirck Maertensz,
+the printer. But in spite of rumours of the plague and his
+warnings, first Dorp and afterwards also Ath came, at once, to
+visit him. Evidently the Louvain professors did not mean so
+badly by him, after all.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xviii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xviii-th.png" width="250" height="348" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament printed by Froben in 1520</p>
+
+<p>But the differences between Erasmus and the Louvain
+faculty were deeply rooted. Lee, hurt by the little attention
+paid by Erasmus to his objections, prepared a new critique,
+but kept it from Erasmus, for the present, which irritated the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+latter and made him nervous. In the meantime a new opponent
+arose. Directly after his return to Louvain, Erasmus had
+taken much trouble to promote the establishment of the
+<i>Collegium Trilingue</i>, projected and endowed by Jerome
+Busleiden, in his testament, to be founded in the university.
+The three biblical languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were
+to be taught there. Now when James Latomus, a member of
+the theological faculty and a man whom he esteemed, in a
+dialogue about the study of those three languages and of
+theology, doubted the utility of the former, Erasmus judged
+himself concerned, and answered Latomus in an <i>Apologia</i>.
+About the same time (spring 1519) he got into trouble with
+the vice-chancellor himself. Erasmus thought that Ath had
+publicly censured him with regard to his 'Praise of Marriage',
+which had recently appeared. Though Ath withdrew at once,
+Erasmus could not abstain from writing an <i>Apologia</i>, however
+moderate. Meanwhile the smouldering quarrel with Lee
+assumed ever more hateful forms. In vain did Erasmus's
+English friends attempt to restrain their young, ambitious
+compatriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him furtively. He
+reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and dignity
+which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum
+he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan,
+even the old taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve
+once more. The points at issue disappear altogether behind
+the bitter mutual reproaches. In his unrestrained anger,
+Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy weapons. He
+eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to ridicule
+him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his English
+friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the
+greatest trouble in keeping them back'.</p>
+
+<p>Alack! Germany had other causes of disturbance: it is 1520
+and the three great polemics of Luther were setting the world
+on fire.</p>
+
+<p>Though one may excuse the violence and the petty spitefulness
+of Erasmus in this matter, as resulting from an
+over-sensitive heart falling somewhat short in really manly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+qualities, yet it is difficult to deny that he failed completely to
+understand both the arguments of his adversaries and the great
+movements of his time.</p>
+
+<p>It was very easy for Erasmus to mock the narrow-mindedness
+of conservative divines who thought that there would be
+an end to faith in Holy Scripture as soon as the emendation of
+the text was attempted. '"They correct the Holy Gospel, nay,
+the Pater Noster itself!" the preacher exclaims indignantly
+in the sermon before his surprised congregation. As if I cavilled
+at Matthew and Luke, and not at those who, out of ignorance
+and carelessness, have corrupted them. What do people wish?
+That the Church should possess Holy Scripture as correct as
+possible, or not?' This reasoning seemed to Erasmus, with his
+passionate need of purity, a conclusive refutation. But instinct
+did not deceive his adversaries, when it told them that
+doctrine itself was at stake if the linguistic judgement of a
+single individual might decide as to the correct version of a
+text. And Erasmus wished to avoid the inferences which
+assailed doctrine. He was not aware of the fact that his conceptions
+of the Church, the sacraments and the dogmas were
+no longer purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated
+to his philological insight. He could not be aware of
+it because, in spite of all his natural piety and his fervent
+ethical sentiments, he lacked the mystic insight which is the
+foundation of every creed.</p>
+
+<p>It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him unable
+to understand the real grounds of the resistance of Catholic
+orthodoxy. How was it possible that so many, and among
+them men of high consideration, refused to accept what to
+him seemed so clear and irrefutable! He interpreted the fact
+in a highly personal way. He, the man who would so gladly
+have lived in peace with all the world, who so yearned for
+sympathy and recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty,
+saw the ranks of haters and opponents increase about him. He
+did not understand how they feared his mocking acrimony,
+how many wore the scar of a wound that the <i>Moria</i> had made.
+That real and supposed hatred troubled Erasmus. He sees his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+enemies as a sect. It is especially the Dominicans and the
+Carmelites who are ill-affected towards the new scientific
+theology. Just then a new adversary had arisen at Louvain in
+the person of his compatriot Nicholas of Egmond, prior of
+the Carmelites, henceforth an object of particular abhorrence
+to him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus found his
+fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the narrower sense
+of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, William of Vianen,
+Ruurd Tapper. The persecution increases: the venom of
+slander spreads more and more every day and becomes more
+deadly; the greatest untruths are impudently preached about
+him; he calls in the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor, against
+them. But it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write
+for the erudite, who are few; we shall bark to stir up the
+people. After 1520 he writes again and again: 'I am stoned
+every day'.</p>
+
+<p>But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not
+without reason, at the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no
+longer be blind to the fact that the great struggle did not concern
+him alone. On all sides the battle was being fought.
+What is it, that great commotion about matters of spirit and
+of faith?</p>
+
+<p>The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it is a
+great and wilful conspiracy on the part of the conservatives to
+suffocate good learning and make the old ignorance triumph.
+This idea recurs innumerable times in his letters after the
+middle of 1518. 'I know quite certainly', he writes on 21 March
+1519 to one of his German friends, 'that the barbarians on
+all sides have conspired to leave no stone unturned till they
+have suppressed <i>bonae literae</i>.' 'Here we are still fighting with
+the protectors of the old ignorance'; cannot Wolsey persuade
+the Pope to stop it here? All that appertains to ancient and
+cultured literature is called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded
+fellows. By that word they indicate everything that savours
+of a more elegant doctrine, that is to say all that they have not
+learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole tragedy&mdash;under
+these terms he usually refers to the great theological struggle&mdash;originates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+in the hatred of <i>bonae literae</i>. 'This is the source and
+hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic study
+and the <i>bonae literae</i>.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom
+it is impossible to conquer, though their cause is a bad one.
+And meanwhile envy harasses the <i>bonae literae</i>, which are
+attacked at his (Luther's) instigation by these gadflies. They
+are already nearly insufferable, when things do not go well
+with them; but who can stand them when they triumph?
+Either I am blind, or they aim at something else than Luther.
+They are preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.'</p>
+
+<p>This was written by Erasmus to a member of the University
+of Leipzig in December 1520. This one-sided and
+academic conception of the great events, a conception which
+arose in the study of a recluse bending over his books, did
+more than anything else to prevent Erasmus from understanding
+the true nature and purport of the Reformation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xvi" id="chapter_xvi"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther&mdash;Archbishop Albert
+of Mayence, 1517&mdash;Progress of the Reformation&mdash;Luther tries to bring
+about a <i>rapprochement</i> with Erasmus, March 1519&mdash;Erasmus keeps aloof;
+fancies he may yet act as a conciliator&mdash;His attitude becomes ambiguous&mdash;He
+denies ever more emphatically all relations with Luther and resolves to
+remain a spectator&mdash;He is pressed by either camp to take sides&mdash;Aleander in
+the Netherlands&mdash;The Diet of Worms, 1521&mdash;Erasmus leaves Louvain to
+safeguard his freedom, October 1521</p></div>
+
+
+<p>About the close of 1516, Erasmus received a letter from the
+librarian and secretary of Frederick, elector of Saxony,
+George Spalatinus, written in the respectful and reverential
+tone in which the great man was now approached. 'We all
+esteem you here most highly; the elector has all your books in
+his library and intends to buy everything you may publish in
+future.' But the object of Spalatinus's letter was the execution
+of a friend's commission. An Augustinian ecclesiastic, a great
+admirer of Erasmus, had requested him to direct his attention
+to the fact that in his interpretation of St. Paul, especially in
+that of the epistle to the Romans, Erasmus had failed to conceive
+the idea of <i>justitia</i> correctly, had paid too little attention
+to original sin: he might profit by reading Augustine.</p>
+
+<p>The nameless Austin Friar was Luther, then still unknown
+outside the circle of the Wittenberg University, in which he
+was a professor, and the criticism regarded the cardinal point
+of his hardly acquired conviction: justification by faith.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus paid little attention to this letter. He received so
+many of that sort, containing still more praise and no criticism.
+If he answered it, the reply did not reach Spalatinus, and later
+Erasmus completely forgot the whole letter.</p>
+
+<p>Nine months afterwards, in September 1517, when Erasmus
+had been at Louvain for a short time, he received an honourable
+invitation, written by the first prelate of the Empire, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+young Archbishop of Mayence, Albert of Brandenburg.
+The archbishop would be pleased to see him on an occasion: he
+greatly admired his work (he knew it so little as to speak of
+Erasmus's emendation of the Old Testament, instead of the
+New) and hoped that he would one day write some lives of
+saints in elegant style.</p>
+
+<p>The young Hohenzoller, advocate of the new light of
+classical studies, whose attention had probably been drawn to
+Erasmus by Hutten and Capito, who sojourned at his court,
+had recently become engaged in one of the boldest political
+and financial transactions of his time. His elevation to the see of
+Mayence, at the age of twenty-four, had necessitated a papal
+dispensation, as he also wished to keep the archbishopric of
+Magdeburg and the see of Halberstadt. This accumulation of
+ecclesiastical offices had to be made subservient to the Brandenburg
+policy which opposed the rival house of Saxony. The
+Pope granted the dispensation in return for a great sum of
+money, but to facilitate its payment he accorded to the archbishop
+a liberal indulgence for the whole archbishopric of
+Mayence, Magdeburg and the Brandenburg territories.
+Albert, to whom half the proceeds were tacitly left, raised a
+loan with the house of Fugger, and this charged itself with the
+indulgence traffic.</p>
+
+<p>When in December 1517, Erasmus answered the archbishop,
+Luther's propositions against indulgences, provoked
+by the Archbishop of Mayence's instructions regarding their
+colportage, had already been posted up (31 October 1517),
+and were circulated throughout Germany, rousing the whole
+Church. They were levelled at the same abuses which Erasmus
+combated, the mechanical, atomistical, and juridical conception
+of religion. But how different was their practical effect, as
+compared with Erasmus's pacific endeavour to purify the
+Church by lenient means!</p>
+
+<p>'Lives of saints?' Erasmus asked replying to the archbishop.
+'I have tried in my poor way to add a little light to the prince
+of saints himself. For the rest, your endeavour, in addition to
+so many difficult matters of government, and at such an early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+age, to get the lives of the saints purged of old women's tales
+and disgusting style, is extremely laudable. For nothing should be
+suffered in the Church that is not perfectly pure or refined,' And
+he concludes with a magnificent eulogy of the excellent prelate.</p>
+
+<p>During the greater part of 1518, Erasmus was too much
+occupied by his own affairs&mdash;the journey to Basle and his red-hot
+labours there, and afterwards his serious illness&mdash;to concern
+himself much with Luther's business. In March he sends
+Luther's theses to More, without comment, and, in passing,
+complains to Colet about the impudence with which Rome
+disseminates indulgences. Luther, now declared a heretic and
+summoned to appear at Augsburg, stands before the legate
+Cajetanus and refuses to recant. Seething enthusiasm surrounds
+him. Just about that time Erasmus writes to one of Luther's
+partisans, John Lang, in very favourable terms about his work.
+The theses have pleased everybody. 'I see that the monarchy
+of the Pope at Rome, as it is now, is a pestilence to Christendom,
+but I do not know if it is expedient to touch that sore
+openly. That would be a matter for princes, but I fear that
+these will act in concert with the Pope to secure part of the
+spoils. I do not understand what possessed Eck to take up arms
+against Luther.' The letter did not find its way into any of the
+collections.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the election
+of an emperor, after old Maximilian had died in January, and
+the attempt of the curia to regain ground with lenity. Germany
+was expecting the long-projected disputation between
+Johannes Eck and Andreas Karlstadt which, in truth, would
+concern Luther. How could Erasmus, who himself was involved
+that year in so many polemics, have foreseen that the
+Leipzig disputation, which was to lead Luther to the consequence
+of rejecting the highest ecclesiastical authority, would
+remain of lasting importance in the history of the world,
+whereas his quarrel with Lee would be forgotten?</p>
+
+<p>On 28 March 1519 Luther addressed himself personally to
+Erasmus for the first time. 'I speak with you so often, and you
+with me, Erasmus, our ornament and our hope; and we do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+not know each other as yet.' He rejoices to find that Erasmus
+displeases many, for this he regards as a sign that God has
+blessed him. Now that his, Luther's, name begins to get
+known too, a longer silence between them might be wrongly
+interpreted. 'Therefore, my Erasmus, amiable man, if you
+think fit, acknowledge also this little brother in Christ, who
+really admires you and feels friendly disposed towards you,
+and for the rest would deserve no better, because of his
+ignorance, than to lie, unknown, buried in a corner.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a very definite purpose in this somewhat rustically
+cunning and half ironical letter. Luther wanted, if
+possible, to make Erasmus show his colours, to win him, the
+powerful authority, touchstone of science and culture, for the
+cause which he advocated. In his heart Luther had long been
+aware of the deep gulf separating him from Erasmus. As early
+as March 1517, six months before his public appearance, he
+wrote about Erasmus to John Lang: 'human matters weigh
+heavier with him than divine,' an opinion that so many have
+pronounced about Erasmus&mdash;obvious, and yet unfair.</p>
+
+<p>The attempt, on the part of Luther, to effect a <i>rapprochement</i>
+was a reason for Erasmus to retire at once. Now began that
+extremely ambiguous policy of Erasmus to preserve peace by
+his authority as a light of the world and to steer a middle course
+without committing himself. In that attitude the great and the
+petty side of his personality are inextricably intertwined. The
+error because of which most historians have seen Erasmus's
+attitude towards the Reformation either in far too unfavourable
+a light or&mdash;as for instance the German historian Kalkoff&mdash;much
+too heroic and far-seeing, is that they erroneously regard
+him as psychologically homogeneous. Just that he is not. His
+double-sidedness roots in the depths of his being. Many of his
+utterances during the struggle proceed directly from his fear
+and lack of character, also from his inveterate dislike of siding
+with a person or a cause; but behind that is always his deep and
+fervent conviction that neither of the conflicting opinions can
+completely express the truth, that human hatred and purblindness
+infatuate men's minds. And with that conviction is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+allied the noble illusion that it might yet be possible to preserve
+the peace by moderation, insight, and kindliness.</p>
+
+<p>In April 1519 Erasmus addressed himself by letter to the
+elector Frederick of Saxony, Luther's patron. He begins by
+alluding to his dedication of Suetonius two years before; but
+his real purpose is to say something about Luther. Luther's
+writings, he says, have given the Louvain obscurants plenty of
+reason to inveigh against the <i>bonae literae</i>, to decry all scholars.
+He himself does not know Luther and has glanced through
+his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone praises his life.
+How little in accordance with theological gentleness it is to
+condemn him offhand, and that before the indiscreet vulgar!
+For has he not proposed a dispute, and submitted himself to
+everybody's judgement? No one has, so far, admonished,
+taught, convinced him. Every error is not at once heresy.</p>
+
+<p>The best of Christianity is a life worthy of Christ. Where
+we find that, we should not rashly suspect people of heresy.
+Why do we so uncharitably persecute the lapses of others,
+though none of us is free from error? Why do we rather want
+to conquer than cure, suppress than instruct?</p>
+
+<p>But he concludes with a word that could not but please
+Luther's friends, who so hoped for his support. 'May the duke
+prevent an innocent man from being surrendered under the
+cloak of piety to the impiety of a few. This is also the wish of
+Pope Leo, who has nothing more at heart than that innocence
+be safe.'</p>
+
+<p>At this same time Erasmus does his best to keep Froben back
+from publishing Luther's writings, 'that they may not fan the
+hatred of the <i>bonae literae</i> still more'. And he keeps repeating:
+I do not know Luther, I have not read his writings. He makes
+this declaration to Luther himself, in his reply to the latter's
+epistle of 28 March. This letter of Erasmus, dated 30 May 1519,
+should be regarded as a newspaper leader<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>, to acquaint the
+public with his attitude towards the Luther question. Luther
+does not know the tragedies which his writings have caused
+at Louvain. People here think that Erasmus has helped him in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+composing them and call him the standard bearer of the party!
+That seemed to them a fitting pretext to suppress the <i>bonae
+literae</i>. 'I have declared that you are perfectly unknown to
+me, that I have not yet read your books and therefore neither
+approve nor disapprove anything.' 'I reserve myself, so far as I
+may, to be of use to the reviving studies. Discreet moderation
+seems likely to bring better progress than impetuosity. It was
+by this that Christ subjugated the world.'</p>
+
+<p>On the same day he writes to John Lang, one of Luther's
+friends and followers, a short note, not meant for publication:
+'I hope that the endeavours of yourself and your party will be
+successful. Here the Papists rave violently.... All the best
+minds are rejoiced at Luther's boldness: I do not doubt he will
+be careful that things do not end in a quarrel of parties!...
+We shall never triumph over feigned Christians unless we first
+abolish the tyranny of the Roman see, and of its satellites, the
+Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Carmelites. But no one
+could attempt that without a serious tumult.'</p>
+
+<p>As the gulf widens, Erasmus's protestations that he has
+nothing to do with Luther become much more frequent.
+Relations at Louvain grow ever more disagreeable and the
+general sentiment about him ever more unkind. In August
+1519 he turns to the Pope himself for protection against his
+opponents. He still fails to see how wide the breach is. He still
+takes it all to be quarrels of scholars. King Henry of England
+and King Francis of France in their own countries have imposed
+silence upon the quarrellers and slanderers; if only the
+Pope would do the same!</p>
+
+<p>In October he was once more reconciled with the Louvain
+faculty. It was just at this time that Colet died in London, the
+man who had, better perhaps than anyone else, understood
+Erasmus's standpoint. Kindred spirits in Germany still looked up
+to Erasmus as the great man who was on the alert to interpose
+at the right moment and who had made moderation the watchword,
+until the time should come to give his friends the signal.</p>
+
+<p>But in the increasing noise of the battle his voice already
+sounded less powerfully than before. A letter to Cardinal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+Albert of Mayence, 19 October 1519, of about the same
+content as that of Frederick of Saxony written in the preceding
+spring, was at once circulated by Luther's friends; and by
+the advocates of conservatism, in spite of the usual protestation,
+'I do not know Luther', it was made to serve against Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>It became more and more clear that the mediating and conciliatory
+position which Erasmus wished to take up would
+soon be altogether untenable. The inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraten
+had come from Cologne, where he was a member of
+the University, to Louvain, to work against Luther there, as
+he had worked against Reuchlin. On 7 November 1519 the
+Louvain faculty, following the example of that of Cologne,
+proceeded to take the decisive step: the solemn condemnation
+of a number of Luther's opinions. In future no place could be
+less suitable to Erasmus than Louvain, the citadel of action
+against reformers. It is surprising that he remained there
+another two years.</p>
+
+<p>The expectation that he would be able to speak the conciliating
+word was paling. For the rest he failed to see the true
+proportions. During the first months of 1520 his attention was
+almost entirely taken up by his own polemics with Lee, a
+paltry incident in the great revolution. The desire to keep aloof
+got more and more the upper hand of him. In June he writes
+to Melanchthon: 'I see that matters begin to look like sedition.
+It is perhaps necessary that scandals occur, but I should prefer
+not to be the author.' He has, he thinks, by his influence with
+Wolsey, prevented the burning of Luther's writings in
+England, which had been ordered. But he was mistaken. The
+burning had taken place in London, as early as 12 May.</p>
+
+<p>The best proof that Erasmus had practically given up his
+hope to play a conciliatory part may be found in what follows.
+In the summer of 1520 the famous meeting between the three
+monarchs, Henry VIII, Francis I and Charles V, took place
+at Calais. Erasmus was to go there in the train of his prince.
+How would such a congress of princes&mdash;where in peaceful
+conclave the interests of France, England, Spain, the German
+Empire, and a considerable part of Italy, were represented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+together&mdash;have affected Erasmus's imagination, if his ideal had
+remained unshaken! But there are no traces of this. Erasmus
+was at Calais in July 1520, had some conversation with Henry
+VIII there, and greeted More, but it does not appear that he
+attached any other importance to the journey than that of an
+opportunity, for the last time, to greet his English friends.</p>
+
+<p>It was awkward for Erasmus that just at this time, when the
+cause of faith took so much harsher forms, his duties as counsellor
+to the youthful Charles, now back from Spain to be
+crowned as emperor, circumscribed his liberty more than
+before. In the summer of 1520 appeared, based on the incriminating
+material furnished by the Louvain faculty, the papal
+bull declaring Luther to be a heretic, and, unless he should
+speedily recant, excommunicating him. 'I fear the worst for
+the unfortunate Luther,' Erasmus writes, 9 September 1520,
+'so does conspiracy rage everywhere, so are princes incensed
+with him on all sides, and, most of all, Pope Leo. Would
+Luther had followed my advice and abstained from those
+hostile and seditious actions!... They will not rest until they
+have quite subverted the study of languages and the good
+learning.... Out of the hatred against these and the stupidity
+of monks did this tragedy first arise.... I do not meddle with
+it. For the rest, a bishopric is waiting for me if I choose to
+write against Luther.'</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, Erasmus had become, by virtue of his enormous
+celebrity, as circumstances would have it, more and more a
+valuable asset in the great policy of emperor and pope. People
+wanted to use his name and make him choose sides. And that
+he would not do for any consideration. He wrote evasively to
+the Pope about his relations with Luther without altogether
+disavowing him. How zealously he defends himself from the
+suspicion of being on Luther's side as noisy monks make out
+in their sermons, who summarily link the two in their scoffing
+disparagement.</p>
+
+<p>But by the other side also he is pressed to choose sides and
+to speak out. Towards the end of October 1520 the coronation
+of the emperor took place at Aix-la-Chapelle. Erasmus was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+perhaps present; in any case he accompanied the Emperor
+to Cologne. There, on 5 November, he had an interview
+about Luther with the Elector Frederick of Saxony. He was
+persuaded to write down the result of that discussion in the
+form of twenty-two <i>Axiomata concerning Luther's cause</i>. Against
+his intention they were printed at once.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's hesitation in those days between the repudiation
+and the approbation of Luther is not discreditable to him. It is
+the tragic defect running through his whole personality: his
+refusal or inability ever to draw ultimate conclusions. Had he
+only been a calculating and selfish nature, afraid of losing his
+life, he would long since have altogether forsaken Luther's
+cause. It is his misfortune affecting his fame, that he continually
+shows his weaknesses, whereas what is great in him lies deep.</p>
+
+<p>At Cologne Erasmus also met the man with whom, as a
+promising young humanist, fourteen years younger than himself,
+he had, for some months, shared a room in the house of
+Aldus's father-in-law, at Venice: Hieronymus Aleander, now
+sent to the Emperor as a papal nuncio, to persuade him to
+conform his imperial policy to that of the Pope, in the matter
+of the great ecclesiastical question, and give effect to the papal
+excommunication by the imperial ban.</p>
+
+<p>It must have been somewhat painful for Erasmus that his
+friend had so far surpassed him in power and position, and was
+now called to bring by diplomatic means the solution which
+he himself would have liked to see achieved by ideal harmony,
+good will and toleration. He had never trusted Aleander, and
+was more than ever on his guard against him. As a humanist,
+in spite of brilliant gifts, Aleander was by far Erasmus's inferior,
+and had never, like him, risen from literature to serious
+theological studies; he had simply prospered in the service
+of Church magnates (whom Erasmus had given up early).
+This man was now invested with the highest mediating
+powers.</p>
+
+<p>To what degree of exasperation Erasmus's most violent
+antagonists at Louvain had now been reduced is seen from
+the witty and slightly malicious account he gives Thomas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+More of his meeting with Egmondanus before the Rector of
+the university, who wanted to reconcile them. Still things did
+not look so black as Ulrich von Hutten thought, when he
+wrote to Erasmus: 'Do you think that you are still safe, now
+that Luther's books are burned? Fly, and save yourself for us!'</p>
+
+<p>Ever more emphatic do Erasmus's protestations become that
+he has nothing to do with Luther. Long ago he had already
+requested him not to mention his name, and Luther promised
+it: 'Very well, then, I shall not again refer to you, neither will
+other good friends, since it troubles you'. Ever louder, too, are
+Erasmus's complaints about the raving of the monks at him,
+and his demands that the mendicant orders be deprived of the
+right to preach.</p>
+
+<p>In April 1521 comes the moment in the world's history to
+which Christendom has been looking forward: Luther at the
+Diet of Worms, holding fast to his opinions, confronted by
+the highest authority in the Empire. So great is the rejoicing
+in Germany that for a moment it may seem that the Emperor's
+power is in danger rather than Luther and his adherents. 'If I
+had been present', writes Erasmus, 'I should have endeavoured
+that this tragedy would have been so tempered by moderate
+arguments that it could not afterwards break out again to the
+still greater detriment of the world.'</p>
+
+<p>The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the Empire
+(as in the Burgundian Netherlands before that time) Luther's
+books were to be burned, his adherents arrested and their
+goods confiscated, and Luther was to be given up to the
+authorities. Erasmus hopes that now relief will follow. 'The
+Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had never
+appeared on the stage.' In these days Albrecht D&uuml;rer, on
+hearing the false news of Luther's death, wrote in the diary of
+his journey that passionate exclamation: 'O Erasmus of
+Rotterdam, where will you be? Hear, you knight of Christ,
+ride forth beside the Lord Christ, protect the truth, obtain the
+martyr's crown. For you are but an old manikin. I have heard
+you say that you have allowed yourself two more years, in
+which you are still fit to do some work; spend them well, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+behalf of the Gospel and the true Christian faith.... O
+Erasmus, be on this side, that God may be proud of you.'</p>
+
+<p>It expresses confidence in Erasmus's power, but at bottom is
+the expectation that he will not do all this. D&uuml;rer had rightly
+understood Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. Latomus,
+the most dignified and able of Louvain divines, had now
+become one of the most serious opponents of Luther and, in so
+doing, touched Erasmus, too, indirectly. To Nicholas of
+Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Erasmus's compatriots had
+been added as a violent antagonist, Vincent Dirks of Haarlem,
+a Dominican. Erasmus addresses himself to the faculty, to
+defend himself against the new attacks, and to explain why he
+has never written against Luther. He will read him, he will
+soon take up something to quiet the tumult. He succeeds in
+getting Aleander, who arrived at Louvain in June, to prohibit
+preaching against him. The Pope still hopes that Aleander will
+succeed in bringing back Erasmus, with whom he is again on
+friendly terms, to the right track.</p>
+
+<p>But Erasmus began to consider the only exit which was now
+left to him: to leave Louvain and the Netherlands to regain
+his menaced independence. The occasion to depart had long
+ago presented itself: the third edition of his New Testament
+called him to Basle once more. It would not be a permanent
+departure, and he purposed to return to Louvain. On 28
+October (his birthday) he left the town where he had spent
+four difficult years. His chambers in the College of the Lily
+were reserved for him and he left his books behind. On
+15 November he reached Basle.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the rumour spread that out of fear of Aleander he had
+saved himself by flight. But the idea, revived again in our days
+in spite of Erasmus's own painstaking denial, that Aleander
+should have cunningly and expressly driven him from the
+Netherlands, is inherently improbable. So far as the Church
+was concerned, Erasmus would at almost any point be more
+dangerous than at Louvain, in the headquarters of conservatism,
+under immediate control of the strict Burgundian government,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+where, it seemed, he could sooner or later be pressed into the
+service of the anti-Lutheran policy.</p>
+
+<p>It was this contingency, as Dr. Allen has correctly pointed
+out, which he feared and evaded. Not for his bodily safety did
+he emigrate; Erasmus would not have been touched&mdash;he was
+far too valuable an asset for such measures. It was his mental
+independence, so dear to him above all else, that he felt to be
+threatened; and, to safeguard that, he did not return to
+Louvain.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 575px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xix.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xix-th.png" width="575" height="412" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XIX. THE HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT WHERE ERASMUS LIVED FROM MAY TO NOVEMBER 1521</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xx.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xx-th.png" width="300" height="520" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XX. ERASMUS'S STUDY AT ANDERLECHT<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Translation on pp. <a href="#Page_229">229</a> ff.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xvii" id="chapter_xvii"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>ERASMUS AT BASLE</h3>
+
+<h3>1521-9</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Basle his dwelling-place for nearly eight years: 1521-9&mdash;Political thought
+of Erasmus&mdash;Concord and peace&mdash;Anti-war writings&mdash;Opinions concerning
+princes and government&mdash;New editions of several Fathers&mdash;The
+<i>Colloquia</i>&mdash;Controversies
+with Stunica, Beda, etc.&mdash;Quarrel with Hutten&mdash;Eppendorff</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It is only towards the evening of life that the picture of
+Erasmus acquires the features with which it was to go down
+to posterity. Only at Basle&mdash;delivered from the troublesome
+pressure of parties wanting to enlist him, transplanted from an
+environment of haters and opponents at Louvain to a circle of
+friends, kindred spirits, helpers and admirers, emancipated
+from the courts of princes, independent of the patronage of
+the great, unremittingly devoting his tremendous energy to
+the work that was dear to him&mdash;did he become Holbein's
+Erasmus. In those late years he approaches most closely to the
+ideal of his personal life.</p>
+
+<p>He did not think that there were still fifteen years in store
+for him. Long before, in fact, since he became forty years old
+in 1506, Erasmus had been in an old-age mood. 'The last act of
+the play has begun,' he keeps saying after 1517.</p>
+
+<p>He now felt practically independent as to money matters.
+Many years had passed before he could say that. But peace of
+mind did not come with competence. It never came. He never
+became truly placid and serene, as Holbein's picture seems to
+represent him. He was always too much concerned about what
+people said or thought of him. Even at Basle he did not feel
+thoroughly at home. He still speaks repeatedly of a removal in
+the near future to Rome, to France, to England, or back to the
+Netherlands. Physical rest, at any rate, which was not in him,
+was granted him by circumstances: for nearly eight years he
+now remained at Basle, and then he lived at Freiburg for six.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Erasmus at Basle is a man whose ideals of the world and
+society have failed him. What remains of that happy expectation
+of a golden age of peace and light, in which he had believed
+as late as 1517? What of his trust in good will and
+rational insight, in which he wrote the <i>Institutio Principis
+Christiani</i> for the youthful Charles V? To Erasmus all the weal
+of state and society had always been merely a matter of
+personal morality and intellectual enlightenment. By recommending
+and spreading those two he at one time thought
+he had introduced the great renovation himself. From the
+moment when he saw that the conflict would lead to an
+exasperated struggle he refused any longer to be anything but
+a spectator. As an actor in the great ecclesiastical combat
+Erasmus had voluntarily left the stage.</p>
+
+<p>But he does not give up his ideal. 'Let us resist,' he concludes
+an Epistle about gospel philosophy, 'not by taunts and threats,
+not by force of arms and injustice, but by simple discretion,
+by benefits, by gentleness and tolerance.' Towards the close
+of his life, he prays: 'If Thou, O God, deignst to renew that
+Holy Spirit in the hearts of all, then also will those external
+disasters cease.... Bring order to this chaos, Lord Jesus, let
+Thy Spirit spread over these waters of sadly troubled dogmas.'</p>
+
+<p>Concord, peace, sense of duty and kindliness, were all
+valued highly by Erasmus; yet he rarely saw them realized in
+practical life. He becomes disillusioned. After the short spell
+of political optimism he never speaks of the times any more
+but in bitter terms&mdash;a most criminal age, he says&mdash;and again,
+the most unhappy and most depraved age imaginable. In vain
+had he always written in the cause of peace: <i>Querela pacis</i>, the
+complaint of peace, the adage <i>Dulce bellum inexpertis</i>, war is
+sweet to those who have not known it, <i>Oratio de pace et discordia</i>,
+and more still. Erasmus thought rather highly of his
+pacifistic labours: 'that polygraph, who never leaves off
+persecuting war by means of his pen', thus he makes a character
+of the <i>Colloquies</i> designate himself. According to a tradition
+noted by Melanchthon, Pope Julius is said to have called him
+before him in connection with his advice about the war with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+Venice,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and to have remarked to him angrily that he should
+stop writing on the concerns of princes: 'You do not understand
+those things!'</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had, in spite of a certain innate moderation, a
+wholly non-political mind. He lived too much outside of
+practical reality, and thought too na&iuml;vely of the corrigibility
+of mankind, to realize the difficulties and necessities of government.
+His ideas about a good administration were extremely
+primitive, and, as is often the case with scholars of a strong
+ethical bias, very revolutionary at bottom, though he never
+dreamed of drawing the practical inferences. His friendship
+with political and juridical thinkers, as More, Budaeus and
+Zasius, had not changed him. Questions of forms of government,
+law or right, did not exist for him. Economic problems
+he saw in idyllic simplicity. The prince should reign gratuitously
+and impose as few taxes as possible. 'The good prince
+has all that loving citizens possess.' The unemployed should be
+simply driven away. We feel in closer contact with the world
+of facts when he enumerates the works of peace for the prince:
+the cleaning of towns, building of bridges, halls, and streets,
+draining of pools, shifting of river-beds, the diking and reclamation
+of moors. It is the Netherlander who speaks here,
+and at the same time the man in whom the need of cleansing
+and clearing away is a fundamental trait of character.</p>
+
+<p>Vague politicians like Erasmus are prone to judge princes
+very severely, since they take them to be responsible for all
+wrongs. Erasmus praises them personally, but condemns them
+in general. From the kings of his time he had for a long time
+expected peace in Church and State. They had disappointed
+him. But his severe judgement of princes he derived rather from
+classical reading than from political experience of his own
+times. In the later editions of the <i>Adagia</i> he often reverts to
+princes, their task and their neglect of duty, without ever mentioning
+special princes. 'There are those who sow the seeds of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+dissension between their townships in order to fleece the poor
+unhindered and to satisfy their gluttony by the hunger of
+innocent citizens.' In the adage <i>Scarabeus aquilam quaerit</i> he
+represents the prince under the image of the Eagle as the great
+cruel robber and persecutor. In another, <i>Aut regem aut fatuum
+nasci oportere</i>, and in <i>Dulce bellum inexpertis</i> he utters his frequently
+quoted dictum: 'The people found and develop
+towns, the folly of princes devastates them.' 'The princes
+conspire with the Pope, and perhaps with the Turk, against
+the happiness of the people,' he writes to Colet in
+1518.</p>
+
+<p>He was an academic critic writing from his study. A revolutionary
+purpose was as foreign to Erasmus as it was to More
+when writing the <i>Utopia</i>. 'Bad monarchs should perhaps be
+suffered now and then. The remedy should not be tried.' It
+may be doubted whether Erasmus exercised much real influence
+on his contemporaries by means of his diatribes against
+princes. One would fain believe that his ardent love of peace
+and bitter arraignment of the madness of war had some effect.
+They have undoubtedly spread pacific sentiments in the broad
+circles of intellectuals who read Erasmus, but unfortunately
+the history of the sixteenth century shows little evidence that
+such sentiments bore fruit in actual practice. However this
+may be, Erasmus's strength was not in these political declamations.
+He could never be a leader of men with their passions
+and their harsh interests.</p>
+
+<p>His life-work lay elsewhere. Now, at Basle, though tormented
+more and more frequently by his painful complaint
+which he had already carried for so many years, he could
+devote himself more fully than ever before to the great task
+he had set himself: the opening up of the pure sources of
+Christianity, the exposition of the truth of the Gospel in all the
+simple comprehensibility in which he saw it. In a broad stream
+flowed the editions of the Fathers, of classic authors, the new
+editions of the New Testament, of the <i>Adagia</i>, of his own
+Letters, together with Paraphrases of the New Testament,
+Commentaries on Psalms, and a number of new theological,
+moral and philological treatises. In 1522 he was ill for months<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+on end; yet in that year Arnobius and the third edition of the
+New Testament succeeded Cyprian, whom he had already
+annotated at Louvain and edited in 1520, closely followed by
+Hilary in 1523 and next by a new edition of Jerome in 1524.
+Later appeared Irenaeus, 1526; Ambrose, 1527; Augustine,
+1528-9, and a Latin translation of Chrysostom in 1530. The
+rapid succession of these comprehensive works proves that the
+work was done as Erasmus always worked: hastily, with an
+extraordinary power of concentration and a surprising command
+of his mnemonic faculty, but without severe criticism
+and the painful accuracy that modern philology requires in
+such editions.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the polemical Erasmus nor the witty humorist
+had been lost in the erudite divine and the disillusioned
+reformer. The paper-warrior we would further gladly have
+dispensed with, but not the humorist, for many treasures of
+literature. But the two are linked inseparably as the <i>Colloquies</i>
+prove.</p>
+
+<p>What was said about the <i>Moria</i> may be repeated here: if in
+the literature of the world only the <i>Colloquies</i> and the <i>Moria</i>
+have remained alive, that choice of history is right. Not in the
+sense that in literature only Erasmus's pleasantest, lightest and
+most readable works were preserved, whereas the ponderous
+theological erudition was silently relegated to the shelves of
+libraries. It was indeed Erasmus's best work that was kept alive
+in the <i>Moria</i> and the <i>Colloquies</i>. With these his sparkling
+wit has charmed the world. If only we had space here to assign
+to the Erasmus of the <i>Colloquies</i> his just and lofty place in
+that brilliant constellation of sixteenth-century followers of
+Democritus: Rabelais, Ariosto, Montaigne, Cervantes, and
+Ben Jonson!</p>
+
+<p>When Erasmus gave the <i>Colloquies</i> their definite form at
+Basle, they had already had a long and curious genesis. At first
+they had been no more than <i>Familiarium colloquiorum formulae</i>,
+models of colloquial Latin conversation, written at Paris
+before 1500, for the use of his pupils. Augustine Caminade,
+the shabby friend who was fond of living on young Erasmus's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+genius, had collected them and had turned them to advantage
+within a limited compass. He had long been dead when one
+Lambert Hollonius of Li&eacute;ge sold the manuscript that he had
+got from Caminade to Froben at Basle. Beatus Rhenanus,
+although then already Erasmus's trusted friend, had it printed
+at once without the latter's knowledge. That was in 1518.
+Erasmus was justly offended at it, the more so as the book was
+full of slovenly blunders and solecisms. So he at once prepared
+a better edition himself, published by Maertensz at Louvain in
+1519. At that time the work really contained but one true dialogue,
+the nucleus of the later <i>Convivium profanum</i>. The rest
+were formulae of etiquette and short talks. But already in this
+form it was, apart from its usefulness to latinists, so full of
+happy wit and humorous invention that it became very popular.
+Even before 1522 it had appeared in twenty-five editions,
+mostly reprints, at Antwerp, Paris, Strassburg, Cologne,
+Cracow, Deventer, Leipzig, London, Vienna, Mayence.</p>
+
+<p>At Basle Erasmus himself revised an edition which was published
+in March 1522 by Froben, dedicated to the latter's
+six-year-old son, the author's godchild, Johannes Erasmius
+Froben. Soon after he did more than revise. In 1523 and 1524
+first ten new dialogues, afterwards four, and again six, were
+added to the <i>Formulae</i>, and at last in 1526 the title was changed
+to <i>Familiarium colloquiorum opus</i>. It remained dedicated to the
+boy Froben and went on growing with each new edition: a
+rich and motley collection of dialogues, each a masterpiece of
+literary form, well-knit, spontaneous, convincing, unsurpassed
+in lightness, vivacity and fluent Latin; each one a finished one-act
+play. From that year on, the stream of editions and translations
+flowed almost uninterruptedly for two centuries.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus's mind had lost nothing of its acuteness and freshness
+when, so many years after the <i>Moria</i>, he again set foot in the
+field of satire. As to form, the <i>Colloquies</i> are less confessedly
+satirical than the <i>Moria</i>. With its telling subject, the <i>Praise of
+Folly</i>, the latter at once introduces itself as a satire: whereas,
+at first sight, the <i>Colloquies</i> might seem to be mere innocent
+genre-pieces. But as to the contents, they are more satirical,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+at least more directly so. The <i>Moria</i>, as a satire, is philosophical
+and general; the <i>Colloquia</i> are up to date and special.
+At the same time they combine more the positive and
+negative elements. In the <i>Moria</i> Erasmus's own ideal dwells
+unexpressed behind the representation; in the <i>Colloquia</i> he
+continually and clearly puts it in the foreground. On this
+account they form, notwithstanding all the jests and mockery,
+a profoundly serious moral treatise and are closely akin to the
+<i>Enchiridion militis Christiani</i>. What Erasmus really demanded
+of the world and of mankind, how he pictured to himself that
+passionately desired, purified Christian society of good morals,
+fervent faith, simplicity and moderation, kindliness, toleration
+and peace&mdash;this we can nowhere else find so clearly and well-expressed
+as in the <i>Colloquia</i>. In these last fifteen years of his
+life Erasmus resumes, by means of a series of moral-dogmatic
+disquisitions, the topics he broached in the <i>Enchiridion</i>: the
+exposition of simple, general Christian conduct; untrammelled
+and natural ethics. That is his message of redemption.
+It came to many out of <i>Exomologesis</i>, <i>De esu carnium</i>, <i>Lingua</i>,
+<i>Institutio christiani matrimonii</i>, <i>Vidua christiana</i>,
+<i>Ecclesiastes</i>. But, to far larger numbers, the message was contained in the
+<i>Colloquies</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Colloquia</i> gave rise to much more hatred and contest
+than the <i>Moria</i>, and not without reason, for in them Erasmus
+attacked persons. He allowed himself the pleasure of ridiculing
+his Louvain antagonists. Lee had already been introduced as a
+sycophant and braggart into the edition of 1519, and when the
+quarrel was assuaged, in 1522, the reference was expunged.
+Vincent Dirks was caricatured in <i>The Funeral</i> (1526) as a
+covetous friar, who extorts from the dying testaments in
+favour of his order. He remained. Later sarcastic observations
+were added about Beda and numbers of others. The adherents
+of Oecolampadius took a figure with a long nose in the
+<i>Colloquies</i> for their leader: 'Oh, no,' replied Erasmus, 'it is
+meant for quite another person.' Henceforth all those who were
+at loggerheads with Erasmus, and they were many, ran the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+risk of being pilloried in the <i>Colloquia</i>. It was no wonder that
+this work, especially with its scourging mockery of the
+monastic orders, became the object of controversy.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Erasmus never emerged from his polemics. He was, no
+doubt, serious when he said that, in his heart, he abhorred and
+had never desired them; but his caustic mind often got the
+better of his heart, and having once begun to quarrel he undoubtedly
+enjoyed giving his mockery the rein and wielding
+his facile dialectic pen. For understanding his personality it is
+unnecessary here to deal at large with all those fights on paper.
+Only the most important ones need be mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Since 1516 a pot had been boiling for Erasmus in Spain. A
+theologian of the University at Alcal&aacute;, Diego Lopez Zu&ntilde;iga,
+or, in Latin, Stunica, had been preparing Annotations to the
+edition of the New Testament: 'a second Lee', said Erasmus.
+At first Cardinal Ximenes had prohibited the publication, but
+in 1520, after his death, the storm broke. For some years
+Stunica kept persecuting Erasmus with his criticism, to the
+latter's great vexation; at last there followed a <i>rapprochement</i>,
+probably as Erasmus became more conservative, and a kindly
+attitude on the part of Stunica.</p>
+
+<p>No less long and violent was the quarrel with the syndic of
+the Sorbonne, Noel Bedier or Beda, which began in 1522. The
+Sorbonne was prevailed upon to condemn several of Erasmus's
+dicta as heretical in 1526. The effort of Beda to implicate
+Erasmus in the trial of Louis de Berquin, who had translated
+the condemned writings and who was eventually burned at
+the stake for faith's sake in 1529, made the matter still more
+disagreeable for Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear enough that both at Paris and at Louvain in the
+circles of the theological faculties the chief cause of exasperation
+was in the <i>Colloquia</i>. Egmondanus and Vincent Dirks did
+not forgive Erasmus for having acridly censured their station
+and their personalities.</p>
+
+<p>More courteous than the aforementioned polemics was the
+fight with a high-born Italian, Alberto Pio, prince of Carpi;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+acrid and bitter was one with a group of Spanish monks, who
+brought the Inquisition to bear upon him. In Spain 'Erasmistas'
+was the name of those who inclined to more liberal
+conceptions of the creed.</p>
+
+<p>In this way the matter accumulated for the volume of
+Erasmus's works which contains, according to his own arrangement,
+all his <i>Apologiae</i>: not 'excuses', but 'vindications'.
+'Miserable man that I am; they just fill a volume,' exclaimed
+Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>Two of his polemics merit a somewhat closer examination:
+that with Ulrich von Hutten and that with Luther.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxi.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxi-th.png" width="250" height="368" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXI. MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxii-th.png" width="250" height="373" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXII. ULRICH VON HUTTEN</p>
+
+<p>Hutten, knight and humanist, the enthusiastic herald of a
+national German uplift, the ardent hater of papacy and supporter
+of Luther, was certainly a hot-head and perhaps somewhat
+of a muddle-head. He had applauded Erasmus when the
+latter still seemed to be the coming man and had afterwards
+besought him to take Luther's side. Erasmus had soon discovered
+that this noisy partisan might compromise him. Had
+not one of Hutten's rash satires been ascribed to him, Erasmus?
+There came a time when Hutten could no longer abide Erasmus.
+His knightly instinct reacted on the very weaknesses of
+Erasmus's character: the fear of committing himself and the
+inclination to repudiate a supporter in time of danger.
+Erasmus knew that weakness himself: 'Not all have strength
+enough for martyrdom,' he writes to Richard Pace in 1521. 'I
+fear that I shall, in case it results in a tumult, follow St. Peter's
+example.' But this acknowledgement does not discharge him
+from the burden of Hutten's reproaches which he flung at him
+in fiery language in 1523. In this quarrel Erasmus's own fame
+pays the penalty of his fault. For nowhere does he show himself
+so undignified and puny as in that 'Sponge against
+Hutten's mire', which the latter did not live to read. Hutten,
+disillusioned and forsaken, died at an early age in 1523, and
+Erasmus did not scruple to publish the venomous pamphlet
+against his former friend after his demise.</p>
+
+<p>Hutten, however, was avenged upon Erasmus living. One
+of his adherents, Henry of Eppendorff, inherited Hutten's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+bitter disgust with Erasmus and persecuted him for years.
+Getting hold of one of Erasmus's letters in which he was
+denounced, he continually threatened him with an action for
+defamation of character. Eppendorff's hostility so thoroughly
+exasperated Erasmus that he fancied he could detect his machinations
+and spies everywhere even after the actual persecution
+had long ceased.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Melanchthon, <i>Opera, Corpus Reformatorum</i>, XII 266, where he refers
+to <i>Querela pacis</i>, which, however, was not written before 1517; <i>vide</i> A.
+603 and I p. 37.10.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xviii" id="chapter_xviii"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER AND GROWING CONSERVATISM</h3>
+
+<h3>1524-6</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus persuaded to write against Luther&mdash;<i>De Libero Arbitrio</i>: 1524&mdash;Luther's
+answer: <i>De Servo Arbitrio</i>&mdash;Erasmus's indefiniteness contrasted
+with Luther's extreme rigour&mdash;Erasmus henceforth on the side of conservatism&mdash;The
+Bishop of Basle and Oecolampadius&mdash;Erasmus's half-hearted
+dogmatics: confession, ceremonies, worship of the Saints, Eucharist&mdash;<i>Institutio
+Christiani Matrimonii</i>: 1526&mdash;He feels surrounded by enemies</p></div>
+
+
+<p>At length Erasmus was led, in spite of all, to do what he had
+always tried to avoid: he wrote against Luther. But it did not
+in the least resemble the <i>geste</i> Erasmus at one time contemplated,
+in the cause of peace in Christendom and uniformity
+of faith, to call a halt to the impetuous Luther, and thereby to
+recall the world to its senses. In the great act of the Reformation
+their polemics were merely an after-play. Not Erasmus
+alone was disillusioned and tired&mdash;Luther too was past his
+heroic prime, circumscribed by conditions, forced into the
+world of affairs, a disappointed man.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had wished to persevere in his resolution to remain
+a spectator of the great tragedy. 'If, as appears from the
+wonderful success of Luther's cause, God wills all this'&mdash;thus
+did Erasmus reason&mdash;'and He has perhaps judged such a
+drastic surgeon as Luther necessary for the corruption of
+these times, then it is not my business to withstand him.' But
+he was not left in peace. While he went on protesting that he
+had nothing to do with Luther and differed widely from him,
+the defenders of the old Church adhered to the standpoint
+urged as early as 1520 by Nicholas of Egmond before the
+rector of Louvain: 'So long as he refuses to write against
+Luther, we take him to be a Lutheran'. So matters stood.
+'That you are looked upon as a Lutheran here is certain,'
+Vives writes to him from the Netherlands in 1522.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ever stronger became the pressure to write against Luther.
+From Henry VIII came a call, communicated by Erasmus's
+old friend Tunstall, from George of Saxony, from Rome
+itself, whence Pope Adrian VI, his old patron, had urged him
+shortly before his death.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus thought he could refuse no longer. He tried some
+dialogues in the style of the <i>Colloquies</i>, but did not get on
+with them; and probably they would not have pleased those
+who were desirous of enlisting his services. Between Luther
+and Erasmus himself there had been no personal correspondence,
+since the former had promised him, in 1520; 'Well
+then, Erasmus, I shall not mention your name again.' Now
+that Erasmus had prepared to attack Luther, however, there
+came an epistle from the latter, written on 15 April 1524, in
+which the reformer, in his turn, requested Erasmus in his own
+words: 'Please remain now what you have always professed
+yourself desirous of being: a mere spectator of our tragedy'.
+There is a ring of ironical contempt in Luther's words, but
+Erasmus called the letter 'rather humane; I had not the courage
+to reply with equal humanity, because of the sycophants'.</p>
+
+<p>In order to be able to combat Luther with a clear conscience
+Erasmus had naturally to choose a point on which he differed
+from Luther in his heart. It was not one of the more superficial
+parts of the Church's structure. For these he either, with
+Luther, cordially rejected, such as ceremonies, observances,
+fasting, etc., or, though more moderately than Luther, he had
+his doubts about them, as the sacraments or the primacy of
+St. Peter. So he naturally came to the point where the deepest
+gulf yawned between their natures, between their conceptions
+of the essence of faith, and thus to the central and eternal
+problem of good and evil, guilt and compulsion, liberty and
+bondage, God and man. Luther confessed in his reply that here
+indeed the vital point had been touched.</p>
+
+<p><i>De libero arbitrio diatribe</i> (<i>A Disquisition upon Free Will</i>)
+appeared in September 1524. Was Erasmus qualified to write
+about such a subject? In conformity with his method and with
+his evident purpose to vindicate authority and tradition, this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+time, Erasmus developed the argument that Scripture teaches,
+doctors affirm, philosophers prove, and human reason testifies
+man's will to be free. Without acknowledgement of free will
+the terms of God's justice and God's mercy remain without
+meaning. What would be the sense of the teachings, reproofs,
+admonitions of Scripture (Timothy iii.) if all happened according
+to mere and inevitable necessity? To what purpose is
+obedience praised, if for good and evil works we are equally
+but tools to God, as the hatchet to the carpenter? And if this
+were so, it would be dangerous to reveal such a doctrine to
+the multitude, for morality is dependent on the consciousness
+of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Luther received the treatise of his antagonist with disgust
+and contempt. In writing his reply, however, he suppressed
+these feelings outwardly and observed the rules of courtesy.
+But his inward anger is revealed in the contents itself of <i>De
+servo arbitrio</i> (<i>On the Will not free</i>). For here he really did
+what Erasmus had just reproached him with&mdash;trying to heal
+a dislocated member by tugging at it in the opposite direction.
+More fiercely than ever before, his formidable boorish mind
+drew the startling inferences of his burning faith. Without any
+reserve he now accepted all the extremes of absolute determinism.
+In order to confute indeterminism in explicit terms,
+he was now forced to have recourse to those primitive metaphors
+of exalted faith striving to express the inexpressible:
+God's two wills, which do not coincide, God's 'eternal hatred
+of mankind, a hatred not only on account of demerits and the
+works of free will, but a hatred that existed even before the
+world was created', and that metaphor of the human will,
+which, as a riding beast, stands in the middle between God and
+the devil and which is mounted by one or the other without
+being able to move towards either of the two contending
+riders. If anywhere, Luther's doctrine in <i>De Servo Arbitrio</i> means
+a recrudescence of faith and a straining of religious conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Luther who here stood on the rockbed of a profound
+and mystic faith in which the absolute conscience of the
+eternal pervades all. In him all conceptions, like dry straw, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+consumed in the glow of God's majesty, for him each human
+co-operation to attain to salvation was a profanation of God's
+glory. Erasmus's mind after all did not truly <i>live</i> in the ideas
+which were here disputed, of sin and grace, of redemption and
+the glory of God as the final cause of all that is.</p>
+
+<p>Was, then, Erasmus's cause in all respects inferior? Was
+Luther right at the core? Perhaps. Dr. Murray rightly reminds
+us of Hegel's saying that tragedy is not the conflict between
+right and wrong, but the conflict between right and right. The
+combat of Luther and Erasmus proceeded beyond the point
+at which our judgement is forced to halt and has to accept an
+equivalence, nay, a compatibility of affirmation and negation.
+And this fact, that they here were fighting with words and
+metaphors in a sphere beyond that of what may be known and
+expressed, was understood by Erasmus. Erasmus, the man of
+the fine shades, for whom ideas eternally blended into each
+other and interchanged, called a Proteus by Luther; Luther
+the man of over-emphatic expression about all matters. The
+Dutchman, who sees the sea, was opposed to the German, who
+looks out on mountain tops.</p>
+
+<p>'This is quite true that we cannot speak of God but with
+inadequate words.' 'Many problems should be deferred, not
+to the oecumenical Council, but till the time when, the glass
+and the darkness having been taken away, we shall see God
+face to face.' 'What is free of error?' 'There are in sacred
+literature certain sanctuaries into which God has not willed
+that we should penetrate further.'</p>
+
+<p>The Catholic Church had on the point of free will reserved
+to itself some slight proviso, left a little elbow-room to the
+consciousness of human liberty <i>under</i> grace. Erasmus conceived
+that liberty in a considerably broader spirit. Luther absolutely
+denied it. The opinion of contemporaries was at first too
+much dominated by their participation in the great struggle as
+such: they applauded Erasmus, because he struck boldly at
+Luther, or the other way about, according to their sympathies.
+Not only Vives applauded Erasmus, but also more
+orthodox Catholics such as Sadolet. The German humanists,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+unwilling, for the most part, to break with the ancient
+Church, were moved by Erasmus's attack to turn their backs
+still more upon Luther: Mutianus, Zasius, and Pirckheimer.
+Even Melanchthon inclined to Erasmus's standpoint. Others,
+like Capito, once a zealous supporter, now washed their
+hands of him. Soon Calvin with the iron cogency of his
+argument was completely to take Luther's side.</p>
+
+<p>It is worth while to quote the opinion of a contemporary
+Catholic scholar about the relations of Erasmus and Luther.
+'Erasmus,' says F. X. Kiefl,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> 'with his concept of free, unspoiled
+human nature was intrinsically much more foreign to
+the Church than Luther. He only combated it, however, with
+haughty scepticism: for which reason Luther with subtle
+psychology upbraided him for liking to speak of the shortcomings
+and the misery of the Church of Christ in such a way
+that his readers could not help laughing, instead of bringing
+his charges, with deep sighs, as beseemed before God.'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Hyperaspistes</i>, a voluminous treatise in which Erasmus
+again addressed Luther, was nothing but an epilogue, which
+need not be discussed here at length.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had thus, at last, openly taken sides. For, apart
+from the dogmatical point at issue itself, the most important
+part about <i>De libero arbitrio</i> was that in it he had expressly
+turned against the individual religious conceptions and had
+spoken in favour of the authority and tradition of the Church.
+He always regarded himself as a Catholic. 'Neither death nor
+life shall draw me from the communion of the Catholic
+Church,' he writes in 1522, and in the <i>Hyperaspistes</i> in 1526:
+'I have never been an apostate from the Catholic Church. I
+know that in this Church, which you call the Papist Church,
+there are many who displease me, but such I also see in your
+Church. One bears more easily the evils to which one is accustomed.
+Therefore I bear with this Church, until I shall see a
+better, and it cannot help bearing with me, until I shall myself
+be better. And he does not sail badly who steers a middle
+course between two several evils.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But was it possible to keep to that course? On either side
+people turned away from him. 'I who, formerly, in countless
+letters was addressed as thrice great hero, Prince of letters, Sun
+of studies, Maintainer of true theology, am now ignored, or
+represented in quite different colours,' he writes. How many
+of his old friends and congenial spirits had already gone!</p>
+
+<p>A sufficient number remained, however, who thought and
+hoped as Erasmus did. His untiring pen still continued to
+propagate, especially by means of his letters, the moderating
+and purifying influence of his mind throughout all the countries
+of Europe. Scholars, high church dignitaries, nobles,
+students, and civil magistrates were his correspondents. The
+Bishop of Basle himself, Christopher of Utenheim, was a man
+after Erasmus's heart. A zealous advocate of humanism, he had
+attempted, as early as 1503, to reform the clergy of his bishopric
+by means of synodal statutes, without much success; afterwards
+he had called scholars like Oecolampadius, Capito and
+Wimpfeling to Basle. That was before the great struggle
+began, which was soon to carry away Oecolampadius and
+Capito much further than the Bishop of Basle or Erasmus
+approved. In 1522 Erasmus addressed the bishop in a treatise
+<i>De interdicto esu carnium</i> (<i>On the Prohibition of eating Meat</i>).
+This was one of the last occasions on which he directly opposed
+the established order.</p>
+
+<p>The bishop, however, could no longer control the movement.
+A considerable number of the commonalty of Basle
+and the majority of the council, were already on the side of
+radical Reformation. About a year after Erasmus, Johannes
+Oecolampadius, whose first residence at Basle had also coincided
+with his (at that time he had helped Erasmus with
+Hebrew for the edition of the New Testament), returned to
+the town with the intention of organizing the resistance to the
+old order there. In 1523 the council appointed him professor
+of Holy Scripture in the University; at the same time four
+Catholic professors lost their places. He succeeded in obtaining
+general permission for unlicensed preaching. Soon a far more
+hot-headed agitator, the impetuous Guillaume Farel, also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+arrived for active work at Basle and in the environs. He is the
+man who will afterwards reform Geneva and persuade Calvin
+to stay there.</p>
+
+<p>Though at first Oecolampadius began to introduce novelties
+into the church service with caution, Erasmus saw these
+innovations with alarm. Especially the fanaticism of Farel,
+whom he hated bitterly. It was these men who retarded what he
+still desired and thought possible: a compromise. His lambent
+spirit, which never fully decided in favour of a definite
+opinion, had, with regard to most of the disputed points,
+gradually fixed on a half-conservative midway standpoint, by
+means of which, without denying his deepest conviction, he
+tried to remain faithful to the Church. In 1524 he had expressed
+his sentiments about confession in the treatise <i>Exomologesis</i>
+(<i>On the Way to confess</i>). He accepts it halfway: if not instituted
+by Christ or the Apostles, it was, in any case, by the Fathers.
+It should be piously preserved. Confession is of excellent use,
+though, at times, a great evil. In this way he tries 'to admonish
+either party', 'neither to agree with nor to assail' the deniers,
+'though inclining to the side of the believers'.</p>
+
+<p>In the long list of his polemics he gradually finds opportunities
+to define his views somewhat; circumstantially, for
+instance, in the answers to Alberto Pio, of 1525 and 1529. Subsequently
+it is always done in the form of an <i>Apologia</i>, whether
+he is attacked for the <i>Colloquia</i>, for the <i>Moria</i>, Jerome, the
+<i>Paraphrases</i> or anything else. At last he recapitulates his views
+to some extent in <i>De amabili Ecclesiae concordia</i> (<i>On the Amiable
+Concord of the Church</i>), of 1533, which, however, ranks
+hardly any more among his reformatory endeavours.</p>
+
+<p>On most points Erasmus succeeds in finding moderate and
+conservative formulae. Even with regard to ceremonies he no
+longer merely rejects. He finds a kind word to say even for
+fasting, which he had always abhorred, for the veneration of
+relics and for Church festivals. He does not want to abolish the
+worship of the Saints: it no longer entails danger of idolatry.
+He is even willing to admit the images: 'He who takes the
+imagery out of life deprives it of its highest pleasure; we often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+discern more in images than we conceive from the written
+word'. Regarding Christ's substantial presence in the sacrament
+of the altar he holds fast to the Catholic view, but without
+fervour, only on the ground of the Church's consensus,
+and because he cannot believe that Christ, who is truth and
+love, would have suffered His bride to cling so long to so horrid
+an error as to worship a crust of bread instead of Him. But for
+these reasons he might, at need, accept Oecolampadius's view.</p>
+
+<p>From the period at Basle dates one of the purest and most
+beneficent moral treatises of Erasmus's, the <i>Institutio Christiani
+matrimonii</i> (<i>On Christian Marriage</i>) of 1526, written for
+Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England, quite in the spirit of
+the <i>Enchiridion</i>, save for a certain diffuseness betraying old age.
+Later follows <i>De vidua Christiana</i>, <i>The Christian Widow</i>, for
+Mary of Hungary, which is as impeccable but less interesting.</p>
+
+<p>All this did not disarm the defenders of the old Church.
+They held fast to the clear picture of Erasmus's creed that arose
+from the <i>Colloquies</i> and that could not be called purely
+Catholic. There it appeared only too clearly that, however
+much Erasmus might desire to leave the letter intact, his heart
+was not in the convictions which were vital to the Catholic
+Church. Consequently the <i>Colloquies</i> were later, when
+Erasmus's works were expurgated, placed on the index in the
+lump, with the <i>Moria</i> and a few other works. The rest is <i>caute
+legenda</i>, to be read with caution. Much was rejected of the
+Annotations to the New Testament, of the <i>Paraphrases</i> and the
+<i>Apologiae</i>, very little of the <i>Enchiridion</i>, of the <i>Ratio verae
+theologiae</i>, and even of the <i>Exomologesis</i>. But this was after the
+fight against the living Erasmus had long been over.</p>
+
+<p>So long as he remained at Basle, or elsewhere, as the centre
+of a large intellectual group whose force could not be estimated,
+just because it did not stand out as a party&mdash;it was not
+known what turn he might yet take, what influence his mind
+might yet have on the Church. He remained a king of minds in
+his quiet study. The hatred that was felt for him, the watching
+of all his words and actions, were of a nature as only falls to the
+lot of the acknowledged great. The chorus of enemies who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+laid the fault of the whole Reformation on Erasmus was not
+silenced. 'He laid the eggs which Luther and Zwingli have
+hatched.' With vexation Erasmus quoted ever new specimens
+of narrow-minded, malicious and stupid controversy. At
+Constance there lived a doctor who had hung his portrait on
+the wall merely to spit at it as often as he passed it. Erasmus
+jestingly compares his fate to that of Saint Cassianus, who was
+stabbed to death by his pupils with pencils. Had he not been
+pierced to the quick for many years by the pens and tongues
+of countless people and did he not live in that torment without
+death bringing the end? The keen sensitiveness to opposition
+was seated very deeply with Erasmus. And he could never
+forbear irritating others into opposing him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Luther's religi&ouml;se Psyche</i>, Hochland XV, 1917, p. 21.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xix" id="chapter_xix"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS</h3>
+
+<h3>1528-9</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Erasmus turns against the excesses of humanism: its paganism and pedantic
+classicism&mdash;<i>Ciceronianus</i>: 1528&mdash;It brings him new enemies&mdash;The
+Reformation carried through at Basle&mdash;He emigrates to Freiburg: 1529&mdash;His
+view concerning the results of the Reformation</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Nothing is more characteristic of the independence which
+Erasmus reserved for himself regarding all movements of his
+time than the fact that he also joined issue in the camp of the
+humanists. In 1528 there were published by Froben (the chief
+of the firm of Johannes Froben had just died) two dialogues in
+one volume from Erasmus's hand: one about the correct
+pronunciation of Latin and Greek, and one entitled <i>Ciceronianus</i>
+or <i>On the Best Diction</i>, i.e. in writing and speaking Latin.
+Both were proofs that Erasmus had lost nothing of his liveliness
+and wit. The former treatise was purely philological, and
+as such has had great influence; the other was satirical as well.
+It had a long history.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had always regarded classical studies as the panacea
+of civilization, provided they were made serviceable to pure
+Christianity. His sincere ethical feeling made him recoil from
+the obscenity of a Poggio and the immorality of the early
+Italian humanists. At the same time his delicate and natural
+taste told him that a pedantic and servile imitation of antique
+models could never produce the desired result. Erasmus knew
+Latin too well to be strictly classical; his Latin was alive and
+required freedom. In his early works we find taunts about the
+over-precise Latin purists: one had declared a newly found fragment
+of Cicero to be thoroughly barbaric; 'among all sorts of
+authors none are so insufferable to me as those apes of Cicero'.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the great expectations he cherished of classical
+studies for pure Christianity, he saw one danger: 'that under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+the cloak of reviving ancient literature paganism tries to rear
+its head, as there are those among Christians who acknowledge
+Christ only in name but inwardly breathe heathenism'. This he
+writes in 1517 to Capito. In Italy scholars devote themselves
+too exclusively and in too pagan guise to <i>bonae literae</i>. He considered
+it his special task to assist in bringing it about that those
+<i>bonae literae</i> 'which with the Italians have thus far been almost
+pagan, shall get used to speaking of Christ'.</p>
+
+<p>How it must have vexed Erasmus that in Italy of all
+countries he was, at the same time and in one breath, charged
+with heresy and questioned in respect to his knowledge and
+integrity as a scholar. Italians accused him of plagiarism and
+trickery. He complained of it to Aleander, who, he thought,
+had a hand in it.</p>
+
+<p>In a letter of 13 October 1527, to a professor at Toledo, we
+find the <i>&eacute;bauche</i> of the <i>Ciceronianus</i>. In addition to the haters
+of classic studies for the sake of orthodox belief, writes Erasmus,
+'lately another and new sort of enemies has broken from
+their ambush. These are troubled that the <i>bonae literae</i> speak of
+Christ, as though nothing can be elegant but what is pagan. To
+their ears <i>Jupiter optimus maximus</i> sounds more pleasant than
+<i>Jesus Christus redemptor mundi</i>, and <i>patres conscripti</i> more agreeable
+than <i>sancti apostoli</i>.... They account it a greater dishonour
+to be no Ciceronian than no Christian, as if Cicero, if
+he should now come to life again, would not speak of Christian
+things in other words than in his time he spoke of his own
+religion!... What is the sense of this hateful swaggering with
+the name Ciceronian? I will tell you briefly, in your ear. With
+that pearl-powder they cover the paganism that is dearer to
+them than the glory of Christ.' To Erasmus Cicero's style is by
+no means the ideal one. He prefers something more solid,
+succinct, vigorous, less polished, more manly. He who sometimes
+has to write a book in a day has no time to polish his
+style, often not even to read it over.... 'What do I care for
+an empty dish of words, ten words here and there mumped
+from Cicero: I want all Cicero's spirit.' These are apes at
+whom one may laugh, for far more serious than these things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+are the tumults of the so-called new Gospel, to which he next
+proceeds in this letter.</p>
+
+<p>And so, in the midst of all his polemics and bitter vindication,
+he allowed himself once more the pleasure of giving the
+reins to his love of scoffing, but, as in the <i>Moria</i> and <i>Colloquia</i>,
+ennobled by an almost passionate sincerity of Christian
+disposition and a natural sense of measure. The <i>Ciceronianus</i>
+is a masterpiece of ready, many-sided knowledge, of convincing
+eloquence, and of easy handling of a wealth of arguments.
+With splendid, quiet and yet lively breadth flows the
+long conversation between Bulephorus, representing Erasmus's
+opinions, Hypologus, the interested inquirer, and Nosoponus,
+the zealous Ciceronian, who, to preserve a perfect purity
+of mind, breakfasts off ten currants.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus in drawing Nosoponus had evidently, in the main,
+alluded to one who could no longer reply: Christopher
+Longolius, who had died in 1522.</p>
+
+<p>The core of the <i>Ciceronianus</i> is where Erasmus points out
+the danger to Christian faith of a too zealous classicism. He
+exclaims urgently: 'It is paganism, believe me, Nosoponus, it
+is paganism that charms our ear and our soul in such things.
+We are Christians in name alone.' Why does a classic proverb
+sound better to us than a quotation from the Bible: <i>corchorum
+inter olera</i>, 'chick-weed among the vegetables', better than
+'Saul among the prophets'? As a sample of the absurdity of
+Ciceronianism, he gives a translation of a dogmatic sentence
+in classical language: 'Optimi maximique Jovis interpres ac
+filius, servator, rex, juxta vatum responsa, ex Olympo devolavit
+in terras,' for: Jesus Christ, the Word and the Son of the
+eternal Father, came into the world according to the prophets.
+Most humanists wrote indeed in that style.</p>
+
+<p>Was Erasmus aware that he here attacked his own past?
+After all, was it not exactly the same thing which he had done,
+to the indignation of his opponents, when translating <i>Logos</i>
+by <i>Sermo</i> instead of by <i>Verbum</i>? Had he not himself desired
+that in the church hymns the metre should be corrected, not
+to mention his own classical odes and paeans to Mary and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+Saints? And was his warning against the partiality for classic
+proverbs and turns applicable to anything more than to the
+<i>Adagia</i>?</p>
+
+<p>We here see the aged Erasmus on the path of reaction,
+which might eventually have led him far from humanism. In
+his combat with humanistic purism he foreshadows a Christian
+puritanism.</p>
+
+<p>As always his mockery procured him a new flood of invectives.
+Bembo and Sadolet, the masters of pure Latin, could
+afford to smile at it, but the impetuous Julius Caesar Scaliger
+violently inveighed against him, especially to avenge Longolius's
+memory. Erasmus's perpetual feeling of being persecuted
+got fresh food: he again thought that Aleander was at the
+bottom of it. 'The Italians set the imperial court against me,'
+he writes in 1530. A year later all is quiet again. He writes
+jestingly: 'Upon my word, I am going to change my style
+after Budaeus's model and to become a Ciceronian according
+to the example of Sadolet and Bembo'. But even near the close
+of his life he was engaged in a new contest with Italians,
+because he had hurt their national pride; 'they rage at me on all
+sides with slanderous libels, as at the enemy of Italy and Cicero'.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There were, as he had said himself, other difficulties touching
+him more closely. Conditions at Basle had for years been
+developing in a direction which distressed and alarmed him.
+When he established himself there in 1521, it might still have
+seemed to him as if the bishop, old Christopher of Utenheim,
+a great admirer of Erasmus and a man after his heart, would
+succeed in effecting a reformation at Basle, as he desired it;
+abolishing acknowledged abuses, but remaining within the fold
+of the Church. In that very year, 1521, however, the emancipation
+of the municipality from the bishop's power&mdash;it had
+been in progress since Basle, in 1501, had joined the Swiss
+Confederacy&mdash;was consummated. Henceforth the council
+was number one, now no longer exclusively made up of
+aristocratic elements. In vain did the bishop ally himself
+with his colleagues of Constance and Lausanne to maintain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+Catholicism. In the town the new creed got more and more
+the upper hand. When, however, in 1525, it had come to open
+tumults against the Catholic service, the council became more
+cautious and tried to reform more heedfully.</p>
+
+<p>Oecolampadius desired this, too. Relations between him
+and Erasmus were precarious. Erasmus himself had at one
+time directed the religious thought of the impulsive, sensitive,
+restless young man. When he had, in 1520, suddenly sought
+refuge in a convent, he had expressly justified that step towards
+Erasmus, the condemner of binding vows. And now
+they saw each other again at Basle, in 1522: Oecolampadius
+having left the monastery, a convinced adherent and apostle
+of the new doctrine; Erasmus, the great spectator which he
+wished to be. Erasmus treated his old coadjutor coolly, and as
+the latter progressed, retreated more and more. Yet he kept
+steering a middle course and in 1525 gave some moderate
+advice to the council, which meanwhile had turned more
+Catholic again.</p>
+
+<p>The old bishop, who for some years had no longer resided
+in his town, in 1527 requested the chapter to relieve him of
+his office, and died shortly afterwards. Then events moved
+very quickly. After Berne had, meanwhile, reformed itself in
+1528, Oecolampadius demanded a decision also for Basle.
+Since the close of 1528 the town had been on the verge of civil
+war. A popular rising put an end to the resistance of the
+Council and cleared it of Catholic members; and in February
+1529 the old service was prohibited, the images were removed
+from the churches, the convents abolished, and the University
+suspended. Oecolampadius became the first minister in the
+'M&uuml;nster' and leader of the Basle church, for which he soon
+drew up a reformatory ordinance. The new bishop remained
+at Porrentruy, and the chapter removed to Freiburg.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 275px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxiii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxiii-th.png" width="275" height="454" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXIII. ERASMUS'S RESIDENCE AT FREIBURG, 1529-31</p>
+
+<p>The moment of departure had now come for Erasmus. His
+position at Basle in 1529 somewhat resembled, but in a
+reversed sense, the one at Louvain in 1521. Then the Catholics
+wanted to avail themselves of his services against Luther, now
+the Evangelicals would fain have kept him at Basle. For his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+name was still as a banner. His presence would strengthen the
+position of reformed Basle; on the one hand, because, as people
+reasoned, if he were not of the same mind as the reformers,
+he would have left the town long ago; on the other hand,
+because his figure seemed to guarantee moderation and might
+attract many hesitating minds.</p>
+
+<p>It was, therefore, again to safeguard his independence that
+Erasmus changed his residence. It was a great wrench this
+time. Old age and invalidism had made the restless man a
+stay-at-home. As he foresaw trouble from the side of the
+municipality, he asked Archduke Ferdinand&mdash;who for his
+brother Charles V governed the German empire and just then
+presided over the Diet of Speyer&mdash;to send him a safe conduct
+for the whole empire and an invitation, moreover, to come to
+court, which he did not dream of accepting. As place of refuge
+he had selected the not far distant town of Freiburg im Breisgau,
+which was directly under the strict government of the
+Austrian house, and where he, therefore, need not be afraid
+of such a turn of affairs as that at Basle. It was, moreover, a
+juncture at which the imperial authority and the Catholic
+cause in Germany seemed again to be gaining ground rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus would not or could not keep his departure a secret.
+He sent the most precious of his possessions in advance, and
+when this had drawn attention to his plan, he purposely invited
+Oecolampadius to a farewell talk. The reformer declared
+his sincere friendship for Erasmus, which the latter did not
+decline, provided he granted him to differ on certain points of
+dogma. Oecolampadius tried to keep him from leaving the
+town, and, when it proved too late for that, to persuade him
+to return later. They took leave with a handshake. Erasmus
+had desired to join his boat at a distant landing-stage, but the
+Council would not allow this: he had to start from the usual
+place near the Rhine bridge. A numerous crowd witnessed his
+embarkation, 13 April 1529. Some friends were there to see
+him off. No unfavourable demonstration occurred.</p>
+
+<p>His reception at Freiburg convinced him that, in spite of all,
+he was still the celebrated and admired prince of letters. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+Council placed at his disposal the large, though unfinished,
+house built for the Emperor Maximilian himself; a professor
+of theology offered him his garden. Anthony Fugger had
+tried to draw him to Augsburg by means of a yearly allowance.
+For the rest he considered Freiburg by no means a permanent
+place of abode. 'I have resolved to remain here this winter and
+then to fly with the swallows to the place whither God shall
+call me.' But he soon recognized the great advantage which
+Freiburg offered. The climate, to which he was so sensitive,
+turned out better than he expected, and the position of the
+town was extremely favourable for emigrating to France,
+should circumstances require this, or for dropping down the
+Rhine back to the Netherlands, whither many always called
+him. In 1531 he bought a house at Freiburg.</p>
+
+<p>The old Erasmus at Freiburg, ever more tormented by his
+painful malady, much more disillusioned than when he left
+Louvain in 1521, of more confirmed views as to the great
+ecclesiastical strife, will only be fully revealed to us when his
+correspondence with Boniface Amerbach, the friend whom
+he left behind at Basle&mdash;a correspondence not found complete
+in the older collections&mdash;has been edited by Dr. Allen's care.
+From no period of Erasmus's life, it seems, may so much
+be gleaned, in point of knowledge of his daily habits and
+thoughts, as from these very years. Work went on without
+a break in that great scholar's workshop where he directs his
+famuli, who hunt manuscripts for him, and then copy and
+examine them, and whence he sends forth his letters all over
+Europe. In the series of editions of the Fathers followed Basil
+and new editions of Chrysostom and Cyprian; his editions of
+classic authors were augmented by the works of Aristotle. He
+revised and republished the <i>Colloquies</i> three more times, the
+<i>Adages</i> and the New Testament once more. Occasional
+writings of a moral or politico-theological nature kept flowing
+from his pen.</p>
+
+<p>From the cause of the Reformation he was now quite
+estranged. 'Pseudevangelici', he contumeliously calls the
+reformed. 'I might have been a corypheus in Luther's church,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+he writes in 1528, 'but I preferred to incur the hatred of all
+Germany to being separate from the community of the
+Church.' The authorities should have paid a little less attention
+at first to Luther's proceedings; then the fire would never
+have spread so violently. He had always urged theologians to
+let minor concerns which only contain an appearance of piety
+rest, and to turn to the sources of Scripture. Now it was too
+late. Towns and countries united ever more closely for or
+against the Reformation. 'If, what I pray may never happen,'
+he writes to Sadolet in 1530, 'you should see horrible commotions
+of the world arise, not so fatal for Germany as for the
+Church, then remember Erasmus prophesied it.' To Beatus
+Rhenanus he frequently said that, had he known that an age
+like theirs was coming, he would never have written many
+things, or would not have written them as he had.</p>
+
+<p>'Just look,' he exclaims, 'at the Evangelical people, have
+they become any better? Do they yield less to luxury, lust and
+greed? Show me a man whom that Gospel has changed from
+a toper to a temperate man, from a brute to a gentle creature,
+from a miser into a liberal person, from a shameless to a chaste
+being. I will show you many who have become even worse
+than they were.' Now they have thrown the images out of
+the churches and abolished mass (he is thinking of Basle especially):
+has anything better come instead? 'I have never
+entered their churches, but I have seen them return from hearing
+the sermon, as if inspired by an evil spirit, the faces of all
+showing a curious wrath and ferocity, and there was no one
+except one old man who saluted me properly, when I passed
+in the company of some distinguished persons.'</p>
+
+<p>He hated that spirit of absolute assuredness so inseparably
+bound up with the reformers. 'Zwingli and Bucer may be
+inspired by the Spirit, Erasmus from himself is nothing but a
+man and cannot comprehend what is of the Spirit.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a group among the reformed to whom Erasmus
+in his heart of hearts was more nearly akin than to the
+Lutherans or Zwinglians with their rigid dogmatism: the
+Anabaptists. He rejected the doctrine from which they derived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+their name, and abhorred the anarchic element in them. He
+remained far too much the man of spiritual decorum to
+identify himself with these irregular believers. But he was not
+blind to the sincerity of their moral aspirations and sympathized
+with their dislike of brute force and the patience with
+which they bore persecution. 'They are praised more than all
+others for the innocence of their life,' he writes in 1529. Just
+in the last part of his life came the episode of the violent
+revolutionary proceedings of the fanatic Anabaptists; it goes
+without saying that Erasmus speaks of it only with horror.</p>
+
+<p>One of the best historians of the Reformation, Walter
+K&ouml;hler, calls Erasmus one of the spiritual fathers of Anabaptism.
+And certain it is that in its later, peaceful development
+it has important traits in common with Erasmus: a
+tendency to acknowledge free will, a certain rationalistic
+trend, a dislike of an exclusive conception of a Church. It
+seems possible to prove that the South German Anabaptist
+Hans Denk derived opinions directly from Erasmus. For a
+considerable part, however, this community of ideas must,
+no doubt, have been based on peculiarities of religious consciousness
+in the Netherlands, whence Erasmus sprang, and
+where Anabaptism found such a receptive soil. Erasmus was
+certainly never aware of these connections.</p>
+
+<p>Some remarkable evidence regarding Erasmus's altered
+attitude towards the old and the new Church is shown by
+what follows.</p>
+
+<p>The reproach he had formerly so often flung at the advocates
+of conservatism that they hated the <i>bonae literae</i>, so dear to
+him, and wanted to stifle them, he now uses against the
+evangelical party. 'Wherever Lutherism is dominant the study
+of literature is extinguished. Why else,' he continues, using a
+remarkable sophism, 'are Luther and Melanchthon compelled
+to call back the people so urgently to the love of letters?'
+'Just compare the University of Wittenberg with that of
+Louvain or Paris!... Printers say that before this Gospel
+came they used to dispose of 3,000 volumes more quickly than
+now of 600. A sure proof that studies flourish!'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xx" id="chapter_xx"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>LAST YEARS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Religious and political contrasts grow sharper&mdash;The coming strife in
+Germany still suspended&mdash;Erasmus finishes his <i>Ecclesiastes</i>&mdash;Death of
+Fisher and More&mdash;Erasmus back at Basle: 1535&mdash;Pope Paul III wants to
+make him write in favour of the cause of the Council&mdash;Favours declined by
+Erasmus&mdash;<i>De Puritate Ecclesiae</i>&mdash;The end: 12 July 1536</p></div>
+
+
+<p>During the last years of Erasmus's life all the great issues
+which kept the world in suspense were rapidly taking
+threatening forms. Wherever compromise or reunion had
+before still seemed possible, sharp conflicts, clearly outlined
+party-groupings, binding formulae were now barring the
+way to peace. While in the spring of 1529 Erasmus prepared
+for his departure from Basle, a strong Catholic majority of the
+Diet at Speyer got the 'recess' of 1526, favourable for the
+Evangelicals, revoked, only the Lutherans among them keeping
+what they had obtained; and secured a prohibition of any
+further changes or novelties. The Zwinglians and Anabaptists
+were not allowed to enjoy the least tolerance. This was immediately
+followed by the Protest of the chief evangelical
+princes and towns, which henceforth was to give the name to
+all anti-Catholics together (19 April 1529). And not only
+between Catholics and Protestants in the Empire did the
+rupture become complete. Even before the end of that year
+the question of the Lord's supper proved an insuperable stumbling-block
+in the way of a real union of Zwinglians and
+Lutherans. Luther parted from Zwingli at the colloquy of
+Marburg with the words, 'Your spirit differs from ours'.</p>
+
+<p>In Switzerland civil war had openly broken out between
+the Catholic and the Evangelical cantons, only calmed for a
+short time by the first peace of Kappel. The treaties of Cambray
+and Barcelona, which in 1529 restored at least political
+peace in Christendom for the time being, could no longer
+draw from old Erasmus jubilations about a coming golden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+age, like those with which the concord of 1516 had inspired
+him. A month later the Turks appeared before Vienna.</p>
+
+<p>All these occurrences could not but distress and alarm
+Erasmus. But he was outside them. When reading his letters
+of that period we are more than ever impressed by the fact
+that, for all the width and liveliness of his mind, he is remote
+from the great happenings of his time. Beyond a certain circle
+of interests, touching his own ideas or his person, his perceptions
+are vague and weak. If he still meddles occasionally with
+questions of the day, he does so in the moralizing manner, by
+means of generalities, without emphasis: his 'Advice about
+declaring war on the Turks' (March 1530) is written in the
+form of an interpretation of Psalm 28, and so vague that, at
+the close, he himself anticipates that the reader may exclaim:
+'But now say clearly: do you think that war should be
+declared or not?'</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1530 the Diet met again at Augsburg
+under the auspices of the Emperor himself to try once more
+'to attain to a good peace and Christian truth'. The Augsburg
+Confession, defended all too weakly by Melanchthon, was
+read here, disputed, and declared refuted by the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had no share in all this. Many had exhorted him
+in letters to come to Augsburg; but he had in vain expected a
+summons from the Emperor. At the instance of the Emperor's
+counsellors he had postponed his proposed removal to
+Brabant in that autumn till after the decision of the Diet. But
+his services were not needed for the drastic resolution of
+repression with which the Emperor closed the session in
+November.</p>
+
+<p>The great struggle in Germany seemed to be approaching:
+the resolutions of Augsburg were followed by the formation
+of the League of Schmalkalden uniting all Protestant territories
+and towns of Germany in their opposition to the
+Emperor. In the same year (1531) Zwingli was killed in the
+battle of Kappel against the Catholic cantons, soon to be followed
+by Oecolampadius, who died at Basle. 'It is right',
+writes Erasmus, 'that those two leaders have perished. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+Mars had been favourable to them, we should now have been
+done for.'</p>
+
+<p>In Switzerland a sort of equilibrium had set in; at any rate
+matters had come to a standstill; in Germany the inevitable
+struggle was postponed for many years. The Emperor had
+understood that, to combat the German Protestants effectively,
+he should first get the Pope to hold the Council which would
+abolish the acknowledged abuses of the Church. The religious
+peace of Nuremberg (1532) put the seal upon this turn of
+imperial policy.</p>
+
+<p>It might seem as if before long the advocates of moderate
+reform and of a compromise might after all get a chance of
+being heard. But Erasmus had become too old to actively
+participate in the decisions (if he had ever seriously considered
+such participation). He does write a treatise, though, in 1533,
+'On the sweet concord of the Church', like his 'Advice on
+the Turks' in the form of an interpretation of a psalm (83).
+But it would seem as if the old vivacity of his style and his
+power of expression, so long unimpaired, now began to flag.
+The same remark applies to an essay 'On the preparation for
+death', published the same year. His voice was growing weaker.</p>
+
+<p>During these years he turned his attention chiefly to the
+completion of the great work which more than any other
+represented for him the summing up and complete exposition
+of his moral-theological ideas: <i>Ecclesiastes</i> or, <i>On the Way to
+preach</i>. Erasmus had always regarded preaching as the most
+dignified part of an ecclesiastic's duties. As preachers, he had
+most highly valued Colet and Vitrarius. As early as 1519 his
+friend, John Becar of Borselen, urged him to follow up the
+<i>Enchiridion</i> of the Christian soldier and the <i>Institutio</i> of the
+Christian prince, by the true instruction of the Christian
+preacher. 'Later, later,' Erasmus had promised him, 'at
+present I have too much work, but I hope to undertake it
+soon.' In 1523 he had already made a sketch and some notes
+for it. It was meant for John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester,
+Erasmus's great friend and brother-spirit, who eagerly looked
+forward to it and urged the author to finish it. The work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+gradually grew into the most voluminous of Erasmus's original
+writings: a forest of a work, <i>operis sylvam</i>, he calls it himself.
+In four books he treated his subject, the art of preaching well
+and decorously, with an inexhaustible abundance of examples,
+illustrations, schemes, etc. But was it possible that a work,
+conceived already by the Erasmus of 1519, and upon which
+he had been so long engaged, while he himself had gradually
+given up the boldness of his earlier years, could still be a
+revelation in 1533, as the <i>Enchiridion</i> had been in its day?</p>
+
+<p><i>Ecclesiastes</i> is the work of a mind fatigued, which no longer
+sharply reacts upon the needs of his time. As the result of a
+correct, intellectual, tasteful instruction in a suitable manner
+of preaching, in accordance with the purity of the Gospel,
+Erasmus expects to see society improve. 'The people become
+more obedient to the authorities, more respectful towards the
+law, more peaceable. Between husband and wife comes
+greater concord, more perfect faithfulness, greater dislike of
+adultery. Servants obey more willingly, artisans work better,
+merchants cheat no more.'</p>
+
+<p>At the same time that Erasmus took this work to Froben,
+at Basle, to print, a book of a young Frenchman, who had
+recently fled from France to Basle, passed through the press of
+another Basle printer, Thomas Platter. It too was to be a manual
+of the life of faith: the <i>Institution of the Christian Religion</i>, by
+Calvin.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Even before Erasmus had quite completed the <i>Ecclesiastes</i>,
+the man for whom the work had been meant was no more.
+Instead of to the Bishop of Rochester, Erasmus dedicated his
+voluminous work to the Bishop of Augsburg, Christopher of
+Stadion. John Fisher, to set a seal on his spiritual endeavours,
+resembling those of Erasmus in so many respects, had left
+behind, as a testimony to the world, for which Erasmus knew
+himself too weak, that of martyrdom. On 22 June 1535, he
+was beheaded by command of Henry VIII. He died for being
+faithful to the old Church. Together with More he had steadfastly
+refused to take the oath to the Statute of Supremacy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+Not two weeks after Fisher, Thomas More mounted the
+scaffold. The fate of those two noblest of his friends grieved
+Erasmus. It moved him to do what for years he had no
+longer done: to write a poem. But rather than in the fine
+Latin measure of that <i>Carmen hero&iuml;cum</i> one would have liked
+to hear his emotion in language of sincere dismay and indignation
+in his letters. They are hardly there. In the words devoted
+to Fisher's death in the preface to the <i>Ecclesiastes</i> there is no
+heartfelt emotion. Also in his letters of those days, he speaks
+with reserve. 'Would More had never meddled with that
+dangerous business, and left the theological cause to the
+theologians.' As if More had died for aught but simply for his
+conscience!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When Erasmus wrote these words, he was no longer at
+Freiburg. He had in June 1535 gone to Basle, to work in
+Froben's printing-office, as of old; the <i>Ecclesiastes</i> was at last
+going to press and still required careful supervision and the
+final touches during the process; the <i>Adagia</i> had to be reprinted,
+and a Latin edition of Origenes was in preparation.
+The old, sick man was cordially received by the many friends
+who still lived at Basle. Hieronymus Froben, Johannes's son,
+who after his father's death managed the business with two
+relatives, sheltered him in his house <i>Zum Luft</i>. In the hope of
+his return a room had been built expressly for him and fitted
+up as was convenient for him. Erasmus found that at Basle the
+ecclesiastical storms which had formerly driven him away
+had subsided. Quiet and order had returned. He did feel a
+spirit of distrust in the air, it is true, 'but I think that, on
+account of my age, of habit, and of what little erudition I
+possess, I have now got so far that I may live in safety anywhere'.
+At first he had regarded the removal as an experiment.
+He did not mean to stay at Basle. If his health could not stand
+the change of air, he would return to his fine, well-appointed,
+comfortable house at Freiburg. If he should prove able to bear
+it, then the choice was between the Netherlands (probably
+Brussels, Malines or Antwerp, perhaps Louvain) or Burgundy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+in particular Besan&ccedil;on. Towards the end of his life he clung to
+the illusion which he had been cherishing for a long time that
+Burgundy wine alone was good for him and kept his malady
+in check. There is something pathetic in the proportions which
+this wine-question gradually assumes: that it is so dear at Basle
+might be overlooked, but the thievish wagoners drink up or
+spoil what is imported.</p>
+
+<p>In August he doubted greatly whether he will return to
+Freiburg. In October he sold his house and part of his furniture
+and had the rest transported to Basle. After the summer
+he hardly left his room, and was mostly bedridden.</p>
+
+<p>Though the formidable worker in him still yearned for
+more years and time to labour, his soul was ready for death.
+Happy he had never felt; only during the last years he utters
+his longing for the end. He was still, curiously enough, subject
+to the delusion of being in the thick of the struggle. 'In this
+arena I shall have to fall,' he writes in 1533. 'Only this consoles
+me, that near at hand already, the general haven comes in
+sight, which, if Christ be favourable, will bring the end of all
+labour and trouble.' Two years later his voice sounds more
+urgent: 'That the Lord might deign to call me out of this
+raving world to His rest'.</p>
+
+<p>Most of his old friends were gone. Warham and Mountjoy
+had passed away before More and Fisher; Peter Gilles, so
+many years younger than he, had departed in 1533; also
+Pirckheimer had been dead for years. Beatus Rhenanus shows
+him to us, during the last months of his life, re-perusing his
+friends' letters of the last few years, and repeating: 'This one,
+too, is dead'. As he grew more solitary, his suspiciousness and
+his feeling of being persecuted became stronger. 'My friends
+decrease, my enemies increase,' he writes in 1532, when
+Warham has died and Aleander has risen still higher. In the
+autumn of 1535 he thinks that all his former servant-pupils
+betray him, even the best beloved ones like Quirin Talesius and
+Charles Utenhove. They do not write to him, he complains.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxiv.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxiv-th.png" width="350" height="474" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXIV. CARDINAL JEROME ALEANDER</p>
+
+<p>In October 1534, Pope Clement VII was succeeded by
+Paul III, who at once zealously took up the Council-question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+The meeting of a Council was, in the eyes of many, the only
+means by which union could be restored to the Church, and
+now a chance of realizing this seemed nigh. At once the most
+learned theologians were invited to help in preparing the
+great work. Erasmus did not omit, in January 1535, to address
+to the new Pope a letter of congratulation, in which he professed
+his willingness to co-operate in bringing about the
+pacification of the Church, and warned the Pope to steer a
+cautious middle course. On 31 May followed a reply full of
+kindliness and acknowledgement. The Pope exhorted Erasmus,
+'that you too, graced by God with so much laudable talent
+and learning, may help Us in this pious work, which is so
+agreeable to your mind, to defend, with Us, the Catholic
+religion, by the spoken and the written word, before and
+during the Council, and in this manner by this last work of
+piety, as by the best act to close a life of religion and so many
+writings, to refute your accusers and rouse your admirers to
+fresh efforts.'</p>
+
+<p>Would Erasmus in years of greater strength have seen his
+way to co-operate actively in the council of the great? Undoubtedly,
+the Pope's exhortation correctly represented his
+inclination. But once faced by the necessity of hard, clear
+resolutions, what would he have effected? Would his spirit of
+peace and toleration, of reserve and compromise, have brought
+alleviation and warded off the coming struggle? He was spared
+the experiment.</p>
+
+<p>He knew himself too weak to be able to think of strenuous
+church-political propaganda any more. Soon there came
+proofs that the kindly feelings at Rome were sincere. There
+had been some question also of numbering Erasmus among
+the cardinals who were to be nominated with a view to the
+Council; a considerable benefice connected with the church
+of Deventer was already offered him. But Erasmus urged the
+Roman friends who were thus active in his behalf to cease their
+kind offices; he would accept nothing, he a man who lived
+from day to day in expectation of death and often hoping for
+it, who could hardly ever leave his room&mdash;would people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+instigate <i>him</i> to hunt for deaneries and cardinals' hats! He had
+subsistence enough to last him. He wanted to die independent.</p>
+
+<p>Yet his pen did not rest. The <i>Ecclesiastes</i> had been printed
+and published and <i>Origenes</i> was still to follow. Instead of the
+important and brilliant task to which Rome called him, he
+devoted his last strength to a simple deed of friendly cordiality.
+The friend to whose share the honour fell to receive from the
+old, death-sick author a last composition prepared expressly
+for him, amidst the most terrible pains, was the most modest
+of the number who had not lost their faith in him. No prelate
+or prince, no great wit or admired divine, but Christopher
+Eschenfelder, customs officer at Boppard on the Rhine. On his
+passage in 1518 Erasmus had, with glad surprise, found him
+to be a reader of his work and a man of culture.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> That friendship
+had been a lasting one. Eschenfelder had asked Erasmus to
+dedicate the interpretation of some psalm to him (a form of
+composition often preferred by Erasmus of late). About the
+close of 1535 he remembered that request. He had forgotten
+whether Eschenfelder had indicated a particular psalm and
+chose one at haphazard, Psalm 14, calling the treatise 'On the
+purity of the Christian Church'. He expressly dedicated it to
+'the publican' in January 1536. It is not remarkable among his
+writings as to contents and form, but it was to be his last.</p>
+
+<p>On 12 February 1536, Erasmus made his final preparations.
+In 1527 he had already made a will with detailed clauses for
+the printing of his complete works by Froben. In 1534 he drew
+up an accurate inventory of his belongings. He sold his library
+to the Polish nobleman Johannes a Lasco. The arrangements of
+1536 testify to two things which had played an important part
+in his life: his relations with the house of Froben and his need
+of friendship. Boniface Amerbach is his heir. Hieronymus
+Froben and Nicholas Episcopius, the managers of the business,
+are his executors. To each of the good friends left to him he
+bequeathed one of the trinkets which spoke of his fame with
+princes and the great ones of the earth, in the first place to
+Louis Ber and Beatus Rhenanus. The poor and the sick were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+not forgotten, and he remembered especially girls about to
+marry and youths of promise. The details of this charity he
+left to Amerbach.</p>
+
+<p>In March 1536, he still thinks of leaving for Burgundy.
+Money matters occupy him and he speaks of the necessity of
+making new friends, for the old ones leave him: the Bishop of
+Cracow, Zasius at Freiburg. According to Beatus Rhenanus,
+the Brabant plan stood foremost at the end of Erasmus's life.
+The Regent, Mary of Hungary, did not cease to urge him to
+return to the Netherlands. Erasmus's own last utterance leaves
+us in doubt whether he had made up his mind. 'Though I am
+living here with the most sincere friends, such as I did not
+possess at Freiburg, I should yet, on account of the differences
+of doctrine, prefer to end my life elsewhere. If only Brabant
+were nearer.'</p>
+
+<p>This he writes on 28 June 1536. He had felt so poorly for
+some days that he had not even been able to read. In the letter
+we again trace the delusion that Aleander persecutes him, sets
+on opponents against him, and even lays snares for his friends.
+Did his mind at last give way too?</p>
+
+<p>On 12 July the end came. The friends around his couch
+heard him groan incessantly: 'O Jesu, misericordia; Domine
+libera me; Domine miserere mei!' And at last in Dutch:
+'Lieve God.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See Erasmus's letter, p. <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter_xxi" id="chapter_xxi"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Conclusion&mdash;Erasmus and the spirit of the sixteenth century&mdash;His weak
+points&mdash;A thorough idealist and yet a moderate mind&mdash;The enlightener of
+a century&mdash;He anticipates tendencies of two centuries later&mdash;His influence
+affects both Protestantism and Catholic reform&mdash;The Erasmian spirit in the
+Netherlands</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Looking back on the life of Erasmus the question still arises:
+why has he remained so great? For ostensibly his endeavours
+ended in failure. He withdraws in alarm from that tremendous
+struggle which he rightly calls a tragedy; the sixteenth century,
+bold and vehement, thunders past him, disdaining his ideal of
+moderation and tolerance. Latin literary erudition, which to
+him was the epitome of all true culture, has gone out as such.
+Erasmus, so far as regards the greater part of his writings, is
+among the great ones who are no longer read. He has become
+a name. But why does that name still sound so clear and
+articulate? Why does he keep regarding us, as if he still knew
+a little more than he has ever been willing to utter?</p>
+
+<p>What has he been to his age, and what was he to be for later
+generations? Has he been rightly called a precursor of the
+modern spirit?</p>
+
+<p>Regarded as a child of the sixteenth century, he does seem
+to differ from the general tenor of his times. Among those
+vehemently passionate, drastically energetic and violent
+natures of the great ones of his day, Erasmus stands as the man
+of too few prejudices, with a little too much delicacy of taste,
+with a deficiency, though not, indeed, in every department, of
+that <i>stultitia</i> which he had praised as a necessary constituent
+of life. Erasmus is the man who is too sensible and moderate
+for the heroic.</p>
+
+<p>What a surprising difference there is between the <i>accent</i> of
+Erasmus and that of Luther, Calvin, and Saint Teresa! What a
+difference, also, between his accent, that is, the accent of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+humanism, and that of Albrecht D&uuml;rer, of Michelangelo, or of
+Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus seems, at times, the man who was not strong
+enough for his age. In that robust sixteenth century it seems as
+if the oaken strength of Luther was necessary, the steely edge
+of Calvin, the white heat of Loyola; not the velvet softness
+of Erasmus. Not only were their force and their fervour
+necessary, but also their depth, their unsparing, undaunted
+consistency, sincerity and outspokenness.</p>
+
+<p>They cannot bear that smile which makes Luther speak of
+the guileful being looking out of Erasmus's features. His
+piety is too even for them, too limp. Loyola has testified
+that the reading of the <i>Enchiridion militis Christiani</i> relaxed
+his fervour and made his devotion grow cold. He saw that
+warrior of Christ differently, in the glowing colours of the
+Spanish-Christian, medieval ideal of chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had never passed through those depths of self-reprobation
+and that consciousness of sin which Luther had
+traversed with toil; he saw no devil to fight with, and tears
+were not familiar to him. Was he altogether unaware of the
+deepest mystery? Or did it rest in him too deep for utterance?</p>
+
+<p>Let us not suppose too quickly that we are more nearly allied
+to Luther or Loyola because their figures appeal to us more. If
+at present our admiration goes out again to the ardently pious,
+and to spiritual extremes, it is partly because our unstable time
+requires strong stimuli. To appreciate Erasmus we should begin
+by giving up our admiration of the extravagant, and for many
+this requires a certain effort at present. It is extremely easy
+to break the staff over Erasmus. His faults lie on the surface,
+and though he wished to hide many things, he never hid his
+weaknesses.</p>
+
+<p>He was too much concerned about what people thought,
+and he could not hold his tongue. His mind was <i>too</i> rich and
+facile, always suggesting a superfluity of arguments, cases,
+examples, quotations. He could never let things slide. All his
+life he grudged himself leisure to rest and collect himself, to see
+how unimportant after all was the commotion round about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+him, if only he went his own way courageously. Rest and
+independence he desired most ardently of all things; there
+was no more restless and dependent creature. Judge him as one
+of a too delicate constitution who ventures out in a storm. His
+will-power was great enough. He worked night and day,
+amidst the most violent bodily suffering, with a great ideal
+steadfastly before him, never satisfied with his own achievements.
+He was not self-sufficient.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As an intellectual type Erasmus was one of a rather small
+group: the absolute idealists who, at the same time, are
+thoroughly moderate. They can not bear the world's imperfections;
+they feel constrained to oppose. But extremes are
+uncongenial to them; they shrink back from action, because
+they know it pulls down as much as it erects, and so they withdraw
+themselves, and keep calling that everything should be
+different; but when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with
+tradition and conservatism. Here too is a fragment of Erasmus's
+life-tragedy: he was the man who saw the new and coming
+things more clearly than anyone else&mdash;who must needs
+quarrel with the old and yet could not accept the new. He
+tried to remain in the fold of the old Church, after having
+damaged it seriously, and renounced the Reformation, and to
+a certain extent even Humanism, after having furthered both
+with all his strength.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100%;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxv.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxv.png" width="40%" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXV. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 65</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Our final opinion about Erasmus has been concerned with
+negative qualities, so far. What was his positive importance?</p>
+
+<p>Two facts make it difficult for the modern mind to understand
+Erasmus's positive importance: first that his influence
+was extensive rather than intensive, and therefore less historically
+discernible at definite points, and second, that his influence
+has ceased. He has done his work and will speak to the
+world no more. Like Saint Jerome, his revered model, and
+Voltaire, with whom he has been occasionally compared, 'he
+has his reward'. But like them he has been the enlightener of
+an age from whom a broad stream of culture emanated.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxvi.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxvi-th.png" width="375" height="286" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXVI. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY, 1530<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As historic investigation of the French Revolution is becoming
+more and more aware that the true history of France
+during that period should be looked for in those groups which
+as 'Centre' or 'Marais' seemed for a long time but a drove of
+supernumeraries, and understands that it should occasionally
+protect its eyes a little from the lightning flashes of the Gironde
+and Mountain thunderstorm; so the history of the Reformation
+period should pay attention&mdash;and it has done so for a long
+time&mdash;to the broad central sphere permeated by the Erasmian
+spirit. One of his opponents said: 'Luther has drawn a large
+part of the Church to himself, Zwingli and Oecolampadius
+also some part, but Erasmus the largest'. Erasmus's public was
+numerous and of high culture. He was the only one of the
+Humanists who really wrote for all the world, that is to say,
+for all educated people. He accustomed a whole world to
+another and more fluent mode of expression: he shifted the
+interest, he influenced by his perfect clarity of exposition,
+even through the medium of Latin, the style of the vernacular
+languages, apart from the numberless translations of his works.
+For his contemporaries Erasmus put on many new stops, one
+might say, of the great organ of human expression, as
+Rousseau was to do two centuries later.</p>
+
+<p>He might well think with some complacency of the influence
+he had exerted on the world. 'From all parts of the
+world'&mdash;he writes towards the close of his life&mdash;'I am daily
+thanked by many, because they have been kindled by my
+works, whatever may be their merit, into zeal for a good
+disposition and sacred literature; and they who have never seen
+Erasmus, yet know and love him from his books.' He was glad
+that his translations from the Greek had become superfluous;
+he had everywhere led many to take up Greek and Holy
+Scripture, 'which otherwise they would never have read'. He
+had been an introducer and an initiator. He might leave the
+stage after having said his say.</p>
+
+<p>His word signified something beyond a classical sense and
+biblical disposition. It was at the same time the first enunciation
+of the creed of education and perfectibility, of warm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+social feeling and of faith in human nature, of peaceful kindliness
+and toleration. 'Christ dwells everywhere; piety is
+practised under every garment, if only a kindly disposition is
+not wanting.'</p>
+
+<p>In all these ideas and convictions Erasmus really heralds a
+later age. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries those
+thoughts remained an undercurrent: in the eighteenth
+Erasmus's message of deliverance bore fruit. In this respect he
+has most certainly been a precursor and preparer of the
+modern mind: of Rousseau, Herder, Pestalozzi and of the
+English and American thinkers. It is only part of the modern
+mind which is represented by all this. To a number of its
+developments Erasmus was wholly a stranger, to the evolution
+of natural science, of the newer philosophy, of political
+economy. But in so far as people still believe in the ideal that
+moral education and general tolerance may make humanity
+happier, humanity owes much to Erasmus.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>This does not imply that Erasmus's mind did not directly
+and fruitfully influence his own times. Although Catholics
+regarded him in the heat of the struggle as the corrupter of
+the Church, and Protestants as the betrayer of the Gospel, yet
+his word of moderation and kindliness did not pass by unheard
+or unheeded on either side. Eventually neither camp
+finally rejected Erasmus. Rome did not brand him as an arch-heretic,
+but only warned the faithful to read him with caution.
+Protestant history has been studious to reckon him as one of
+the Reformers. Both obeyed in this the pronouncement of a
+public opinion which was above parties and which continued
+to admire and revere Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>To the reconstruction of the Catholic Church and the
+erection of the evangelical churches not only the names of
+Luther and Loyola are linked. The moderate, the intellectual,
+the conciliating have also had their share of the work; figures
+like Melanchthon here, Sadolet there, both nearly allied to
+Erasmus and sympathetically disposed towards him. The frequently
+repeated attempts to arrive at some compromise in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+the great religious conflict, though they might be doomed to
+end in failure, emanated from the Erasmian spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere did that spirit take root so easily as in the country
+that gave Erasmus birth. A curious detail shows us that it was
+not the exclusive privilege of either great party. Of his two
+most favoured pupils of later years, both Netherlanders, whom
+as the actors of the colloquy <i>Astragalismus</i> (<i>The Game of
+Knucklebones</i>), he has immortalized together, the one, Quirin
+Talesius, died for his attachment to the Spanish cause and the
+Catholic faith: he was hanged in 1572 by the citizens of
+Haarlem, where he was a burgomaster. The other, Charles
+Utenhove, was sedulous on the side of the revolt and the
+Reformed religion. At Ghent, in concert with the Prince of
+Orange, he turned against the narrow-minded Protestant
+terrorism of the zealots.</p>
+
+<p>A Dutch historian recently tried to trace back the opposition
+of the Dutch against the king of Spain to the influence of
+Erasmus's political thought in his arraignment of bad princes&mdash;wrongly
+as I think. Erasmus's political diatribes were far too
+academic and too general for that. The desire of resistance and
+revolt arose from quite other causes. The 'Gueux' were not
+Erasmus's progeny. But there is much that is Erasmian in the
+spirit of their great leader, William of Orange, whose vision
+ranged so widely beyond the limitations of religious hatred.
+Thoroughly permeated by the Erasmian spirit, too, was that
+class of municipal magistrates who were soon to take the lead
+and to set the fashion in the established Republic. History is
+wont, as always with an aristocracy, to take their faults very
+seriously. After all, perhaps no other aristocracy, unless it be
+that of Venice, has ruled a state so long, so well and with so
+little violence. If in the seventeenth century the institutions of
+Holland, in the eyes of foreigners, were the admired models of
+prosperity, charity and social discipline, and patterns of gentleness
+and wisdom, however defective they may seem to
+us&mdash;then the honour of all this is due to the municipal aristocracy.
+If in the Dutch patriciate of that time those aspirations
+lived and were translated into action, it was Erasmus's spirit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+social responsibility which inspired them. The history of
+Holland is far less bloody and cruel than that of any of the surrounding
+countries. Not for naught did Erasmus praise as
+truly Dutch those qualities which we might also call truly
+Erasmian: gentleness, kindliness, moderation, a generally
+diffused moderate erudition. Not romantic virtues, if you like;
+but are they the less salutary?</p>
+
+<p>One more instance. In the Republic of the Seven Provinces
+the atrocious executions of witches and wizards ceased more
+than a century before they did in all other countries. This was
+not owing to the merit of the Reformed pastors. They shared
+the popular belief which demanded persecution. It was the
+magistrates whose enlightenment even as early as the beginning
+of the seventeenth century no longer tolerated these
+things. Again, we are entitled to say, though Erasmus was not
+one of those who combated this practice: the spirit which
+breathes from this is that of Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>Cultured humanity has cause to hold Erasmus's memory in
+esteem, if for no other reason than that he was the fervently
+sincere preacher of that general kindliness which the world still
+so urgently needs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="letters" id="letters"></a>SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS OF ERASMUS</h2>
+
+
+<p><i>This selection from the vast correspondence of Erasmus is intended to exhibit
+him at a few points in his strenuous and rather comfortless life, always
+overworked, often ill, and perpetually hurried&mdash;many of his letters have the
+postscript 'In haste' or 'I had no time to read this over'&mdash;but holding always
+tenaciously to his aim of steering a middle course; in religion between the
+corruption and fossilization of the old and the uncompromising violence of
+the new: in learning between neo-paganism on the one hand and the indolent
+refusal, under the pretext of piety, to apply critical methods to sacred texts
+on the other. The first letter has been included because it may provide a clue
+to his later reluctance to trust his feelings when self-committal to any cause
+seemed to be required of him, a reluctance not unnaturally interpreted by his
+enemies as an arrogant refusal to 'yield to any'.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>The notes have been compiled from P. S. and H. M. Allen's</i> Opus
+epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, <i>Oxford, 1906-47, by the kind
+permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and references are to the
+numbers of the letters in that edition</i>.</p>
+
+
+<h3>I. TO SERVATIUS ROGER<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></h3>
+
+<p>[Steyn, <i>c.</i> 1487]</p>
+
+<p>To his friend Servatius, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... You say there is something which you take very hard, which
+torments you wretchedly, which in short makes life a misery to you.
+Your looks and your carriage betray this, even if you were silent.
+Where is your wonted and beloved cheerful countenance gone, your
+former beauty, your lively glance? Whence come these sorrowful
+downcast eyes, whence this perpetual silence, so unlike you, whence
+the look of a sick man in your expression? Assuredly as the poet says,
+'the sick body betrays the torments of the lurking soul, likewise its
+joys: it is to the mind that the face owes its looks, well or ill'.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is certain then, my Servatius, that there is something which
+troubles you, which is destroying your former good health. But what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+am I to do now? Must I comfort you or scold you? Why do you hide
+your pain from me as if we did not know each other by this time?
+You are so deep that you do not believe your closest friend, or trust
+even the most trustworthy; or do you not know that the hidden fire
+burns stronger?... And for the rest, my Servatius, what is it makes
+you draw in and hide yourself like a snail? I suspect what the matter
+is: you have not yet convinced yourself that I love you very much.
+So I entreat you by the things sweetest to you in life, by our great
+love, if you have any care for your safety, if you want me to live
+unharmed, not to be at such pains to hide your feelings, but whatever
+it is, entrust it to my safe ears. I will assist you in whatever way I can
+with help or counsel. But if I cannot provide either, still it will be
+sweet to rejoice with you, to weep with you, to live and die with
+you. Farewell, my Servatius, and look after your health.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II. TO NICHOLAS WERNER<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Paris, 13 September [1496]</p>
+
+<p>To the religious Father Nicholas Werner, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... If you are all well there, things are as I wish and hope; I myself am
+very well, the gods be thanked. I have now made clear by my actions&mdash;if
+it was not clear to anyone before this&mdash;how much theology is
+coming to mean to me. A somewhat arrogant claim; but it ill becomes
+Erasmus to hide anything from his most loving Father. Lately I had
+fallen in with certain Englishmen, of noble birth, and all of them
+wealthy. Very recently I was approached by a young priest,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> very
+rich, who said he had refused a bishopric offered him, as he knew that
+he was not well educated; nevertheless he is to be recalled by the King
+to take a bishopric within a year, although, apart from any bishopric
+even, he has a yearly income of more than 2000 <i>scudi</i>. As soon as he
+heard of my learning he proceeded in unbelievably affectionate
+fashion to devote himself to me, to frequent and revere me&mdash;he
+lived for a while in my house. He offered 100 <i>scudi</i>, if I would teach
+him for a year; he offered a benefice in a few months' time; he offered
+to lend me 300 <i>scudi</i>, if I should need them to procure the office, until
+I could pay them back out of the benefice. By this service I could have
+laid all the English in this city under an obligation to me&mdash;they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+all of the first families&mdash;and through them all England, had I so
+wished. But I cared nothing for the splendid income and the far more
+splendid prospects; I cared nothing for their entreaties and the tears
+which accompanied them. I am telling the truth, exaggerating not at
+all; the English realize that the money of all England means nothing
+to me. This refusal, which I still maintain, was not made without due
+consideration; not for any reward will I let myself be drawn away
+from theological studies. I did not come here to teach or to pile up
+gold, but to learn. Indeed I shall seek a Doctorate in Theology, if the
+gods so will it.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop of Cambrai is marvellously fond of me: he makes
+liberal promises; the remittances are not so liberal, to tell the truth. I
+wish you good health, excellent Father. I beg and entreat you to commend
+me in your prayers to God: I shall do likewise for you. From my
+library in Paris.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III. TO ROBERT FISHER<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></h3>
+
+<p>London, 5 December [1499]</p>
+
+<p>To Robert Fisher, Englishman, abiding in Italy, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... I hesitated not a little to write to you, beloved Robert, not that I
+feared lest so great a sunderance in time and place had worn away
+anything of your affection towards me, but because you are in a
+country where even the house-walls are more learned and more
+eloquent than are our men here, so that what is here reckoned
+polished, fine and delectable cannot there appear anything but crude,
+mean and insipid. Wherefore your England assuredly expects you to
+return not merely very learned in the law but also equally eloquent
+in both the Greek and the Latin tongues. You would have seen me
+also there long since, had not my friend Mountjoy carried me off to
+his country when I was already packed for the journey into Italy.
+Whither indeed shall I not follow a youth so polite, so kindly, so
+lovable? I swear I would follow him even into Hades. You indeed
+had most handsomely commended him and, in a word, precisely
+delineated him; but believe me, he every day surpasses both your
+commendation and my opinion of him.</p>
+
+<p>But you ask how England pleases me. If you have any confidence
+in me, dear Robert, I would have you believe me when I say that I
+have never yet liked anything so well. I have found here a climate as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+delightful as it is wholesome; and moreover so much humane learning,
+not of the outworn, commonplace sort, but the profound,
+accurate, ancient Greek and Latin learning, that I now scarcely miss
+Italy, but for the sight of it. When I listen to my friend Colet, I seem
+to hear Plato himself. Who would not marvel at the perfection of
+encyclopaedic learning in Grocyn?<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> What could be keener or nobler
+or nicer than Linacre's<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> judgement? What has Nature ever fashioned
+gentler or sweeter or happier than the character of Thomas More?
+But why should I catalogue the rest? It is marvellous how thick upon
+the ground the harvest of ancient literature is here everywhere
+flowering forth: all the more should you hasten your return hither.
+Your friend's affection and remembrance of you is so strong that he
+speaks of none so often or so gladly. Farewell. Written in haste in
+London on the 5th of December.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV. TO JAMES BATT<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Orl&eacute;ans [<i>c.</i> 12 December] 1500</p>
+
+<p>... If you care sincerely what becomes of your Erasmus, do you
+act thus: plead my shyness before my Lady<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> in pleasant phrases, as if
+I had not been able to bring myself to reveal my poverty to her in
+person. But you must write that I am now in a state of extreme
+poverty, owing to the great expense of this flight to Orl&eacute;ans, as I had
+to leave people from whom I was making some money. Tell her that
+Italy is by far the most suitable place in which to take the Degree of
+Doctor, and that it is impossible for a fastidious man to go to Italy
+without a large sum of money; particularly because I am not even
+at liberty to live meanly, on account of my reputation, such as it is,
+for learning. You will explain how much greater fame I am likely to
+bring my Lady by my learning than are the other theologians maintained
+by her. They compose commonplace harangues: I write works
+destined to live for ever. Their ignorant triflings are heard by one or
+two persons in church: my books will be read by Latins, Greeks, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+every race all over the world. Tell her that this kind of unlearned
+theologian is to be found in hordes everywhere, whereas a man like
+myself is hardly to be found once in many centuries; unless indeed
+you are so superstitious that you scruple to employ a few harmless
+lies to help a friend. Then you must point out that she will not be a
+whit the poorer if, with a few gold pieces, she helps to restore the
+corrupt text of St. Jerome and the true Theology, when so much of
+her wealth is being shamelessly dissipated. After dilating on this with
+your customary ingenuity and writing at length on my character, my
+expectations, my affection for my Lady and my shyness, you must
+then add that I have written to say that I need 200 francs in all, and
+request her to grant me next year's payment now; I am not inventing
+this, my dear Batt; to go to Italy with 100 francs, no, less than
+100 francs, seems to me a hazardous enterprise, unless I want to enslave
+myself to someone once more; may I die before I do this. Then how
+little difference it will make to her whether she gives me the money
+this year or next, and how much it means to me! Next urge her to
+look out for a benefice for me, so that on my return I may have some
+place where I can pursue learning in peace. Do not stop at this, but
+devise on your own the most convenient method of indicating to her
+that she should promise me, before all the other candidates, at least a
+reasonable, if not a splendid, benefice which I can change as soon as a
+better one appears. I am well aware that there are many candidates
+for benefices; but you must say that I am the one man, whom, compared
+with the rest, etc., etc. You know your old way of lying profusely
+about Erasmus.... You will add at the end that I have made
+the same complaint in my letter which Jerome makes more than once
+in his letters, that study is tearing my eyes out, that things look as if
+I shall have to follow his example and begin to study with my ears
+and tongue only; and persuade her, in the most amusing words at
+your command, to send me some sapphire or other gem wherewith
+to fortify my eyesight. I would have told you myself which gems
+have this virtue, but I have not Pliny at hand; get the information out
+of your doctor.... Let me tell you what else I want you to attempt
+still further&mdash;to extract a grant from the Abbot. You know him&mdash;invent
+some modest and persuasive argument for making this request.
+Tell him that I have a great design in hand&mdash;to constitute in its
+entirety the text of Jerome, which has been corrupted, mutilated, and
+thrown into disorder through the ignorance of the theologians (I
+have detected many false and spurious pieces among his writings),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+and to restore the Greek.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> I shall reveal [in him] an ingenuity and a
+knowledge of antiquities which no one, I venture to claim, has yet
+realized. Explain that for this undertaking many books are needed,
+also Greek works, so that I may receive a grant. Here you will not
+be lying, Batt; I am wholly engaged on this work. Farewell, my best
+and dearest Batt, and put all of Batt into this business. I mean Batt the
+friend, not Batt the slowcoach.</p>
+
+
+<h3>V. TO ANTONY OF BERGEN<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></h3>
+
+<p>[Paris?] [16 March? 1501]</p>
+
+<p>To the most illustrious prelate Antony, Abbot of St. Bertin, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... I have accidentally happened upon some Greek books, and am
+busy day and night secretly copying them out. I shall be asked why I
+am so delighted with Cato the Censor's example that I want to turn
+Greek at my age. Indeed, most excellent Father, if in my boyhood I
+had been of this mind, or rather if time had not been wanting, I
+should be the happiest of men. As things are, I think it better to learn,
+even if a little late, than not to know things which it is of the first
+importance to have at one's command. I have already tasted of Greek
+literature in the past, but merely (as the saying goes) sipped at it;
+however, having lately gone a little deeper into it, I perceive&mdash;as one
+has often read in the best authorities&mdash;that Latin learning, rich as it is,
+is defective and incomplete without Greek; for we have but a few
+small streams and muddy puddles, while they have pure springs and
+rivers rolling gold. I see that it is utter madness even to touch the
+branch of theology which deals chiefly with the mysteries unless one
+is also provided with the equipment of Greek, as the translators of the
+Scriptures, owing to their conscientious scruples, render Greek forms
+in such a fashion that not even the primary sense (what our theologians
+call the <i>literal</i> sense) can be understood by persons ignorant of
+Greek. Who could understand the sentence in the Psalm [Ps. 50.4<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+(51.3)] <i>Et peccatum meum contra me est semper</i>,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> unless he has read the
+Greek? This runs as follows:
+&kappa;&alpha;&iota; '&eta; '&alpha;&mu;&alpha;&rho;&tau;&iota;&alpha;
+&mu;&omicron;&upsilon; &epsilon;&nu;&omega;&pi;&iota;&omicron;&nu; &mu;&omicron;&upsilon;
+&epsilon;&sigma;&tau;&iota; &delta;&iota;&alpha;&pi;&alpha;&nu;&tau;&omicron;&sigmaf;.
+At this point some theologian will spin a long story of
+how the flesh is perpetually in conflict with the spirit, having been
+misled by the double meaning of the preposition, that is, <i>contra</i>, when
+the word &epsilon;&nu;&omega;&pi;&iota;&omicron;&nu;
+refers not to <i>conflict</i> but to <i>position</i>, as if you were to
+say <i>opposite</i>, i.e., <i>in sight</i>: so that the Prophet's meaning was that his
+fault was so hateful to him that the memory of it never left him, but
+floated always before his mind as if it were present. Further in a
+passage elsewhere [Ps. 91 (92. 14)], <i>Bene patientes erunt ut annuncient</i>,
+everyone will be misled by the deceptive form, unless he has learned
+from the Greek that, just as according to Latin usage we say <i>bene
+facere</i> of those who <i>do good to</i> someone, so the Greeks call
+&epsilon;&upsilon;&pi;&alpha;&theta;&omicron;&upsilon;&nu;&tau;&alpha;&sigmaf;
+(<i>bene patientes</i>) those who <i>suffer good to be done them</i>. So that the sense
+is, 'They will be well treated and will be helped by my benefactions,
+so that they will make mention of my beneficence towards them'.
+But why do I pick out a few trifling examples from so many important
+ones, when I have on my side the venerable authority of the papal
+Curia? There is a Curial Decree<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> still extant in the Decretals, ordaining
+that persons should be appointed in the chief academies (as they were
+then) capable of giving accurate instruction in Hebrew, Greek, and
+Latin literature, since, as they believed, the Scriptures could not be
+understood, far less discussed, without this knowledge. This most
+sound and most holy decree we so far neglect that we are perfectly
+satisfied with the most elementary knowledge of the Latin language,
+being apparently convinced that everything can be extracted from
+Duns Scotus, as it were from a cornucopia.</p>
+
+<p>For myself I do not fight with men of this sort; each man to his
+taste, as far as I am concerned; let the old man marry the old woman.
+It is my delight to set foot on the path into which Jerome and the
+splendid host of so many ancients summon me; so help me God, I
+would sooner be mad with them than as sane as you like with the
+mob of modern theologians. Besides I am attempting an arduous and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+so to say, Phaethontean task&mdash;to do my best to restore the works of
+Jerome, which have been partly corrupted by those half-learned
+persons, and are partly&mdash;owing to the lack of knowledge of antiquities
+and of Greek literature&mdash;forgotten or mangled or mutilated or at least
+full of mistakes and monstrosities; not merely to restore them but to
+elucidate them with commentaries, so that each reader will acknowledge
+to himself that the great Jerome, considered by the ecclesiastical
+world as the most perfect in both branches of learning, the sacred and
+the profane, can indeed be read by all, but can only be understood by
+the most learned. As I am working hard on this design and see that
+I must in the first place acquire Greek, I have decided to study for
+some months under a Greek teacher,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> a real Greek, no, twice a
+Greek, always hungry,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> who charges an immoderate fee for his
+lessons. Farewell.</p>
+
+
+<h3>VI. TO WILLIAM WARHAM<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></h3>
+
+<p>London, 24 January [1506]</p>
+
+<p>To the Reverend Father in Christ, William, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+Primate of England, many greetings from Erasmus of
+Rotterdam, Canon of the Order of St. Augustine:</p>
+
+<p>... Having made up my mind, most illustrious prelate, to translate the
+Greek authors and by so doing to revive or, if you will, promote as
+far as I could theological studies&mdash;and God immortal, how miserably
+they have been corrupted by sophistical nonsensicalities!&mdash;I did not
+wish to give the impression that I was attempting forthwith to learn
+the potter's art on a winejar<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> (as the Greek adage goes) and rushing
+in with unwashen feet, as they say, on so vast an undertaking; so I
+decided to begin by testing how far I had profited by my studies in
+both languages, and that in a material difficult indeed, but not sacred;
+so that the difficulty of the undertaking might be useful for practice
+and at the same time if I made any mistakes these mistakes should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+involve only the risk of my talent and leave the Holy Scriptures undamaged.
+And so I endeavoured to render in Latin two tragedies of
+Euripides, the <i>Hecuba</i> and the <i>Iphigeneia in Aulis</i>, in the hope that
+perchance some god might favour so bold a venture with fair breezes.
+Then, seeing that a specimen of the work begun found favour with
+persons excellently well versed in both tongues (assuredly England by
+now possesses several of these, if I may acknowledge the truth without
+envy, men deserving of the admiration even of all Italy in any branch
+of learning), I brought the work to a finish, with the good help of
+the Muses, within a few short months. At what a cost in exertion,
+those will best feel who enter the same lists.</p>
+
+<p>Why so? Because the mere task of putting real Greek into real
+Latin is such that it requires an extraordinary artist, and not only a
+man with a rich store of scholarship in both languages at his fingertips,
+but one exceedingly alert and observant; so that for several
+centuries now none has appeared whose efforts in this field were
+unanimously approved by scholars. It is surely easy then to conjecture
+what a heavy task it has proved to render verse in verse, particularly
+verse so varied and unfamiliar, and to do this from a writer not
+merely so remote in time, and withal a tragedian, but also marvellously
+concise, taut and unadorned, in whom there is nothing
+otiose, nothing which it would not be a crime to alter or remove; and
+besides, one who treats rhetorical topics so frequently and so acutely
+that he appears to be everywhere declaiming. Add to all this the
+choruses, which through I know not what striving after effect are so
+obscure that they need not so much a translator as an Oedipus or
+priest of Apollo to interpret them. In addition there is the corrupt
+state of the manuscripts, the dearth of copies, the absence of any
+translators to whom one can have recourse. So I am not so much
+surprised that even in this most prolific age none of the Italians has
+ventured to attempt the task of translating any tragedy or comedy,
+whereas many have set their hand to Homer (among these even
+Politian<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> failed to satisfy himself); one man<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> has essayed Hesiod, and
+that without much success; another<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> has attempted Theocritus,
+but with even far more unfortunate results: and finally Francesco
+Filelfo has translated the first scene of the Hecuba in one of his funeral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+orations.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> (I first learned this after I had begun my version), but in
+such a way that, great as he is, his work gave me courage enough to
+proceed, overprecise as I am in other respects.</p>
+
+<p>Then for me the lure of this poet's more than honeyed eloquence,
+which even his enemies allow him, proved stronger than the deterrent
+of these great examples and the many difficulties of the work, so
+that I have been bold to attack a task never before attempted, in the
+hope that, even if I failed, my honest readers would consider even this
+poor effort of mine not altogether unpraiseworthy, and the more
+grudging would at least be lenient to an inexperienced translator of a
+work so difficult: in particular because I have deliberately added no
+light burden to my other difficulties through my conscientiousness as
+a translator, in attempting so far as possible to reproduce the shape
+and as it were contours of the Greek verse, by striving to render line
+for line and almost word for word, and everywhere seeking with the
+utmost fidelity to convey to Latin ears the force and value of the
+sentence: whether it be that I do not altogether approve of the freedom
+in translation which Cicero allows others and practised himself
+(I would almost say to an immoderate degree), or that as an inexperienced
+translator I preferred to err on the side of seeming over-scrupulous
+rather than over-free&mdash;hesitating on the sandy shore
+instead of wrecking my ship and swimming in the midst of the
+billows; and I preferred to run the risk of letting scholars complain of
+lack of brilliance and poetic beauty in my work rather than of lack
+of fidelity to the original. Finally I did not want to set myself up as a
+paraphraser, thus securing myself that retreat which many use to cloak
+their ignorance, wrapping themselves like the cuttle-fish in darkness
+of their own making to avoid detection. Now, if readers do not find
+here the grandiloquence of Latin tragedy, 'the bombast and the words
+half a yard long,' as Horace calls it, they must not blame me if in
+performing my function of translator I have preferred to reproduce
+the concise simplicity and elegance of my original, and not the
+bombast to which he is a stranger, and which I do not greatly admire
+at any time.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, I am encouraged to hope with all certainty that these
+labours of mine will be most excellently protected against the calumnies
+of the unjust, as their publication will be most welcome to the
+honest and just, if you, most excellent Father, have voted them your
+approval. For me it was not difficult to select you from the great host<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+of illustrious and distinguished men to be the recipient of this product
+of my vigils, as the one man I have observed to be&mdash;aside from the
+brilliance of your fortune&mdash;so endowed, adorned and showered with
+learning, eloquence, good sense, piety, modesty, integrity, and lastly
+with an extraordinary liberality towards those who cultivate good
+letters, that the word Primate suits none better than yourself, who
+hold the first place not solely by reason of your official dignity, but
+far more because of all your virtues, while at the same time you are
+the principal ornament of the Court and the sole head of the ecclesiastical
+hierarchy. If I have the fortune to win for this my work the
+commendation of a man so highly commended I shall assuredly not
+repent of the exertions I have so far expended, and will be forward to
+promote theological studies with even more zeal for the future.</p>
+
+<p>Farewell, and enrol Erasmus in the number of those who are wholeheartedly
+devoted to Your Fathership.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100%;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxvii-1.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxvii-1.png" width="40%" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXVII. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 53</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100%;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxvii-2.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxvii-2.png" width="40%" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">On the reverse his device and motto</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100%;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxviii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxviii.png" width="40%" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXVIII. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF ABOUT 57</p>
+
+
+<h3>VII. TO ALDUS MANUTIUS<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Bologna, 28 October [1507]</p>
+
+
+<p>To Aldus Manutius of Rome, many greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... I have often wished, most learned Manutius, that the light you
+have cast on Greek and Latin literature, not by your printing alone
+and your splendid types, but by your brilliance and your uncommon
+learning, could have been matched by the profit you in your turn
+drew from them. So far as <i>fame</i> is concerned, the name of Aldus
+Manutius will without doubt be on the lips of all devotees of sacred
+literature unto all posterity; and your memory will be&mdash;as your fame
+now is&mdash;not merely illustrious but loved and cherished as well,
+because you are engaged, as I hear, in reviving and disseminating the
+good authors&mdash;with extreme diligence but not at a commensurate
+profit&mdash;undergoing truly Herculean labours, labours splendid indeed
+and destined to bring you immortal glory, but meanwhile more
+profitable to others than to yourself. I hear that you are printing Plato<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>
+in Greek types; very many scholars eagerly await the book. I should
+like to know what medical authors you have printed; I wish you
+would give us Paul of Aegina.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> I wonder what has prevented you from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+publishing the New Testament<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> long since&mdash;a work which would
+delight even the common people (if I conjecture aright) but particularly
+my own class, the theologians.</p>
+
+<p>I send you two tragedies<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> which I have been bold enough to translate,
+whether with success you yourself shall judge. Thomas Linacre,
+William Grocyn, William Latimer, Cuthbert Tunstall, friends of
+yours as well as of mine, thought highly of them; you know yourself
+that they are too learned to be deceived in their judgement, and too
+sincere to want to flatter a friend&mdash;unless their affection for me has
+somewhat blinded them; the Italians to whom I have so far shown my
+attempt do not condemn it. It has been printed by Badius, successfully
+as far as he is concerned, so he writes, for he has now sold all the
+copies to his satisfaction. But my reputation has not been enhanced
+thereby, so full is it all of mistakes, and in fact he offers his services to
+repair the first edition by printing a second. But I am afraid of his
+mending ill with ill, as the Sophoclean saying goes. I should consider
+my labours to have been immortalized if they could come out printed
+in your types, particularly the smaller types, the most beautiful of all.
+This will result in the volume being very small and the business being
+concluded at little expense. If you think it convenient to undertake
+the affair, I will supply you with a corrected copy, which I send by
+the bearer, <i>gratis</i>, except that you may wish to send me a few volumes
+as gifts for my friends.</p>
+
+<p>I should not have hesitated to attempt the publication at my own
+risk and expense, were it not that I have to leave Italy within a few
+months: so I should much like to have the business concluded as soon
+as possible; in fact it is hardly ten days' work. If you insist on my
+taking a hundred or two hundred volumes, though the god of gain
+does not usually favour me and it will be most inconvenient to transport
+the package, I shall not refuse, if only you fix a horse as the price.
+Farewell, most learned Aldus, and reckon Erasmus as one of your
+well-wishers.</p>
+
+<p>If you have any rare authors in your press, I shall be obliged if you
+will indicate this&mdash;my learned British friends have asked me to search
+for them. If you decide not to print the <i>Tragedies</i>, will you return the
+copy to the bearer to bring back to me?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>VIII. TO THOMAS MORE<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></h3>
+
+<p>[Paris?] 9 June [1511]</p>
+
+<p>To his friend Thomas More, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... In days gone by, on my journey back from Italy into England, in
+order not to waste all the time that must needs be spent on horseback
+in dull and unlettered gossiping, I preferred at times either to turn
+over in my mind some topic of our common studies or to give myself
+over to the pleasing recollection of the friends, as learned as they
+are beloved, whom I had left behind me in England. You were among
+the very first of these to spring to mind, my dear More; indeed I used
+to enjoy the memory of you in absence even as I was wont to delight
+in your present company, than which I swear I never in my life met
+anything sweeter. Therefore, since I thought that I must at all hazards
+do <i>something</i>, and that time seemed ill suited to serious meditation,
+I determined to amuse myself with the <i>Praise of Folly</i>. You will ask
+what goddess put this into my mind. In the first place it was your
+family name of More, which comes as near to the word <i>moria</i> [folly]
+as you yourself are far from the reality&mdash;everyone agrees that you are
+far removed from it. Next I suspected that you above all would
+approve this <i>jeu d'esprit</i> of mine, in that you yourself do greatly
+delight in jests of this kind, that is, jests learned (if I mistake not) and
+at no time insipid, and altogether like to play in some sort the Democritus<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>
+in the life of society. Although you indeed, owing to your
+incredibly sweet and easy-going character, are both able and glad to be
+all things to all men, even as your singularly penetrating intellect
+causes you to dissent widely from the opinions of the herd. So you
+will not only gladly accept this little declamation as a memento of
+your comrade, but will also take it under your protection, inasmuch
+as it is dedicated to you and is now no longer mine but yours.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed there will perhaps be no lack of brawlers to represent
+that trifles are more frivolous than becomes a theologian, or more
+mordant than suits with Christian modesty, and they will be crying
+out that I am reviving the Old Comedy or Lucian and assailing everything
+with biting satire. But I would have those who are offended
+by the levity and sportiveness of my theme reflect that it was not I
+that began this, but that the same was practised by great writers in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+former times; seeing that so many centuries ago Homer made his
+trifle <i>The Battle of Frogs and Mice</i>, Virgil his <i>Gnat</i>
+and <i>Dish of Herbs</i>
+and Ovid his <i>Nut</i>; seeing that Busiris was praised by Polycrates and
+his critic Isocrates, Injustice by Glaucon, Thersites and the Quartan
+Fever by Favorinus, Baldness by Synesius, the Fly and the Art of
+Being a Parasite by Lucian; and that Seneca devised the Apotheosis of
+the Emperor Claudius, Plutarch the Dialogue of Gryllus and Ulysses,
+Lucian and Apuleius the Ass, and someone unknown the Testament
+of Grunnius Corocotta the Piglet, mentioned even by St. Jerome.</p>
+
+<p>So, if they will, let my detractors imagine that I have played an
+occasional game of draughts for a pastime or, if they prefer, taken a
+ride on a hobby-horse. How unfair it is truly, when we grant every
+calling in life its amusements, not to allow the profession of learning
+any amusement at all, particularly if triflings bring serious thoughts
+in their train and frivolous matters are so treated that a reader not
+altogether devoid of perception wins more profit from these than
+from the glittering and portentous arguments of certain persons&mdash;as
+when for instance one man eulogizes rhetoric or philosophy in a painfully
+stitched-together oration, another rehearses the praises of some
+prince, another urges us to begin a war with the Turks, another foretells
+the future, and another proposes a new method of splitting hairs.
+Just as there is nothing so trifling as to treat serious matters triflingly,
+so there is nothing so delightful as to treat trifling matters in such
+fashion that it appears that you have been doing anything but trifle.
+As to me, the judgement is in other hands&mdash;and yet, unless I am altogether
+misled by self-love, I have sung the praise of Folly and that not
+altogether foolishly.</p>
+
+<p>And now to reply to the charge of mordacity. It has ever been the
+privilege of wits to satirize the life of society with impunity, provided
+that licence does not degenerate into frenzy. Wherefore the more do
+I marvel at the fastidiousness of men's ears in these times, who by now
+can scarce endure anything but solemn appellations. Further, we see
+some men so perversely religious that they will suffer the most
+hideous revilings against Christ sooner than let prince or pope be
+sullied by the lightest jest, particularly if this concerns monetary gain.
+But if a man censures men's lives without reproving anyone at all by
+name, pray do you think this man a satirist, and not rather a teacher
+and admonisher? Else on how many counts do I censure myself?
+Moreover he who leaves no class of men unmentioned is clearly foe
+to no man but to all vices. Therefore anyone who rises up and cries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+out that he is insulted will be revealing a bad conscience, or at all
+events fear. St. Jerome wrote satire in this kind far more free and
+biting, not always abstaining from the mention of names, whereas I
+myself, apart from not mentioning anyone by name, have moreover
+so tempered my pen that the sagacious reader will easily understand
+that my aim has been to give pleasure, not pain; for I have at no point
+followed Juvenal's example in 'stirring up the murky bilge of crime',
+and I have sought to survey the laughable, not the disgusting. If there
+is anyone whom even this cannot appease, at least let him remember
+that it is a fine thing to be reviled by Folly; in bringing her upon the
+stage I had to suit the words to the character. But why need I say all
+this to you, an advocate so remarkable that you can defend excellently
+even causes far from excellent? Farewell, most eloquent More,
+and be diligent in defending your <i>moria</i>.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IX. TO JOHN COLET<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Cambridge, 29 October [1511]</p>
+
+<p>To his friend Colet, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... Something came into my mind which I know will make you
+laugh. In the presence of several Masters [of Arts] I was putting
+forward a view on the Assistant Teacher, when one of them, a man
+of some repute, smiled and said: 'Who could bear to spend his life in
+that school among boys, when he could live anywhere in any way he
+liked?' I answered mildly that it seemed to me a very honourable task
+to train young people in manners and literature, that Christ himself
+did not despise the young, that no age had a better right to help, and
+that from no quarter was a richer return to be expected, seeing that
+young people were the harvest-field and raw material of the nation.
+I added that all truly religious people felt that they could not better
+serve God in any other duty than the bringing of children to Christ.
+He wrinkled his nose and said with a scornful gesture: 'If any man
+wishes to serve Christ altogether, let him go into a monastery and
+enter a religious order.' I answered that St. Paul said that true religion
+consisted in the offices of charity&mdash;charity consisting in doing our
+best to help our neighbours. This he rejected as an ignorant remark.
+'Look,' said he, 'we have forsaken everything: in this is perfection.'
+'That man has not forsaken everything,' said I, 'who, when he could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+help very many by his labours, refuses to undertake a duty because it
+is regarded as humble.' And with that, to prevent a quarrel arising, I
+let the man go. There you have the dialogue. You see the Scotist
+philosophy! Once again, farewell.</p>
+
+
+<h3>X. TO SERVATIUS ROGER</h3>
+
+<p>Hammes Castle [near Calais],</p>
+
+<p>8 July 1514</p>
+
+<p>To the Reverend Father Servatius, many greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... Most humane father, your letter has at last reached me, after passing
+through many hands, when I had already left England, and it has
+afforded me unbelievable delight, as it still breathes your old affection
+for me. However, I shall answer briefly, as I am writing just after the
+journey, and shall reply in particular on those matters which are, as
+you write, strictly to the point. Men's thoughts are so varied, 'to each
+his own bird-song', that it is impossible to satisfy everyone. My own
+feelings are that I want to follow what is best to do, God is my witness.
+Those feelings which I had in my youth have been corrected partly
+by age, partly by experience of the world. I have never intended to
+change my mode of life or my habit&mdash;not that I liked them, but to
+avoid scandal. You are aware that I was not so much led as driven
+to this mode of life by the obstinate determination of my guardians and
+the wrongful urgings of others, and that afterwards, when I realized
+that this kind of life was quite unsuited to me (for not all things suit
+all men), I was held back by Cornelius of Woerden's reproaches and
+by a certain boyish sense of shame. I was never able to endure fasting,
+through some peculiarity of my constitution. Once roused from sleep
+I could never fall asleep again for several hours. I was so drawn towards
+literature, which is not practised in the monastery, that I do not
+doubt that if I had chanced on some free mode of life I could have
+been numbered not merely among the happy but even among the
+good.</p>
+
+<p>So, when I realized that I was by no means fit for this mode of life,
+that I had taken it up under compulsion and not of my own free will,
+nevertheless, as public opinion in these days regards it as a crime to
+break away from a mode of life once taken up, I had resolved to
+endure with fortitude this part of my unhappiness also&mdash;you know
+that I am in many things unfortunate. But I have always regarded this
+one thing as harder than all the rest, that I had been forced into a mode
+of life for which I was totally unfit both in body and in mind: in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+mind, because I abhorred ritual and loved liberty; in body, because
+even had I been perfectly satisfied with the life, my constitution could
+not endure such labours. One may object that I had a year of probation,
+as it is called, and that I was of ripe age. Ridiculous! As if anyone
+could expect a boy of sixteen, particularly one with a literary training,
+to know himself (an achievement even for an old man), or to
+have succeeded in learning in a single year what many do not yet
+understand in their grey hairs. Though I myself never liked the life,
+still less after I had tried it, but was trapped in the way I have mentioned;
+although I confess that the truly good man will live a good
+life in any calling. And I do not deny that I was prone to grievous
+vices, but not of so utterly corrupt a nature that I could not have come
+to some good, had I found a kindly guide, a true Christian, not one
+given to Jewish scruples.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile I looked about to find in what kind of life I could be
+least bad, and I believe indeed that I have attained this. I have spent
+my life meantime among sober men, in literary studies, which have
+kept me off many vices. I have been able to associate with true
+followers of Christ, whose conversation has made me a better man. I
+do not now boast of my books, which you at Steyn perhaps despise.</p>
+
+<p>But many confess that they have become not merely more knowledgeable,
+but even better men through reading them. Passion for
+money has never affected me. I am quite untouched by the thirst for
+fame. I have never been a slave to pleasures, although I was formerly
+inclined to them. Over-indulgence and drunkenness I have ever
+loathed and avoided. But whenever I thought of returning to your
+society, I remembered the jealousy of many, the contempt of all, the
+conversations how dull, how foolish, how un-Christlike, the feasts
+how unclerical! In short the whole way of life, from which if you
+remove the ritual, I do not see what remains that one could desire.
+Lastly I remembered my frail constitution, now weakened by age,
+disease and hard work, as a result of which I should fail to satisfy you
+and kill myself. For several years now I have been subject to the stone,
+a severe and deadly illness, and for several years I have drunk nothing
+but wine, and not all kinds of wine at that, owing to my disease; I
+cannot endure all kinds of food nor indeed all climates. The illness is
+very liable to recur and demands a very careful regimen; and I know
+the climate in Holland and your style of living, not to mention your
+ways. So, had I come back to you, all I would have achieved would
+have been to bring trouble on you and death on myself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But perhaps you think it a great part of happiness to die amid one's
+fellow-brethren? This belief deceives and imposes not on you alone
+but on nearly everyone. We make Christian piety depend on place,
+dress, style of living and on certain little rituals. We think a man lost
+who changes his white dress for black, or his cowl for a cap, or occasionally
+moves from place to place. I should dare to say that Christian
+piety has suffered great damage from these so-called religious practices,
+although it may be that their first introduction was due to pious
+zeal. They then gradually increased and divided into thousands of
+distinctions; this was helped by a papal authority which was too lax
+and easy-going in many cases. What more defiled or more impious
+than these lax rituals? And if you turn to those that are commended,
+no, to the most highly commended, apart from some dreary Jewish
+rituals, I know not what image of Christ one finds in them. It is these
+on which they preen themselves, these by which they judge and
+condemn others. How much more in conformity with the spirit of
+Christ to consider the whole Christian world one home and as it
+were one monastery, to regard all men as one's fellow-monks and
+fellow-brethren, to hold the sacrament of Baptism as the supreme rite,
+and not to consider where one lives but how well one lives! You want
+me to settle on a permanent abode, a course which my very age also
+suggests. But the travellings of Solon, Pythagoras and Plato are
+praised; and the Apostles, too, were wanderers, in particular Paul.
+St. Jerome also was a monk now in Rome, now in Syria, now in
+Antioch, now here, now there, and even in his old age pursued
+literary studies.</p>
+
+<p>But I am not to be compared with St. Jerome&mdash;I agree; yet I have
+never moved unless forced by the plague or for reasons of study or
+health, and wherever I have lived (I shall say this of myself, arrogantly
+perhaps, but truthfully) I have been commended by the most
+highly commended and praised by the most praised. There is no land,
+neither Spain nor Italy nor Germany nor France nor England nor
+Scotland, which does not summon me to partake of its hospitality.
+And if I am not liked by all (which is not my aim), at all events I am
+liked in the highest places of all. At Rome there was no cardinal who
+did not welcome me like a brother; in particular the Cardinal of St.
+George,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> the Cardinal of Bologna,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Cardinal Grimani, the Cardinal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+of Nantes,<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> and the present Pope,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> not to mention bishops, archdeacons
+and men of learning. And this honour was not a tribute to
+wealth, which even now I neither possess nor desire; nor to ambition,
+a failing to which I have ever been a stranger; but solely to learning,
+which our countrymen ridicule, while the Italians worship it. In
+England there is no bishop who is not glad to be greeted by me, who
+does not desire my company, who does not want me in his home. The
+King himself, a little before his father's death, when I was in Italy,
+wrote a most affectionate letter to me with his own hand, and now too
+speaks often of me in the most honourable and affectionate terms; and
+whenever I greet him he welcomes me most courteously and looks at
+me in a most friendly fashion, making it plain that his feelings for me
+are as friendly as his speeches. And he has often commissioned his
+Almoner<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> to find a benefice for me. The Queen sought to take me as
+her tutor. Everyone knows that, if I were prepared to live even a few
+months at Court, he would heap on me as many benefices as I cared
+for; but I put my leisure and my learned labours before everything.
+The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England and
+Chancellor of the Realm, a good and learned man, could not treat me
+with more affection were I his father or brother. And that you may
+understand that he is sincere in this, he gave me a living of nearly
+100 nobles, which afterwards at my wish he changed into a pension
+of 100 crowns on my resignation; in addition he has given me more
+than 400 nobles during the last few years, although I never asked for
+anything. He gave me 150 nobles in one day. I received more than
+100 nobles from other bishops in freely offered gifts. Mountjoy, a
+baron of the realm, formerly my pupil, gives me annually a pension
+of 100 crowns. The King and the Bishop of Lincoln, who has great
+influence through the King, make many splendid promises. There are
+two universities in England, Oxford and Cambridge, and both of
+them want me; at Cambridge I taught Greek and sacred literature for
+several months, for nothing, and have resolved always to do this.
+There are colleges here so religious, and of such modesty in living,
+that you would spurn any other religious life, could you see them. In
+London there is John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who has combined
+great learning with a marvellous piety, a man greatly respected by all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+He is so fond of me, as all know, that he prefers my company above
+all others'; I do not mention many others, lest I doubly vex you with
+my loquacity as well as my boasting.</p>
+
+<p>Now to say something of my works&mdash;I think you have read the
+<i>Enchiridion</i>,<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> through which not a few confess themselves inspired to
+the study of piety; I make no claim for myself, but give thanks to
+Christ for any good which has come to pass through me by His
+giving. I do not know whether you have seen the <i>Adagia</i>,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> printed by
+Aldus. It is not a theological work, but most useful for every branch
+of learning; at least it cost me countless labours and sleepless nights.
+I have published a work <i>De rerum verborumque copia</i>,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> dedicated to my
+friend Colet, very useful for those who desire to speak in public; but
+all these are despised by those who despise all good learning. During
+the last two years, apart from much else, I have emended the <i>Letters</i>
+of St. Jerome, obelizing what was false and spurious and explaining
+the obscure passages with notes. I have corrected the whole of the
+New Testament from collations of the Greek and ancient manuscripts,
+and have annotated more than a thousand passages, not without
+some benefit to theologians. I have begun commentaries on the
+<i>Epistles</i> of St. Paul, which I shall complete when I have published
+these. For I have resolved to live and die in the study of the Scriptures.
+I make these my work and my leisure. Men of consequence say
+that I can do what others cannot in this field; in your mode of life I
+shall be able to do nothing. Although I have been intimate with so
+many grave and learned men, here and in Italy and France, I have not
+yet found anyone who advised me to return to you or thought this
+the better course. Nay, even Nicholas Werner of blessed memory,
+your predecessor, would always dissuade me from this, advising me
+to attach myself rather to some bishop; he would add that he knew
+my mind and his little brothers' ways: those were the words he used,
+in the vernacular. In the life I live now I see what I should avoid, but
+do not see what would be a better course.</p>
+
+<p>It now remains to satisfy you on the question of my dress. I have
+always up to now worn the canon's dress, and when I was at Louvain
+I obtained permission from the Bishop of Utrecht to wear a linen
+scapular instead of a complete linen garment, and a black capuce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+instead of a black cloak, after the Parisian custom. But on my journey
+to Italy, seeing the monks all along the way wearing a black garment
+with a scapular, I there took to wearing black, with a scapular, to
+avoid giving offence by any unusual dress. Afterwards the plague
+broke out at Bologna, and there those who nurse the sick of the plague
+customarily wear a white linen cloth depending from the shoulder&mdash;these
+avoid contact with people. Consequently when one day I went
+to call on a learned friend some rascals drew their swords and were
+preparing to set about me, and would have done so, had not a certain
+matron warned them that I was an ecclesiastic. Again the next day,
+when I was on my way to visit the Treasurer's sons, they rushed at me
+with bludgeons from all directions and attacked me with horrible
+cries. So on the advice of good men I concealed my scapular, and
+obtained a dispensation from Pope Julius II allowing me to wear the
+religious dress or not, as seemed good, provided that I wore clerical
+garb; and in this document he condoned any previous offences in the
+matter. In Italy I continued to wear clerical garb, lest the change cause
+offence to anyone. On my return to England I decided to wear my
+usual dress, and I invited to my lodging a friend of excellent repute
+for his learning and mode of life and showed him the dress I had
+decided to wear; I asked him whether this was suitable in England. He
+approved, so I appeared in public in this dress. I was at once warned
+by other friends that this dress could not be tolerated in England,
+that I had better conceal it. I did so; and as it cannot be concealed
+without causing scandal if it is eventually discovered, I stored it away
+in a box, and up to now have taken advantage of the Papal dispensation
+received formerly. Ecclesiastical law excommunicates anyone
+who casts off the religious habit so as to move more freely in secular
+society. I put it off under compulsion in Italy, to escape being killed;
+and likewise under compulsion in England, because it was not tolerated
+there, although myself I should much prefer to have worn it.
+To adopt it again now would cause more scandal than did the change
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>There you have an account of my whole life, there you have my
+plans. I should like to change even this present mode of life, if I see a
+better. But I do not see what I am to do in Holland. I know that the
+climate and way of living will not agree with me; I shall have everyone
+looking at me. I shall return a white-haired old man, having gone
+away as a youth&mdash;I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed to
+the contempt of the lowest, used as I am to the respect of the highest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+I shall exchange my studies for drinking-parties. As to your promising
+me your help in finding me a place where I can live with an excellent
+income, as you write, I cannot conjecture what this can be, unless
+perhaps you intend to place me among some community of nuns, to
+serve women&mdash;I who have never been willing to serve kings nor
+archbishops. I want no pay; I have no desire for riches, if only I have
+money enough to provide for my health and my literary leisure, to
+enable me to live without burdening anyone. I wish we could discuss
+these things together face to face; it cannot be done in a letter conveniently
+or safely. Your letter, although it was sent by most reliable
+persons, went so far astray that if I had not accidentally come to this
+castle I should never have seen it; and many people had looked at it
+before I received it. So do not mention anything secret unless you
+know for certain where I am and have a very trustworthy messenger.
+I am now on my way to Germany, that is, Basle, to have my works
+published, and this winter I shall perhaps be in Rome. On my return
+journey I shall see to it that we meet and talk somewhere. But now the
+summer is nearly over and it is a long journey. Farewell, once my
+sweetest comrade, now my esteemed father.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XI. TO WOLFGANG FABRICIUS CAPITO<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Antwerp, 26 February 1516/17</p>
+
+<p>To the distinguished theologian Wolfgang Fabricius Capito of
+Hagenau, skilled in the three languages, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... Now that I see that the mightiest princes of the earth, King Francis
+of France, Charles the Catholic King, King Henry of England and the
+Emperor Maximilian have drastically cut down all warlike preparations
+and concluded a firm and, I hope, unbreakable treaty of peace,
+I feel entitled to hope with confidence that not only the moral virtues
+and Christian piety but also the true learning, purified of corruption,
+and the fine disciplines will revive and blossom forth; particularly as
+this aim is being prosecuted with equal zeal in different parts of the
+world, in Rome by Pope Leo, in Spain by the Cardinal of Toledo,<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a>
+in England by King Henry VIII, himself no mean scholar, here by
+King Charles, a young man admirably gifted, in France by King<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+Francis, a man as it were born for this task, who besides offers splendid
+rewards to attract and entice men distinguished for virtue and learning
+from all parts, in Germany by many excellent princes and bishops
+and above all by the Emperor Maximilian, who, wearied in his old age
+of all these wars, has resolved to find rest in the arts of peace: a resolve
+at once more becoming to himself at his age and more fortunate for
+Christendom. It is to these men's piety then that we owe it that all
+over the world, as if on a given signal, splendid talents are stirring and
+awakening and conspiring together to revive the best learning. For
+what else is this but a conspiracy, when all these great scholars from
+different lands share out the work among themselves and set about
+this noble task, not merely with enthusiasm but with a fair measure of
+success, so that we have an almost certain prospect of seeing all
+disciplines emerge once more into the light of day in a far purer and
+more genuine form? In the first place polite letters, for long reduced
+almost to extinction, are being taken up and cultivated by the Scots,
+the Danes and the Irish. As for medicine, how many champions has
+she found! Nicholas Leonicenus<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> in Rome, Ambrose Leo of Nola<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> at
+Venice, William Cop<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> and John Ruell<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> in France, and Thomas
+Linacre in England. Roman law is being revived in Paris by William
+Budaeus<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> and in Germany by Ulrich Zasius,<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> mathematics at Basle by
+Henry Glareanus.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>
+
+<p>In theology there was more to do, for up till now its professors
+have almost always been men with an ingrained loathing for good
+learning, men who conceal their ignorance the more successfully as
+they do this on what they call a religious pretext, so that the ignorant
+herd is persuaded by them to believe it a violation of religion if anyone
+proceeds to attack their barbarism; for they prefer to wail for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+help to the uneducated mob and incite it to stone-throwing if they see
+any danger of their ignorance on any point coming to light. But I am
+confident that here, too, all will go well as soon as the knowledge of
+the three languages [Greek, Latin and Hebrew] becomes accepted
+publicly in the schools, as it has begun to be.... The humblest share
+in this work has fallen on me, as is fitting; I know not whether I have
+contributed anything of value; at all events I have infuriated those
+who do not want the world to come to its senses, so that it seems as if
+my poor efforts also have not been ineffective: although I have not
+undertaken the work in the belief that, I could teach anything magnificent,
+but I wanted to open a road for others, destined to attempt
+greater things, that they might with greater ease ascend the shining
+heights without running into so many rough and quaggy places. Yet
+this humble diligence of mine is not disdained by the honest and
+learned, and none complain of it but a few so stupid that they are
+hissed off the stage by even ordinary persons of any intelligence. Here
+not long ago someone complained tearfully before the people, in a
+sermon of course, that it was all over with the Scriptures and the
+theologians who had hitherto upheld the Christian faith on their
+shoulders, now that men had arisen to emend the Holy Gospel and
+the very words of Our Lord: just as if I was rebuking Matthew or
+Luke instead of those whose ignorance or negligence had corrupted
+what they wrote correctly. In England one or two persons complain
+loudly that it is a shameful thing that <i>I</i> should dare to teach a great
+man like St. Jerome: as if I had changed what St. Jerome wrote,
+instead of restoring it!</p>
+
+<p>Yet those who snarl out suchlike dirges, which any laundryman
+with a little sense would scoff at, think themselves great theologians ...
+Not that I want the kind of theology which is customary in the
+schools nowadays consigned to oblivion; I wish it to be rendered more
+trustworthy and more correct by the accession of the old, true learning.
+It will not weaken the authority of the Scriptures or theologians
+if certain passages hitherto considered corrupt are henceforth read in
+an emended form, or if passages are more correctly understood on
+which up till now the mass of theologians have entertained delusions:
+no, it will give greater weight to their authority, the more genuine
+their understanding of the Scriptures. I have sustained the shock of the
+first meeting, which Terence calls the sharpest.... One doubt still
+troubles me; I fear that under cover of the rebirth of ancient learning
+paganism may seek to rear its head, as even among Christians there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+are those who acknowledge Christ in name only, but in their hearts
+are Gentiles; or that with the renascence of Hebrew studies Judaism
+may seek to use this opportunity of revival; and there can be nothing
+more contrary or more hostile to the teaching of Christ than this
+plague. This is the nature of human affairs&mdash;nothing good has ever so
+flourished but some evil has attempted to use it as a pretext for insinuating
+itself. I could wish that those dreary quibblings could be
+either done away with or at least cease to be the sole activity of theologians,
+and that the simplicity and purity of Christ could penetrate
+deeply into the minds of men; and this I think can best be brought to
+pass if with the help provided by the three languages we exercise our
+minds in the actual sources. But I pray that we may avoid this evil
+without falling into another perhaps graver error. Recently several
+pamphlets have been published reeking of unadulterated Judaism.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XII. TO THOMAS MORE</h3>
+
+<p>Louvain, 5 March 1518</p>
+
+<p>To his friend More, greeting:</p>
+
+<p>... First of all I ask you to entrust to the bearer, my servant John, any
+letters of mine or yours which you consider fit for publication with
+the alteration of some passages; I am simply compelled to publish my
+letters whether I like it or not. Send off the lad so that he returns here
+as quickly as possible. If you discover that Urswick is ill-disposed
+towards me perhaps he should not be troubled; otherwise, help me
+in the matter of a horse&mdash;I shall need one just now when I am about
+to go to Basle or Venice, chiefly for the purpose of bringing out the
+New Testament.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> Such is my fate, dear More. I shall enact this part
+of my play also. Afterwards, I almost feel inclined to sing 'for myself
+and the Muses'; my age and my health, which grows daily worse,
+almost require this. Over here scoundrels in disguise are so all-powerful,
+and no one here makes money but innkeepers, advocates, and
+begging friars. It is unendurable when many speak ill and none do good.</p>
+
+<p>At Basle they make the elegant preface added by Budaeus the
+excuse for the delay over your Utopia. They have now received it
+and have started on the work. Then Froben's father-in-law Lachner
+died. But Froben's press will be sweating over our studies none the
+less. I have not yet had a chance of seeing Linacre's <i>Therapeutice</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a>
+through some conspiracy of the Parisians against me. Inquire courteously
+of Lupset on the Appendix<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> to my <i>Copia</i> and send it.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope and the princes are up to some new tricks on the pretext
+of the savagery of the war against the Turks. Wretched Turks! May
+we Christians not be too cruel! Even wives are affected. All married
+men between the ages of twenty-six and fifty will be compelled to
+take up arms. Meanwhile the Pope forbids the wives of men absent
+at the war to indulge in pleasure at home; they are to eschew elegant
+apparel, must not wear silk, gold or any jewellery, must not touch
+rouge or drink wine, and must fast every other day, that God may
+favour their husbands engaged in this cruel war. If there are men tied
+at home by necessary business, their wives must none the less observe
+the same rules as they would have had to observe if their husbands
+had gone to the war. They are to sleep in the same room but in
+different beds; and not a kiss is to be given meanwhile until this
+terrible war reaches a successful conclusion under Christ's favour. I
+know that these enactments will irritate wives who do not sufficiently
+ponder the importance of the business; though I know that
+your wife, sensible as she is, and obedient in regard to a matter of
+Christian observance, will even be glad to obey.</p>
+
+<p>I send Pace's pamphlet, the <i>Conclusions on Papal Indulgences</i>,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> and the
+<i>Proposal for Undertaking a War against the Turks</i>,<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> as I suspect that they
+have not yet reached England. They write from Cologne that some
+pamphlet about an argument between Julius and Peter at the gates of
+Paradise<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> has now been printed; they do not add the author's name.
+The German presses will not cease from their mad pranks until their
+rashness is restrained by some law; this does me much harm, who am
+endeavouring to help the world....</p>
+
+<p>I beg you to let my servant sleep one or two nights with yours, to
+prevent his chancing on an infected house, and to afford him anything
+he may need, although I have supplied him with travelling money
+myself. I have at last seen the <i>Utopia</i> at Paris printed, but with many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+misprints. It is now in the press at Basle; I had threatened to break
+with them unless they took more trouble with that business than with
+mine. Farewell, most sincere of friends.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XIII. TO BEATUS RHENANUS<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Louvain [<i>c.</i> 15 October] 1518</p>
+
+<p>To his friend Rhenanus, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... Let me describe to you, my dear Beatus, the whole tragi-comedy of
+my journey. I was still weak and listless, as you know, when I left
+Basle, not having come to terms with the climate, after skulking at
+home so long, and occupied in uninterrupted labors at that. The
+river voyage was not unpleasant, but that around midday the heat of
+the sun was somewhat trying. We had a meal at Breisach, the most
+unpleasant meal I have ever had. The smell of food nearly finished
+me, and then the flies, worse than the smell. We sat at table doing
+nothing for more than half an hour, waiting for them to produce
+their banquet, if you please. In the end nothing fit to eat was served;
+filthy porridge with lumps in it and salt fish reheated not for the first
+time, enough to make one sick. I did not call on Gallinarius. The man
+who brought word that he was suffering from a slight fever also told
+me a pretty story; that Minorite theologian with whom I had disputed
+about <i>heceitas</i><a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> had taken it on himself to pawn the church
+chalices. Scotist ingenuity! Just before nightfall we were put out at a
+dull village; I did not feel like discovering its name, and if I knew I
+should not care to tell you it. I nearly perished there. We had supper
+in a small room like a sweating-chamber, more than sixty of us, I
+should say, an indiscriminate collection of rapscallions, and this went
+on till nearly ten o'clock; oh, the stench, and the noise, particularly
+after they had become intoxicated! Yet we had to remain sitting to
+suit their clocks.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning while it was still quite dark we were driven from
+bed by the shouting of the sailors. I went on board without having
+either supped or slept. We reached Strasbourg before lunch, at about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+nine o'clock; there we had a more comfortable reception, particularly
+as Sch&uuml;rer produced some wine. Some of the Society<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> were
+there, and afterwards they all came to greet me, Gerbel outdoing all
+the rest in politeness. Gebwiler and Rudolfingen did not want me to
+pay, no new thing with them. Thence we proceeded on horseback as
+far as Speyer; we saw no sign of soldiers anywhere, although there
+had been alarming rumours. The English horse completely collapsed
+and hardly got to Speyer; that criminal smith had handled him so
+badly that he ought to have both his ears branded with red-hot iron.
+At Speyer I slipped away from the inn and took myself to my
+neighbour Maternus. There Decanus, a learned and cultivated man,
+entertained me courteously and agreeably for two days. Here I
+accidentally found Hermann Busch.</p>
+
+<p>From Speyer I travelled by carriage to Worms, and from there
+again to Mainz. There was an Imperial secretary, Ulrich Varnb&uuml;ler,<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a>
+travelling by chance in the same carriage. He devoted himself to me
+with incredible assiduity over the whole journey, and at Mainz would
+not allow me to go into the inn but took me to the house of a canon;
+on my departure he accompanied me to the boat. The voyage was
+not unpleasant as the weather was fine, excepting that the crew took
+care to make it somewhat long; in addition to this the stench of the
+horses incommoded me. For the first day John Langenfeld, who
+formerly taught at Louvain, and a lawyer friend of his came with me
+as a mark of politeness. There was also a Westphalian, John, a canon
+at St. Victor's outside Mainz, a most agreeable and entertaining man.</p>
+
+<p>After arriving at Boppard, as I was taking a walk along the bank
+while a boat was being procured, someone recognized me and betrayed
+me to the customs officer, 'That is the man.' The customs
+officer's name is, if I mistake not, Christopher Cinicampius, in the
+common speech Eschenfelder. You would not believe how the man
+jumped for joy. He dragged me into his house. Books by Erasmus
+were lying on a small table amongst the customs agreements. He
+exclaimed at his good fortune and called in his wife and children and
+all his friends. Meanwhile he sent out to the sailors who were calling
+for me two tankards of wine, and another two when they called out
+again, promising that when he came back he would remit the toll to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+the man who had brought him a man like myself. From Boppard
+John Flaminius, chaplain to the nuns there, a man of angelic purity,
+of sane and sober judgement and no common learning, accompanied
+me as far as Coblenz. At Coblenz Matthias, Chancellor to the Bishop,
+swept us off to his house&mdash;he is a young man but of staid manners,
+and has an accurate knowledge of Latin, besides being a skilled lawyer.
+There we supped merrily.</p>
+
+<p>At Bonn the canon left us, to avoid Cologne: I wanted to avoid
+Cologne myself, but the servant had preceded me thither with the
+horses, and there was no reliable person in the boat whom I could
+have charged with the business of calling back my servant; I did not
+trust the sailors. So we docked at Cologne before six o'clock in the
+morning on a Sunday, the weather being by now pestilential. I went
+into an inn and gave orders to the ostlers to hire me a carriage and
+pair, ordering a meal to be made ready by ten o'clock. I attended
+Divine Service, the lunch was delayed. I had no luck with the carriage
+and pair. I tried to hire a horse; my own were useless. Everything
+failed. I realized what was up; they were trying to make me stop there.
+I immediately ordered my horses to be harnessed, and one bag to be
+loaded; the other bag I entrusted to the innkeeper, and on my lame
+horse rode quickly to the Count of Neuenahr's<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>&mdash;a five-hour journey.
+He was staying at Bedburg.</p>
+
+<p>With the Count I stayed five days very pleasantly, in such peace
+and quiet that while staying with him I completed a good part of the
+revision&mdash;I had taken that part of the New Testament with me.
+Would that you knew him, my dear Beatus! He is a young man but
+of rare good sense, more than you would find in an old man; he speaks
+little, but as Homer says of Menelaus, he speaks 'in clear tones,' and
+intelligently too; he is learned without pretentiousness in more than
+one branch of study, wholly sincere and a good friend. By now I was
+strong and lusty, and well pleased with myself, and was hoping to be
+in a good state when I visited the Bishop of Li&eacute;ge and to return hale
+and hearty to my friends in Brabant. What dinner-parties, what
+felicitations, what discussions I promised myself! But ah, deceptive
+human hopes! ah, the sudden and unexpected vicissitudes of human
+affairs! From these high dreams of happiness I was hurled to the
+depths of misfortune.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had hired a carriage and pair for the next day. My companion, not
+wanting to say goodbye before night, announced that he would see
+me in the morning before my departure. That night a wild hurricane
+sprang up, which had passed before the next morning. Nevertheless
+I rose after midnight, to make some notes for the Count: when it was
+already seven o'clock and the Count did not emerge, I asked for him
+to be waked. He came, and in his customary shy and modest way
+asked me whether I meant to leave in such bad weather, saying he
+was afraid for me. At that point, my dear Beatus, some god or bad
+angel deprived me, not of the half of my senses, as Hesiod says, but of
+the whole: for he had deprived me of half my senses when I risked
+going to Cologne. I wish that either my friend had warned me more
+sharply or that I had paid more attention to his most affectionate remonstrances!
+I was seized by the power of fate: what else am I to say?
+I climbed into an uncovered carriage, the wind blowing 'strong as
+when in the high mountains it shivers the trembling holm-oaks.' It
+was a south wind and blowing like the very pest. I thought I was well
+protected by my wrappings, but it went through everything with its
+violence. Towards nightfall a light rain came on, more noxious than
+the wind that preceded it: I arrived at Aachen exhausted from the
+shaking of the carriage, which was so trying to me on the stone-paved
+road that I should have preferred sitting on my horse, lame as he was.
+Here I was carried off from the inn by a canon, to whom the Count
+had recommended me, to Suderman's house. There several canons
+were holding their usual drinking-party. My appetite had been
+sharpened by a very light lunch; but at the time they had nothing by
+them but carp, and cold carp at that. I ate to repletion. The drinking
+went on well into the night. I excused myself and went to bed, as I
+had had very little sleep the night before.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day I was taken to the Vice-Provost's house; it
+was his turn to offer hospitality. As there was no fish there apart from
+eel (this was certainly the fault of the storm, as he is a magnificent
+host otherwise) I lunched off a fish dried in the open air, which the
+Germans call <i>Stockfisch</i>, from the rod used to beat it&mdash;it is a fish which
+I enjoy at other times: but I discovered that part of this one had not
+been properly cured. After lunch, as the weather was appalling, I took
+myself off to the inn and ordered a fire to be lit. The canon whom I
+mentioned, a most cultured man, stayed talking with me for about an
+hour and a half. Meanwhile I began to feel very uncomfortable inside;
+as this continued, I sent him away and went to the privy. As this gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+my stomach no relief I inserted my finger into my mouth, and the
+uncured fish came up, but that was all. I lay down afterwards, not so
+much sleeping as resting, without any pain in my head or body; then,
+having struck a bargain with the coachman over the bags, I received
+an invitation to the evening compotation. I excused myself, without
+success. I knew that my stomach would not stand anything but a few
+sups of warmed liquor.... On this occasion there was a magnificent
+spread, but it was wasted on me. After comforting my stomach with
+a sup of wine, I went home; I was sleeping at Suderman's house. As
+soon as I went out of doors my empty body shivered fearfully in the
+night air.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the next day, after taking a little warmed ale
+and a few morsels of bread, I mounted my horse, who was lame and
+ailing, which made riding more uncomfortable. By now I was in such
+a state that I would have been better keeping warm in bed than
+mounted on horseback. But that district is the most countrified,
+roughest, barren and unattractive imaginable, the inhabitants are so
+idle; so that I preferred to run away. The danger of brigands&mdash;it was
+very great in those parts&mdash;or at least my fear of them, was driven out
+of my mind by the discomfort of my illness.... After covering four
+miles on this ride I reached Maastricht. There after a drink to soothe
+my stomach I remounted and came to Tongres, about three miles
+away. This last ride was by far the most painful to me. The awkward
+gait of the horse gave me excruciating pains in the kidneys. It would
+have been easier to walk, but I was afraid of sweating, and there was a
+danger of the night catching us still out in the country. So I reached
+Tongres with my whole body in a state of unbelievable agony. By
+now, owing to lack of food and the exertion in addition, all my
+muscles had given way, so that I could not stand or walk steadily. I
+concealed the severity of my illness by my tongue&mdash;that was still
+working. Here I took a sup of ale to soothe my stomach and retired
+to bed.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning I ordered them to hire a carriage. I decided to go
+on horseback, on account of the paving stones, until we reached an
+unpaved road. I mounted the bigger horse, thinking that he would go
+better on the paving and be more sure-footed. I had hardly mounted
+when I felt my eyes clouding over as I met the cold air, and asked for
+a cloak. But soon after this I fainted; I could be roused by a touch.
+Then my servant John and the others standing by let me come to
+myself naturally, still sitting on the horse. After coming to myself I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+got into the carriage.... By now we were approaching the town of
+St. Trond. I mounted once more, not to appear an invalid, riding in
+a carriage. Once again the evening air made me feel sick, but I did not
+faint. I offered the coachman double the fare if he would take me the
+next day as far as Tirlemont, a town six miles from Tongres. He
+accepted the terms. Here a guest whom I knew told me how ill the
+Bishop of Li&eacute;ge had taken my leaving for Basle without calling on
+him. After soothing my stomach with a drink I went to bed, and had
+a very bad night.... Here by chance I found a coach going to
+Louvain, six miles away, and threw myself into it. I made the journey
+in incredible and almost unendurable discomfort; however we reached
+Louvain by seven o'clock on that day.</p>
+
+<p>I had no intention of going to my own room, whether because I
+had a suspicion that all would be cold there, or that I did not want to
+run the risk of interfering with the amenities of the College in any
+way, if I started a rumour of the plague. I went to Theodoric the
+printer's.... During the night a large ulcer broke without my feeling
+it, and the pain had died down. The next day I called a surgeon. He
+applied poultices. A third ulcer had appeared on my back, caused by
+a servant at Tongres when he was anointing me with oil of roses for
+the pain in the kidneys and rubbed one of my ribs too hard with a
+horny finger.... The surgeon on his way out told Theodoric and his
+servant secretly that it was the plague; he would send poultices, but
+would not come to see me himself.... When the surgeon failed to
+return after a day or two, I asked Theodoric the reason. He made
+some excuse. But I, suspecting what the matter was, said 'What, does
+he think it is the plague?' 'Precisely,' said he, 'he insists that you have
+three plague-sores.' I laughed, and did not allow myself even to
+imagine that I had the plague. After some days the surgeon's father
+came, examined me, and assured me that it was the true plague. Even
+so, I could not be convinced. I secretly sent for another doctor who
+had a great reputation. He examined me, and being something of a
+clown said, 'I should not be afraid to sleep with you&mdash;and make love
+to you too, if you were a woman....' [Still another doctor is summoned
+but does not return as promised, sending his servant instead.]
+I dismissed the man and losing my temper with the doctors, commended
+myself to Christ as my doctor.</p>
+
+<p>My appetite came back within three days.... I then immediately
+returned to my studies and completed what was still wanting to my
+New Testament.... I had given orders as soon as I arrived that no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+one was to visit me unless summoned by name, lest I should frighten
+anyone or suffer inconvenience from anyone's assiduity; but Dorp
+forced his way in first of all, then Ath. Mark Laurin and Paschasius
+Berselius, who came every day, did much to make me well with their
+delightful company.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Beatus, who would have believed that this meagre delicate
+body of mine, weakened now by age also, could have succeeded, after
+all the troubles of travel and all my studious exertions, in standing up
+to all these physical ills as well? You know how ill I was not long ago
+at Basle, more than once. I was beginning to suspect that that year
+would be fatal to me: illness followed illness, always more severe. But,
+at the very time when this illness was at its height, I felt no torturing
+desire to live and no trepidation at the fear of death. My whole hope
+was in Christ alone, and I prayed only that he would give me what he
+judged most salutary for me. In my youth long ago, as I remember, I
+would shiver at the very name of death. This at least I have achieved
+as I have grown older, that I do not greatly fear death, and I do not
+measure man's happiness by number of days. I have passed my fiftieth
+year; as so few out of so many reach this age, I cannot rightly complain
+that I have not lived long enough. And then, if this has any
+relevance, I have by now already prepared a monument to bear
+witness to posterity that I have lived. And perhaps if, as the poets tell,
+jealousy falls silent after death, fame will shine out the more brightly:
+although it ill becomes a Christian heart to be moved by human
+glory; may I have the glory of pleasing Christ! Farewell, my dearest
+Beatus. The rest you will learn from my letter to Capito.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XIV. TO MARTIN LUTHER</h3>
+
+<p>Louvain, 30 May 1519</p>
+
+<p>Best greetings, most beloved brother in Christ. Your letter was
+most welcome to me, displaying a shrewd wit and breathing a
+Christian spirit.</p>
+
+<p>I could never find words to express what commotions your books
+have brought about here. They cannot even now eradicate from their
+minds the most false suspicion that your works were composed with
+my aid, and that I am the standard-bearer of this party, as they call it.
+They thought that they had found a handle wherewith to crush good
+learning&mdash;which they mortally detest as threatening to dim the
+majesty of theology, a thing they value far above Christ&mdash;and at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+same time to crush me, whom they consider as having some influence
+on the revival of studies. The whole affair was conducted with such
+clamourings, wild talk, trickery, detraction and cunning that, had I
+not been present and witnessed, nay, <i>felt</i> all this, I should never have
+taken any man's word for it that theologians could act so madly. You
+would have thought it some mortal plague. And yet the poison of
+this evil beginning with a few has spread so far abroad that a great
+part of this University was running mad with the infection of this not
+uncommon disease.</p>
+
+<p>I declared that you were quite unknown to me, that I had not yet
+read your books, and accordingly neither approved nor disapproved
+of anything in them. I only warned them not to clamour before the
+populace in so hateful a manner without having yet read your books:
+this matter was <i>their</i> concern, whose judgement should carry the
+greatest weight. Further I begged them to consider also whether it
+were expedient to traduce before a mixed multitude views which
+were more properly refuted in books or discussed between educated
+persons, particularly as the author's way of life was extolled by one
+and all. I failed miserably; up to this day they continue to rave in their
+insinuating, nay, slanderous disputations. How often have we agreed
+to make peace! How often have they stirred up new commotions
+from some rashly conceived shred of suspicion! And these men think
+themselves theologians! Theologians are not liked in Court circles here;
+this too they put down to me. The bishops all favour me greatly.
+These men put no trust in books, their hope of victory is based on
+cunning alone. I disdain them, relying on my knowledge that I am
+in the right. They are becoming a little milder towards yourself. They
+fear my pen, because of their bad conscience; and I would indeed
+paint them in their true colours, as they deserve, did not Christ's
+teaching and example summon me elsewhere. Wild beasts can be
+tamed by kindness, which makes these men wild.</p>
+
+<p>There are persons in England, and they in the highest positions, who
+think very well of your writings. Here, too, there are people, among
+them the Bishop of Li&eacute;ge, who favour your followers. As for me, I
+keep myself as far as possible neutral, the better to assist the new
+flowering of good learning; and it seems to me that more can be done
+by unassuming courteousness than by violence. It was thus that Christ
+brought the world under His sway, and thus that Paul made away
+with the Jewish Law, by interpreting all things allegorically. It is
+wiser to cry out against those who abuse the Popes' authority than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+against the Popes themselves: and I think that we should act in the
+same way with the Kings. As for the schools, we should not so much
+reject them as recall them to more reasonable studies. Where things
+are too generally accepted to be suddenly eradicated from men's
+minds, we must argue with repeated and efficacious proofs and not
+make positive assertions. The poisonous contentions of certain
+persons are better ignored than refuted. We must everywhere take
+care never to speak or act arrogantly or in a party spirit: this I believe
+is pleasing to the spirit of Christ. Meanwhile we must preserve our
+minds from being seduced by anger, hatred or ambition; these feelings
+are apt to lie in wait for us in the midst of our strivings after piety.</p>
+
+<p>I am not advising you to do this, but only to continue doing what
+you are doing. I have looked into your Commentaries on the Psalms;<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>
+I am delighted with them, and hope that they will do much good. At
+Antwerp we have the Prior of the Monastery,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> a Christian without
+spot, who loves you exceedingly, an old pupil of yours as he says. He
+is almost alone of them all in preaching Christ: the others preach
+human trivialities or their own gain.</p>
+
+<p>I have written to Melanchthon. The Lord Jesus impart you His
+spirit each day more bountifully, to His own glory and the good of
+all. I had not your letter at hand when writing this.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XV. TO ULRICH HUTTEN<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Antwerp, 23 July 1519</p>
+
+<p>To the illustrious knight Ulrich Hutten, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... As to your demand for a complete portrait, as it were, of More,
+would that I could execute it with a perfection to match the intensity
+of your desire! It will be a pleasure, for me as well, to dwell for a
+space on the contemplation of by far the sweetest friend of all. But in
+the first place, it is not given to every man to explore all More's gifts.
+And then I wonder whether he will tolerate being depicted by an
+indifferent artist; for I think it no less a task to portray More than it
+would be to portray Alexander the Great or Achilles, and they were
+no more deserving of immortality than he is. Such a subject requires
+in short the pencil of an Apelles; but I fear that I am more like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+Horace's gladiators<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> than Apelles. Nevertheless, I shall try to sketch
+you an image rather than a full portrait of the whole man, so far as
+my observation or recollection from long association with him in his
+home has made this possible. If ever you meet him on some embassy
+you will then for the first time understand how unskilled an artist you
+have chosen for this commission; and I am downright afraid of your
+accusing me of jealousy or blindness, that out of so many excellences so
+few have been perceived by my poor sight or recorded by my jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>But to begin with that side of More of which you know nothing,
+in height and stature he is not tall, nor again noticeably short, but
+there is such symmetry in all his limbs as leaves nothing to be desired
+here. He has a fair skin, his complexion glowing rather than pale,
+though far from ruddy, but for a very faint rosiness shining through.
+His hair is of a darkish blond, or if you will, a lightish brown, his
+beard scanty, his eyes bluish grey, with flecks here and there: this
+usually denotes a happy nature and is also thought attractive by the
+English, whereas we are more taken by dark eyes. It is said that no
+type of eyes is less subject to defects. His expression corresponds to his
+character, always showing a pleasant and friendly gaiety, and rather
+set in a smiling look; and, to speak honestly, better suited to merriment
+than to seriousness and solemnity, though far removed from
+silliness or buffoonery. His right shoulder seems a little higher than
+the left, particularly when he is walking: this is not natural to him but
+due to force of habit, like many of the little habits which we pick up.
+There is nothing to strike one in the rest of his body; only his hands
+are somewhat clumsy, but only when compared with the rest of his
+appearance. He has always from a boy been very careless of everything
+to do with personal adornment, to the point of not greatly
+caring for those things which according to Ovid's teaching should be
+the sole care of men. One can tell even now, from his appearance in
+maturity, how handsome he must have been as a young man: although
+when I first came to know him he was not more than three and
+twenty years old, for he is now barely forty.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p>
+
+<p>His health is not so much robust as satisfactory, but equal to all
+tasks becoming an honourable citizen, subject to no, or at least very
+few, diseases: there is every prospect of his living long, as he has a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+father of great age<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>&mdash;but a wondrously fresh and green old age. I
+have never yet seen anyone less fastidious in his choice of food. Until
+he grew up he liked water to drink; in this he took after his father.
+But so as to avoid irritating anyone over this, he would deceive his
+comrades by drinking from a pewter pot ale that was very nearly all
+water, often pure water. Wine&mdash;the custom in England is to invite
+each other to drink from the same goblet&mdash;he would often sip with
+his lips, not to give the appearance of disliking it, and at the same time
+to accustom himself to common ways. He preferred beef, salt fish,
+and bread of the second quality, well risen, to the foods commonly
+regarded as delicacies: otherwise he was by no means averse to all
+sources of innocent pleasure, even to the appetite. He has always had
+a great liking for milk foods and fruit: he enjoys eating eggs. His
+voice is neither strong nor at all weak, but easily audible, by no means
+soft or melodious, but the voice of a clear speaker; for he seems to
+have no natural gift for vocal music, although he delights in every
+kind of music. His speech is wonderfully clear and distinct, with no
+trace of haste or hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>He likes to dress simply and does not wear silk or purple or gold
+chains, excepting where it would not be decent not to wear them.
+It is strange how careless he is of the formalities by which the vulgar
+judge good manners. He neither insists on these from any, nor does
+he anxiously force them on others whether at meetings or at entertainments,
+although he knows them well enough, should he choose
+to indulge in them; but he considers it effeminate and not becoming
+masculine dignity to waste a good part of one's time in suchlike
+inanities.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly he disliked Court life and the company of princes, for the
+reason that he has always had a peculiar loathing for tyranny, just as
+he has always loved equality. (Now you will hardly find any court so
+modest that has not about it much noisy ostentation, dissimulation
+and luxury, while yet being quite free of any kind of tyranny.) Indeed
+it was only with great difficulty that he could be dragged into the
+Court of Henry VIII, although nothing more courteous and unassuming
+than this prince could be desired. He is by nature somewhat
+greedy of independence and leisure; but while he gladly takes advantage
+of leisure when it comes his way, none is more careful or patient
+whenever business demands it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He seems born and created for friendship, which he cultivates most
+sincerely and fosters most steadfastly. He is not one to be afraid of the
+'abundance of friends' which Hesiod does not approve; he is ready to
+enter into friendly relations with any. He is in no way fastidious in
+choosing friends, accommodating in maintaining them, constant in
+keeping them. If he chances on anyone whose defects he cannot
+mend, he dismisses him when the opportunity offers, not breaking
+but gradually dissolving the friendship. Whenever he finds any sincere
+and suited to his disposition he so delights in their company and
+conversation that he appears to make this his chief pleasure in life.
+He loathes ball-games, cards and gambling, and the other games with
+which the ordinary run of men of rank are used to kill time. Furthermore,
+while he is somewhat careless of his own affairs, there is none
+more diligent in looking after his friends' affairs. Need I continue?
+Should anyone want a finished example of true friendship he could
+not do better than seek it in More.</p>
+
+<p>In social intercourse he is of so rare a courtesy and charm of manners
+that there is no man so melancholy that he does not gladden, no subject
+so forbidding that he does not dispel the tedium of it. From his
+boyhood he has loved joking, so that he might seem born for this, but
+in his jokes he has never descended to buffoonery, and has never
+loved the biting jest. As a youth he both composed and acted in little
+comedies. Any witty remark he would still enjoy, even were it
+directed against himself, such is his delight in clever sallies of ingenious
+flavour. As a result he wrote epigrams as a young man, and delighted
+particularly in Lucian; indeed he was responsible for my writing the
+<i>Praise of Folly</i>, that is for making the camel dance.</p>
+
+<p>In human relations he looks for pleasure in everything he comes
+across, even in the gravest matters. If he has to do with intelligent and
+educated men, he takes pleasure in their brilliance; if with the
+ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their folly. He is not put out by perfect
+fools, and suits himself with marvellous dexterity to all men's
+feelings. For women generally, even for his wife, he has nothing but
+jests and merriment. You could say he was a second Democritus, or
+better, that Pythagorean philosopher who saunters through the
+market-place with a tranquil mind gazing on the uproar of buyers and
+sellers. None is less guided by the opinion of the herd, but again none
+is less remote from the common feelings of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>He takes an especial pleasure in watching the appearance, characters
+and behaviour of various creatures; accordingly there is almost no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+kind of bird which he does not keep at his home, and various other
+animals not commonly found, such as apes, foxes, ferrets, weasels and
+their like. Added to this, he eagerly buys anything foreign or otherwise
+worth looking at which comes his way, and he has the whole
+house stocked with these objects, so that wherever the visitor looks
+there is something to detain him; and his own pleasure is renewed
+whenever he sees others enjoying these sights.</p>
+
+<p>When he was of an age for it, he was not averse to love-affairs with
+young women, but kept them honourable, preferring the love that
+was offered to that which he must chase after, and was more drawn by
+spiritual than by physical intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>He had devoured classical literature from his earliest years. As a lad
+he applied himself to the study of Greek literature and philosophy;
+his father, so far from helping him (although he is otherwise a good
+and sensible man), deprived him of all support in this endeavour; and
+he was almost regarded as disowned, because he seemed to be deserting
+his father's studies&mdash;the father's profession is English jurisprudence.
+This profession is quite unconnected with true learning, but in
+Britain those who have made themselves authorities in it are particularly
+highly regarded, and this is there considered the most suitable
+road to fame, since most of the nobility of that island owe their origin
+to this branch of study. It is said that none can become perfect in it
+without many years of hard work. So, although the young man's
+mind born for better things not unreasonably revolted from it, nevertheless,
+after sampling the scholastic disciplines he worked at the law
+with such success that none was more gladly consulted by litigants,
+and he made a better living at it than any of those who did nothing
+else, so quick and powerful was his intellect.</p>
+
+<p>He also devoted much strenuous attention to studying the ecclesiastical
+writers. He lectured publicly to a crowded audience on Augustine's
+<i>City of God</i> while still little more than a lad; and priests and
+elderly men were neither sorry nor ashamed to learn sacred matters
+from a youthful layman. For a time he gave his whole mind to the
+study of piety, practising himself for the priesthood in watchings,
+fastings and prayer, and other like preliminary exercises; in which
+matter he was far more sensible than most of those who rashly hurl
+themselves into this arduous calling without having previously made
+any trial of themselves. The only obstacle to his devoting himself to
+this mode of life was his inability to shake off his longing for a wife. He
+therefore chose to be a chaste husband rather than an unchaste priest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Still, he married a girl,<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> as yet very young, of good family, but still
+untrained&mdash;she had always lived in the country with her parents and
+sisters&mdash;so that he could better fashion her to his own ways. He had
+her taught literature and made her skilled in all kinds of music; and he
+had really almost made her such as he would have cared to spend all
+his life with, had not an untimely death carried her off while still a girl,
+but after she had borne him several children: of whom there survive
+three girls, Margaret, Alice<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> and Cecily, and one boy, John. He
+would not endure to live long a widower, although his friends counselled
+otherwise. Within a few months of his wife's death he married
+a widow,<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> more for the care of the household than for his pleasure, as
+she was not precisely beautiful nor, as he jokingly says himself, a girl,
+but a keen and watchful housewife;<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> with whom he yet lives as
+pleasantly and agreeably as if she were a most charming young girl.
+Hardly any husband gets so much obedience from his wife by stern
+orders as he does by jests and cajolery. How could he fail to do so,
+after having induced a woman on the verge of old age, also by no
+means a docile character, and lastly most attentive to her business, to
+learn to play the cithern, the lute, the monochord and the recorders,
+and perform a daily prescribed exercise in this at her husband's wish?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxix.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxix-th.png" width="350" height="240" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXIX. SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS FAMILY, 1527</p>
+
+<p>He rules his whole household as agreeably, no quarrels or disturbances
+arise there. If any quarrel does arise he at once heals or settles
+the difference; and he has never let anyone leave his house in anger.
+His house seems blest indeed with a lucky fate, for none has lived there
+without rising to better fortune, and none has ever acquired a stain on
+his reputation there. One would be hard put to it to find any agree as
+well with their mothers as he with his stepmother&mdash;his father had
+already given him two, and he loved both of them as truly as he loved
+his mother. Recently his father gave him a third stepmother: More
+swears his Bible oath he has never seen a better. Moreover, he is so
+disposed towards his parents and children as to be neither tiresomely
+affectionate nor ever failing in any family duty.</p>
+
+<p>He has a mind altogether opposed to sordid gain. He has put aside
+from his fortune for his children an amount which he considers sufficient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+for them; the rest he gives away lavishly. While he still made his
+living at the Bar he gave sincere and friendly counsel to all, considering
+his clients' interests rather than his own; he would persuade most
+of them to settle their differences&mdash;this would be cheaper. If he failed
+to achieve this, he would then show them a method of going to law
+at the least possible expense&mdash;some people here are so minded that
+they actually enjoy litigation. In the City of London, where he was
+born, he acted for some years as a judge in civil causes.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> This office is
+not at all onerous&mdash;the court sits only on Thursday mornings&mdash;but is
+regarded as one of the most honourable. None dealt with so many
+cases as he, nor behaved with such integrity; he usually remitted the
+charge customarily due from litigants (as before the formal entering
+of the suit the plaintiff pays into court three shillings, the defendant
+likewise, and it is incorrect to demand more). By this behaviour he
+won the deep affection of the City.</p>
+
+<p>He had made up his mind to rest content with this position, which
+was sufficiently influential and yet not exposed to grave dangers.
+Twice he was forced into embassies; as he acted in these with great
+sagacity. King Henry VIII would not rest until he could drag More
+to Court. Why not call it 'drag'? No man ever worked so assiduously
+to gain admission to the Court as he studied to escape it. But
+when the King decided to fill his household with men of weight,
+learning, sagacity and integrity, More was one of the first among
+many summoned by him: he regards More so much as one of his
+intimate circle that he never lets him depart from him. If serious
+matters are to be discussed, there is none more skilled than he; or if
+the King decides to relax in pleasant gossiping, there is no merrier
+companion. Often difficult affairs require a weighty and sagacious
+arbitrator; More solves these matters with such success that both
+parties are grateful. Yet no one has ever succeeded in persuading him
+to accept a present from anyone. How happy the states would be if
+the ruler everywhere put magistrates like More in office! Meanwhile
+he has acquired no trace of haughtiness.</p>
+
+<p>Amid all these official burdens he does not forget his old friends and
+from time to time returns to his beloved literature. All the authority
+of his office, all his influence with the King, is devoted to the service
+of the State and of his friends. His mind, eager to serve all and
+wondrously prone to pity, has ever been present to help: he will now
+be better able to help others, as he has greater power. Some he assists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+with money, some he protects with his authority, others he advances
+by introductions; those whom he cannot help otherwise he aids with
+counsel, and he has never sent anyone away disappointed. You might
+call More the common advocate of all those in need. He regards himself
+as greatly enriched when he assists the oppressed, extricates the
+perplexed and involved, or reconciles the estranged. None confers a
+benefit so gladly, none is so slow to upbraid. And although he is
+fortunate on so many counts, and good fortune is often associated
+with boastfulness, it has never yet been my lot to meet any man so far
+removed from this vice.</p>
+
+<p>But I must return to recounting his studies&mdash;it was these which
+chiefly brought More and myself together. In his youth he chiefly
+practised verse composition, afterwards he worked hard and long to
+polish his prose, practising his style in all kinds of composition. What
+that style is like, I need not describe&mdash;particularly not to you, who
+always have his books in your hands. He especially delighted in composing
+declamations, and in these liked paradoxical themes, for the
+reason that this offers keener practice to the wits. This caused him,
+while still a youth, to compose a dialogue in which he defended
+Plato's Communism, even to the community of wives. He wrote a
+rejoinder to Lucian's <i>Tyrannicide</i>; in this theme he desired to have me
+as his antagonist, to make a surer trial of his progress in this branch of
+letters. His <i>Utopia</i> was published with the aim of showing the causes
+of the bad condition of states; but was chiefly a portrait of the British
+State, which he has thoroughly studied and explored. He had written
+the second book first in his leisure hours, and added the first book on
+the spur of the moment later, when the occasion offered. Some of the
+unevenness of the style is due to this.</p>
+
+<p>One could hardly find a better <i>ex tempore</i> speaker: a happy talent
+has complete command of a happy turn of speech. He has a present
+wit, always flying ahead, and a ready memory; and having all this
+ready to hand, he can promptly and unhesitatingly produce whatever
+the subject or occasion requires. In arguments he is unimaginably
+acute, so that he often puzzles the best theologians on their own
+ground. John Colet, a man of keen and exact judgement, often observes
+in intimate conversation that Britain has only one genius:
+although this island is rich in so many fine talents.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 275px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxx.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxx-th.png" width="275" height="390" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXX. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 54</p>
+
+<p>He diligently cultivates true piety, while being remote from all
+superstitious observance. He has set hours in which he offers to God
+not the customary prayers but prayers from the heart. With his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+friends he talks of the life of the world to come so that one sees that
+he speaks sincerely and not without firm hope. Such is More even in
+the Court. And then there are those who think that Christians are to
+be found only in monasteries!... There you have a portrait not very
+well drawn by a very bad artist from a most excellent model. You
+will like it less if you happen to come to know More better. But for
+the time being I have prevented your being able to cast in my teeth
+my failure to obey you, and always accusing me of writing too short
+letters. Still, this did not seem long to me as I was writing it, and
+I know that you will not find it long drawn out as you read it: our
+friend More's charm will see to that. Farewell.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVI. TO WILLIBALD PIRCKHEIMER<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Basle, 14 March 1525</p>
+
+<p>To the illustrious Willibald Pirckheimer, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... I received safely the very pretty ring which you desired me to have
+as a memento of you. I know that gems are prized as bringing safety
+when one has a fall. But they say too, that if the fall was likely to be
+fatal, the evil is diverted on to the gem, so that it is seen to be broken
+after the accident. Once in Britain I fell with my horse from a fairly
+high bank: no damage was found to me or my horse, yet the gem I
+was wearing was whole. It was a present from Alexander, Archbishop
+of St. Andrews,<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> whom I think you know from my writings. When
+I left him at Siena, he drew it off his finger and handing it to me said:
+'Take this as a pledge of our friendship that will never die.' And I
+kept my pledged faith with him even after his death, celebrating my
+friend's memory in my writings. There is no part of life into which
+magical superstition has not insinuated itself: if gems have some great
+virtue, I could have wished in these days for a ring with an efficacious
+remedy against 'slander's tooth.' As to the belief about falls, I shall
+follow your advice&mdash;I shall prefer to believe rather than risk myself.</p>
+
+<p>Portraits are less precious than jewels&mdash;I have received from you a
+medallic and a painted portrait&mdash;but at least they bring my Willibald
+more vividly before me. Alexander the Great would only allow himself
+to be painted by Apelles's hand. You have found your Apelles in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+Albrecht D&uuml;rer,<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> an artist of the first rank and no less to be admired
+for his remarkable good sense. If only you had likewise found some
+Lysippus<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> to cast the medal! I have the medal of you on the righthand
+wall of my bedroom, the painting on the left; whether writing
+or walking up and down, I have Willibald before my eyes, so that if
+I wanted to forget you I could not. Though I have a more retentive
+memory for friends than for anything else. Certainly Willibald could
+not be forgotten by me, even were there no memento, no portraits,
+no letters to refresh my memory of him. There is another very
+pleasant thing&mdash;the portraits often occasion a talk about you when my
+friends come to visit me. If only our letters travelled safely, how little
+we should miss of each other! You have a medal of me. I should not
+object to having my portrait painted by D&uuml;rer,<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> that great artist; but
+how this can be done I do not see. Once at Brussels he sketched me,
+but after a start had been made the work was interrupted by callers
+from the Court. Though I have long been a sad model for painters,
+and am likely to become a sadder one still as the days go on.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> I read
+with pleasure what you write, as witty as it is wise, on the agitations of
+certain persons who are destroying the evangelical movement, to
+which they imagine themselves to be doing splendid service: and I
+have much to tell you in my turn about this. But this will be another
+time, when I have more leisure. Farewell.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XVII. TO MARTIN LUTHER</h3>
+
+<p>Basle, 11 April 1526</p>
+
+<p>To Martin Luther, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... Your letter has been delivered too late;<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> but had it arrived in the
+best of time, it would not have moved me one whit. I am not so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+simple as to be appeased by one or two pleasantries or soothed by
+flattery after receiving so many more than mortal wounds. Your
+nature is by now known to all the world, but you have so tempered
+your pen that never have you written against anyone so frenziedly,
+nay, what is more abominable, so maliciously. Now it occurs to you
+that you are a weak sinner, whereas at other times you insist almost on
+being taken for God. You are a man, as you write, of violent temperament,
+and you take pleasure in this remarkable argument. Why then
+did you not pour forth this marvellous piece of invective on the
+Bishop of Rochester<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> or on Cochleus?<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> They attack you personally
+and provoke you with insults, while my <i>Diatribe</i><a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> was a courteous
+disputation. And what has all this to do with the subject&mdash;all this
+facetious abuse, these slanderous lies, charging me with atheism,
+Epicureanism, scepticism in articles of the Christian profession,
+blasphemy, and what not&mdash;besides many other points on which I<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a>
+am silent? I take these charges the less hardly, because in all this there
+is nothing to make my conscience disturb me. If I did not think as a
+Christian of God and the Holy Scriptures, I could not wish my life
+prolonged even until tomorrow. If you had conducted your case with
+your usual vehemence, without frenzied abuse, you would have provoked
+fewer men against you: as things are, you have been pleased to
+fill more than a third part of the volume with such abuse, giving free
+rein to your feelings. How far you have given way to me the facts
+themselves show&mdash;so many palpable crimes do you fasten on me;
+while my <i>Diatribe</i> was not even intended to stir up those matters
+which the world itself knows of.</p>
+
+<p>You imagine, I suppose, that Erasmus has no supporters. More than
+you think. But it does not matter what happens to us two, least
+of all to myself who must shortly go hence, even if the whole world
+were applauding us: it is <i>this</i> that distresses me, and all the best spirits
+with me, that with that arrogant, impudent, seditious temperament
+of yours you are shattering the whole globe in ruinous discord, exposing
+good men and lovers of good learning to certain frenzied
+Pharisees, arming for revolt the wicked and the revolutionary, and in
+short so carrying on the cause of the Gospel as to throw all things
+sacred and profane into chaos; as if you were eager to prevent this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+storm from turning at last to a happy issue; I have ever striven towards
+such an opportunity. What you owe me, and in what coin you have
+repaid me&mdash;I do not go into that. All that is a private matter; it is the
+public disaster which distresses me, and the irremediable confusion of
+everything, for which we have to thank only your uncontrolled
+nature, that will not be guided by the wise counsel of friends, but
+easily turns to any excess at the prompting of certain inconstant
+swindlers. I know not whom you have saved from the power of
+darkness; but you should have drawn the sword of your pen against
+those ungrateful wretches and not against a temperate disputation. I
+would have wished you a better mind, were you not so delighted
+with your own. Wish me what you will, only not your mind, unless
+God has changed it for you.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XVIII. TO THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Basle, <i>c.</i> March 1527</p>
+
+<p>To the most skilled physician Theophrastus of Einsiedeln, etc., greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... It is not incongruous to wish continued spiritual health to the
+medical man through whom God gives us physical health. I wonder
+how you know me so thoroughly, having seen me once only. I
+recognize how very true are your dark sayings, not by the art of
+medicine, which I have never learned, but from my own wretched
+sensations. I have felt pains in the region of the liver in the past, and
+could not divine the source of the trouble. I have seen the fat from the
+kidneys in my water many years ago. Your third point<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> I do not
+quite understand, nevertheless it appears to be convincing.</p>
+
+<p>As I told you, I have no time for the next few days to be doctored,
+or to be ill, or to die, so overwhelmed am I with scholarly work. But
+if there is anything which can alleviate the trouble without weakening
+the body, I beg you to inform me. If you will be so good as to
+explain at greater length your very concise and more than laconic
+notes, and prescribe other remedies which I can take until I am free,
+I cannot promise you a fee to match your art or the trouble you have
+taken, but I do at least promise you a grateful heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You have resurrected Froben<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a>, that is, my other half: if you restore
+me also, you will have restored both of us by treating each of us
+singly. May we have the good fortune to keep you in Basle!</p>
+
+<p>I fear you may not be able to read this letter dashed off immediately
+[after receiving yours]. Farewell.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus of Rotterdam, by his own hand.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XIX. TO MARTIN BUCER<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Basle, 11 November 1527</p>
+
+<p>Best greetings:</p>
+
+<p>You plead the cause of Capito with some rhetorical skill; but I see
+that, eloquent advocate as you are otherwise, you are not sufficiently
+well equipped to undertake his defence. Were I to advance my battle-line
+of conjectures and proofs, you would realize that you had to
+devise a different speech. But I have had too much of squabbling, and
+do not easily bestir myself against men whom I once sincerely loved.
+What the Knight of Eppendorff<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> ventures or does not venture to do
+is his concern; only that he returns too frequently to this game. I shall
+not involve Capito in the drama unless he involves himself again; let
+him not think me such a fool as not to know what is in question. But
+I have written myself on these matters. Furthermore, as to your
+pleading your own cause and that of your church, I think it better not
+to give any answer, because this matter would require a very lengthy
+oration, even if it were not a matter of controversy. This is merely a
+brief answer on scattered points.</p>
+
+<p>The person who informed me about 'languages'<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> is one whose
+trustworthiness not even you would have esteemed lightly; and he
+thinks no ill of you. Indeed I have never disliked you as far as concerns
+private feelings. There are persons living in your town who were
+chattering here about 'all the disciplines having been invented by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+godforsaken wretches'. Certainly persons of this description, whatever
+name must be given them, are in the ascendancy everywhere, all
+studies are neglected and come to a standstill. At Nuremberg the City
+Treasury has hired lecturers, but there is no one to attend their lectures.</p>
+
+<p>You assemble a number of conjectures as to why I have not joined
+your church. But you must know that the first and most important
+of all the reasons which withheld me from associating myself with
+it was my conscience: if my conscience could have been persuaded
+that this movement proceeded from God, I should have been now
+long since a soldier in your camp. The second reason is that I see
+many in your group who are strangers to all Evangelical soundness.
+I make no mention of rumours and suspicions, I speak of things
+learned from experience, nay, learned to my own injury; things experienced
+not merely from the mob, but from men who appear to be
+of some worth, not to mention the leading men. It is not for me to
+judge of what I know not: the world is wide. I know some as excellent
+men before they became devotees of your faith, what they are now like
+I do not know: at all events I have learned that several of them have
+become worse and none better, so far as human judgement can discern.</p>
+
+<p>The third thing which deterred me is the intense discord between
+the leaders of the movement. Not to mention the Prophets and the
+Anabaptists, what embittered pamphlets Zwingli, Luther and
+Osiander write against each other! I have never approved the ferocity
+of the leaders, but it is provoked by the behaviour of certain persons;
+when they ought to have made the Gospel acceptable by holy and
+forbearing conduct, if you really had what you boast of. Not to speak
+of the others, of what use was it for Luther to indulge in buffoonery
+in that fashion against the King of England, when he had undertaken
+a task so arduous with the general approval? Was he not reflecting as
+to the role he was sustaining? Did he not realize that the whole world
+had its eyes turned on him alone? And this is the chief of this movement;
+I am not particularly angry with him for treating me so scurrilously:
+but his betrayal of the cause of the Gospel, his letting loose
+princes, bishops, pseudo-monks and pseudo-theologians against good
+men, his having made doubly hard our slavery, which is already intolerable&mdash;that
+is what tortures my mind. And I seem to see a cruel
+and bloody century ahead, if the provoked section gets its breath
+again, which it is certainly now doing. You will say that there is no
+crowd without an admixture of wicked men. Certainly it was the
+duty of the principal men to exercise special care in matters of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+conduct, and not be even on speaking terms with liars, perjurors,
+drunkards and fornicators. As it is I hear and almost <i>see</i>, that things
+are far otherwise. If the husband had found his wife more amenable,
+the teacher his pupil more obedient, the magistrate the citizen more
+tractable, the employer his workman more trustworthy, the buyer
+the seller less deceitful, it would have been great recommendation
+for the Gospels. As things are, the behaviour of certain persons has had
+the effect of cooling the zeal of those who at first, owing to their
+love of piety and abhorrence of Pharisaism, looked with favour on
+this movement; and the princes, seeing a disorderly host springing
+up in its wake made up of vagabonds, fugitives, bankrupts, naked,
+wretched and for the most part even wicked men, are cursing, even
+those who in the beginning had been hopeful.</p>
+
+<p>It is not without deep sorrow that I speak of all this, not only
+because I foresee that a business wrongly handled will go from bad to
+worse, but also because at last I shall myself have to suffer for it.
+Certain rascals say that my writings are to blame for the fact that the
+scholastic theologians and monks are in several places becoming less
+esteemed than they would like, that ceremonies are neglected, and
+that the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff is disregarded; when it is
+quite dear from what source this evil has sprung. They were stretching
+too tight the rope which is now breaking. They almost set the Pope's
+authority above Christ's, they measured all piety by ceremonies, and
+tightened the hold of the confession to an enormous extent, while the
+monks lorded it without fear of punishment, by now meditating open
+tyranny. As a result 'the stretched string snapped', as the proverb has
+it; it could not be otherwise. But I sorely fear that the same will
+happen one day to the princes, if they too continue to stretch <i>their</i>
+rope too tightly. Again, the other side having commenced the action
+of their drama as they did, no different ending was possible. May we
+not live to see worse horrors!</p>
+
+<p>However it was the duty of the leaders of this movement, if Christ
+was their goal, to refrain not only from vice, but even from every
+appearance of evil; and to offer not the slightest stumbling block to
+the Gospel, studiously avoiding even practices which, although
+allowed, are yet not expedient. Above all they should have guarded
+against all sedition. If they had handled the matter with sincerity and
+moderation, they would have won the support of the princes and
+bishops: for they have not all been given up for lost. And they should
+not have heedlessly wrecked anything without having something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+better ready to put in its place. As it is, those who have abandoned the
+Hours do not pray at all. Many who have put off pharisaical clothing
+are worse in other matters than they were before. Those who disdain
+the episcopal regulations do not even obey the commandments of
+God. Those who disregard the careful choice of foods indulge in
+greed and gluttony. It is a long-drawn-out tragedy, which every day
+we partly hear ourselves and partly learn of from others. I never
+approved of the abolition of the Mass, even though I have always disliked
+these mean and money-grabbing mass-priests. There were other
+things also which could have been altered without causing riots. As
+things are, certain persons are not satisfied with any of the accepted
+practices; as if a new world could be built of a sudden. There will always
+be things which the pious must endure. If anyone thinks that Mass
+ought to be abolished because many misuse it, then the Sermon should
+be abolished also, which is almost the only custom accepted by your
+party. I feel the same about the invocation of the saints and about images.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter demanded a lengthy reply, but even this letter is very
+long, with all that I have to do. I am told that you have a splendid
+gift for preaching the Word of the Gospel, and that you conduct
+yourself more courteously than do many. So I could wish that with
+your good sense you would strive to the end that this movement,
+however it began, may through firmness and moderation in doctrine
+and integrity of conduct be brought to a conclusion worthy of the
+Gospel. To this end I shall help you to the best of my ability. As it is,
+although the host of monks and certain theologians assail me with all
+their artifices, nothing will induce me wittingly to cast away my soul.
+You will have the good sense not to circulate this letter, lest it cause
+any disturbance. We would have more discussions if we could meet.
+Farewell. I had no time to read this over.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus of Rotterdam, by my own hand.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxxi.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxxi-th.png" width="300" height="390" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXXI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 60</p>
+
+
+<h3>XX. TO ALFONSO VALDES<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Basle, 1 August 1528</p>
+
+<p>To the most illustrious Alfonso Valdes, Secretary to His Imperial
+Majesty, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... I have learned very plainly from other men's letters what you indicate
+very discreetly, as is your way&mdash;that there are some who seek to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+make <i>Terminus</i>,<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> the seal on my ring, an occasion for slander, protesting
+that the addition of the device <i>Concedo nulli</i> [I yield to none]
+shows intolerable arrogance. What is this but some fatal malady,
+consisting in misrepresenting everything? Momus<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> is ridiculed for criticizing
+Venus's slipper; but these men outdo Momus himself, finding
+something to carp at in a ring. I would have called <i>them</i> Momuses,
+but Momus carps at nothing but what he has first carefully inspected.
+These fault-finders, or rather false accusers, criticize with their eyes
+shut what they neither see nor understand: so violent is the disease.
+And meanwhile they think themselves pillars of the Church, whereas
+all they do is to expose their stupidity combined with a malice no less
+extreme, when they are already more notorious than they should be.
+They are dreaming if they think it is Erasmus who says <i>Concedo
+nulli</i>. But if they read my writings they would see that there is none
+so humble that I rank myself above him, being more liable to yield to
+all than to none.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<a href="images/plate-xxxii.png">
+<img src="images/plate-xxxii-th.png" width="300" height="465" alt="" title=""/>
+</a></div>
+<p class="center">Plate XXXII. ERASMUS'S DEVICE</p>
+
+<p>Now those who know me intimately from close association will
+attribute any vice to me sooner than arrogance, and will acknowledge
+that I am closer to the Socratic utterance, 'This alone I know, that I
+know nothing,' than to this, 'I yield to none.' But if they imagine that
+I have so insolent a mind as to put myself before all others, do they
+also think me such a fool as to profess this in a device? If they had any
+Christian feeling they would understand those words either as not
+mine or as bearing another meaning. They see there a sculptured
+figure, in its lower part a stone, in its upper part a youth with flying
+hair. Does this look like Erasmus in any respect? If this is not enough,
+they see written on the stone itself <i>Terminus</i>: if one takes this as the
+last word, that will make an iambic dimeter acatalectic, <i>Concedo
+nulli Terminus</i>; if one begins with this word, it will be a trochaic
+dimeter acatalectic, <i>Terminus concedo nulli</i>. What if I had painted
+a lion and added as a device 'Flee, unless you prefer to be torn to
+pieces'? Would they attribute these words to me instead of the lion?
+But what they are doing now is just as foolish; for if I mistake not, I
+am more like a lion than a stone.</p>
+
+<p>They will argue, 'We did not notice that it was verse, and we know
+nothing about Terminus.' Is it then to be a crime henceforward
+to have written verse, because <i>they</i> have not learned the theory of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+metre? At least, as they knew that in devices of this kind one actually
+aims at a certain degree of obscurity in order to exercise the guessing
+powers of those who look at them, if they did not know of Terminus&mdash;although
+they could have learned of him from the books of
+Augustine or Ambrose&mdash;they should have inquired of experts in this
+kind of matter. In former times field boundaries were marked
+with some sign. This was a stone projecting above the earth, which
+the laws of the ancients ordered never to be moved; here belongs the
+Platonic utterance, 'Remove not what thou hast not planted.' The
+law was reinforced by a religious awe, the better to deter the ignorant
+multitude from daring to remove the stone, by making it believe that
+to violate the stone was to violate a god in it, whom the Romans call
+Terminus, and to him there was also dedicated a shrine and a festival,
+the Terminalia. This god Terminus, as the Roman historian has it, was
+alone in refusing to yield to Jupiter because 'while the birds allowed
+the deconsecration of all the other sanctuaries, in the shrine of
+Terminus alone they were unpropitious.'<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> Livy tells this story in the
+first book of his <i>History</i>, and again in Book 5 he narrates how 'when
+after the taking of auguries the Capitol was being cleared, Juventas
+[Youth] and Terminus would not allow themselves to be moved.'<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>
+This omen was welcomed with universal rejoicing, for they believed
+that it portended an eternal empire. The <i>youth</i> is useful for war, and
+<i>Terminus</i> is fixed.</p>
+
+<p>Here they will exclaim perchance, 'What have <i>you</i> to do with a
+mythical god?' He came to me, I did not adopt him. When I was
+called to Rome, and Alexander, titular Archbishop of St. Andrews,<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a>
+was summoned home from Siena by his father King James of
+Scotland, as a grateful and affectionate pupil he gave me several rings
+for a memento of our time together. Among these was one which
+had <i>Terminus</i> engraved on the jewel; an Italian interested in antiquities
+had pointed this out, which I had not known before. I seized
+on the omen and interpreted it as a warning that the term of my
+existence was not far off&mdash;at that time I was in about my fortieth year.
+To keep this thought in my mind I began to seal my letters with this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+sign. I added the verse, as I said before. And so from a heathen god I
+made myself a device, exhorting me to correct my life. For Death is
+truly a boundary which knows no yielding to any. But in the medal
+there is added in Greek,
+&Omega;&rho;&alpha; &tau;&epsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;
+&mu;&alpha;&kappa;&rho;&omicron;&upsilon; &beta;&iota;&omicron;&upsilon;,
+that is, 'Consider the
+end of a long life,' in Latin <i>Mors ultima linea rerum</i>. They will say,
+'You could have carved on it a dead man's skull.' Perhaps I should
+have accepted that, if it had come my way: but this pleased me,
+because it came to me by chance, and then because it had a double
+charm for me; from the allusion to an ancient and famous story, and
+from its obscurity, a quality specially belonging to devices.</p>
+
+<p>There is my defence on <i>Terminus</i>, or better say on hair-splitting.
+And if only they would at last set a <i>term</i> to their misrepresentations!
+I will gladly come to an agreement with them to change my
+device, if they will change their malady. Indeed by so doing they
+would be doing more for their own authority, which they complain
+is being undermined by the lovers of good learning. I myself am
+assuredly so far from desiring to injure their reputation that I am
+deeply pained at their delivering themselves over to the ridicule of the
+whole world by these stupid tricks, and not blushing to find themselves
+confuted with mockery on every occasion. The Lord keep you safe in
+body and soul, my beloved friend in Christ.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XXI. TO CHARLES BLOUNT<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Freiburg im Breisgau, 1 March 1531</p>
+
+<p>To the noble youth Charles Mountjoy, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... I have determined to dedicate to you Livy, the prince of Latin
+history; already many times printed, but never before in such a
+magnificent or accurate edition: and if this is not enough, augmented
+by five books recently discovered; these were found by some good
+genius in the library of the monastery at Lorsch by Simon Grynaeus,<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a>
+a man at once learned without arrogance in all branches of literature
+and at the same time born for the advancement of liberal studies. Now
+this monastery was built opposite Worms, or Berbethomagium, by
+Charlemagne seven hundred years and more ago, and equipped with
+great store of books; for this was formerly the special care of princes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+and this is usually the most precious treasure of the monasteries. The
+original manuscript was one of marvellous antiquity, painted<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> in the
+antique fashion with the letters in a continuous series, so that it has
+proved very difficult to separate word from word, unless one is
+knowledgeable, careful and trained for this very task. This caused
+much trouble in preparing a copy to be handed to the printer's men
+for their use; a careful and faithful watch was kept to prevent any
+departure from the original in making the copy. So if the poor fragment
+which came to us recently from Mainz was justly welcomed by
+scholars with great rejoicing,<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> what acclamation should greet this large
+addition to Livy's <i>History</i>?</p>
+
+<p>Would to God that this author could be restored to us complete and
+entire. There are rumours flying round that give some hope of this:
+men boast of unpublished Liviana existing, now in Denmark, now in
+Poland, now in Germany. At least now that fortune has given us these
+remnants against all men's expectations, I do not see why we should
+despair of the possibility of finding still more. And here, in my
+opinion at least, the princes would be acting worthily if they offered
+rewards and attracted scholars to the search for such a treasure, or
+prevailed upon them to publish&mdash;if there are perchance any who are
+suppressing and hiding away to the great detriment of studies something
+in a fit state to be of public utility. For it seems perfectly absurd
+that men will dig through the bowels of the earth almost down to
+Hades at vast peril and expense in order to find a little gold or silver:
+and yet will utterly disregard treasures of this kind, as far above those
+others in value as the soul excels the body, and not consider them
+worth searching for. This is the spirit of Midases, not of princes; and
+as I know that your character is utterly at variance with this spirit, I
+doubt not that you will most eagerly welcome this great gain. Now,
+there are chiefly two considerations which remove all possible doubt
+as to this half-decade's being genuinely by Livy: in the first place that
+of the diction itself, which in all features recalls its author: secondly
+that of the arguments or epitomes of Floras, which correspond exactly
+with these books.</p>
+
+<p>And so, knowing that there is no kind of reading more fitting for
+men of note than that of the historians, of whom Livy is easily the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+chief (I speak of the Roman historians), particularly as we have
+nothing of Sallust beyond two fragments, and bearing in mind what
+an insatiable glutton, so to speak, your father has always been for
+history (and I doubt not that you resemble him in this also): I thought
+I should not be acting incongruously in publishing these five books
+with a special dedication to you. Although in this point I should not
+wish you to resemble your father too closely. He is in the way of
+poring over his books every day from dinner until midnight, which
+is wearisome to his wife and attendants and a cause of much grumbling
+among the servants; so far he has been able to do this without
+loss of health; still, I do not think it wise for you to take the
+same risk, which may not turn out as successfully. Certainly when
+your father was studying along with the present king while still a
+young man, they read chiefly history, with the strong approval of
+his father Henry VII, a king of remarkable judgement and good sense.</p>
+
+<p>Joined to this edition is the Chronology of Henry Glareanus, a man
+of exquisite and many-sided learning, whose indefatigable industry
+refines, adorns and enriches with the liberal disciplines not the renowned
+Gymnasium at Freiburg alone, but this whole region as well.
+The Chronology shows the order of events, the details of the wars,
+and the names of persons, in which up till now there has reigned
+astonishing confusion, brought about through the fault of the scribes
+and dabblers in learning. Yet this was the sole guiding light of history!
+Without this Pole star our navigation on the ocean of history is
+completely blind: and without this thread to help him, the reader
+becomes involved in an inextricable maze, learned though he be, in
+these labyrinths of events. If you consider your letter well repaid by
+this gift, it will now be your turn to write me a letter. Farewell.</p>
+
+
+<h3>XXII. TO BARTHOLOMEW LATOMUS<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></h3>
+
+<p>Basle, 24 August 1535</p>
+
+<p>To Bartholomew Latomus, greetings:</p>
+
+<p>... In apologizing for your silence you are wasting your time,
+believe me; I am not in the habit of judging tried friends by this
+common courtesy. It would be impudent of me to charge you with
+an omission which you have an equal right to accuse me of in turn....
+The heads of the colleges are not doing anything new. They are afraid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+of their own revenues suffering, this being the sole aim of most of
+them. You would scarcely believe to what machinations they stooped
+at Louvain in their efforts to prevent a trilingual college being established.
+I worked strenuously in the matter, and have made myself
+accordingly very unpopular. There was an attempt to set up a chair
+of languages at Tournai, but the University of Louvain and the
+Franciscans at Tournai did not rest until the project was abandoned.
+The house erected for this purpose overlooked the Franciscans'
+garden&mdash;that was the cause of the trouble....</p>
+
+<p>I have had a long life, counting in years; but were I to calculate the
+time spent in wrestling with fever, the stone and the gout, I have not
+lived long. But we must patiently bear whatever the Lord has sent
+upon us, Whose will no one can resist, and Who alone knows what is
+good for us.... The glory [of an immortal name] moves me not at
+all, I am not anxious over the applause of posterity. My one concern
+and desire is to depart hence with Christ's favour.</p>
+
+<p>Many French nobles have fled here for fear of the winter storm,
+after having been recalled.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> 'The lion shall roar, who shall not fear?'
+says the Prophet.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> A like terror has seized the English, from an unlike
+cause. Certain monks have been beheaded and among them a monk
+of the Order of St. Bridget<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> was dragged along the ground, then
+hanged, and finally drawn and quartered. There is a firm and probable
+rumour here that the news of the Bishop of Rochester having
+been co-opted by Paul III as a cardinal caused the King to hasten his
+being dragged out of prison and beheaded&mdash;his method of conferring
+the scarlet hat. It is all too true that Thomas More has been long in
+prison and his fortune confiscated. It was being said that he too had
+been executed, but I have no certain news as yet.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> Would that he had
+never embroiled himself in this perilous business and had left the
+theological cause to the theologians. The other friends who from time
+to time honoured me with letters and gifts now send nothing and
+write nothing from fear, and accept nothing from anyone, as if under
+every stone there slept a scorpion.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that the Pope is seriously thinking of a Council here. But
+I do not see how it is to meet in the midst of such dissension between
+princes and lands. The whole of Lower Germany is astonishingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+infected with Anabaptists: in Upper Germany they pretend not to
+notice them. They are pouring in here in droves; some are on their
+way to Italy. The Emperor is besieging Goletta; in my opinion there
+is more danger from the Anabaptists.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think that France is entirely free of this plague; but they are
+silent there for fear of the cudgel....</p>
+
+<p>Now I must tell you something about my position which will
+amuse you. I had written to Paul III at the instance of Louis Ber,
+the distinguished theologian. Before unsealing the letter he spoke of
+me with great respect. And as he had to make several scholars cardinals
+for the coming Council, the name of Erasmus was proposed among
+others. But obstacles were mentioned, my health, not strong enough
+for the duties, and my low income; for they say there is a decree which
+excludes from this office those whose annual income is less than
+3,000 ducats. Now they are busy heaping benefices on me, so that I
+can acquire the proper income from these and receive the red hat.
+The proverbial cat in court-dress. I have a friend in Rome who is
+particularly active in the business; in vain have I warned him more
+than once by letter that I want no cures or pensions, that I am a man
+who lives from day to day, and every day expecting death, often
+longing for it, so horrible sometimes are the pains. It is hardly safe
+for me to put a foot outside my bedroom, and even the merest
+trifle upsets me.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> With my peculiar, emaciated body I can only
+stand warm air. And in this condition they want to push me forward
+as a candidate for benefices and cardinals' hats! But meanwhile I am
+gratified by the Supreme Pontiff's delusions about me and his
+feelings towards me. But I am being more wordy than I intended. I
+should easily forgive your somewhat lengthy letter, if you were to
+repeat that fault often.... Farewell.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Servatius Roger (d. 1540), whom Erasmus came to know as a young monk
+soon after his entry into Steyn, became eighth Prior of Steyn; it was as Prior
+that he wrote to Erasmus in 1514 to urge him to return to the monastery,
+see pp. 11, 87 f., 212 ff.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Juvenal, ix. 18-20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> N. Werner (d. 5 September 1504), later Prior of Steyn.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Probably James Stuart, brother of James IV of Scotland, Archbishop of St.
+Andrews, 1497, aged about twenty-one at this time.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Relative of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Took his doctor's degree in
+Italy, returned to England 1507.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> William Grocyn (<i>c.</i> 1446-1519), Fellow of New College, one of the first
+to teach Greek in Oxford.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Thomas Linacre (<i>c.</i> 1460-1524), Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford,
+1484. Translator of Galen. Helped to found the College of Physicians, 1518.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> James Batt (1464?-1502), secretary to the council of the town of Bergen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Anne of Burgundy, the Lady of Veere (1469?-1518), patroness
+of Erasmus until 1501-2, when she remarried.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> i.e. to replace Greek words either corrupted or omitted.
+Erasmus is here referring probably to the text of the <i>Letters</i> of
+Jerome; he uses the same expression in his letter of 21 May 1515 to Leo
+X (Allen 335, v. 268 ff.): 'I have purified the text of the Letters ...
+and carefully restored the Greek, which was either missing altogether or
+inserted incorrectly'.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Brother of Henry of Bergen (Bishop of Cambrai) and by this time Abbot
+of St. Bertin at St. Omer, where he was forcibly installed by his brother the
+bishop in 1493.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> 'And my sin is ever before me,' where <i>contra</i> could
+be rendered as either 'before' or 'against'; the ambiguity is resolved
+by referring to the Greek, where &epsilon;&nu;&omega;&pi;&omicron;&nu;
+= face to face with.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Apparently a loose statement of the <i>Constitutions</i> of
+Clement V, promulgated after the Council of Vienne, 1311-12, Bk. 5, tit.
+1, cap. 1, in which for the better conversion of infidels it was
+ordained that two teachers for each of the three languages, Hebrew,
+Arabic, and Chaldaean be appointed in each of the four Universities,
+Paris, Oxford, Bologna and Salamanca. Greek was included in the original
+list, but afterwards omitted.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Probably George Hermonymus of Sparta.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Cf. Juvenal, iii.78. (<i>Graeculus esuriens</i>.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> William Warham (1450?-1532) became Archbishop of Canterbury
+in 1503, Lord Chancellor of England, 1504-15, Chancellor of Oxford
+University from 1506. This letter forms the preface to <i>Hecuba</i> in
+<i>Euripidis</i> ... <i>Hecuba et Iphigenia; Latinae factae Erasmo
+Roterodamo interprete</i>, Paris, J. Badius, September 1506.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a>
+&epsilon;&nu; &tau;&omega; &pi;&iota;&theta;&omega; &tau;&eta;&nu;
+&kappa;&epsilon;&rho;&alpha;&mu;&epsilon;&iota;&alpha;&nu;,
+i.e., to run before one
+can walk, to make a winejar being the most advanced job in pottery.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Politian translated parts of Iliad, 2-5 into Latin
+hexameters, dedicating the work to Lorenzo dei Medici. Published by A.
+Mai, Spicilegium Romanum, ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Nicholas de Valle translated the <i>Works and Days</i>
+(<i>Georgica</i>), Bonninus Mombritius the <i>Theogonia</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Martin Phileticus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> No. 3; his Funeral Orations were printed <i>c.</i> 1481 at Milan.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) founded the Aldine Press at
+Venice, 1494.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Published by Aldus, 1513.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Published by Aldus, 1528.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Published by Aldus, 1518, although projected in 1499.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> <i>Euripidis ... Hecuba et Iphigenia</i> [in Aulide];
+<i>Latinae factae Erasmo Roterodamo interprete</i>, Paris, J. Badius, 13
+September 1506. Reprinted by Aldus at Venice, December 1507 (and by
+Froben at Basle in 1518 and 1524).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Thomas More (1478-1535). This letter is the preface to the <i>Moriae
+Encomium</i>, published by Gilles Gourmont at Paris without date, reprinted by
+Sch&uuml;rer at Strasbourg, August 1511.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> The Greek 'laughing philosopher'.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> John Colet (1466?-1519), Dean of St. Paul's 1504, had founded St. Paul's
+School in the previous year (1510).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Raffaele Riario (1461-1521), Leo X's most formidable rival in the election
+of 1513.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Francesco Alidosi of Imola, d. 1511.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Robert Guib&eacute;(<i>c.</i> 1456-1513), Cardinal of St. Anastasia and Bishop of
+Nantes (1507).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Leo X.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Wolsey.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <i>Enchiridion militis Christiani</i>, printed in
+<i>Lucubratiunculae</i>, 1503.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> A new and enlarged edition under the title <i>Adagiorum
+Chiliades</i>, printed by Aldus in 1508.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> <i>De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo</i>,
+Paris, Badius, 1512.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> The Hebrew scholar, who adhered to the Reformation, 1523.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> F. Ximenes (1436-1517), confessor of Queen Isabella, Archbishop of
+Toledo, 1495, founded Alcal&aacute; University, 1500; he promoted the Polyglot
+Bible.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> (1428-1524), taught medicine at Ferrara and made translations from
+Aristotle, Dio Cassius, Galen and Hippocrates.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> (d. 1525) Professor of Medicine at Naples, and from 1507 at Venice;
+physician to Aldus's household, where he met Erasmus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> (1466-1532), physician, astronomer and humanist; learned Greek with
+Erasmus in Paris. He was physician to the Court of Francis I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> (1479-1537), Dean of the Medical Faculty at Paris, 1508-9, and Physician
+to Francis I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> (1467/8-1540), the Parisian humanist, whose <i>Annotationes
+in xxiv Pandectarum libros</i> were published by Badius in 1508.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Ulrich Z&auml;si or Zasius (1461-1535) Lector Ordinarius in Laws at Freiburg
+from 1506 until his death.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Henry Loriti of canton Glarus, usually known as Glareanus (1488-1563),
+had an academy at Basle where he took in thirty boarders.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Published at Basle, March 1519.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> A translation of Galen's <i>Methodus medendi</i>, not
+printed until June 1519. Lupset supervised the printing.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> This may be the <i>De pueris statim ac liberaliter
+instituendis</i>, composed in Italy. More writes to Erasmus in 1516
+(Allen 502) that he has received part of the MS. from Lupset, but it was
+not published until 1529.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Luther's <i>Theses</i>, posted 31 October 1517 and printed
+shortly afterwards at Wittenberg.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> The proposals for a crusade drawn up at Rome, 16 November
+1517.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> The <i>Julius Exclusus</i>, an attack on Pope Julius II,
+who died 1513. Erasmus never directly denied his authorship, and More
+speaks of a copy in Erasmus's hand (Allen 502).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Beat Bild (1485-1547), whose family came from Rheinau near Schlettstadt,
+became M.A., Paris, in 1505. He worked as a corrector at Henry
+Stephanus's press in Paris, with Sch&uuml;rer in Strasbourg, and from 1511 for fifteen
+years with Amerbach and Froben in Basle, where he edited and superintended
+the publication of numerous books.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Haecceity, 'thisness', 'individuality', t.t. of Scotistic
+philosophy, cf. quiddity, 'essence'.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> I.e. the Literary Society of Strasbourg. A letter survives, addressed to
+Erasmus in the name of this Society, dated 1 September 1514, in which occur
+all the names mentioned here, with the exception of Gerbel's.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> A portrait drawing of Varnb&uuml;ler by Albrecht D&uuml;rer is in the Albertina,
+Vienna; D&uuml;rer made also a woodcut from it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Hermann, Count of Neuenahr (1492-1530), a pupil of Caesarius, with
+whom he visited Italy in 1508-9. In 1517 he lectured in Cologne on Greek and
+Hebrew, and became later Chancellor of the University. Among his works is a
+letter in defence of Erasmus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> <i>Operationes in Psalmos</i>. Wittenberg, 1519.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> James Probst or Proost (Pr&aelig;positus) of Ypres (1486-1562).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Ulrich Hutten (1488-1523), the German knight and humanist.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Satires 2, vii. 96 (where however the gladiators are the
+subject, and not the artists, of a crude charcoal sketch).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Sir Thomas More's portrait at the age of fifty was painted by Hans Holbein;
+it is now in the Frick Collection, New York. Two portrait drawings of him
+by Holbein are in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. See also p. 236, note 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> John More (1453?-1530), at this time a Judge of Common Pleas, promoted
+to the King's Bench in 1523.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Jane Colt (<i>c.</i> 1487-1511).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> More's second daughter was Elizabeth; Alice was the name of
+his stepdaughter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Alice Middleton.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> A group portrait of Sir Thomas More with his entire family was painted
+by Hans Holbein about 1527-8 at More's house in Chelsea. It was commissioned
+from the artist at the recommendation of Erasmus. The original has been lost;
+see Plate XXIX and p. 260.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> More was elected Under-Sheriff, 1510.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> W. Pirckheimer (1470-1530), humanist. After studying law and Greek in
+Italy he settled at Nuremberg. Some of his works were illustrated by D&uuml;rer.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Alexander Stewart (<i>c.</i> 1493-1513), natural son of
+James IV of Scotland, fell at Flodden. Erasmus was his tutor in Italy in
+1508-9. For details of this ring see p. 247 f.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> D&uuml;rer made three portraits of him, two drawings (now in Berlin and in
+Brunswick) and an engraving.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> The Greek sculptor, <i>c.</i> 350 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> In a letter to Pirckheimer
+dated 8 January
+1523-4 (Allen 1408, 29 n.) Erasmus appears dissatisfied with the reverse of the
+medal cast by Metsys in 1519. Extant examples all show a reverse revised in
+accordance with his suggestions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> A drawing of Erasmus was made by D&uuml;rer in 1520 (now in the Louvre),
+and an engraving in 1526.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Erasmus had his portrait painted by Holbein several times in 1523-4 and
+1530-1. A number of originals and copies are still extant.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Luther's letter, in which he evidently attempted to mitigate Erasmus's
+indignation against his <i>De Servo Arbitrio</i> (The Will not free), which was a reply
+to Erasmus's <i>De Libero Arbitrio</i> (On free Will), 1524. Luther's letter came 'too
+late' because Erasmus had already composed the <i>Hyperaspistes Diatribe adversus
+Servum Arbitrium Martini Lutheri</i>, Basle, Froben, 1526.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> John Fisher (1459?-1535).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> John Dobeneck of Wendelstein.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> i.e., the <i>De Libero Arbitrio</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Reading <i>reticeo</i> for <i>retices</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Theophrastus Bombast of Einsiedeln (also known as Theophrastus of
+Hohenheim, whence his ancestors came), 1493-1541. The name Paracelsus may
+be a translation of Hohenheim, or may signify a claim to be greater than
+Celsus, the Roman physician. Appointed <i>physicus et ordinarius Basiliensis</i> in 1527.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Paracelsus had diagnosed the stone, from which Erasmus suffered, as being
+due to crystallization of salt in the kidneys.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Froben died before the year was out.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Martin Butzer (<i>c.</i> 1491-1551), later Bucer, a Dominican, who obtained
+dispensation from his vows in 1521 and adhered to the Reformation. At this
+time he was a member of the Strasbourg party, and this letter is probably an
+answer to a request for an interview for Bucer and other Strasbourg delegates on
+their way through Basle to Berne. He eventually became Regius Professor of
+Divinity at Cambridge under Edward VI.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Henry of Eppendorff, a former friend who followed Hutten on his quarrel
+with Erasmus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Erasmus stated in the <i>Responsio</i> of 1 August 1530, that in the Reformed
+schools little was taught beyond <i>dogmata et linguae</i> and it may be some such
+criticism, based on what he had heard from a reliable source (perhaps Pirckheimer
+at Nuremberg), to which Bucer had taken exception in his letter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Alfonso Valdes (1490?-1532), a devoted admirer of Erasmus, was from
+1522 onwards one of Charles V's secretaries. He wrote two dialogues in
+defence of the Emperor.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> On this gem see Edgar Wind, 'Aenigma Termini,' in <i>Journ. of the Warburg
+Institute</i>, I (1937-8), p. 66.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Greek god of ridicule.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Livy, I, 55, 3. Livy refers to the clearing of the Tarpeian
+rock by Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>), involving the
+deconsecration of existing shrines, as a preliminary to the building of
+the temple of Juppiter Capitolinus. The auguries allowed the evacuation
+of the other gods, Terminus and Juventas alone refusing to depart.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Livy, 5, 54, 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> See p. 66.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Preface to <i>T. Livii ... histori&aelig;</i>, Basle, Froben,
+1531. Charles Blount (b. 1518), eldest son of William Blount, Lord
+Mountjoy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> <i>c.</i> 1495-1541, Professor of Greek at Basle, 1529. He
+found the MS. containing Livy, Bks. 41-5, in 1527.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Not 'illuminated.' Erasmus refers elsewhere (Allen 919. 55)
+to a codex as <i>non scripto sed picto</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> The MS., now lost, containing Bks. 33, 17-49 and 40, 37-59,
+found in the cathedral library at Mainz, published in Mainz, J.
+Schoeffer, November 1518.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> (1498?-1570). Taught Latin and Greek at Freiburg and became
+head of a college there; in 1534 became the first Professor of Latin in
+the Coll&egrave;ge de France. Retired to Coblenz in 1542.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> By the Edict of Courcy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> Amos iii. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Richard Reynolds of the Bridgettine Syon College at Isleworth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> More had been executed 6 July 1535.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a>
+Lit. 'not even the peeping of an ass is safe.' This Greek proverb, used of those
+who go to law about trifles, refers to the story of a potter whose wares were
+smashed by a donkey in the workshop going to look out of the window. In
+court the potter, asked of what he complained, replied: 'Of the peeping of an
+ass.' See Apuleius, <i>Met.</i> <span class="smcap">IX.</span>, 42.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="illustrations" id="illustrations"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I</span>. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. By Quentin Metsys. 1517. Rome, Galleria
+Corsini. <i>Facing p. 14</i></p>
+
+<p>One half of a diptych, the pendant being a portrait of Erasmus's friend,
+Pierre Gilles (Petrus Aegidius), town clerk of Antwerp. The diptych was sent
+to Sir Thomas More in London; the portrait of Gilles is now in the collection
+of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">II</span>. VIEW OF ROTTERDAM at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Contemporary
+engraving, hand-coloured. <i>Facing p. 15</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">III</span>. PORTRAIT BUST OF JOHN COLET, Dean of St. Paul's (1467-1519). By
+Pietro Torrigiano. St. Paul's School, Hammersmith, London. <i>Facing p. 30</i></p>
+
+<p>John Colet, a close friend of Erasmus (see pp. 30-1), founded St. Paul's
+School. The artist, a Florentine sculptor, was active in London for many years
+and is best known for his effigies on some of the royal tombs in Westminster
+Abbey. The attribution of this bust is due to F. Grossmann (<i>Journal of the
+Warburg and Courtauld Institutes</i>, <span class="smcap">XIII</span>, July 1950),
+who identified it as a cast
+from Torrigiano's original bust on Colet's tomb (destroyed in the Great Fire
+of 1666) and also pointed out that Holbein's drawing of Colet in the Royal
+Library at Windsor Castle (No. 12199) was made from the lost monument
+after Colet's death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">IV</span>. PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS MORE (1477-1535). Dated 1527. By Hans
+Holbein. New York, Frick Collection. <i>Facing p. 31</i></p>
+
+<p>See also Holbein's drawing of Thomas More with his family, Pl. <span class="smcap">XXIX</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">V</span>. Pen and ink sketches by Erasmus. 1514. Basle, University Library (MS
+A. <span class="smcap">IX</span>. 56). <i>Facing p. 46</i></p>
+
+<p>These doodles of grotesque heads and other scribbles are found in Erasmus's
+manuscript copy of the <i>Scholia to the Letters of St. Jerome</i>, preserved in the
+Library of Basle University and published by Emil Major (<i>Handzeichnungen
+des Erasmus von Rotterdam</i>, Basle, 1933). Erasmus worked on this manuscript
+shortly after his arrival in Basle in August 1514. His edition of the <i>Letters of
+Jerome</i> was published by Froben in 1516 (see p. 90).</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">VI</span>. A Manuscript Page of Erasmus. Basle, University Library. <i>Facing p. 47</i></p>
+
+<p>See note on Pl. <span class="smcap">V.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">VII</span>. Title-page of the <i>Adagia</i>, printed by Aldus Manutius in 1508. <i>Facing p. 62</i></p>
+
+<p>The printing of this edition was supervised by Erasmus during his visit to
+Venice (see pp. 64-5). On this title-page is the emblem of the Aldine Press,
+which is found again on the reverse of Aldus's portrait medal (Pl. IX).</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">VIII</span>. VIEW OF VENICE, 1493. Woodcut. <i>After p. 62</i></p>
+
+<p>From Schedel's <i>Weltchronik</i>, Nuremberg, 1493.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">IX</span>. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS. By an unknown Venetian
+medallist. Venice, Museo Correr. <i>After p. 62</i></p>
+
+<p>On the reverse, the emblem adopted by Aldus in 1495 from an antique coin,
+an anchor entwined by a dolphin. The Greek inscription,
+&sigma;&pi;&epsilon;&upsilon;&delta;&epsilon;
+&beta;&rho;&alpha;&delta;&epsilon;&omicron;&sigmaf;
+(Hasten slowly), is also of antique origin. Cf. Hill, <i>Corpus of Italian Medals</i>,
+1930, No. 536.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">X</span>. A page from the printed copy of the <i>Praise of Folly</i> with a drawing by Hans
+Holbein. Basle, &Ouml;ffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). <i>Facing p. 63</i></p>
+
+<p>This copy of the <i>Laus Stultitiae</i>, which Holbein decorated with marginal
+drawings in 1515, belonged at that time to Oswald Myconius, a friend of
+Froben's. Apparently not all the drawings in the book are by Hans Holbein.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing shows Erasmus working at his desk, fol. S.3 recto. Above
+this thumbnail sketch there is a Latin note in the handwriting of Myconius:
+'When Erasmus came here and saw this portrait, he exclaimed, "Heigh-ho,
+if Erasmus still looked like that, he would quickly find himself a wife!"'</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XI</span>. A page from the printed copy of the <i>Praise of Folly</i> with a drawing by
+Hans Holbein. Basle, &Ouml;ffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). <i>Facing p. 78</i></p>
+
+<p>See note on Pl. <span class="smcap">X</span>. This is the last page of the book, fol. X.4 recto; the
+drawing shows Folly descending from the pulpit at the close of her discourse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XII</span>. THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS. Woodcut by Albrecht D&uuml;rer,
+1520-1. <i>Facing p. 79</i></p>
+
+<p>Josse Badius of Brabant had established in Paris the Ascensian Press (named
+after his native place, Assche); he printed many books by Erasmus. See pp. 60,
+79-83.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XIII</span>. PORTRAIT OF JOHANNES FROBEN (1460-1527). By Hans Holbein.
+About 1522-3. Hampton Court, H.M. The Queen. <i>Facing p. 86</i></p>
+
+<p>On this portrait of Erasmus's printer, publisher and friend, see Paul Ganz,
+<i>The Paintings of Hans Holbein</i>, 1950, Cat. No. 33.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XIV</span>. DESIGN FOR THE PRINTER'S EMBLEM OF JOHANNES FROBEN.
+Tempera on canvas, heightened with gold. By Hans Holbein. 1523. Basle,
+&Ouml;ffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). <i>Facing p. 87</i></p>
+
+<p>The emblem shows the wand of Mercury, and two serpents with a dove,
+an allusion to the Gospel of St. Matthew, x. 16: 'Be ye therefore wise as
+serpents and harmless as doves.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XV</span>. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS. Drawing by Hans Holbein. 1523. Paris,
+Louvre. <i>Facing p. 102</i></p>
+
+<p>These studies were used by Holbein for his portraits of Erasmus now at
+Longford Castle (Pl. <span class="smcap">XVI</span>) and in the Louvre (Pl. <span class="smcap">XXVIII</span>).</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XVI</span>. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57. Dated 1523. By Hans
+Holbein. Longford Castle, Earl of Radnor. <i>Facing p. 103</i></p>
+
+<p>The Greek inscription, 'The Labours of Hercules', alludes to Erasmus's own
+view of his life (see p. 125). On this portrait see P. Ganz, op. cit., Cat. No. 34.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XVII</span>. VIEW OF BASLE. Woodcut. <i>Facing p. 134</i></p>
+
+<p>From the <i>Chronik</i> by Johann Stumpf, 1548.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XVIII</span>. Title-page of the New Testament, printed by Froben in 1520. Designed
+by Hans Holbein. <i>Facing p. 135</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XIX</span>. THE ERASMUS HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT NEAR BRUSSELS. <i>Facing p. 150</i></p>
+
+<p>From May to November 1521 Erasmus stayed here as the guest of his friend,
+the canon Pierre Wichmann. The house was built in 1515 under the sign of
+the Swan. It is now a museum in which are preserved numerous relics of
+Erasmus and his age.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XX</span>. The Room used by Erasmus as study during his stay at
+Anderlecht. <i>Facing p. 151</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXI</span>. PORTRAIT OF MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK. Engraving by Lucas
+Cranach. 1520. <i>Facing p. 158</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXII</span>. PORTRAIT OF ULRICH VON HUTTEN (1488-1523). Anonymous
+German woodcut. <i>Facing p. 159</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXIII</span>. THE HOUSE 'ZUM WALFISCH' AT FREIBURG-IM-BREISGAU.
+<i>Facing p. 174</i></p>
+
+<p>When Erasmus arrived in Freiburg in 1529, he was invited by the Town
+Council to live in this house, which had been built for the Emperor Maximilian.
+See p. 176.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXIV</span>. PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL HIERONYMUS ALEANDER. Drawing.
+Arras, Library. <i>Facing p. 175</i></p>
+
+<p>One of the 280 portrait drawings collected in the codex known as the <i>Recueil
+d'Arras</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXV</span>. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. By Hans Holbein. 1531-2. Basle, &Ouml;ffentliche
+Kunstsammlung (Print Room). <i>Facing p. 190</i></p>
+
+<p>'Holbein may have painted this little roundel on the occasion of a visit to
+Erasmus at Freiburg' (P. Ganz, op. cit.).</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXVI</span>. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY. Woodcut, 1530.
+<i>Facing p. 191</i></p>
+
+<p>The woodcut shows the aged Erasmus dictating to his amanuensis Gilbertus
+Cognatus in a room of the University of Freiburg. From <i>Effigies Desiderii
+Erasmi Roterdami ... &amp; Gilberti Cognati Nozereni</i>, Basle, Joh. Oporinus, 1533.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXVII</span>. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ERASMUS. By Quentin Metsys. 1519.
+London, British Museum. <i>Facing p. 206</i></p>
+
+<p>The reverse shows Erasmus's device, Terminus, and the motto <i>Concedo
+nulli</i>, both of which were also engraved on his sealing ring. For Erasmus's
+own interpretation see his letter, pp. 246-8. The Greek inscription means,
+'His writings will give you a better picture of him'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXVIII</span>. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. After 1523. By Hans Holbein. Paris,
+Louvre. <i>Facing p. 207</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXIX</span>. THOMAS MORE AND HIS FAMILY. Pen and ink sketch by Hans
+Holbein, 1527. Basle, &Ouml;ffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). <i>Facing p. 238</i></p>
+
+<p>'The portrait, probably commissioned on the occasion of the scholar's
+fiftieth birthday, shows him surrounded by his large family. It is the first
+example of an intimate group portrait not of devotional or ceremonial
+character painted this side of the Alps. At that time Thomas More was living
+in his country house at Chelsea with his second wife, Alice, his father, his only
+son and his son's fianc&eacute;e, three married daughters, eleven grandchildren and a
+relative, Margaret Giggs. The artist, who had been recommended to him by
+his friend Erasmus, was also enjoying his hospitality.' (P. Ganz, op. cit., Cat.
+No. 175).</p>
+
+<p>The original painting is lost; a copy by Richard Locky, dated 1530, is at
+Nostell Priory. The drawing was sent by More to Erasmus at Basle so as to
+introduce his family, for which purpose the names and ages were inscribed.
+In two letters to Sir Thomas and his daughter, dated 5 and 6 September 1530,
+Erasmus sent his enthusiastic thanks: 'I cannot put into words the deep pleasure
+I felt when the painter Holbein gave me the picture of your whole family,
+which is so completely successful that I should scarcely be able to see you better
+if I were with you.' (Allen, vol. 8, Nos. 2211-2).</p>
+
+<p>Compare also Erasmus's pen portrait of Sir Thomas More in his letter to
+Hutten, pp. 231-9.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXX</span>. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. Charcoal drawing by Albrecht D&uuml;rer, dated
+1520. Paris, Louvre. <i>Facing p. 239</i></p>
+
+<p>Drawn at Antwerp, during D&uuml;rer's journey to the Netherlands. When he
+received the false news of the murder of Luther at Whitsuntide 1521, D&uuml;rer
+wrote in his diary: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou? Listen, thou
+Knight of Christ, ride out with the Lord Christ, defend the truth and earn for
+thyself the martyr's crown!'</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXXI</span>. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. Engraving by Albrecht D&uuml;rer, dated
+1526. <i>Facing p. 246</i></p>
+
+<p>In his <i>Diary of a Journey to the Netherlands</i>, D&uuml;rer noted in late
+August 1520: 'I have taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait once more',
+but he does not say when he took his first portrait. The earlier work is
+assumed to have been done one month before, and to be identical with the
+drawing in the Louvre (Pl. <span class="smcap">XXX</span>). This drawing is mentioned by
+Erasmus himself in a letter to Pirckheimer of 1525 (p. 240); in an
+earlier letter to the same friend (1522) he says that D&uuml;rer had started
+to paint him in 1520. The second portrait drawing is lost; hence it
+cannot be proved that this second portrait was made in metal point&mdash;as
+is usually assumed&mdash;and not in charcoal, or that the engraving here
+reproduced was based on it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">XXXII</span>. TERMINUS. Erasmus's device. Pen and ink drawing by Hans Holbein.
+Basle, &Ouml;ffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). <i>Facing p. 247</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Frontispiece</i>: DECORATIVE PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS WITH HIS DEVICE,
+TERMINUS. Engraving by Hans Holbein, 1535.</p>
+
+
+<h3>ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS</h3>
+
+<p>For help in the collection of illustrations we are specially indebted to M.
+Daniel van Damme, Curator of the Erasmus Museum at Anderlecht and
+author of the <i>Eph&eacute;m&eacute;ride illustr&eacute;e de la Vie d'Erasme</i>, published in 1936 on the
+occasion of the fourth centenary of Erasmus's death. For photographs and
+permission to reproduce we have to thank also the Frick Collection, New York
+(Pl. <span class="smcap">iv</span>), the &Ouml;ffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle (Pl.
+<span class="smcap">X</span>-<span class="smcap">XI</span>, <span class="smcap">XIV</span>, <span class="smcap">XXV</span>,
+<span class="smcap">XXIX</span>, <span class="smcap">XXXII</span>), the Library of Basle University (Pl.
+<span class="smcap">V</span>-<span class="smcap">VI</span>), and the Warburg
+Institute, University of London (Pl. <span class="smcap">iii</span>). The photographs for Pl.
+<span class="smcap">II</span>, <span class="smcap">VII</span>,
+<span class="smcap">XVIII</span>-<span class="smcap">XX</span> and <span class="smcap">XXVI</span> are by M. Mauhin, Anderlecht, those for
+Plates <span class="smcap">VIII</span>
+and <span class="smcap">XVII</span> by Dr. F. Stoedtner, D&uuml;sseldorf, and that for Plate <span class="smcap">IX</span>
+by Fiorentini,
+Venice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="index" id="index"></a>INDEX OF NAMES</h2>
+
+
+<p>Adrian of Utrecht, Dean, later Pope, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></p>
+
+<p>Agricola, Rudolf, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p>
+
+<p>Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mayence, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-aldus" id="index-aldus"></a>Aldus Manutius, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></p>
+
+<p>Aleander, Hieronymus, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></p>
+
+<p>Alidosi, Francesco, <a href="#Footnote_50_50">214n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Amerbach, Bonifacius, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Footnote_73_73">223n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Amerbach, Johannes, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></p>
+
+<p>Ammonius, Andrew, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></p>
+
+<p>Andrelinus, Faustus, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-anna" id="index-anna"></a>Anna of Borselen, Lady of Veere, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>,
+<a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200-1</a></p>
+
+<p>Asolani, Andrea, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></p>
+
+<p>Ath, Jean Briard of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-aurelius" id="index-aurelius"></a>Aurelius (Cornelius Gerard of Gouda), <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Badius, Josse, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Footnote_64_64">219n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Balbi, Girolamo, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></p>
+
+<p>Barbaro, Ermolao, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></p>
+
+<p>Batt, James, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></p>
+
+<p>Beatus Rhenanus, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></p>
+
+<p>Becar, John, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></p>
+
+<p>Beda (Noel Bedier), <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></p>
+
+<p>Bembo, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></p>
+
+<p>Ber, Louis, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></p>
+
+<p>Berckman, Francis, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></p>
+
+<p>Bergen, Anthony of, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></p>
+
+<p>Berquin, Louis de, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></p>
+
+<p>Berselius, Paschasius, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></p>
+
+<p>Blount, Charles, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-blount" id="index-blount"></a>Blount, William, Lord Mountjoy, <a href="#Page_27">27-8</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Footnote_8_8">59n.</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></p>
+
+<p>Boerio, Giovanni Battista, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></p>
+
+<p>Bombasius, Paul, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></p>
+
+<p>Bouts, Dirck, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></p>
+
+<p>Boys, Hector, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></p>
+
+<p>Brie, Germain de, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></p>
+
+<p>Bucer (Butzer), Martin, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></p>
+
+<p>Budaeus, William, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></p>
+
+<p>Busch, Hermann, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Busleiden, Francis of, archbishop of Besan&ccedil;on, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></p>
+
+<p>Busleiden, Jerome, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Cajetanus, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p>
+
+<p>Calvin, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></p>
+
+<p>Caminade, Augustine, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></p>
+
+<p>Canossa, Count, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></p>
+
+<p>Capito, Wolfgang Fabricius, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></p>
+
+<p>Catherine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></p>
+
+<p>Charles V, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145-6</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></p>
+
+<p>Charnock, prior, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></p>
+
+<p>Cinicampius, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-eschenfelder">Eschenfelder</a></p>
+
+<p>Clement VII, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></p>
+
+<p>Clyfton, tutor, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-cochleus" id="index-cochleus"></a>Cochleus, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></p>
+
+<p>Colet, John, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></p>
+
+<p>Cop, William, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></p>
+
+<p>Cornelius, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-aurelius">Aurelius</a></p>
+
+<p>Cratander, <a href="#Page_85">85</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>David of Burgundy, bishop of Utrecht, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></p>
+
+<p>Decanus, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Denk, Hans, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></p>
+
+<p>Dirks, Vincent, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></p>
+
+<p>Dobeneck, John, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-cochleus">Cochleus</a></p>
+
+<p>Dorp, Martin van, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer, Albrecht, <a href="#Page_148">148-9</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Footnote_76_76">224n.</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Eck, Johannes, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p>
+
+<p>Egmond, Nicholas of (Egmondanus), <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></p>
+
+<p>Egnatius, Baptista, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></p>
+
+<p>Episcopius, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></p>
+
+<p>Eppendorff, Henry of, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-eschenfelder" id="index-eschenfelder"></a>Eschenfelder, Christopher, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>&Eacute;tienne, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-stephanus">Stephanus</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Faber, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-lefevre">Lef&egrave;vre</a></p>
+
+<p>Farel, Guillaume, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></p>
+
+<p>Ferdinand, archduke, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></p>
+
+<p>Ficino, Marsilio, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></p>
+
+<p>Filelfo, Francesco, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></p>
+
+<p>Fisher, John, bishop of Rochester, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Footnote_50_50">214n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Fisher, Robert, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></p>
+
+<p>Flaminius, John, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></p>
+
+<p>Foxe, Richard, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></p>
+
+<p>Francis I, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218-19</a></p>
+
+<p>Frederick of Saxony, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></p>
+
+<p>Froben, Johannes, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Footnote_73_73">223n.</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></p>
+
+<p>Froben, Johannes Erasmius, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></p>
+
+<p>Fugger, Anthony, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Gaguin, Robert, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></p>
+
+<p>Gallinarius, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></p>
+
+<p>Gebwiler, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>George of Saxony, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></p>
+
+<p>Gerard, Cornelius, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-aurelius">Aurelius</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-gerard" id="index-gerard"></a>Gerard, Erasmus's father, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></p>
+
+<p>Gerbel, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Gigli, Silvestro, bishop of Worcester, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></p>
+
+<p>Gilles, Peter, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-glareanus" id="index-glareanus"></a>Glareanus, Henri (Loriti), <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></p>
+
+<p>Gourmont, Gilles, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Footnote_47_47">209n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Grey, Thomas, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></p>
+
+<p>Grimani, Domenico, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Footnote_9_9">67n.</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></p>
+
+<p>Grocyn, William, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></p>
+
+<p>Groote, Geert <a href="#Page_3">3</a></p>
+
+<p>Grunnius, Lambertus, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></p>
+
+<p>Grynaeus, Simon, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></p>
+
+<p>Guib&eacute;, Robert, bishop of Nantes, <a href="#Footnote_52_52">215n.</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Hegius, Alexander, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p>
+
+<p>Henry of Bergen, bishop of Cambray, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></p>
+
+<p>Henry VII, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></p>
+
+<p>Henry VIII, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></p>
+
+<p>Hermans, William, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></p>
+
+<p>Hermonymus, George, <a href="#Footnote_34_34">204n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Holbein, Hans, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Footnote_82_82">232n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_87_87">236n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Hollonius, Lambert, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></p>
+
+<p>Hoogstraten, Jacob, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></p>
+
+<p>Hutten, Ulrich von, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128-9</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></p>
+
+
+<p>James IV, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></p>
+
+<p>John of Trazegnies, <a href="#Footnote_5_5">50n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Julius II, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Karlstadt, Andreas, <a href="#Page_141">141</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lachner, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></p>
+
+<p>Lang, John, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></p>
+
+<p>Langenfeld, John, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Lascaris, Johannes, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></p>
+
+<p>Lasco, Johannes a, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></p>
+
+<p>Latimer, William, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></p>
+
+<p>Latomus, Bartholomew, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></p>
+
+<p>Latomus, James, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></p>
+
+<p>Laurin, Mark, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></p>
+
+<p>Lee, Edward, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-lefevre" id="index-lefevre"></a>Lef&egrave;vre d'&Eacute;taples, Jacques, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></p>
+
+<p>Leo, Ambrose, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-leo-x" id="index-leo-x"></a>Leo X, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></p>
+
+<p>Leonicenus, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></p>
+
+<p>Linacre, Thomas, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></p>
+
+<p>Longolius, Christopher, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></p>
+
+<p>Loriti, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-glareanus">Glareanus</a></p>
+
+<p>Loyola, Ignatius of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></p>
+
+<p>Lupset, <a href="#Footnote_68_68">221n.</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></p>
+
+<p>Luther, Martin, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139-50</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161-5</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></p>
+
+<p>Lypsius, Martin, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></p>
+
+<p>Lyra, Nicholas of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Maertensz, Dirck, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></p>
+
+<p>Manutius, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-aldus">Aldus</a></p>
+
+<p>Mary of Hungary, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></p>
+
+<p>Maternus, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Matthias, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></p>
+
+<p>Maximilian, emperor, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></p>
+
+<p>Medici, Giovanni de', <i>see</i> <a href="#index-leo-x">Leo X</a></p>
+
+<p>Melanchthon, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></p>
+
+<p>Metsys, Quentin, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Footnote_92_92">240n.</a></p>
+
+<p>More, Thomas, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231-9</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></p>
+
+<p>Mountjoy, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-blount">Blount</a></p>
+
+<p>Musurus, Marcus, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></p>
+
+<p>Mutianus, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Neuenahr, Hermann Count of, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></p>
+
+<p>Northoff, brothers, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Obrecht, Johannes, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></p>
+
+<p>Oecolampadius, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></p>
+
+<p>Osiander, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Pace, Richard, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></p>
+
+<p>Paludanus, Johannes, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></p>
+
+<p>Paracelsus, Theophrastus, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></p>
+
+<p>Paul III, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></p>
+
+<p>Peter Gerard, Erasmus's brother, <a href="#Page_5">5-10</a></p>
+
+<p>Phileticus, Martin, <a href="#Footnote_40_40">205n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Philip le Beau, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Footnote_8_8">59n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Philippi, John, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></p>
+
+<p>Pico della Mirandola, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></p>
+
+<p>Pio, Alberto, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></p>
+
+<p>Pirckheimer, Willibald, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></p>
+
+<p>Platter, Thomas, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></p>
+
+<p>Politian, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></p>
+
+<p>Poncher, &Eacute;tienne, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></p>
+
+<p>Probst (Proost), James, <a href="#Footnote_79_79">231n.</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Reuchlin, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></p>
+
+<p>Reynolds, Richard, <a href="#Footnote_119_119">252n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Riario, Raffaele, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Footnote_50_50">214n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Roger, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-gerard">Gerard</a></p>
+
+<p>Rombout, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></p>
+
+<p>Rudolfingen, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Ruell, John, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Sadolet, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></p>
+
+<p>Sapidus, Johannes, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></p>
+
+<p>Sasboud, <a href="#Page_15">15</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sauvage, John le, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></p>
+
+<p>Scaliger, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></p>
+
+<p>Sch&uuml;rer, M., <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Footnote_47_47">209n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_73_73">223n.</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Servatius Roger, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></p>
+
+<p>Sixtin, John, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></p>
+
+<p>Sluter, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></p>
+
+<p>Spalatinus, George, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></p>
+
+<p>Stadion, Christopher of, bishop of Augsburg, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></p>
+
+<p>Standonck, John, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-stephanus" id="index-stephanus"></a>Stephanus, Henricus, <a href="#Footnote_73_73">223n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Stewart, Alexander, archbishop of St. Andrews, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></p>
+
+<p>Stewart, James, <a href="#Footnote_24_24">198n.</a></p>
+
+<p>Stunica, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-zuniga">Zu&ntilde;iga</a></p>
+
+<p>Suderman, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></p>
+
+<p>Synthen, Johannes, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Talesius, Quirin, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></p>
+
+<p>Tapper, Ruurd, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></p>
+
+<p>Theodoric, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></p>
+
+<p>Thomas &agrave; Kempis, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></p>
+
+<p>Tunstall, Cuthbert, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Urswick, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></p>
+
+<p>Utenheim, Christopher of, bishop of Basle, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></p>
+
+<p>Utenhove, Charles, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></p>
+
+<p>Valdes, Alfonso, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></p>
+
+<p>Valla, Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></p>
+
+<p>Varnb&uuml;ler, Ulrich, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></p>
+
+<p>Veere, <i>see</i> <a href="#index-anna">Anna of Borselen</a></p>
+
+<p>Vianen, William of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></p>
+
+<p>Vincent, Augustine, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></p>
+
+<p>Vitrier, Jean, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></p>
+
+<p>Vives, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></p>
+
+<p>Voecht, Jacobus, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Warham, William, archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></p>
+
+<p>Watson, John, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></p>
+
+<p>Werner, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></p>
+
+<p>William of Orange, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></p>
+
+<p>Wimpfeling, Jacob, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></p>
+
+<p>Winckel, Peter, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></p>
+
+<p>Woerden, Cornelius of, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></p>
+
+<p>Wolsey, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Footnote_54_54">215n.</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Ximenes, F., archbishop of Toledo, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Footnote_59_59">218n.</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Zasius, Ulrich, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="index-zuniga" id="index-zuniga"></a>Zu&ntilde;iga, Diego Lopez, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></p>
+
+<p>Zwingli, Ulrich, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, by 
+Johan Huizinga
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22900-h.htm or 22900-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/9/0/22900/
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Juliet Sutherland, David King,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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+
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,10679 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, by Johan Huizinga
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Erasmus and the Age of Reformation
+
+Author: Johan Huizinga
+
+Release Date: October 5, 2007 [EBook #22900]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hagerson, Juliet Sutherland, David King,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION
+
+
+JOHAN HUIZINGA
+
+_with a selection from the letters of Erasmus_
+
+
+HARPER TORCHBOOKS / The Cloister Library
+
+HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS
+
+NEW YORK, EVANSTON, AND LONDON
+
+[Illustration: WOODCUT BY HANS HOLBEIN. 1535]
+
+
+
+ERASMUS AND THE AGE OF REFORMATION
+
+_Printed in the United States of America_
+
+Huizinga's text was translated from the Dutch by F. Hopman and first
+published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1924. The section from the
+Letters of Erasmus was translated by Barbara Flower.
+
+Reprinted by arrangement with Phaidon Press, Ltd., London
+
+Originally published under the title: "Erasmus of Rotterdam"
+
+First HARPER TORCHBOOK edition published 1957
+
+Library of Congress catalogue card number 57-10119
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+_Preface by G. N. Clark_ xi
+
+CHAP.
+
+    I CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH, 1466-88 1
+
+   II IN THE MONASTERY, 1488-95 10
+
+  III THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, 1495-9 20
+
+   IV FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND, 1499-1500 29
+
+   V ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST 39
+
+   VI THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS, 1501 47
+
+  VII YEARS OF TROUBLE--LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND, 1502-6 55
+
+ VIII IN ITALY, 1506-9 62
+
+   IX THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 69
+
+    X THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND, 1509-14 79
+
+   XI A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY, 1514-16 87
+
+  XII ERASMUS'S MIND 100
+
+ XIII ERASMUS'S MIND (_continued_) 109
+
+  XIV ERASMUS'S CHARACTER 117
+
+   XV AT LOUVAIN, 1517-18 130
+
+  XVI FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION 139
+
+ XVII ERASMUS AT BASLE, 1521-9 151
+
+XVIII CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER AND GROWING CONSERVATISM, 1524-6 161
+
+  XIX AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS, 1528-9 170
+
+   XX LAST YEARS 179
+
+  XXI CONCLUSION 188
+
+SELECTED LETTERS OF ERASMUS 195
+
+_List of Illustrations_ 257
+
+_Index of Names_ 263
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_by G.N. Clark, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford_
+
+
+Rather more than twenty years ago, on a spring morning of alternate
+cloud and sunshine, I acted as guide to Johan Huizinga, the author of
+this book, when he was on a visit to Oxford. As it was not his first
+stay in the city, and he knew the principal buildings already, we looked
+at some of the less famous. Even with a man who was well known all over
+the world as a writer, I expected that these two or three hours would be
+much like the others I had spent in the same capacity with other
+visitors; but this proved to be a day to remember. He understood the
+purposes of these ancient buildings, the intentions of their founders
+and builders; but that was to be expected from an historian who had
+written upon the history of universities and learning. What surprised
+and delighted me was his seeing eye. He told me which of the decorative
+_motifs_ on the Tower of the Four Orders were usual at the time when it
+was built, and which were less common. At All Souls he pointed out the
+seldom appreciated merits of Hawksmoor's twin towers. His eye was not
+merely informed but sensitive. I remembered that I had heard of his
+talent for drawing, and as we walked and talked I felt the influence of
+a strong, quiet personality deep down in which an artist's
+perceptiveness was fused with a determination to search for historical
+truth.
+
+Huizinga's great success and reputation came suddenly when he was over
+forty. Until that time his powers were ripening, not so much slowly as
+secretly. His friends knew that he was unique, but neither he nor they
+foresaw what direction his studies would take. He was born in 1872 in
+Groningen, the most northerly of the chief towns of the Netherlands, and
+there he went to school and to the University. He studied Dutch history
+and literature and also Oriental languages and mythology and sociology;
+he was a good linguist and he steadily accumulated great learning, but
+he was neither an infant prodigy nor a universal scholar. Science and
+current affairs scarcely interested him, and until his maturity
+imagination seemed to satisfy him more than research. Until he was over
+thirty he was a schoolmaster at Haarlem, a teacher of history; but it
+was still uncertain whether European or Oriental studies would claim him
+in the end. For two or three years before giving up school-teaching he
+lectured in the University of Amsterdam on Sanskrit, and it was almost
+an accident that he became professor of history in the University of his
+native town. All through his life it was characteristic of him that
+after a spell of creative work, when he had finished a book, he would
+turn aside from the subject that had absorbed him and plunge into some
+other subject or period, so that the books and articles in the eight
+volumes of his collected works (with one more volume still to come)
+cover a very wide range. As time went on he examined aspects of history
+which at first he had passed over, and he acquired a clear insight into
+the political and economic life of the past. It has been well said of
+him that he never became either a pedant or a doctrinaire. During the
+ten years that he spent as professor at Groningen, he found himself. He
+was happily married, with a growing family, and the many elements of his
+mind drew together into a unity. His sensitiveness to style and beauty
+came to terms with his conscientious scholarship. He was rooted in the
+traditional freedoms of his national and academic environment, but his
+curiosity, like the historical adventures of his people and his
+profession, was not limited by time or space or prejudice. He came more
+and more definitely to find his central theme in civilization as a
+realized ideal, something that men have created in an endless variety of
+forms, but always in order to raise the level of their lives.
+
+While this interior fulfilment was bringing Huizinga to his best, the
+world about him changed completely. In 1914, Holland became a neutral
+country surrounded by nations at war. In 1914, also, his wife died, and
+it was as a lonely widower that he was appointed in the next year to the
+chair of general history at Leyden, which he was to hold for the rest of
+his academic life. Yet the year after the end of the war saw the
+publication of his masterpiece, the book which gave him his high place
+among historical writers and was translated as _The Waning of the Middle
+Ages_. This is a study of the forms of life and thought in France and
+the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the last
+phase of one of the great European eras of civilization. In England,
+where the Middle Ages had been idealized for generations, some of its
+leading thoughts did not seem so novel as they did in Holland, where
+many people regarded the Renaissance and more still regarded the
+Reformation as a new beginning of a better world; but in England and
+America, which had been drawn, unlike Holland, into the vortex of war,
+it had the poignancy of a recall to the standards of reasonableness. It
+will long maintain its place as a historical book and as a work of
+literature.
+
+The shorter book on Erasmus is a companion to this great work. It was
+first published in 1924 and so belongs to the same best period of the
+author. Its subject is the central intellectual figure of the next
+generation after the period which Huizinga called the waning, or rather
+the autumn, of the Middle Ages; but Erasmus was also, as will appear
+from many of its pages, a man for whom he had a very special sympathy.
+Something of what he wrote about Erasmus might also have been written
+about himself, or at least about his own response to the transformation
+of the world that he had known.
+
+This is not the place for an analysis of that questioning and
+illuminating response, nor for a considered estimate of Huizinga's work
+as a whole; but there is room for a word about his last years. He was
+recognized as one of the intellectual leaders of his country, and a
+second marriage in 1937 brought back his private happiness; but the
+shadows were darkening over the western world. From the time when
+national socialism began to reveal itself in Germany, he took his stand
+against it with perfect simplicity and calm. After the invasion of
+Holland he addressed these memorable words to some of his colleagues:
+'When it comes, as it soon will, to defending our University and the
+freedom of science and learning in the Netherlands, we must be ready to
+give everything for that: our possessions, our freedom, and even our
+lives'. The Germans closed the University. For a time they held Johan
+Huizinga, now an old man and in failing health, as a hostage; then they
+banished him to open arrest in a remote parish in the eastern part of
+the country. Even in these conditions he still wrote, and wrote well. In
+the last winter of the war the liberating armies approached and he
+suffered the hardships of the civilian population in a theatre of war;
+but his spirit was unbroken. He died on 1 February 1945, a few weeks
+before his country was set free.
+
+G. N. CLARK
+
+Oriel College, Oxford
+
+April 1952
+
+
+
+
+ERASMUS
+
+_and the Age of Reformation_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH
+
+1466-88
+
+    The Low Countries in the fifteenth century--The Burgundian
+    power--Connections with the German Empire and with France--The
+    northern Netherlands outskirts in every sense--Movement of
+    _Devotio moderna_: brethren of the Common Life and Windesheim
+    monasteries--Erasmus's birth: 1466--His relations and name--At
+    school at Gouda, Deventer and Bois-le-Duc--He takes the vows:
+    probably in 1488
+
+
+When Erasmus was born Holland had for about twenty years formed part of
+the territory which the dukes of Burgundy had succeeded in uniting under
+their dominion--that complexity of lands, half French in population,
+like Burgundy, Artois, Hainault, Namur; half Dutch like Flanders,
+Brabant, Zealand, Holland. The appellation 'Holland' was, as yet,
+strictly limited to the county of that name (the present provinces of
+North and South Holland), with which Zealand, too, had long since been
+united. The remaining territories which, together with those last
+mentioned, make up the present kingdom of the Netherlands, had not yet
+been brought under Burgundian dominion, although the dukes had cast
+their eyes on them. In the bishopric of Utrecht, whose power extended to
+the regions on the far side of the river Ysel, Burgundian influence had
+already begun to make itself manifest. The projected conquest of
+Friesland was a political inheritance of the counts of Holland, who
+preceded the Burgundians. The duchy of Guelders, alone, still preserved
+its independence inviolate, being more closely connected with the
+neighbouring German territories, and consequently with the Empire
+itself.
+
+All these lands--about this time they began to be regarded collectively
+under the name of 'Low Countries by the Sea'--had in most respects the
+character of outskirts. The authority of the German emperors had for
+some centuries been little more than imaginary. Holland and Zealand
+hardly shared the dawning sense of a national German union. They had too
+long looked to France in matters political. Since 1299 a French-speaking
+dynasty, that of Hainault, had ruled Holland. Even the house of Bavaria
+that succeeded it about the middle of the fourteenth century had not
+restored closer contact with the Empire, but had itself, on the
+contrary, early become Gallicized, attracted as it was by Paris and soon
+twined about by the tentacles of Burgundy to which it became linked by
+means of a double marriage.
+
+The northern half of the Low Countries were 'outskirts' also in
+ecclesiastical and cultural matters. Brought over rather late to the
+cause of Christianity (the end of the eighth century), they had, as
+borderlands, remained united under a single bishop: the bishop of
+Utrecht. The meshes of ecclesiastical organization were wider here than
+elsewhere. They had no university. Paris remained, even after the
+designing policy of the Burgundian dukes had founded the university of
+Louvain in 1425, the centre of doctrine and science for the northern
+Netherlands. From the point of view of the wealthy towns of Flanders and
+Brabant, now the heart of the Burgundian possessions, Holland and
+Zealand formed a wretched little country of boatmen and peasants.
+Chivalry, which the dukes of Burgundy attempted to invest with new
+splendour, had but moderately thrived among the nobles of Holland. The
+Dutch had not enriched courtly literature, in which Flanders and Brabant
+zealously strove to follow the French example, by any contribution worth
+mentioning.
+
+Whatever was coming up in Holland flowered unseen; it was not of a sort
+to attract the attention of Christendom. It was a brisk navigation and
+trade, mostly transit trade, by which the Hollanders already began to
+emulate the German Hansa, and which brought them into continual contact
+with France and Spain, England and Scotland, Scandinavia, North Germany
+and the Rhine from Cologne upward. It was herring fishery, a humble
+trade, but the source of great prosperity--a rising industry, shared by
+a number of small towns.
+
+Not one of those towns in Holland and Zealand, neither Dordrecht nor
+Leyden, Haarlem, Middelburg, Amsterdam, could compare with Ghent,
+Bruges, Lille, Antwerp or Brussels in the south. It is true that in the
+towns of Holland also the highest products of the human mind germinated,
+but those towns themselves were still too small and too poor to be
+centres of art and science. The most eminent men were irresistibly drawn
+to one of the great foci of secular and ecclesiastical culture. Sluter,
+the great sculptor, went to Burgundy, took service with the dukes, and
+bequeathed no specimen of his art to the land of his birth. Dirk Bouts,
+the artist of Haarlem, removed to Louvain, where his best work is
+preserved; what was left at Haarlem has perished. At Haarlem, too, and
+earlier, perhaps, than anywhere else, obscure experiments were being
+made in that great art, craving to be brought forth, which was to change
+the world: the art of printing.
+
+There was yet another characteristic spiritual phenomenon, which
+originated here and gave its peculiar stamp to life in these countries.
+It was a movement designed to give depth and fervour to religious life;
+started by a burgher of Deventer, Geert Groote, toward the end of the
+fourteenth century. It had embodied itself in two closely connected
+forms--the fraterhouses, where the brethren of the Common Life lived
+together without altogether separating from the world, and the
+congregation of the monastery of Windesheim, of the order of the regular
+Augustinian canons. Originating in the regions on the banks of the Ysel,
+between the two small towns of Deventer and Zwolle, and so on the
+outskirts of the diocese of Utrecht, this movement soon spread, eastward
+to Westphalia, northward to Groningen and the Frisian country, westward
+to Holland proper. Fraterhouses were erected everywhere and monasteries
+of the Windesheim congregation were established or affiliated. The
+movement was spoken of as 'modern devotion', _devotio moderna_. It was
+rather a matter of sentiment and practice than of definite doctrine. The
+truly Catholic character of the movement had early been acknowledged by
+the church authorities. Sincerity and modesty, simplicity and industry,
+and, above all, constant ardour of religious emotion and thought, were
+its objects. Its energies were devoted to tending the sick and other
+works of charity, but especially to instruction and the art of writing.
+It is in this that it especially differed from the revival of the
+Franciscan and Dominican orders of about the same time, which turned to
+preaching. The Windesheimians and the Hieronymians (as the brethren of
+the Common Life were also called) exerted their crowning activities in
+the seclusion of the schoolroom and the silence of the writing cell. The
+schools of the brethren soon drew pupils from a wide area. In this way
+the foundations were laid, both here in the northern Netherlands and in
+lower Germany, for a generally diffused culture among the middle
+classes; a culture of a very narrow, strictly ecclesiastical nature,
+indeed, but which for that very reason was fit to permeate broad layers
+of the people.
+
+What the Windesheimians themselves produced in the way of devotional
+literature is chiefly limited to edifying booklets and biographies of
+their own members; writings which were distinguished rather by their
+pious tenor and sincerity than by daring or novel thoughts.
+
+But of them all, the greatest was that immortal work of Thomas a Kempis,
+Canon of Saint Agnietenberg, near Zwolle, the _Imitatio Christi_.
+
+Foreigners visiting these regions north of the Scheldt and the Meuse
+laughed at the rude manners and the deep drinking of the inhabitants,
+but they also mentioned their sincere piety. These countries were
+already, what they have ever remained, somewhat contemplative and
+self-contained, better adapted for speculating on the world and for
+reproving it than for astonishing it with dazzling wit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rotterdam and Gouda, situated upward of twelve miles apart in the lowest
+region of Holland, an extremely watery region, were not among the first
+towns of the county. They were small country towns, ranking after
+Dordrecht, Haarlem, Leyden, and rapidly rising Amsterdam. They were not
+centres of culture. Erasmus was born at Rotterdam on 27 October, most
+probably in the year 1466. The illegitimacy of his birth has thrown a
+veil of mystery over his descent and kinship. It is possible that
+Erasmus himself learned the circumstances of his coming into the world
+only in his later years. Acutely sensitive to the taint in his origin,
+he did more to veil the secret than to reveal it. The picture which he
+painted of it in his ripe age was romantic and pathetic. He imagined
+that his father when a young man made love to a girl, a physician's
+daughter, in the hope of marrying her. The parents and brothers of the
+young fellow, indignant, tried to persuade him to take holy orders. The
+young man fled before the child was born. He went to Rome and made a
+living by copying. His relations sent him false tidings that his beloved
+had died; out of grief he became a priest and devoted himself to
+religion altogether. Returned to his native country he discovered the
+deceit. He abstained from all contact with her whom he now could no
+longer marry, but took great pains to give his son a liberal education.
+The mother continued to care for the child, till an early death took her
+from him. The father soon followed her to the grave. To Erasmus's
+recollection he was only twelve or thirteen years old when his mother
+died. It seems to be practically certain that her death did not occur
+before 1483, when, therefore, he was already seventeen years old. His
+sense of chronology was always remarkably ill developed.
+
+Unfortunately it is beyond doubt that Erasmus himself knew, or had
+known, that not all particulars of this version were correct. In all
+probability his father was already a priest at the time of the
+relationship to which he owed his life; in any case it was not the
+impatience of a betrothed couple, but an irregular alliance of long
+standing, of which a brother, Peter, had been born three years before.
+
+We can only vaguely discern the outlines of a numerous and commonplace
+middle-class family. The father had nine brothers, who were all married.
+The grandparents on his father's side and the uncles on his mother's
+side attained to a very great age. It is strange that a host of
+cousins--their progeny--has not boasted of a family connection with the
+great Erasmus. Their descendants have not even been traced. What were
+their names? The fact that in burgher circles family names had, as yet,
+become anything but fixed, makes it difficult to trace Erasmus's
+kinsmen. Usually people were called by their own and their father's
+name; but it also happened that the father's name became fixed and
+adhered to the following generation. Erasmus calls his father Gerard,
+his brother Peter Gerard, while a papal letter styles Erasmus himself
+Erasmus Rogerii. Possibly the father was called Roger Gerard or Gerards.
+
+Although Erasmus and his brother were born at Rotterdam, there is much
+that points to the fact that his father's kin did not belong there, but
+at Gouda. At any rate they had near relatives at Gouda.
+
+Erasmus was his Christian name. There is nothing strange in the choice,
+although it was rather unusual. St. Erasmus was one of the fourteen Holy
+Martyrs, whose worship so much engrossed the attention of the multitude
+in the fifteenth century. Perhaps the popular belief that the
+intercession of St. Erasmus conferred wealth, had some weight in
+choosing the name. Up to the time when he became better acquainted with
+Greek, he used the form Herasmus. Later on he regretted that he had not
+also given that name the more correct and melodious form Erasmius. On a
+few occasions he half jocularly called himself so, and his godchild,
+Johannes Froben's son, always used this form.
+
+It was probably for similar aesthetic considerations that he soon
+altered the barbaric Rotterdammensis to Roterdamus, later Roterodamus,
+which he perhaps accentuated as a proparoxytone. Desiderius was an
+addition selected by himself, which he first used in 1496; it is
+possible that the study of his favourite author Jerome, among whose
+correspondents there is a Desiderius, suggested the name to him. When,
+therefore, the full form, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, first appears,
+in the second edition of the _Adagia_, published by Josse Badius at
+Paris in 1506, it is an indication that Erasmus, then forty years of
+age, had found himself.
+
+Circumstances had not made it easy for him to find his way. Almost in
+his infancy, when hardly four years old, he thinks, he had been put to
+school at Gouda, together with his brother. He was nine years old when
+his father sent him to Deventer to continue his studies in the famous
+school of the chapter of St. Lebuin. His mother accompanied him. His
+stay at Deventer must have lasted, with an interval during which he was
+a choir boy in the minster at Utrecht, from 1475 to 1484. Erasmus's
+explicit declaration that he was fourteen years old when he left
+Deventer may be explained by assuming that in later years he confused
+his temporary absence from Deventer (when at Utrecht) with the definite
+end of his stay at Deventer. Reminiscences of his life there repeatedly
+crop up in Erasmus's writings. Those concerning the teaching he got
+inspired him with little gratitude; the school was still barbaric, then,
+he said; ancient medieval text-books were used there of whose silliness
+and cumbrousness we can hardly conceive. Some of the masters were of the
+brotherhood of the Common Life. One of them, Johannes Synthen, brought
+to his task a certain degree of understanding of classic antiquity in
+its purer form. Toward the end of Erasmus's residence Alexander Hegius
+was placed at the head of the school, a friend of the Frisian humanist,
+Rudolf Agricola, who on his return from Italy was gaped at by his
+compatriots as a prodigy. On festal days, when the rector made his
+oration before all the pupils, Erasmus heard Hegius; on one single
+occasion he listened to the celebrated Agricola himself, which left a
+deep impression on his mind.
+
+His mother's death of the plague that ravaged the town brought Erasmus's
+school-time at Deventer to a sudden close. His father called him and his
+brother back to Gouda, only to die himself soon afterwards. He must have
+been a man of culture. For he knew Greek, had heard the famous humanists
+in Italy, had copied classic authors and left a library of some value.
+
+Erasmus and his brother were now under the protection of three guardians
+whose care and intentions he afterwards placed in an unfavourable light.
+How far he exaggerated their treatment of him it is difficult to decide.
+That the guardians, among whom one Peter Winckel, schoolmaster at Gouda,
+occupied the principal place, had little sympathy with the new
+classicism, about which their ward already felt enthusiastic, need not
+be doubted. 'If you should write again so elegantly, please to add a
+commentary', the schoolmaster replied grumblingly to an epistle on which
+Erasmus, then fourteen years old, had expended much care. That the
+guardians sincerely considered it a work pleasing to God to persuade the
+youths to enter a monastery can no more be doubted than that this was
+for them the easiest way to get rid of their task. For Erasmus this
+pitiful business assumes the colour of a grossly selfish attempt to
+cloak dishonest administration; an altogether reprehensible abuse of
+power and authority. More than this: in later years it obscured for him
+the image of his own brother, with whom he had been on terms of cordial
+intimacy.
+
+Winckel sent the two young fellows, twenty-one and eighteen years old,
+to school again, this time at Bois-le-Duc. There they lived in the
+Fraterhouse itself, to which the school was attached. There was nothing
+here of the glory that had shone about Deventer. The brethren, says
+Erasmus, knew of no other purpose than that of destroying all natural
+gifts, with blows, reprimands and severity, in order to fit the soul for
+the monastery. This, he thought, was just what his guardians were aiming
+at; although ripe for the university they were deliberately kept away
+from it. In this way more than two years were wasted.
+
+One of his two masters, one Rombout, who liked young Erasmus, tried hard
+to prevail on him to join the brethren of the Common Life. In later
+years Erasmus occasionally regretted that he had not yielded; for the
+brethren took no such irrevocable vows as were now in store for him.
+
+An epidemic of the plague became the occasion for the brothers to leave
+Bois-le-Duc and return to Gouda. Erasmus was attacked by a fever that
+sapped his power of resistance, of which he now stood in such need. The
+guardians (one of the three had died in the meantime) now did their
+utmost to make the two young men enter a monastery. They had good cause
+for it, as they had ill administered the slender fortune of their wards,
+and, says Erasmus, refused to render an account. Later he saw everything
+connected with this dark period of his life in the most gloomy
+colours--except himself. Himself he sees as a boy of not yet sixteen
+years (it is nearly certain that he must have been twenty already)
+weakened by fever, but nevertheless resolute and sensible in refusing.
+He has persuaded his brother to fly with him and to go to a university.
+The one guardian is a narrow-minded tyrant, the other, Winckel's
+brother, a merchant, a frivolous coaxer. Peter, the elder of the youths,
+yields first and enters the monastery of Sion, near Delft (of the order
+of the regular Augustinian canons), where the guardian had found a place
+for him. Erasmus resisted longer. Only after a visit to the monastery of
+Steyn or Emmaus, near Gouda, belonging to the same order, where he found
+a schoolfellow from Deventer, who pointed out the bright side of
+monastic life, did Erasmus yield and enter Steyn, where soon after,
+probably in 1488, he took the vows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN THE MONASTERY
+
+1488-95
+
+    Erasmus as an Augustinian canon at Steyn--His friends--Letters
+    to Servatius--Humanism in the monasteries: Latin poetry--
+    Aversion to cloister-life--He leaves Steyn to enter the
+    service of the Bishop of Cambray: 1493--James Batt--
+    _Antibarbari_--He gets leave to study at Paris: 1495
+
+
+In his later life--under the influence of the gnawing regret which his
+monkhood and all the trouble he took to escape from it caused him--the
+picture of all the events leading up to his entering the convent became
+distorted in his mind. Brother Peter, to whom he still wrote in a
+cordial vein from Steyn, became a worthless fellow, even his evil
+spirit, a Judas. The schoolfellow whose advice had been decisive now
+appeared a traitor, prompted by self-interest, who himself had chosen
+convent-life merely out of laziness and the love of good cheer.
+
+The letters that Erasmus wrote from Steyn betray no vestige of his
+deep-seated aversion to monastic life, which afterwards he asks us to
+believe he had felt from the outset. We may, of course, assume that the
+supervision of his superiors prevented him from writing all that was in
+his heart, and that in the depths of his being there had always existed
+the craving for freedom and for more civilized intercourse than Steyn
+could offer. Still he must have found in the monastery some of the good
+things that his schoolfellow had led him to expect. That at this period
+he should have written a 'Praise of Monastic Life', 'to please a friend
+who wanted to decoy a cousin', as he himself says, is one of those naive
+assertions, invented afterwards, of which Erasmus never saw the
+unreasonable quality.
+
+He found at Steyn a fair degree of freedom, some food for an intellect
+craving for classic antiquity, and friendships with men of the same turn
+of mind. There were three who especially attracted him. Of the
+schoolfellow who had induced him to become a monk, we hear no more. His
+friends are Servatius Roger of Rotterdam and William Hermans of Gouda,
+both his companions at Steyn, and the older Cornelius Gerard of Gouda,
+usually called Aurelius (a quasi-latinization of Goudanus), who spent
+most of his time in the monastery of Lopsen, near Leyden. With them he
+read and conversed sociably and jestingly; with them he exchanged
+letters when they were not together.
+
+Out of the letters to Servatius there rises the picture of an Erasmus
+whom we shall never find again--a young man of more than feminine
+sensitiveness; of a languishing need for sentimental friendship. In
+writing to Servatius, Erasmus runs the whole gamut of an ardent lover.
+As often as the image of his friend presents itself to his mind tears
+break from his eyes. Weeping he re-reads his friend's letter every hour.
+But he is mortally dejected and anxious, for the friend proves averse to
+this excessive attachment. 'What do you want from me?' he asks. 'What is
+wrong with you?' the other replies. Erasmus cannot bear to find that
+this friendship is not fully returned. 'Do not be so reserved; do tell
+me what is wrong! I repose my hope in you alone; I have become yours so
+completely that you have left me naught of myself. You know my
+pusillanimity, which when it has no one on whom to lean and rest, makes
+me so desperate that life becomes a burden.'
+
+Let us remember this. Erasmus never again expresses himself so
+passionately. He has given us here the clue by which we may understand
+much of what he becomes in his later years.
+
+These letters have sometimes been taken as mere literary exercises; the
+weakness they betray and the complete absence of all reticence, seem to
+tally ill with his habit of cloaking his most intimate feelings which,
+afterwards, Erasmus never quite relinquishes. Dr. Allen, who leaves this
+question undecided, nevertheless inclines to regard the letters as
+sincere effusions, and to me they seem so, incontestably. This exuberant
+friendship accords quite well with the times and the person.
+
+Sentimental friendships were as much in vogue in secular circles during
+the fifteenth century as towards the end of the eighteenth century. Each
+court had its pairs of friends, who dressed alike, and shared room, bed,
+and heart. Nor was this cult of fervent friendship restricted to the
+sphere of aristocratic life. It was among the specific characteristics
+of the _devotio moderna_, as, for the rest, it seems from its very
+nature to be inseparably bound up with pietism. To observe one another
+with sympathy, to watch and note each other's inner life, was a
+customary and approved occupation among the brethren of the Common Life
+and the Windesheim monks. And though Steyn and Sion were not of the
+Windesheim congregation, the spirit of the _devotio moderna_ was
+prevalent there.
+
+As for Erasmus himself, he has rarely revealed the foundation of his
+character more completely than when he declared to Servatius: 'My mind
+is such that I think nothing can rank higher than friendship in this
+life, nothing should be desired more ardently, nothing should be
+treasured more jealously'. A violent affection of a similar nature
+troubled him even at a later date when the purity of his motives was
+questioned. Afterwards he speaks of youth as being used to conceive a
+fervent affection for certain comrades. Moreover, the classic examples
+of friends, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, Theseus and
+Pirithous, as also David and Jonathan, were ever present before his
+mind's eye. A young and very tender heart, marked by many feminine
+traits, replete with all the sentiment and with all the imaginings of
+classic literature, who was debarred from love and found himself placed
+against his wish in a coarse and frigid environment, was likely to
+become somewhat excessive in his affections.
+
+He was obliged to moderate them. Servatius would have none of so jealous
+and exacting a friendship and, probably at the cost of more humiliation
+and shame than appears in his letters, young Erasmus resigns himself, to
+be more guarded in expressing his feelings in the future. The
+sentimental Erasmus disappears for good and presently makes room for the
+witty latinist, who surpasses his older friends, and chats with them
+about poetry and literature, advises them about their Latin style, and
+lectures them if necessary.
+
+The opportunities for acquiring the new taste for classic antiquity
+cannot have been so scanty at Deventer, and in the monastery itself, as
+Erasmus afterwards would have us believe, considering the authors he
+already knew at this time. We may conjecture, also, that the books left
+by his father, possibly brought by him from Italy, contributed to
+Erasmus's culture, though it would be strange that, prone as he was to
+disparage his schools and his monastery, he should not have mentioned
+the fact. Moreover, we know that the humanistic knowledge of his youth
+was not exclusively his own, in spite of all he afterwards said about
+Dutch ignorance and obscurantism. Cornelius Aurelius and William Hermans
+likewise possessed it.
+
+In a letter to Cornelius he mentions the following authors as his poetic
+models--Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Statius, Martial, Claudian,
+Persius, Lucan, Tibullus, Propertius. In prose he imitates Cicero,
+Quintilian, Sallust, and Terence, whose metrical character had not yet
+been recognized. Among Italian humanists he was especially acquainted
+with Lorenzo Valla, who on account of his _Elegantiae_ passed with him
+for the pioneer of _bonae literae_; but Filelfo, Aeneas Sylvius,
+Guarino, Poggio, and others, were also not unknown to him. In
+ecclesiastical literature he was particularly well read in Jerome. It
+remains remarkable that the education which Erasmus received in the
+schools of the _devotio moderna_ with their ultra-puritanical object,
+their rigid discipline intent on breaking the personality, could produce
+such a mind as he manifests in his monastic period--the mind of an
+accomplished humanist. He is only interested in writing Latin verses and
+in the purity of his Latin style. We look almost in vain for piety in
+the correspondence with Cornelius of Gouda and William Hermans. They
+manipulate with ease the most difficult Latin metres and the rarest
+terms of mythology. Their subject-matter is bucolic or amatory, and, if
+devotional, their classicism deprives it of the accent of piety. The
+prior of the neighbouring monastery of Hem, at whose request Erasmus
+sang the Archangel Michael, did not dare to paste up his Sapphic ode: it
+was so 'poetic', he thought, as to seem almost Greek. In those days
+poetic meant classic. Erasmus himself thought he had made it so bald
+that it was nearly prose--'the times were so barren, then', he
+afterwards sighed.
+
+These young poets felt themselves the guardians of a new light amidst
+the dullness and barbarism which oppressed them. They readily believed
+each other's productions to be immortal, as every band of youthful poets
+does, and dreamt of a future of poetic glory for Steyn by which it would
+vie with Mantua. Their environment of clownish, narrow-minded
+conventional divines--for as such they saw them--neither acknowledged
+nor encouraged them. Erasmus's strong propensity to fancy himself
+menaced and injured tinged this position with the martyrdom of oppressed
+talent. To Cornelius he complains in fine Horatian measure of the
+contempt in which poetry was held; his fellow-monk orders him to let his
+pen, accustomed to writing poetry, rest. Consuming envy forces him to
+give up making verses. A horrid barbarism prevails, the country laughs
+at the laurel-bringing art of high-seated Apollo; the coarse peasant
+orders the learned poet to write verses. 'Though I had mouths as many as
+the stars that twinkle in the silent firmament on quiet nights, or as
+many as the roses that the mild gale of spring strews on the ground, I
+could not complain of all the evils by which the sacred art of poetry is
+oppressed in these days. I am tired of writing poetry.' Of this effusion
+Cornelius made a dialogue which highly pleased Erasmus.
+
+Though in this art nine-tenths may be rhetorical fiction and sedulous
+imitation, we ought not, on that account, to undervalue the enthusiasm
+inspiring the young poets. Let us, who have mostly grown blunt to the
+charms of Latin, not think too lightly of the elation felt by one who,
+after learning this language out of the most absurd primers and
+according to the most ridiculous methods, nevertheless discovered it in
+its purity, and afterwards came to handle it in the charming rhythm of
+some artful metre, in the glorious precision of its structure and in all
+the melodiousness of its sound.
+
+[Illustration: I. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 51]
+
+[Illustration: II. VIEW OF ROTTERDAM, EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
+
+  Nec si quot placidis ignea noctibus
+  Scintillant tacito sydera culmine,
+  Nec si quot tepidum flante Favonio
+    Ver suffundit humo rosas,
+  Tot sint ora mihi...
+
+Was it strange that the youth who could say this felt himself a
+poet?--or who, together with his friend, could sing of spring in a
+Meliboean song of fifty distichs? Pedantic work, if you like, laboured
+literary exercises, and yet full of the freshness and the vigour which
+spring from the Latin itself.
+
+Out of these moods was to come the first comprehensive work that Erasmus
+was to undertake, the manuscript of which he was afterwards to lose, to
+recover in part, and to publish only after many years--the
+_Antibarbari_, which he commenced at Steyn, according to Dr. Allen. In
+the version in which eventually the first book of the _Antibarbari_
+appeared, it reflects, it is true, a somewhat later phase of Erasmus's
+life, that which began after he had left the monastery; neither is the
+comfortable tone of his witty defence of profane literature any longer
+that of the poet at Steyn. But the ideal of a free and noble life of
+friendly intercourse and the uninterrupted study of the Ancients had
+already occurred to him within the convent walls.
+
+In the course of years those walls probably hemmed him in more and more
+closely. Neither learned and poetic correspondence nor the art of
+painting with which he occupied himself,[1] together with one Sasboud,
+could sweeten the oppression of monastic life and a narrow-minded,
+unfriendly environment. Of the later period of his life in the
+monastery, no letters at all have been preserved, according to Dr.
+Allen's carefully considered dating. Had he dropped his correspondence
+out of spleen, or had his superiors forbidden him to keep it up, or are
+we merely left in the dark because of accidental loss? We know nothing
+about the circumstances and the frame of mind in which Erasmus was
+ordained on 25 April 1492, by the Bishop of Utrecht, David of Burgundy.
+Perhaps his taking holy orders was connected with his design to leave
+the monastery. He himself afterwards declared that he had but rarely
+read mass. He got his chance to leave the monastery when offered the
+post of secretary to the Bishop of Cambray, Henry of Bergen. Erasmus
+owed this preferment to his fame as a Latinist and a man of letters; for
+it was with a view to a journey to Rome, where the bishop hoped to
+obtain a cardinal's hat, that Erasmus entered his service. The
+authorization of the Bishop of Utrecht had been obtained, and also that
+of the prior and the general of the order. Of course, there was no
+question yet of taking leave for good, since, as the bishop's servant,
+Erasmus continued to wear his canon's dress. He had prepared for his
+departure in the deepest secrecy. There is something touching in the
+glimpse we get of his friend and fellow-poet, William Hermans, waiting
+in vain outside of Gouda to see his friend just for a moment, when on
+his way south he would pass the town. It seems there had been
+consultations between them as to leaving Steyn together, and Erasmus, on
+his part, had left him ignorant of his plans. William had to console
+himself with the literature that might be had at Steyn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Erasmus, then twenty-five years old--for in all probability the year
+when he left the monastery was 1493--now set foot on the path of a
+career that was very common and much coveted at that time: that of an
+intellectual in the shadow of the great. His patron belonged to one of
+the numerous Belgian noble families, which had risen in the service of
+the Burgundians and were interestedly devoted to the prosperity of that
+house. The Glimes were lords of the important town of Bergen-op-Zoom,
+which, situated between the River Scheldt and the Meuse delta, was one
+of the links between the northern and the southern Netherlands. Henry,
+the Bishop of Cambray, had just been appointed chancellor of the Order
+of the Golden Fleece, the most distinguished spiritual dignity at court,
+which although now Habsburg in fact, was still named after Burgundy. The
+service of such an important personage promised almost unbounded honour
+and profit. Many a man would under the circumstances, at the cost of
+some patience, some humiliation, and a certain laxity of principle, have
+risen even to be a bishop. But Erasmus was never a man to make the most
+of his situation.
+
+Serving the bishop proved to be rather a disappointment. Erasmus had to
+accompany him on his frequent migrations from one residence to another
+in Bergen, Brussels, or Mechlin. He was very busy, but the exact nature
+of his duties is unknown. The journey to Rome, the acme of things
+desirable to every divine or student, did not come off. The bishop,
+although taking a cordial interest in him for some months, was less
+accommodating than he had expected. And so we shortly find Erasmus once
+more in anything but a cheerful frame of mind. 'The hardest fate,' he
+calls his own, which robs him of all his old sprightliness.
+Opportunities to study he has none. He now envies his friend William,
+who at Steyn in the little cell can write beautiful poetry, favoured by
+his 'lucky stars'. It befits him, Erasmus, only to weep and sigh; it has
+already so dulled his mind and withered his heart that his former
+studies no longer appeal to him. There is rhetorical exaggeration in
+this and we shall not take his pining for the monastery too seriously,
+but still it is clear that deep dejection had mastered him. Contact with
+the world of politics and ambition had probably unsettled Erasmus. He
+never had any aptitude for it. The hard realities of life frightened and
+distressed him. When forced to occupy himself with them he saw nothing
+but bitterness and confusion about him. 'Where is gladness or repose?
+Wherever I turn my eyes I only see disaster and harshness. And in such a
+bustle and clamour about me you wish me to find leisure for the work of
+the Muses?'
+
+Real leisure Erasmus was never to find during his life. All his reading,
+all his writing, he did hastily, _tumultuarie_, as he calls it
+repeatedly. Yet he must nevertheless have worked with intensest
+concentration and an incredible power of assimilation. Whilst staying
+with the bishop he visited the monastery of Groenendael near Brussels,
+where in former times Ruysbroeck wrote. Possibly Erasmus did not hear
+the inmates speak of Ruysbroeck and he would certainly have taken little
+pleasure in the writings of the great mystic. But in the library he
+found the works of St. Augustine and these he devoured. The monks of
+Groenendael were surprised at his diligence. He took the volumes with
+him even to his bedroom.
+
+He occasionally found time to compose at this period. At Halsteren, near
+Bergen-op-Zoom, where the bishop had a country house, he revised the
+_Antibarbari_, begun at Steyn, and elaborated it in the form of a
+dialogue. It would seem as if he sought compensation for the agitation
+of his existence in an atmosphere of idyllic repose and cultured
+conversation. He conveys us to the scene (he will afterwards use it
+repeatedly) which ever remained the ideal pleasure of life to him: a
+garden or a garden house outside the town, where in the gladness of a
+fine day a small number of friends meet to talk during a simple meal or
+a quiet walk, in Platonic serenity, about things of the mind. The
+personages whom he introduces, besides himself, are his best friends.
+They are the valued and faithful friend whom he got to know at Bergen,
+James Batt, schoolmaster and afterwards also clerk of that town, and his
+old friend William Hermans of Steyn, whose literary future he continued
+somewhat to promote. William, arriving unexpectedly from Holland, meets
+the others, who are later joined by the Burgomaster of Bergen and the
+town physician. In a lightly jesting, placid tone they engage in a
+discussion about the appreciation of poetry and literature--Latin
+literature. These are not incompatible with true devotion, as barbarous
+dullness wants us to believe. A cloud of witnesses is there to prove it,
+among them and above all St. Augustine, whom Erasmus had studied
+recently, and St. Jerome, with whom Erasmus had been longer acquainted
+and whose mind was, indeed, more congenial to him. Solemnly, in ancient
+Roman guise, war is declared on the enemies of classic culture. O ye
+Goths, by what right do you occupy, not only the Latin provinces (the
+_disciplinae liberales_ are meant) but the capital, that is Latinity
+itself?
+
+It was Batt who, when his prospects with the Bishop of Cambray ended in
+disappointment, helped to find a way out for Erasmus. He himself had
+studied at Paris, and thither Erasmus also hoped to go, now that Rome
+was denied him. The bishop's consent and the promise of a stipend were
+obtained and Erasmus departed for the most famous of all universities,
+that of Paris, probably in the late summer of 1495. Batt's influence and
+efforts had procured him this lucky chance.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Allen No. 16.12 cf. IV p. xx, and _vide_ LB. IV 756, where surveying
+the years of his youth he also writes 'Pingere dum meditor tenueis sine
+corpore formas'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
+
+1495-9
+
+    The University of Paris--Traditions and schools of Philosophy
+    and Theology--The College of Montaigu--Erasmus's dislike of
+    scholasticism--Relations with the humanist, Robert Gaguin,
+    1495--How to earn a living--First drafts of several of his
+    educational works--Travelling to Holland and back--Batt and the
+    Lady of Veere--To England with Lord Mountjoy: 1499
+
+
+The University of Paris was, more than any other place in Christendom,
+the scene of the collision and struggle of opinions and parties.
+University life in the Middle Ages was in general tumultuous and
+agitated. The forms of scientific intercourse themselves entailed an
+element of irritability: never-ending disputations, frequent elections
+and rowdyism of the students. To those were added old and new quarrels
+of all sorts of orders, schools and groups. The different colleges
+contended among themselves, the secular clergy were at variance with the
+regular. The Thomists and the Scotists, together called the Ancients,
+had been disputing at Paris for half a century with the Terminists, or
+Moderns, the followers of Ockam and Buridan. In 1482 some sort of peace
+was concluded between those two groups. Both schools were on their last
+legs, stuck fast in sterile technical disputes, in systematizing and
+subdividing, a method of terms and words by which science and philosophy
+benefited no longer. The theological colleges of the Dominicans and
+Franciscans at Paris were declining; theological teaching was taken over
+by the secular colleges of Navarre and Sorbonne, but in the old style.
+
+The general traditionalism had not prevented humanism from penetrating
+Paris also during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Refinement
+of Latin style and the taste for classic poetry here, too, had their
+fervent champions, just as revived Platonism, which had sprung up in
+Italy. The Parisian humanists were partly Italians as Girolamo Balbi and
+Fausto Andrelini, but at that time a Frenchman was considered to be
+their leader, Robert Gaguin, general of the order of the Mathurins or
+Trinitarians, diplomatist, French poet and humanist. Side by side with
+the new Platonism a clearer understanding of Aristotle penetrated, which
+had also come from Italy. Shortly before Erasmus's arrival Jacques
+Lefevre d'Etaples had returned from Italy, where he had visited the
+Platonists, such as Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Ermolao
+Barbaro, the reviver of Aristotle. Though theoretical theology and
+philosophy generally were conservative at Paris, yet here as well as
+elsewhere movements to reform the Church were not wanting. The authority
+of Jean Gerson, the University's great chancellor (about 1400), had not
+yet been forgotten. But reform by no means meant inclination to depart
+from the doctrine of the Church; it aimed, in the first place, at
+restoration and purification of the monastic orders and afterwards at
+the extermination of abuses which the Church acknowledged and lamented
+as existing within its fold. In that spirit of reformation of spiritual
+life the Dutch movement of the _devotio moderna_ had recently begun to
+make itself felt, also, at Paris. The chief of its promoters was John
+Standonck of Mechlin, educated by the brethren of the Common Life at
+Gouda and imbued with their spirit in its most rigorous form. He was an
+ascetic more austere than the spirit of the Windesheimians, strict
+indeed but yet moderate, required; far beyond ecclesiastical circles his
+name was proverbial on account of his abstinence--he had definitely
+denied himself the use of meat. As provisor of the college of Montaigu
+he had instituted the most stringent rules there, enforced by
+chastisement for the slightest faults. To the college he had annexed a
+home for poor scholars, where they lived in a semi-monastic community.
+
+To this man Erasmus had been recommended by the Bishop of Cambray.
+Though he did not join the community of poor students--he was nearly
+thirty years old--he came to know all the privations of the system. They
+embittered the earlier part of his stay at Paris and instilled in him a
+deep, permanent aversion to abstinence and austerity. Had he come to
+Paris for this--to experience the dismal and depressing influences of
+his youth anew in a more stringent form?
+
+The purpose for which Erasmus went to Paris was chiefly to obtain the
+degree of doctor of theology. This was not too difficult for him: as a
+regular he was exempt from previous study in the faculty of arts, and
+his learning and astonishing intelligence and energy enabled him to
+prepare in a short time for the examinations and disputations required.
+Yet he did not attain this object at Paris. His stay, which with
+interruptions lasted, first till 1499, to be continued later, became to
+him a period of difficulties and exasperations, of struggle to make his
+way by all the humiliating means which at the time were indispensable to
+that end; of dawning success, too, which, however, failed to gratify
+him.
+
+The first cause of his reverses was a physical one; he could not endure
+the hard life in the college of Montaigu. The addled eggs and squalid
+bedrooms stuck in his memory all his life; there he thinks he contracted
+the beginnings of his later infirmity. In the _Colloquia_ he has
+commemorated with abhorrence Standonck's system of abstinence, privation
+and chastisement. For the rest his stay there lasted only until the
+spring of 1496.
+
+Meanwhile he had begun his theological studies. He attended lectures on
+the Bible and on the Book of the Sentences, the medieval handbook of
+theology and still the one most frequently used. He was even allowed to
+give some lessons in the college on Holy Scripture. He preached a few
+sermons in honour of the Saints, probably in the neighbouring abbey of
+St. Genevieve. But his heart was not in all this. The subtleties of the
+schools could not please him. That aversion to all scholasticism, which
+he rejected in one sweeping condemnation, struck root in his mind,
+which, however broad, always judged unjustly that for which it had no
+room. 'Those studies can make a man opinionated and contentious; can
+they make him wise? They exhaust the mind by a certain jejune and barren
+subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By their stammering and
+by the stains of their impure style they disfigure theology which had
+been enriched and adorned by the eloquence of the ancients. They involve
+everything whilst trying to resolve everything.' 'Scotist', with
+Erasmus, became a handy epithet for all schoolmen, nay, for everything
+superannuated and antiquated. He would rather lose the whole of Scotus
+than Cicero's or Plutarch's works. These he feels the better for
+reading, whereas he rises from the study of scholasticism frigidly
+disposed towards true virtue, but irritated into a disputatious mood.
+
+It would, no doubt, have been difficult for Erasmus to find in the arid
+traditionalism which prevailed in the University of Paris the heyday of
+scholastic philosophy and theology. From the disputations which he heard
+in the Sorbonne he brought back nothing but the habit of scoffing at
+doctors of theology, or as he always ironically calls them by their
+title of honour: _Magistri nostri_. Yawning, he sat among 'those holy
+Scotists' with their wrinkled brows, staring eyes, and puzzled faces,
+and on his return home he writes a disrespectful fantasy to his young
+friend Thomas Grey, telling him how he sleeps the sleep of Epimenides
+with the divines of the Sorbonne. Epimenides awoke after his forty-seven
+years of slumber, but the majority of our present theologians will never
+wake up. What may Epimenides have dreamt? What but subtleties of the
+Scotists: quiddities, formalities, etc.! Epimenides himself was reborn
+in Scotus, or rather, Epimenides was Scotus's prototype. For did not he,
+too, write theological books, in which he tied such syllogistic knots as
+he would never have been able to loosen? The Sorbonne preserves
+Epimenides's skin written over with mysterious letters, as an oracle
+which men may only see after having borne the title of _Magister noster_
+for fifteen years.
+
+It is not a far cry from caricatures like these to the _Sorbonistres_
+and the _Barbouillamenta Scoti_ of Rabelais. 'It is said', thus Erasmus
+concludes his _boutade_, 'that no one can understand the mysteries of
+this science who has had the least intercourse with the Muses or the
+Graces. All that you have learned in the way of _bonae literae_ has to
+be unlearned first; if you have drunk of Helicon you must first vomit
+the draught. I do my utmost to say nothing according to the Latin taste,
+and nothing graceful or witty; and I am already making progress, and
+there is hope that one day they will acknowledge Erasmus.'
+
+It was not only the dryness of the method and the barrenness of the
+system which revolted Erasmus. It was also the qualities of his own
+mind, which, in spite of all its breadth and acuteness, did not tend to
+penetrate deeply into philosophical or dogmatic speculations. For it was
+not only scholasticism that repelled him; the youthful Platonism and the
+rejuvenated Aristotelianism taught by Lefevre d'Etaples also failed to
+attract him. For the present he remained a humanist of aesthetic bias,
+with the substratum of a biblical and moral disposition, resting mainly
+on the study of his favourite Jerome. For a long time to come Erasmus
+considered himself, and also introduced himself, as a poet and an
+orator, by which latter term he meant what we call a man of letters.
+
+Immediately on arriving at Paris he must have sought contact with the
+headquarters of literary humanism. The obscure Dutch regular introduced
+himself in a long letter (not preserved) full of eulogy, accompanied by
+a much-laboured poem, to the general, not only of the Trinitarians but,
+at the same time, of Parisian humanists, Robert Gaguin. The great man
+answered very obligingly: 'From your lyrical specimen I conclude that
+you are a scholar; my friendship is at your disposal; do not be so
+profuse in your praise, that looks like flattery'. The correspondence
+had hardly begun when Erasmus found a splendid opportunity to render
+this illustrious personage a service and, at the same time, in the
+shadow of his name, make himself known to the reading public. The matter
+is also of importance because it affords us an opportunity, for the
+first time, to notice the connection that is always found between
+Erasmus's career as a man of letters and a scholar and the technical
+conditions of the youthful art of printing.
+
+Gaguin was an all-round man and his Latin text-book of the history of
+France, _De origine et gestis Francorum Compendium_, was just being
+printed. It was the first specimen of humanistic historiography in
+France. The printer had finished his work on 30 September 1495, but of
+the 136 leaves, two remained blank. This was not permissible according
+to the notions of that time. Gaguin was ill and could not help matters.
+By judicious spacing the compositor managed to fill up folio 135 with a
+poem by Gaguin, the colophon and two panegyrics by Faustus Andrelinus
+and another humanist. Even then there was need of matter, and Erasmus
+dashed into the breach and furnished a long commendatory letter,
+completely filling the superfluous blank space of folio 136.[2] In this
+way his name and style suddenly became known to the numerous public
+which was interested in Gaguin's historical work, and at the same time
+he acquired another title to Gaguin's protection, on whom the
+exceptional qualities of Erasmus's diction had evidently not been lost.
+That his history would remain known chiefly because it had been a
+stepping stone to Erasmus, Gaguin could hardly have anticipated.
+
+Although Erasmus had now, as a follower of Gaguin, been introduced into
+the world of Parisian humanists, the road to fame, which had latterly
+begun to lead through the printing press, was not yet easy for him. He
+showed the _Antibarbari_ to Gaguin, who praised them, but no suggestion
+of publication resulted. A slender volume of Latin poems by Erasmus was
+published in Paris in 1496, dedicated to Hector Boys, a Scotchman, with
+whom he had become acquainted at Montaigu. But the more important
+writings at which he worked during his stay in Paris all appeared in
+print much later.
+
+While intercourse with men like Robert Gaguin and Faustus Andrelinus
+might be honourable, it was not directly profitable. The support of the
+Bishop of Cambray was scantier than he wished. In the spring of 1496 he
+fell ill and left Paris. Going first to Bergen, he had a kind welcome
+from his patron, the bishop; and then, having recovered his health, he
+went on to Holland to his friends. It was his intention to stay there,
+he says. The friends themselves, however, urged him to return to Paris,
+which he did in the autumn of 1496. He carried poetry by William Hermans
+and a letter from this poet to Gaguin. A printer was found for the poems
+and Erasmus also brought his friend and fellow-poet into contact with
+Faustus Andrelinus.
+
+The position of a man who wished to live by intellectual labour was far
+from easy at that time and not always dignified. He had either to live
+on church prebends or on distinguished patrons, or on both. But such a
+prebend was difficult to get and patrons were uncertain and often
+disappointing. The publishers paid considerable copy-fees only to famous
+authors. As a rule the writer received a number of copies of his work
+and that was all. His chief advantage came from a dedication to some
+distinguished personage, who could compliment him for it with a handsome
+gift. There were authors who made it a practice to dedicate the same
+work repeatedly to different persons. Erasmus has afterwards defended
+himself explicitly from that suspicion and carefully noted how many of
+those whom he honoured with a dedication gave nothing or very little.
+
+The first need, therefore, to a man in Erasmus's circumstances was to
+find a Maecenas. Maecenas with the humanists was almost synonymous with
+paymaster. Under the adage _Ne bos quidem pereat_ Erasmus has given a
+description of the decent way of obtaining a Maecenas. Consequently,
+when his conduct in these years appears to us to be actuated, more than
+once, by an undignified pushing spirit, we should not gauge it by our
+present standards. These were his years of weakness.
+
+On his return to Paris he did not again lodge in Montaigu. He tried to
+make a living by giving lessons to young men of fortune. A merchant's
+sons of Luebeck, Christian and Henry Northoff, who lodged with one
+Augustine Vincent, were his pupils. He composed beautiful letters for
+them, witty, fluent and a trifle scented. At the same time he taught two
+young Englishmen, Thomas Grey and Robert Fisher, and conceived such a
+doting affection for Grey as to lead to trouble with the youth's
+guardian, a Scotchman, by whom Erasmus was excessively vexed.
+
+Paris did not fail to exercise its refining influence on Erasmus. It
+made his style affectedly refined and sparkling--he pretends to disdain
+the rustic products of his youth in Holland. In the meantime, the works
+through which afterwards his influence was to spread over the whole
+world began to grow, but only to the benefit of a few readers. They
+remained unprinted as yet. For the Northoffs was composed the little
+compendium of polite conversation (in Latin), _Familiarium colloquiorum
+formulae_, the nucleus of the world-famous _Colloquia_. For Robert
+Fisher he wrote the first draft of _De conscribendis epistolis_, the
+great dissertation on the art of letter-writing (Latin letters),
+probably also the paraphrase of Valla's _Elegantiae_, a treatise on pure
+Latin, which had been a beacon-light of culture to Erasmus in his youth.
+_De copia verborum ac rerum_ was also such a help for beginners, to
+provide them with a vocabulary and abundance of turns and expressions;
+and also the germs of a larger work: _De ratione studii_, a manual for
+arranging courses of study, lay in the same line.
+
+It was a life of uncertainty and unrest. The bishop gave but little
+support. Erasmus was not in good health and felt continually depressed.
+He made plans for a journey to Italy, but did not see much chance of
+effecting them. In the summer of 1498 he again travelled to Holland and
+to the bishop. In Holland his friends were little pleased with his
+studies. It was feared that he was contracting debts at Paris. Current
+reports about him were not favourable. He found the bishop, in the
+commotion of his departure for England on a mission, irritable and full
+of complaints. It became more and more evident that he would have to
+look out for another patron. Perhaps he might turn to the Lady of Veere,
+Anna of Borselen, with whom his faithful and helpful friend Batt had now
+taken service, as a tutor to her son, in the castle of Tournehem,
+between Calais and Saint Omer.
+
+Upon his return to Paris, Erasmus resumed his old life, but it was
+hateful slavery to him. Batt had an invitation for him to come to
+Tournehem, but he could not yet bear to leave Paris. Here he had now as
+a pupil the young Lord Mountjoy, William Blount. That meant two strings
+to his bow. Batt is incited to prepare the ground for him with Anna of
+Veere; William Hermans is charged with writing letters to Mountjoy, in
+which he is to praise the latter's love of literature. 'You should
+display an erudite integrity, commend me, and proffer your services
+kindly. Believe me, William, your reputation, too, will benefit by it.
+He is a young man of great authority with his own folk; you will have
+some one to distribute your writings in England. I pray you again and
+again, if you love me, take this to heart.'
+
+The visit to Tournehem took place at the beginning of 1499, followed by
+another journey to Holland. Henceforward Anna of Veere passed for his
+patroness. In Holland he saw his friend William Hermans and told him
+that he thought of leaving for Bologna after Easter. The Dutch journey
+was one of unrest and bustle; he was in a hurry to return to Paris, not
+to miss any opportunity which Mountjoy's affection might offer him. He
+worked hard at the various writings on which he was engaged, as hard as
+his health permitted after the difficult journey in winter. He was
+busily occupied in collecting the money for travelling to Italy, now
+postponed until August. But evidently Batt could not obtain as much for
+him as he had hoped, and, in May, Erasmus suddenly gave up the Italian
+plan, and left for England with Mountjoy at the latter's request.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Allen No. 43, p. 145, where the particulars of the case are
+expounded with peculiar acuteness and conclusions drawn with regard to
+the chronology of Erasmus's stay at Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FIRST STAY IN ENGLAND
+
+1499-1500
+
+    First stay in England: 1499-1500--Oxford: John Colet--Erasmus's
+    aspirations directed towards divinity--He is as yet mainly a
+    literate--Fisher and More--Mishap at Dover when leaving England:
+    1500--Back in France he composes the _Adagia_--Years of trouble
+    and penury
+
+
+Erasmus's first stay in England, which lasted from the early summer of
+1499 till the beginning of 1500, was to become for him a period of
+inward ripening. He came there as an erudite poet, the protege of a
+nobleman of rank, on the road to closer contact with the great world
+which knew how to appreciate and reward literary merit. He left the
+country with the fervent desire in future to employ his gifts, in so far
+as circumstances would permit, in more serious tasks. This change was
+brought about by two new friends whom he found in England, whose
+personalities were far above those who had hitherto crossed his path:
+John Colet and Thomas More.
+
+During all the time of his sojourn in England Erasmus is in high
+spirits, for him. At first it is still the man of the world who speaks,
+the refined man of letters, who must needs show his brilliant genius.
+Aristocratic life, of which he evidently had seen but little at the
+Bishop of Cambray's and the Lady of Veere's at Tournehem, pleased him
+fairly well, it seems. 'Here in England', he writes in a light vein to
+Faustus Andrelinus, 'we have, indeed, progressed somewhat. The Erasmus
+whom you know is almost a good hunter already, not too bad a horseman, a
+not unpractised courtier. He salutes a little more courteously, he
+smiles more kindly. If you are wise, you also will alight here.' And he
+teases the volatile poet by telling him about the charming girls and the
+laudable custom, which he found in England, of accompanying all
+compliments by kisses.[3]
+
+It even fell to his lot to make the acquaintance of royalty. From
+Mountjoy's estate at Greenwich, More, in the course of a walk, took him
+to Eltham Palace, where the royal children were educated. There he saw,
+surrounded by the whole royal household, the youthful Henry, who was to
+be Henry VIII, a boy of nine years, together with two little sisters and
+a young prince, who was still an infant in arms. Erasmus was ashamed
+that he had nothing to offer and, on returning home, he composed (not
+without exertion, for he had not written poetry at all for some time) a
+panegyric on England, which he presented to the prince with a graceful
+dedication.
+
+In October Erasmus was at Oxford which, at first, did not please him,
+but whither Mountjoy was to follow him. He had been recommended to John
+Colet, who declared that he required no recommendations: he already knew
+Erasmus from the letter to Gaguin in the latter's historical work and
+thought very highly of his learning. There followed during the remainder
+of Erasmus's stay at Oxford a lively intercourse, in conversation and in
+correspondence, which definitely decided the bent of Erasmus's
+many-sided mind.
+
+[Illustration: III. JOHN COLET, DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S]
+
+John Colet, who did not differ much from Erasmus in point of age, had
+found his intellectual path earlier and more easily. Born of well-to-do
+parents (his father was a London magistrate and twice lord mayor), he
+had been able leisurely to prosecute his studies. Not seduced by quite
+such a brilliant genius as Erasmus possessed into literary digressions,
+he had from the beginning fixed his attention on theology. He knew Plato
+and Plotinus, though not in Greek, was very well read in the older
+Fathers and also respectably acquainted with scholasticism, not to
+mention his knowledge of mathematics, law, history and the English
+poets. In 1496 he had established himself at Oxford. Without possessing
+a degree in divinity, he expounded St. Paul's epistles. Although, owing
+to his ignorance of Greek, he was restricted to the Vulgate, he tried to
+penetrate to the original meaning of the sacred texts, discarding the
+later commentaries.
+
+Colet had a deeply serious nature, always warring against the tendencies
+of his vigorous being, and he kept within bounds his pride and the love
+of pleasure. He had a keen sense of humour, which, without doubt,
+endeared him to Erasmus. He was an enthusiast. When defending a point in
+theology his ardour changed the sound of his voice, the look in his
+eyes, and a lofty spirit permeated his whole person.
+
+[Illustration: IV. SIR THOMAS MORE, 1527]
+
+Out of his intercourse with Colet came the first of Erasmus's
+theological writings. At the end of a discussion regarding Christ's
+agony in the garden of Gethsemane, in which Erasmus had defended the
+usual view that Christ's fear of suffering proceeded from his human
+nature, Colet had exhorted him to think further about the matter. They
+exchanged letters about it and finally Erasmus committed both their
+opinions to paper in the form of a 'Little disputation concerning the
+anguish, fear and sadness of Jesus', _Disputatiuncula de tedio, pavore,
+tristicia Jesu_, etc., being an elaboration of these letters.
+
+While the tone of this pamphlet is earnest and pious, it is not truly
+fervent. The man of letters is not at once and completely superseded.
+'See, Colet,' thus Erasmus ends his first letter, referring half
+ironically to himself, 'how I can observe the rules of propriety in
+concluding such a theologic disputation with poetic fables (he had made
+use of a few mythologic metaphors). But as Horace says, _Naturam
+expellas furca, tamen usque recurret_.'
+
+This ambiguous position which Erasmus still occupied, also in things of
+the mind, appears still more clearly from the report which he sent to
+his new friend, the Frisian John Sixtin, a Latin poet like himself, of
+another disputation with Colet, at a repast, probably in the hall of
+Magdalen College, where Wolsey, too, was perhaps present. To his
+fellow-poet, Erasmus writes as a poet, loosely and with some
+affectation. It was a meal such as he liked, and afterwards frequently
+pictured in his _Colloquies_: cultured company, good food, moderate
+drinking, noble conversation. Colet presided. On his right hand sat the
+prior Charnock of St. Mary's College, where Erasmus resided (he had also
+been present at the disputation about Christ's agony). On his left was a
+divine whose name is not mentioned, an advocate of scholasticism; next
+to him came Erasmus, 'that the poet should not be wanting at the
+banquet'. The discussion was about Cain's guilt by which he displeased
+the Lord. Colet defended the opinion that Cain had injured God by
+doubting the Creator's goodness, and, in reliance on his own industry,
+tilling the earth, whereas Abel tended the sheep and was content with
+what grew of itself. The divine contended with syllogisms, Erasmus with
+arguments of 'rhetoric'. But Colet kindled, and got the better of both.
+After a while, when the dispute had lasted long enough and had become
+more serious than was suitable for table-talk--'then I said, in order to
+play my part, the part of the poet that is--to abate the contention and
+at the same time cheer the meal with a pleasant tale: "it is a very old
+story, it has to be unearthed from the very oldest authors. I will tell
+you what I found about it in literature, if you will promise me first
+that you will not look upon it as a fable."'
+
+And now he relates a witty story of some very ancient codex in which he
+had read how Cain, who had often heard his parents speak of the glorious
+vegetation of Paradise, where the ears of corn were as high as the
+alders with us, had prevailed upon the angel who guarded it, to give him
+some Paradisal grains. God would not mind it, if only he left the apples
+alone. The speech by which the angel is incited to disobey the Almighty
+is a masterpiece of Erasmian wit. 'Do you find it pleasant to stand
+there by the gate with a big sword? We have just begun to use dogs for
+that sort of work. It is not so bad on earth and it will be better
+still; we shall learn, no doubt, to cure diseases. What that forbidden
+knowledge matters I do not see very clearly. Though, in that matter,
+too, unwearied industry surmounts all obstacles.' In this way the
+guardian is seduced. But when God beholds the miraculous effect of
+Cain's agricultural management, punishment does not fail to ensue. A
+more delicate way of combining Genesis and the Prometheus myth no
+humanist had yet invented.
+
+But still, though Erasmus went on conducting himself as a man of letters
+among his fellow-poets, his heart was no longer in those literary
+exercises. It is one of the peculiarities of Erasmus's mental growth
+that it records no violent crises. We never find him engaged in those
+bitter inward struggles which are in the experience of so many great
+minds. His transition from interest in literary matters to interest in
+religious matters is not in the nature of a process of conversion. There
+is no Tarsus in Erasmus's life. The transition takes place gradually and
+is never complete. For many years to come Erasmus can, without suspicion
+of hypocrisy, at pleasure, as his interests or his moods require, play
+the man of letters or the theologian. He is a man with whom the deeper
+currents of the soul gradually rise to the surface; who raises himself
+to the height of his ethical consciousness under the stress of
+circumstances, rather than at the spur of some irresistible impulse.
+
+The desire to turn only to matters of faith he shows early. 'I have
+resolved', he writes in his monastic period to Cornelius of Gouda, 'to
+write no more poems in the future, except such as savour of praise of
+the saints, or of sanctity itself.' But that was the youthful pious
+resolve of a moment. During all the years previous to the first voyage
+to England, Erasmus's writings, and especially his letters, betray a
+worldly disposition. It only leaves him in moments of illness and
+weariness. Then the world displeases him and he despises his own
+ambition; he desires to live in holy quiet, musing on Scripture and
+shedding tears over his old errors. But these are utterances inspired by
+the occasion, which one should not take too seriously.
+
+It was Colet's word and example which first changed Erasmus's desultory
+occupation with theological studies into a firm and lasting resolve to
+make their pursuit the object of his life. Colet urged him to expound
+the Pentateuch or the prophet Isaiah at Oxford, just as he himself
+treated of Paul's epistles. Erasmus declined; he could not do it. This
+bespoke insight and self-knowledge, by which he surpassed Colet. The
+latter's intuitive Scripture interpretation without knowledge of the
+original language failed to satisfy Erasmus. 'You are acting
+imprudently, my dear Colet, in trying to obtain water from a
+pumice-stone (in the words of Plautus). How shall I be so impudent as to
+teach that which I have not learned myself? How shall I warm others
+while shivering and trembling with cold?... You complain that you find
+yourself deceived in your expectations regarding me. But I have never
+promised you such a thing; you have deceived yourself by refusing to
+believe me when I was telling you the truth regarding myself. Neither
+did I come here to teach poetics or rhetoric (Colet had hinted at that);
+these have ceased to be sweet to me, since they ceased to be necessary
+to me. I decline the one task because it does not come up to my aim in
+life; the other because it is beyond my strength ... But when, one day,
+I shall be conscious that the necessary power is in me, I, too, shall
+choose your part and devote to the assertion of divinity, if no
+excellent, yet sincere labour.'
+
+The inference which Erasmus drew first of all was that he should know
+Greek better than he had thus far been able to learn it.
+
+Meanwhile his stay in England was rapidly drawing to a close; he had to
+return to Paris. Towards the end of his sojourn he wrote to his former
+pupil, Robert Fisher, who was in Italy, in a high-pitched tone about the
+satisfaction which he experienced in England. A most pleasant and
+wholesome climate (he was most sensitive to it); so much humanity and
+erudition--not of the worn-out and trivial sort, but of the recondite,
+genuine, ancient, Latin and Greek stamp--that he need hardly any more
+long to go to Italy. In Colet he thought he heard Plato himself. Grocyn,
+the Grecian scholar; Linacre, the learned physician, who would not
+admire them! And whose spirit was ever softer, sweeter or happier than
+that of Thomas More!
+
+A disagreeable incident occurred as Erasmus was leaving English soil in
+January 1500. Unfortunately it not only obscured his pleasant memories
+of the happy island, but also placed another obstacle in the path of his
+career, and left in his supersensitive soul a sting which vexed him for
+years afterwards.
+
+The livelihood which he had been gaining at Paris of late years was
+precarious. The support from the bishop had probably been withdrawn;
+that of Anna of Veere had trickled but languidly; he could not too
+firmly rely on Mountjoy. Under these circumstances a modest fund, some
+provision against a rainy day, was of the highest consequence. Such
+savings he brought from England, twenty pounds. An act of Edward III,
+re-enacted by Henry VII not long before, prohibited the export of gold
+and silver, but More and Mountjoy had assured Erasmus that he could
+safely take his money with him, if only it was not in English coin. At
+Dover he learned that the custom-house officers were of a different
+opinion. He might only keep six 'angels'--the rest was left behind in
+the hands of the officials and was evidently confiscated.
+
+The shock which this incident gave him perhaps contributed to his
+fancying himself threatened by robbers and murderers on the road from
+Calais to Paris. The loss of his money plunged him afresh into
+perplexity as to his support from day to day. It forced him to resume
+the profession of a _bel esprit_, which he already began to loathe, and
+to take all the humiliating steps to get what was due to it from
+patrons. And, above all, it affected his mental balance and his dignity.
+Yet this mishap had its great advantage for the world, and for Erasmus,
+too, after all. To it the world owes the _Adagia_; and he the fame,
+which began with this work.
+
+The feelings with which his misfortune at Dover inspired Erasmus were
+bitter anger and thirst for revenge. A few months later he writes to
+Batt: 'Things with me are as they are wont to be in such cases: the
+wound received in England begins to smart only now that it has become
+inveterate, and that the more as I cannot have my revenge in any way'.
+And six months later, 'I shall swallow it. An occasion may offer itself,
+no doubt, to be even with them.' Yet meanwhile true insight told this
+man, whose strength did not always attain to his ideals, that the
+English, whom he had just seen in such a favourable light, let alone his
+special friends among them, were not accessories to the misfortune. He
+never reproached More and Mountjoy, whose inaccurate information, he
+tells us, had done the harm. At the same time his interest, which he
+always saw in the garb of virtue, told him that now especially it would
+be essential not to break off his relations with England, and that this
+gave him a splendid chance of strengthening them. Afterwards he
+explained this with a naivete which often causes his writings,
+especially where he tries to suppress or cloak matters, to read like
+confessions.
+
+'Returning to Paris a poor man, I understood that many would expect I
+should take revenge with my pen for this mishap, after the fashion of
+men of letters, by writing something venomous against the king or
+against England. At the same time I was afraid that William Mountjoy,
+having indirectly caused my loss of money, would be apprehensive of
+losing my affection. In order, therefore, both to put the expectations
+of those people to shame, and to make known that I was not so unfair as
+to blame the country for a private wrong, or so inconsiderate as,
+because of a small loss, to risk making the king displeased with myself
+or with my friends in England, and at the same time to give my friend
+Mountjoy a proof that I was no less kindly disposed towards him than
+before, I resolved to publish something as quickly as possible. As I had
+nothing ready, I hastily brought together, by a few days' reading, a
+collection of Adagia, in the supposition that such a booklet, however it
+might turn out, by its mere usefulness would get into the hands of
+students. In this way I demonstrated that my friendship had not cooled
+off at all. Next, in a poem I subjoined, I protested that I was not
+angry with the king or with the country at being deprived of my money.
+And my scheme was not ill received. That moderation and candour procured
+me a good many friends in England at the time--erudite, upright and
+influential men.'
+
+This is a characteristic specimen of semi-ethical conduct. In this way
+Erasmus succeeded in dealing with his indignation, so that later on he
+could declare, when the recollection came up occasionally, 'At one blow
+I had lost all my fortune, but I was so unconcerned that I returned to
+my books all the more cheerfully and ardently'. But his friends knew how
+deep the wound had been. 'Now (on hearing that Henry VIII had ascended
+the throne) surely all bitterness must have suddenly left your soul,'
+Mountjoy writes to him in 1509, possibly through the pen of Ammonius.
+
+The years after his return to France were difficult ones. He was in
+great need of money and was forced to do what he could, as a man of
+letters, with his talents and knowledge. He had again to be the _homo
+poeticus_ or _rhetoricus_. He writes polished letters full of mythology
+and modest mendicity. As a poet he had a reputation; as a poet he could
+expect support. Meanwhile the elevating picture of his theological
+activities remained present before his mind's eye. It nerves him to
+energy and perseverance. 'It is incredible', he writes to Batt, 'how my
+soul yearns to finish all my works, at the same time becoming somewhat
+proficient in Greek, and afterwards to devote myself entirely to the
+sacred learning after which my soul has been hankering for a long time.
+I am in fairly good health, so I shall have to strain every nerve this
+year (1501) to get the work we gave the printer published, and by
+dealing with theological problems, to expose our cavillers, who are very
+numerous, as they deserve. If three more years of life are granted me, I
+shall be beyond the reach of envy.'
+
+Here we see him in a frame of mind to accomplish great things, though
+not merely under the impulse of true devotion. Already he sees the
+restoration of genuine divinity as his task; unfortunately the effusion
+is contained in a letter in which he instructs the faithful Batt as to
+how he should handle the Lady of Veere in order to wheedle money out of
+her.
+
+For years to come the efforts to make a living were to cause him almost
+constant tribulations and petty cares. He had had more than enough of
+France and desired nothing better than to leave it. Part of the year
+1500 he spent at Orleans. Adversity made him narrow. There is the story
+of his relations with Augustine Vincent Caminade, a humanist of lesser
+rank (he ended as syndic of Middelburg), who took young men as lodgers.
+It is too long to detail here, but remarkable enough as revealing
+Erasmus's psychology, for it shows how deeply he mistrusted his friends.
+There are also his relations with Jacobus Voecht, in whose house he
+evidently lived gratuitously and for whom he managed to procure a rich
+lodger in the person of an illegitimate brother of the Bishop of
+Cambray. At this time, Erasmus asserts, the bishop (Antimaecenas he now
+calls him) set Standonck to dog him in Paris.
+
+Much bitterness there is in the letters of this period. Erasmus is
+suspicious, irritable, exacting, sometimes rude in writing to his
+friends. He cannot bear William Hermans any longer because of his
+epicureanism and his lack of energy, to which he, Erasmus, certainly was
+a stranger. But what grieves us most is the way he speaks to honest
+Batt. He is highly praised, certainly. Erasmus promises to make him
+immortal, too. But how offended he is, when Batt cannot at once comply
+with his imperious demands. How almost shameless are his instructions as
+to what Batt is to tell the Lady of Veere, in order to solicit her
+favour for Erasmus. And how meagre the expressions of his sorrow, when
+the faithful Batt is taken from him by death in the first half of 1502.
+
+It is as if Erasmus had revenged himself on Batt for having been obliged
+to reveal himself to his true friend in need more completely than he
+cared to appear to anyone; or for having disavowed to Anna of Borselen
+his fundamental convictions, his most refined taste, for the sake of a
+meagre gratuity. He has paid homage to her in that ponderous Burgundian
+style with which dynasties in the Netherlands were familiar, and which
+must have been hateful to him. He has flattered her formal piety. 'I
+send you a few prayers, by means of which you could, as by incantations,
+call down, even against her will, from Heaven, so to say, not the moon,
+but her who gave birth to the sun of justice.'
+
+Did you smile your delicate smile, O author of the _Colloquies_, while
+writing this? So much the worse for you.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Allen No. 103.17. Cf. _Chr. Matrim. inst._ LB. V. 678 and _Cent
+nouvelles_ 2.63, 'ung baiser, dont les dames et demoiselles du dit pays
+d'Angleterre sont assez liberales de l'accorder'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ERASMUS AS A HUMANIST
+
+    Significance of the _Adagia_ and similar works of later
+    years--Erasmus as a divulger of classical culture--
+    Latin--Estrangement from Holland--Erasmus as a
+    Netherlander
+
+
+Meanwhile renown came to Erasmus as the fruit of those literary studies
+which, as he said, had ceased to be dear to him. In 1500 that work
+appeared which Erasmus had written after his misfortune at Dover, and
+had dedicated to Mountjoy, the _Adagiorum Collectanea_. It was a
+collection of about eight hundred proverbial sayings drawn from the
+Latin authors of antiquity and elucidated for the use of those who
+aspired to write an elegant Latin style. In the dedication Erasmus
+pointed out the profit an author may derive, both in ornamenting his
+style and in strengthening his argumentation, from having at his
+disposal a good supply of sentences hallowed by their antiquity. He
+proposes to offer such a help to his readers. What he actually gave was
+much more. He familiarized a much wider circle than the earlier
+humanists had reached with the spirit of antiquity.
+
+Until this time the humanists had, to some extent, monopolized the
+treasures of classic culture, in order to parade their knowledge of
+which the multitude remained destitute, and so to become strange
+prodigies of learning and elegance. With his irresistible need of
+teaching and his sincere love for humanity and its general culture,
+Erasmus introduced the classic spirit, in so far as it could be
+reflected in the soul of a sixteenth-century Christian, among the
+people. Not he alone; but none more extensively and more effectively.
+Not among all the people, it is true, for by writing in Latin he limited
+his direct influence to the educated classes, which in those days were
+the upper classes.
+
+Erasmus made current the classic spirit. Humanism ceased to be the
+exclusive privilege of a few. According to Beatus Rhenanus he had been
+reproached by some humanists, when about to publish the _Adagia_, for
+divulging the mysteries of their craft. But he desired that the book of
+antiquity should be open to all.
+
+The literary and educational works of Erasmus, the chief of which were
+begun in his Parisian period, though most of them appeared much later,
+have, in truth, brought about a transmutation of the general modes of
+expression and of argumentation. It should be repeated over and over
+again that this was not achieved by him single-handed; countless others
+at that time were similarly engaged. But we have only to cast an eye on
+the broad current of editions of the _Adagia_, of the _Colloquia_, etc.,
+to realize of how much greater consequence he was in this respect than
+all the others. 'Erasmus' is the only name in all the host of humanists
+which has remained a household word all over the globe.
+
+Here we will anticipate the course of Erasmus's life for a moment, to
+enumerate the principal works of this sort. Some years later the
+_Adagia_ increased from hundreds to thousands, through which not only
+Latin, but also Greek, wisdom spoke. In 1514 he published in the same
+manner a collection of similitudes, _Parabolae_. It was a partial
+realization of what he had conceived to supplement the _Adagia_--
+metaphors, saws, allusions, poetical and scriptural allegories, all to
+be dealt with in a similar way. Towards the end of his life he published
+a similar thesaurus of the witty anecdotes and the striking words or
+deeds of wisdom of antiquity, the _Apophthegmata_. In addition to these
+collections, we find manuals of a more grammatical nature, also piled up
+treasury-like: 'On the stock of expressions', _De copia verborum et
+rerum_, 'On letter-writing', _De conscribendis epistolis_, not to
+mention works of less importance. By a number of Latin translations of
+Greek authors Erasmus had rendered a point of prospect accessible to
+those who did not wish to climb the whole mountain. And, finally, as
+inimitable models of the manner in which to apply all that knowledge,
+there were the _Colloquia_ and that almost countless multitude of
+letters which have flowed from Erasmus's pen.
+
+All this collectively made up antiquity (in such quantity and quality as
+it was obtainable in the sixteenth century) exhibited in an emporium
+where it might be had at retail. Each student could get what was to his
+taste; everything was to be had there in a great variety of designs.
+'You may read my _Adagia_ in such a manner', says Erasmus (of the later
+augmented edition), 'that as soon as you have finished one, you may
+imagine you have finished the whole book.' He himself made indices to
+facilitate its use.
+
+In the world of scholasticism he alone had up to now been considered an
+authority who had mastered the technicalities of its system of thought
+and its mode of expression in all its details and was versed in biblical
+knowledge, logic and philosophy. Between scholastic parlance and the
+spontaneously written popular languages, there yawned a wide gulf.
+Humanism since Petrarch had substituted for the rigidly syllogistic
+structure of an argument the loose style of the antique, free,
+suggestive phrase. In this way the language of the learned approached
+the natural manner of expression of daily life and raised the popular
+languages, even where it continued to use Latin, to its own level.
+
+The wealth of subject-matter was found with no one in greater abundance
+than with Erasmus. What knowledge of life, what ethics, all supported by
+the indisputable authority of the Ancients, all expressed in that fine,
+airy form for which he was admired. And such knowledge of antiquities in
+addition to all this! Illimitable was the craving for and illimitable
+the power to absorb what is extraordinary in real life. This was one of
+the principal characteristics of the spirit of the Renaissance. These
+minds never had their desired share of striking incidents, curious
+details, rarities and anomalies. There was, as yet, no symptom of that
+mental dyspepsia of later periods, which can no longer digest reality
+and relishes it no more. Men revelled in plenty.
+
+And yet, were not Erasmus and his fellow-workers as leaders of
+civilization on a wrong track? Was it true reality they were aiming at?
+Was their proud Latinity not a fatal error? There is one of the crucial
+points of history.
+
+A present-day reader who should take up the _Adagia_ or the
+_Apophthegmata_ with a view to enriching his own life (for they were
+meant for this purpose and it is what gave them value), would soon ask
+himself: 'What matter to us, apart from strictly philological or
+historical considerations, those endless details concerning obscure
+personages of antique society, of Phrygians, of Thessalians? They are
+nothing to me.' And--he will continue--they really mattered nothing to
+Erasmus's contemporaries either. The stupendous history of the sixteenth
+century was not enacted in classic phrases or turns; it was not based on
+classic interests or views of life. There were no Phrygians and
+Thessalians, no Agesilauses or Dionysiuses. The humanists created out of
+all this a mental realm, emancipated from the limitations of time.
+
+And did their own times pass without being influenced by them? That is
+the question, and we shall not attempt to answer it: to what extent did
+humanism influence the course of events?
+
+In any case Erasmus and his coadjutors greatly heightened the
+international character of civilization which had existed throughout the
+Middle Ages because of Latin and of the Church. If they thought they
+were really making Latin a vehicle for daily international use, they
+overrated their power. It was, no doubt, an amusing fancy and a witty
+exercise to plan, in such an international _milieu_ as the Parisian
+student world, such models of sports and games in Latin as the
+_Colloquiorum formulae_ offered. But can Erasmus have seriously thought
+that the next generation would play at marbles in Latin?
+
+Still, intellectual intercourse undoubtedly became very easy in so wide
+a circle as had not been within reach in Europe since the fall of the
+Roman Empire. Henceforth it was no longer the clergy alone, and an
+occasional literate, but a numerous multitude of sons of burghers and
+nobles, qualifying for some magisterial office, who passed through a
+grammar-school and found Erasmus in their path.
+
+Erasmus could not have attained to his world-wide celebrity if it had
+not been for Latin. To make his native tongue a universal language was
+beyond him. It may well puzzle a fellow-countryman of Erasmus to guess
+what a talent like his, with his power of observation, his delicacy of
+expression, his gusto and wealth, might have meant to Dutch literature.
+Just imagine the _Colloquia_ written in the racy Dutch of the sixteenth
+century! What could he not have produced if, instead of gleaning and
+commenting upon classic Adagia, he had, for his themes, availed himself
+of the proverbs of the vernacular? To us such a proverb is perhaps even
+more sapid than the sometimes slightly finical turns praised by Erasmus.
+
+This, however, is to reason unhistorically; this was not what the times
+required and what Erasmus could give. It is quite clear why Erasmus
+could only write in Latin. Moreover, in the vernacular everything would
+have appeared too direct, too personal, too real, for his taste. He
+could not do without that thin veil of vagueness, of remoteness, in
+which everything is wrapped when expressed in Latin. His fastidious mind
+would have shrunk from the pithy coarseness of a Rabelais, or the rustic
+violence of Luther's German.
+
+Estrangement from his native tongue had begun for Erasmus as early as
+the days when he learned reading and writing. Estrangement from the land
+of his birth set in when he left the monastery of Steyn. It was
+furthered not a little by the ease with which he handled Latin. Erasmus,
+who could express himself as well in Latin as in his mother tongue, and
+even better, consequently lacked the experience of, after all, feeling
+thoroughly at home and of being able to express himself fully, only
+among his compatriots. There was, however, another psychological
+influence which acted to alienate him from Holland. After he had seen at
+Paris the perspectives of his own capacities, he became confirmed in the
+conviction that Holland failed to appreciate him, that it distrusted and
+slandered him. Perhaps there was indeed some ground for this conviction.
+But, partly, it was also a reaction of injured self-love. In Holland
+people knew too much about him. They had seen him in his smallnesses and
+feebleness. There he had been obliged to obey others--he who, above all
+things, wanted to be free. Distaste of the narrow-mindedness, the
+coarseness and intemperance which he knew to prevail there, were summed
+up, within him, in a general condemnatory judgement of the Dutch
+character.
+
+Henceforth he spoke as a rule about Holland with a sort of apologetic
+contempt. 'I see that you are content with Dutch fame,' he writes to his
+old friend William Hermans, who like Cornelius Aurelius had begun to
+devote his best forces to the history of his native country. 'In Holland
+the air is good for me,' he writes elsewhere, 'but the extravagant
+carousals annoy me; add to this the vulgar uncultured character of the
+people, the violent contempt of study, no fruit of learning, the most
+egregious envy.' And excusing the imperfection of his juvenilia, he
+says: 'At that time I wrote not for Italians, but for Hollanders, that
+is to say, for the dullest ears'. And, in another place, 'eloquence is
+demanded from a Dutchman, that is, from a more hopeless person than a
+B[oe]otian'. And again, 'If the story is not very witty, remember it is
+a Dutch story'. No doubt, false modesty had its share in such sayings.
+
+After 1496 he visited Holland only on hasty journeys. There is no
+evidence that after 1501 he ever set foot on Dutch soil. He dissuaded
+his own compatriots abroad from returning to Holland.
+
+Still, now and again, a cordial feeling of sympathy for his native
+country stirred within him. Just where he would have had an opportunity,
+in explaining Martial's _Auris Batava_ in the _Adagia_, for venting his
+spleen, he availed himself of the chance of writing an eloquent
+panegyric on what was dearest to him in Holland, 'a country that I am
+always bound to honour and revere, as that which gave me birth. Would I
+might be a credit to it, just as, on the other hand, I need not be
+ashamed of it.' Their reputed boorishness rather redounds to their
+honour. 'If a "Batavian ear" means a horror of Martial's obscene jokes,
+I could wish that all Christians might have Dutch ears. When we consider
+their morals, no nation is more inclined to humanity and benevolence,
+less savage or cruel. Their mind is upright and void of cunning and all
+humbug. If they are somewhat sensual and excessive at meals, it results
+partly from their plentiful supply: nowhere is import so easy and
+fertility so great. What an extent of lush meadows, how many navigable
+rivers! Nowhere are so many towns crowded together within so small an
+area; not large towns, indeed, but excellently governed. Their
+cleanliness is praised by everybody. Nowhere are such large numbers of
+moderately learned persons found, though extraordinary and exquisite
+erudition is rather rare.'
+
+They were Erasmus's own most cherished ideals which he here ascribes to
+his compatriots--gentleness, sincerity, simplicity, purity. He sounds
+that note of love for Holland on other occasions. When speaking of lazy
+women, he adds: 'In France there are large numbers of them, but in
+Holland we find countless wives who by their industry support their
+idling and revelling husbands'. And in the colloquy entitled 'The
+Shipwreck', the people who charitably take in the castaways are
+Hollanders. 'There is no more humane people than this, though surrounded
+by violent nations.'
+
+In addressing English readers it is perhaps not superfluous to point out
+once again that Erasmus when speaking of Holland, or using the epithet
+'Batavian', refers to the county of Holland, which at present forms the
+provinces of North and South Holland of the kingdom of the Netherlands,
+and stretches from the Wadden islands to the estuaries of the Meuse.
+Even the nearest neighbours, such as Zealanders and Frisians, are not
+included in this appellation.
+
+But it is a different matter when Erasmus speaks of _patria_, the
+fatherland, or of _nostras_, a compatriot. In those days a national
+consciousness was just budding all over the Netherlands. A man still
+felt himself a Hollander, a Frisian, a Fleming, a Brabantine in the
+first place; but the community of language and customs, and still more
+the strong political influence which for nearly a century had been
+exercised by the Burgundian dynasty, which had united most of these low
+countries under its sway, had cemented a feeling of solidarity which did
+not even halt at the linguistic frontier in Belgium. It was still rather
+a strong Burgundian patriotism (even after Habsburg had _de facto_
+occupied the place of Burgundy) than a strictly Netherlandish feeling of
+nationality. People liked, by using a heraldic symbol, to designate the
+Netherlander as 'the Lions'. Erasmus, too, employs the term. In his
+works we gradually see the narrower Hollandish patriotism gliding into
+the Burgundian Netherlandish. In the beginning, _patria_ with him still
+means Holland proper, but soon it meant the Netherlands. It is curious
+to trace how by degrees his feelings regarding Holland, made up of
+disgust and attachment, are transferred to the Low Countries in general.
+'In my youth', he says in 1535, repeating himself, 'I did not write for
+Italians but for Hollanders, the people of Brabant and Flemings.' So
+they now all share the reputation of bluntness. To Louvain is applied
+what formerly was said of Holland: there are too many compotations;
+nothing can be done without a drinking bout. Nowhere, he repeatedly
+complains, is there so little sense of the _bonae literae_, nowhere is
+study so despised as in the Netherlands, and nowhere are there more
+cavillers and slanderers. But also his affection has expanded. When
+Longolius of Brabant plays the Frenchman, Erasmus is vexed: 'I devoted
+nearly three days to Longolius; he was uncommonly pleasing, except only
+that he is too French, whereas it is well known that he is one of
+us'.[4] When Charles V has obtained the crown of Spain, Erasmus notes:
+'a singular stroke of luck, but I pray that it may also prove a blessing
+to the fatherland, and not only to the prince'. When his strength was
+beginning to fail he began to think more and more of returning to his
+native country. 'King Ferdinand invites me, with large promises, to come
+to Vienna,' he writes from Basle, 1 October 1528, 'but nowhere would it
+please me better to rest than in Brabant.'
+
+[Illustration: V. Doodles by Erasmus in the margin of one of his
+manuscripts.]
+
+[Illustration: VI. A manuscript page of Erasmus]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] Allen No. 1026.4, cf. 914, intr. p. 473. Later Erasmus was made to
+believe that Longolius was a Hollander, cf. LBE. 1507 A.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THEOLOGICAL ASPIRATIONS
+
+1501
+
+    At Tournehem: 1501--The restoration of theology now the aim of
+    his life--He learns Greek--John Vitrier--_Enchiridion Militis
+    Christiani_
+
+
+The lean years continued with Erasmus. His livelihood remained
+uncertain, and he had no fixed abode. It is remarkable that, in spite of
+his precarious means of support, his movements were ever guided rather
+by the care for his health than for his sustenance, and his studies
+rather by his burning desire to penetrate to the purest sources of
+knowledge than by his advantage. Repeatedly the fear of the plague
+drives him on: in 1500 from Paris to Orleans, where he first lodges with
+Augustine Caminade; but when one of the latter's boarders falls ill,
+Erasmus moves. Perhaps it was the impressions dating from his youth at
+Deventer that made him so excessively afraid of the plague, which in
+those days raged practically without intermission. Faustus Andrelinus
+sent a servant to upbraid him in his name with cowardice: 'That would be
+an intolerable insult', Erasmus answers, 'if I were a Swiss soldier, but
+a poet's soul, loving peace and shady places, is proof against it'. In
+the spring of 1501 he leaves Paris once more for fear of the plague:
+'the frequent burials frighten me', he writes to Augustine.
+
+He travelled first to Holland, where, at Steyn, he obtained leave to
+spend another year outside the monastery, for the sake of study; his
+friends would be ashamed if he returned, after so many years of study,
+without having acquired some authority. At Haarlem he visited his friend
+William Hermans, then turned to the south, once again to pay his
+respects to the Bishop of Cambray, probably at Brussels. Thence he went
+to Veere, but found no opportunity to talk to his patroness. In July
+1501, he subsided into quietness at the castle of Tournehem with his
+faithful friend Batt.
+
+In all his comings and goings he does not for a moment lose sight of his
+ideals of study. Since his return from England he is mastered by two
+desires: to edit Jerome, the great Father of the Church, and,
+especially, to learn Greek thoroughly. 'You understand how much all this
+matters to my fame, nay, to my preservation,' he writes (from Orleans
+towards the end of 1500) to Batt. But, indeed, had Erasmus been an
+ordinary fame and success hunter he might have had recourse to plenty of
+other expedients. It was the ardent desire to penetrate to the source
+and to make others understand that impelled him, even when he availed
+himself of these projects of study to raise a little money. 'Listen,' he
+writes to Batt, 'to what more I desire from you. You must wrest a gift
+from the abbot (of Saint Bertin). You know the man's disposition; invent
+some modest and plausible reason for begging. Tell him that I purpose
+something grand, viz., to restore the whole of Jerome, however
+comprehensive he may be, and spoiled, mutilated, entangled by the
+ignorance of divines; and to re-insert the Greek passages. I venture to
+say, I shall be able to lay open the antiquities and the style of
+Jerome, understood by no one as yet. Tell him that I shall want not a
+few books for the purpose, and moreover the help of Greeks, and that
+therefore I require support. In saying this, Battus, you will be telling
+no lies. For I really mean to do all this.'
+
+He was, indeed, in a serious mood on this point, as he was soon to prove
+to the world. His conquest of Greek was a veritable feat of heroism. He
+had learned the simplest rudiments at Deventer, but these evidently
+amounted to very little. In March, 1500, he writes to Batt: 'Greek is
+nearly killing me, but I have no time and I have no money to buy books
+or to take a master'. When Augustine Caminade wants his Homer back which
+he had lent to him, Erasmus complains: 'You deprive me of my sole
+consolation in my tedium. For I so burn with love for this author,
+though I cannot understand him, that I feast my eyes and re-create my
+mind by looking at him.' Was Erasmus aware that in saying this he almost
+literally reproduced feelings which Petrarch had expressed a hundred and
+fifty years before? But he had already begun to study. Whether he had a
+master is not quite clear, but it is probable. He finds the language
+difficult at first. Then gradually he ventures to call himself 'a
+candidate in this language', and he begins with more confidence to
+scatter Greek quotations through his letters. It occupies him night and
+day and he urges all his friends to procure Greek books for him. In the
+autumn of 1502 he declares that he can properly write all he wants in
+Greek, and that extempore. He was not deceived in his expectation that
+Greek would open his eyes to the right understanding of Holy Scripture.
+Three years of nearly uninterrupted study amply rewarded him for his
+trouble. Hebrew, which he had also taken up, he abandoned. At that time
+(1504) he made translations from the Greek, he employed it critically in
+his theological studies, he taught it, amongst others, to William Cop,
+the French physician-humanist. A few years later he was to find little
+in Italy to improve his proficiency in Greek; he was afterwards inclined
+to believe that he carried more of the two ancient languages to that
+country than he brought back.
+
+Nothing testifies more to the enthusiasm with which Erasmus applied
+himself to Greek than his zeal to make his best friends share in its
+blessings. Batt, he decided, should learn Greek. But Batt had no time,
+and Latin appealed more to him. When Erasmus goes to Haarlem to visit
+William Hermans, it is to make him a Greek scholar too; he has brought a
+handbag full of books. But he had only his trouble for his pains.
+William did not take at all kindly to this study and Erasmus was so
+disappointed that he not only considered his money and trouble thrown
+away, but also thought he had lost a friend.
+
+Meanwhile he was still undecided where he should go in the near future.
+To England, to Italy, or back to Paris? In the end he made a fairly long
+stay as a guest, from the autumn of 1501 till the following summer,
+first at Saint Omer, with the prior of Saint Bertin, and afterwards at
+the castle of Courtebourne, not far off.
+
+At Saint Omer, Erasmus became acquainted with a man whose image he was
+afterwards to place beside that of Colet as that of a true divine, and
+of a good monk at the same time: Jean Vitrier, the warden of the
+Franciscan monastery at Saint Omer. Erasmus must have felt attracted to
+a man who was burdened with a condemnation pronounced by the Sorbonne on
+account of his too frank expressions regarding the abuses of monastic
+life. Vitrier had not given up the life on that account, but he devoted
+himself to reforming monasteries and convents. Having progressed from
+scholasticism to Saint Paul, he had formed a very liberal conception of
+Christian life, strongly opposed to practices and ceremonies. This man,
+without doubt, considerably influenced the origin of one of Erasmus's
+most celebrated and influential works, the _Enchiridion militis
+Christiani_.
+
+Erasmus himself afterwards confessed that the _Enchiridion_ was born by
+chance. He did not reflect that some outward circumstance is often made
+to serve an inward impulse. The outward circumstance was that the castle
+of Tournehem was frequented by a soldier, a friend of Batt, a man of
+very dissolute conduct, who behaved very badly towards his pious wife,
+and who was, moreover, an uncultured and violent hater of priests.[5]
+For the rest he was of a kindly disposition and excepted Erasmus from
+his hatred of divines. The wife used her influence with Batt to get
+Erasmus to write something which might bring her husband to take an
+interest in religion. Erasmus complied with the request and Jean Vitrier
+concurred so cordially with the views expressed in these notes that
+Erasmus afterwards elaborated them at Louvain; in 1504 they were
+published at Antwerp by Dirck Maertensz.
+
+This is the outward genesis of the _Enchiridion_. But the inward cause
+was that sooner or later Erasmus was bound to formulate his attitude
+towards the religious conduct of the life of his day and towards
+ceremonial and soulless conceptions of Christian duty, which were an
+eyesore to him.
+
+In point of form the _Enchiridion_ is a manual for an illiterate soldier
+to attain to an attitude of mind worthy of Christ; as with a finger he
+will point out to him the shortest path to Christ. He assumes the friend
+to be weary of life at court--a common theme of contemporary literature.
+Only for a few days does Erasmus interrupt the work of his life, the
+purification of theology, to comply with his friend's request for
+instruction. To keep up a soldierly style he chooses the title,
+_Enchiridion_, the Greek word that even in antiquity meant both a
+poniard and a manual:[6] 'The poniard of the militant Christian'.[7] He
+reminds him of the duty of watchfulness and enumerates the weapons of
+Christ's militia. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. The general
+rules of the Christian conduct of life are followed by a number of
+remedies for particular sins and faults.
+
+Such is the outward frame. But within this scope Erasmus finds an
+opportunity, for the first time, to develop his theological programme.
+This programme calls upon us to return to Scripture. It should be the
+endeavour of every Christian to understand Scripture in its purity and
+original meaning. To that end he should prepare himself by the study of
+the Ancients, orators, poets, philosophers; Plato especially. Also the
+great Fathers of the Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine will be found
+useful, but not the large crowd of subsequent exegetists. The argument
+chiefly aims at subverting the conception of religion as a continual
+observance of ceremonies. This is Judaic ritualism and of no value. It
+is better to understand a single verse of the psalms well, by this means
+to deepen one's understanding of God and of oneself, and to draw a moral
+and line of conduct from it, than to read the whole psalter without
+attention. If the ceremonies do not renew the soul they are valueless
+and hurtful. 'Many are wont to count how many masses they have heard
+every day, and referring to them as to something very important, as
+though they owed Christ nothing else, they return to their former habits
+after leaving church.' 'Perhaps you sacrifice every day and yet you live
+for yourself. You worship the saints, you like to touch their relics; do
+you want to earn Peter and Paul? Then copy the faith of the one and the
+charity of the other and you will have done more than if you had walked
+to Rome ten times.' He does not reject formulae and practices; he does
+not want to shake the faith of the humble but he cannot suffer that
+Christ is offered a cult made up of practices only. And why is it the
+monks, above all, who contribute to the deterioration of faith? 'I am
+ashamed to tell how superstitiously most of them observe certain petty
+ceremonies, invented by puny human minds (and not even for this
+purpose), how hatefully they want to force others to conform to them,
+how implicitly they trust them, how boldly they condemn others.'
+
+Let Paul teach them true Christianity. 'Stand fast therefore in the
+liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again
+with the yoke of bondage.' This word to the Galatians contains the
+doctrine of Christian liberty, which soon at the Reformation was to
+resound so loudly. Erasmus did not apply it here in a sense derogatory
+to the dogmatics of the Catholic Church; but still it is a fact that the
+_Enchiridion_ prepared many minds to give up much that he still wanted
+to keep.
+
+The note of the _Enchiridion_ is already what was to remain the note of
+Erasmus's life-work: how revolting it is that in this world the
+substance and the shadow differ so and that the world reverences those
+whom it should not reverence; that a hedge of infatuation, routine and
+thoughtlessness prevents mankind from seeing things in their true
+proportions. He expresses it later in the _Praise of Folly_ and in the
+_Colloquies_. It is not merely religious feeling, it is equally social
+feeling that inspired him. Under the heading: Opinions worthy of a
+Christian, he laments the extremes of pride of class, national
+hostility, professional envy, and rivalry between religious orders,
+which keep men apart. Let everybody sincerely concern himself about his
+brother. 'Throwing dice cost you a thousand gold pieces in one night,
+and meanwhile some wretched girl, compelled by poverty, sold her
+modesty; and a soul is lost for which Christ gave his own. You say, what
+is that to me? I mind my own business, according to my lights. And yet
+you, holding such opinions, consider yourself a Christian, who are not
+even a man!'
+
+In the _Enchiridion_ of the militant Christian, Erasmus had for the
+first time said the things which he had most at heart, with fervour and
+indignation, with sincerity and courage. And yet one would hardly say
+that this booklet was born of an irresistible impulse of ardent piety.
+Erasmus treats it, as we have seen, as a trifle, composed at the request
+of a friend in a couple of days stolen from his studies (though,
+strictly speaking, this only holds good of the first draft, which he
+elaborated afterwards). The chief object of his studies he had already
+conceived to be the restoration of theology. One day he will expound
+Paul, 'that the slanderers who consider it the height of piety to know
+nothing of _bonae literae_, may understand that we in our youth embraced
+the cultured literature of the Ancients, and that we acquired a correct
+knowledge of the two languages, Greek and Latin--not without many
+vigils--not for the purpose of vainglory or childish satisfaction, but
+because, long before, we premeditated adorning the temple of the Lord
+(which some have too much desecrated by their ignorance and barbarism)
+according to our strength, with help from foreign parts, so that also in
+noble minds the love of Holy Scripture may be kindled'. Is it not still
+the Humanist who speaks?
+
+We hear, moreover, the note of personal justification. It is sounded
+also in a letter to Colet written towards the close of 1504,
+accompanying the edition of the _Lucubrationes_ in which the
+_Enchiridion_ was first published. 'I did not write the _Enchiridion_ to
+parade my invention or eloquence, but only that I might correct the
+error of those whose religion is usually composed of more than Judaic
+ceremonies and observances of a material sort, and who neglect the
+things that conduce to piety.' He adds, and this is typically
+humanistic, 'I have tried to give the reader a sort of art of piety, as
+others have written the theory of certain sciences'.
+
+The art of piety! Erasmus might have been surprised had he known that
+another treatise, written more than sixty years before, by another canon
+of the Low Countries would continue to appeal much longer and much more
+urgently to the world than his manual: the _Imitatio Christi_ by Thomas
+a Kempis.
+
+The _Enchiridion_, collected with some other pieces into a volume of
+_Lucubrationes_, did not meet with such a great and speedy success as
+had been bestowed upon the _Adagia_. That Erasmus's speculations on true
+piety were considered too bold was certainly not the cause. They
+contained nothing antagonistic to the teachings of the Church, so that
+even at the time of the Counter-Reformation, when the Church had become
+highly suspicious of everything that Erasmus had written, the divines
+who drew up the _index expurgatorius_ of his work found only a few
+passages in the _Enchiridion_ to expunge. Moreover, Erasmus had inserted
+in the volume some writings of unsuspected Catholic tenor. For a long
+time it was in great repute, especially with theologians and monks. A
+famous preacher at Antwerp used to say that a sermon might be found in
+every page of the _Enchiridion_. But the book only obtained its great
+influence in wide cultured circles when, upheld by Erasmus's world-wide
+reputation, it was available in a number of translations, English,
+Czech, German, Dutch, Spanish, and French. But then it began to fall
+under suspicion, for that was the time when Luther had unchained the
+great struggle. 'Now they have begun to nibble at the _Enchiridion_
+also, that used to be so popular with divines,' Erasmus writes in 1526.
+For the rest it was only two passages to which the orthodox critics
+objected.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] That this man should have been John of Trazegnies as Allen thinks
+possible and Renaudet accepts, is still all too uncertain; A. 164 t. I.
+p. 373; Renaudet, Prereforme 428.
+
+[6] In 1500 (A. 123.21) Erasmus speaks of the _Enchiridion_ of the
+Father Augustine, cf. 135, 138; in 1501, A. 152.33, he calls the
+_Officia_ of Cicero a 'pugiunculus'--a dagger. So the appellation had
+been in his mind for some time.
+
+[7] _Miles_ with Erasmus has no longer the meaning of 'knight' which it
+had in medieval Latin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+YEARS OF TROUBLE--LOUVAIN, PARIS, ENGLAND
+
+1502-6
+
+    Death of Batt: 1502--First stay at Louvain: 1502-4--Translations
+    from the Greek--At Paris again--Valla's _Annotationes_ on the
+    New Testament--Second stay in England: 1505-6--More patrons and
+    friends--Departure for Italy: 1506--_Carmen Alpestre_
+
+
+Circumstances continued to remain unfavourable for Erasmus. 'This year
+fortune has truly been raging violently against me,' he writes in the
+autumn of 1502. In the spring his good friend Batt had died. It is a
+pity that no letters written by Erasmus directly after his bereavement
+have come down to us. We should be glad to have for that faithful helper
+a monument in addition to that which Erasmus erected to his memory in
+the _Antibarbari_. Anna of Veere had remarried and, as a patroness,
+might henceforth be left out of account. In October 1502, Henry of
+Bergen passed away. 'I have commemorated the Bishop of Cambray in three
+Latin epitaphs and a Greek one; they sent me but six guilders, that also
+in death he should remain true to himself.' In Francis of Busleiden,
+Archbishop of Besancon, he lost at about the same time a prospective new
+patron. He still felt shut out from Paris, Cologne and England by the
+danger of the plague.
+
+In the late summer of 1502 he went to Louvain, 'flung thither by the
+plague,' he says. The university of Louvain, established in 1425 to wean
+the Netherlands in spiritual matters from Paris, was, at the beginning
+of the sixteenth century, one of the strongholds of theological
+tradition, which, however, did not prevent the progress of classical
+studies. How else should Adrian of Utrecht, later pope but at that time
+Dean of Saint Peter's and professor of theology, have forthwith
+undertaken to get him a professorship? Erasmus declined the offer,
+however, 'for certain reasons,' he says. Considering his great distress,
+the reasons must have been cogent indeed. One of them which he mentioned
+is not very clear to us: 'I am here so near to Dutch tongues which know
+how to hurt much, it is true, but have not learned to profit any one'.
+His spirit of liberty and his ardent love of the studies to which he
+wanted to devote himself entirely, were, no doubt, his chief reasons for
+declining.
+
+But he had to make a living. Life at Louvain was expensive and he had no
+regular earnings. He wrote some prefaces and dedicated to the Bishop of
+Arras, Chancellor of the University, the first translation from the
+Greek: some _Declamationes_ by Libanius. When in the autumn of 1503
+Philip le Beau was expected back in the Netherlands from his journey to
+Spain Erasmus wrote, with sighs of distaste, a panegyric to celebrate
+the safe return of the prince. It cost him much trouble. 'It occupies me
+day and night,' says the man who composed with such incredible facility,
+when his heart was in the work. 'What is harder than to write with
+aversion; what is more useless than to write something by which we
+unlearn good writing?' It must be acknowledged that he really flattered
+as sparingly as possible; the practice was so repulsive to him that in
+his preface he roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this whole class
+of composition was not to his taste.
+
+At the end of 1504 Erasmus was back at Paris, at last. Probably he had
+always meant to return and looked upon his stay at Louvain as a
+temporary exile. The circumstances under which he left Louvain are
+unknown to us, because of the almost total lack of letters of the year
+1504. In any case, he hoped that at Paris he would sooner be able to
+attain his great end of devoting himself entirely to the study of
+theology. 'I cannot tell you, dear Colet,' he writes towards the end of
+1504, 'how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature; how I
+dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me. But the disfavour
+of Fortune, who always looks at me with the same face, has been the
+reason why I have not been able to get clear of those vexations. So I
+returned to France with the purpose, if I cannot solve them, at any rate
+of ridding myself of them in one way or another. After that I shall
+devote myself, with all my heart, to the _divinae literae_, to give up
+the remainder of my life to them.' If only he can find the means to work
+for some months entirely for himself and disentangle himself from
+profane literature. Can Colet not find out for him how matters stand
+with regard to the proceeds of the hundred copies of the _Adagia_ which,
+at one time, he sent to England at his own expense? The liberty of a few
+months may be bought for little money.
+
+There is something heroic in Erasmus scorning to make money out of his
+facile talents and enviable knowledge of the humanities, daring
+indigence so as to be able to realize his shining ideal of restoring
+theology.
+
+It is remarkable that the same Italian humanist who in his youth had
+been his guide and example on the road to pure Latinity and classic
+antiquity, Lorenzo Valla, by chance became his leader and an outpost in
+the field of critical theology. In the summer of 1504, hunting in the
+old library of the Premonstratensian monastery of Parc, near Louvain
+('in no preserves is hunting a greater delight'), he found a manuscript
+of Valla's _Annotationes_ on the New Testament. It was a collection of
+critical notes on the text of the Gospels, the Epistles and Revelation.
+That the text of the Vulgate was not stainless had been acknowledged by
+Rome itself as early as the thirteenth century. Monastic orders and
+individual divines had set themselves to correct it, but that
+purification had not amounted to much, in spite of Nicholas of Lyra's
+work in the fourteenth century.
+
+It was probably the falling in with Valla's _Annotationes_ which led
+Erasmus, who was formerly more inspired with the resolution to edit
+Jerome and to comment upon Paul (he was to do both at a later date), to
+turn to the task of taking up the New Testament as a whole, in order to
+restore it in its purity. In March 1505 already Josse Badius at Paris
+printed Valla's _Annotationes_ for Erasmus, as a sort of advertisement
+of what he himself one day hoped to achieve. It was a feat of courage.
+Erasmus did not conceal from himself that Valla, the humanist, had an
+ill name with divines, and that there would be an outcry about 'the
+intolerable temerity of the _homo grammaticus_, who after having
+harassed all the _disciplinae_, did not scruple to assail holy
+literature with his petulant pen'. It was another programme much more
+explicit and defiant than the _Enchiridion_ had been.
+
+Once more it is not clear why and how Erasmus left Paris again for
+England in the autumn of 1505. He speaks of serious reasons and the
+advice of sensible people. He mentions one reason: lack of money. The
+reprint of the _Adagia_, published by John Philippi at Paris in 1505,
+had probably helped him through, for the time being; the edition cannot
+have been to his taste, for he had been dissatisfied with his work and
+wanted to extend it by weaving his new Greek knowledge into it. From
+Holland a warning voice had sounded, the voice of his superior and
+friend Servatius, demanding an account of his departure from Paris.
+Evidently his Dutch friends had still no confidence in Erasmus, his
+work, and his future.
+
+In many respects that future appeared more favourable to him in England
+than it had seemed anywhere, thus far. There he found the old friends,
+men of consideration and importance: Mountjoy, with whom, on his
+arrival, he stayed some months, Colet, and More. There he found some
+excellent Greek scholars, whose conversation promised to be profitable
+and amusing; not Colet, who knew little Greek, but More, Linacre,
+Grocyn, Latimer, and Tunstall. He soon came in contact with some high
+ecclesiastics who were to be his friends and patrons: Richard Foxe,
+Bishop of Winchester, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and William
+Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon he would also find a friend whose
+congenial spirit and interests, to some extent, made up for the loss of
+Batt: the Italian Andrew Ammonius, of Lucca. And lastly, the king
+promised him an ecclesiastical benefice. It was not long before Erasmus
+was armed with a dispensation from Pope Julius II, dated 4 January 1506,
+cancelling the obstacles in the way of accepting an English benefice.
+
+Translations from Greek into Latin were for him an easy and speedy means
+to obtain favour and support: a dialogue by Lucian, followed by others,
+for Foxe; the _Hecuba_ and the _Iphigenia_ of Euripides for Warham. He
+now also thought of publishing his letters.
+
+Clearly his relations with Holland were not yet satisfactory. Servatius
+did not reply to his letters. Erasmus ever felt hanging over him a
+menace to his career and his liberty embodied in the figure of that
+friend, to whom he was linked by so many silken ties, yonder in the
+monastery of Steyn, where his return was looked forward to, sooner or
+later, as a beacon-light of Christendom. Did the prior know of the papal
+dispensation exempting Erasmus from the 'statutes and customs of the
+monastery of Steyn in Holland, of the order of Saint Augustine?'
+Probably he did. On 1 April 1506, Erasmus writes to him: 'Here in London
+I am, it seems, greatly esteemed by the most eminent and erudite men of
+all England. The king has promised me a curacy: the visit of the prince
+necessitated a postponement of this business.'[8]
+
+He immediately adds: 'I am deliberating again how best to devote the
+remainder of my life (how much that will be, I do not know) entirely to
+piety, to Christ. I see life, even when it is long, as evanescent and
+dwindling; I know that I am of a delicate constitution and that my
+strength has been encroached upon, not a little, by study and also,
+somewhat, by misfortune. I see that no deliverance can be hoped from
+study, and that it seems as if we had to begin over again, day after
+day. Therefore I have resolved, content with my mediocrity (especially
+now that I have learned as much Greek as suffices me), to apply myself
+to meditation about death and the training of my soul. I should have
+done so before and have husbanded the precious years when they were at
+their best. But though it is a tardy husbandry that people practise when
+only little remains at the bottom, we should be the more economical
+accordingly as the quantity and quality of what is left diminishes.'
+
+Was it a fit of melancholy which made Erasmus write those words of
+repentance and renunciation? Was he surprised in the middle of the
+pursuit of his life's aim by the consciousness of the vanity of his
+endeavours, the consciousness, too, of a great fatigue? Is this the
+deepest foundation of Erasmus's being, which he reveals for a moment to
+his old and intimate friend? It may be doubted. The passage tallies very
+ill with the first sentences of the letter, which are altogether
+concerned with success and prospects. In a letter he wrote the next day,
+also to Gouda and to a trusted friend, there is no trace of the mood: he
+is again thinking of his future. We do not notice that the tremendous
+zeal with which he continues his studies is relaxed for a moment. And
+there are other indications that towards Servatius, who knew him better
+than he could wish, and who, moreover, as prior of Steyn, had a
+threatening power over him, he purposely demeaned himself as though he
+despised the world.
+
+Meanwhile nothing came of the English prebend. But suddenly the occasion
+offered to which Erasmus had so often looked forward: the journey to
+Italy. The court-physician of Henry VII, Giovanni Battista Boerio, of
+Genoa, was looking for a master to accompany his sons in their journey
+to the universities of Italy. Erasmus accepted the post, which charged
+him neither with the duties of tuition nor with attending to the young
+fellows, but only with supervising and guiding their studies. In the
+beginning of June 1506, he found himself on French soil once more. For
+two summer months the party of travellers stayed at Paris and Erasmus
+availed himself of the opportunity to have several of his works, which
+he had brought from England, printed at Paris. He was by now a
+well-known and favourite author, gladly welcomed by the old friends (he
+had been reputed dead) and made much of. Josse Badius printed all
+Erasmus offered him: the translations of Euripides and Lucian, a
+collection of _Epigrammata_, a new but still unaltered edition of the
+_Adagia_.
+
+In August the journey was continued. As he rode on horseback along the
+Alpine roads the most important poem Erasmus has written, the echo of an
+abandoned pursuit, originated. He had been vexed about his travelling
+company, had abstained from conversing with them, and sought consolation
+in composing poetry. The result was the ode which he called _Carmen
+equestre vel potius alpestre_, about the inconveniences of old age,
+dedicated to his friend William Cop.
+
+Erasmus was one of those who early feel old. He was not forty and yet
+fancied himself across the threshold of old age. How quickly it had
+come! He looks back on the course of his life: he sees himself playing
+with nuts as a child, as a boy eager for study, as a youth engrossed in
+poetry and scholasticism, also in painting. He surveys his enormous
+erudition, his study of Greek, his aspiration to scholarly fame. In the
+midst of all this, old age has suddenly come. What remains to him? And
+again we hear the note of renunciation of the world and of devotion to
+Christ. Farewell jests and trifles, farewell philosophy and poetry, a
+pure heart full of Christ is all he desires henceforward.
+
+Here, in the stillness of the Alpine landscape, there arose something
+more of Erasmus's deepest aspirations than in the lament to Servatius.
+But in this case, too, it is a stray element of his soul, not the strong
+impulse that gave direction and fullness to his life and with
+irresistible pressure urged him on to ever new studies.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] A. 189, Philip le Beau, who had unexpectedly come to England because
+of a storm, which obliged Mountjoy to do court-service.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN ITALY
+
+1506-9
+
+    Erasmus in Italy: 1506-9--He takes his degree at Turin--Bologna
+    and Pope Julius II--Erasmus in Venice with Aldus: 1507-8--The
+    art of printing--Alexander Stewart--To Rome: 1509--News of Henry
+    VIII's accession--Erasmus leaves Italy
+
+
+At Turin Erasmus received, directly upon his arrival, on 4 September
+1506, the degree of doctor of theology. That he did not attach much
+value to the degree is easy to understand. He regarded it, however, as
+an official warrant of his competence as a writer on theological
+subjects, which would strengthen his position when assailed by the
+suspicion of his critics. He writes disdainfully about the title, even
+to his Dutch friends who in former days had helped him on in his studies
+for the express purpose of obtaining the doctor's degree. As early as
+1501, to Anna of Borselen he writes, 'Go to Italy and obtain the
+doctor's degree? Foolish projects, both of them. But one should conform
+to the customs of the times.' Again to Servatius and Johannes Obrecht,
+half apologetically, he says: 'I have obtained the doctor's degree in
+theology, and that quite contrary to my intention, only because I was
+overcome by the prayers of friends.'
+
+Bologna was now the destination of his journey. But when Erasmus arrived
+there, a war was in progress which forced him to retire to Florence for
+a time. Pope Julius II, allied with the French, at the head of an army,
+marched on Bologna to conquer it from the Bentivogli. This purpose was
+soon attained, and Bologna was a safe place to return to. On 11 November
+1506, Erasmus witnessed the triumphal entry of the martial pope.
+
+Of these days nothing but short, hasty letters of his have come down to
+us. They speak of unrest and rumours of war. There is nothing to show
+that he was impressed by the beauty of the Italy of the Renaissance. The
+scanty correspondence dating from his stay in Italy mentions neither
+architecture, nor sculpture, nor pictures. When much later he happened
+to remember his visit to the Chartreuse of Pavia, it is only to give an
+instance of useless waste and magnificence. Books alone seemed to occupy
+and attract Erasmus in Italy.
+
+At Bologna, Erasmus served as a mentor to the young Boerios to the end
+of the year for which he had bound himself. It seemed a very long time
+to him. He could not stand any encroachment upon his liberty. He felt
+caught in the contract as in a net. The boys, it seems, were intelligent
+enough, if not so brilliant as Erasmus had seen them in his first joy;
+but with their private tutor Clyfton, whom he at first extolled to the
+sky, he was soon at loggerheads. At Bologna he experienced many
+vexations for which his new relations with Paul Bombasius could only in
+part indemnify him. He worked there at an enlarged edition of his
+_Adagia_, which now, by the addition of the Greek ones, increased from
+eight hundred to some thousands of items.
+
+[Illustration: VII. Title-page of the _Adagia_, printed by Aldus
+Manutius in 1508]
+
+[Illustration: VIII. VIEW OF VENICE, 1493]
+
+[Illustration: IX. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS. On the reverse the
+Aldine emblem]
+
+[Illustration: X. A page from the _Praise of Folly_ with a drawing by
+Holbein of Erasmus at his desk.]
+
+From Bologna, in October 1507, Erasmus addressed a letter to the famous
+Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius, in which he requested him to publish,
+anew, the two translated dramas of Euripides, as the edition of Badius
+was out of print and too defective for his taste. What made Aldus
+attractive in his eyes was, no doubt, besides the fame of the business,
+though it was languishing at the time, the printer's beautiful
+type--'those most magnificent letters, especially those very small
+ones'. Erasmus was one of those true book-lovers who pledge their heart
+to a type or a size of a book, not because of any artistic preference,
+but because of readableness and handiness, which to them are of the very
+greatest importance. What he asked of Aldus was a small book at a low
+price. Towards the end of the year their relations had gone so far that
+Erasmus gave up his projected journey to Rome, for the time, to remove
+to Venice, there personally to superintend the publication of his works.
+Now there was no longer merely the question of a little book of
+translations, but Aldus had declared himself willing to print the
+enormously increased collection of the _Adagia_.
+
+Beatus Rhenanus tells a story which, no doubt, he had heard from Erasmus
+himself: how Erasmus on his arrival at Venice had gone straight to the
+printing-office and was kept waiting there for a long time. Aldus was
+correcting proofs and thought his visitor was one of those inquisitive
+people by whom he used to be pestered. When he turned out to be Erasmus,
+he welcomed him cordially and procured him board and lodging in the
+house of his father-in-law, Andrea Asolani. Fully eight months did
+Erasmus live there, in the environment which, in future, was to be his
+true element: the printing-office. He was in a fever of hurried work,
+about which he would often sigh, but which, after all, was congenial to
+him. The augmented collection of the _Adagia_ had not yet been made
+ready for the press at Bologna. 'With great temerity on my part,'
+Erasmus himself testifies, 'we began to work at the same time, I to
+write, Aldus to print.' Meanwhile the literary friends of the New
+Academy whom he got to know at Venice, Johannes Lascaris, Baptista
+Egnatius, Marcus Musurus and the young Jerome Aleander, with whom, at
+Asolani's, he shared room and bed, brought him new Greek authors,
+unprinted as yet, furnishing fresh material for augmenting the _Adagia_.
+These were no inconsiderable additions: Plato in the original,
+Plutarch's _Lives_ and _Moralia_, Pindar, Pausanias, and others. Even
+people whom he did not know and who took an interest in his work,
+brought new material to him. Amid the noise of the press-room, Erasmus,
+to the surprise of his publisher, sat and wrote, usually from memory, so
+busily occupied that, as he picturesquely expressed it, he had no time
+to scratch his ears. He was lord and master of the printing-office. A
+special corrector had been assigned to him; he made his textual changes
+in the last impression. Aldus also read the proofs. 'Why?' asked
+Erasmus. 'Because I am studying at the same time,' was the reply.
+Meanwhile Erasmus suffered from the first attack of his tormenting
+nephrolithic malady; he ascribed it to the food he got at Asolani's and
+later took revenge by painting that boarding-house and its landlord in
+very spiteful colours in the _Colloquies_.
+
+When in September 1508, the edition of the _Adagia_ was ready, Aldus
+wanted Erasmus to remain in order to write more for him. Till December
+he continued to work at Venice on editions of Plautus, Terence, and
+Seneca's tragedies. Visions of joint labour to publish all that classic
+antiquity still held in the way of hidden treasures, together with
+Hebrew and Chaldean stores, floated before his mind.
+
+Erasmus belonged to the generation which had grown up together with the
+youthful art of printing. To the world of those days it was still like a
+newly acquired organ; people felt rich, powerful, happy in the
+possession of this 'almost divine implement'. The figure of Erasmus and
+his _[oe]uvre_ were only rendered possible by the art of printing. He
+was its glorious triumph and, equally, in a sense, its victim. What
+would Erasmus have been without the printing-press? To broadcast the
+ancient documents, to purify and restore them was his life's passion.
+The certainty that the printed book places exactly the same text in the
+hands of thousands of readers, was to him a consolation that former
+generations had lacked.
+
+Erasmus is one of the first who, after his name as an author was
+established, worked directly and continually for the press. It was his
+strength, but also his weakness. It enabled him to exercise an immediate
+influence on the reading public of Europe such as had emanated from none
+before him; to become a focus of culture in the full sense of the word,
+an intellectual central station, a touchstone of the spirit of the time.
+Imagine for a moment what it would have meant if a still greater mind
+than his, say Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, that universal spirit who had
+helped in nursing the art of printing in its earliest infancy, could
+have availed himself of the art as it was placed at the disposal of
+Erasmus!
+
+The dangerous aspect of this situation was that printing enabled
+Erasmus, having once become a centre and an authority, to address the
+world at large immediately about all that occurred to him. Much of his
+later mental labour is, after all, really but repetition, ruminating
+digression, unnecessary vindication from assaults to which his greatness
+alone would have been a sufficient answer, futilities which he might
+have better left alone. Much of this work written directly for the press
+is journalism at bottom, and we do Erasmus an injustice by applying to
+it the tests of lasting excellence. The consciousness that we can reach
+the whole world at once with our writings is a stimulant which
+unwittingly influences our mode of expression, a luxury that only the
+highest spirits can bear with impunity.
+
+The link between Erasmus and book-printing was Latin. Without his
+incomparable Latinity his position as an author would have been
+impossible. The art of printing undoubtedly furthered the use of Latin.
+It was the Latin publications which in those days promised success and a
+large sale for a publisher, and established his reputation, for they
+were broadcast all over the world. The leading publishers were
+themselves scholars filled with enthusiasm for humanism. Cultured and
+well-to-do people acted as proof-readers to printers; such as Peter
+Gilles, the friend of Erasmus and More, the town clerk of Antwerp, who
+corrected proof-sheets for Dirck Maertensz. The great printing-offices
+were, in a local sense, too, the foci of intellectual intercourse. The
+fact that England had lagged behind, thus far, in the evolution of the
+art of printing, contributed not a little, no doubt, to prevent Erasmus
+from settling there, where so many ties held and so many advantages
+allured him.
+
+To find a permanent place of residence was, indeed, and apart from this
+fact, very hard for him. Towards the end of 1508 he accepted the post of
+tutor in rhetorics to the young Alexander Stewart, a natural son of
+James IV of Scotland, and already, in spite of his youth, Archbishop of
+Saint Andrews, now a student at Padua. The danger of war soon drove them
+from upper Italy to Siena. Here Erasmus obtained leave to visit Rome. He
+arrived there early in 1509, no longer an unknown canon from the
+northern regions but a celebrated and honoured author. All the charms of
+the Eternal City lay open to him and he must have felt keenly gratified
+by the consideration and courtesy with which cardinals and prelates,
+such as Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards Leo X, Domenico Grimani, Riario
+and others, treated him. It seems that he was even offered some post in
+the curia. But he had to return to his youthful archbishop with whom he
+thereupon visited Rome again, incognito, and afterwards travelled in the
+neighbourhood of Naples. He inspected the cave of the Sibylla of Cumae,
+but what it meant to him we do not know. This entire period following
+his departure from Padua and all that follows till the spring of
+1511--in certain respects the most important part of his life--remains
+unrecorded in a single letter that has come down to us. Here and there
+he has occasionally, and at a much later date, touched upon some
+impressions of Rome,[9] but the whole remains vague and dim. It is the
+incubation period of the _Praise of Folly_ that is thus obscured from
+view.
+
+On 21 April 1509, King Henry VII of England died. His successor was the
+young prince whom Erasmus had saluted at Eltham in 1499, to whom he had
+dedicated his poem in praise of Great Britain, and who, during his stay
+at Bologna, had distinguished him by a Latin letter as creditable to
+Erasmus as to the fifteen-year-old royal latinist.[10] If ever the
+chance of obtaining a patron seemed favourable, it was now, when this
+promising lover of letters ascended the throne as Henry VIII. Lord
+Mountjoy, Erasmus's most faithful Maecenas, thought so, too, and pointed
+out the fact to him in a letter of 27 May 1509. It was a pleasure to
+see, he wrote, how vigorous, how upright and just, how zealous in the
+cause of literature and men of letters was the conduct of the youthful
+prince. Mountjoy--or Ammonius, who probably drew up the flowery document
+for him--was exultant. A laughing sky and tears of joy are the themes of
+the letter. Evidently, however, Erasmus himself had, on his side,
+already sounded Mountjoy as to his chances, as soon as the tidings of
+Henry VII's death became known at Rome; not without lamentations about
+cares and weakened health. 'The Archbishop of Canterbury', Mountjoy was
+able to apprise Erasmus, 'is not only continually engrossed in your
+_Adagia_ and praises you to the skies, but he also promises you a
+benefice on your return and sends you five pounds for travelling
+expenses,' which sum was doubled by Mountjoy.
+
+We do not know whether Erasmus really hesitated before he reached his
+decision. Cardinal Grimani, he asserts, tried to hold him back, but in
+vain, for in July, 1509, he left Rome and Italy, never to return.
+
+As he crossed the Alps for the second time, not on the French side now,
+but across the Spluegen, through Switzerland, his genius touched him
+again, as had happened in those high regions three years before on the
+road to Italy. But this time it was not in the guise of the Latin Muse,
+who then drew from him such artful and pathetic poetical meditations
+about his past life and pious vows for the future;--it was something
+much more subtle and grand: the _Praise of Folly_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] LBE. No. 1175 _c._ 1375, visit to Grimani.
+
+[10] A. 206, where from Allen's introduction one can form an opinion
+about the prince's share in the composition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
+
+    _Moriae Encomium, The Praise of Folly_: 1509, as a work of
+    art--Folly, the motor of all life: Indispensable, salutary,
+    cause and support of states and of heroism--Folly keeps the
+    world going--Vital energy incorporated with folly--Lack of folly
+    makes unfit for life--Need of self-complacency--Humbug beats
+    truth--Knowledge a plague--Satire of all secular and
+    ecclesiastical vocations--Two themes throughout the work--The
+    highest folly: Ecstasy--The _Moria_ to be taken as a gay
+    jest--Confusion of fools and lunatics--Erasmus treats his
+    _Moria_ slightingly--Its value
+
+
+While he rode over the mountain passes,[11] Erasmus's restless spirit,
+now unfettered for some days by set tasks, occupied itself with
+everything he had studied and read in the last few years, and with
+everything he had seen. What ambition, what self-deception, what pride
+and conceit filled the world! He thought of Thomas More, whom he was now
+to see again--that most witty and wise of all his friends, with that
+curious name _Moros_, the Greek word for a fool, which so ill became his
+personality. Anticipating the gay jests which More's conversation
+promised, there grew in his mind that masterpiece of humour and wise
+irony, _Moriae Encomium_, the _Praise of Folly_. The world as the scene
+of universal folly; folly as the indispensable element making life and
+society possible and all this put into the mouth of Stultitia--Folly--
+itself (true antitype of Minerva), who in a panegyric on her own power
+and usefulness, praises herself. As to form it is a _Declamatio_, such
+as he had translated from the Greek of Libanius. As to the spirit, a
+revival of Lucian, whose _Gallus_, translated by him three years before,
+may have suggested the theme. It must have been in the incomparably
+lucid moments of that brilliant intellect. All the particulars of
+classic reading which the year before he worked up in the new edition of
+the _Adagia_ were still at his immediate disposal in that retentive and
+capacious memory. Reflecting at his ease on all that wisdom of the
+ancients, he secreted the juices required for his expostulation.
+
+He arrived in London, took up his abode in More's house in Bucklersbury,
+and there, tortured by nephritic pains, he wrote down in a few days,
+without having his books with him, the perfect work of art that must
+have been ready in his mind. Stultitia was truly born in the manner of
+her serious sister Pallas.
+
+As to form and imagery the _Moria_ is faultless, the product of the
+inspired moments of creative impulse. The figure of an orator
+confronting her public is sustained to the last in a masterly way. We
+see the faces of the auditors light up with glee when Folly appears in
+the pulpit; we hear the applause interrupting her words. There is a
+wealth of fancy, coupled with so much soberness of line and colour, such
+reserve, that the whole presents a perfect instance of that harmony
+which is the essence of Renaissance expression. There is no exuberance,
+in spite of the multiplicity of matter and thought, but a temperateness,
+a smoothness, an airiness and clearness which are as gladdening as they
+are relaxing. In order perfectly to realize the artistic perfection of
+Erasmus's book we should compare it with Rabelais.
+
+'Without me', says Folly, 'the world cannot exist for a moment. For is
+not all that is done at all among mortals, full of folly; is it not
+performed by fools and for fools?' 'No society, no cohabitation can be
+pleasant or lasting without folly; so much so, that a people could not
+stand its prince, nor the master his man, nor the maid her mistress, nor
+the tutor his pupil, nor the friend his friend, nor the wife her husband
+for a moment longer, if they did not now and then err together, now
+flatter each other; now sensibly conniving at things, now smearing
+themselves with some honey of folly.' In that sentence the summary of
+the _Laus_ is contained. Folly here is worldly wisdom, resignation and
+lenient judgement.
+
+He who pulls off the masks in the comedy of life is ejected. What is the
+whole life of mortals but a sort of play in which each actor appears on
+the boards in his specific mask and acts his part till the stage-manager
+calls him off? He acts wrongly who does not adapt himself to existing
+conditions, and demands that the game shall be a game no longer. It is
+the part of the truly sensible to mix with all people, either conniving
+readily at their folly, or affably erring like themselves.
+
+And the necessary driving power of all human action is 'Philautia',
+Folly's own sister: self-love. He who does not please himself effects
+little. Take away that condiment of life and the word of the orator
+cools, the poet is laughed at, the artist perishes with his art.
+
+Folly in the garb of pride, of vanity, of vainglory, is the hidden
+spring of all that is considered high and great in this world. The state
+with its posts of honour, patriotism and national pride; the stateliness
+of ceremonies, the delusion of caste and nobility--what is it but folly?
+War, the most foolish thing of all, is the origin of all heroism. What
+prompted the Deciuses, what Curtius, to sacrifice themselves? Vainglory.
+It is this folly which produces states; through her, empires, religion,
+law-courts, exist.
+
+This is bolder and more chilling than Machiavelli, more detached than
+Montaigne. But Erasmus will not have it credited to him: it is Folly who
+speaks. He purposely makes us tread the round of the _circulus
+vitiosus_, as in the old saw: A Cretan said, all Cretans are liars.
+
+Wisdom is to folly as reason is to passion. And there is much more
+passion than reason in the world. That which keeps the world going, the
+fount of life, is folly. For what else is love? Why do people marry, if
+not out of folly, which sees no objections? All enjoyment and amusement
+is only a condiment of folly. When a wise man wishes to become a father,
+he has first to play the fool. For what is more foolish than the game of
+procreation?
+
+Unperceived the orator has incorporated here with folly all that is
+vitality and the courage of life. Folly is spontaneous energy that no
+one can do without. He who is perfectly sensible and serious cannot
+live. The more people get away from me, Stultitia, the less they live.
+Why do we kiss and cuddle little children, if not because they are still
+so delightfully foolish. And what else makes youth so elegant?
+
+Now look at the truly serious and sensible. They are awkward at
+everything, at meal-time, at a dance, in playing, in social intercourse.
+If they have to buy, or to contract, things are sure to go wrong.
+Quintilian says that stage fright bespeaks the intelligent orator, who
+knows his faults. Right! But does not, then, Quintilian confess openly
+that wisdom is an impediment to good execution? And has not Stultitia
+the right to claim prudence for herself, if the wise, out of shame, out
+of bashfulness, undertake nothing in circumstances where fools pluckily
+set to work?
+
+Here Erasmus goes to the root of the matter in a psychological sense.
+Indeed the consciousness of falling short in achievement is the brake
+clogging action, is the great inertia retarding the progress of the
+world. Did he know himself for one who is awkward when not bending over
+his books, but confronting men and affairs?
+
+Folly is gaiety and lightheartedness, indispensable to happiness. The
+man of mere reason without passion is a stone image, blunt and without
+any human feeling, a spectre or monster, from whom all fly, deaf to all
+natural emotions, susceptible neither to love nor compassion. Nothing
+escapes him, in nothing he errs; he sees through everything, he weighs
+everything accurately, he forgives nothing, he is only satisfied with
+himself; he alone is healthy; he alone is king, he alone is free. It is
+the hideous figure of the doctrinaire which Erasmus is thinking of.
+Which state, he exclaims, would desire such an absolutely wise man for a
+magistrate?
+
+He who devotes himself to tasting all the bitterness of life with wise
+insight would forthwith deprive himself of life. Only folly is a remedy:
+to err, to be mistaken, to be ignorant is to be human. How much better
+it is in marriage to be blind to a wife's shortcomings than to make away
+with oneself out of jealousy and to fill the world with tragedy!
+Adulation is virtue. There is no cordial devotion without a little
+adulation. It is the soul of eloquence, of medicine and poetry; it is
+the honey and the sweetness of all human customs.
+
+Again a series of valuable social qualities is slyly incorporated with
+folly: benevolence, kindness, inclination to approve and to admire.
+
+But especially to approve of oneself. There is no pleasing others
+without beginning by flattering ourselves a little and approving of
+ourselves. What would the world be if everyone was not proud of his
+standing, his calling, so that no person would change places with
+another in point of good appearance, of fancy, of good family, of landed
+property?
+
+Humbug is the right thing. Why should any one desire true erudition? The
+more incompetent a man, the pleasanter his life is and the more he is
+admired. Look at professors, poets, orators. Man's mind is so made that
+he is more impressed by lies than by the truth. Go to church: if the
+priest deals with serious subjects the whole congregation is dozing,
+yawning, feeling bored. But when he begins to tell some cock-and-bull
+story, they awake, sit up, and hang on his lips.
+
+To be deceived, philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not to be
+deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err, why should
+a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he was so born and made,
+and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly or
+does not walk on four legs? We might as well call the horse unhappy
+because it does not learn grammar or eat cakes. No creature is unhappy,
+if it lives according to its nature. The sciences were invented to our
+utmost destruction; far from conducing to our happiness, they are even
+in its way, though for its sake they are supposed to have been invented.
+By the agency of evil demons they have stolen into human life with the
+other pests. For did not the simple-minded people of the Golden Age live
+happily, unprovided with any science, only led by nature and instinct?
+What did they want grammar for, when all spoke the same language? Why
+have dialectics, when there were no quarrels and no differences of
+opinion? Why jurisprudence, when there were no bad morals from which
+good laws sprang? They were too religious to investigate with impious
+curiosity the secrets of nature, the size, motions, influence of the
+stars, the hidden cause of things.
+
+It is the old idea, which germinated in antiquity, here lightly touched
+upon by Erasmus, afterwards proclaimed by Rousseau in bitter earnest:
+civilization is a plague.
+
+Wisdom is misfortune, but self-conceit is happiness. Grammarians, who
+wield the sceptre of wisdom--schoolmasters, that is--would be the most
+wretched of all people if I, Folly, did not mitigate the discomforts of
+their miserable calling by a sort of sweet frenzy. But what holds good
+of schoolmasters, also holds good of poets, orators, authors. For them,
+too, all happiness merely consists in vanity and delusion. The lawyers
+are no better off and after them come the philosophers. Next there is a
+numerous procession of clergy: divines, monks, bishops, cardinals,
+popes, only interrupted by princes and courtiers.
+
+In the chapters[12] which review these offices and callings, satire has
+shifted its ground a little. Throughout the work two themes are
+intertwined: that of salutary folly, which is true wisdom, and that of
+deluded wisdom, which is pure folly. As they are both put into the mouth
+of Folly, we should have to invert them both to get truth, if Folly ...
+were not wisdom. Now it is clear that the first is the principal theme.
+Erasmus starts from it; and he returns to it. Only in the middle, as he
+reviews human accomplishments and dignities in their universal
+foolishness, the second theme predominates and the book becomes an
+ordinary satire on human folly, of which there are many though few are
+so delicate. But in the other parts it is something far deeper.
+
+Occasionally the satire runs somewhat off the line, when Stultitia
+directly censures what Erasmus wishes to censure; for instance,
+indulgences, silly belief in wonders, selfish worship of the saints; or
+gamblers whom she, Folly, ought to praise; or the spirit of
+systematizing and levelling, and the jealousy of the monks.
+
+For contemporary readers the importance of the _Laus Stultitiae_ was, to
+a great extent, in the direct satire. Its lasting value is in those
+passages where we truly grant that folly is wisdom and the reverse.
+Erasmus knows the aloofness of the ground of all things: all consistent
+thinking out of the dogmas of faith leads to absurdity. Only look at the
+theological quiddities of effete scholasticism. The apostles would not
+have understood them: in the eyes of latter-day divines they would have
+been fools. Holy Scripture itself sides with folly. 'The foolishness of
+God is wiser than men,' says Saint Paul. 'But God hath chosen the
+foolish things of the world.' 'It pleased God by the foolishness (of
+preaching) to save them that believe.' Christ loved the simple-minded
+and the ignorant: children, women, poor fishermen, nay, even such
+animals as are farthest removed from vulpine cunning: the ass which he
+wished to ride, the dove, the lamb, the sheep.
+
+Here there is a great deal behind the seemingly light jest: 'Christian
+religion seems in general to have some affinity with a certain sort of
+folly'. Was it not thought the apostles were full of new wine? And did
+not the judge say: 'Paul, thou art beside thyself'? When are we beside
+ourselves? When the spirit breaks its fetters and tries to escape from
+its prison and aspires to liberty. That is madness, but it is also
+other-worldliness and the highest wisdom. True happiness is in
+selflessness, in the furore of lovers, whom Plato calls happiest of all.
+The more absolute love is, the greater and more rapturous is the frenzy.
+Heavenly bliss itself is the greatest insanity; truly pious people enjoy
+its shadow on earth already in their meditations.
+
+Here Stultitia breaks off her discourse, apologizing in a few words in
+case she may have been too petulant or talkative, and leaves the pulpit.
+'So farewell, applaud, live happily, and drink, Moria's illustrious
+initiates.'
+
+It was an unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters neither to
+lose the light comical touch, nor to lapse into undisguised profanation.
+It was only feasible by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of
+sophistry. In the _Moria_ Erasmus is all the time hovering on the brink
+of profound truths. But what a boon it was--still granted to those
+times--to be able to treat of all this in a vein of pleasantry. For this
+should be impressed upon our minds: that the _Moriae Encomium_ is a
+true, gay jest. The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty than
+Rabelais's. 'Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite.' 'All common people
+abound to such a degree, and everywhere, in so many forms of folly that
+a thousand Democrituses would be insufficient to laugh at them all (and
+they would require another Democritus to laugh at them).'
+
+How could one take the _Moria_ too seriously, when even More's _Utopia_,
+which is a true companion-piece to it and makes such a grave impression
+on us, is treated by its author and Erasmus as a mere jest? There is a
+place where the _Laus_ seems to touch both More and Rabelais; the place
+where Stultitia speaks of her father, Plutus, the god of wealth, at
+whose beck all things are turned topsy-turvy, according to whose will
+all human affairs are regulated--war and peace, government and counsel,
+justice and treaties. He has begotten her on the nymph Youth, not a
+senile, purblind Plutus, but a fresh god, warm with youth and nectar,
+like another Gargantua.
+
+The figure of Folly, of gigantic size, looms large in the period of the
+Renaissance. She wears a fool's cap and bells. People laughed loudly and
+with unconcern at all that was foolish, without discriminating between
+species of folly. It is remarkable that even in the _Laus_, delicate as
+it is, the author does not distinguish between the unwise or the silly,
+between fools and lunatics. Holbein, illustrating Erasmus, knows but of
+one representation of a fool: with a staff and ass's ears. Erasmus
+speaks without clear transition, now of foolish persons and now of real
+lunatics. They are happiest of all, he makes Stultitia say: they are not
+frightened by spectres and apparitions; they are not tortured by the
+fear of impending calamities; everywhere they bring mirth, jests, frolic
+and laughter. Evidently he here means harmless imbeciles, who, indeed,
+were often used as jesters. This identification of denseness and
+insanity is kept up, however, like the confusion of the comic and the
+simply ridiculous, and all this is well calculated to make us feel how
+wide the gap has already become that separates us from Erasmus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In later years he always spoke slightingly of his _Moria_. He considered
+it so unimportant, he says, as to be unworthy of publication, yet no
+work of his had been received with such applause. It was a trifle and
+not at all in keeping with his character. More had made him write it, as
+if a camel were made to dance. But these disparaging utterances were not
+without a secondary purpose. The _Moria_ had not brought him only
+success and pleasure. The exceedingly susceptible age in which he lived
+had taken the satire in very bad part, where it seemed to glance at
+offices and orders, although in his preface he had tried to safeguard
+himself from the reproach of irreverence. His airy play with the texts
+of Holy Scripture had been too venturesome for many. His friend Martin
+van Dorp upbraided him with having made a mock of eternal life. Erasmus
+did what he could to convince evil-thinkers that the purpose of the
+_Moria_ was no other than to exhort people to be virtuous. In affirming
+this he did his work injustice: it was much more than that. But in 1515
+he was no longer what he had been in 1509. Repeatedly he had been
+obliged to defend his most witty work. Had he known that it would
+offend, he might have kept it back, he writes in 1517 to an acquaintance
+at Louvain. Even towards the end of his life, he warded off the
+insinuations of Alberto Pio of Carpi in a lengthy expostulation.
+
+Erasmus made no further ventures in the genre of the _Praise of Folly_.
+One might consider the treatise _Lingua_, which he published in 1525, as
+an attempt to make a companion-piece to the _Moria_. The book is called
+_Of the Use and Abuse of the Tongue_. In the opening pages there is
+something that reminds us of the style of the _Laus_, but it lacks all
+the charm both of form and of thought.
+
+Should one pity Erasmus because, of all his publications, collected in
+ten folio volumes, only the _Praise of Folly_ has remained a really
+popular book? It is, apart from the _Colloquies_, perhaps the only one
+of his works that is still read for its own sake. The rest is now only
+studied from a historical point of view, for the sake of becoming
+acquainted with his person or his times. It seems to me that perfect
+justice has been done in this case. The _Praise of Folly_ is his best
+work. He wrote other books, more erudite, some more pious--some perhaps
+of equal or greater influence on his time. But each has had its day.
+_Moriae Encomium_ alone was to be immortal. For only when humour
+illuminated that mind did it become truly profound. In the _Praise of
+Folly_ Erasmus gave something that no one else could have given to the
+world.
+
+[Illustration: XI. The last page of the _Praise of Folly_, with
+Holbein's drawing of Folly descending from the pulpit]
+
+[Illustration: XII. THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] That he conceived the work in the Alps follows from the fact that
+he tells us explicitly that it happened while riding, whereas, after
+passing through Switzerland, he travelled by boat. A. 1, IV 216.62.
+
+[12] Erasmus did not divide the book into chapters. It was done by an
+editor as late as 1765.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND
+
+1509-14
+
+    Third stay in England: 1509-14--No information about two years
+    of Erasmus's life: 1509 summer, till 1511 spring--Poverty--
+    Erasmus at Cambridge--Relations with Badius, the Paris
+    publisher--A mistake profitable to Johannes Froben at Basle--
+    Erasmus leaves England: 1514--_Julius Exclusus_--Epistle
+    against war
+
+
+From the moment when Erasmus, back from Italy in the early summer of
+1509, is hidden from view in the house of More, to write the _Praise of
+Folly_, until nearly two years later when he comes to view again on the
+road to Paris to have the book printed by Gilles Gourmont, every trace
+of his life has been obliterated. Of the letters which during that
+period he wrote and received, not a single one has been preserved.
+Perhaps it was the happiest time of his life, for it was partly spent
+with his tried patron, Mountjoy, and also in the house of More in that
+noble and witty circle which to Erasmus appeared ideal. That house was
+also frequented by the friend whom Erasmus had made during his former
+sojourn in England, and whose mind was perhaps more congenial to him
+than any other, Andrew Ammonius. It is not improbable that during these
+months he was able to work without interruption at the studies to which
+he was irresistibly attracted, without cares as to the immediate future,
+and not yet burdened by excessive renown, which afterwards was to cause
+him as much trouble and loss as joy.
+
+That future was still uncertain. As soon as he no longer enjoys More's
+hospitality, the difficulties and complaints recommence. Continual
+poverty, uncertainty and dependence were extraordinarily galling to a
+mind requiring above all things liberty. At Paris he charged Badius with
+a new, revised edition of the _Adagia_, though the Aldine might still be
+had there at a moderate price. The _Laus_, which had just appeared at
+Gourmont's, was reprinted at Strassburg as early as 1511, with a
+courteous letter by Jacob Wimpfeling to Erasmus, but evidently without
+his being consulted in the matter. By that time he was back in England,
+had been laid up in London with a bad attack of the sweating sickness,
+and thence had gone to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he had resided
+before. From Cambridge he writes to Colet, 24 August 1511, in a vein of
+comical despair. The journey from London had been disastrous: a lame
+horse, no victuals for the road, rain and thunder. 'But I am almost
+pleased at this, I see the track of Christian poverty.' A chance to make
+some money he does not see; he will be obliged to spend everything he
+can wrest from his Maecenases--he, born under a wrathful Mercury.
+
+This may sound somewhat gloomier than it was meant, but a few weeks
+later he writes again: 'Oh, this begging; you laugh at me, I know. But I
+hate myself for it and am fully determined, either to obtain some
+fortune, which will relieve me from cringing, or to imitate Diogenes
+altogether.' This refers to a dedication of a translation of Basilius's
+Commentaries on Isaiah to John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester.
+
+Colet, who had never known pecuniary cares himself, did not well
+understand these sallies of Erasmus. He replies to them with delicate
+irony and covert rebuke, which Erasmus, in his turn, pretends not to
+understand. He was now 'in want in the midst of plenty', _simul et in
+media copia et in summa inopia_. That is to say, he was engaged in
+preparing for Badius's press the _De copia verborum ac rerum_, formerly
+begun at Paris; it was dedicated to Colet. 'I ask you, who can be more
+impudent or abject than I, who for such a long time already have been
+openly begging in England?'
+
+Writing to Ammonius he bitterly regrets having left Rome and Italy; how
+prosperity had smiled upon him there! In the same way he would
+afterwards lament that he had not permanently established himself in
+England. If he had only embraced the opportunity! he thinks. Was not
+Erasmus rather one of those people whom good fortune cannot help? He
+remained in trouble and his tone grows more bitter. 'I am preparing some
+bait against the 1st of January, though it is pretty sure to be in
+vain,' he writes to Ammonius, referring to new translations of Lucian
+and Plutarch.
+
+At Cambridge Erasmus lectured on divinity and Greek, but it brought him
+little success and still less profit. The long-wished-for prebend,
+indeed, had at last been given him, in the form of the rectory of
+Aldington, in Kent, to which Archbishop William Warham, his patron,
+appointed him in 1512. Instead of residing he was allowed to draw a
+pension of twenty pounds a year. The archbishop affirms explicitly that,
+contrary to his custom, he had granted this favour to Erasmus, because
+he, 'a light of learning in Latin and Greek literature, had, out of love
+for England, disdained to live in Italy, France, or Germany, in order to
+pass the rest of his life here, with his friends'. We see how nations
+already begin to vie with each other for the honour of sheltering
+Erasmus.
+
+Relief from all cares the post did not bring. Intercourse and
+correspondence with Colet was a little soured under the light veil of
+jests and kindness by his constant need of money. Seeking new resources
+by undertaking new labours, or preparing new editions of his old books,
+remained a hard necessity for Erasmus. The great works upon which he had
+set his heart, and to which he had given all his energies at Cambridge,
+held out no promise of immediate profit. His serious theological labours
+ranked above all others; and in these hard years, he devoted his best
+strength to preparation for the great edition of Jerome's works and
+emendation of the text of the New Testament, a task inspired, encouraged
+and promoted by Colet.
+
+For his living other books had to serve. He had a sufficient number now,
+and the printers were eager enough about them, though the profit which
+the author made by them was not large. After leaving Aldus at Venice,
+Erasmus had returned to the publisher who had printed for him as early
+as 1505--Josse Badius, of Brabant, who, at Paris, had established the
+Ascensian Press (called after his native place, Assche) and who, a
+scholar himself, rivalled Aldus in point of the accuracy of his editions
+of the classics. At the time when Erasmus took the _Moria_ to Gourmont,
+at Paris, he had charged Badius with a new edition, still to be revised,
+of the _Adagia_. Why the _Moria_ was published by another, we cannot
+tell; perhaps Badius did not like it at first. From the _Adagia_ he
+promised himself the more profit, but that was a long work, the
+alterations and preface of which he was still waiting for Erasmus to
+send. He felt very sure of his ground, for everyone knew that he,
+Badius, was preparing the new edition. Yet a rumour reached him that in
+Germany the Aldine edition was being reprinted. So there was some hurry
+to finish it, he wrote to Erasmus in May 1512.
+
+Badius, meanwhile, had much more work of Erasmus in hand, or on
+approval: the _Copia_, which, shortly afterwards, was published by him;
+the _Moria_, of which, at the same time, a new edition, the fifth,
+already had appeared; the dialogues by Lucian; the Euripides and Seneca
+translations, which were to follow. He hoped to add Jerome's letters to
+these. For the _Adagia_ they had agreed upon a copy-fee of fifteen
+guilders; for Jerome's letters Badius was willing to give the same sum
+and as much again for the rest of the consignment. 'Ah, you will say,
+what a very small sum! I own that by no remuneration could your genius,
+industry, knowledge and labour be requited, but the gods will requite
+you and your own virtue will be the finest reward. You have already
+deserved exceedingly well of Greek and Roman literature; you will in
+this same way deserve well of sacred and divine, and you will help your
+little Badius, who has a numerous family and no earnings besides his
+daily trade.'
+
+Erasmus must have smiled ruefully on receiving Badius's letter. But he
+accepted the proposal readily. He promised to prepare everything for the
+press and, on 5 January 1513, he finished, in London, the preface to the
+revised _Adagia_, for which Badius was waiting. But then something
+happened. An agent who acted as a mediator with authors for several
+publishers in Germany and France, one Francis Berckman, of Cologne, took
+the revised copy of the _Adagia_ with the preface entrusted to him by
+Erasmus to hand over to Badius, not to Paris, but to Basle, to Johannes
+Froben, who had just, without Erasmus's leave, reprinted the Venetian
+edition! Erasmus pretended to be indignant at this mistake or perfidy,
+but it is only too clear that he did not regret it. Six months later he
+betook himself with bag and baggage to Basle, to enter with that same
+Froben into those most cordial relations by which their names are
+united. Beatus Rhenanus, afterwards, made no secret of the fact that a
+connection with the house of Froben, then still called Amerbach and
+Froben, had seemed attractive to Erasmus ever since he had heard of the
+_Adagia_ being reprinted.
+
+Without conclusive proofs of his complicity, we do not like to accuse
+Erasmus of perfidy towards Badius, though his attitude is curious, to
+say the least. But we do want to commemorate the dignified tone in which
+Badius, who held strict notions, as those times went, about copyright,
+replied, when Berckman afterwards had come to offer him a sort of
+explanation of the case. He declares himself satisfied, though Erasmus
+had, since that time, caused him losses in more ways, amongst others by
+printing a new edition of the _Copia_ at Strassburg. 'If, however, it is
+agreeable to your interests and honour, I shall suffer it, and that with
+equanimity.' Their relations were not broken off. In all this we should
+not lose sight of the fact that publishing at that time was yet a quite
+new commercial phenomenon and that new commercial forms and relations of
+trade are wont to be characterized by uncertainty, confusion and lack of
+established business morals.
+
+The stay at Cambridge gradually became irksome to Erasmus. 'For some
+months already', he writes to Ammonius in November 1513, 'we have been
+leading a true snail's life, staying at home and plodding. It is very
+lonely here; most people have gone for fear of the plague, but even when
+they are all here, it is lonely.' The cost of sustenance is unbearable
+and he makes no money at all. If he does not succeed, that winter, in
+making a nest for himself, he is resolved to fly away, he does not know
+where. 'If to no other end, to die elsewhere.'
+
+Added to the stress of circumstances, the plague, reappearing again and
+again, and attacks of his kidney-trouble, there came the state of war,
+which depressed and alarmed Erasmus. In the spring of 1513 the English
+raid on France, long prepared, took place. In co-operation with
+Maximilian's army the English had beaten the French near Guinegate and
+compelled Therouanne to surrender, and afterwards Tournay. Meanwhile the
+Scotch invaded England, to be decisively beaten near Flodden. Their
+king, James IV, perished together with his natural son, Erasmus's pupil
+and travelling companion in Italy, Alexander, Archbishop of Saint
+Andrews.
+
+Crowned with martial fame, Henry VIII returned in November to meet his
+parliament. Erasmus did not share the universal joy and enthusiastic
+admiration. 'We are circumscribed here by the plague, threatened by
+robbers; we drink wine of the worst (because there is no import from
+France), but, _io triumphe!_ we are the conquerors of the world!'
+
+His deep aversion to the clamour of war, and all it represented,
+stimulated Erasmus's satirical faculties. It is true that he flattered
+the English national pride by an epigram on the rout of the French near
+Guinegate, but soon he went deeper. He remembered how war had impeded
+his movements in Italy; how the entry of the pope-conqueror, Julius II,
+into Bologna had outraged his feelings. 'The high priest Julius wages
+war, conquers, triumphs and truly plays the part of Julius (Caesar)' he
+had written then. Pope Julius, he thought, had been the cause of all the
+wars spreading more and more over Europe. Now the Pope had died in the
+beginning of the year 1513.
+
+And in the deepest secrecy, between his work on the New Testament and
+Jerome, Erasmus took revenge on the martial Pope, for the misery of the
+times, by writing the masterly satire, entitled _Julius exclusus_, in
+which the Pope appears in all his glory before the gate of the Heavenly
+Paradise to plead his cause and find himself excluded. The theme was not
+new to him; for had he not made something similar in the witty Cain
+fable, by which, at one time, he had cheered a dinner-party at Oxford?
+But that was an innocent jest to which his pious fellow-guests had
+listened with pleasure. To the satire about the defunct Pope many would,
+no doubt, also gladly listen, but Erasmus had to be careful about it.
+The folly of all the world might be ridiculed, but not the worldly
+propensities of the recently deceased Pope. Therefore, though he helped
+in circulating copies of the manuscript, Erasmus did his utmost, for the
+rest of his life, to preserve its anonymity, and when it was universally
+known and had appeared in print, and he was presumed to be the author,
+he always cautiously denied the fact; although he was careful to use
+such terms as to avoid a formal denial. The first edition of the
+_Julius_ was published at Basle, not by Froben, Erasmus's ordinary
+publisher, but by Cratander, probably in the year 1518.
+
+Erasmus's need of protesting against warfare had not been satisfied by
+writing the _Julius_. In March 1514, no longer at Cambridge, but in
+London, he wrote a letter to his former patron, the Abbot of Saint
+Bertin, Anthony of Bergen, in which he enlarges upon the folly of waging
+war. Would that a Christian peace were concluded between Christian
+princes! Perhaps the abbot might contribute to that consummation through
+his influence with the youthful Charles V and especially with his
+grandfather Maximilian. Erasmus states quite frankly that the war has
+suddenly changed the spirit of England. He would like to return to his
+native country if the prince would procure him the means to live there
+in peace. It is a remarkable fact and of true Erasmian naivete that he
+cannot help mixing up his personal interests with his sincere
+indignation at the atrocities disgracing a man and a Christian. 'The war
+has suddenly altered the spirit of this island. The cost of living rises
+every day and generosity decreases. Through lack of wine I nearly
+perished by gravel, contracted by taking bad stuff. We are confined in
+this island, more than ever, so that even letters are not carried
+abroad.'
+
+This was the first of Erasmus's anti-war writings. He expanded it into
+the adage _Dulce bellum inexpertis_, which was inserted into the
+_Adagia_ edition of 1515, published by Froben and afterwards also
+printed separately. Hereafter we shall follow up this line of Erasmus's
+ideas as a whole.
+
+Though the summer of 1514 was to bring peace between England and France,
+Erasmus had now definitely made up his mind to leave England. He sent
+his trunks to Antwerp, to his friend Peter Gilles and prepared to go to
+the Netherlands, after a short visit to Mountjoy at the castle of Hammes
+near Calais. Shortly before his departure from London he had a curious
+interview with a papal diplomat, working in the cause of peace, Count
+Canossa, at Ammonius's house on the Thames. Ammonius passed him off on
+Erasmus as a merchant. After the meal the Italian sounded him as to a
+possible return to Rome, where he might be the first in place instead of
+living alone among a barbarous nation. Erasmus replied that he lived in
+a land that contained the greatest number of excellent scholars, among
+whom he would be content with the humblest place. This compliment was
+his farewell to England, which had favoured him so. Some days later, in
+the first half of July 1514, he was on the other side of the Channel. On
+three more occasions he paid short visits to England, but he lived there
+no more.
+
+[Illustration: XIII. JOHANNES FROBEN, 1522-3
+
+Reproduced by gracious permission of H.M. The Queen]
+
+[Illustration: XIV. THE PRINTER'S EMBLEM OF JOHANNES FROBEN]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A LIGHT OF THEOLOGY
+
+1514-16
+
+    On the way to success and satisfaction--His Prior calls him back
+    to Steyn--He refuses to comply--First journey to Basle:
+    1514-16--Cordial welcome in Germany--Johannes Froben--Editions
+    of Jerome and the New Testament--A Councillor to Prince Charles:
+    _Institutio Principis Christiani_, 1515--Definitive dispensation
+    from Monastic Vows: 1517--Fame--Erasmus as a spiritual
+    centre--His correspondence--Letter-writing as an art--Its
+    dangers--A glorious age at hand
+
+
+Erasmus had, as was usual with him, enveloped his departure from England
+with mystery. It was given out that he was going to Rome to redeem a
+pledge. Probably he had already determined to try his fortune in the
+Netherlands; not in Holland, but in the neighbourhood of the princely
+court in Brabant. The chief object of his journey, however, was to visit
+Froben's printing-office at Basle, personally to supervise the
+publication of the numerous works, old and new, which he brought with
+him, among them the material for his chosen task, the New Testament and
+Jerome, by which he hoped to effect the restoration of theology, which
+he had long felt to be his life-work. It is easy thus to imagine his
+anxiety when during the crossing he discovered that his hand-bag,
+containing the manuscripts, was found to have been taken on board
+another ship. He felt bereft, having lost the labour of so many years; a
+sorrow so great, he writes, as only parents can feel at the loss of
+their children.
+
+To his joy, however, he found his manuscripts safe on the other side. At
+the castle of Hammes near Calais, he stayed for some days, the guest of
+Mountjoy. There, on 7 July, a letter found him, written on 18 April by
+his superior, the prior of Steyn, his old friend Servatius Rogerus,
+recalling him to the monastery after so many years of absence. The
+letter had already been in the hands of more than one prying person,
+before it reached him by mere chance.
+
+It was a terrific blow, which struck him in the midst of his course to
+his highest aspirations. Erasmus took counsel for a day and then sent a
+refusal. To his old friend, in addressing whom he always found the most
+serious accents of his being, he wrote a letter which he meant to be a
+justification and which was self-contemplation, much deeper and more
+sincere than the one which, at a momentous turning-point of his life,
+had drawn from him his _Carmen Alpestre_.
+
+He calls upon God to be his witness that he would follow the purest
+inspiration of his life. But to return to the monastery! He reminds
+Servatius of the circumstances under which he entered it, as they lived
+in his memory: the pressure of his relations, his false modesty. He
+points out to him how ill monastic life had suited his constitution, how
+it outraged his love of freedom, how detrimental it would be to his
+delicate health, if now resumed. Had he, then, lived a worse life in the
+world? Literature had kept him from many vices. His restless life could
+not redound to his dishonour, though only with diffidence did he dare to
+appeal to the examples of Solon, Pythagoras, St. Paul and his favourite
+Jerome. Had he not everywhere won recognition from friends and patrons?
+He enumerates them: cardinals, archbishops, bishops, Mountjoy, the
+Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and, lastly, John Colet. Was
+there, then, any objection to his works: the _Enchiridion_, the
+_Adagia_? (He did not mention the _Moria_.) The best was still to
+follow: Jerome and the New Testament. The fact that, since his stay in
+Italy, he had laid aside the habit of his order and wore a common
+clerical dress, he could excuse on a number of grounds.
+
+The conclusion was: I shall not return to Holland. 'I know that I shall
+not be able to stand the air and the food there; all eyes will be
+directed to me. I shall return to the country, an old and grey man, who
+left it as a youth; I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed
+to the contempt even of the lowest, I, who am accustomed to be honoured
+even by the greatest.' 'It is not possible', he concludes, 'to speak out
+frankly in a letter. I am now going to Basle and thence to Rome,
+perhaps, but on my return I shall try to visit you ... I have heard of
+the deaths of William, Francis and Andrew (his old Dutch friends).
+Remember me to Master Henry and the others who live with you; I am
+disposed towards them as befits me. For those old tragedies I ascribe to
+my errors, or if you like to my fate. Do not omit to commend me to
+Christ in your prayers. If I knew for sure that it would be pleasing to
+Him that I should return to live with you, I should prepare for the
+journey this very day. Farewell, my former sweetest companion, now my
+venerable father.'
+
+Underlying the immediate motives of his high theological aspirations,
+this refusal was doubtless actuated by his ancient, inveterate,
+psychological incentives of disgust and shame.[13]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the southern Netherlands, where he visited several friends and
+patrons and renewed his acquaintance with the University of Louvain,
+Erasmus turned to the Rhine and reached Basle in the second half of
+August 1514. There such pleasures of fame awaited him as he had never
+yet tasted. The German humanists hailed him as the light of the
+world--in letters, receptions and banquets. They were more solemn and
+enthusiastic than Erasmus had found the scholars of France, England and
+Italy, to say nothing of his compatriots; and they applauded him
+emphatically as being a German himself and an ornament of Germany. At
+his first meeting with Froben, Erasmus permitted himself the pleasure of
+a jocular deception: he pretended to be a friend and agent of himself,
+to enjoy to the full the joy of being recognized. The German environment
+was rather to his mind: '_My_ Germany, which to my regret and shame I
+got to know so late'.
+
+Soon the work for which he had come was in full swing. He was in his
+element once more, as he had been at Venice six years before: working
+hard in a large printing-office, surrounded by scholars, who heaped upon
+him homage and kindness in those rare moments of leisure which he
+permitted himself. 'I move in a most agreeable Museon: so many men of
+learning, and of such exceptional learning!'
+
+Some translations of the lesser works of Plutarch were published by
+Froben in August. The _Adagia_ was passing through the press again with
+corrections and additions, and the preface which was originally destined
+for Badius. At the same time Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, was also at
+work for Erasmus, who had, on passing through the town, entrusted him
+with a collection of easy Latin texts; also M. Schuerer at Strassburg,
+who prepared the _Parabolae sive similia_ for him. For Froben, too,
+Erasmus was engaged on a Seneca, which appeared in 1515, together with a
+work on Latin construction. But Jerome and the New Testament remained
+his chief occupation.
+
+Jerome's works had been Erasmus's love in early youth, especially his
+letters. The plan of preparing a correct edition of the great Father of
+the Church was conceived in 1500, if not earlier, and he had worked at
+it ever since, at intervals. In 1513 he writes to Ammonius: 'My
+enthusiasm for emending and annotating Jerome is such that I feel as
+though inspired by some god. I have almost completely emended him
+already by collating many old manuscripts. And this I do at incredibly
+great expense.' In 1512 he negotiated with Badius about an edition of
+the letters. Froben's partner, Johannes Amerbach, who died before
+Erasmus's arrival, had been engaged for years on an edition of Jerome.
+Several scholars, Reuchlin among others, had assisted in the undertaking
+when Erasmus offered himself and all his material. He became the actual
+editor. Of the nine volumes, in which Froben published the work in 1516,
+the first four contained Erasmus's edition of Jerome's letters; the
+others had been corrected by him and provided with forewords.
+
+His work upon the New Testament was, if possible, still nearer his
+heart. By its growth it had gradually changed its nature. Since the time
+when Valla's _Annotationes_ had directed his attention to textual
+criticism of the Vulgate, Erasmus had, probably during his second stay
+in England from 1505 to 1506, at the instance of Colet, made a new
+translation of the New Testament from the Greek original, which
+translation differed greatly from the Vulgate. Besides Colet, few had
+seen it. Later, Erasmus understood it was necessary to publish also a
+new edition of the Greek text, with his notes. As to this he had made a
+provisional arrangement with Froben, shortly after his arrival at Basle.
+Afterwards he considered that it would be better to have it printed in
+Italy, and was on the point of going there when, possibly persuaded by
+new offers from Froben, he suddenly changed his plan of travel and in
+the spring of 1515 made a short trip to England--probably, among other
+reasons, for the purpose of securing a copy of his translation of the
+New Testament, which he had left behind there. In the summer he was back
+at Basle and resumed the work in Froben's printing-office. In the
+beginning of 1516 the _Novum Instrumentum_ appeared, containing the
+purified Greek text with notes, together with a Latin translation in
+which Erasmus had altered too great deviations from the Vulgate.
+
+From the moment of the appearance of two such important and, as regards
+the second, such daring theological works by Erasmus as Jerome and the
+New Testament, we may say that he had made himself the centre of the
+scientific study of divinity, as he was at the same time the centre and
+touchstone of classic erudition and literary taste. His authority
+constantly increased in all countries, his correspondence was
+prodigiously augmented.
+
+But while his mental growth was accomplished, his financial position was
+not assured. The years 1515 to 1517 are among the most restless of his
+life; he is still looking out for every chance which presents itself, a
+canonry at Tournay, a prebend in England, a bishopric in Sicily, always
+half jocularly regretting the good chances he missed in former times,
+jesting about his pursuit of fortune, lamenting about his 'spouse,
+execrable poverty, which even yet I have not succeeded in shaking off my
+shoulders'. And, after all, ever more the victim of his own restlessness
+than of the disfavour of fate. He is now fifty years old and still he
+is, as he says, 'sowing without knowing what I shall reap'. This,
+however, only refers to his career, not to his life-work.
+
+In the course of 1515 a new and promising patron, John le Sauvage,
+Chancellor of Brabant, had succeeded in procuring for him the title of
+councillor of the prince, the youthful Charles V. In the beginning of
+1516 he was nominated: it was a mere title of honour, promising a yearly
+pension of 200 florins, which, however, was paid but irregularly. To
+habilitate himself as a councillor of the prince, Erasmus wrote the
+_Institutio Principis Christiani_, a treatise about the education of a
+prince, which in accordance with Erasmus's nature and inclination deals
+rather with moral than with political matters, and is in striking
+contrast with that other work, written some years earlier, _il Principe_
+by Machiavelli.
+
+When his work at Basle ceased for the time being, in the spring of 1516,
+Erasmus journeyed to the Netherlands. At Brussels he met the chancellor,
+who, in addition to the prince's pension, procured him a prebend at
+Courtray, which, like the English benefice mentioned above, was
+compounded for by money payments. At Antwerp lived one of the great
+friends who helped in his support all his life: Peter Gilles, the young
+town clerk, in whose house he stayed as often as he came to Antwerp.
+Peter Gilles is the man who figures in More's _Utopia_ as the person in
+whose garden the sailor tells his experiences; it was in these days that
+Gilles helped Dirck Maertensz, at Louvain, to pass the first edition of
+the _Utopia_ through the press. Later Quentin Metsys was to paint him
+and Erasmus, joined in a diptych; a present for Thomas More and for us a
+vivid memorial of one of the best things Erasmus ever knew: this triple
+friendship.
+
+In the summer of 1516 Erasmus made another short trip to England. He
+stayed with More, saw Colet again, also Warham, Fisher, and the other
+friends. But it was not to visit old friends that he went there. A
+pressing and delicate matter impelled him. Now that prebends and church
+dignities began to be presented to him, it was more urgent than ever
+that the impediments in the way of a free ecclesiastical career should
+be permanently obviated. He was provided with a dispensation of Pope
+Julius II, authorizing him to accept English prebends, and another
+exempting him from the obligation of wearing the habit of his order. But
+both were of limited scope, and insufficient. The fervent impatience
+with which he conducted this matter of his definite discharge from the
+order makes it probable that, as Dr. Allen presumes, the threat of his
+recall to Steyn had, since his refusal to Servatius in 1514, hung over
+his head. There was nothing he feared and detested so much.
+
+With his friend Ammonius he drew up, in London, a very elaborate paper,
+addressed to the apostolic chancery, in which he recounts the story of
+his own life as that of one Florentius: his half-enforced entrance to
+the monastery, the troubles which monastic life had brought him, the
+circumstances which had induced him to lay his monk's dress aside. It is
+a passionate apology, pathetic and ornate. The letter, as we know it,
+does not contain a direct request. In an appendix at the end, written in
+cipher, of which he sent the key in sympathetic ink in another letter,
+the chancery was requested to obviate the impediments which Erasmus's
+illegitimate birth placed in the way of his promotion. The addressee,
+Lambertus Grunnius, apostolic secretary, was most probably an imaginary
+personage.[14] So much mystery did Erasmus use when his vital interests
+were at stake.
+
+The Bishop of Worcester, Silvestro Gigli, who was setting out to the
+Lateran Council, as the envoy of England, took upon himself to deliver
+the letter and to plead Erasmus's cause. Erasmus, having meanwhile at
+the end of August returned to the Netherlands, awaited the upshot of his
+kind offices in the greatest suspense. The matter was finally settled in
+January 1517. In two letters bearing the signature of Sadolet, Leo X
+condoned Erasmus's transgressions of ecclesiastical law, relieved him of
+the obligation to wear the dress of his order, allowed him to live in
+the world and authorized him to hold church benefices in spite of any
+disqualifications arising from illegitimacy of birth.
+
+So much his great fame had now achieved. The Pope had moreover accepted
+the dedication of the edition of the New Testament, and had, through
+Sadolet, expressed himself in very gracious terms about Erasmus's work
+in general. Rome itself seemed to further his endeavours in all
+respects.
+
+Erasmus now thought of establishing himself permanently in the
+Netherlands, to which everything pointed. Louvain seemed to be the most
+suitable abode, the centre of studies, where he had already spent two
+years in former times. But Louvain did not attract him. It was the
+stronghold of conservative theology. Martin van Dorp, a Dutchman like
+Erasmus, and professor of divinity at Louvain, had, in 1514, in the name
+of his faculty, rebuked Erasmus in a letter for the audacity of the
+_Praise of Folly_, his derision of divines and also his temerity in
+correcting the text of the New Testament. Erasmus had defended himself
+elaborately. At present war was being waged in a much wider field: for
+or against Reuchlin, the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors of
+the _Epistolae obscurorum virorum_ had so sensationally taken up the
+cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded with the same suspicion with
+which he distrusted Dorp and the other Louvain divines. He stayed during
+the remainder of 1516 and the first half of 1517 at Antwerp, Brussels
+and Ghent, often in the house of Peter Gilles. In February 1517, there
+came tempting offers from France. Budaeus, Cop, Etienne Poncher, Bishop
+of Paris, wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I, would
+present him with a generous prebend if he would come to Paris. Erasmus,
+always shy of being tied down, only wrote polite, evasive answers, and
+did not go.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime he received the news of the papal absolution. In
+connection with this he had, once more, to visit England, little
+dreaming that it would be the last time he should set foot on British
+soil. In Ammonius's house of Saint Stephen's Chapel at Westminster on 9
+April 1517, the ceremony of absolution took place, ridding Erasmus for
+good of the nightmare which had oppressed him since his youth. At last
+he was free!
+
+Invitations and specious promises now came to him from all sides.
+Mountjoy and Wolsey spoke of high ecclesiastical honours which awaited
+him in England. Budaeus kept pressing him to remove to France. Cardinal
+Ximenes wanted to attach him to the University of Alcala, in Spain. The
+Duke of Saxony offered him a chair at Leipzig. Pirckheimer boasted of
+the perfections of the free imperial city of Nuremberg. Erasmus,
+meanwhile, overwhelmed again with the labour of writing and editing,
+according to his wont, did not definitely decline any of these offers;
+neither did he accept any. He always wanted to keep all his strings on
+his bow at the same time. In the early summer of 1517 he was asked to
+accompany the court of the youthful Charles, who was on the point of
+leaving the Netherlands for Spain. But he declined. His departure to
+Spain would have meant a long interruption of immediate contact with the
+great publishing centres, Basle, Louvain, Strassburg, Paris, and that,
+in turn, would have meant postponement of his life-work. When, in the
+beginning of July, the prince set out for Middelburg, there to take ship
+for Spain, Erasmus started for Louvain.
+
+He was thus destined to go to this university environment, although it
+displeased him in so many respects. There he would have academic duties,
+young latinists would follow him about to get their poems and letters
+corrected by him and all those divines, whom he distrusted, would watch
+him at close quarters. But it was only to be for a few months. 'I have
+removed to Louvain', he writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'till I
+shall decide which residence is best suited to old age, which is already
+knocking at the gate importunately.'
+
+As it turned out, he was to spend four years (1517-21) at Louvain. His
+life was now becoming more stationary, but because of outward
+circumstances rather than of inward quiet. He kept deliberating all
+those years whether he should go to England, Germany or France, hoping
+at last to find the brilliant position which he had always coveted and
+never had been able or willing to grasp.
+
+The years 1516-18 may be called the culmination of Erasmus's career.
+Applauding crowds surrounded him more and more. The minds of men were
+seemingly prepared for something great to happen and they looked to
+Erasmus as the man! At Brussels, he was continually bothered with visits
+from Spaniards, Italians and Germans who wanted to boast of their
+interviews with him. The Spaniards, with their verbose solemnity,
+particularly bored him. Most exuberant of all were the eulogies with
+which the German humanists greeted him in their letters. This had begun
+already on his first journey to Basle in 1514. 'Great Rotterdamer',
+'ornament of Germany', 'ornament of the world' were some of the simplest
+effusions. Town councils waited upon him, presents of wine and public
+banquets were of common occurrence. No one expresses himself so
+hyperbolically as the jurist Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg. 'I am pointed
+out in public', he asserts, 'as the man who has received a letter from
+Erasmus.' 'Thrice greatest hero, you great Jove' is a moderate
+apostrophe for him. 'The Swiss', Zwingli writes in 1516, 'account it a
+great glory to have seen Erasmus.' 'I know and I teach nothing but
+Erasmus now,' writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and Henry
+Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside Erasmus, as Alcibiades
+stood beside Socrates. And Beatus Rhenanus devotes to him a life of
+earnest admiration and helpfulness that was to prove of much more value
+than these exuberant panegyrics. There is an element of national
+exaltation in this German enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently
+stimulated mood into which Luther's word will fall anon.
+
+The other nations also chimed in with praise, though a little later and
+a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall promise him immortality,
+Etienne Poncher exalts him above the celebrated Italian humanists,
+Germain de Brie declares that French scholars have ceased reading any
+authors but Erasmus, and Budaeus announces that all Western Christendom
+resounds with his name.
+
+This increase of glory manifested itself in different ways. Almost every
+year the rumour of his death was spread abroad, malignantly, as he
+himself thinks. Again, all sorts of writings were ascribed to him in
+which he had no share whatever, amongst others the _Epistolae obscurorum
+virorum_.
+
+But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. The time was
+long since past when he asked More to procure him more correspondents.
+Letters now kept pouring in to him, from all sides, beseeching him to
+reply. A former pupil laments with tears that he cannot show a single
+note written by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully sought an introduction
+from one of his friends, before venturing to address him. In this
+respect Erasmus was a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to answer
+what he could, although so overwhelmed by letters every day that he
+hardly found time to read them. 'If I do not answer, I seem unkind,'
+says Erasmus, and that thought was intolerable.
+
+We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that time, occupied more
+or less the place of the newspaper at present, or rather of the literary
+monthly, which arose fairly directly out of erudite correspondence. It
+was, as in antiquity--which in this respect was imitated better and more
+profitably, perhaps, than in any other sphere--an art. Even before 1500
+Erasmus had, at Paris, described that art in the treatise, _De
+conscribendis epistolis_, which was to appear in print in 1522. People
+wrote, as a rule, with a view to later publication, for a wider circle,
+or at any rate, with the certainty that the recipient would show the
+letter to others. A fine Latin letter was a gem, which a man envied his
+neighbour. Erasmus writes to Budaeus: 'Tunstall has devoured your letter
+to me and re-read it as many as three or four times; I had literally to
+tear it from his hands.'
+
+Unfortunately fate did not always take into consideration the author's
+intentions as to publicity, semi-publicity or strict secrecy. Often
+letters passed through many hands before reaching their destination, as
+did Servatius's letter to Erasmus in 1514. 'Do be careful about
+letters,' he writes more than once; 'waylayers are on the lookout to
+intercept them.' Yet, with the curious precipitation that characterizes
+him, Erasmus was often very careless as to what he wrote. From an early
+age he preserved and cared for his letters, yet nevertheless, through
+his itinerant life, many were lost. He could not control their
+publication. As early as 1509 a friend sent him a manuscript volume of
+his own (Erasmus's) letters, that he had picked up for sale at Rome.
+Erasmus had it burnt at once. Since 1515 he himself superintended the
+publication of his letters; at first only a few important ones;
+afterwards in 1516 a selection of letters from friends to him, and after
+that ever larger collections till, at the end of his life, there
+appeared a new collection almost every year. No article was so much in
+demand on the book market as letters by Erasmus, and no wonder. They
+were models of excellent style, tasteful Latin, witty expression and
+elegant erudition.
+
+The semi-private, semi-public character of the letters often made them
+compromising. What one could say to a friend in confidence might
+possibly injure when many read it. Erasmus, who never was aware how
+injuriously he expressed himself, repeatedly gave rise to
+misunderstanding and estrangement. Manners, so to say, had not yet
+adapted themselves to the new art of printing, which increased the
+publicity of the written word a thousandfold. Only gradually under this
+new influence was the separation effected between the public word,
+intended for the press, and the private communication, which remains in
+writing and is read only by the recipient.
+
+Meanwhile, with the growth of Erasmus's fame, his earlier writings, too,
+had risen in the public estimation. The great success of the
+_Enchiridion militis christiani_ had begun about 1515, when the times
+were much riper for it than eleven years before. 'The _Moria_ is
+embraced as the highest wisdom,' writes John Watson to him in 1516. In
+the same year we find a word used, for the first time, which expresses
+better than anything else how much Erasmus had become a centre of
+authority: _Erasmiani_. So his German friends called themselves,
+according to Johannes Sapidus. More than a year later Dr. Johannes Eck
+employs the word still in a rather friendly sense, as a generally
+current term: 'all scholars in Germany are Erasmians,' he says. But
+Erasmus did not like the word. 'I find nothing in myself', he replies,
+'why anyone should wish to be an Erasmicus, and, altogether, I hate
+those party names. We are all followers of Christ, and to His glory we
+all drudge, each for his part.' But he knows that now the question is:
+for or against him! From the brilliant latinist and the man of wit of
+his prime he had become the international pivot on which the
+civilization of his age hinged. He could not help beginning to feel
+himself the brain, the heart and the conscience of his times. It might
+even appear to him that he was called to speak the great redeeming word
+or, perhaps, that he had already spoken it. The faith in an easy triumph
+of pure knowledge and Christian meekness in a near future speaks from
+the preface of Erasmus's edition of the New Testament.
+
+How clear did the future look in those years! In this period Erasmus
+repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of a golden age, which is on the
+point of dawning. Perennial peace is before the door. The highest
+princes of the world, Francis I of France, Charles, King of Spain, Henry
+VIII of England, and the emperor Maximilian have ensured peace by the
+strongest ties. Uprightness and Christian piety will flourish together
+with the revival of letters and the sciences. As at a given signal the
+mightiest minds conspire to restore a high standard of culture. We may
+congratulate the age, it will be a golden one.
+
+But Erasmus does not sound this note long. It is heard for the last time
+in 1519; after which the dream of universal happiness about to dawn
+gives place to the usual complaint about the badness of the times
+everywhere.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] For a full translation of this important letter see pp. 212-18.
+
+[14] The name Grunnius may have been taken from Jerome's epistles, where
+it is a nickname for a certain Ruffinus, whom Jerome disliked very much.
+It appears again in a letter of 5 March 1531, LB. X 1590 A.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ERASMUS'S MIND
+
+    Erasmus's mind: Ethical and aesthetic tendencies, aversion to
+    all that is unreasonable, silly and cumbrous--His vision of
+    antiquity pervaded by Christian faith--Renascence of good
+    learning--The ideal life of serene harmony and happy
+    wisdom--Love of the decorous and smooth--His mind neither
+    philosophic nor historical, but strongly philological and
+    moralistic--Freedom, clearness, purity, simplicity--Faith in
+    nature--Educational and social ideas
+
+
+What made Erasmus the man from whom his contemporaries expected their
+salvation, on whose lips they hung to catch the word of deliverance? He
+seemed to them the bearer of a new liberty of the mind, a new clearness,
+purity and simplicity of knowledge, a new harmony of healthy and right
+living. He was to them as the possessor of newly discovered, untold
+wealth which he had only to distribute.
+
+What was there in the mind of the great Rotterdamer which promised so
+much to the world?
+
+The negative aspect of Erasmus's mind may be defined as a heartfelt
+aversion to everything unreasonable, insipid, purely formal, with which
+the undisturbed growth of medieval culture had overburdened and
+overcrowded the world of thought. As often as he thinks of the
+ridiculous text-books out of which Latin was taught in his youth,
+disgust rises in his mind, and he execrates them--Mammetrectus,
+Brachylogus, Ebrardus and all the rest--as a heap of rubbish which ought
+to be cleared away. But this aversion to the superannuated, which had
+become useless and soulless, extended much farther. He found society,
+and especially religious life, full of practices, ceremonies, traditions
+and conceptions, from which the spirit seemed to have departed. He does
+not reject them offhand and altogether: what revolts him is that they
+are so often performed without understanding and right feeling. But to
+his mind, highly susceptible to the foolish and ridiculous things, and
+with a delicate need of high decorum and inward dignity, all that sphere
+of ceremony and tradition displays itself as a useless, nay, a hurtful
+scene of human stupidity and selfishness. And, intellectualist as he is,
+with his contempt for ignorance, he seems unaware that those religious
+observances, after all, may contain valuable sentiments of unexpressed
+and unformulated piety.
+
+Through his treatises, his letters, his _Colloquies_ especially, there
+always passes--as if one was looking at a gallery of Brueghel's
+pictures--a procession of ignorant and covetous monks who by their
+sanctimony and humbug impose upon the trustful multitude and fare
+sumptuously themselves. As a fixed motif (such motifs are numerous with
+Erasmus) there always recurs his gibe about the superstition that a
+person was saved by dying in the gown of a Franciscan or a Dominican.
+
+Fasting, prescribed prayers, the observance of holy days, should not be
+altogether neglected, but they become displeasing to God when we repose
+our trust in them and forget charity. The same holds good of confession,
+indulgence, all sorts of blessings. Pilgrimages are worthless. The
+veneration of the Saints and of their relics is full of superstition and
+foolishness. The people think they will be preserved from disasters
+during the day if only they have looked at the painted image of Saint
+Christopher in the morning. 'We kiss the shoes of the saints and their
+dirty handkerchiefs and we leave their books, their most holy and
+efficacious relics, neglected.'
+
+Erasmus's dislike of what seemed antiquated and worn out in his days,
+went farther still. It comprised the whole intellectual scheme of
+medieval theology and philosophy. In the syllogistic system he found
+only subtlety and arid ingenuity. All symbolism and allegory were
+fundamentally alien to him and indifferent, though he occasionally tried
+his hand at an allegory; and he never was mystically inclined.
+
+Now here it is just as much the deficiencies of his own mind as the
+qualities of the system which made him unable to appreciate it. While he
+struck at the abuse of ceremonies and of Church practices both with
+noble indignation and well-aimed mockery, a proud irony to which he was
+not fully entitled preponderates in his condemnation of scholastic
+theology which he could not quite understand. It was easy always to talk
+with a sneer of the conservative divines of his time as _magistri
+nostri_.
+
+His noble indignation hurt only those who deserved castigation and
+strengthened what was valuable, but his mockery hurt the good as well as
+the bad in spite of him, assailed both the institution and persons, and
+injured without elevating them. The individualist Erasmus never
+understood what it meant to offend the honour of an office, an order, or
+an establishment, especially when that institution is the most sacred of
+all, the Church itself.
+
+Erasmus's conception of the Church was no longer purely Catholic. Of
+that glorious structure of medieval-Christian civilization with its
+mystic foundation, its strict hierarchic construction, its splendidly
+fitting symmetry he saw hardly anything but its load of outward details
+and ornament. Instead of the world which Thomas Aquinas and Dante had
+described, according to their vision, Erasmus saw another world, full of
+charm and elevated feeling, and this he held up before his compatriots.
+
+[Illustration: XV. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS]
+
+It was the world of Antiquity, but illuminated throughout by Christian
+faith. It was a world that had never existed as such. For with the
+historical reality which the times of Constantine and the great fathers
+of the Church had manifested--that of declining Latinity and
+deteriorating Hellenism, the oncoming barbarism and the oncoming
+Byzantinism--it had nothing in common. Erasmus's imagined world was an
+amalgamation of pure classicism (this meant for him, Cicero, Horace,
+Plutarch; for to the flourishing period of the Greek mind he remained
+after all a stranger) and pure, biblical Christianity. Could it be a
+union? Not really. In Erasmus's mind the light falls, just as we saw in
+the history of his career, alternately on the pagan antique and on the
+Christian. But the warp of his mind is Christian; his classicism only
+serves him as a form, and from Antiquity he only chooses those elements
+which in ethical tendency are in conformity with his Christian ideal.
+
+[Illustration: XVI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57]
+
+And because of this, Erasmus, although he appeared after a century of
+earlier Humanism, is yet new to his time. The union of Antiquity and the
+Christian spirit which had haunted the mind of Petrarch, the father of
+Humanism, which was lost sight of by his disciples, enchanted as they
+were by the irresistible brilliance of the antique beauty of form, this
+union was brought about by Erasmus.
+
+What pure Latinity and the classic spirit meant to Erasmus we cannot
+feel as he did because its realization does not mean to us, as to him, a
+difficult conquest and a glorious triumph. To feel it thus one must have
+acquired, in a hard school, the hatred of barbarism, which already
+during his first years of authorship had suggested the composition of
+the _Antibarbari_. The abusive term for all that is old and rude is
+already Gothic, Goths. The term barbarism as used by Erasmus comprised
+much of what we value most in the medieval spirit. Erasmus's conception
+of the great intellectual crisis of his day was distinctly dualistic. He
+saw it as a struggle between old and new, which, to him, meant evil and
+good. In the advocates of tradition he saw only obscurantism,
+conservatism, and ignorant opposition to _bonae literae_, that is, the
+good cause for which he and his partisans battled. Of the rise of that
+higher culture Erasmus had already formed the conception which has since
+dominated the history of the Renaissance. It was a revival, begun two or
+three hundred years before his time, in which, besides literature, all
+the plastic arts shared. Side by side with the terms restitution and
+reflorescence the word renascence crops up repeatedly in his writings.
+'The world is coming to its senses as if awaking out of a deep sleep.
+Still there are some left who recalcitrate pertinaciously, clinging
+convulsively with hands and feet to their old ignorance. They fear that
+if _bonae literae_ are reborn and the world grows wise, it will come to
+light that they have known nothing.' They do not know how pious the
+Ancients could be, what sanctity characterizes Socrates, Virgil, and
+Horace, or Plutarch's _Moralia_, how rich the history of Antiquity is in
+examples of forgiveness and true virtue. We should call nothing profane
+that is pious and conduces to good morals. No more dignified view of
+life was ever found than that which Cicero propounds in _De Senectute_.
+
+In order to understand Erasmus's mind and the charm which it had for his
+contemporaries, one must begin with the ideal of life that was present
+before his inward eye as a splendid dream. It is not his own in
+particular. The whole Renaissance cherished that wish of reposeful,
+blithe, and yet serious intercourse of good and wise friends in the cool
+shade of a house under trees, where serenity and harmony would dwell.
+The age yearned for the realization of simplicity, sincerity, truth and
+nature. Their imagination was always steeped in the essence of
+Antiquity, though, at heart, it is more nearly connected with medieval
+ideals than they themselves were aware. In the circle of the Medici it
+is the idyll of Careggi, in Rabelais it embodies itself in the fancy of
+the abbey of Theleme; it finds voice in More's _Utopia_ and in the work
+of Montaigne. In Erasmus's writings that ideal wish ever recurs in the
+shape of a friendly walk, followed by a meal in a garden-house. It is
+found as an opening scene of the _Antibarbari_, in the numerous
+descriptions of meals with Colet, and the numerous _Convivia_ of the
+_Colloquies_. Especially in the _Convivium religiosum_ Erasmus has
+elaborately pictured his dream, and it would be worth while to compare
+it, on the one hand with Theleme, and on the other with the fantastic
+design of a pleasure garden which Bernard Palissy describes. The little
+Dutch eighteenth-century country-seats and garden-houses in which the
+national spirit took great delight are the fulfilment of a purely
+Erasmian ideal. The host of the _Convivium religiosum_ says: 'To me a
+simple country-house, a nest, is pleasanter than any palace, and, if he
+be king who lives in freedom and according to his wishes, surely I am
+king here'.
+
+Life's true joy is in virtue and piety. If they are Epicureans who live
+pleasantly, then none are more truly Epicureans than they who live in
+holiness and piety.
+
+The ideal joy of life is also perfectly idyllic in so far that it
+requires an aloofness from earthly concerns and contempt for all that is
+sordid. It is foolish to be interested in all that happens in the world;
+to pride oneself on one's knowledge of the market, of the King of
+England's plans, the news from Rome, conditions in Denmark. The sensible
+old man of the _Colloquium Senile_ has an easy post of honour, a safe
+mediocrity, he judges no one and nothing and smiles upon all the world.
+Quiet for oneself, surrounded by books--that is of all things most
+desirable.
+
+On the outskirts of this ideal of serenity and harmony numerous flowers
+of aesthetic value blow, such as Erasmus's sense of decorum, his great
+need of kindly courtesy, his pleasure in gentle and obliging treatment,
+in cultured and easy manners. Close by are some of his intellectual
+peculiarities. He hates the violent and extravagant. Therefore the
+choruses of the Greek drama displease him. The merit of his own poems he
+sees in the fact that they pass passion by, they abstain from pathos
+altogether--'there is not a single storm in them, no mountain torrent
+overflowing its banks, no exaggeration whatever. There is great
+frugality in words. My poetry would rather keep within bounds than
+exceed them, rather hug the shore than cleave the high seas.' In another
+place he says: 'I am always most pleased by a poem that does not differ
+too much from prose, but prose of the best sort, be it understood. As
+Philoxenus accounted those the most palatable fishes that are no true
+fishes and the most savoury meat what is no meat, the most pleasant
+voyage, that along the shores, and the most agreeable walk, that along
+the water's edge; so I take especial pleasure in a rhetorical poem and a
+poetical oration, so that poetry is tasted in prose and the reverse.'
+That is the man of half-tones, of fine shadings, of the thought that is
+never completely expressed. But he adds: 'Farfetched conceits may please
+others; to me the chief concern seems to be that we draw our speech from
+the matter itself and apply ourselves less to showing off our invention
+than to present the thing.' That is the realist.
+
+From this conception results his admirable, simple clarity, the
+excellent division and presentation of his argument. But it also causes
+his lack of depth and the prolixity by which he is characterized. His
+machine runs too smoothly. In the endless _apologiae_ of his later
+years, ever new arguments occur to him; new passages to point, or
+quotations to support, his idea. He praises laconism, but never
+practises it. Erasmus never coins a sentence which, rounded off and
+pithy, becomes a proverb and in this manner lives. There are no current
+quotations from Erasmus. The collector of the _Adagia_ has created no
+new ones of his own.
+
+The true occupation for a mind like his was paraphrasing, in which,
+indeed, he amply indulged. Soothing down and unfolding was just the work
+he liked. It is characteristic that he paraphrased the whole New
+Testament except the Apocalypse.
+
+Erasmus's mind was neither philosophic nor historic. His was neither the
+work of exact, logical discrimination, nor of grasping the deep sense of
+the way of the world in broad historical visions in which the
+particulars themselves, in their multiplicity and variegation, form the
+image. His mind is philological in the fullest sense of the word. But by
+that alone he would not have conquered and captivated the world. His
+mind was at the same time of a deeply ethical and rather strong
+aesthetic trend and those three together have made him great.
+
+The foundation of Erasmus's mind is his fervent desire of freedom,
+clearness, purity, simplicity and rest. It is an old ideal of life to
+which he gave new substance by the wealth of his mind. Without liberty,
+life is no life; and there is no liberty without repose. The fact that
+he never took sides definitely resulted from an urgent need of perfect
+independence. Each engagement, even a temporary one, was felt as a
+fetter by Erasmus. An interlocutor in the _Colloquies_, in which he so
+often, spontaneously, reveals his own ideals of life, declares himself
+determined neither to marry, nor to take holy orders, nor to enter a
+monastery, nor into any connection from which he will afterwards be
+unable to free himself--at least not before he knows himself completely.
+'When will that be? Never, perhaps.' 'On no other account do I
+congratulate myself more than on the fact that I have never attached
+myself to any party,' Erasmus says towards the end of his life.
+
+Liberty should be spiritual liberty in the first place. 'But he that is
+spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man,' is
+the word of Saint Paul. To what purpose should he require prescriptions
+who, of his own accord, does better things than human laws require? What
+arrogance it is to bind by institutions a man who is clearly led by the
+inspirations of the divine spirit!
+
+In Erasmus we already find the beginning of that optimism which judges
+upright man good enough to dispense with fixed forms and rules. As More,
+in _Utopia_, and Rabelais, Erasmus relies already on the dictates of
+nature, which produces man as inclined to good and which we may follow,
+provided we are imbued with faith and piety.
+
+In this line of confidence in what is natural and desire of the simple
+and reasonable, Erasmus's educational and social ideas lie. Here he is
+far ahead of his times. It would be an attractive undertaking to discuss
+Erasmus's educational ideals more fully. They foreshadow exactly those
+of the eighteenth century. The child should learn in playing, by means
+of things that are agreeable to its mind, from pictures. Its faults
+should be gently corrected. The flogging and abusive schoolmaster is
+Erasmus's abomination; the office itself is holy and venerable to him.
+Education should begin from the moment of birth. Probably Erasmus
+attached too much value to classicism, here as elsewhere: his friend
+Peter Gilles should implant the rudiments of the ancient languages in
+his two-year-old son, that he may greet his father with endearing
+stammerings in Greek and Latin. But what gentleness and clear good sense
+shines from all Erasmus says about instruction and education!
+
+The same holds good of his views about marriage and woman. In the
+problem of sexual relations he distinctly sides with the woman from deep
+conviction. There is a great deal of tenderness and delicate feeling in
+his conception of the position of the girl and the woman. Few characters
+of the _Colloquies_ have been drawn with so much sympathy as the girl
+with the lover and the cultured woman in the witty conversation with the
+abbot. Erasmus's ideal of marriage is truly social and hygienic. Let us
+beget children for the State and for Christ, says the lover, children
+endowed by their upright parents with a good disposition, children who
+see the good example at home which is to guide them. Again and again he
+reverts to the mother's duty to suckle the child herself. He indicates
+how the house should be arranged, in a simple and cleanly manner; he
+occupies himself with the problem of useful children's dress. Who stood
+up at that time, as he did, for the fallen girl, and for the prostitute
+compelled by necessity? Who saw so clearly the social danger of
+marriages of persons infected with the new scourge of Europe, so
+violently abhorred by Erasmus? He would wish that such a marriage should
+at once be declared null and void by the Pope. Erasmus does not hold
+with the easy social theory, still quite current in the literature of
+his time, which casts upon women all the blame of adultery and lewdness.
+With the savages who live in a state of nature, he says, the adultery of
+men is punished, but that of women is forgiven.
+
+Here it appears, at the same time, that Erasmus knew, be it half in
+jest, the conception of natural virtue and happiness of naked islanders
+in a savage state. It soon crops up again in Montaigne and the following
+centuries develop it into a literary dogma.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ERASMUS'S MIND-CONTINUED
+
+    Erasmus's mind: Intellectual tendencies--The world encumbered by
+    beliefs and forms--Truth must be simple--Back to the pure
+    sources--Holy Scripture in the original languages--Biblical
+    humanism--Critical work on the texts of Scripture--Practice
+    better than dogma--Erasmus's talent and wit--Delight in words
+    and things--Prolixity--Observation of details--A veiled
+    realism--Ambiguousness--The 'Nuance'--Inscrutability of the
+    ultimate ground of all things
+
+
+Simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness, those are to
+Erasmus the dominant requirements, also when we pass from his ethical
+and aesthetic concepts to his intellectual point of view; indeed, the
+two can hardly be kept apart.
+
+The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with human constitutions and
+opinions and scholastic dogmas, and overburdened with the tyrannical
+authority of orders, and because of all this the strength of gospel
+doctrine is flagging. Faith requires simplification, he argued. What
+would the Turks say of our scholasticism? Colet wrote to him one day:
+'There is no end to books and science. Let us, therefore, leave all
+roundabout roads and go by a short cut to the truth.'
+
+Truth must be simple. 'The language of truth is simple, says Seneca;
+well then, nothing is simpler nor truer than Christ.' 'I should wish',
+Erasmus says elsewhere, 'that this simple and pure Christ might be
+deeply impressed upon the mind of men, and that I deem best attainable
+in this way, that we, supported by our knowledge of the original
+languages, should philosophize _at the sources_ themselves.'
+
+Here a new watchword comes to the fore: back to the sources! It is not
+merely an intellectual, philological requirement; it is equally an
+ethical and aesthetic necessity of life. The original and pure, all that
+is not yet overgrown or has not passed through many hands, has such a
+potent charm. Erasmus compared it to an apple which we ourselves pick
+off the tree. To recall the world to the ancient simplicity of science,
+to lead it back from the now turbid pools to those living and most pure
+fountain-heads, those most limpid sources of gospel doctrine--thus he
+saw the task of divinity. The metaphor of the limpid water is not
+without meaning here; it reveals the psychological quality of Erasmus's
+fervent principle.
+
+'How is it', he exclaims, 'that people give themselves so much trouble
+about the details of all sorts of remote philosophical systems and
+neglect to go to the sources of Christianity itself?' 'Although this
+wisdom, which is so excellent that once for all it put the wisdom of all
+the world to shame, may be drawn from these few books, as from a
+crystalline source, with far less trouble than is the wisdom of
+Aristotle from so many thorny books and with much more fruit.... The
+equipment for that journey is simple and at everyone's immediate
+disposal. This philosophy is accessible to everybody. Christ desires
+that his mysteries shall be spread as widely as possible. I should wish
+that all good wives read the Gospel and Paul's Epistles; that they were
+translated into all languages; that out of these the husbandman sang
+while ploughing, the weaver at his loom; that with such stories the
+traveller should beguile his wayfaring.... This sort of philosophy is
+rather a matter of disposition than of syllogisms, rather of life than
+of disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition, rather of
+transformation than of logic.... What is the philosophy of Christ, which
+he himself calls _Renascentia_, but the insaturation of Nature created
+good?--moreover, though no one has taught us this so absolutely and
+effectively as Christ, yet also in pagan books much may be found that is
+in accordance with it.'
+
+Such was the view of life of this biblical humanist. As often as Erasmus
+reverts to these matters, his voice sounds clearest. 'Let no one', he
+says in the preface to the notes to the New Testament, 'take up this
+work, as he takes up Gellius's _Noctes atticae_ or Poliziano's
+Miscellanies.... We are in the presence of holy things; here it is no
+question of eloquence, these matters are best recommended to the world
+by simplicity and purity; it would be ridiculous to display human
+erudition here, impious to pride oneself on human eloquence.' But
+Erasmus never was so eloquent himself as just then.
+
+What here raises him above his usual level of force and fervour is the
+fact that he fights a battle, the battle for the right of biblical
+criticism. It revolts him that people should study Holy Scripture in the
+Vulgate when they know that the texts show differences and are corrupt,
+although we have the Greek text by which to go back to the original form
+and primary meaning.
+
+He is now reproached because he dares, as a mere grammarian, to assail
+the text of Holy Scripture on the score of futile mistakes or
+irregularities. 'Details they are, yes, but because of these details we
+sometimes see even great divines stumble and rave.' Philological
+trifling is necessary. 'Why are we so precise as to our food, our
+clothes, our money-matters and why does this accuracy displease us in
+divine literature alone? He crawls along the ground, they say, he
+wearies himself out about words and syllables! Why do we slight any word
+of Him whom we venerate and worship under the name of the Word? But, be
+it so! Let whoever wishes imagine that I have not been able to achieve
+anything better, and out of sluggishness of mind and coldness of heart
+or lack of erudition have taken this lowest task upon myself; it is
+still a Christian idea to think all work good that is done with pious
+zeal. We bring along the bricks, but to build the temple of God.'
+
+He does not want to be intractable. Let the Vulgate be kept for use in
+the liturgy, for sermons, in schools, but he who, at home, reads our
+edition, will understand his own the better in consequence. He, Erasmus,
+is prepared to render account and acknowledge himself to have been wrong
+when convicted of error.
+
+Erasmus perhaps never quite realized how much his philological-critical
+method must shake the foundations of the Church. He was surprised at his
+adversaries 'who could not but believe that all their authority would
+perish at once when the sacred books might be read in a purified form,
+and when people tried to understand them in the original'. He did not
+feel what the unassailable authority of a sacred book meant. He rejoices
+because Holy Scripture is approached so much more closely, because all
+sorts of shadings are brought to light by considering not only what is
+said but also by whom, for whom, at what time, on what occasion, what
+precedes and what follows, in short, by the method of historical
+philological criticism. To him it seemed so especially pious when
+reading Scripture and coming across a place which seemed contrary to the
+doctrine of Christ or the divinity of his nature, to believe rather that
+one did not understand the phrase _or that the text might be corrupt_.
+Unperceived he passed from emendation of the different versions to the
+correction of the contents. The epistles were not all written by the
+apostles to whom they are attributed. The apostles themselves made
+mistakes, at times.
+
+The foundation of his spiritual life was no longer a unity to Erasmus.
+It was, on the one hand, a strong desire for an upright, simple, pure
+and homely belief, the earnest wish to be a good Christian. But it was
+also the irresistible intellectual and aesthetic need of the good taste,
+the harmony, the clear and exact expression of the Ancients, the dislike
+of what was cumbrous and involved. Erasmus thought that good learning
+might render good service for the necessary purification of the faith
+and its forms. The measure of church hymns should be corrected. That
+Christian expression and classicism were incompatible, he never
+believed. The man who in the sphere of sacred studies asked every author
+for his credentials remained unconscious of the fact that he
+acknowledged the authority of the Ancients without any evidence. How
+naively he appeals to Antiquity, again and again, to justify some bold
+feat! He is critical, they say? Were not the Ancients critical? He
+permits himself to insert digressions? So did the Ancients, etc.
+
+Erasmus is in profound sympathy with that revered Antiquity by his
+fundamental conviction that it is the practice of life which matters.
+Not he is the great philosopher who knows the tenets of the Stoics or
+Peripatetics by rote--but he who expresses the meaning of philosophy by
+his life and his morals, for that is its purpose. He is truly a divine
+who teaches, not by artful syllogisms, but by his disposition, by his
+face and his eyes, by his life itself, that wealth should be despised.
+To live up to that standard is what Christ himself calls _Renascentia_.
+Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only. But in that sense it
+is closely allied to the idea of the Renaissance as a historical
+phenomenon. The worldly and pagan sides of the Renaissance have nearly
+always been overrated. Erasmus is, much more than Aretino or
+Castiglione, the representative of the spirit of his age, one over whose
+Christian sentiment the sweet gale of Antiquity had passed. And that
+very union of strong Christian endeavour and the spirit of Antiquity is
+the explanation of Erasmus's wonderful success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mere intention and the contents of the mind do not influence the
+world, if the form of expression does not cooperate. In Erasmus the
+quality of his talent is a very important factor. His perfect clearness
+and ease of expression, his liveliness, wit, imagination, gusto and
+humour have lent a charm to all he wrote which to his contemporaries was
+irresistible and captivates even us, as soon as we read him. In all that
+constitutes his talent, Erasmus is perfectly and altogether a
+representative of the Renaissance. There is, in the first place, his
+eternal _a propos_. What he writes is never vague, never dark--it is
+always plausible. Everything seemingly flows of itself like a fountain.
+It always rings true as to tone, turn of phrase and accent. It has
+almost the light harmony of Ariosto. And it is, like Ariosto, never
+tragic, never truly heroic. It carries us away, indeed, but it is never
+itself truly enraptured.
+
+The more artistic aspects of Erasmus's talent come out most
+clearly--though they are everywhere in evidence--in those two
+recreations after more serious labour, the _Moriae Encomium_ and the
+_Colloquia_. But just those two have been of enormous importance for his
+influence upon his times. For while Jerome reached tens of readers and
+the New Testament hundreds, the _Moria_ and _Colloquies_ went out to
+thousands. And their importance is heightened in that Erasmus has
+nowhere else expressed himself so spontaneously.
+
+In each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely formulary ones,
+there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a satire. There is
+hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression without a vivid
+fancy. There are unrivalled niceties. The abbot of the _Abbatis et
+eruditae colloquium_ is a Moliere character. It should be noticed how
+well Erasmus always sustains his characters and his scenes, because he
+_sees_ them. In 'The woman in childbed' he never forgets for a moment
+that Eutrapelus is an artist. At the end of 'The game of knucklebones',
+when the interlocutors, after having elucidated the whole nomenclature
+of the Latin game of knuckle-bones, are going to play themselves,
+Carolus says: 'but shut the door first, lest the cook should see us
+playing like two boys'.
+
+As Holbein illustrated the _Moria_, we should wish to possess the
+_Colloquia_ with illustrations by Brueghel, so closely allied is
+Erasmus's witty clear vision of incidents to that of this great master.
+The procession of drunkards on Palm Sunday, the saving of the
+shipwrecked crew, the old men waiting for the travelling cart while the
+drivers are still drinking, all these are Dutch genre pieces of the best
+sort.
+
+We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance. Erasmus is certainly
+a realist in the sense of having an insatiable hunger for knowledge of
+the tangible world. He wants to know things and their names: the
+particulars of each thing, be it never so remote, such as those terms of
+games and rules of games of the Romans. Read carefully the description
+of the decorative painting on the garden-house of the _Convivium
+religiosum_: it is nothing but an object lesson, a graphic
+representation of the forms of reality.
+
+In its joy over the material universe and the supple, pliant word, the
+Renaissance revels in a profusion of imagery and expressions. The
+resounding enumerations of names and things, which Rabelais always
+gives, are not unknown to Erasmus, but he uses them for intellectual and
+useful purposes. In _De copia verborum ac rerum_ one feat of varied
+power of expression succeeds another--he gives fifty ways of saying:
+'Your letter has given me much pleasure,' or, 'I think that it is going
+to rain'. The aesthetic impulse is here that of a theme and variations:
+to display all the wealth and mutations of the logic of language.
+Elsewhere, too, Erasmus indulges this proclivity for accumulating the
+treasures of his genius; he and his contemporaries can never restrain
+themselves from giving all the instances instead of one: in _Ratio verae
+theologiae_, in _De pronuntiatione_, in _Lingua_, in _Ecclesiastes_. The
+collections of _Adagia_, _Parabolae_, and _Apophthegmata_ are altogether
+based on this eagerness of the Renaissance (which, by the way, was an
+inheritance of the Middle Ages themselves) to luxuriate in the wealth of
+the tangible world, to revel in words and things.
+
+The senses are open for the nice observation of the curious. Though
+Erasmus does not know that need of proving the secrets of nature, which
+inspired a Leonardo da Vinci, a Paracelsus, a Vesalius, he is also, by
+his keen observation, a child of his time. For peculiarities in the
+habits and customs of nations he has an open eye. He notices the gait of
+Swiss soldiers, how dandies sit, how Picards pronounce French. He
+notices that in old pictures the sitters are always represented with
+half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, and how
+some Spaniards still honour this expression in life, while German art
+prefers lips pouting as for a kiss. His lively sense of anecdote, to
+which he gives the rein in all his writings, belongs here.
+
+And, in spite of all his realism, the world which Erasmus sees and
+renders, is not altogether that of the sixteenth century. Everything is
+veiled by Latin. Between the author's mind and reality intervenes his
+antique diction. At bottom the world of his mind is imaginary. It is a
+subdued and limited sixteenth-century reality which he reflects.
+Together with its coarseness he lacks all that is violent and direct in
+his times. Compared with the artists, with Luther and Calvin, with the
+statesmen, the navigators, the soldiers and the scientists, Erasmus
+confronts the world as a recluse. It is only the influence of Latin. In
+spite of all his receptiveness and sensitiveness, Erasmus is never fully
+in contact with life. All through his work not a bird sings, not a wind
+rustles.
+
+But that reserve or fear of directness is not merely a negative quality.
+It also results from a consciousness of the indefiniteness of the ground
+of all things, from the awe of the ambiguity of all that is. If Erasmus
+so often hovers over the borderline between earnestness and mockery, if
+he hardly ever gives an incisive conclusion, it is not only due to
+cautiousness, and fear to commit himself. Everywhere he sees the
+shadings, the blending of the meaning of words. The terms of things are
+no longer to him, as to the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals mounted
+in gold, or as stars in the firmament. 'I like assertions so little that
+I would easily take sides with the sceptics whereever it is allowed by
+the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the decrees of the
+Church.' 'What is exempt from error?' All subtle contentions of
+theological speculation arise from a dangerous curiosity and lead to
+impious audacity. What have all the great controversies about the
+Trinity and the Virgin Mary profited? 'We have defined so much that
+without danger to our salvation might have remained unknown or
+undecided.... The essentials of our religion are peace and unanimity.
+These can hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few points as
+possible and leave many questions to individual judgement. Numerous
+problems are now postponed till the oecumenical Council. It would be
+much better to put off such questions till the time when the glass shall
+be removed and the darkness cleared away, and we shall see God face to
+face.'
+
+'There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed
+that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate there, we grope in ever
+deeper darkness the farther we proceed, so that we recognize, in this
+manner, too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdom and the imbecility
+of human understanding.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ERASMUS'S CHARACTER
+
+    Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness--
+    Delicacy--Dislike of contention, need of concord and
+    friendship--Aversion to disturbance of any kind--Too much
+    concerned about other men's opinions--Need of self-
+    justification--Himself never in the wrong--Correlation
+    between inclinations and convictions--Ideal image of
+    himself--Dissatisfaction with himself--Self-centredness--A
+    solitary at heart--Fastidiousness--Suspiciousness--Morbid
+    mistrust--Unhappiness--Restlessness--Unsolved contradictions of
+    his being--Horror of lies--Reserve and insinuation
+
+
+Erasmus's powerful mind met with a great response in the heart of his
+contemporaries and had a lasting influence on the march of civilization.
+But one of the heroes of history he cannot be called. Was not his
+failure to attain to still loftier heights partly due to the fact that
+his character was not on a level with the elevation of his mind?
+
+And yet that character, a very complicated one, though he took himself
+to be the simplest man in the world, was determined by the same factors
+which determined the structure of his mind. Again and again we find in
+his inclinations the correlates of his convictions.
+
+At the root of his moral being we find--a key to the understanding of
+his character--that same profound need of purity which drove him to the
+sources of sacred science. Purity in the material and the moral sense is
+what he desires for himself and others, always and in all things. Few
+things revolt him so much as the practices of vintners who doctor wine
+and dealers who adulterate food. If he continually chastens his language
+and style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse
+which prompts his passionate desire for cleanliness and brightness, of
+the home and of the body. He has a violent dislike of stuffy air and
+smelly substances. He regularly takes a roundabout way to avoid a
+malodorous lane; he loathes shambles and fishmongers' shops. Fetors
+spread infection, he thinks. Erasmus had, earlier than most people,
+antiseptic ideas about the danger of infection in the foul air of
+crowded inns, in the breath of confessants, in baptismal water. Throw
+aside common cups, he pleaded; let everybody shave himself, let us be
+cleanly as to bed-sheets, let us not kiss each other by way of greeting.
+The fear of the horrible venereal disease, imported into Europe during
+his lifetime, and of which Erasmus watched the unbridled propagation
+with solicitude, increases his desire for purity. Too little is being
+done to stop it, he thinks. He cautions against suspected inns; he wants
+to have measures taken against the marriages of syphilitic persons. In
+his undignified attitude towards Hutten his physical and moral aversion
+to the man's evil plays an unmistakable part.
+
+Erasmus is a delicate soul in all his fibres. His body forces him to be
+that. He is highly sensitive, among other things very susceptible to
+cold, 'the scholars' disorder', as he calls it. Early in life already
+the painful malady of the stone begins to torment him, which he resisted
+so bravely when his work was at stake. He always speaks in a coddling
+tone about his little body, which cannot stand fasting, which must be
+kept fit by some exercise, namely riding, and for which he carefully
+tries to select a suitable climate. He is at times circumstantial in the
+description of his ailments.[15] He has to be very careful in the matter
+of his sleep; if once he wakes up, he finds it difficult to go to sleep
+again, and because of that has often to lose the morning, the best time
+to work and which is so dear to him. He cannot stand cold, wind and fog,
+but still less overheated rooms. How he has execrated the German stoves,
+which are burned nearly all the year through and made Germany almost
+unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we have spoken above. It is
+not only the plague which he flees--for fear of catching cold he gives
+up a journey from Louvain to Antwerp, where his friend Peter Gilles is
+in mourning. Although he realizes quite well that 'often a great deal of
+the disease is in the imagination', yet his own imagination leaves him
+no peace. Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death.
+
+His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and fresh air, this last
+item in moderation: he takes the vicinity of the sea to be unwholesome
+and is afraid of draughts. His friend Gilles, who is ill, he advises:
+'Do not take too much medicine, keep quiet and do not get angry'. Though
+there is a 'Praise of Medicine' among his works, he does not think
+highly of physicians and satirizes them more than once in the
+_Colloquies_.
+
+Also in his outward appearance there were certain features betraying his
+delicacy. He was of medium height, well-made, of a fair complexion with
+blond hair and blue eyes, a cheerful face, a very articulate mode of
+speech, but a thin voice.
+
+In the moral sphere Erasmus's delicacy is represented by his great need
+of friendship and concord, his dislike of contention. With him peace and
+harmony rank above all other considerations, and he confesses them to be
+the guiding principles of his actions. He would, if it might be, have
+all the world as a friend. 'Wittingly I discharge no one from my
+friendship,' he says. And though he was sometimes capricious and
+exacting towards his friends, yet a truly great friend he was: witness
+the many who never forsook him, or whom he, after a temporary
+estrangement, always won back--More, Peter Gilles, Fisher, Ammonius,
+Budaeus, and others too numerous to mention. 'He was most constant in
+keeping up friendships,' says Beatus Rhenanus, whose own attachment to
+Erasmus is a proof of the strong affection he could inspire.
+
+At the root of this desire of friendship lies a great and sincere need
+of affection. Remember the effusions of almost feminine affection
+towards Servatius during his monastic period. But at the same time it is
+a sort of moral serenity that makes him so: an aversion to disturbance,
+to whatever is harsh and inharmonious. He calls it 'a certain occult
+natural sense' which makes him abhor strife. He cannot abide being at
+loggerheads with anyone. He always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep
+his pen unbloody, to attack no one, to provoke no one, even if he were
+attacked. But his enemies had not willed it, and in later years he
+became well accustomed to bitter polemics, with Lefevre d'Etaples, with
+Lee, with Egmondanus, with Hutten, with Luther, with Beda, with the
+Spaniards, and the Italians. At first it is still noticeable how he
+suffers by it, how contention wounds him, so that he cannot bear the
+pain in silence. 'Do let us be friends again,' he begs Lefevre, who does
+not reply. The time which he had to devote to his polemics he regards as
+lost. 'I feel myself getting more heavy every day,' he writes in 1520,
+'not so much on account of my age as because of the restless labour of
+my studies, nay more even by the weariness of disputes than by the work,
+which, in itself, is agreeable.' And how much strife was still in store
+for him then!
+
+If only Erasmus had been less concerned about public opinion! But that
+seemed impossible: he had a fear of men, or, we may call it, a fervent
+need of justification. He would always see beforehand, and usually in
+exaggerated colours, the effect his word or deed would have upon men. Of
+himself, it was certainly true as he once wrote: that the craving for
+fame has less sharp spurs than the fear of ignominy. Erasmus is with
+Rousseau among those who cannot bear the consciousness of guilt, out of
+a sort of mental cleanliness. Not to be able to repay a benefit with
+interest, makes him ashamed and sad. He cannot abide 'dunning creditors,
+unperformed duty, neglect of the need of a friend'. If he cannot
+discharge the obligation, he explains it away. The Dutch historian Fruin
+has quite correctly observed: 'Whatever Erasmus did contrary to his duty
+and his rightly understood interests was the fault of circumstances or
+wrong advice; he is never to blame himself'. And what he has thus
+justified for himself becomes with him universal law: 'God relieves
+people of pernicious vows, if only they repent of them,' says the man
+who himself had broken a vow.
+
+There is in Erasmus a dangerous fusion between inclination and
+conviction. The correlations between his idiosyncrasies and his precepts
+are undeniable. This has special reference to his point of view in the
+matter of fasting and abstinence from meat. He too frequently vents his
+own aversion to fish, or talks of his inability to postpone meals, not
+to make this connection clear to everybody. In the same way his personal
+experience in the monastery passes into his disapproval, on principle,
+of monastic life.
+
+The distortion of the image of his youth in his memory, to which we have
+referred, is based on that need of self-justification. It is all
+unconscious interpretation of the undeniable facts to suit the ideal
+which Erasmus had made of himself and to which he honestly thinks he
+answers. The chief features of that self-conceived picture are a
+remarkable, simple sincerity and frankness, which make it impossible to
+him to dissemble; inexperience and carelessness in the ordinary concerns
+of life and a total lack of ambition. All this is true in the first
+instance: there is a superficial Erasmus who answers to that image, but
+it is not the whole Erasmus; there is a deeper one who is almost the
+opposite and whom he himself does not know because he will not know him.
+Possibly because behind this there is a still deeper being, which is
+truly good.
+
+Does he not ascribe weaknesses to himself? Certainly. He is, in spite of
+his self-coddling, ever dissatisfied with himself and his work.
+_Putidulus_, he calls himself, meaning the quality of never being
+content with himself. It is that peculiarity which makes him
+dissatisfied with any work of his directly after it has appeared, so
+that he always keeps revising and supplementing. 'Pusillanimous' he
+calls himself in writing to Colet. But again he cannot help giving
+himself credit for acknowledging that quality, nay, converting that
+quality itself into a virtue: it is modesty, the opposite of boasting
+and self-love.
+
+This bashfulness about himself is the reason that he does not love his
+own physiognomy, and is only persuaded with difficulty by his friends to
+sit for a portrait. His own appearance is not heroic or dignified enough
+for him, and he is not duped by an artist who flatters him: 'Heigh-ho,'
+he exclaims, on seeing Holbein's thumbnail sketch illustrating the
+_Moria_: 'if Erasmus still looked like that, he would take a wife at
+once'. It is that deep trait of dissatisfaction that suggests the
+inscription on his portraits: 'his writings will show you a better
+image'.
+
+Erasmus's modesty and the contempt which he displays of the fame that
+fell to his lot are of a somewhat rhetorical character. But in this we
+should not so much see a personal trait of Erasmus as a general form
+common to all humanists. On the other hand, this mood cannot be called
+altogether artificial. His books, which he calls his children, have not
+turned out well. He does not think they will live. He does not set store
+by his letters: he publishes them because his friends insist upon it. He
+writes his poems to try a new pen. He hopes that geniuses will soon
+appear who will eclipse him, so that Erasmus will pass for a stammerer.
+What is fame? A pagan survival. He is fed up with it to repletion and
+would do nothing more gladly than cast it off.
+
+Sometimes another note escapes him. If Lee would help him in his
+endeavours, Erasmus would make him immortal, he had told the former in
+their first conversation. And he threatens an unknown adversary, 'If you
+go on so impudently to assail my good name, then take care that my
+gentleness does not give way and I cause you to be ranked, after a
+thousand years, among the venomous sycophants, among the idle boasters,
+among the incompetent physicians'.
+
+The self-centred element in Erasmus must needs increase accordingly as
+he in truth became a centre and objective point of ideas and culture.
+There really was a time when it must seem to him that the world hinged
+upon him, and that it awaited the redeeming word from him. What a
+widespread enthusiastic following he had, how many warm friends and
+venerators! There is something naive in the way in which he thinks it
+requisite to treat all his friends, in an open letter, to a detailed,
+rather repellent account of an illness that attacked him on the way back
+from Basle to Louvain. _His_ part, _his_ position, _his_ name, this more
+and more becomes the aspect under which he sees world-events. Years will
+come in which his whole enormous correspondence is little more than one
+protracted self-defence.
+
+Yet this man who has so many friends is nevertheless solitary at heart.
+And in the depth of that heart he desires to be alone. He is of a most
+retiring disposition; he is _a recluse_. 'I have always wished to be
+alone, and there is nothing I hate so much as sworn partisans.' Erasmus
+is one of those whom contact with others weakens. The less he has to
+address and to consider others, friends or enemies, the more truly he
+utters his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always
+causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry,
+reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore it should not
+be thought that we get to know him to the core from his letters. Natures
+like his, which all contact with men unsettles, give their best and
+deepest when they speak impersonally and to all.
+
+After the early effusions of sentimental affection he no longer opens
+his heart unreservedly to others. At bottom he feels separated from all
+and on the alert towards all. There is a great fear in him that others
+will touch his soul or disturb the image he has made of himself. The
+attitude of warding off reveals itself as fastidiousness and as
+bashfulness. Budaeus hit the mark when he exclaimed jocularly:
+'_Fastidiosule!_ You little fastidious person!' Erasmus himself
+interprets the dominating trait of his being as maidenly coyness. The
+excessive sensitiveness to the stain attaching to his birth results from
+it. But his friend Ammonius speaks of his _subrustica verecundia_, his
+somewhat rustic _gaucherie_. There is, indeed, often something of the
+small man about Erasmus, who is hampered by greatness and therefore
+shuns the great, because, at bottom, they obsess him and he feels them
+to be inimical to his being.
+
+It seems a hard thing to say that genuine loyalty and fervent
+gratefulness were strange to Erasmus. And yet such was his nature. In
+characters like his a kind of mental cramp keeps back the effusions of
+the heart. He subscribes to the adage: 'Love so, as if you may hate one
+day, and hate so, as if you may love one day'. He cannot bear benefits.
+In his inmost soul he continually retires before everybody. He who
+considers himself the pattern of simple unsuspicion, is indeed in the
+highest degree suspicious towards all his friends. The dead Ammonius,
+who had helped him so zealously in the most delicate concerns, is not
+secure from it. 'You are always unfairly distrustful towards me,'
+Budaeus complains. 'What!' exclaims Erasmus, 'you will find few people
+who are so little distrustful in friendship as myself.'
+
+When at the height of his fame the attention of the world was indeed
+fixed on all he spoke or did, there was some ground for a certain
+feeling on his part of being always watched and threatened. But when he
+was yet an unknown man of letters, in his Parisian years, we continually
+find traces in him of a mistrust of the people about him that can only
+be regarded as a morbid feeling. During the last period of his life this
+feeling attaches especially to two enemies, Eppendorf and Aleander.
+Eppendorf employs spies everywhere who watch Erasmus's correspondence
+with his friends. Aleander continually sets people to combat him, and
+lies in wait for him wherever he can. His interpretation of the
+intentions of his assailants has the ingenious self-centred element
+which passes the borderline of sanity. He sees the whole world full of
+calumny and ambuscades threatening his peace: nearly all those who once
+were his best friends have become his bitterest enemies; they wag their
+venomous tongues at banquets, in conversation, in the confessional, in
+sermons, in lectures, at court, in vehicles and ships. The minor
+enemies, like troublesome vermin, drive him to weariness of life, or to
+death by insomnia. He compares his tortures to the martyrdom of Saint
+Sebastian, pierced by arrows. But his is worse, for there is no end to
+it. For years he has daily been dying a thousand deaths and that alone;
+for his friends, if such there are, are deterred by envy.
+
+He mercilessly pillories his patrons in a row for their stinginess. Now
+and again there suddenly comes to light an undercurrent of aversion and
+hatred which we did not suspect. Where had more good things fallen to
+his lot than in England? Which country had he always praised more? But
+suddenly a bitter and unfounded reproach escapes him. England is
+responsible for his having become faithless to his monastic vows, 'for
+no other reason do I hate Britain more than for this, though it has
+always been pestilent to me'.
+
+He seldom allows himself to go so far. His expressions of hatred or
+spite are, as a rule, restricted to the feline. They are aimed at
+friends and enemies, Budaeus, Lypsius, as well as Hutten and Beda.
+Occasionally we are struck by the expression of coarse pleasure at
+another's misfortune. But in all this, as regards malice, we should not
+measure Erasmus by our ideas of delicacy and gentleness. Compared with
+most of his contemporaries he remains moderate and refined.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Erasmus never felt happy, was never content. This may perhaps surprise
+us for a moment, when we think of his cheerful, never-failing energy, of
+his gay jests and his humour. But upon reflection this unhappy feeling
+tallies very well with his character. It also proceeds from his general
+attitude of warding off. Even when in high spirits he considers himself
+in all respects an unhappy man. 'The most miserable of all men, the
+thrice-wretched Erasmus,' he calls himself in fine Greek terms. His life
+'is an Iliad of calamities, a chain of misfortunes. How can anyone envy
+_me_?' To no one has Fortune been so constantly hostile as to him. She
+has sworn his destruction, thus he sang in his youth in a poetical
+complaint addressed to Gaguin: from earliest infancy the same sad and
+hard fate has been constantly pursuing him. Pandora's whole box seems to
+have been poured out over him.
+
+This unhappy feeling takes the special form of his having been charged
+by unlucky stars with Herculean labour, without profit or pleasure to
+himself:[16] troubles and vexations without end. His life might have
+been so much easier if he had taken his chances. He should never have
+left Italy; or he ought to have stayed in England. 'But an immoderate
+love of liberty caused me to wrestle long with faithless friends and
+inveterate poverty.' Elsewhere he says more resignedly: 'But we are
+driven by fate'.
+
+That immoderate love of liberty had indeed been as fate to him. He had
+always been the great seeker of quiet and liberty who found liberty late
+and quiet never. By no means ever to bind himself, to incur no
+obligations which might become fetters--again that fear of the
+entanglements of life. Thus he remained the great restless one. He was
+never truly satisfied with anything, least of all with what he produced
+himself. 'Why, then, do you overwhelm us with so many books', someone at
+Louvain objected, 'if you do not really approve of any of them?' And
+Erasmus answers with Horace's word: 'In the first place, because I
+cannot sleep'.
+
+A sleepless energy, it was that indeed. He cannot rest. Still half
+seasick and occupied with his trunks, he is already thinking about an
+answer to Dorp's letter, just received, censuring the _Moria_. We should
+fully realize what it means that time after time Erasmus, who, by
+nature, loved quiet and was fearful, and fond of comfort, cleanliness
+and good fare, undertakes troublesome and dangerous journeys, even
+voyages, which he detests, for the sake of his work and of that alone.
+
+He is not only restless, but also precipitate. Helped by an incomparably
+retentive and capacious memory he writes at haphazard. He never becomes
+anacoluthic; his talent is too refined and sure for that; but he does
+repeat himself and is unnecessarily circumstantial. 'I rather pour out
+than write everything,' he says. He compares his publications to
+parturitions, nay, to abortions. He does not select his subjects, he
+tumbles into them, and having once taken up a subject he finishes
+without intermission. For years he has read only _tumultuarie_, up and
+down all literature; he no longer finds time really to refresh his mind
+by reading, and to work so as to please himself. On that account he
+envied Budaeus.
+
+'Do not publish too hastily,' More warns him: 'you are watched to be
+caught in inexactitudes.' Erasmus knows it: he will correct all later,
+he will ever have to revise and to polish everything. He hates the
+labour of revising and correcting, but he submits to it, and works
+passionately, 'in the treadmill of Basle', and, he says, finishes the
+work of six years in eight months.
+
+In that recklessness and precipitation with which Erasmus labours there
+is again one of the unsolved contradictions of his being. He _is_
+precipitate and careless; he _wants_ to be careful and cautious; his
+mind drives him to be the first, his nature restrains him, but usually
+only after the word has been written and published. The result is a
+continual intermingling of explosion and reserve.
+
+The way in which Erasmus always tries to shirk definite statements
+irritates us. How carefully he always tries to represent the
+_Colloquies_, in which he had spontaneously revealed so much of his
+inner convictions, as mere trifling committed to paper to please his
+friends. They are only meant to teach correct Latin! And if anything is
+said in them touching matters of faith, it is not I who say it, is it?
+As often as he censures classes or offices in the _Adagia_, princes
+above all, he warns the readers not to regard his words as aimed at
+particular persons.
+
+Erasmus was a master of reserve. He knew, even when he held definite
+views, how to avoid direct decisions, not only from caution, but also
+because he saw the eternal ambiguity of human issues.
+
+Erasmus ascribes to himself an unusual horror of lies. On seeing a liar,
+he says, he was corporeally affected. As a boy he already violently
+disliked mendacious boys, such as the little braggart of whom he tells
+in the _Colloquies_. That this reaction of aversion is genuine is not
+contradicted by the fact that we catch Erasmus himself in untruths.
+Inconsistencies, flattery, pieces of cunning, white lies, serious
+suppression of facts, simulated sentiments of respect or sorrow--they
+may all be pointed out in his letters. He once disavowed his deepest
+conviction for a gratuity from Anne of Borselen by flattering her
+bigotry. He requested his best friend Batt to tell lies in his behalf.
+He most sedulously denied his authorship of the Julius dialogue, for
+fear of the consequences, even to More, and always in such a way as to
+avoid saying outright, 'I did not write it'. Those who know other
+humanists, and know how frequently and impudently they lied, will
+perhaps think more lightly of Erasmus's sins.
+
+For the rest, even during his lifetime he did not escape punishment for
+his eternal reserve, his proficiency in semi-conclusions and veiled
+truths, insinuations and slanderous allusions. The accusation of perfidy
+was often cast in his teeth, sometimes in serious indignation. 'You are
+always engaged in bringing suspicion upon others,' Edward Lee exclaims.
+'How dare you usurp the office of a general censor, and condemn what you
+have hardly ever tasted? How dare you despise all but yourself? Falsely
+and insultingly do you expose your antagonist in the _Colloquia_.' Lee
+quotes the spiteful passage referring to himself, and then exclaims:
+'Now from these words the world may come to know its divine, its censor,
+its modest and sincere author, that Erasmian diffidence, earnest,
+decency and honesty! Erasmian modesty has long been proverbial. You are
+always using the words "false accusations". You say: if I was
+consciously guilty of the smallest of all his (Lee's) false accusations,
+I should not dare to approach the Lord's table!--O man, who are you, to
+judge another, a servant who stands or falls before his Lord?'
+
+This was the first violent attack from the conservative side, in the
+beginning of 1520, when the mighty struggle which Luther's action had
+unchained kept the world in ever greater suspense. Six months later
+followed the first serious reproaches on the part of radical reformers.
+Ulrich von Hutten, the impetuous, somewhat foggy-headed knight, who
+wanted to see Luther's cause triumph as the national cause of Germany,
+turns to Erasmus, whom, at one time, he had enthusiastically acclaimed
+as the man of the new weal, with the urgent appeal not to forsake the
+cause of the reformation or to compromise it. 'You have shown yourself
+fearful in the affair of Reuchlin; now in that of Luther you do your
+utmost to convince his adversaries that you are altogether averse from
+it, though we know better. Do not disown us. You know how triumphantly
+certain letters of yours are circulated, in which, to protect yourself
+from suspicion, you rather meanly fasten it on others ... If you are now
+afraid to incur a little hostility for _my_ sake, concede me at least
+that you will not allow yourself, out of fear for another, to be tempted
+to renounce me; rather be silent about me.'
+
+Those were bitter reproaches. In the man who had to swallow them there
+was a puny Erasmus who deserved those reproaches, who took offence at
+them, but did not take them to heart, who continued to act with prudent
+reserve till Hutten's friendship was turned to hatred. In him was also a
+great Erasmus who knew how, under the passion and infatuation with which
+the parties combated each other, the Truth he sought, and the Love he
+hoped would subdue the world, were obscured; who knew the God whom he
+professed too high to take sides. Let us try ever to see of that great
+Erasmus as much as the petty one permits.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Cf. the letter to Beatus Rhenanus, pp. 227-8.
+
+[16] Ad. 2001 LB. II, 717B, 77 c. 58A. On the book which Erasmus holds
+in his hand in Holbein's portrait at Longford Castle, we read in Greek:
+The Labours of Hercules.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT LOUVAIN
+
+1517-18
+
+    Erasmus at Louvain, 1517--He expects the renovation of the
+    Church as the fruit of good learning--Controversy with Lefevre
+    d'Etaples--Second journey to Basle, 1518--He revises the edition
+    of the New Testament--Controversies with Latomus, Briard and
+    Lee--Erasmus regards the opposition of conservative theology
+    merely as a conspiracy against good learning
+
+
+When Erasmus established himself at Louvain in the summer of 1517 he had
+a vague presentiment that great changes were at hand. 'I fear', he
+writes in September, 'that a great subversion of affairs is being
+brought about here, if God's favour and the piety and wisdom of princes
+do not concern themselves about human matters.' But the forms which that
+great change would assume he did not in the least realize.
+
+He regarded his removal as merely temporary. It was only to last 'till
+we shall have seen which place of residence is best fit for old age,
+which is already knocking'. There is something pathetic in the man who
+desires nothing but quiet and liberty, and who through his own
+restlessness, and his inability not to concern himself about other
+people, never found a really fixed abode or true independence. Erasmus
+is one of those people who always seem to say: tomorrow, tomorrow! I
+must first deal with this, and then ... As soon as he shall be ready
+with the new edition of the New Testament and shall have extricated
+himself from troublesome and disagreeable theological controversies, in
+which he finds himself entangled against his wish, he will sleep, hide
+himself, 'sing for himself and the Muses'. But that time never came.
+
+Where to live when he shall be free? Spain, to which Cardinal Ximenes
+called him, did not appeal to him. From Germany, he says, the stoves and
+the insecurity deter him. In England the servitude which was required of
+him there revolted him. But in the Netherlands themselves, he did not
+feel at his ease, either: 'Here I am barked at a great deal, and there
+is no remuneration; though I desired it ever so much, I could not bear
+to stay there long'. Yet he remained for four years.
+
+Erasmus had good friends in the University of Louvain. At first he put
+up with his old host Johannes Paludanus, Rhetor of the University, whose
+house he exchanged that summer for quarters in the College of the Lily.
+Martin Dorp, a Dutchman like himself, had not been estranged from him by
+their polemics about the _Moria_; his good will was of great importance
+to Erasmus, because of the important place Dorp occupied in the
+theological faculty. And lastly, though his old patron, Adrian of
+Utrecht, afterwards Pope, had by that time been called away from Louvain
+to higher dignities, his influence had not diminished in consequence,
+but rather increased; for just about that time he had been made a
+cardinal.
+
+Erasmus was received with great complaisance by the Louvain divines.
+Their leader, the vice-chancellor of the University, Jean Briard of Ath,
+repeatedly expressed his approval of the edition of the New Testament,
+to Erasmus's great satisfaction. Soon Erasmus found himself a member of
+the theological faculty. Yet he did not feel at his ease among the
+Louvain theologians. The atmosphere was a great deal less congenial to
+him than that of the world of the English scholars. Here he felt a
+spirit which he did not understand and distrusted in consequence.
+
+In the years in which the Reformation began, Erasmus was the victim of a
+great misunderstanding, the result of the fact that his delicate,
+aesthetic, hovering spirit understood neither the profoundest depths of
+the faith nor the hard necessities of human society. He was neither
+mystic nor realist. Luther was both. To Erasmus the great problem of
+Church and State and society, seemed simple. Nothing was required but
+restoration and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt
+sources of Christianity. A number of accretions to the faith, rather
+ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared away. All should be reduced
+to the nucleus of faith, Christ and the Gospel. Forms, ceremonies,
+speculations should make room for the practice of true piety. The Gospel
+was easily intelligible to everybody and within everybody's reach. And
+the means to reach all this was good learning, _bonae literae_. Had he
+not himself, by his editions of the New Testament and of Jerome, and
+even earlier by the now famous _Enchiridion_, done most of what had to
+be done? 'I hope that what now pleases the upright, will soon please
+all.' As early as the beginning of 1517 Erasmus had written to Wolfgang
+Fabricius Capito, in the tone of one who has accomplished the great
+task. 'Well then, take you the torch from us. The work will henceforth
+be a great deal easier and cause far less hatred and envy. _We_ have
+lived through the first shock.'
+
+Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May 1517: 'Was anyone born under such
+inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure discipline (scholasticism)
+does not revolt him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's
+diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? But it is
+still much greater that he should have effected by the same labour the
+emergence of sacred truth itself out of that Cimmerian darkness, even
+though divinity is not yet quite free from the dirt of the sophist
+school. If that should occur one day, it will be owing to the beginnings
+made in our times.' The philologist Budaeus believed even more firmly
+than Erasmus that faith was a matter of erudition.
+
+It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone accepted the cleansed
+truth at once. How could people continue to oppose themselves to what,
+to him, seemed as clear as daylight and so simple? He, who so sincerely
+would have liked to live in peace with all the world, found himself
+involved in a series of polemics. To let the opposition of opponents
+pass unnoticed was forbidden not only by his character, for ever
+striving to justify himself in the eyes of the world, but also by the
+custom of his time, so eager for dispute.
+
+There were, first of all, his polemics with Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples,
+or in Latinized form, Faber Stapulensis, the Parisian theologian, who as
+a preparer of the Reformation may, more than anyone else, be ranked with
+Erasmus. At the moment when Erasmus got into the travelling cart which
+was to take him to Louvain, a friend drew his attention to a passage in
+the new edition of Faber's commentary on St. Paul's epistles, in which
+he controverted Erasmus's note on the Second Epistle to the Hebrews,
+verse 7. Erasmus at once bought Faber's book, and soon published an
+_Apologia_. It concerned Christ's relation to God and the angels, but
+the dogmatic point at issue hinged, after all, on a philological
+interpretation of Erasmus.
+
+Not yet accustomed to much direct wrangling, Erasmus was violently
+agitated by the matter, the more as he esteemed Faber highly and
+considered him a congenial spirit. 'What on earth has occurred to the
+man? Have others set him on against me? All theologians agree that I am
+right,' he asserts. It makes him nervous that Faber does not reply again
+at once. Badius has told Peter Gilles that Faber is sorry about it.
+Erasmus in a dignified letter appeals to their friendship; he will
+suffer himself to be taught and censured. Then again he growls: Let him
+be careful. And he thinks that his controversy with Faber keeps the
+world in suspense: there is not a meal at which the guests do not side
+with one or the other of them. But finally the combat abated and the
+friendship was preserved.
+
+Towards Easter 1518, Erasmus contemplated a new journey to Basle, there
+to pass through the press, during a few months of hard labour, the
+corrected edition of the New Testament. He did not fail to request the
+chiefs of conservative divinity at Louvain beforehand to state their
+objections to his work. Briard of Ath declared he had found nothing
+offensive in it, after he had first been told all sorts of bad things
+about it. 'Then the new edition will please you much better,' Erasmus
+had said. His friend Dorp and James Latomus, also one of the chief
+divines, had expressed themselves in the same sense, and the Carmelite
+Nicholas of Egmond had said that he had never read Erasmus's work. Only
+a young Englishman, Edward Lee, who was studying Greek at Louvain, had
+summarized a number of criticisms into ten conclusions. Erasmus had got
+rid of the matter by writing to Lee that he had not been able to get
+hold of his conclusions and therefore could not make use of them. But
+his youthful critic had not put up with being slighted so, and worked
+out his objections in a more circumstantial treatise.
+
+[Illustration: XVII. VIEW OF BASLE, 1548]
+
+Thus Erasmus set out for Basle once more in May 1518. He had been
+obliged to ask all his English friends (of whom Ammonius had been taken
+from him by death in 1517) for support to defray the expenses of the
+journey; he kept holding out to them the prospect that, after his work
+was finished, he would return to England. In a letter to Martin Lypsius,
+as he was going up the Rhine, he answered Lee's criticism, which had
+irritated him extremely. In revising his edition he not only took it but
+little into account, but ventured, moreover, this time to print his own
+translation of the New Testament of 1506 without any alterations. At the
+same time he obtained for the new edition a letter of approval from the
+Pope, a redoubtable weapon against his cavillers.
+
+At Basle Erasmus worked again like a horse in a treadmill. But he was
+really in his element. Even before the second edition of the New
+Testament, the _Enchiridion_ and the _Institutio Principis Christiani_
+were reprinted by Froben. On his return journey, Erasmus, whose work had
+been hampered all through the summer by indisposition, and who had, on
+that account, been unable to finish it, fell seriously ill. He reached
+Louvain with difficulty (21 September 1518). It might be the pestilence,
+and Erasmus, ever much afraid of contagion himself, now took all
+precautions to safeguard his friends against it. He avoided his quarters
+in the College of the Lily, and found shelter with his most trusted
+friend, Dirck Maertensz, the printer. But in spite of rumours of the
+plague and his warnings, first Dorp and afterwards also Ath came, at
+once, to visit him. Evidently the Louvain professors did not mean so
+badly by him, after all.
+
+[Illustration: XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament printed by Froben
+in 1520]
+
+But the differences between Erasmus and the Louvain faculty were deeply
+rooted. Lee, hurt by the little attention paid by Erasmus to his
+objections, prepared a new critique, but kept it from Erasmus, for the
+present, which irritated the latter and made him nervous. In the
+meantime a new opponent arose. Directly after his return to Louvain,
+Erasmus had taken much trouble to promote the establishment of the
+_Collegium Trilingue_, projected and endowed by Jerome Busleiden, in his
+testament, to be founded in the university. The three biblical
+languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were to be taught there. Now when
+James Latomus, a member of the theological faculty and a man whom he
+esteemed, in a dialogue about the study of those three languages and of
+theology, doubted the utility of the former, Erasmus judged himself
+concerned, and answered Latomus in an _Apologia_. About the same time
+(spring 1519) he got into trouble with the vice-chancellor himself.
+Erasmus thought that Ath had publicly censured him with regard to his
+'Praise of Marriage', which had recently appeared. Though Ath withdrew
+at once, Erasmus could not abstain from writing an _Apologia_, however
+moderate. Meanwhile the smouldering quarrel with Lee assumed ever more
+hateful forms. In vain did Erasmus's English friends attempt to restrain
+their young, ambitious compatriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him
+furtively. He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and
+dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum
+he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan, even the old
+taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve once more. The points
+at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In
+his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy
+weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to
+ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his
+English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the
+greatest trouble in keeping them back'.
+
+Alack! Germany had other causes of disturbance: it is 1520 and the three
+great polemics of Luther were setting the world on fire.
+
+Though one may excuse the violence and the petty spitefulness of Erasmus
+in this matter, as resulting from an over-sensitive heart falling
+somewhat short in really manly qualities, yet it is difficult to deny
+that he failed completely to understand both the arguments of his
+adversaries and the great movements of his time.
+
+It was very easy for Erasmus to mock the narrow-mindedness of
+conservative divines who thought that there would be an end to faith in
+Holy Scripture as soon as the emendation of the text was attempted.
+'"They correct the Holy Gospel, nay, the Pater Noster itself!" the
+preacher exclaims indignantly in the sermon before his surprised
+congregation. As if I cavilled at Matthew and Luke, and not at those
+who, out of ignorance and carelessness, have corrupted them. What do
+people wish? That the Church should possess Holy Scripture as correct as
+possible, or not?' This reasoning seemed to Erasmus, with his passionate
+need of purity, a conclusive refutation. But instinct did not deceive
+his adversaries, when it told them that doctrine itself was at stake if
+the linguistic judgement of a single individual might decide as to the
+correct version of a text. And Erasmus wished to avoid the inferences
+which assailed doctrine. He was not aware of the fact that his
+conceptions of the Church, the sacraments and the dogmas were no longer
+purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated to his
+philological insight. He could not be aware of it because, in spite of
+all his natural piety and his fervent ethical sentiments, he lacked the
+mystic insight which is the foundation of every creed.
+
+It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him unable to understand
+the real grounds of the resistance of Catholic orthodoxy. How was it
+possible that so many, and among them men of high consideration, refused
+to accept what to him seemed so clear and irrefutable! He interpreted
+the fact in a highly personal way. He, the man who would so gladly have
+lived in peace with all the world, who so yearned for sympathy and
+recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty, saw the ranks of haters
+and opponents increase about him. He did not understand how they feared
+his mocking acrimony, how many wore the scar of a wound that the _Moria_
+had made. That real and supposed hatred troubled Erasmus. He sees his
+enemies as a sect. It is especially the Dominicans and the Carmelites
+who are ill-affected towards the new scientific theology. Just then a
+new adversary had arisen at Louvain in the person of his compatriot
+Nicholas of Egmond, prior of the Carmelites, henceforth an object of
+particular abhorrence to him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus
+found his fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the narrower sense
+of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, William of Vianen, Ruurd Tapper.
+The persecution increases: the venom of slander spreads more and more
+every day and becomes more deadly; the greatest untruths are impudently
+preached about him; he calls in the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor,
+against them. But it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write
+for the erudite, who are few; we shall bark to stir up the people. After
+1520 he writes again and again: 'I am stoned every day'.
+
+But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not without reason, at
+the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no longer be blind to the fact that
+the great struggle did not concern him alone. On all sides the battle
+was being fought. What is it, that great commotion about matters of
+spirit and of faith?
+
+The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it is a great and wilful
+conspiracy on the part of the conservatives to suffocate good learning
+and make the old ignorance triumph. This idea recurs innumerable times
+in his letters after the middle of 1518. 'I know quite certainly', he
+writes on 21 March 1519 to one of his German friends, 'that the
+barbarians on all sides have conspired to leave no stone unturned till
+they have suppressed _bonae literae_.' 'Here we are still fighting with
+the protectors of the old ignorance'; cannot Wolsey persuade the Pope to
+stop it here? All that appertains to ancient and cultured literature is
+called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they
+indicate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, that is to
+say all that they have not learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole
+tragedy--under these terms he usually refers to the great theological
+struggle--originates in the hatred of _bonae literae_. 'This is the
+source and hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic
+study and the _bonae literae_.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom it
+is impossible to conquer, though their cause is a bad one. And meanwhile
+envy harasses the _bonae literae_, which are attacked at his (Luther's)
+instigation by these gadflies. They are already nearly insufferable,
+when things do not go well with them; but who can stand them when they
+triumph? Either I am blind, or they aim at something else than Luther.
+They are preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.'
+
+This was written by Erasmus to a member of the University of Leipzig in
+December 1520. This one-sided and academic conception of the great
+events, a conception which arose in the study of a recluse bending over
+his books, did more than anything else to prevent Erasmus from
+understanding the true nature and purport of the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION
+
+    Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther--
+    Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1517--Progress of the
+    Reformation--Luther tries to bring about a _rapprochement_ with
+    Erasmus, March 1519--Erasmus keeps aloof; fancies he may yet act
+    as a conciliator--His attitude becomes ambiguous--He denies ever
+    more emphatically all relations with Luther and resolves to
+    remain a spectator--He is pressed by either camp to take
+    sides--Aleander in the Netherlands--The Diet of Worms,
+    1521--Erasmus leaves Louvain to safeguard his freedom, October
+    1521
+
+
+About the close of 1516, Erasmus received a letter from the librarian
+and secretary of Frederick, elector of Saxony, George Spalatinus,
+written in the respectful and reverential tone in which the great man
+was now approached. 'We all esteem you here most highly; the elector has
+all your books in his library and intends to buy everything you may
+publish in future.' But the object of Spalatinus's letter was the
+execution of a friend's commission. An Augustinian ecclesiastic, a great
+admirer of Erasmus, had requested him to direct his attention to the
+fact that in his interpretation of St. Paul, especially in that of the
+epistle to the Romans, Erasmus had failed to conceive the idea of
+_justitia_ correctly, had paid too little attention to original sin: he
+might profit by reading Augustine.
+
+The nameless Austin Friar was Luther, then still unknown outside the
+circle of the Wittenberg University, in which he was a professor, and
+the criticism regarded the cardinal point of his hardly acquired
+conviction: justification by faith.
+
+Erasmus paid little attention to this letter. He received so many of
+that sort, containing still more praise and no criticism. If he answered
+it, the reply did not reach Spalatinus, and later Erasmus completely
+forgot the whole letter.
+
+Nine months afterwards, in September 1517, when Erasmus had been at
+Louvain for a short time, he received an honourable invitation, written
+by the first prelate of the Empire, the young Archbishop of Mayence,
+Albert of Brandenburg. The archbishop would be pleased to see him on an
+occasion: he greatly admired his work (he knew it so little as to speak
+of Erasmus's emendation of the Old Testament, instead of the New) and
+hoped that he would one day write some lives of saints in elegant style.
+
+The young Hohenzoller, advocate of the new light of classical studies,
+whose attention had probably been drawn to Erasmus by Hutten and Capito,
+who sojourned at his court, had recently become engaged in one of the
+boldest political and financial transactions of his time. His elevation
+to the see of Mayence, at the age of twenty-four, had necessitated a
+papal dispensation, as he also wished to keep the archbishopric of
+Magdeburg and the see of Halberstadt. This accumulation of
+ecclesiastical offices had to be made subservient to the Brandenburg
+policy which opposed the rival house of Saxony. The Pope granted the
+dispensation in return for a great sum of money, but to facilitate its
+payment he accorded to the archbishop a liberal indulgence for the whole
+archbishopric of Mayence, Magdeburg and the Brandenburg territories.
+Albert, to whom half the proceeds were tacitly left, raised a loan with
+the house of Fugger, and this charged itself with the indulgence
+traffic.
+
+When in December 1517, Erasmus answered the archbishop, Luther's
+propositions against indulgences, provoked by the Archbishop of
+Mayence's instructions regarding their colportage, had already been
+posted up (31 October 1517), and were circulated throughout Germany,
+rousing the whole Church. They were levelled at the same abuses which
+Erasmus combated, the mechanical, atomistical, and juridical conception
+of religion. But how different was their practical effect, as compared
+with Erasmus's pacific endeavour to purify the Church by lenient means!
+
+'Lives of saints?' Erasmus asked replying to the archbishop. 'I have
+tried in my poor way to add a little light to the prince of saints
+himself. For the rest, your endeavour, in addition to so many difficult
+matters of government, and at such an early age, to get the lives of the
+saints purged of old women's tales and disgusting style, is extremely
+laudable. For nothing should be suffered in the Church that is not
+perfectly pure or refined,' And he concludes with a magnificent eulogy
+of the excellent prelate.
+
+During the greater part of 1518, Erasmus was too much occupied by his
+own affairs--the journey to Basle and his red-hot labours there, and
+afterwards his serious illness--to concern himself much with Luther's
+business. In March he sends Luther's theses to More, without comment,
+and, in passing, complains to Colet about the impudence with which Rome
+disseminates indulgences. Luther, now declared a heretic and summoned to
+appear at Augsburg, stands before the legate Cajetanus and refuses to
+recant. Seething enthusiasm surrounds him. Just about that time Erasmus
+writes to one of Luther's partisans, John Lang, in very favourable terms
+about his work. The theses have pleased everybody. 'I see that the
+monarchy of the Pope at Rome, as it is now, is a pestilence to
+Christendom, but I do not know if it is expedient to touch that sore
+openly. That would be a matter for princes, but I fear that these will
+act in concert with the Pope to secure part of the spoils. I do not
+understand what possessed Eck to take up arms against Luther.' The
+letter did not find its way into any of the collections.
+
+The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the election of an emperor,
+after old Maximilian had died in January, and the attempt of the curia
+to regain ground with lenity. Germany was expecting the long-projected
+disputation between Johannes Eck and Andreas Karlstadt which, in truth,
+would concern Luther. How could Erasmus, who himself was involved that
+year in so many polemics, have foreseen that the Leipzig disputation,
+which was to lead Luther to the consequence of rejecting the highest
+ecclesiastical authority, would remain of lasting importance in the
+history of the world, whereas his quarrel with Lee would be forgotten?
+
+On 28 March 1519 Luther addressed himself personally to Erasmus for the
+first time. 'I speak with you so often, and you with me, Erasmus, our
+ornament and our hope; and we do not know each other as yet.' He
+rejoices to find that Erasmus displeases many, for this he regards as a
+sign that God has blessed him. Now that his, Luther's, name begins to
+get known too, a longer silence between them might be wrongly
+interpreted. 'Therefore, my Erasmus, amiable man, if you think fit,
+acknowledge also this little brother in Christ, who really admires you
+and feels friendly disposed towards you, and for the rest would deserve
+no better, because of his ignorance, than to lie, unknown, buried in a
+corner.'
+
+There was a very definite purpose in this somewhat rustically cunning
+and half ironical letter. Luther wanted, if possible, to make Erasmus
+show his colours, to win him, the powerful authority, touchstone of
+science and culture, for the cause which he advocated. In his heart
+Luther had long been aware of the deep gulf separating him from Erasmus.
+As early as March 1517, six months before his public appearance, he
+wrote about Erasmus to John Lang: 'human matters weigh heavier with him
+than divine,' an opinion that so many have pronounced about
+Erasmus--obvious, and yet unfair.
+
+The attempt, on the part of Luther, to effect a _rapprochement_ was a
+reason for Erasmus to retire at once. Now began that extremely ambiguous
+policy of Erasmus to preserve peace by his authority as a light of the
+world and to steer a middle course without committing himself. In that
+attitude the great and the petty side of his personality are
+inextricably intertwined. The error because of which most historians
+have seen Erasmus's attitude towards the Reformation either in far too
+unfavourable a light or--as for instance the German historian
+Kalkoff--much too heroic and far-seeing, is that they erroneously regard
+him as psychologically homogeneous. Just that he is not. His
+double-sidedness roots in the depths of his being. Many of his
+utterances during the struggle proceed directly from his fear and lack
+of character, also from his inveterate dislike of siding with a person
+or a cause; but behind that is always his deep and fervent conviction
+that neither of the conflicting opinions can completely express the
+truth, that human hatred and purblindness infatuate men's minds. And
+with that conviction is allied the noble illusion that it might yet be
+possible to preserve the peace by moderation, insight, and kindliness.
+
+In April 1519 Erasmus addressed himself by letter to the elector
+Frederick of Saxony, Luther's patron. He begins by alluding to his
+dedication of Suetonius two years before; but his real purpose is to say
+something about Luther. Luther's writings, he says, have given the
+Louvain obscurants plenty of reason to inveigh against the _bonae
+literae_, to decry all scholars. He himself does not know Luther and has
+glanced through his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone praises
+his life. How little in accordance with theological gentleness it is to
+condemn him offhand, and that before the indiscreet vulgar! For has he
+not proposed a dispute, and submitted himself to everybody's judgement?
+No one has, so far, admonished, taught, convinced him. Every error is
+not at once heresy.
+
+The best of Christianity is a life worthy of Christ. Where we find that,
+we should not rashly suspect people of heresy. Why do we so uncharitably
+persecute the lapses of others, though none of us is free from error?
+Why do we rather want to conquer than cure, suppress than instruct?
+
+But he concludes with a word that could not but please Luther's friends,
+who so hoped for his support. 'May the duke prevent an innocent man from
+being surrendered under the cloak of piety to the impiety of a few. This
+is also the wish of Pope Leo, who has nothing more at heart than that
+innocence be safe.'
+
+At this same time Erasmus does his best to keep Froben back from
+publishing Luther's writings, 'that they may not fan the hatred of the
+_bonae literae_ still more'. And he keeps repeating: I do not know
+Luther, I have not read his writings. He makes this declaration to
+Luther himself, in his reply to the latter's epistle of 28 March. This
+letter of Erasmus, dated 30 May 1519, should be regarded as a newspaper
+leader[17], to acquaint the public with his attitude towards the Luther
+question. Luther does not know the tragedies which his writings have
+caused at Louvain. People here think that Erasmus has helped him in
+composing them and call him the standard bearer of the party! That
+seemed to them a fitting pretext to suppress the _bonae literae_. 'I
+have declared that you are perfectly unknown to me, that I have not yet
+read your books and therefore neither approve nor disapprove anything.'
+'I reserve myself, so far as I may, to be of use to the reviving
+studies. Discreet moderation seems likely to bring better progress than
+impetuosity. It was by this that Christ subjugated the world.'
+
+On the same day he writes to John Lang, one of Luther's friends and
+followers, a short note, not meant for publication: 'I hope that the
+endeavours of yourself and your party will be successful. Here the
+Papists rave violently.... All the best minds are rejoiced at Luther's
+boldness: I do not doubt he will be careful that things do not end in a
+quarrel of parties!... We shall never triumph over feigned Christians
+unless we first abolish the tyranny of the Roman see, and of its
+satellites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Carmelites. But no
+one could attempt that without a serious tumult.'
+
+As the gulf widens, Erasmus's protestations that he has nothing to do
+with Luther become much more frequent. Relations at Louvain grow ever
+more disagreeable and the general sentiment about him ever more unkind.
+In August 1519 he turns to the Pope himself for protection against his
+opponents. He still fails to see how wide the breach is. He still takes
+it all to be quarrels of scholars. King Henry of England and King
+Francis of France in their own countries have imposed silence upon the
+quarrellers and slanderers; if only the Pope would do the same!
+
+In October he was once more reconciled with the Louvain faculty. It was
+just at this time that Colet died in London, the man who had, better
+perhaps than anyone else, understood Erasmus's standpoint. Kindred
+spirits in Germany still looked up to Erasmus as the great man who was
+on the alert to interpose at the right moment and who had made
+moderation the watchword, until the time should come to give his friends
+the signal.
+
+But in the increasing noise of the battle his voice already sounded less
+powerfully than before. A letter to Cardinal Albert of Mayence, 19
+October 1519, of about the same content as that of Frederick of Saxony
+written in the preceding spring, was at once circulated by Luther's
+friends; and by the advocates of conservatism, in spite of the usual
+protestation, 'I do not know Luther', it was made to serve against
+Erasmus.
+
+It became more and more clear that the mediating and conciliatory
+position which Erasmus wished to take up would soon be altogether
+untenable. The inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraten had come from Cologne, where
+he was a member of the University, to Louvain, to work against Luther
+there, as he had worked against Reuchlin. On 7 November 1519 the Louvain
+faculty, following the example of that of Cologne, proceeded to take the
+decisive step: the solemn condemnation of a number of Luther's opinions.
+In future no place could be less suitable to Erasmus than Louvain, the
+citadel of action against reformers. It is surprising that he remained
+there another two years.
+
+The expectation that he would be able to speak the conciliating word was
+paling. For the rest he failed to see the true proportions. During the
+first months of 1520 his attention was almost entirely taken up by his
+own polemics with Lee, a paltry incident in the great revolution. The
+desire to keep aloof got more and more the upper hand of him. In June he
+writes to Melanchthon: 'I see that matters begin to look like sedition.
+It is perhaps necessary that scandals occur, but I should prefer not to
+be the author.' He has, he thinks, by his influence with Wolsey,
+prevented the burning of Luther's writings in England, which had been
+ordered. But he was mistaken. The burning had taken place in London, as
+early as 12 May.
+
+The best proof that Erasmus had practically given up his hope to play a
+conciliatory part may be found in what follows. In the summer of 1520
+the famous meeting between the three monarchs, Henry VIII, Francis I and
+Charles V, took place at Calais. Erasmus was to go there in the train of
+his prince. How would such a congress of princes--where in peaceful
+conclave the interests of France, England, Spain, the German Empire, and
+a considerable part of Italy, were represented together--have affected
+Erasmus's imagination, if his ideal had remained unshaken! But there are
+no traces of this. Erasmus was at Calais in July 1520, had some
+conversation with Henry VIII there, and greeted More, but it does not
+appear that he attached any other importance to the journey than that of
+an opportunity, for the last time, to greet his English friends.
+
+It was awkward for Erasmus that just at this time, when the cause of
+faith took so much harsher forms, his duties as counsellor to the
+youthful Charles, now back from Spain to be crowned as emperor,
+circumscribed his liberty more than before. In the summer of 1520
+appeared, based on the incriminating material furnished by the Louvain
+faculty, the papal bull declaring Luther to be a heretic, and, unless he
+should speedily recant, excommunicating him. 'I fear the worst for the
+unfortunate Luther,' Erasmus writes, 9 September 1520, 'so does
+conspiracy rage everywhere, so are princes incensed with him on all
+sides, and, most of all, Pope Leo. Would Luther had followed my advice
+and abstained from those hostile and seditious actions!... They will not
+rest until they have quite subverted the study of languages and the good
+learning.... Out of the hatred against these and the stupidity of monks
+did this tragedy first arise.... I do not meddle with it. For the rest,
+a bishopric is waiting for me if I choose to write against Luther.'
+
+Indeed, Erasmus had become, by virtue of his enormous celebrity, as
+circumstances would have it, more and more a valuable asset in the great
+policy of emperor and pope. People wanted to use his name and make him
+choose sides. And that he would not do for any consideration. He wrote
+evasively to the Pope about his relations with Luther without altogether
+disavowing him. How zealously he defends himself from the suspicion of
+being on Luther's side as noisy monks make out in their sermons, who
+summarily link the two in their scoffing disparagement.
+
+But by the other side also he is pressed to choose sides and to speak
+out. Towards the end of October 1520 the coronation of the emperor took
+place at Aix-la-Chapelle. Erasmus was perhaps present; in any case he
+accompanied the Emperor to Cologne. There, on 5 November, he had an
+interview about Luther with the Elector Frederick of Saxony. He was
+persuaded to write down the result of that discussion in the form of
+twenty-two _Axiomata concerning Luther's cause_. Against his intention
+they were printed at once.
+
+Erasmus's hesitation in those days between the repudiation and the
+approbation of Luther is not discreditable to him. It is the tragic
+defect running through his whole personality: his refusal or inability
+ever to draw ultimate conclusions. Had he only been a calculating and
+selfish nature, afraid of losing his life, he would long since have
+altogether forsaken Luther's cause. It is his misfortune affecting his
+fame, that he continually shows his weaknesses, whereas what is great in
+him lies deep.
+
+At Cologne Erasmus also met the man with whom, as a promising young
+humanist, fourteen years younger than himself, he had, for some months,
+shared a room in the house of Aldus's father-in-law, at Venice:
+Hieronymus Aleander, now sent to the Emperor as a papal nuncio, to
+persuade him to conform his imperial policy to that of the Pope, in the
+matter of the great ecclesiastical question, and give effect to the
+papal excommunication by the imperial ban.
+
+It must have been somewhat painful for Erasmus that his friend had so
+far surpassed him in power and position, and was now called to bring by
+diplomatic means the solution which he himself would have liked to see
+achieved by ideal harmony, good will and toleration. He had never
+trusted Aleander, and was more than ever on his guard against him. As a
+humanist, in spite of brilliant gifts, Aleander was by far Erasmus's
+inferior, and had never, like him, risen from literature to serious
+theological studies; he had simply prospered in the service of Church
+magnates (whom Erasmus had given up early). This man was now invested
+with the highest mediating powers.
+
+To what degree of exasperation Erasmus's most violent antagonists at
+Louvain had now been reduced is seen from the witty and slightly
+malicious account he gives Thomas More of his meeting with Egmondanus
+before the Rector of the university, who wanted to reconcile them. Still
+things did not look so black as Ulrich von Hutten thought, when he wrote
+to Erasmus: 'Do you think that you are still safe, now that Luther's
+books are burned? Fly, and save yourself for us!'
+
+Ever more emphatic do Erasmus's protestations become that he has nothing
+to do with Luther. Long ago he had already requested him not to mention
+his name, and Luther promised it: 'Very well, then, I shall not again
+refer to you, neither will other good friends, since it troubles you'.
+Ever louder, too, are Erasmus's complaints about the raving of the monks
+at him, and his demands that the mendicant orders be deprived of the
+right to preach.
+
+In April 1521 comes the moment in the world's history to which
+Christendom has been looking forward: Luther at the Diet of Worms,
+holding fast to his opinions, confronted by the highest authority in the
+Empire. So great is the rejoicing in Germany that for a moment it may
+seem that the Emperor's power is in danger rather than Luther and his
+adherents. 'If I had been present', writes Erasmus, 'I should have
+endeavoured that this tragedy would have been so tempered by moderate
+arguments that it could not afterwards break out again to the still
+greater detriment of the world.'
+
+The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the Empire (as in the
+Burgundian Netherlands before that time) Luther's books were to be
+burned, his adherents arrested and their goods confiscated, and Luther
+was to be given up to the authorities. Erasmus hopes that now relief
+will follow. 'The Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had
+never appeared on the stage.' In these days Albrecht Duerer, on hearing
+the false news of Luther's death, wrote in the diary of his journey that
+passionate exclamation: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you be?
+Hear, you knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, protect
+the truth, obtain the martyr's crown. For you are but an old manikin. I
+have heard you say that you have allowed yourself two more years, in
+which you are still fit to do some work; spend them well, in behalf of
+the Gospel and the true Christian faith.... O Erasmus, be on this side,
+that God may be proud of you.'
+
+It expresses confidence in Erasmus's power, but at bottom is the
+expectation that he will not do all this. Duerer had rightly understood
+Erasmus.
+
+The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. Latomus, the most
+dignified and able of Louvain divines, had now become one of the most
+serious opponents of Luther and, in so doing, touched Erasmus, too,
+indirectly. To Nicholas of Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Erasmus's
+compatriots had been added as a violent antagonist, Vincent Dirks of
+Haarlem, a Dominican. Erasmus addresses himself to the faculty, to
+defend himself against the new attacks, and to explain why he has never
+written against Luther. He will read him, he will soon take up something
+to quiet the tumult. He succeeds in getting Aleander, who arrived at
+Louvain in June, to prohibit preaching against him. The Pope still hopes
+that Aleander will succeed in bringing back Erasmus, with whom he is
+again on friendly terms, to the right track.
+
+But Erasmus began to consider the only exit which was now left to him:
+to leave Louvain and the Netherlands to regain his menaced independence.
+The occasion to depart had long ago presented itself: the third edition
+of his New Testament called him to Basle once more. It would not be a
+permanent departure, and he purposed to return to Louvain. On 28 October
+(his birthday) he left the town where he had spent four difficult years.
+His chambers in the College of the Lily were reserved for him and he
+left his books behind. On 15 November he reached Basle.
+
+Soon the rumour spread that out of fear of Aleander he had saved himself
+by flight. But the idea, revived again in our days in spite of Erasmus's
+own painstaking denial, that Aleander should have cunningly and
+expressly driven him from the Netherlands, is inherently improbable. So
+far as the Church was concerned, Erasmus would at almost any point be
+more dangerous than at Louvain, in the headquarters of conservatism,
+under immediate control of the strict Burgundian government, where, it
+seemed, he could sooner or later be pressed into the service of the
+anti-Lutheran policy.
+
+It was this contingency, as Dr. Allen has correctly pointed out, which
+he feared and evaded. Not for his bodily safety did he emigrate; Erasmus
+would not have been touched--he was far too valuable an asset for such
+measures. It was his mental independence, so dear to him above all else,
+that he felt to be threatened; and, to safeguard that, he did not return
+to Louvain.
+
+[Illustration: XIX. THE HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT WHERE ERASMUS LIVED FROM MAY
+TO NOVEMBER 1521]
+
+[Illustration: XX. ERASMUS'S STUDY AT ANDERLECHT]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] Translation on pp. 229 ff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ERASMUS AT BASLE
+
+1521-9
+
+    Basle his dwelling-place for nearly eight years:
+    1521-9--Political thought of Erasmus--Concord and
+    peace--Anti-war writings--Opinions concerning princes and
+    government--New editions of several Fathers--The
+    _Colloquia_--Controversies with Stunica, Beda, etc.--Quarrel
+    with Hutten--Eppendorff
+
+
+It is only towards the evening of life that the picture of Erasmus
+acquires the features with which it was to go down to posterity. Only at
+Basle--delivered from the troublesome pressure of parties wanting to
+enlist him, transplanted from an environment of haters and opponents at
+Louvain to a circle of friends, kindred spirits, helpers and admirers,
+emancipated from the courts of princes, independent of the patronage of
+the great, unremittingly devoting his tremendous energy to the work that
+was dear to him--did he become Holbein's Erasmus. In those late years he
+approaches most closely to the ideal of his personal life.
+
+He did not think that there were still fifteen years in store for him.
+Long before, in fact, since he became forty years old in 1506, Erasmus
+had been in an old-age mood. 'The last act of the play has begun,' he
+keeps saying after 1517.
+
+He now felt practically independent as to money matters. Many years had
+passed before he could say that. But peace of mind did not come with
+competence. It never came. He never became truly placid and serene, as
+Holbein's picture seems to represent him. He was always too much
+concerned about what people said or thought of him. Even at Basle he did
+not feel thoroughly at home. He still speaks repeatedly of a removal in
+the near future to Rome, to France, to England, or back to the
+Netherlands. Physical rest, at any rate, which was not in him, was
+granted him by circumstances: for nearly eight years he now remained at
+Basle, and then he lived at Freiburg for six.
+
+Erasmus at Basle is a man whose ideals of the world and society have
+failed him. What remains of that happy expectation of a golden age of
+peace and light, in which he had believed as late as 1517? What of his
+trust in good will and rational insight, in which he wrote the
+_Institutio Principis Christiani_ for the youthful Charles V? To Erasmus
+all the weal of state and society had always been merely a matter of
+personal morality and intellectual enlightenment. By recommending and
+spreading those two he at one time thought he had introduced the great
+renovation himself. From the moment when he saw that the conflict would
+lead to an exasperated struggle he refused any longer to be anything but
+a spectator. As an actor in the great ecclesiastical combat Erasmus had
+voluntarily left the stage.
+
+But he does not give up his ideal. 'Let us resist,' he concludes an
+Epistle about gospel philosophy, 'not by taunts and threats, not by
+force of arms and injustice, but by simple discretion, by benefits, by
+gentleness and tolerance.' Towards the close of his life, he prays: 'If
+Thou, O God, deignst to renew that Holy Spirit in the hearts of all,
+then also will those external disasters cease.... Bring order to this
+chaos, Lord Jesus, let Thy Spirit spread over these waters of sadly
+troubled dogmas.'
+
+Concord, peace, sense of duty and kindliness, were all valued highly by
+Erasmus; yet he rarely saw them realized in practical life. He becomes
+disillusioned. After the short spell of political optimism he never
+speaks of the times any more but in bitter terms--a most criminal age,
+he says--and again, the most unhappy and most depraved age imaginable.
+In vain had he always written in the cause of peace: _Querela pacis_,
+the complaint of peace, the adage _Dulce bellum inexpertis_, war is
+sweet to those who have not known it, _Oratio de pace et discordia_, and
+more still. Erasmus thought rather highly of his pacifistic labours:
+'that polygraph, who never leaves off persecuting war by means of his
+pen', thus he makes a character of the _Colloquies_ designate himself.
+According to a tradition noted by Melanchthon, Pope Julius is said to
+have called him before him in connection with his advice about the war
+with Venice,[18] and to have remarked to him angrily that he should stop
+writing on the concerns of princes: 'You do not understand those
+things!'
+
+Erasmus had, in spite of a certain innate moderation, a wholly
+non-political mind. He lived too much outside of practical reality, and
+thought too naively of the corrigibility of mankind, to realize the
+difficulties and necessities of government. His ideas about a good
+administration were extremely primitive, and, as is often the case with
+scholars of a strong ethical bias, very revolutionary at bottom, though
+he never dreamed of drawing the practical inferences. His friendship
+with political and juridical thinkers, as More, Budaeus and Zasius, had
+not changed him. Questions of forms of government, law or right, did not
+exist for him. Economic problems he saw in idyllic simplicity. The
+prince should reign gratuitously and impose as few taxes as possible.
+'The good prince has all that loving citizens possess.' The unemployed
+should be simply driven away. We feel in closer contact with the world
+of facts when he enumerates the works of peace for the prince: the
+cleaning of towns, building of bridges, halls, and streets, draining of
+pools, shifting of river-beds, the diking and reclamation of moors. It
+is the Netherlander who speaks here, and at the same time the man in
+whom the need of cleansing and clearing away is a fundamental trait of
+character.
+
+Vague politicians like Erasmus are prone to judge princes very severely,
+since they take them to be responsible for all wrongs. Erasmus praises
+them personally, but condemns them in general. From the kings of his
+time he had for a long time expected peace in Church and State. They had
+disappointed him. But his severe judgement of princes he derived rather
+from classical reading than from political experience of his own times.
+In the later editions of the _Adagia_ he often reverts to princes, their
+task and their neglect of duty, without ever mentioning special princes.
+'There are those who sow the seeds of dissension between their townships
+in order to fleece the poor unhindered and to satisfy their gluttony by
+the hunger of innocent citizens.' In the adage _Scarabeus aquilam
+quaerit_ he represents the prince under the image of the Eagle as the
+great cruel robber and persecutor. In another, _Aut regem aut fatuum
+nasci oportere_, and in _Dulce bellum inexpertis_ he utters his
+frequently quoted dictum: 'The people found and develop towns, the folly
+of princes devastates them.' 'The princes conspire with the Pope, and
+perhaps with the Turk, against the happiness of the people,' he writes
+to Colet in 1518.
+
+He was an academic critic writing from his study. A revolutionary
+purpose was as foreign to Erasmus as it was to More when writing the
+_Utopia_. 'Bad monarchs should perhaps be suffered now and then. The
+remedy should not be tried.' It may be doubted whether Erasmus exercised
+much real influence on his contemporaries by means of his diatribes
+against princes. One would fain believe that his ardent love of peace
+and bitter arraignment of the madness of war had some effect. They have
+undoubtedly spread pacific sentiments in the broad circles of
+intellectuals who read Erasmus, but unfortunately the history of the
+sixteenth century shows little evidence that such sentiments bore fruit
+in actual practice. However this may be, Erasmus's strength was not in
+these political declamations. He could never be a leader of men with
+their passions and their harsh interests.
+
+His life-work lay elsewhere. Now, at Basle, though tormented more and
+more frequently by his painful complaint which he had already carried
+for so many years, he could devote himself more fully than ever before
+to the great task he had set himself: the opening up of the pure sources
+of Christianity, the exposition of the truth of the Gospel in all the
+simple comprehensibility in which he saw it. In a broad stream flowed
+the editions of the Fathers, of classic authors, the new editions of the
+New Testament, of the _Adagia_, of his own Letters, together with
+Paraphrases of the New Testament, Commentaries on Psalms, and a number
+of new theological, moral and philological treatises. In 1522 he was ill
+for months on end; yet in that year Arnobius and the third edition of
+the New Testament succeeded Cyprian, whom he had already annotated at
+Louvain and edited in 1520, closely followed by Hilary in 1523 and next
+by a new edition of Jerome in 1524. Later appeared Irenaeus, 1526;
+Ambrose, 1527; Augustine, 1528-9, and a Latin translation of Chrysostom
+in 1530. The rapid succession of these comprehensive works proves that
+the work was done as Erasmus always worked: hastily, with an
+extraordinary power of concentration and a surprising command of his
+mnemonic faculty, but without severe criticism and the painful accuracy
+that modern philology requires in such editions.
+
+Neither the polemical Erasmus nor the witty humorist had been lost in
+the erudite divine and the disillusioned reformer. The paper-warrior we
+would further gladly have dispensed with, but not the humorist, for many
+treasures of literature. But the two are linked inseparably as the
+_Colloquies_ prove.
+
+What was said about the _Moria_ may be repeated here: if in the
+literature of the world only the _Colloquies_ and the _Moria_ have
+remained alive, that choice of history is right. Not in the sense that
+in literature only Erasmus's pleasantest, lightest and most readable
+works were preserved, whereas the ponderous theological erudition was
+silently relegated to the shelves of libraries. It was indeed Erasmus's
+best work that was kept alive in the _Moria_ and the _Colloquies_. With
+these his sparkling wit has charmed the world. If only we had space here
+to assign to the Erasmus of the _Colloquies_ his just and lofty place in
+that brilliant constellation of sixteenth-century followers of
+Democritus: Rabelais, Ariosto, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Ben Jonson!
+
+When Erasmus gave the _Colloquies_ their definite form at Basle, they
+had already had a long and curious genesis. At first they had been no
+more than _Familiarium colloquiorum formulae_, models of colloquial
+Latin conversation, written at Paris before 1500, for the use of his
+pupils. Augustine Caminade, the shabby friend who was fond of living on
+young Erasmus's genius, had collected them and had turned them to
+advantage within a limited compass. He had long been dead when one
+Lambert Hollonius of Liege sold the manuscript that he had got from
+Caminade to Froben at Basle. Beatus Rhenanus, although then already
+Erasmus's trusted friend, had it printed at once without the latter's
+knowledge. That was in 1518. Erasmus was justly offended at it, the more
+so as the book was full of slovenly blunders and solecisms. So he at
+once prepared a better edition himself, published by Maertensz at
+Louvain in 1519. At that time the work really contained but one true
+dialogue, the nucleus of the later _Convivium profanum_. The rest were
+formulae of etiquette and short talks. But already in this form it was,
+apart from its usefulness to latinists, so full of happy wit and
+humorous invention that it became very popular. Even before 1522 it had
+appeared in twenty-five editions, mostly reprints, at Antwerp, Paris,
+Strassburg, Cologne, Cracow, Deventer, Leipzig, London, Vienna, Mayence.
+
+At Basle Erasmus himself revised an edition which was published in March
+1522 by Froben, dedicated to the latter's six-year-old son, the author's
+godchild, Johannes Erasmius Froben. Soon after he did more than revise.
+In 1523 and 1524 first ten new dialogues, afterwards four, and again
+six, were added to the _Formulae_, and at last in 1526 the title was
+changed to _Familiarium colloquiorum opus_. It remained dedicated to the
+boy Froben and went on growing with each new edition: a rich and motley
+collection of dialogues, each a masterpiece of literary form, well-knit,
+spontaneous, convincing, unsurpassed in lightness, vivacity and fluent
+Latin; each one a finished one-act play. From that year on, the stream
+of editions and translations flowed almost uninterruptedly for two
+centuries.
+
+Erasmus's mind had lost nothing of its acuteness and freshness when, so
+many years after the _Moria_, he again set foot in the field of satire.
+As to form, the _Colloquies_ are less confessedly satirical than the
+_Moria_. With its telling subject, the _Praise of Folly_, the latter at
+once introduces itself as a satire: whereas, at first sight, the
+_Colloquies_ might seem to be mere innocent genre-pieces. But as to the
+contents, they are more satirical, at least more directly so. The
+_Moria_, as a satire, is philosophical and general; the _Colloquia_ are
+up to date and special. At the same time they combine more the positive
+and negative elements. In the _Moria_ Erasmus's own ideal dwells
+unexpressed behind the representation; in the _Colloquia_ he continually
+and clearly puts it in the foreground. On this account they form,
+notwithstanding all the jests and mockery, a profoundly serious moral
+treatise and are closely akin to the _Enchiridion militis Christiani_.
+What Erasmus really demanded of the world and of mankind, how he
+pictured to himself that passionately desired, purified Christian
+society of good morals, fervent faith, simplicity and moderation,
+kindliness, toleration and peace--this we can nowhere else find so
+clearly and well-expressed as in the _Colloquia_. In these last fifteen
+years of his life Erasmus resumes, by means of a series of
+moral-dogmatic disquisitions, the topics he broached in the
+_Enchiridion_: the exposition of simple, general Christian conduct;
+untrammelled and natural ethics. That is his message of redemption. It
+came to many out of _Exomologesis_, _De esu carnium_, _Lingua_,
+_Institutio christiani matrimonii_, _Vidua christiana_, _Ecclesiastes_.
+But, to far larger numbers, the message was contained in the
+_Colloquies_.
+
+The _Colloquia_ gave rise to much more hatred and contest than the
+_Moria_, and not without reason, for in them Erasmus attacked persons.
+He allowed himself the pleasure of ridiculing his Louvain antagonists.
+Lee had already been introduced as a sycophant and braggart into the
+edition of 1519, and when the quarrel was assuaged, in 1522, the
+reference was expunged. Vincent Dirks was caricatured in _The Funeral_
+(1526) as a covetous friar, who extorts from the dying testaments in
+favour of his order. He remained. Later sarcastic observations were
+added about Beda and numbers of others. The adherents of Oecolampadius
+took a figure with a long nose in the _Colloquies_ for their leader:
+'Oh, no,' replied Erasmus, 'it is meant for quite another person.'
+Henceforth all those who were at loggerheads with Erasmus, and they were
+many, ran the risk of being pilloried in the _Colloquia_. It was no
+wonder that this work, especially with its scourging mockery of the
+monastic orders, became the object of controversy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Erasmus never emerged from his polemics. He was, no doubt, serious when
+he said that, in his heart, he abhorred and had never desired them; but
+his caustic mind often got the better of his heart, and having once
+begun to quarrel he undoubtedly enjoyed giving his mockery the rein and
+wielding his facile dialectic pen. For understanding his personality it
+is unnecessary here to deal at large with all those fights on paper.
+Only the most important ones need be mentioned.
+
+Since 1516 a pot had been boiling for Erasmus in Spain. A theologian of
+the University at Alcala, Diego Lopez Zuniga, or, in Latin, Stunica, had
+been preparing Annotations to the edition of the New Testament: 'a
+second Lee', said Erasmus. At first Cardinal Ximenes had prohibited the
+publication, but in 1520, after his death, the storm broke. For some
+years Stunica kept persecuting Erasmus with his criticism, to the
+latter's great vexation; at last there followed a _rapprochement_,
+probably as Erasmus became more conservative, and a kindly attitude on
+the part of Stunica.
+
+No less long and violent was the quarrel with the syndic of the
+Sorbonne, Noel Bedier or Beda, which began in 1522. The Sorbonne was
+prevailed upon to condemn several of Erasmus's dicta as heretical in
+1526. The effort of Beda to implicate Erasmus in the trial of Louis de
+Berquin, who had translated the condemned writings and who was
+eventually burned at the stake for faith's sake in 1529, made the matter
+still more disagreeable for Erasmus.
+
+It is clear enough that both at Paris and at Louvain in the circles of
+the theological faculties the chief cause of exasperation was in the
+_Colloquia_. Egmondanus and Vincent Dirks did not forgive Erasmus for
+having acridly censured their station and their personalities.
+
+More courteous than the aforementioned polemics was the fight with a
+high-born Italian, Alberto Pio, prince of Carpi; acrid and bitter was
+one with a group of Spanish monks, who brought the Inquisition to bear
+upon him. In Spain 'Erasmistas' was the name of those who inclined to
+more liberal conceptions of the creed.
+
+In this way the matter accumulated for the volume of Erasmus's works
+which contains, according to his own arrangement, all his _Apologiae_:
+not 'excuses', but 'vindications'. 'Miserable man that I am; they just
+fill a volume,' exclaimed Erasmus.
+
+Two of his polemics merit a somewhat closer examination: that with
+Ulrich von Hutten and that with Luther.
+
+[Illustration: XXI. MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK]
+
+[Illustration: XXII. ULRICH VON HUTTEN]
+
+Hutten, knight and humanist, the enthusiastic herald of a national
+German uplift, the ardent hater of papacy and supporter of Luther, was
+certainly a hot-head and perhaps somewhat of a muddle-head. He had
+applauded Erasmus when the latter still seemed to be the coming man and
+had afterwards besought him to take Luther's side. Erasmus had soon
+discovered that this noisy partisan might compromise him. Had not one of
+Hutten's rash satires been ascribed to him, Erasmus? There came a time
+when Hutten could no longer abide Erasmus. His knightly instinct reacted
+on the very weaknesses of Erasmus's character: the fear of committing
+himself and the inclination to repudiate a supporter in time of danger.
+Erasmus knew that weakness himself: 'Not all have strength enough for
+martyrdom,' he writes to Richard Pace in 1521. 'I fear that I shall, in
+case it results in a tumult, follow St. Peter's example.' But this
+acknowledgement does not discharge him from the burden of Hutten's
+reproaches which he flung at him in fiery language in 1523. In this
+quarrel Erasmus's own fame pays the penalty of his fault. For nowhere
+does he show himself so undignified and puny as in that 'Sponge against
+Hutten's mire', which the latter did not live to read. Hutten,
+disillusioned and forsaken, died at an early age in 1523, and Erasmus
+did not scruple to publish the venomous pamphlet against his former
+friend after his demise.
+
+Hutten, however, was avenged upon Erasmus living. One of his adherents,
+Henry of Eppendorff, inherited Hutten's bitter disgust with Erasmus and
+persecuted him for years. Getting hold of one of Erasmus's letters in
+which he was denounced, he continually threatened him with an action for
+defamation of character. Eppendorff's hostility so thoroughly
+exasperated Erasmus that he fancied he could detect his machinations and
+spies everywhere even after the actual persecution had long ceased.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Melanchthon, _Opera, Corpus Reformatorum_, XII 266, where he refers
+to _Querela pacis_, which, however, was not written before 1517; _vide_
+A. 603 and I p. 37.10.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CONTROVERSY WITH LUTHER AND GROWING CONSERVATISM
+
+1524-6
+
+    Erasmus persuaded to write against Luther--_De Libero Arbitrio_:
+    1524--Luther's answer: _De Servo Arbitrio_--Erasmus's
+    indefiniteness contrasted with Luther's extreme rigour--Erasmus
+    henceforth on the side of conservatism--The Bishop of Basle and
+    Oecolampadius--Erasmus's half-hearted dogmatics: confession,
+    ceremonies, worship of the Saints, Eucharist--_Institutio
+    Christiani Matrimonii_: 1526--He feels surrounded by enemies
+
+
+At length Erasmus was led, in spite of all, to do what he had always
+tried to avoid: he wrote against Luther. But it did not in the least
+resemble the _geste_ Erasmus at one time contemplated, in the cause of
+peace in Christendom and uniformity of faith, to call a halt to the
+impetuous Luther, and thereby to recall the world to its senses. In the
+great act of the Reformation their polemics were merely an after-play.
+Not Erasmus alone was disillusioned and tired--Luther too was past his
+heroic prime, circumscribed by conditions, forced into the world of
+affairs, a disappointed man.
+
+Erasmus had wished to persevere in his resolution to remain a spectator
+of the great tragedy. 'If, as appears from the wonderful success of
+Luther's cause, God wills all this'--thus did Erasmus reason--'and He
+has perhaps judged such a drastic surgeon as Luther necessary for the
+corruption of these times, then it is not my business to withstand him.'
+But he was not left in peace. While he went on protesting that he had
+nothing to do with Luther and differed widely from him, the defenders of
+the old Church adhered to the standpoint urged as early as 1520 by
+Nicholas of Egmond before the rector of Louvain: 'So long as he refuses
+to write against Luther, we take him to be a Lutheran'. So matters
+stood. 'That you are looked upon as a Lutheran here is certain,' Vives
+writes to him from the Netherlands in 1522.
+
+Ever stronger became the pressure to write against Luther. From Henry
+VIII came a call, communicated by Erasmus's old friend Tunstall, from
+George of Saxony, from Rome itself, whence Pope Adrian VI, his old
+patron, had urged him shortly before his death.
+
+Erasmus thought he could refuse no longer. He tried some dialogues in
+the style of the _Colloquies_, but did not get on with them; and
+probably they would not have pleased those who were desirous of
+enlisting his services. Between Luther and Erasmus himself there had
+been no personal correspondence, since the former had promised him, in
+1520; 'Well then, Erasmus, I shall not mention your name again.' Now
+that Erasmus had prepared to attack Luther, however, there came an
+epistle from the latter, written on 15 April 1524, in which the
+reformer, in his turn, requested Erasmus in his own words: 'Please
+remain now what you have always professed yourself desirous of being: a
+mere spectator of our tragedy'. There is a ring of ironical contempt in
+Luther's words, but Erasmus called the letter 'rather humane; I had not
+the courage to reply with equal humanity, because of the sycophants'.
+
+In order to be able to combat Luther with a clear conscience Erasmus had
+naturally to choose a point on which he differed from Luther in his
+heart. It was not one of the more superficial parts of the Church's
+structure. For these he either, with Luther, cordially rejected, such as
+ceremonies, observances, fasting, etc., or, though more moderately than
+Luther, he had his doubts about them, as the sacraments or the primacy
+of St. Peter. So he naturally came to the point where the deepest gulf
+yawned between their natures, between their conceptions of the essence
+of faith, and thus to the central and eternal problem of good and evil,
+guilt and compulsion, liberty and bondage, God and man. Luther confessed
+in his reply that here indeed the vital point had been touched.
+
+_De libero arbitrio diatribe_ (_A Disquisition upon Free Will_) appeared
+in September 1524. Was Erasmus qualified to write about such a subject?
+In conformity with his method and with his evident purpose to vindicate
+authority and tradition, this time, Erasmus developed the argument that
+Scripture teaches, doctors affirm, philosophers prove, and human reason
+testifies man's will to be free. Without acknowledgement of free will
+the terms of God's justice and God's mercy remain without meaning. What
+would be the sense of the teachings, reproofs, admonitions of Scripture
+(Timothy iii.) if all happened according to mere and inevitable
+necessity? To what purpose is obedience praised, if for good and evil
+works we are equally but tools to God, as the hatchet to the carpenter?
+And if this were so, it would be dangerous to reveal such a doctrine to
+the multitude, for morality is dependent on the consciousness of
+freedom.
+
+Luther received the treatise of his antagonist with disgust and
+contempt. In writing his reply, however, he suppressed these feelings
+outwardly and observed the rules of courtesy. But his inward anger is
+revealed in the contents itself of _De servo arbitrio_ (_On the Will not
+free_). For here he really did what Erasmus had just reproached him
+with--trying to heal a dislocated member by tugging at it in the
+opposite direction. More fiercely than ever before, his formidable
+boorish mind drew the startling inferences of his burning faith. Without
+any reserve he now accepted all the extremes of absolute determinism. In
+order to confute indeterminism in explicit terms, he was now forced to
+have recourse to those primitive metaphors of exalted faith striving to
+express the inexpressible: God's two wills, which do not coincide, God's
+'eternal hatred of mankind, a hatred not only on account of demerits and
+the works of free will, but a hatred that existed even before the world
+was created', and that metaphor of the human will, which, as a riding
+beast, stands in the middle between God and the devil and which is
+mounted by one or the other without being able to move towards either of
+the two contending riders. If anywhere, Luther's doctrine in _De Servo
+Arbitrio_ means a recrudescence of faith and a straining of religious
+conceptions.
+
+But it was Luther who here stood on the rockbed of a profound and mystic
+faith in which the absolute conscience of the eternal pervades all. In
+him all conceptions, like dry straw, were consumed in the glow of God's
+majesty, for him each human co-operation to attain to salvation was a
+profanation of God's glory. Erasmus's mind after all did not truly
+_live_ in the ideas which were here disputed, of sin and grace, of
+redemption and the glory of God as the final cause of all that is.
+
+Was, then, Erasmus's cause in all respects inferior? Was Luther right at
+the core? Perhaps. Dr. Murray rightly reminds us of Hegel's saying that
+tragedy is not the conflict between right and wrong, but the conflict
+between right and right. The combat of Luther and Erasmus proceeded
+beyond the point at which our judgement is forced to halt and has to
+accept an equivalence, nay, a compatibility of affirmation and negation.
+And this fact, that they here were fighting with words and metaphors in
+a sphere beyond that of what may be known and expressed, was understood
+by Erasmus. Erasmus, the man of the fine shades, for whom ideas
+eternally blended into each other and interchanged, called a Proteus by
+Luther; Luther the man of over-emphatic expression about all matters.
+The Dutchman, who sees the sea, was opposed to the German, who looks out
+on mountain tops.
+
+'This is quite true that we cannot speak of God but with inadequate
+words.' 'Many problems should be deferred, not to the oecumenical
+Council, but till the time when, the glass and the darkness having been
+taken away, we shall see God face to face.' 'What is free of error?'
+'There are in sacred literature certain sanctuaries into which God has
+not willed that we should penetrate further.'
+
+The Catholic Church had on the point of free will reserved to itself
+some slight proviso, left a little elbow-room to the consciousness of
+human liberty _under_ grace. Erasmus conceived that liberty in a
+considerably broader spirit. Luther absolutely denied it. The opinion of
+contemporaries was at first too much dominated by their participation in
+the great struggle as such: they applauded Erasmus, because he struck
+boldly at Luther, or the other way about, according to their sympathies.
+Not only Vives applauded Erasmus, but also more orthodox Catholics such
+as Sadolet. The German humanists, unwilling, for the most part, to break
+with the ancient Church, were moved by Erasmus's attack to turn their
+backs still more upon Luther: Mutianus, Zasius, and Pirckheimer. Even
+Melanchthon inclined to Erasmus's standpoint. Others, like Capito, once
+a zealous supporter, now washed their hands of him. Soon Calvin with the
+iron cogency of his argument was completely to take Luther's side.
+
+It is worth while to quote the opinion of a contemporary Catholic
+scholar about the relations of Erasmus and Luther. 'Erasmus,' says F. X.
+Kiefl,[19] 'with his concept of free, unspoiled human nature was
+intrinsically much more foreign to the Church than Luther. He only
+combated it, however, with haughty scepticism: for which reason Luther
+with subtle psychology upbraided him for liking to speak of the
+shortcomings and the misery of the Church of Christ in such a way that
+his readers could not help laughing, instead of bringing his charges,
+with deep sighs, as beseemed before God.'
+
+The _Hyperaspistes_, a voluminous treatise in which Erasmus again
+addressed Luther, was nothing but an epilogue, which need not be
+discussed here at length.
+
+Erasmus had thus, at last, openly taken sides. For, apart from the
+dogmatical point at issue itself, the most important part about _De
+libero arbitrio_ was that in it he had expressly turned against the
+individual religious conceptions and had spoken in favour of the
+authority and tradition of the Church. He always regarded himself as a
+Catholic. 'Neither death nor life shall draw me from the communion of
+the Catholic Church,' he writes in 1522, and in the _Hyperaspistes_ in
+1526: 'I have never been an apostate from the Catholic Church. I know
+that in this Church, which you call the Papist Church, there are many
+who displease me, but such I also see in your Church. One bears more
+easily the evils to which one is accustomed. Therefore I bear with this
+Church, until I shall see a better, and it cannot help bearing with me,
+until I shall myself be better. And he does not sail badly who steers a
+middle course between two several evils.'
+
+But was it possible to keep to that course? On either side people turned
+away from him. 'I who, formerly, in countless letters was addressed as
+thrice great hero, Prince of letters, Sun of studies, Maintainer of true
+theology, am now ignored, or represented in quite different colours,' he
+writes. How many of his old friends and congenial spirits had already
+gone!
+
+A sufficient number remained, however, who thought and hoped as Erasmus
+did. His untiring pen still continued to propagate, especially by means
+of his letters, the moderating and purifying influence of his mind
+throughout all the countries of Europe. Scholars, high church
+dignitaries, nobles, students, and civil magistrates were his
+correspondents. The Bishop of Basle himself, Christopher of Utenheim,
+was a man after Erasmus's heart. A zealous advocate of humanism, he had
+attempted, as early as 1503, to reform the clergy of his bishopric by
+means of synodal statutes, without much success; afterwards he had
+called scholars like Oecolampadius, Capito and Wimpfeling to Basle. That
+was before the great struggle began, which was soon to carry away
+Oecolampadius and Capito much further than the Bishop of Basle or
+Erasmus approved. In 1522 Erasmus addressed the bishop in a treatise _De
+interdicto esu carnium_ (_On the Prohibition of eating Meat_). This was
+one of the last occasions on which he directly opposed the established
+order.
+
+The bishop, however, could no longer control the movement. A
+considerable number of the commonalty of Basle and the majority of the
+council, were already on the side of radical Reformation. About a year
+after Erasmus, Johannes Oecolampadius, whose first residence at Basle
+had also coincided with his (at that time he had helped Erasmus with
+Hebrew for the edition of the New Testament), returned to the town with
+the intention of organizing the resistance to the old order there. In
+1523 the council appointed him professor of Holy Scripture in the
+University; at the same time four Catholic professors lost their places.
+He succeeded in obtaining general permission for unlicensed preaching.
+Soon a far more hot-headed agitator, the impetuous Guillaume Farel, also
+arrived for active work at Basle and in the environs. He is the man who
+will afterwards reform Geneva and persuade Calvin to stay there.
+
+Though at first Oecolampadius began to introduce novelties into the
+church service with caution, Erasmus saw these innovations with alarm.
+Especially the fanaticism of Farel, whom he hated bitterly. It was these
+men who retarded what he still desired and thought possible: a
+compromise. His lambent spirit, which never fully decided in favour of a
+definite opinion, had, with regard to most of the disputed points,
+gradually fixed on a half-conservative midway standpoint, by means of
+which, without denying his deepest conviction, he tried to remain
+faithful to the Church. In 1524 he had expressed his sentiments about
+confession in the treatise _Exomologesis_ (_On the Way to confess_). He
+accepts it halfway: if not instituted by Christ or the Apostles, it was,
+in any case, by the Fathers. It should be piously preserved. Confession
+is of excellent use, though, at times, a great evil. In this way he
+tries 'to admonish either party', 'neither to agree with nor to assail'
+the deniers, 'though inclining to the side of the believers'.
+
+In the long list of his polemics he gradually finds opportunities to
+define his views somewhat; circumstantially, for instance, in the
+answers to Alberto Pio, of 1525 and 1529. Subsequently it is always done
+in the form of an _Apologia_, whether he is attacked for the
+_Colloquia_, for the _Moria_, Jerome, the _Paraphrases_ or anything
+else. At last he recapitulates his views to some extent in _De amabili
+Ecclesiae concordia_ (_On the Amiable Concord of the Church_), of 1533,
+which, however, ranks hardly any more among his reformatory endeavours.
+
+On most points Erasmus succeeds in finding moderate and conservative
+formulae. Even with regard to ceremonies he no longer merely rejects. He
+finds a kind word to say even for fasting, which he had always abhorred,
+for the veneration of relics and for Church festivals. He does not want
+to abolish the worship of the Saints: it no longer entails danger of
+idolatry. He is even willing to admit the images: 'He who takes the
+imagery out of life deprives it of its highest pleasure; we often
+discern more in images than we conceive from the written word'.
+Regarding Christ's substantial presence in the sacrament of the altar he
+holds fast to the Catholic view, but without fervour, only on the ground
+of the Church's consensus, and because he cannot believe that Christ,
+who is truth and love, would have suffered His bride to cling so long to
+so horrid an error as to worship a crust of bread instead of Him. But
+for these reasons he might, at need, accept Oecolampadius's view.
+
+From the period at Basle dates one of the purest and most beneficent
+moral treatises of Erasmus's, the _Institutio Christiani matrimonii_
+(_On Christian Marriage_) of 1526, written for Catherine of Aragon,
+Queen of England, quite in the spirit of the _Enchiridion_, save for a
+certain diffuseness betraying old age. Later follows _De vidua
+Christiana_, _The Christian Widow_, for Mary of Hungary, which is as
+impeccable but less interesting.
+
+All this did not disarm the defenders of the old Church. They held fast
+to the clear picture of Erasmus's creed that arose from the _Colloquies_
+and that could not be called purely Catholic. There it appeared only too
+clearly that, however much Erasmus might desire to leave the letter
+intact, his heart was not in the convictions which were vital to the
+Catholic Church. Consequently the _Colloquies_ were later, when
+Erasmus's works were expurgated, placed on the index in the lump, with
+the _Moria_ and a few other works. The rest is _caute legenda_, to be
+read with caution. Much was rejected of the Annotations to the New
+Testament, of the _Paraphrases_ and the _Apologiae_, very little of the
+_Enchiridion_, of the _Ratio verae theologiae_, and even of the
+_Exomologesis_. But this was after the fight against the living Erasmus
+had long been over.
+
+So long as he remained at Basle, or elsewhere, as the centre of a large
+intellectual group whose force could not be estimated, just because it
+did not stand out as a party--it was not known what turn he might yet
+take, what influence his mind might yet have on the Church. He remained
+a king of minds in his quiet study. The hatred that was felt for him,
+the watching of all his words and actions, were of a nature as only
+falls to the lot of the acknowledged great. The chorus of enemies who
+laid the fault of the whole Reformation on Erasmus was not silenced. 'He
+laid the eggs which Luther and Zwingli have hatched.' With vexation
+Erasmus quoted ever new specimens of narrow-minded, malicious and stupid
+controversy. At Constance there lived a doctor who had hung his portrait
+on the wall merely to spit at it as often as he passed it. Erasmus
+jestingly compares his fate to that of Saint Cassianus, who was stabbed
+to death by his pupils with pencils. Had he not been pierced to the
+quick for many years by the pens and tongues of countless people and did
+he not live in that torment without death bringing the end? The keen
+sensitiveness to opposition was seated very deeply with Erasmus. And he
+could never forbear irritating others into opposing him.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] _Luther's religioese Psyche_, Hochland XV, 1917, p. 21.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+AT WAR WITH HUMANISTS AND REFORMERS
+
+1528-9
+
+    Erasmus turns against the excesses of humanism: its paganism and
+    pedantic classicism--_Ciceronianus_: 1528--It brings him new
+    enemies--The Reformation carried through at Basle--He emigrates
+    to Freiburg: 1529--His view concerning the results of the
+    Reformation
+
+
+Nothing is more characteristic of the independence which Erasmus
+reserved for himself regarding all movements of his time than the fact
+that he also joined issue in the camp of the humanists. In 1528 there
+were published by Froben (the chief of the firm of Johannes Froben had
+just died) two dialogues in one volume from Erasmus's hand: one about
+the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek, and one entitled
+_Ciceronianus_ or _On the Best Diction_, i.e. in writing and speaking
+Latin. Both were proofs that Erasmus had lost nothing of his liveliness
+and wit. The former treatise was purely philological, and as such has
+had great influence; the other was satirical as well. It had a long
+history.
+
+Erasmus had always regarded classical studies as the panacea of
+civilization, provided they were made serviceable to pure Christianity.
+His sincere ethical feeling made him recoil from the obscenity of a
+Poggio and the immorality of the early Italian humanists. At the same
+time his delicate and natural taste told him that a pedantic and servile
+imitation of antique models could never produce the desired result.
+Erasmus knew Latin too well to be strictly classical; his Latin was
+alive and required freedom. In his early works we find taunts about the
+over-precise Latin purists: one had declared a newly found fragment of
+Cicero to be thoroughly barbaric; 'among all sorts of authors none are
+so insufferable to me as those apes of Cicero'.
+
+In spite of the great expectations he cherished of classical studies for
+pure Christianity, he saw one danger: 'that under the cloak of reviving
+ancient literature paganism tries to rear its head, as there are those
+among Christians who acknowledge Christ only in name but inwardly
+breathe heathenism'. This he writes in 1517 to Capito. In Italy scholars
+devote themselves too exclusively and in too pagan guise to _bonae
+literae_. He considered it his special task to assist in bringing it
+about that those _bonae literae_ 'which with the Italians have thus far
+been almost pagan, shall get used to speaking of Christ'.
+
+How it must have vexed Erasmus that in Italy of all countries he was, at
+the same time and in one breath, charged with heresy and questioned in
+respect to his knowledge and integrity as a scholar. Italians accused
+him of plagiarism and trickery. He complained of it to Aleander, who, he
+thought, had a hand in it.
+
+In a letter of 13 October 1527, to a professor at Toledo, we find the
+_ebauche_ of the _Ciceronianus_. In addition to the haters of classic
+studies for the sake of orthodox belief, writes Erasmus, 'lately another
+and new sort of enemies has broken from their ambush. These are troubled
+that the _bonae literae_ speak of Christ, as though nothing can be
+elegant but what is pagan. To their ears _Jupiter optimus maximus_
+sounds more pleasant than _Jesus Christus redemptor mundi_, and _patres
+conscripti_ more agreeable than _sancti apostoli_.... They account it a
+greater dishonour to be no Ciceronian than no Christian, as if Cicero,
+if he should now come to life again, would not speak of Christian things
+in other words than in his time he spoke of his own religion!... What is
+the sense of this hateful swaggering with the name Ciceronian? I will
+tell you briefly, in your ear. With that pearl-powder they cover the
+paganism that is dearer to them than the glory of Christ.' To Erasmus
+Cicero's style is by no means the ideal one. He prefers something more
+solid, succinct, vigorous, less polished, more manly. He who sometimes
+has to write a book in a day has no time to polish his style, often not
+even to read it over.... 'What do I care for an empty dish of words, ten
+words here and there mumped from Cicero: I want all Cicero's spirit.'
+These are apes at whom one may laugh, for far more serious than these
+things are the tumults of the so-called new Gospel, to which he next
+proceeds in this letter.
+
+And so, in the midst of all his polemics and bitter vindication, he
+allowed himself once more the pleasure of giving the reins to his love
+of scoffing, but, as in the _Moria_ and _Colloquia_, ennobled by an
+almost passionate sincerity of Christian disposition and a natural sense
+of measure. The _Ciceronianus_ is a masterpiece of ready, many-sided
+knowledge, of convincing eloquence, and of easy handling of a wealth of
+arguments. With splendid, quiet and yet lively breadth flows the long
+conversation between Bulephorus, representing Erasmus's opinions,
+Hypologus, the interested inquirer, and Nosoponus, the zealous
+Ciceronian, who, to preserve a perfect purity of mind, breakfasts off
+ten currants.
+
+Erasmus in drawing Nosoponus had evidently, in the main, alluded to one
+who could no longer reply: Christopher Longolius, who had died in 1522.
+
+The core of the _Ciceronianus_ is where Erasmus points out the danger to
+Christian faith of a too zealous classicism. He exclaims urgently: 'It
+is paganism, believe me, Nosoponus, it is paganism that charms our ear
+and our soul in such things. We are Christians in name alone.' Why does
+a classic proverb sound better to us than a quotation from the Bible:
+_corchorum inter olera_, 'chick-weed among the vegetables', better than
+'Saul among the prophets'? As a sample of the absurdity of
+Ciceronianism, he gives a translation of a dogmatic sentence in
+classical language: 'Optimi maximique Jovis interpres ac filius,
+servator, rex, juxta vatum responsa, ex Olympo devolavit in terras,'
+for: Jesus Christ, the Word and the Son of the eternal Father, came into
+the world according to the prophets. Most humanists wrote indeed in that
+style.
+
+Was Erasmus aware that he here attacked his own past? After all, was it
+not exactly the same thing which he had done, to the indignation of his
+opponents, when translating _Logos_ by _Sermo_ instead of by _Verbum_?
+Had he not himself desired that in the church hymns the metre should be
+corrected, not to mention his own classical odes and paeans to Mary and
+the Saints? And was his warning against the partiality for classic
+proverbs and turns applicable to anything more than to the _Adagia_?
+
+We here see the aged Erasmus on the path of reaction, which might
+eventually have led him far from humanism. In his combat with humanistic
+purism he foreshadows a Christian puritanism.
+
+As always his mockery procured him a new flood of invectives. Bembo and
+Sadolet, the masters of pure Latin, could afford to smile at it, but the
+impetuous Julius Caesar Scaliger violently inveighed against him,
+especially to avenge Longolius's memory. Erasmus's perpetual feeling of
+being persecuted got fresh food: he again thought that Aleander was at
+the bottom of it. 'The Italians set the imperial court against me,' he
+writes in 1530. A year later all is quiet again. He writes jestingly:
+'Upon my word, I am going to change my style after Budaeus's model and
+to become a Ciceronian according to the example of Sadolet and Bembo'.
+But even near the close of his life he was engaged in a new contest with
+Italians, because he had hurt their national pride; 'they rage at me on
+all sides with slanderous libels, as at the enemy of Italy and Cicero'.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were, as he had said himself, other difficulties touching him more
+closely. Conditions at Basle had for years been developing in a
+direction which distressed and alarmed him. When he established himself
+there in 1521, it might still have seemed to him as if the bishop, old
+Christopher of Utenheim, a great admirer of Erasmus and a man after his
+heart, would succeed in effecting a reformation at Basle, as he desired
+it; abolishing acknowledged abuses, but remaining within the fold of the
+Church. In that very year, 1521, however, the emancipation of the
+municipality from the bishop's power--it had been in progress since
+Basle, in 1501, had joined the Swiss Confederacy--was consummated.
+Henceforth the council was number one, now no longer exclusively made up
+of aristocratic elements. In vain did the bishop ally himself with his
+colleagues of Constance and Lausanne to maintain Catholicism. In the
+town the new creed got more and more the upper hand. When, however, in
+1525, it had come to open tumults against the Catholic service, the
+council became more cautious and tried to reform more heedfully.
+
+Oecolampadius desired this, too. Relations between him and Erasmus were
+precarious. Erasmus himself had at one time directed the religious
+thought of the impulsive, sensitive, restless young man. When he had, in
+1520, suddenly sought refuge in a convent, he had expressly justified
+that step towards Erasmus, the condemner of binding vows. And now they
+saw each other again at Basle, in 1522: Oecolampadius having left the
+monastery, a convinced adherent and apostle of the new doctrine;
+Erasmus, the great spectator which he wished to be. Erasmus treated his
+old coadjutor coolly, and as the latter progressed, retreated more and
+more. Yet he kept steering a middle course and in 1525 gave some
+moderate advice to the council, which meanwhile had turned more Catholic
+again.
+
+The old bishop, who for some years had no longer resided in his town, in
+1527 requested the chapter to relieve him of his office, and died
+shortly afterwards. Then events moved very quickly. After Berne had,
+meanwhile, reformed itself in 1528, Oecolampadius demanded a decision
+also for Basle. Since the close of 1528 the town had been on the verge
+of civil war. A popular rising put an end to the resistance of the
+Council and cleared it of Catholic members; and in February 1529 the old
+service was prohibited, the images were removed from the churches, the
+convents abolished, and the University suspended. Oecolampadius became
+the first minister in the 'Muenster' and leader of the Basle church, for
+which he soon drew up a reformatory ordinance. The new bishop remained
+at Porrentruy, and the chapter removed to Freiburg.
+
+[Illustration: XXIII. ERASMUS'S RESIDENCE AT FREIBURG, 1529-31]
+
+The moment of departure had now come for Erasmus. His position at Basle
+in 1529 somewhat resembled, but in a reversed sense, the one at Louvain
+in 1521. Then the Catholics wanted to avail themselves of his services
+against Luther, now the Evangelicals would fain have kept him at Basle.
+For his name was still as a banner. His presence would strengthen the
+position of reformed Basle; on the one hand, because, as people
+reasoned, if he were not of the same mind as the reformers, he would
+have left the town long ago; on the other hand, because his figure
+seemed to guarantee moderation and might attract many hesitating minds.
+
+It was, therefore, again to safeguard his independence that Erasmus
+changed his residence. It was a great wrench this time. Old age and
+invalidism had made the restless man a stay-at-home. As he foresaw
+trouble from the side of the municipality, he asked Archduke
+Ferdinand--who for his brother Charles V governed the German empire and
+just then presided over the Diet of Speyer--to send him a safe conduct
+for the whole empire and an invitation, moreover, to come to court,
+which he did not dream of accepting. As place of refuge he had selected
+the not far distant town of Freiburg im Breisgau, which was directly
+under the strict government of the Austrian house, and where he,
+therefore, need not be afraid of such a turn of affairs as that at
+Basle. It was, moreover, a juncture at which the imperial authority and
+the Catholic cause in Germany seemed again to be gaining ground rapidly.
+
+Erasmus would not or could not keep his departure a secret. He sent the
+most precious of his possessions in advance, and when this had drawn
+attention to his plan, he purposely invited Oecolampadius to a farewell
+talk. The reformer declared his sincere friendship for Erasmus, which
+the latter did not decline, provided he granted him to differ on certain
+points of dogma. Oecolampadius tried to keep him from leaving the town,
+and, when it proved too late for that, to persuade him to return later.
+They took leave with a handshake. Erasmus had desired to join his boat
+at a distant landing-stage, but the Council would not allow this: he had
+to start from the usual place near the Rhine bridge. A numerous crowd
+witnessed his embarkation, 13 April 1529. Some friends were there to see
+him off. No unfavourable demonstration occurred.
+
+His reception at Freiburg convinced him that, in spite of all, he was
+still the celebrated and admired prince of letters. The Council placed
+at his disposal the large, though unfinished, house built for the
+Emperor Maximilian himself; a professor of theology offered him his
+garden. Anthony Fugger had tried to draw him to Augsburg by means of a
+yearly allowance. For the rest he considered Freiburg by no means a
+permanent place of abode. 'I have resolved to remain here this winter
+and then to fly with the swallows to the place whither God shall call
+me.' But he soon recognized the great advantage which Freiburg offered.
+The climate, to which he was so sensitive, turned out better than he
+expected, and the position of the town was extremely favourable for
+emigrating to France, should circumstances require this, or for dropping
+down the Rhine back to the Netherlands, whither many always called him.
+In 1531 he bought a house at Freiburg.
+
+The old Erasmus at Freiburg, ever more tormented by his painful malady,
+much more disillusioned than when he left Louvain in 1521, of more
+confirmed views as to the great ecclesiastical strife, will only be
+fully revealed to us when his correspondence with Boniface Amerbach, the
+friend whom he left behind at Basle--a correspondence not found complete
+in the older collections--has been edited by Dr. Allen's care. From no
+period of Erasmus's life, it seems, may so much be gleaned, in point of
+knowledge of his daily habits and thoughts, as from these very years.
+Work went on without a break in that great scholar's workshop where he
+directs his famuli, who hunt manuscripts for him, and then copy and
+examine them, and whence he sends forth his letters all over Europe. In
+the series of editions of the Fathers followed Basil and new editions of
+Chrysostom and Cyprian; his editions of classic authors were augmented
+by the works of Aristotle. He revised and republished the _Colloquies_
+three more times, the _Adages_ and the New Testament once more.
+Occasional writings of a moral or politico-theological nature kept
+flowing from his pen.
+
+From the cause of the Reformation he was now quite estranged.
+'Pseudevangelici', he contumeliously calls the reformed. 'I might have
+been a corypheus in Luther's church,' he writes in 1528, 'but I
+preferred to incur the hatred of all Germany to being separate from the
+community of the Church.' The authorities should have paid a little less
+attention at first to Luther's proceedings; then the fire would never
+have spread so violently. He had always urged theologians to let minor
+concerns which only contain an appearance of piety rest, and to turn to
+the sources of Scripture. Now it was too late. Towns and countries
+united ever more closely for or against the Reformation. 'If, what I
+pray may never happen,' he writes to Sadolet in 1530, 'you should see
+horrible commotions of the world arise, not so fatal for Germany as for
+the Church, then remember Erasmus prophesied it.' To Beatus Rhenanus he
+frequently said that, had he known that an age like theirs was coming,
+he would never have written many things, or would not have written them
+as he had.
+
+'Just look,' he exclaims, 'at the Evangelical people, have they become
+any better? Do they yield less to luxury, lust and greed? Show me a man
+whom that Gospel has changed from a toper to a temperate man, from a
+brute to a gentle creature, from a miser into a liberal person, from a
+shameless to a chaste being. I will show you many who have become even
+worse than they were.' Now they have thrown the images out of the
+churches and abolished mass (he is thinking of Basle especially): has
+anything better come instead? 'I have never entered their churches, but
+I have seen them return from hearing the sermon, as if inspired by an
+evil spirit, the faces of all showing a curious wrath and ferocity, and
+there was no one except one old man who saluted me properly, when I
+passed in the company of some distinguished persons.'
+
+He hated that spirit of absolute assuredness so inseparably bound up
+with the reformers. 'Zwingli and Bucer may be inspired by the Spirit,
+Erasmus from himself is nothing but a man and cannot comprehend what is
+of the Spirit.'
+
+There was a group among the reformed to whom Erasmus in his heart of
+hearts was more nearly akin than to the Lutherans or Zwinglians with
+their rigid dogmatism: the Anabaptists. He rejected the doctrine from
+which they derived their name, and abhorred the anarchic element in
+them. He remained far too much the man of spiritual decorum to identify
+himself with these irregular believers. But he was not blind to the
+sincerity of their moral aspirations and sympathized with their dislike
+of brute force and the patience with which they bore persecution. 'They
+are praised more than all others for the innocence of their life,' he
+writes in 1529. Just in the last part of his life came the episode of
+the violent revolutionary proceedings of the fanatic Anabaptists; it
+goes without saying that Erasmus speaks of it only with horror.
+
+One of the best historians of the Reformation, Walter Koehler, calls
+Erasmus one of the spiritual fathers of Anabaptism. And certain it is
+that in its later, peaceful development it has important traits in
+common with Erasmus: a tendency to acknowledge free will, a certain
+rationalistic trend, a dislike of an exclusive conception of a Church.
+It seems possible to prove that the South German Anabaptist Hans Denk
+derived opinions directly from Erasmus. For a considerable part,
+however, this community of ideas must, no doubt, have been based on
+peculiarities of religious consciousness in the Netherlands, whence
+Erasmus sprang, and where Anabaptism found such a receptive soil.
+Erasmus was certainly never aware of these connections.
+
+Some remarkable evidence regarding Erasmus's altered attitude towards
+the old and the new Church is shown by what follows.
+
+The reproach he had formerly so often flung at the advocates of
+conservatism that they hated the _bonae literae_, so dear to him, and
+wanted to stifle them, he now uses against the evangelical party.
+'Wherever Lutherism is dominant the study of literature is extinguished.
+Why else,' he continues, using a remarkable sophism, 'are Luther and
+Melanchthon compelled to call back the people so urgently to the love of
+letters?' 'Just compare the University of Wittenberg with that of
+Louvain or Paris!... Printers say that before this Gospel came they used
+to dispose of 3,000 volumes more quickly than now of 600. A sure proof
+that studies flourish!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+LAST YEARS
+
+    Religious and political contrasts grow sharper--The coming
+    strife in Germany still suspended--Erasmus finishes his
+    _Ecclesiastes_--Death of Fisher and More--Erasmus back at Basle:
+    1535--Pope Paul III wants to make him write in favour of the
+    cause of the Council--Favours declined by Erasmus--_De Puritate
+    Ecclesiae_--The end: 12 July 1536
+
+
+During the last years of Erasmus's life all the great issues which kept
+the world in suspense were rapidly taking threatening forms. Wherever
+compromise or reunion had before still seemed possible, sharp conflicts,
+clearly outlined party-groupings, binding formulae were now barring the
+way to peace. While in the spring of 1529 Erasmus prepared for his
+departure from Basle, a strong Catholic majority of the Diet at Speyer
+got the 'recess' of 1526, favourable for the Evangelicals, revoked, only
+the Lutherans among them keeping what they had obtained; and secured a
+prohibition of any further changes or novelties. The Zwinglians and
+Anabaptists were not allowed to enjoy the least tolerance. This was
+immediately followed by the Protest of the chief evangelical princes and
+towns, which henceforth was to give the name to all anti-Catholics
+together (19 April 1529). And not only between Catholics and Protestants
+in the Empire did the rupture become complete. Even before the end of
+that year the question of the Lord's supper proved an insuperable
+stumbling-block in the way of a real union of Zwinglians and Lutherans.
+Luther parted from Zwingli at the colloquy of Marburg with the words,
+'Your spirit differs from ours'.
+
+In Switzerland civil war had openly broken out between the Catholic and
+the Evangelical cantons, only calmed for a short time by the first peace
+of Kappel. The treaties of Cambray and Barcelona, which in 1529 restored
+at least political peace in Christendom for the time being, could no
+longer draw from old Erasmus jubilations about a coming golden age, like
+those with which the concord of 1516 had inspired him. A month later the
+Turks appeared before Vienna.
+
+All these occurrences could not but distress and alarm Erasmus. But he
+was outside them. When reading his letters of that period we are more
+than ever impressed by the fact that, for all the width and liveliness
+of his mind, he is remote from the great happenings of his time. Beyond
+a certain circle of interests, touching his own ideas or his person, his
+perceptions are vague and weak. If he still meddles occasionally with
+questions of the day, he does so in the moralizing manner, by means of
+generalities, without emphasis: his 'Advice about declaring war on the
+Turks' (March 1530) is written in the form of an interpretation of Psalm
+28, and so vague that, at the close, he himself anticipates that the
+reader may exclaim: 'But now say clearly: do you think that war should
+be declared or not?'
+
+In the summer of 1530 the Diet met again at Augsburg under the auspices
+of the Emperor himself to try once more 'to attain to a good peace and
+Christian truth'. The Augsburg Confession, defended all too weakly by
+Melanchthon, was read here, disputed, and declared refuted by the
+Emperor.
+
+Erasmus had no share in all this. Many had exhorted him in letters to
+come to Augsburg; but he had in vain expected a summons from the
+Emperor. At the instance of the Emperor's counsellors he had postponed
+his proposed removal to Brabant in that autumn till after the decision
+of the Diet. But his services were not needed for the drastic resolution
+of repression with which the Emperor closed the session in November.
+
+The great struggle in Germany seemed to be approaching: the resolutions
+of Augsburg were followed by the formation of the League of Schmalkalden
+uniting all Protestant territories and towns of Germany in their
+opposition to the Emperor. In the same year (1531) Zwingli was killed in
+the battle of Kappel against the Catholic cantons, soon to be followed
+by Oecolampadius, who died at Basle. 'It is right', writes Erasmus,
+'that those two leaders have perished. If Mars had been favourable to
+them, we should now have been done for.'
+
+In Switzerland a sort of equilibrium had set in; at any rate matters had
+come to a standstill; in Germany the inevitable struggle was postponed
+for many years. The Emperor had understood that, to combat the German
+Protestants effectively, he should first get the Pope to hold the
+Council which would abolish the acknowledged abuses of the Church. The
+religious peace of Nuremberg (1532) put the seal upon this turn of
+imperial policy.
+
+It might seem as if before long the advocates of moderate reform and of
+a compromise might after all get a chance of being heard. But Erasmus
+had become too old to actively participate in the decisions (if he had
+ever seriously considered such participation). He does write a treatise,
+though, in 1533, 'On the sweet concord of the Church', like his 'Advice
+on the Turks' in the form of an interpretation of a psalm (83). But it
+would seem as if the old vivacity of his style and his power of
+expression, so long unimpaired, now began to flag. The same remark
+applies to an essay 'On the preparation for death', published the same
+year. His voice was growing weaker.
+
+During these years he turned his attention chiefly to the completion of
+the great work which more than any other represented for him the summing
+up and complete exposition of his moral-theological ideas:
+_Ecclesiastes_ or, _On the Way to preach_. Erasmus had always regarded
+preaching as the most dignified part of an ecclesiastic's duties. As
+preachers, he had most highly valued Colet and Vitrarius. As early as
+1519 his friend, John Becar of Borselen, urged him to follow up the
+_Enchiridion_ of the Christian soldier and the _Institutio_ of the
+Christian prince, by the true instruction of the Christian preacher.
+'Later, later,' Erasmus had promised him, 'at present I have too much
+work, but I hope to undertake it soon.' In 1523 he had already made a
+sketch and some notes for it. It was meant for John Fisher, the Bishop
+of Rochester, Erasmus's great friend and brother-spirit, who eagerly
+looked forward to it and urged the author to finish it. The work
+gradually grew into the most voluminous of Erasmus's original writings:
+a forest of a work, _operis sylvam_, he calls it himself. In four books
+he treated his subject, the art of preaching well and decorously, with
+an inexhaustible abundance of examples, illustrations, schemes, etc. But
+was it possible that a work, conceived already by the Erasmus of 1519,
+and upon which he had been so long engaged, while he himself had
+gradually given up the boldness of his earlier years, could still be a
+revelation in 1533, as the _Enchiridion_ had been in its day?
+
+_Ecclesiastes_ is the work of a mind fatigued, which no longer sharply
+reacts upon the needs of his time. As the result of a correct,
+intellectual, tasteful instruction in a suitable manner of preaching, in
+accordance with the purity of the Gospel, Erasmus expects to see society
+improve. 'The people become more obedient to the authorities, more
+respectful towards the law, more peaceable. Between husband and wife
+comes greater concord, more perfect faithfulness, greater dislike of
+adultery. Servants obey more willingly, artisans work better, merchants
+cheat no more.'
+
+At the same time that Erasmus took this work to Froben, at Basle, to
+print, a book of a young Frenchman, who had recently fled from France to
+Basle, passed through the press of another Basle printer, Thomas
+Platter. It too was to be a manual of the life of faith: the
+_Institution of the Christian Religion_, by Calvin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even before Erasmus had quite completed the _Ecclesiastes_, the man for
+whom the work had been meant was no more. Instead of to the Bishop of
+Rochester, Erasmus dedicated his voluminous work to the Bishop of
+Augsburg, Christopher of Stadion. John Fisher, to set a seal on his
+spiritual endeavours, resembling those of Erasmus in so many respects,
+had left behind, as a testimony to the world, for which Erasmus knew
+himself too weak, that of martyrdom. On 22 June 1535, he was beheaded by
+command of Henry VIII. He died for being faithful to the old Church.
+Together with More he had steadfastly refused to take the oath to the
+Statute of Supremacy. Not two weeks after Fisher, Thomas More mounted
+the scaffold. The fate of those two noblest of his friends grieved
+Erasmus. It moved him to do what for years he had no longer done: to
+write a poem. But rather than in the fine Latin measure of that _Carmen
+heroicum_ one would have liked to hear his emotion in language of
+sincere dismay and indignation in his letters. They are hardly there. In
+the words devoted to Fisher's death in the preface to the _Ecclesiastes_
+there is no heartfelt emotion. Also in his letters of those days, he
+speaks with reserve. 'Would More had never meddled with that dangerous
+business, and left the theological cause to the theologians.' As if More
+had died for aught but simply for his conscience!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Erasmus wrote these words, he was no longer at Freiburg. He had in
+June 1535 gone to Basle, to work in Froben's printing-office, as of old;
+the _Ecclesiastes_ was at last going to press and still required careful
+supervision and the final touches during the process; the _Adagia_ had
+to be reprinted, and a Latin edition of Origenes was in preparation. The
+old, sick man was cordially received by the many friends who still lived
+at Basle. Hieronymus Froben, Johannes's son, who after his father's
+death managed the business with two relatives, sheltered him in his
+house _Zum Luft_. In the hope of his return a room had been built
+expressly for him and fitted up as was convenient for him. Erasmus found
+that at Basle the ecclesiastical storms which had formerly driven him
+away had subsided. Quiet and order had returned. He did feel a spirit of
+distrust in the air, it is true, 'but I think that, on account of my
+age, of habit, and of what little erudition I possess, I have now got so
+far that I may live in safety anywhere'. At first he had regarded the
+removal as an experiment. He did not mean to stay at Basle. If his
+health could not stand the change of air, he would return to his fine,
+well-appointed, comfortable house at Freiburg. If he should prove able
+to bear it, then the choice was between the Netherlands (probably
+Brussels, Malines or Antwerp, perhaps Louvain) or Burgundy, in
+particular Besancon. Towards the end of his life he clung to the
+illusion which he had been cherishing for a long time that Burgundy wine
+alone was good for him and kept his malady in check. There is something
+pathetic in the proportions which this wine-question gradually assumes:
+that it is so dear at Basle might be overlooked, but the thievish
+wagoners drink up or spoil what is imported.
+
+In August he doubted greatly whether he will return to Freiburg. In
+October he sold his house and part of his furniture and had the rest
+transported to Basle. After the summer he hardly left his room, and was
+mostly bedridden.
+
+Though the formidable worker in him still yearned for more years and
+time to labour, his soul was ready for death. Happy he had never felt;
+only during the last years he utters his longing for the end. He was
+still, curiously enough, subject to the delusion of being in the thick
+of the struggle. 'In this arena I shall have to fall,' he writes in
+1533. 'Only this consoles me, that near at hand already, the general
+haven comes in sight, which, if Christ be favourable, will bring the end
+of all labour and trouble.' Two years later his voice sounds more
+urgent: 'That the Lord might deign to call me out of this raving world
+to His rest'.
+
+Most of his old friends were gone. Warham and Mountjoy had passed away
+before More and Fisher; Peter Gilles, so many years younger than he, had
+departed in 1533; also Pirckheimer had been dead for years. Beatus
+Rhenanus shows him to us, during the last months of his life,
+re-perusing his friends' letters of the last few years, and repeating:
+'This one, too, is dead'. As he grew more solitary, his suspiciousness
+and his feeling of being persecuted became stronger. 'My friends
+decrease, my enemies increase,' he writes in 1532, when Warham has died
+and Aleander has risen still higher. In the autumn of 1535 he thinks
+that all his former servant-pupils betray him, even the best beloved
+ones like Quirin Talesius and Charles Utenhove. They do not write to
+him, he complains.
+
+[Illustration: XXIV. CARDINAL JEROME ALEANDER]
+
+In October 1534, Pope Clement VII was succeeded by Paul III, who at once
+zealously took up the Council-question. The meeting of a Council was, in
+the eyes of many, the only means by which union could be restored to the
+Church, and now a chance of realizing this seemed nigh. At once the most
+learned theologians were invited to help in preparing the great work.
+Erasmus did not omit, in January 1535, to address to the new Pope a
+letter of congratulation, in which he professed his willingness to
+co-operate in bringing about the pacification of the Church, and warned
+the Pope to steer a cautious middle course. On 31 May followed a reply
+full of kindliness and acknowledgement. The Pope exhorted Erasmus, 'that
+you too, graced by God with so much laudable talent and learning, may
+help Us in this pious work, which is so agreeable to your mind, to
+defend, with Us, the Catholic religion, by the spoken and the written
+word, before and during the Council, and in this manner by this last
+work of piety, as by the best act to close a life of religion and so
+many writings, to refute your accusers and rouse your admirers to fresh
+efforts.'
+
+Would Erasmus in years of greater strength have seen his way to
+co-operate actively in the council of the great? Undoubtedly, the Pope's
+exhortation correctly represented his inclination. But once faced by the
+necessity of hard, clear resolutions, what would he have effected? Would
+his spirit of peace and toleration, of reserve and compromise, have
+brought alleviation and warded off the coming struggle? He was spared
+the experiment.
+
+He knew himself too weak to be able to think of strenuous
+church-political propaganda any more. Soon there came proofs that the
+kindly feelings at Rome were sincere. There had been some question also
+of numbering Erasmus among the cardinals who were to be nominated with a
+view to the Council; a considerable benefice connected with the church
+of Deventer was already offered him. But Erasmus urged the Roman friends
+who were thus active in his behalf to cease their kind offices; he would
+accept nothing, he a man who lived from day to day in expectation of
+death and often hoping for it, who could hardly ever leave his
+room--would people instigate _him_ to hunt for deaneries and cardinals'
+hats! He had subsistence enough to last him. He wanted to die
+independent.
+
+Yet his pen did not rest. The _Ecclesiastes_ had been printed and
+published and _Origenes_ was still to follow. Instead of the important
+and brilliant task to which Rome called him, he devoted his last
+strength to a simple deed of friendly cordiality. The friend to whose
+share the honour fell to receive from the old, death-sick author a last
+composition prepared expressly for him, amidst the most terrible pains,
+was the most modest of the number who had not lost their faith in him.
+No prelate or prince, no great wit or admired divine, but Christopher
+Eschenfelder, customs officer at Boppard on the Rhine. On his passage in
+1518 Erasmus had, with glad surprise, found him to be a reader of his
+work and a man of culture.[20] That friendship had been a lasting one.
+Eschenfelder had asked Erasmus to dedicate the interpretation of some
+psalm to him (a form of composition often preferred by Erasmus of late).
+About the close of 1535 he remembered that request. He had forgotten
+whether Eschenfelder had indicated a particular psalm and chose one at
+haphazard, Psalm 14, calling the treatise 'On the purity of the
+Christian Church'. He expressly dedicated it to 'the publican' in
+January 1536. It is not remarkable among his writings as to contents and
+form, but it was to be his last.
+
+On 12 February 1536, Erasmus made his final preparations. In 1527 he had
+already made a will with detailed clauses for the printing of his
+complete works by Froben. In 1534 he drew up an accurate inventory of
+his belongings. He sold his library to the Polish nobleman Johannes a
+Lasco. The arrangements of 1536 testify to two things which had played
+an important part in his life: his relations with the house of Froben
+and his need of friendship. Boniface Amerbach is his heir. Hieronymus
+Froben and Nicholas Episcopius, the managers of the business, are his
+executors. To each of the good friends left to him he bequeathed one of
+the trinkets which spoke of his fame with princes and the great ones of
+the earth, in the first place to Louis Ber and Beatus Rhenanus. The poor
+and the sick were not forgotten, and he remembered especially girls
+about to marry and youths of promise. The details of this charity he
+left to Amerbach.
+
+In March 1536, he still thinks of leaving for Burgundy. Money matters
+occupy him and he speaks of the necessity of making new friends, for the
+old ones leave him: the Bishop of Cracow, Zasius at Freiburg. According
+to Beatus Rhenanus, the Brabant plan stood foremost at the end of
+Erasmus's life. The Regent, Mary of Hungary, did not cease to urge him
+to return to the Netherlands. Erasmus's own last utterance leaves us in
+doubt whether he had made up his mind. 'Though I am living here with the
+most sincere friends, such as I did not possess at Freiburg, I should
+yet, on account of the differences of doctrine, prefer to end my life
+elsewhere. If only Brabant were nearer.'
+
+This he writes on 28 June 1536. He had felt so poorly for some days that
+he had not even been able to read. In the letter we again trace the
+delusion that Aleander persecutes him, sets on opponents against him,
+and even lays snares for his friends. Did his mind at last give way too?
+
+On 12 July the end came. The friends around his couch heard him groan
+incessantly: 'O Jesu, misericordia; Domine libera me; Domine miserere
+mei!' And at last in Dutch: 'Lieve God.'
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] See Erasmus's letter, p. 224.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+    Conclusion--Erasmus and the spirit of the sixteenth century--His
+    weak points--A thorough idealist and yet a moderate mind--The
+    enlightener of a century--He anticipates tendencies of two
+    centuries later--His influence affects both Protestantism and
+    Catholic reform--The Erasmian spirit in the Netherlands
+
+
+Looking back on the life of Erasmus the question still arises: why has
+he remained so great? For ostensibly his endeavours ended in failure. He
+withdraws in alarm from that tremendous struggle which he rightly calls
+a tragedy; the sixteenth century, bold and vehement, thunders past him,
+disdaining his ideal of moderation and tolerance. Latin literary
+erudition, which to him was the epitome of all true culture, has gone
+out as such. Erasmus, so far as regards the greater part of his
+writings, is among the great ones who are no longer read. He has become
+a name. But why does that name still sound so clear and articulate? Why
+does he keep regarding us, as if he still knew a little more than he has
+ever been willing to utter?
+
+What has he been to his age, and what was he to be for later
+generations? Has he been rightly called a precursor of the modern
+spirit?
+
+Regarded as a child of the sixteenth century, he does seem to differ
+from the general tenor of his times. Among those vehemently passionate,
+drastically energetic and violent natures of the great ones of his day,
+Erasmus stands as the man of too few prejudices, with a little too much
+delicacy of taste, with a deficiency, though not, indeed, in every
+department, of that _stultitia_ which he had praised as a necessary
+constituent of life. Erasmus is the man who is too sensible and moderate
+for the heroic.
+
+What a surprising difference there is between the _accent_ of Erasmus
+and that of Luther, Calvin, and Saint Teresa! What a difference, also,
+between his accent, that is, the accent of humanism, and that of
+Albrecht Duerer, of Michelangelo, or of Shakespeare.
+
+Erasmus seems, at times, the man who was not strong enough for his age.
+In that robust sixteenth century it seems as if the oaken strength of
+Luther was necessary, the steely edge of Calvin, the white heat of
+Loyola; not the velvet softness of Erasmus. Not only were their force
+and their fervour necessary, but also their depth, their unsparing,
+undaunted consistency, sincerity and outspokenness.
+
+They cannot bear that smile which makes Luther speak of the guileful
+being looking out of Erasmus's features. His piety is too even for them,
+too limp. Loyola has testified that the reading of the _Enchiridion
+militis Christiani_ relaxed his fervour and made his devotion grow cold.
+He saw that warrior of Christ differently, in the glowing colours of the
+Spanish-Christian, medieval ideal of chivalry.
+
+Erasmus had never passed through those depths of self-reprobation and
+that consciousness of sin which Luther had traversed with toil; he saw
+no devil to fight with, and tears were not familiar to him. Was he
+altogether unaware of the deepest mystery? Or did it rest in him too
+deep for utterance?
+
+Let us not suppose too quickly that we are more nearly allied to Luther
+or Loyola because their figures appeal to us more. If at present our
+admiration goes out again to the ardently pious, and to spiritual
+extremes, it is partly because our unstable time requires strong
+stimuli. To appreciate Erasmus we should begin by giving up our
+admiration of the extravagant, and for many this requires a certain
+effort at present. It is extremely easy to break the staff over Erasmus.
+His faults lie on the surface, and though he wished to hide many things,
+he never hid his weaknesses.
+
+He was too much concerned about what people thought, and he could not
+hold his tongue. His mind was _too_ rich and facile, always suggesting a
+superfluity of arguments, cases, examples, quotations. He could never
+let things slide. All his life he grudged himself leisure to rest and
+collect himself, to see how unimportant after all was the commotion
+round about him, if only he went his own way courageously. Rest and
+independence he desired most ardently of all things; there was no more
+restless and dependent creature. Judge him as one of a too delicate
+constitution who ventures out in a storm. His will-power was great
+enough. He worked night and day, amidst the most violent bodily
+suffering, with a great ideal steadfastly before him, never satisfied
+with his own achievements. He was not self-sufficient.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As an intellectual type Erasmus was one of a rather small group: the
+absolute idealists who, at the same time, are thoroughly moderate. They
+can not bear the world's imperfections; they feel constrained to oppose.
+But extremes are uncongenial to them; they shrink back from action,
+because they know it pulls down as much as it erects, and so they
+withdraw themselves, and keep calling that everything should be
+different; but when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with
+tradition and conservatism. Here too is a fragment of Erasmus's
+life-tragedy: he was the man who saw the new and coming things more
+clearly than anyone else--who must needs quarrel with the old and yet
+could not accept the new. He tried to remain in the fold of the old
+Church, after having damaged it seriously, and renounced the
+Reformation, and to a certain extent even Humanism, after having
+furthered both with all his strength.
+
+[Illustration: XXV. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 65]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our final opinion about Erasmus has been concerned with negative
+qualities, so far. What was his positive importance?
+
+Two facts make it difficult for the modern mind to understand Erasmus's
+positive importance: first that his influence was extensive rather than
+intensive, and therefore less historically discernible at definite
+points, and second, that his influence has ceased. He has done his work
+and will speak to the world no more. Like Saint Jerome, his revered
+model, and Voltaire, with whom he has been occasionally compared, 'he
+has his reward'. But like them he has been the enlightener of an age
+from whom a broad stream of culture emanated.
+
+[Illustration: XXVI. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY, 1530]
+
+As historic investigation of the French Revolution is becoming more and
+more aware that the true history of France during that period should be
+looked for in those groups which as 'Centre' or 'Marais' seemed for a
+long time but a drove of supernumeraries, and understands that it should
+occasionally protect its eyes a little from the lightning flashes of the
+Gironde and Mountain thunderstorm; so the history of the Reformation
+period should pay attention--and it has done so for a long time--to the
+broad central sphere permeated by the Erasmian spirit. One of his
+opponents said: 'Luther has drawn a large part of the Church to himself,
+Zwingli and Oecolampadius also some part, but Erasmus the largest'.
+Erasmus's public was numerous and of high culture. He was the only one
+of the Humanists who really wrote for all the world, that is to say, for
+all educated people. He accustomed a whole world to another and more
+fluent mode of expression: he shifted the interest, he influenced by his
+perfect clarity of exposition, even through the medium of Latin, the
+style of the vernacular languages, apart from the numberless
+translations of his works. For his contemporaries Erasmus put on many
+new stops, one might say, of the great organ of human expression, as
+Rousseau was to do two centuries later.
+
+He might well think with some complacency of the influence he had
+exerted on the world. 'From all parts of the world'--he writes towards
+the close of his life--'I am daily thanked by many, because they have
+been kindled by my works, whatever may be their merit, into zeal for a
+good disposition and sacred literature; and they who have never seen
+Erasmus, yet know and love him from his books.' He was glad that his
+translations from the Greek had become superfluous; he had everywhere
+led many to take up Greek and Holy Scripture, 'which otherwise they
+would never have read'. He had been an introducer and an initiator. He
+might leave the stage after having said his say.
+
+His word signified something beyond a classical sense and biblical
+disposition. It was at the same time the first enunciation of the creed
+of education and perfectibility, of warm social feeling and of faith in
+human nature, of peaceful kindliness and toleration. 'Christ dwells
+everywhere; piety is practised under every garment, if only a kindly
+disposition is not wanting.'
+
+In all these ideas and convictions Erasmus really heralds a later age.
+In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries those thoughts remained an
+undercurrent: in the eighteenth Erasmus's message of deliverance bore
+fruit. In this respect he has most certainly been a precursor and
+preparer of the modern mind: of Rousseau, Herder, Pestalozzi and of the
+English and American thinkers. It is only part of the modern mind which
+is represented by all this. To a number of its developments Erasmus was
+wholly a stranger, to the evolution of natural science, of the newer
+philosophy, of political economy. But in so far as people still believe
+in the ideal that moral education and general tolerance may make
+humanity happier, humanity owes much to Erasmus.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This does not imply that Erasmus's mind did not directly and fruitfully
+influence his own times. Although Catholics regarded him in the heat of
+the struggle as the corrupter of the Church, and Protestants as the
+betrayer of the Gospel, yet his word of moderation and kindliness did
+not pass by unheard or unheeded on either side. Eventually neither camp
+finally rejected Erasmus. Rome did not brand him as an arch-heretic, but
+only warned the faithful to read him with caution. Protestant history
+has been studious to reckon him as one of the Reformers. Both obeyed in
+this the pronouncement of a public opinion which was above parties and
+which continued to admire and revere Erasmus.
+
+To the reconstruction of the Catholic Church and the erection of the
+evangelical churches not only the names of Luther and Loyola are linked.
+The moderate, the intellectual, the conciliating have also had their
+share of the work; figures like Melanchthon here, Sadolet there, both
+nearly allied to Erasmus and sympathetically disposed towards him. The
+frequently repeated attempts to arrive at some compromise in the great
+religious conflict, though they might be doomed to end in failure,
+emanated from the Erasmian spirit.
+
+Nowhere did that spirit take root so easily as in the country that gave
+Erasmus birth. A curious detail shows us that it was not the exclusive
+privilege of either great party. Of his two most favoured pupils of
+later years, both Netherlanders, whom as the actors of the colloquy
+_Astragalismus_ (_The Game of Knucklebones_), he has immortalized
+together, the one, Quirin Talesius, died for his attachment to the
+Spanish cause and the Catholic faith: he was hanged in 1572 by the
+citizens of Haarlem, where he was a burgomaster. The other, Charles
+Utenhove, was sedulous on the side of the revolt and the Reformed
+religion. At Ghent, in concert with the Prince of Orange, he turned
+against the narrow-minded Protestant terrorism of the zealots.
+
+A Dutch historian recently tried to trace back the opposition of the
+Dutch against the king of Spain to the influence of Erasmus's political
+thought in his arraignment of bad princes--wrongly as I think. Erasmus's
+political diatribes were far too academic and too general for that. The
+desire of resistance and revolt arose from quite other causes. The
+'Gueux' were not Erasmus's progeny. But there is much that is Erasmian
+in the spirit of their great leader, William of Orange, whose vision
+ranged so widely beyond the limitations of religious hatred. Thoroughly
+permeated by the Erasmian spirit, too, was that class of municipal
+magistrates who were soon to take the lead and to set the fashion in the
+established Republic. History is wont, as always with an aristocracy, to
+take their faults very seriously. After all, perhaps no other
+aristocracy, unless it be that of Venice, has ruled a state so long, so
+well and with so little violence. If in the seventeenth century the
+institutions of Holland, in the eyes of foreigners, were the admired
+models of prosperity, charity and social discipline, and patterns of
+gentleness and wisdom, however defective they may seem to us--then the
+honour of all this is due to the municipal aristocracy. If in the Dutch
+patriciate of that time those aspirations lived and were translated into
+action, it was Erasmus's spirit of social responsibility which inspired
+them. The history of Holland is far less bloody and cruel than that of
+any of the surrounding countries. Not for naught did Erasmus praise as
+truly Dutch those qualities which we might also call truly Erasmian:
+gentleness, kindliness, moderation, a generally diffused moderate
+erudition. Not romantic virtues, if you like; but are they the less
+salutary?
+
+One more instance. In the Republic of the Seven Provinces the atrocious
+executions of witches and wizards ceased more than a century before they
+did in all other countries. This was not owing to the merit of the
+Reformed pastors. They shared the popular belief which demanded
+persecution. It was the magistrates whose enlightenment even as early as
+the beginning of the seventeenth century no longer tolerated these
+things. Again, we are entitled to say, though Erasmus was not one of
+those who combated this practice: the spirit which breathes from this is
+that of Erasmus.
+
+Cultured humanity has cause to hold Erasmus's memory in esteem, if for
+no other reason than that he was the fervently sincere preacher of that
+general kindliness which the world still so urgently needs.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS OF ERASMUS
+
+
+_This selection from the vast correspondence of Erasmus is intended to
+exhibit him at a few points in his strenuous and rather comfortless
+life, always overworked, often ill, and perpetually hurried--many of his
+letters have the postscript 'In haste' or 'I had no time to read this
+over'--but holding always tenaciously to his aim of steering a middle
+course; in religion between the corruption and fossilization of the old
+and the uncompromising violence of the new: in learning between
+neo-paganism on the one hand and the indolent refusal, under the pretext
+of piety, to apply critical methods to sacred texts on the other. The
+first letter has been included because it may provide a clue to his
+later reluctance to trust his feelings when self-committal to any cause
+seemed to be required of him, a reluctance not unnaturally interpreted
+by his enemies as an arrogant refusal to 'yield to any'._
+
+_The notes have been compiled from P. S. and H. M. Allen's_ Opus
+epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, _Oxford, 1906-47, by the kind
+permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and references are
+to the numbers of the letters in that edition_.
+
+
+I. TO SERVATIUS ROGER[21]
+
+[Steyn, _c._ 1487]
+
+To his friend Servatius, greetings:
+
+... You say there is something which you take very hard, which torments
+you wretchedly, which in short makes life a misery to you. Your looks
+and your carriage betray this, even if you were silent. Where is your
+wonted and beloved cheerful countenance gone, your former beauty, your
+lively glance? Whence come these sorrowful downcast eyes, whence this
+perpetual silence, so unlike you, whence the look of a sick man in your
+expression? Assuredly as the poet says, 'the sick body betrays the
+torments of the lurking soul, likewise its joys: it is to the mind that
+the face owes its looks, well or ill'.[22]
+
+It is certain then, my Servatius, that there is something which troubles
+you, which is destroying your former good health. But what am I to do
+now? Must I comfort you or scold you? Why do you hide your pain from me
+as if we did not know each other by this time? You are so deep that you
+do not believe your closest friend, or trust even the most trustworthy;
+or do you not know that the hidden fire burns stronger?... And for the
+rest, my Servatius, what is it makes you draw in and hide yourself like
+a snail? I suspect what the matter is: you have not yet convinced
+yourself that I love you very much. So I entreat you by the things
+sweetest to you in life, by our great love, if you have any care for
+your safety, if you want me to live unharmed, not to be at such pains to
+hide your feelings, but whatever it is, entrust it to my safe ears. I
+will assist you in whatever way I can with help or counsel. But if I
+cannot provide either, still it will be sweet to rejoice with you, to
+weep with you, to live and die with you. Farewell, my Servatius, and
+look after your health.
+
+
+II. TO NICHOLAS WERNER[23]
+
+Paris, 13 September [1496]
+
+To the religious Father Nicholas Werner, greetings:
+
+... If you are all well there, things are as I wish and hope; I myself
+am very well, the gods be thanked. I have now made clear by my
+actions--if it was not clear to anyone before this--how much theology is
+coming to mean to me. A somewhat arrogant claim; but it ill becomes
+Erasmus to hide anything from his most loving Father. Lately I had
+fallen in with certain Englishmen, of noble birth, and all of them
+wealthy. Very recently I was approached by a young priest,[24] very
+rich, who said he had refused a bishopric offered him, as he knew that
+he was not well educated; nevertheless he is to be recalled by the King
+to take a bishopric within a year, although, apart from any bishopric
+even, he has a yearly income of more than 2000 _scudi_. As soon as he
+heard of my learning he proceeded in unbelievably affectionate fashion
+to devote himself to me, to frequent and revere me--he lived for a while
+in my house. He offered 100 _scudi_, if I would teach him for a year; he
+offered a benefice in a few months' time; he offered to lend me 300
+_scudi_, if I should need them to procure the office, until I could pay
+them back out of the benefice. By this service I could have laid all the
+English in this city under an obligation to me--they are all of the
+first families--and through them all England, had I so wished. But I
+cared nothing for the splendid income and the far more splendid
+prospects; I cared nothing for their entreaties and the tears which
+accompanied them. I am telling the truth, exaggerating not at all; the
+English realize that the money of all England means nothing to me. This
+refusal, which I still maintain, was not made without due consideration;
+not for any reward will I let myself be drawn away from theological
+studies. I did not come here to teach or to pile up gold, but to learn.
+Indeed I shall seek a Doctorate in Theology, if the gods so will it.
+
+The Bishop of Cambrai is marvellously fond of me: he makes liberal
+promises; the remittances are not so liberal, to tell the truth. I wish
+you good health, excellent Father. I beg and entreat you to commend me
+in your prayers to God: I shall do likewise for you. From my library in
+Paris.
+
+
+III. TO ROBERT FISHER[25]
+
+London, 5 December [1499]
+
+To Robert Fisher, Englishman, abiding in Italy, greetings:
+
+... I hesitated not a little to write to you, beloved Robert, not that I
+feared lest so great a sunderance in time and place had worn away
+anything of your affection towards me, but because you are in a country
+where even the house-walls are more learned and more eloquent than are
+our men here, so that what is here reckoned polished, fine and
+delectable cannot there appear anything but crude, mean and insipid.
+Wherefore your England assuredly expects you to return not merely very
+learned in the law but also equally eloquent in both the Greek and the
+Latin tongues. You would have seen me also there long since, had not my
+friend Mountjoy carried me off to his country when I was already packed
+for the journey into Italy. Whither indeed shall I not follow a youth so
+polite, so kindly, so lovable? I swear I would follow him even into
+Hades. You indeed had most handsomely commended him and, in a word,
+precisely delineated him; but believe me, he every day surpasses both
+your commendation and my opinion of him.
+
+But you ask how England pleases me. If you have any confidence in me,
+dear Robert, I would have you believe me when I say that I have never
+yet liked anything so well. I have found here a climate as delightful as
+it is wholesome; and moreover so much humane learning, not of the
+outworn, commonplace sort, but the profound, accurate, ancient Greek and
+Latin learning, that I now scarcely miss Italy, but for the sight of it.
+When I listen to my friend Colet, I seem to hear Plato himself. Who
+would not marvel at the perfection of encyclopaedic learning in
+Grocyn?[26] What could be keener or nobler or nicer than Linacre's[27]
+judgement? What has Nature ever fashioned gentler or sweeter or happier
+than the character of Thomas More? But why should I catalogue the rest?
+It is marvellous how thick upon the ground the harvest of ancient
+literature is here everywhere flowering forth: all the more should you
+hasten your return hither. Your friend's affection and remembrance of
+you is so strong that he speaks of none so often or so gladly. Farewell.
+Written in haste in London on the 5th of December.
+
+
+IV. TO JAMES BATT[28]
+
+Orleans [_c._ 12 December] 1500
+
+... If you care sincerely what becomes of your Erasmus, do you act thus:
+plead my shyness before my Lady[29] in pleasant phrases, as if I had not
+been able to bring myself to reveal my poverty to her in person. But you
+must write that I am now in a state of extreme poverty, owing to the
+great expense of this flight to Orleans, as I had to leave people from
+whom I was making some money. Tell her that Italy is by far the most
+suitable place in which to take the Degree of Doctor, and that it is
+impossible for a fastidious man to go to Italy without a large sum of
+money; particularly because I am not even at liberty to live meanly, on
+account of my reputation, such as it is, for learning. You will explain
+how much greater fame I am likely to bring my Lady by my learning than
+are the other theologians maintained by her. They compose commonplace
+harangues: I write works destined to live for ever. Their ignorant
+triflings are heard by one or two persons in church: my books will be
+read by Latins, Greeks, by every race all over the world. Tell her that
+this kind of unlearned theologian is to be found in hordes everywhere,
+whereas a man like myself is hardly to be found once in many centuries;
+unless indeed you are so superstitious that you scruple to employ a few
+harmless lies to help a friend. Then you must point out that she will
+not be a whit the poorer if, with a few gold pieces, she helps to
+restore the corrupt text of St. Jerome and the true Theology, when so
+much of her wealth is being shamelessly dissipated. After dilating on
+this with your customary ingenuity and writing at length on my
+character, my expectations, my affection for my Lady and my shyness, you
+must then add that I have written to say that I need 200 francs in all,
+and request her to grant me next year's payment now; I am not inventing
+this, my dear Batt; to go to Italy with 100 francs, no, less than 100
+francs, seems to me a hazardous enterprise, unless I want to enslave
+myself to someone once more; may I die before I do this. Then how little
+difference it will make to her whether she gives me the money this year
+or next, and how much it means to me! Next urge her to look out for a
+benefice for me, so that on my return I may have some place where I can
+pursue learning in peace. Do not stop at this, but devise on your own
+the most convenient method of indicating to her that she should promise
+me, before all the other candidates, at least a reasonable, if not a
+splendid, benefice which I can change as soon as a better one appears. I
+am well aware that there are many candidates for benefices; but you must
+say that I am the one man, whom, compared with the rest, etc., etc. You
+know your old way of lying profusely about Erasmus.... You will add at
+the end that I have made the same complaint in my letter which Jerome
+makes more than once in his letters, that study is tearing my eyes out,
+that things look as if I shall have to follow his example and begin to
+study with my ears and tongue only; and persuade her, in the most
+amusing words at your command, to send me some sapphire or other gem
+wherewith to fortify my eyesight. I would have told you myself which
+gems have this virtue, but I have not Pliny at hand; get the information
+out of your doctor.... Let me tell you what else I want you to attempt
+still further--to extract a grant from the Abbot. You know him--invent
+some modest and persuasive argument for making this request. Tell him
+that I have a great design in hand--to constitute in its entirety the
+text of Jerome, which has been corrupted, mutilated, and thrown into
+disorder through the ignorance of the theologians (I have detected many
+false and spurious pieces among his writings), and to restore the
+Greek.[30] I shall reveal [in him] an ingenuity and a knowledge of
+antiquities which no one, I venture to claim, has yet realized. Explain
+that for this undertaking many books are needed, also Greek works, so
+that I may receive a grant. Here you will not be lying, Batt; I am
+wholly engaged on this work. Farewell, my best and dearest Batt, and put
+all of Batt into this business. I mean Batt the friend, not Batt the
+slowcoach.
+
+
+V. TO ANTONY OF BERGEN[31]
+
+[Paris?] [16 March? 1501]
+
+To the most illustrious prelate Antony, Abbot of St. Bertin, greetings:
+
+... I have accidentally happened upon some Greek books, and am busy day
+and night secretly copying them out. I shall be asked why I am so
+delighted with Cato the Censor's example that I want to turn Greek at my
+age. Indeed, most excellent Father, if in my boyhood I had been of this
+mind, or rather if time had not been wanting, I should be the happiest
+of men. As things are, I think it better to learn, even if a little
+late, than not to know things which it is of the first importance to
+have at one's command. I have already tasted of Greek literature in the
+past, but merely (as the saying goes) sipped at it; however, having
+lately gone a little deeper into it, I perceive--as one has often read
+in the best authorities--that Latin learning, rich as it is, is
+defective and incomplete without Greek; for we have but a few small
+streams and muddy puddles, while they have pure springs and rivers
+rolling gold. I see that it is utter madness even to touch the branch of
+theology which deals chiefly with the mysteries unless one is also
+provided with the equipment of Greek, as the translators of the
+Scriptures, owing to their conscientious scruples, render Greek forms in
+such a fashion that not even the primary sense (what our theologians
+call the _literal_ sense) can be understood by persons ignorant of
+Greek. Who could understand the sentence in the Psalm [Ps. 50.4 (51.3)]
+_Et peccatum meum contra me est semper_,[32] unless he has read the
+Greek? This runs as follows: [Greek: kai he hamartia mou enopion mou
+esti diapantos]. At this point some theologian will spin a long story of
+how the flesh is perpetually in conflict with the spirit, having been
+misled by the double meaning of the preposition, that is, _contra_, when
+the word [Greek: enopion] refers not to _conflict_ but to _position_, as
+if you were to say _opposite_, i.e., _in sight_: so that the Prophet's
+meaning was that his fault was so hateful to him that the memory of it
+never left him, but floated always before his mind as if it were
+present. Further in a passage elsewhere [Ps. 91 (92. 14)], _Bene
+patientes erunt ut annuncient_, everyone will be misled by the deceptive
+form, unless he has learned from the Greek that, just as according to
+Latin usage we say _bene facere_ of those who _do good to_ someone, so
+the Greeks call [Greek: eupathountas] (_bene patientes_) those who
+_suffer good to be done them_. So that the sense is, 'They will be well
+treated and will be helped by my benefactions, so that they will make
+mention of my beneficence towards them'. But why do I pick out a few
+trifling examples from so many important ones, when I have on my side
+the venerable authority of the papal Curia? There is a Curial Decree[33]
+still extant in the Decretals, ordaining that persons should be
+appointed in the chief academies (as they were then) capable of giving
+accurate instruction in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin literature, since, as
+they believed, the Scriptures could not be understood, far less
+discussed, without this knowledge. This most sound and most holy decree
+we so far neglect that we are perfectly satisfied with the most
+elementary knowledge of the Latin language, being apparently convinced
+that everything can be extracted from Duns Scotus, as it were from a
+cornucopia.
+
+For myself I do not fight with men of this sort; each man to his taste,
+as far as I am concerned; let the old man marry the old woman. It is my
+delight to set foot on the path into which Jerome and the splendid host
+of so many ancients summon me; so help me God, I would sooner be mad
+with them than as sane as you like with the mob of modern theologians.
+Besides I am attempting an arduous and, so to say, Phaethontean task--to
+do my best to restore the works of Jerome, which have been partly
+corrupted by those half-learned persons, and are partly--owing to the
+lack of knowledge of antiquities and of Greek literature--forgotten or
+mangled or mutilated or at least full of mistakes and monstrosities; not
+merely to restore them but to elucidate them with commentaries, so that
+each reader will acknowledge to himself that the great Jerome,
+considered by the ecclesiastical world as the most perfect in both
+branches of learning, the sacred and the profane, can indeed be read by
+all, but can only be understood by the most learned. As I am working
+hard on this design and see that I must in the first place acquire
+Greek, I have decided to study for some months under a Greek
+teacher,[34] a real Greek, no, twice a Greek, always hungry,[35] who
+charges an immoderate fee for his lessons. Farewell.
+
+
+VI. TO WILLIAM WARHAM[36]
+
+London, 24 January [1506]
+
+To the Reverend Father in Christ, William, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+Primate of England, many greetings from Erasmus of Rotterdam, Canon of
+the Order of St. Augustine:
+
+... Having made up my mind, most illustrious prelate, to translate the
+Greek authors and by so doing to revive or, if you will, promote as far
+as I could theological studies--and God immortal, how miserably they
+have been corrupted by sophistical nonsensicalities!--I did not wish to
+give the impression that I was attempting forthwith to learn the
+potter's art on a winejar[37] (as the Greek adage goes) and rushing in
+with unwashen feet, as they say, on so vast an undertaking; so I decided
+to begin by testing how far I had profited by my studies in both
+languages, and that in a material difficult indeed, but not sacred; so
+that the difficulty of the undertaking might be useful for practice and
+at the same time if I made any mistakes these mistakes should involve
+only the risk of my talent and leave the Holy Scriptures undamaged. And
+so I endeavoured to render in Latin two tragedies of Euripides, the
+_Hecuba_ and the _Iphigeneia in Aulis_, in the hope that perchance some
+god might favour so bold a venture with fair breezes. Then, seeing that
+a specimen of the work begun found favour with persons excellently well
+versed in both tongues (assuredly England by now possesses several of
+these, if I may acknowledge the truth without envy, men deserving of the
+admiration even of all Italy in any branch of learning), I brought the
+work to a finish, with the good help of the Muses, within a few short
+months. At what a cost in exertion, those will best feel who enter the
+same lists.
+
+Why so? Because the mere task of putting real Greek into real Latin is
+such that it requires an extraordinary artist, and not only a man with a
+rich store of scholarship in both languages at his fingertips, but one
+exceedingly alert and observant; so that for several centuries now none
+has appeared whose efforts in this field were unanimously approved by
+scholars. It is surely easy then to conjecture what a heavy task it has
+proved to render verse in verse, particularly verse so varied and
+unfamiliar, and to do this from a writer not merely so remote in time,
+and withal a tragedian, but also marvellously concise, taut and
+unadorned, in whom there is nothing otiose, nothing which it would not
+be a crime to alter or remove; and besides, one who treats rhetorical
+topics so frequently and so acutely that he appears to be everywhere
+declaiming. Add to all this the choruses, which through I know not what
+striving after effect are so obscure that they need not so much a
+translator as an Oedipus or priest of Apollo to interpret them. In
+addition there is the corrupt state of the manuscripts, the dearth of
+copies, the absence of any translators to whom one can have recourse. So
+I am not so much surprised that even in this most prolific age none of
+the Italians has ventured to attempt the task of translating any tragedy
+or comedy, whereas many have set their hand to Homer (among these even
+Politian[38] failed to satisfy himself); one man[39] has essayed Hesiod,
+and that without much success; another[40] has attempted Theocritus, but
+with even far more unfortunate results: and finally Francesco Filelfo
+has translated the first scene of the Hecuba in one of his funeral
+orations.[41] (I first learned this after I had begun my version), but
+in such a way that, great as he is, his work gave me courage enough to
+proceed, overprecise as I am in other respects.
+
+Then for me the lure of this poet's more than honeyed eloquence, which
+even his enemies allow him, proved stronger than the deterrent of these
+great examples and the many difficulties of the work, so that I have
+been bold to attack a task never before attempted, in the hope that,
+even if I failed, my honest readers would consider even this poor effort
+of mine not altogether unpraiseworthy, and the more grudging would at
+least be lenient to an inexperienced translator of a work so difficult:
+in particular because I have deliberately added no light burden to my
+other difficulties through my conscientiousness as a translator, in
+attempting so far as possible to reproduce the shape and as it were
+contours of the Greek verse, by striving to render line for line and
+almost word for word, and everywhere seeking with the utmost fidelity to
+convey to Latin ears the force and value of the sentence: whether it be
+that I do not altogether approve of the freedom in translation which
+Cicero allows others and practised himself (I would almost say to an
+immoderate degree), or that as an inexperienced translator I preferred
+to err on the side of seeming over-scrupulous rather than
+over-free--hesitating on the sandy shore instead of wrecking my ship and
+swimming in the midst of the billows; and I preferred to run the risk of
+letting scholars complain of lack of brilliance and poetic beauty in my
+work rather than of lack of fidelity to the original. Finally I did not
+want to set myself up as a paraphraser, thus securing myself that
+retreat which many use to cloak their ignorance, wrapping themselves
+like the cuttle-fish in darkness of their own making to avoid detection.
+Now, if readers do not find here the grandiloquence of Latin tragedy,
+'the bombast and the words half a yard long,' as Horace calls it, they
+must not blame me if in performing my function of translator I have
+preferred to reproduce the concise simplicity and elegance of my
+original, and not the bombast to which he is a stranger, and which I do
+not greatly admire at any time.
+
+Furthermore, I am encouraged to hope with all certainty that these
+labours of mine will be most excellently protected against the calumnies
+of the unjust, as their publication will be most welcome to the honest
+and just, if you, most excellent Father, have voted them your approval.
+For me it was not difficult to select you from the great host of
+illustrious and distinguished men to be the recipient of this product of
+my vigils, as the one man I have observed to be--aside from the
+brilliance of your fortune--so endowed, adorned and showered with
+learning, eloquence, good sense, piety, modesty, integrity, and lastly
+with an extraordinary liberality towards those who cultivate good
+letters, that the word Primate suits none better than yourself, who hold
+the first place not solely by reason of your official dignity, but far
+more because of all your virtues, while at the same time you are the
+principal ornament of the Court and the sole head of the ecclesiastical
+hierarchy. If I have the fortune to win for this my work the
+commendation of a man so highly commended I shall assuredly not repent
+of the exertions I have so far expended, and will be forward to promote
+theological studies with even more zeal for the future.
+
+Farewell, and enrol Erasmus in the number of those who are
+wholeheartedly devoted to Your Fathership.
+
+[Illustration: XXVII. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 53
+
+On the reverse his device and motto]
+
+[Illustration: XXVIII. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF ABOUT 57]
+
+
+VII. TO ALDUS MANUTIUS[42]
+
+Bologna, 28 October [1507]
+
+To Aldus Manutius of Rome, many greetings:
+
+... I have often wished, most learned Manutius, that the light you have
+cast on Greek and Latin literature, not by your printing alone and your
+splendid types, but by your brilliance and your uncommon learning, could
+have been matched by the profit you in your turn drew from them. So far
+as _fame_ is concerned, the name of Aldus Manutius will without doubt be
+on the lips of all devotees of sacred literature unto all posterity; and
+your memory will be--as your fame now is--not merely illustrious but
+loved and cherished as well, because you are engaged, as I hear, in
+reviving and disseminating the good authors--with extreme diligence but
+not at a commensurate profit--undergoing truly Herculean labours,
+labours splendid indeed and destined to bring you immortal glory, but
+meanwhile more profitable to others than to yourself. I hear that you
+are printing Plato[43] in Greek types; very many scholars eagerly await
+the book. I should like to know what medical authors you have printed; I
+wish you would give us Paul of Aegina.[44] I wonder what has prevented
+you from publishing the New Testament[45] long since--a work which would
+delight even the common people (if I conjecture aright) but particularly
+my own class, the theologians.
+
+I send you two tragedies[46] which I have been bold enough to translate,
+whether with success you yourself shall judge. Thomas Linacre, William
+Grocyn, William Latimer, Cuthbert Tunstall, friends of yours as well as
+of mine, thought highly of them; you know yourself that they are too
+learned to be deceived in their judgement, and too sincere to want to
+flatter a friend--unless their affection for me has somewhat blinded
+them; the Italians to whom I have so far shown my attempt do not condemn
+it. It has been printed by Badius, successfully as far as he is
+concerned, so he writes, for he has now sold all the copies to his
+satisfaction. But my reputation has not been enhanced thereby, so full
+is it all of mistakes, and in fact he offers his services to repair the
+first edition by printing a second. But I am afraid of his mending ill
+with ill, as the Sophoclean saying goes. I should consider my labours to
+have been immortalized if they could come out printed in your types,
+particularly the smaller types, the most beautiful of all. This will
+result in the volume being very small and the business being concluded
+at little expense. If you think it convenient to undertake the affair, I
+will supply you with a corrected copy, which I send by the bearer,
+_gratis_, except that you may wish to send me a few volumes as gifts for
+my friends.
+
+I should not have hesitated to attempt the publication at my own risk
+and expense, were it not that I have to leave Italy within a few months:
+so I should much like to have the business concluded as soon as
+possible; in fact it is hardly ten days' work. If you insist on my
+taking a hundred or two hundred volumes, though the god of gain does not
+usually favour me and it will be most inconvenient to transport the
+package, I shall not refuse, if only you fix a horse as the price.
+Farewell, most learned Aldus, and reckon Erasmus as one of your
+well-wishers.
+
+If you have any rare authors in your press, I shall be obliged if you
+will indicate this--my learned British friends have asked me to search
+for them. If you decide not to print the _Tragedies_, will you return
+the copy to the bearer to bring back to me?
+
+
+VIII. TO THOMAS MORE[47]
+
+[Paris?] 9 June [1511]
+
+To his friend Thomas More, greetings:
+
+... In days gone by, on my journey back from Italy into England, in
+order not to waste all the time that must needs be spent on horseback in
+dull and unlettered gossiping, I preferred at times either to turn over
+in my mind some topic of our common studies or to give myself over to
+the pleasing recollection of the friends, as learned as they are
+beloved, whom I had left behind me in England. You were among the very
+first of these to spring to mind, my dear More; indeed I used to enjoy
+the memory of you in absence even as I was wont to delight in your
+present company, than which I swear I never in my life met anything
+sweeter. Therefore, since I thought that I must at all hazards do
+_something_, and that time seemed ill suited to serious meditation, I
+determined to amuse myself with the _Praise of Folly_. You will ask what
+goddess put this into my mind. In the first place it was your family
+name of More, which comes as near to the word _moria_ [folly] as you
+yourself are far from the reality--everyone agrees that you are far
+removed from it. Next I suspected that you above all would approve this
+_jeu d'esprit_ of mine, in that you yourself do greatly delight in jests
+of this kind, that is, jests learned (if I mistake not) and at no time
+insipid, and altogether like to play in some sort the Democritus[48] in
+the life of society. Although you indeed, owing to your incredibly sweet
+and easy-going character, are both able and glad to be all things to all
+men, even as your singularly penetrating intellect causes you to dissent
+widely from the opinions of the herd. So you will not only gladly accept
+this little declamation as a memento of your comrade, but will also take
+it under your protection, inasmuch as it is dedicated to you and is now
+no longer mine but yours.
+
+And indeed there will perhaps be no lack of brawlers to represent that
+trifles are more frivolous than becomes a theologian, or more mordant
+than suits with Christian modesty, and they will be crying out that I am
+reviving the Old Comedy or Lucian and assailing everything with biting
+satire. But I would have those who are offended by the levity and
+sportiveness of my theme reflect that it was not I that began this, but
+that the same was practised by great writers in former times; seeing
+that so many centuries ago Homer made his trifle _The Battle of Frogs
+and Mice_, Virgil his _Gnat_ and _Dish of Herbs_ and Ovid his _Nut_;
+seeing that Busiris was praised by Polycrates and his critic Isocrates,
+Injustice by Glaucon, Thersites and the Quartan Fever by Favorinus,
+Baldness by Synesius, the Fly and the Art of Being a Parasite by Lucian;
+and that Seneca devised the Apotheosis of the Emperor Claudius, Plutarch
+the Dialogue of Gryllus and Ulysses, Lucian and Apuleius the Ass, and
+someone unknown the Testament of Grunnius Corocotta the Piglet,
+mentioned even by St. Jerome.
+
+So, if they will, let my detractors imagine that I have played an
+occasional game of draughts for a pastime or, if they prefer, taken a
+ride on a hobby-horse. How unfair it is truly, when we grant every
+calling in life its amusements, not to allow the profession of learning
+any amusement at all, particularly if triflings bring serious thoughts
+in their train and frivolous matters are so treated that a reader not
+altogether devoid of perception wins more profit from these than from
+the glittering and portentous arguments of certain persons--as when for
+instance one man eulogizes rhetoric or philosophy in a painfully
+stitched-together oration, another rehearses the praises of some prince,
+another urges us to begin a war with the Turks, another foretells the
+future, and another proposes a new method of splitting hairs. Just as
+there is nothing so trifling as to treat serious matters triflingly, so
+there is nothing so delightful as to treat trifling matters in such
+fashion that it appears that you have been doing anything but trifle. As
+to me, the judgement is in other hands--and yet, unless I am altogether
+misled by self-love, I have sung the praise of Folly and that not
+altogether foolishly.
+
+And now to reply to the charge of mordacity. It has ever been the
+privilege of wits to satirize the life of society with impunity,
+provided that licence does not degenerate into frenzy. Wherefore the
+more do I marvel at the fastidiousness of men's ears in these times, who
+by now can scarce endure anything but solemn appellations. Further, we
+see some men so perversely religious that they will suffer the most
+hideous revilings against Christ sooner than let prince or pope be
+sullied by the lightest jest, particularly if this concerns monetary
+gain. But if a man censures men's lives without reproving anyone at all
+by name, pray do you think this man a satirist, and not rather a teacher
+and admonisher? Else on how many counts do I censure myself? Moreover he
+who leaves no class of men unmentioned is clearly foe to no man but to
+all vices. Therefore anyone who rises up and cries out that he is
+insulted will be revealing a bad conscience, or at all events fear. St.
+Jerome wrote satire in this kind far more free and biting, not always
+abstaining from the mention of names, whereas I myself, apart from not
+mentioning anyone by name, have moreover so tempered my pen that the
+sagacious reader will easily understand that my aim has been to give
+pleasure, not pain; for I have at no point followed Juvenal's example in
+'stirring up the murky bilge of crime', and I have sought to survey the
+laughable, not the disgusting. If there is anyone whom even this cannot
+appease, at least let him remember that it is a fine thing to be reviled
+by Folly; in bringing her upon the stage I had to suit the words to the
+character. But why need I say all this to you, an advocate so remarkable
+that you can defend excellently even causes far from excellent?
+Farewell, most eloquent More, and be diligent in defending your _moria_.
+
+
+IX. TO JOHN COLET[49]
+
+Cambridge, 29 October [1511]
+
+To his friend Colet, greetings:
+
+... Something came into my mind which I know will make you laugh. In the
+presence of several Masters [of Arts] I was putting forward a view on
+the Assistant Teacher, when one of them, a man of some repute, smiled
+and said: 'Who could bear to spend his life in that school among boys,
+when he could live anywhere in any way he liked?' I answered mildly that
+it seemed to me a very honourable task to train young people in manners
+and literature, that Christ himself did not despise the young, that no
+age had a better right to help, and that from no quarter was a richer
+return to be expected, seeing that young people were the harvest-field
+and raw material of the nation. I added that all truly religious people
+felt that they could not better serve God in any other duty than the
+bringing of children to Christ. He wrinkled his nose and said with a
+scornful gesture: 'If any man wishes to serve Christ altogether, let him
+go into a monastery and enter a religious order.' I answered that St.
+Paul said that true religion consisted in the offices of
+charity--charity consisting in doing our best to help our neighbours.
+This he rejected as an ignorant remark. 'Look,' said he, 'we have
+forsaken everything: in this is perfection.' 'That man has not forsaken
+everything,' said I, 'who, when he could help very many by his labours,
+refuses to undertake a duty because it is regarded as humble.' And with
+that, to prevent a quarrel arising, I let the man go. There you have the
+dialogue. You see the Scotist philosophy! Once again, farewell.
+
+
+X. TO SERVATIUS ROGER
+
+Hammes Castle [near Calais],
+
+8 July 1514
+
+To the Reverend Father Servatius, many greetings:
+
+... Most humane father, your letter has at last reached me, after
+passing through many hands, when I had already left England, and it has
+afforded me unbelievable delight, as it still breathes your old
+affection for me. However, I shall answer briefly, as I am writing just
+after the journey, and shall reply in particular on those matters which
+are, as you write, strictly to the point. Men's thoughts are so varied,
+'to each his own bird-song', that it is impossible to satisfy everyone.
+My own feelings are that I want to follow what is best to do, God is my
+witness. Those feelings which I had in my youth have been corrected
+partly by age, partly by experience of the world. I have never intended
+to change my mode of life or my habit--not that I liked them, but to
+avoid scandal. You are aware that I was not so much led as driven to
+this mode of life by the obstinate determination of my guardians and the
+wrongful urgings of others, and that afterwards, when I realized that
+this kind of life was quite unsuited to me (for not all things suit all
+men), I was held back by Cornelius of Woerden's reproaches and by a
+certain boyish sense of shame. I was never able to endure fasting,
+through some peculiarity of my constitution. Once roused from sleep I
+could never fall asleep again for several hours. I was so drawn towards
+literature, which is not practised in the monastery, that I do not doubt
+that if I had chanced on some free mode of life I could have been
+numbered not merely among the happy but even among the good.
+
+So, when I realized that I was by no means fit for this mode of life,
+that I had taken it up under compulsion and not of my own free will,
+nevertheless, as public opinion in these days regards it as a crime to
+break away from a mode of life once taken up, I had resolved to endure
+with fortitude this part of my unhappiness also--you know that I am in
+many things unfortunate. But I have always regarded this one thing as
+harder than all the rest, that I had been forced into a mode of life for
+which I was totally unfit both in body and in mind: in mind, because I
+abhorred ritual and loved liberty; in body, because even had I been
+perfectly satisfied with the life, my constitution could not endure such
+labours. One may object that I had a year of probation, as it is called,
+and that I was of ripe age. Ridiculous! As if anyone could expect a boy
+of sixteen, particularly one with a literary training, to know himself
+(an achievement even for an old man), or to have succeeded in learning
+in a single year what many do not yet understand in their grey hairs.
+Though I myself never liked the life, still less after I had tried it,
+but was trapped in the way I have mentioned; although I confess that the
+truly good man will live a good life in any calling. And I do not deny
+that I was prone to grievous vices, but not of so utterly corrupt a
+nature that I could not have come to some good, had I found a kindly
+guide, a true Christian, not one given to Jewish scruples.
+
+Meanwhile I looked about to find in what kind of life I could be least
+bad, and I believe indeed that I have attained this. I have spent my
+life meantime among sober men, in literary studies, which have kept me
+off many vices. I have been able to associate with true followers of
+Christ, whose conversation has made me a better man. I do not now boast
+of my books, which you at Steyn perhaps despise.
+
+But many confess that they have become not merely more knowledgeable,
+but even better men through reading them. Passion for money has never
+affected me. I am quite untouched by the thirst for fame. I have never
+been a slave to pleasures, although I was formerly inclined to them.
+Over-indulgence and drunkenness I have ever loathed and avoided. But
+whenever I thought of returning to your society, I remembered the
+jealousy of many, the contempt of all, the conversations how dull, how
+foolish, how un-Christlike, the feasts how unclerical! In short the
+whole way of life, from which if you remove the ritual, I do not see
+what remains that one could desire. Lastly I remembered my frail
+constitution, now weakened by age, disease and hard work, as a result of
+which I should fail to satisfy you and kill myself. For several years
+now I have been subject to the stone, a severe and deadly illness, and
+for several years I have drunk nothing but wine, and not all kinds of
+wine at that, owing to my disease; I cannot endure all kinds of food nor
+indeed all climates. The illness is very liable to recur and demands a
+very careful regimen; and I know the climate in Holland and your style
+of living, not to mention your ways. So, had I come back to you, all I
+would have achieved would have been to bring trouble on you and death on
+myself.
+
+But perhaps you think it a great part of happiness to die amid one's
+fellow-brethren? This belief deceives and imposes not on you alone but
+on nearly everyone. We make Christian piety depend on place, dress,
+style of living and on certain little rituals. We think a man lost who
+changes his white dress for black, or his cowl for a cap, or
+occasionally moves from place to place. I should dare to say that
+Christian piety has suffered great damage from these so-called religious
+practices, although it may be that their first introduction was due to
+pious zeal. They then gradually increased and divided into thousands of
+distinctions; this was helped by a papal authority which was too lax and
+easy-going in many cases. What more defiled or more impious than these
+lax rituals? And if you turn to those that are commended, no, to the
+most highly commended, apart from some dreary Jewish rituals, I know not
+what image of Christ one finds in them. It is these on which they preen
+themselves, these by which they judge and condemn others. How much more
+in conformity with the spirit of Christ to consider the whole Christian
+world one home and as it were one monastery, to regard all men as one's
+fellow-monks and fellow-brethren, to hold the sacrament of Baptism as
+the supreme rite, and not to consider where one lives but how well one
+lives! You want me to settle on a permanent abode, a course which my
+very age also suggests. But the travellings of Solon, Pythagoras and
+Plato are praised; and the Apostles, too, were wanderers, in particular
+Paul. St. Jerome also was a monk now in Rome, now in Syria, now in
+Antioch, now here, now there, and even in his old age pursued literary
+studies.
+
+But I am not to be compared with St. Jerome--I agree; yet I have never
+moved unless forced by the plague or for reasons of study or health, and
+wherever I have lived (I shall say this of myself, arrogantly perhaps,
+but truthfully) I have been commended by the most highly commended and
+praised by the most praised. There is no land, neither Spain nor Italy
+nor Germany nor France nor England nor Scotland, which does not summon
+me to partake of its hospitality. And if I am not liked by all (which is
+not my aim), at all events I am liked in the highest places of all. At
+Rome there was no cardinal who did not welcome me like a brother; in
+particular the Cardinal of St. George,[50] the Cardinal of Bologna,[51]
+Cardinal Grimani, the Cardinal of Nantes,[52] and the present Pope,[53]
+not to mention bishops, archdeacons and men of learning. And this honour
+was not a tribute to wealth, which even now I neither possess nor
+desire; nor to ambition, a failing to which I have ever been a stranger;
+but solely to learning, which our countrymen ridicule, while the
+Italians worship it. In England there is no bishop who is not glad to be
+greeted by me, who does not desire my company, who does not want me in
+his home. The King himself, a little before his father's death, when I
+was in Italy, wrote a most affectionate letter to me with his own hand,
+and now too speaks often of me in the most honourable and affectionate
+terms; and whenever I greet him he welcomes me most courteously and
+looks at me in a most friendly fashion, making it plain that his
+feelings for me are as friendly as his speeches. And he has often
+commissioned his Almoner[54] to find a benefice for me. The Queen sought
+to take me as her tutor. Everyone knows that, if I were prepared to live
+even a few months at Court, he would heap on me as many benefices as I
+cared for; but I put my leisure and my learned labours before
+everything. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England and
+Chancellor of the Realm, a good and learned man, could not treat me with
+more affection were I his father or brother. And that you may understand
+that he is sincere in this, he gave me a living of nearly 100 nobles,
+which afterwards at my wish he changed into a pension of 100 crowns on
+my resignation; in addition he has given me more than 400 nobles during
+the last few years, although I never asked for anything. He gave me 150
+nobles in one day. I received more than 100 nobles from other bishops in
+freely offered gifts. Mountjoy, a baron of the realm, formerly my pupil,
+gives me annually a pension of 100 crowns. The King and the Bishop of
+Lincoln, who has great influence through the King, make many splendid
+promises. There are two universities in England, Oxford and Cambridge,
+and both of them want me; at Cambridge I taught Greek and sacred
+literature for several months, for nothing, and have resolved always to
+do this. There are colleges here so religious, and of such modesty in
+living, that you would spurn any other religious life, could you see
+them. In London there is John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who has
+combined great learning with a marvellous piety, a man greatly respected
+by all. He is so fond of me, as all know, that he prefers my company
+above all others'; I do not mention many others, lest I doubly vex you
+with my loquacity as well as my boasting.
+
+Now to say something of my works--I think you have read the
+_Enchiridion_,[55] through which not a few confess themselves inspired
+to the study of piety; I make no claim for myself, but give thanks to
+Christ for any good which has come to pass through me by His giving. I
+do not know whether you have seen the _Adagia_,[56] printed by Aldus. It
+is not a theological work, but most useful for every branch of learning;
+at least it cost me countless labours and sleepless nights. I have
+published a work _De rerum verborumque copia_,[57] dedicated to my
+friend Colet, very useful for those who desire to speak in public; but
+all these are despised by those who despise all good learning. During
+the last two years, apart from much else, I have emended the _Letters_
+of St. Jerome, obelizing what was false and spurious and explaining the
+obscure passages with notes. I have corrected the whole of the New
+Testament from collations of the Greek and ancient manuscripts, and have
+annotated more than a thousand passages, not without some benefit to
+theologians. I have begun commentaries on the _Epistles_ of St. Paul,
+which I shall complete when I have published these. For I have resolved
+to live and die in the study of the Scriptures. I make these my work and
+my leisure. Men of consequence say that I can do what others cannot in
+this field; in your mode of life I shall be able to do nothing. Although
+I have been intimate with so many grave and learned men, here and in
+Italy and France, I have not yet found anyone who advised me to return
+to you or thought this the better course. Nay, even Nicholas Werner of
+blessed memory, your predecessor, would always dissuade me from this,
+advising me to attach myself rather to some bishop; he would add that he
+knew my mind and his little brothers' ways: those were the words he
+used, in the vernacular. In the life I live now I see what I should
+avoid, but do not see what would be a better course.
+
+It now remains to satisfy you on the question of my dress. I have always
+up to now worn the canon's dress, and when I was at Louvain I obtained
+permission from the Bishop of Utrecht to wear a linen scapular instead
+of a complete linen garment, and a black capuce instead of a black
+cloak, after the Parisian custom. But on my journey to Italy, seeing the
+monks all along the way wearing a black garment with a scapular, I there
+took to wearing black, with a scapular, to avoid giving offence by any
+unusual dress. Afterwards the plague broke out at Bologna, and there
+those who nurse the sick of the plague customarily wear a white linen
+cloth depending from the shoulder--these avoid contact with people.
+Consequently when one day I went to call on a learned friend some
+rascals drew their swords and were preparing to set about me, and would
+have done so, had not a certain matron warned them that I was an
+ecclesiastic. Again the next day, when I was on my way to visit the
+Treasurer's sons, they rushed at me with bludgeons from all directions
+and attacked me with horrible cries. So on the advice of good men I
+concealed my scapular, and obtained a dispensation from Pope Julius II
+allowing me to wear the religious dress or not, as seemed good, provided
+that I wore clerical garb; and in this document he condoned any previous
+offences in the matter. In Italy I continued to wear clerical garb, lest
+the change cause offence to anyone. On my return to England I decided to
+wear my usual dress, and I invited to my lodging a friend of excellent
+repute for his learning and mode of life and showed him the dress I had
+decided to wear; I asked him whether this was suitable in England. He
+approved, so I appeared in public in this dress. I was at once warned by
+other friends that this dress could not be tolerated in England, that I
+had better conceal it. I did so; and as it cannot be concealed without
+causing scandal if it is eventually discovered, I stored it away in a
+box, and up to now have taken advantage of the Papal dispensation
+received formerly. Ecclesiastical law excommunicates anyone who casts
+off the religious habit so as to move more freely in secular society. I
+put it off under compulsion in Italy, to escape being killed; and
+likewise under compulsion in England, because it was not tolerated
+there, although myself I should much prefer to have worn it. To adopt it
+again now would cause more scandal than did the change itself.
+
+There you have an account of my whole life, there you have my plans. I
+should like to change even this present mode of life, if I see a better.
+But I do not see what I am to do in Holland. I know that the climate and
+way of living will not agree with me; I shall have everyone looking at
+me. I shall return a white-haired old man, having gone away as a
+youth--I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed to the
+contempt of the lowest, used as I am to the respect of the highest. I
+shall exchange my studies for drinking-parties. As to your promising me
+your help in finding me a place where I can live with an excellent
+income, as you write, I cannot conjecture what this can be, unless
+perhaps you intend to place me among some community of nuns, to serve
+women--I who have never been willing to serve kings nor archbishops. I
+want no pay; I have no desire for riches, if only I have money enough to
+provide for my health and my literary leisure, to enable me to live
+without burdening anyone. I wish we could discuss these things together
+face to face; it cannot be done in a letter conveniently or safely. Your
+letter, although it was sent by most reliable persons, went so far
+astray that if I had not accidentally come to this castle I should never
+have seen it; and many people had looked at it before I received it. So
+do not mention anything secret unless you know for certain where I am
+and have a very trustworthy messenger. I am now on my way to Germany,
+that is, Basle, to have my works published, and this winter I shall
+perhaps be in Rome. On my return journey I shall see to it that we meet
+and talk somewhere. But now the summer is nearly over and it is a long
+journey. Farewell, once my sweetest comrade, now my esteemed father.
+
+
+XI. TO WOLFGANG FABRICIUS CAPITO[58]
+
+Antwerp, 26 February 1516/17
+
+To the distinguished theologian Wolfgang Fabricius Capito of Hagenau,
+skilled in the three languages, greetings:
+
+... Now that I see that the mightiest princes of the earth, King Francis
+of France, Charles the Catholic King, King Henry of England and the
+Emperor Maximilian have drastically cut down all warlike preparations
+and concluded a firm and, I hope, unbreakable treaty of peace, I feel
+entitled to hope with confidence that not only the moral virtues and
+Christian piety but also the true learning, purified of corruption, and
+the fine disciplines will revive and blossom forth; particularly as this
+aim is being prosecuted with equal zeal in different parts of the world,
+in Rome by Pope Leo, in Spain by the Cardinal of Toledo,[59] in England
+by King Henry VIII, himself no mean scholar, here by King Charles, a
+young man admirably gifted, in France by King Francis, a man as it were
+born for this task, who besides offers splendid rewards to attract and
+entice men distinguished for virtue and learning from all parts, in
+Germany by many excellent princes and bishops and above all by the
+Emperor Maximilian, who, wearied in his old age of all these wars, has
+resolved to find rest in the arts of peace: a resolve at once more
+becoming to himself at his age and more fortunate for Christendom. It is
+to these men's piety then that we owe it that all over the world, as if
+on a given signal, splendid talents are stirring and awakening and
+conspiring together to revive the best learning. For what else is this
+but a conspiracy, when all these great scholars from different lands
+share out the work among themselves and set about this noble task, not
+merely with enthusiasm but with a fair measure of success, so that we
+have an almost certain prospect of seeing all disciplines emerge once
+more into the light of day in a far purer and more genuine form? In the
+first place polite letters, for long reduced almost to extinction, are
+being taken up and cultivated by the Scots, the Danes and the Irish. As
+for medicine, how many champions has she found! Nicholas Leonicenus[60]
+in Rome, Ambrose Leo of Nola[61] at Venice, William Cop[62] and John
+Ruell[63] in France, and Thomas Linacre in England. Roman law is being
+revived in Paris by William Budaeus[64] and in Germany by Ulrich
+Zasius,[65] mathematics at Basle by Henry Glareanus.[66]
+
+In theology there was more to do, for up till now its professors have
+almost always been men with an ingrained loathing for good learning, men
+who conceal their ignorance the more successfully as they do this on
+what they call a religious pretext, so that the ignorant herd is
+persuaded by them to believe it a violation of religion if anyone
+proceeds to attack their barbarism; for they prefer to wail for help to
+the uneducated mob and incite it to stone-throwing if they see any
+danger of their ignorance on any point coming to light. But I am
+confident that here, too, all will go well as soon as the knowledge of
+the three languages [Greek, Latin and Hebrew] becomes accepted publicly
+in the schools, as it has begun to be.... The humblest share in this
+work has fallen on me, as is fitting; I know not whether I have
+contributed anything of value; at all events I have infuriated those who
+do not want the world to come to its senses, so that it seems as if my
+poor efforts also have not been ineffective: although I have not
+undertaken the work in the belief that, I could teach anything
+magnificent, but I wanted to open a road for others, destined to attempt
+greater things, that they might with greater ease ascend the shining
+heights without running into so many rough and quaggy places. Yet this
+humble diligence of mine is not disdained by the honest and learned, and
+none complain of it but a few so stupid that they are hissed off the
+stage by even ordinary persons of any intelligence. Here not long ago
+someone complained tearfully before the people, in a sermon of course,
+that it was all over with the Scriptures and the theologians who had
+hitherto upheld the Christian faith on their shoulders, now that men had
+arisen to emend the Holy Gospel and the very words of Our Lord: just as
+if I was rebuking Matthew or Luke instead of those whose ignorance or
+negligence had corrupted what they wrote correctly. In England one or
+two persons complain loudly that it is a shameful thing that _I_ should
+dare to teach a great man like St. Jerome: as if I had changed what St.
+Jerome wrote, instead of restoring it!
+
+Yet those who snarl out suchlike dirges, which any laundryman with a
+little sense would scoff at, think themselves great theologians ... Not
+that I want the kind of theology which is customary in the schools
+nowadays consigned to oblivion; I wish it to be rendered more
+trustworthy and more correct by the accession of the old, true learning.
+It will not weaken the authority of the Scriptures or theologians if
+certain passages hitherto considered corrupt are henceforth read in an
+emended form, or if passages are more correctly understood on which up
+till now the mass of theologians have entertained delusions: no, it will
+give greater weight to their authority, the more genuine their
+understanding of the Scriptures. I have sustained the shock of the first
+meeting, which Terence calls the sharpest.... One doubt still troubles
+me; I fear that under cover of the rebirth of ancient learning paganism
+may seek to rear its head, as even among Christians there are those who
+acknowledge Christ in name only, but in their hearts are Gentiles; or
+that with the renascence of Hebrew studies Judaism may seek to use this
+opportunity of revival; and there can be nothing more contrary or more
+hostile to the teaching of Christ than this plague. This is the nature
+of human affairs--nothing good has ever so flourished but some evil has
+attempted to use it as a pretext for insinuating itself. I could wish
+that those dreary quibblings could be either done away with or at least
+cease to be the sole activity of theologians, and that the simplicity
+and purity of Christ could penetrate deeply into the minds of men; and
+this I think can best be brought to pass if with the help provided by
+the three languages we exercise our minds in the actual sources. But I
+pray that we may avoid this evil without falling into another perhaps
+graver error. Recently several pamphlets have been published reeking of
+unadulterated Judaism.
+
+
+XII. TO THOMAS MORE
+
+Louvain, 5 March 1518
+
+To his friend More, greeting:
+
+... First of all I ask you to entrust to the bearer, my servant John,
+any letters of mine or yours which you consider fit for publication with
+the alteration of some passages; I am simply compelled to publish my
+letters whether I like it or not. Send off the lad so that he returns
+here as quickly as possible. If you discover that Urswick is
+ill-disposed towards me perhaps he should not be troubled; otherwise,
+help me in the matter of a horse--I shall need one just now when I am
+about to go to Basle or Venice, chiefly for the purpose of bringing out
+the New Testament.[67] Such is my fate, dear More. I shall enact this
+part of my play also. Afterwards, I almost feel inclined to sing 'for
+myself and the Muses'; my age and my health, which grows daily worse,
+almost require this. Over here scoundrels in disguise are so
+all-powerful, and no one here makes money but innkeepers, advocates, and
+begging friars. It is unendurable when many speak ill and none do good.
+
+At Basle they make the elegant preface added by Budaeus the excuse for
+the delay over your Utopia. They have now received it and have started
+on the work. Then Froben's father-in-law Lachner died. But Froben's
+press will be sweating over our studies none the less. I have not yet
+had a chance of seeing Linacre's _Therapeutice_,[68] through some
+conspiracy of the Parisians against me. Inquire courteously of Lupset on
+the Appendix[69] to my _Copia_ and send it.
+
+The Pope and the princes are up to some new tricks on the pretext of the
+savagery of the war against the Turks. Wretched Turks! May we Christians
+not be too cruel! Even wives are affected. All married men between the
+ages of twenty-six and fifty will be compelled to take up arms.
+Meanwhile the Pope forbids the wives of men absent at the war to indulge
+in pleasure at home; they are to eschew elegant apparel, must not wear
+silk, gold or any jewellery, must not touch rouge or drink wine, and
+must fast every other day, that God may favour their husbands engaged in
+this cruel war. If there are men tied at home by necessary business,
+their wives must none the less observe the same rules as they would have
+had to observe if their husbands had gone to the war. They are to sleep
+in the same room but in different beds; and not a kiss is to be given
+meanwhile until this terrible war reaches a successful conclusion under
+Christ's favour. I know that these enactments will irritate wives who do
+not sufficiently ponder the importance of the business; though I know
+that your wife, sensible as she is, and obedient in regard to a matter
+of Christian observance, will even be glad to obey.
+
+I send Pace's pamphlet, the _Conclusions on Papal Indulgences_,[70] and
+the _Proposal for Undertaking a War against the Turks_,[71] as I suspect
+that they have not yet reached England. They write from Cologne that
+some pamphlet about an argument between Julius and Peter at the gates of
+Paradise[72] has now been printed; they do not add the author's name.
+The German presses will not cease from their mad pranks until their
+rashness is restrained by some law; this does me much harm, who am
+endeavouring to help the world....
+
+I beg you to let my servant sleep one or two nights with yours, to
+prevent his chancing on an infected house, and to afford him anything he
+may need, although I have supplied him with travelling money myself. I
+have at last seen the _Utopia_ at Paris printed, but with many
+misprints. It is now in the press at Basle; I had threatened to break
+with them unless they took more trouble with that business than with
+mine. Farewell, most sincere of friends.
+
+
+XIII. TO BEATUS RHENANUS[73]
+
+Louvain [_c._ 15 October] 1518
+
+To his friend Rhenanus, greetings:
+
+... Let me describe to you, my dear Beatus, the whole tragi-comedy of my
+journey. I was still weak and listless, as you know, when I left Basle,
+not having come to terms with the climate, after skulking at home so
+long, and occupied in uninterrupted labors at that. The river voyage was
+not unpleasant, but that around midday the heat of the sun was somewhat
+trying. We had a meal at Breisach, the most unpleasant meal I have ever
+had. The smell of food nearly finished me, and then the flies, worse
+than the smell. We sat at table doing nothing for more than half an
+hour, waiting for them to produce their banquet, if you please. In the
+end nothing fit to eat was served; filthy porridge with lumps in it and
+salt fish reheated not for the first time, enough to make one sick. I
+did not call on Gallinarius. The man who brought word that he was
+suffering from a slight fever also told me a pretty story; that Minorite
+theologian with whom I had disputed about _heceitas_[74] had taken it on
+himself to pawn the church chalices. Scotist ingenuity! Just before
+nightfall we were put out at a dull village; I did not feel like
+discovering its name, and if I knew I should not care to tell you it. I
+nearly perished there. We had supper in a small room like a
+sweating-chamber, more than sixty of us, I should say, an indiscriminate
+collection of rapscallions, and this went on till nearly ten o'clock;
+oh, the stench, and the noise, particularly after they had become
+intoxicated! Yet we had to remain sitting to suit their clocks.
+
+In the morning while it was still quite dark we were driven from bed by
+the shouting of the sailors. I went on board without having either
+supped or slept. We reached Strasbourg before lunch, at about nine
+o'clock; there we had a more comfortable reception, particularly as
+Schuerer produced some wine. Some of the Society[75] were there, and
+afterwards they all came to greet me, Gerbel outdoing all the rest in
+politeness. Gebwiler and Rudolfingen did not want me to pay, no new
+thing with them. Thence we proceeded on horseback as far as Speyer; we
+saw no sign of soldiers anywhere, although there had been alarming
+rumours. The English horse completely collapsed and hardly got to
+Speyer; that criminal smith had handled him so badly that he ought to
+have both his ears branded with red-hot iron. At Speyer I slipped away
+from the inn and took myself to my neighbour Maternus. There Decanus, a
+learned and cultivated man, entertained me courteously and agreeably for
+two days. Here I accidentally found Hermann Busch.
+
+From Speyer I travelled by carriage to Worms, and from there again to
+Mainz. There was an Imperial secretary, Ulrich Varnbueler,[76] travelling
+by chance in the same carriage. He devoted himself to me with incredible
+assiduity over the whole journey, and at Mainz would not allow me to go
+into the inn but took me to the house of a canon; on my departure he
+accompanied me to the boat. The voyage was not unpleasant as the weather
+was fine, excepting that the crew took care to make it somewhat long; in
+addition to this the stench of the horses incommoded me. For the first
+day John Langenfeld, who formerly taught at Louvain, and a lawyer friend
+of his came with me as a mark of politeness. There was also a
+Westphalian, John, a canon at St. Victor's outside Mainz, a most
+agreeable and entertaining man.
+
+After arriving at Boppard, as I was taking a walk along the bank while a
+boat was being procured, someone recognized me and betrayed me to the
+customs officer, 'That is the man.' The customs officer's name is, if I
+mistake not, Christopher Cinicampius, in the common speech Eschenfelder.
+You would not believe how the man jumped for joy. He dragged me into his
+house. Books by Erasmus were lying on a small table amongst the customs
+agreements. He exclaimed at his good fortune and called in his wife and
+children and all his friends. Meanwhile he sent out to the sailors who
+were calling for me two tankards of wine, and another two when they
+called out again, promising that when he came back he would remit the
+toll to the man who had brought him a man like myself. From Boppard John
+Flaminius, chaplain to the nuns there, a man of angelic purity, of sane
+and sober judgement and no common learning, accompanied me as far as
+Coblenz. At Coblenz Matthias, Chancellor to the Bishop, swept us off to
+his house--he is a young man but of staid manners, and has an accurate
+knowledge of Latin, besides being a skilled lawyer. There we supped
+merrily.
+
+At Bonn the canon left us, to avoid Cologne: I wanted to avoid Cologne
+myself, but the servant had preceded me thither with the horses, and
+there was no reliable person in the boat whom I could have charged with
+the business of calling back my servant; I did not trust the sailors. So
+we docked at Cologne before six o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, the
+weather being by now pestilential. I went into an inn and gave orders to
+the ostlers to hire me a carriage and pair, ordering a meal to be made
+ready by ten o'clock. I attended Divine Service, the lunch was delayed.
+I had no luck with the carriage and pair. I tried to hire a horse; my
+own were useless. Everything failed. I realized what was up; they were
+trying to make me stop there. I immediately ordered my horses to be
+harnessed, and one bag to be loaded; the other bag I entrusted to the
+innkeeper, and on my lame horse rode quickly to the Count of
+Neuenahr's[77]--a five-hour journey. He was staying at Bedburg.
+
+With the Count I stayed five days very pleasantly, in such peace and
+quiet that while staying with him I completed a good part of the
+revision--I had taken that part of the New Testament with me. Would that
+you knew him, my dear Beatus! He is a young man but of rare good sense,
+more than you would find in an old man; he speaks little, but as Homer
+says of Menelaus, he speaks 'in clear tones,' and intelligently too; he
+is learned without pretentiousness in more than one branch of study,
+wholly sincere and a good friend. By now I was strong and lusty, and
+well pleased with myself, and was hoping to be in a good state when I
+visited the Bishop of Liege and to return hale and hearty to my friends
+in Brabant. What dinner-parties, what felicitations, what discussions I
+promised myself! But ah, deceptive human hopes! ah, the sudden and
+unexpected vicissitudes of human affairs! From these high dreams of
+happiness I was hurled to the depths of misfortune.
+
+I had hired a carriage and pair for the next day. My companion, not
+wanting to say goodbye before night, announced that he would see me in
+the morning before my departure. That night a wild hurricane sprang up,
+which had passed before the next morning. Nevertheless I rose after
+midnight, to make some notes for the Count: when it was already seven
+o'clock and the Count did not emerge, I asked for him to be waked. He
+came, and in his customary shy and modest way asked me whether I meant
+to leave in such bad weather, saying he was afraid for me. At that
+point, my dear Beatus, some god or bad angel deprived me, not of the
+half of my senses, as Hesiod says, but of the whole: for he had deprived
+me of half my senses when I risked going to Cologne. I wish that either
+my friend had warned me more sharply or that I had paid more attention
+to his most affectionate remonstrances! I was seized by the power of
+fate: what else am I to say? I climbed into an uncovered carriage, the
+wind blowing 'strong as when in the high mountains it shivers the
+trembling holm-oaks.' It was a south wind and blowing like the very
+pest. I thought I was well protected by my wrappings, but it went
+through everything with its violence. Towards nightfall a light rain
+came on, more noxious than the wind that preceded it: I arrived at
+Aachen exhausted from the shaking of the carriage, which was so trying
+to me on the stone-paved road that I should have preferred sitting on my
+horse, lame as he was. Here I was carried off from the inn by a canon,
+to whom the Count had recommended me, to Suderman's house. There several
+canons were holding their usual drinking-party. My appetite had been
+sharpened by a very light lunch; but at the time they had nothing by
+them but carp, and cold carp at that. I ate to repletion. The drinking
+went on well into the night. I excused myself and went to bed, as I had
+had very little sleep the night before.
+
+On the following day I was taken to the Vice-Provost's house; it was his
+turn to offer hospitality. As there was no fish there apart from eel
+(this was certainly the fault of the storm, as he is a magnificent host
+otherwise) I lunched off a fish dried in the open air, which the Germans
+call _Stockfisch_, from the rod used to beat it--it is a fish which I
+enjoy at other times: but I discovered that part of this one had not
+been properly cured. After lunch, as the weather was appalling, I took
+myself off to the inn and ordered a fire to be lit. The canon whom I
+mentioned, a most cultured man, stayed talking with me for about an hour
+and a half. Meanwhile I began to feel very uncomfortable inside; as this
+continued, I sent him away and went to the privy. As this gave my
+stomach no relief I inserted my finger into my mouth, and the uncured
+fish came up, but that was all. I lay down afterwards, not so much
+sleeping as resting, without any pain in my head or body; then, having
+struck a bargain with the coachman over the bags, I received an
+invitation to the evening compotation. I excused myself, without
+success. I knew that my stomach would not stand anything but a few sups
+of warmed liquor.... On this occasion there was a magnificent spread,
+but it was wasted on me. After comforting my stomach with a sup of wine,
+I went home; I was sleeping at Suderman's house. As soon as I went out
+of doors my empty body shivered fearfully in the night air.
+
+On the morning of the next day, after taking a little warmed ale and a
+few morsels of bread, I mounted my horse, who was lame and ailing, which
+made riding more uncomfortable. By now I was in such a state that I
+would have been better keeping warm in bed than mounted on horseback.
+But that district is the most countrified, roughest, barren and
+unattractive imaginable, the inhabitants are so idle; so that I
+preferred to run away. The danger of brigands--it was very great in
+those parts--or at least my fear of them, was driven out of my mind by
+the discomfort of my illness.... After covering four miles on this ride
+I reached Maastricht. There after a drink to soothe my stomach I
+remounted and came to Tongres, about three miles away. This last ride
+was by far the most painful to me. The awkward gait of the horse gave me
+excruciating pains in the kidneys. It would have been easier to walk,
+but I was afraid of sweating, and there was a danger of the night
+catching us still out in the country. So I reached Tongres with my whole
+body in a state of unbelievable agony. By now, owing to lack of food and
+the exertion in addition, all my muscles had given way, so that I could
+not stand or walk steadily. I concealed the severity of my illness by my
+tongue--that was still working. Here I took a sup of ale to soothe my
+stomach and retired to bed.
+
+In the morning I ordered them to hire a carriage. I decided to go on
+horseback, on account of the paving stones, until we reached an unpaved
+road. I mounted the bigger horse, thinking that he would go better on
+the paving and be more sure-footed. I had hardly mounted when I felt my
+eyes clouding over as I met the cold air, and asked for a cloak. But
+soon after this I fainted; I could be roused by a touch. Then my servant
+John and the others standing by let me come to myself naturally, still
+sitting on the horse. After coming to myself I got into the carriage....
+By now we were approaching the town of St. Trond. I mounted once more,
+not to appear an invalid, riding in a carriage. Once again the evening
+air made me feel sick, but I did not faint. I offered the coachman
+double the fare if he would take me the next day as far as Tirlemont, a
+town six miles from Tongres. He accepted the terms. Here a guest whom I
+knew told me how ill the Bishop of Liege had taken my leaving for Basle
+without calling on him. After soothing my stomach with a drink I went to
+bed, and had a very bad night.... Here by chance I found a coach going
+to Louvain, six miles away, and threw myself into it. I made the journey
+in incredible and almost unendurable discomfort; however we reached
+Louvain by seven o'clock on that day.
+
+I had no intention of going to my own room, whether because I had a
+suspicion that all would be cold there, or that I did not want to run
+the risk of interfering with the amenities of the College in any way, if
+I started a rumour of the plague. I went to Theodoric the printer's....
+During the night a large ulcer broke without my feeling it, and the pain
+had died down. The next day I called a surgeon. He applied poultices. A
+third ulcer had appeared on my back, caused by a servant at Tongres when
+he was anointing me with oil of roses for the pain in the kidneys and
+rubbed one of my ribs too hard with a horny finger.... The surgeon on
+his way out told Theodoric and his servant secretly that it was the
+plague; he would send poultices, but would not come to see me
+himself.... When the surgeon failed to return after a day or two, I
+asked Theodoric the reason. He made some excuse. But I, suspecting what
+the matter was, said 'What, does he think it is the plague?'
+'Precisely,' said he, 'he insists that you have three plague-sores.' I
+laughed, and did not allow myself even to imagine that I had the plague.
+After some days the surgeon's father came, examined me, and assured me
+that it was the true plague. Even so, I could not be convinced. I
+secretly sent for another doctor who had a great reputation. He examined
+me, and being something of a clown said, 'I should not be afraid to
+sleep with you--and make love to you too, if you were a woman....'
+[Still another doctor is summoned but does not return as promised,
+sending his servant instead.] I dismissed the man and losing my temper
+with the doctors, commended myself to Christ as my doctor.
+
+My appetite came back within three days.... I then immediately returned
+to my studies and completed what was still wanting to my New
+Testament.... I had given orders as soon as I arrived that no one was to
+visit me unless summoned by name, lest I should frighten anyone or
+suffer inconvenience from anyone's assiduity; but Dorp forced his way in
+first of all, then Ath. Mark Laurin and Paschasius Berselius, who came
+every day, did much to make me well with their delightful company.
+
+My dear Beatus, who would have believed that this meagre delicate body
+of mine, weakened now by age also, could have succeeded, after all the
+troubles of travel and all my studious exertions, in standing up to all
+these physical ills as well? You know how ill I was not long ago at
+Basle, more than once. I was beginning to suspect that that year would
+be fatal to me: illness followed illness, always more severe. But, at
+the very time when this illness was at its height, I felt no torturing
+desire to live and no trepidation at the fear of death. My whole hope
+was in Christ alone, and I prayed only that he would give me what he
+judged most salutary for me. In my youth long ago, as I remember, I
+would shiver at the very name of death. This at least I have achieved as
+I have grown older, that I do not greatly fear death, and I do not
+measure man's happiness by number of days. I have passed my fiftieth
+year; as so few out of so many reach this age, I cannot rightly complain
+that I have not lived long enough. And then, if this has any relevance,
+I have by now already prepared a monument to bear witness to posterity
+that I have lived. And perhaps if, as the poets tell, jealousy falls
+silent after death, fame will shine out the more brightly: although it
+ill becomes a Christian heart to be moved by human glory; may I have the
+glory of pleasing Christ! Farewell, my dearest Beatus. The rest you will
+learn from my letter to Capito.
+
+
+XIV. TO MARTIN LUTHER
+
+Louvain, 30 May 1519
+
+Best greetings, most beloved brother in Christ. Your letter was most
+welcome to me, displaying a shrewd wit and breathing a Christian spirit.
+
+I could never find words to express what commotions your books have
+brought about here. They cannot even now eradicate from their minds the
+most false suspicion that your works were composed with my aid, and that
+I am the standard-bearer of this party, as they call it. They thought
+that they had found a handle wherewith to crush good learning--which
+they mortally detest as threatening to dim the majesty of theology, a
+thing they value far above Christ--and at the same time to crush me,
+whom they consider as having some influence on the revival of studies.
+The whole affair was conducted with such clamourings, wild talk,
+trickery, detraction and cunning that, had I not been present and
+witnessed, nay, _felt_ all this, I should never have taken any man's
+word for it that theologians could act so madly. You would have thought
+it some mortal plague. And yet the poison of this evil beginning with a
+few has spread so far abroad that a great part of this University was
+running mad with the infection of this not uncommon disease.
+
+I declared that you were quite unknown to me, that I had not yet read
+your books, and accordingly neither approved nor disapproved of anything
+in them. I only warned them not to clamour before the populace in so
+hateful a manner without having yet read your books: this matter was
+_their_ concern, whose judgement should carry the greatest weight.
+Further I begged them to consider also whether it were expedient to
+traduce before a mixed multitude views which were more properly refuted
+in books or discussed between educated persons, particularly as the
+author's way of life was extolled by one and all. I failed miserably; up
+to this day they continue to rave in their insinuating, nay, slanderous
+disputations. How often have we agreed to make peace! How often have
+they stirred up new commotions from some rashly conceived shred of
+suspicion! And these men think themselves theologians! Theologians are
+not liked in Court circles here; this too they put down to me. The
+bishops all favour me greatly. These men put no trust in books, their
+hope of victory is based on cunning alone. I disdain them, relying on my
+knowledge that I am in the right. They are becoming a little milder
+towards yourself. They fear my pen, because of their bad conscience; and
+I would indeed paint them in their true colours, as they deserve, did
+not Christ's teaching and example summon me elsewhere. Wild beasts can
+be tamed by kindness, which makes these men wild.
+
+There are persons in England, and they in the highest positions, who
+think very well of your writings. Here, too, there are people, among
+them the Bishop of Liege, who favour your followers. As for me, I keep
+myself as far as possible neutral, the better to assist the new
+flowering of good learning; and it seems to me that more can be done by
+unassuming courteousness than by violence. It was thus that Christ
+brought the world under His sway, and thus that Paul made away with the
+Jewish Law, by interpreting all things allegorically. It is wiser to cry
+out against those who abuse the Popes' authority than against the Popes
+themselves: and I think that we should act in the same way with the
+Kings. As for the schools, we should not so much reject them as recall
+them to more reasonable studies. Where things are too generally accepted
+to be suddenly eradicated from men's minds, we must argue with repeated
+and efficacious proofs and not make positive assertions. The poisonous
+contentions of certain persons are better ignored than refuted. We must
+everywhere take care never to speak or act arrogantly or in a party
+spirit: this I believe is pleasing to the spirit of Christ. Meanwhile we
+must preserve our minds from being seduced by anger, hatred or ambition;
+these feelings are apt to lie in wait for us in the midst of our
+strivings after piety.
+
+I am not advising you to do this, but only to continue doing what you
+are doing. I have looked into your Commentaries on the Psalms;[78] I am
+delighted with them, and hope that they will do much good. At Antwerp we
+have the Prior of the Monastery,[79] a Christian without spot, who loves
+you exceedingly, an old pupil of yours as he says. He is almost alone of
+them all in preaching Christ: the others preach human trivialities or
+their own gain.
+
+I have written to Melanchthon. The Lord Jesus impart you His spirit each
+day more bountifully, to His own glory and the good of all. I had not
+your letter at hand when writing this.
+
+
+XV. TO ULRICH HUTTEN[80]
+
+Antwerp, 23 July 1519
+
+To the illustrious knight Ulrich Hutten, greetings:
+
+... As to your demand for a complete portrait, as it were, of More,
+would that I could execute it with a perfection to match the intensity
+of your desire! It will be a pleasure, for me as well, to dwell for a
+space on the contemplation of by far the sweetest friend of all. But in
+the first place, it is not given to every man to explore all More's
+gifts. And then I wonder whether he will tolerate being depicted by an
+indifferent artist; for I think it no less a task to portray More than
+it would be to portray Alexander the Great or Achilles, and they were no
+more deserving of immortality than he is. Such a subject requires in
+short the pencil of an Apelles; but I fear that I am more like Horace's
+gladiators[81] than Apelles. Nevertheless, I shall try to sketch you an
+image rather than a full portrait of the whole man, so far as my
+observation or recollection from long association with him in his home
+has made this possible. If ever you meet him on some embassy you will
+then for the first time understand how unskilled an artist you have
+chosen for this commission; and I am downright afraid of your accusing
+me of jealousy or blindness, that out of so many excellences so few have
+been perceived by my poor sight or recorded by my jealousy.
+
+But to begin with that side of More of which you know nothing, in height
+and stature he is not tall, nor again noticeably short, but there is
+such symmetry in all his limbs as leaves nothing to be desired here. He
+has a fair skin, his complexion glowing rather than pale, though far
+from ruddy, but for a very faint rosiness shining through. His hair is
+of a darkish blond, or if you will, a lightish brown, his beard scanty,
+his eyes bluish grey, with flecks here and there: this usually denotes a
+happy nature and is also thought attractive by the English, whereas we
+are more taken by dark eyes. It is said that no type of eyes is less
+subject to defects. His expression corresponds to his character, always
+showing a pleasant and friendly gaiety, and rather set in a smiling
+look; and, to speak honestly, better suited to merriment than to
+seriousness and solemnity, though far removed from silliness or
+buffoonery. His right shoulder seems a little higher than the left,
+particularly when he is walking: this is not natural to him but due to
+force of habit, like many of the little habits which we pick up. There
+is nothing to strike one in the rest of his body; only his hands are
+somewhat clumsy, but only when compared with the rest of his appearance.
+He has always from a boy been very careless of everything to do with
+personal adornment, to the point of not greatly caring for those things
+which according to Ovid's teaching should be the sole care of men. One
+can tell even now, from his appearance in maturity, how handsome he must
+have been as a young man: although when I first came to know him he was
+not more than three and twenty years old, for he is now barely
+forty.[82]
+
+His health is not so much robust as satisfactory, but equal to all tasks
+becoming an honourable citizen, subject to no, or at least very few,
+diseases: there is every prospect of his living long, as he has a father
+of great age[83]--but a wondrously fresh and green old age. I have never
+yet seen anyone less fastidious in his choice of food. Until he grew up
+he liked water to drink; in this he took after his father. But so as to
+avoid irritating anyone over this, he would deceive his comrades by
+drinking from a pewter pot ale that was very nearly all water, often
+pure water. Wine--the custom in England is to invite each other to drink
+from the same goblet--he would often sip with his lips, not to give the
+appearance of disliking it, and at the same time to accustom himself to
+common ways. He preferred beef, salt fish, and bread of the second
+quality, well risen, to the foods commonly regarded as delicacies:
+otherwise he was by no means averse to all sources of innocent pleasure,
+even to the appetite. He has always had a great liking for milk foods
+and fruit: he enjoys eating eggs. His voice is neither strong nor at all
+weak, but easily audible, by no means soft or melodious, but the voice
+of a clear speaker; for he seems to have no natural gift for vocal
+music, although he delights in every kind of music. His speech is
+wonderfully clear and distinct, with no trace of haste or hesitation.
+
+He likes to dress simply and does not wear silk or purple or gold
+chains, excepting where it would not be decent not to wear them. It is
+strange how careless he is of the formalities by which the vulgar judge
+good manners. He neither insists on these from any, nor does he
+anxiously force them on others whether at meetings or at entertainments,
+although he knows them well enough, should he choose to indulge in them;
+but he considers it effeminate and not becoming masculine dignity to
+waste a good part of one's time in suchlike inanities.
+
+Formerly he disliked Court life and the company of princes, for the
+reason that he has always had a peculiar loathing for tyranny, just as
+he has always loved equality. (Now you will hardly find any court so
+modest that has not about it much noisy ostentation, dissimulation and
+luxury, while yet being quite free of any kind of tyranny.) Indeed it
+was only with great difficulty that he could be dragged into the Court
+of Henry VIII, although nothing more courteous and unassuming than this
+prince could be desired. He is by nature somewhat greedy of independence
+and leisure; but while he gladly takes advantage of leisure when it
+comes his way, none is more careful or patient whenever business demands
+it.
+
+He seems born and created for friendship, which he cultivates most
+sincerely and fosters most steadfastly. He is not one to be afraid of
+the 'abundance of friends' which Hesiod does not approve; he is ready to
+enter into friendly relations with any. He is in no way fastidious in
+choosing friends, accommodating in maintaining them, constant in keeping
+them. If he chances on anyone whose defects he cannot mend, he dismisses
+him when the opportunity offers, not breaking but gradually dissolving
+the friendship. Whenever he finds any sincere and suited to his
+disposition he so delights in their company and conversation that he
+appears to make this his chief pleasure in life. He loathes ball-games,
+cards and gambling, and the other games with which the ordinary run of
+men of rank are used to kill time. Furthermore, while he is somewhat
+careless of his own affairs, there is none more diligent in looking
+after his friends' affairs. Need I continue? Should anyone want a
+finished example of true friendship he could not do better than seek it
+in More.
+
+In social intercourse he is of so rare a courtesy and charm of manners
+that there is no man so melancholy that he does not gladden, no subject
+so forbidding that he does not dispel the tedium of it. From his boyhood
+he has loved joking, so that he might seem born for this, but in his
+jokes he has never descended to buffoonery, and has never loved the
+biting jest. As a youth he both composed and acted in little comedies.
+Any witty remark he would still enjoy, even were it directed against
+himself, such is his delight in clever sallies of ingenious flavour. As
+a result he wrote epigrams as a young man, and delighted particularly in
+Lucian; indeed he was responsible for my writing the _Praise of Folly_,
+that is for making the camel dance.
+
+In human relations he looks for pleasure in everything he comes across,
+even in the gravest matters. If he has to do with intelligent and
+educated men, he takes pleasure in their brilliance; if with the
+ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their folly. He is not put out by
+perfect fools, and suits himself with marvellous dexterity to all men's
+feelings. For women generally, even for his wife, he has nothing but
+jests and merriment. You could say he was a second Democritus, or
+better, that Pythagorean philosopher who saunters through the
+market-place with a tranquil mind gazing on the uproar of buyers and
+sellers. None is less guided by the opinion of the herd, but again none
+is less remote from the common feelings of humanity.
+
+He takes an especial pleasure in watching the appearance, characters and
+behaviour of various creatures; accordingly there is almost no kind of
+bird which he does not keep at his home, and various other animals not
+commonly found, such as apes, foxes, ferrets, weasels and their like.
+Added to this, he eagerly buys anything foreign or otherwise worth
+looking at which comes his way, and he has the whole house stocked with
+these objects, so that wherever the visitor looks there is something to
+detain him; and his own pleasure is renewed whenever he sees others
+enjoying these sights.
+
+When he was of an age for it, he was not averse to love-affairs with
+young women, but kept them honourable, preferring the love that was
+offered to that which he must chase after, and was more drawn by
+spiritual than by physical intercourse.
+
+He had devoured classical literature from his earliest years. As a lad
+he applied himself to the study of Greek literature and philosophy; his
+father, so far from helping him (although he is otherwise a good and
+sensible man), deprived him of all support in this endeavour; and he was
+almost regarded as disowned, because he seemed to be deserting his
+father's studies--the father's profession is English jurisprudence. This
+profession is quite unconnected with true learning, but in Britain those
+who have made themselves authorities in it are particularly highly
+regarded, and this is there considered the most suitable road to fame,
+since most of the nobility of that island owe their origin to this
+branch of study. It is said that none can become perfect in it without
+many years of hard work. So, although the young man's mind born for
+better things not unreasonably revolted from it, nevertheless, after
+sampling the scholastic disciplines he worked at the law with such
+success that none was more gladly consulted by litigants, and he made a
+better living at it than any of those who did nothing else, so quick and
+powerful was his intellect.
+
+He also devoted much strenuous attention to studying the ecclesiastical
+writers. He lectured publicly to a crowded audience on Augustine's _City
+of God_ while still little more than a lad; and priests and elderly men
+were neither sorry nor ashamed to learn sacred matters from a youthful
+layman. For a time he gave his whole mind to the study of piety,
+practising himself for the priesthood in watchings, fastings and prayer,
+and other like preliminary exercises; in which matter he was far more
+sensible than most of those who rashly hurl themselves into this arduous
+calling without having previously made any trial of themselves. The only
+obstacle to his devoting himself to this mode of life was his inability
+to shake off his longing for a wife. He therefore chose to be a chaste
+husband rather than an unchaste priest.
+
+Still, he married a girl,[84] as yet very young, of good family, but
+still untrained--she had always lived in the country with her parents
+and sisters--so that he could better fashion her to his own ways. He had
+her taught literature and made her skilled in all kinds of music; and he
+had really almost made her such as he would have cared to spend all his
+life with, had not an untimely death carried her off while still a girl,
+but after she had borne him several children: of whom there survive
+three girls, Margaret, Alice[85] and Cecily, and one boy, John. He would
+not endure to live long a widower, although his friends counselled
+otherwise. Within a few months of his wife's death he married a
+widow,[86] more for the care of the household than for his pleasure, as
+she was not precisely beautiful nor, as he jokingly says himself, a
+girl, but a keen and watchful housewife;[87] with whom he yet lives as
+pleasantly and agreeably as if she were a most charming young girl.
+Hardly any husband gets so much obedience from his wife by stern orders
+as he does by jests and cajolery. How could he fail to do so, after
+having induced a woman on the verge of old age, also by no means a
+docile character, and lastly most attentive to her business, to learn to
+play the cithern, the lute, the monochord and the recorders, and perform
+a daily prescribed exercise in this at her husband's wish?
+
+[Illustration: XXIX. SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS FAMILY, 1527]
+
+He rules his whole household as agreeably, no quarrels or disturbances
+arise there. If any quarrel does arise he at once heals or settles the
+difference; and he has never let anyone leave his house in anger. His
+house seems blest indeed with a lucky fate, for none has lived there
+without rising to better fortune, and none has ever acquired a stain on
+his reputation there. One would be hard put to it to find any agree as
+well with their mothers as he with his stepmother--his father had
+already given him two, and he loved both of them as truly as he loved
+his mother. Recently his father gave him a third stepmother: More swears
+his Bible oath he has never seen a better. Moreover, he is so disposed
+towards his parents and children as to be neither tiresomely
+affectionate nor ever failing in any family duty.
+
+He has a mind altogether opposed to sordid gain. He has put aside from
+his fortune for his children an amount which he considers sufficient for
+them; the rest he gives away lavishly. While he still made his living at
+the Bar he gave sincere and friendly counsel to all, considering his
+clients' interests rather than his own; he would persuade most of them
+to settle their differences--this would be cheaper. If he failed to
+achieve this, he would then show them a method of going to law at the
+least possible expense--some people here are so minded that they
+actually enjoy litigation. In the City of London, where he was born, he
+acted for some years as a judge in civil causes.[88] This office is not
+at all onerous--the court sits only on Thursday mornings--but is
+regarded as one of the most honourable. None dealt with so many cases as
+he, nor behaved with such integrity; he usually remitted the charge
+customarily due from litigants (as before the formal entering of the
+suit the plaintiff pays into court three shillings, the defendant
+likewise, and it is incorrect to demand more). By this behaviour he won
+the deep affection of the City.
+
+He had made up his mind to rest content with this position, which was
+sufficiently influential and yet not exposed to grave dangers. Twice he
+was forced into embassies; as he acted in these with great sagacity.
+King Henry VIII would not rest until he could drag More to Court. Why
+not call it 'drag'? No man ever worked so assiduously to gain admission
+to the Court as he studied to escape it. But when the King decided to
+fill his household with men of weight, learning, sagacity and integrity,
+More was one of the first among many summoned by him: he regards More so
+much as one of his intimate circle that he never lets him depart from
+him. If serious matters are to be discussed, there is none more skilled
+than he; or if the King decides to relax in pleasant gossiping, there is
+no merrier companion. Often difficult affairs require a weighty and
+sagacious arbitrator; More solves these matters with such success that
+both parties are grateful. Yet no one has ever succeeded in persuading
+him to accept a present from anyone. How happy the states would be if
+the ruler everywhere put magistrates like More in office! Meanwhile he
+has acquired no trace of haughtiness.
+
+Amid all these official burdens he does not forget his old friends and
+from time to time returns to his beloved literature. All the authority
+of his office, all his influence with the King, is devoted to the
+service of the State and of his friends. His mind, eager to serve all
+and wondrously prone to pity, has ever been present to help: he will now
+be better able to help others, as he has greater power. Some he assists
+with money, some he protects with his authority, others he advances by
+introductions; those whom he cannot help otherwise he aids with counsel,
+and he has never sent anyone away disappointed. You might call More the
+common advocate of all those in need. He regards himself as greatly
+enriched when he assists the oppressed, extricates the perplexed and
+involved, or reconciles the estranged. None confers a benefit so gladly,
+none is so slow to upbraid. And although he is fortunate on so many
+counts, and good fortune is often associated with boastfulness, it has
+never yet been my lot to meet any man so far removed from this vice.
+
+But I must return to recounting his studies--it was these which chiefly
+brought More and myself together. In his youth he chiefly practised
+verse composition, afterwards he worked hard and long to polish his
+prose, practising his style in all kinds of composition. What that style
+is like, I need not describe--particularly not to you, who always have
+his books in your hands. He especially delighted in composing
+declamations, and in these liked paradoxical themes, for the reason that
+this offers keener practice to the wits. This caused him, while still a
+youth, to compose a dialogue in which he defended Plato's Communism,
+even to the community of wives. He wrote a rejoinder to Lucian's
+_Tyrannicide_; in this theme he desired to have me as his antagonist, to
+make a surer trial of his progress in this branch of letters. His
+_Utopia_ was published with the aim of showing the causes of the bad
+condition of states; but was chiefly a portrait of the British State,
+which he has thoroughly studied and explored. He had written the second
+book first in his leisure hours, and added the first book on the spur of
+the moment later, when the occasion offered. Some of the unevenness of
+the style is due to this.
+
+One could hardly find a better _ex tempore_ speaker: a happy talent has
+complete command of a happy turn of speech. He has a present wit, always
+flying ahead, and a ready memory; and having all this ready to hand, he
+can promptly and unhesitatingly produce whatever the subject or occasion
+requires. In arguments he is unimaginably acute, so that he often
+puzzles the best theologians on their own ground. John Colet, a man of
+keen and exact judgement, often observes in intimate conversation that
+Britain has only one genius: although this island is rich in so many
+fine talents.
+
+[Illustration: XXX. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 54]
+
+He diligently cultivates true piety, while being remote from all
+superstitious observance. He has set hours in which he offers to God not
+the customary prayers but prayers from the heart. With his friends he
+talks of the life of the world to come so that one sees that he speaks
+sincerely and not without firm hope. Such is More even in the Court. And
+then there are those who think that Christians are to be found only in
+monasteries!... There you have a portrait not very well drawn by a very
+bad artist from a most excellent model. You will like it less if you
+happen to come to know More better. But for the time being I have
+prevented your being able to cast in my teeth my failure to obey you,
+and always accusing me of writing too short letters. Still, this did not
+seem long to me as I was writing it, and I know that you will not find
+it long drawn out as you read it: our friend More's charm will see to
+that. Farewell.
+
+
+XVI. TO WILLIBALD PIRCKHEIMER[89]
+
+Basle, 14 March 1525
+
+To the illustrious Willibald Pirckheimer, greetings:
+
+... I received safely the very pretty ring which you desired me to have
+as a memento of you. I know that gems are prized as bringing safety when
+one has a fall. But they say too, that if the fall was likely to be
+fatal, the evil is diverted on to the gem, so that it is seen to be
+broken after the accident. Once in Britain I fell with my horse from a
+fairly high bank: no damage was found to me or my horse, yet the gem I
+was wearing was whole. It was a present from Alexander, Archbishop of
+St. Andrews,[90] whom I think you know from my writings. When I left him
+at Siena, he drew it off his finger and handing it to me said: 'Take
+this as a pledge of our friendship that will never die.' And I kept my
+pledged faith with him even after his death, celebrating my friend's
+memory in my writings. There is no part of life into which magical
+superstition has not insinuated itself: if gems have some great virtue,
+I could have wished in these days for a ring with an efficacious remedy
+against 'slander's tooth.' As to the belief about falls, I shall follow
+your advice--I shall prefer to believe rather than risk myself.
+
+Portraits are less precious than jewels--I have received from you a
+medallic and a painted portrait--but at least they bring my Willibald
+more vividly before me. Alexander the Great would only allow himself to
+be painted by Apelles's hand. You have found your Apelles in Albrecht
+Duerer,[91] an artist of the first rank and no less to be admired for his
+remarkable good sense. If only you had likewise found some Lysippus[92]
+to cast the medal! I have the medal of you on the righthand wall of my
+bedroom, the painting on the left; whether writing or walking up and
+down, I have Willibald before my eyes, so that if I wanted to forget you
+I could not. Though I have a more retentive memory for friends than for
+anything else. Certainly Willibald could not be forgotten by me, even
+were there no memento, no portraits, no letters to refresh my memory of
+him. There is another very pleasant thing--the portraits often occasion
+a talk about you when my friends come to visit me. If only our letters
+travelled safely, how little we should miss of each other! You have a
+medal of me. I should not object to having my portrait painted by
+Duerer,[93] that great artist; but how this can be done I do not see.
+Once at Brussels he sketched me, but after a start had been made the
+work was interrupted by callers from the Court. Though I have long been
+a sad model for painters, and am likely to become a sadder one still as
+the days go on.[94] I read with pleasure what you write, as witty as it
+is wise, on the agitations of certain persons who are destroying the
+evangelical movement, to which they imagine themselves to be doing
+splendid service: and I have much to tell you in my turn about this. But
+this will be another time, when I have more leisure. Farewell.
+
+
+XVII. TO MARTIN LUTHER
+
+Basle, 11 April 1526
+
+To Martin Luther, greetings:
+
+... Your letter has been delivered too late;[95] but had it arrived in
+the best of time, it would not have moved me one whit. I am not so
+simple as to be appeased by one or two pleasantries or soothed by
+flattery after receiving so many more than mortal wounds. Your nature is
+by now known to all the world, but you have so tempered your pen that
+never have you written against anyone so frenziedly, nay, what is more
+abominable, so maliciously. Now it occurs to you that you are a weak
+sinner, whereas at other times you insist almost on being taken for God.
+You are a man, as you write, of violent temperament, and you take
+pleasure in this remarkable argument. Why then did you not pour forth
+this marvellous piece of invective on the Bishop of Rochester[96] or on
+Cochleus?[97] They attack you personally and provoke you with insults,
+while my _Diatribe_[98] was a courteous disputation. And what has all
+this to do with the subject--all this facetious abuse, these slanderous
+lies, charging me with atheism, Epicureanism, scepticism in articles of
+the Christian profession, blasphemy, and what not--besides many other
+points on which I[99] am silent? I take these charges the less hardly,
+because in all this there is nothing to make my conscience disturb me.
+If I did not think as a Christian of God and the Holy Scriptures, I
+could not wish my life prolonged even until tomorrow. If you had
+conducted your case with your usual vehemence, without frenzied abuse,
+you would have provoked fewer men against you: as things are, you have
+been pleased to fill more than a third part of the volume with such
+abuse, giving free rein to your feelings. How far you have given way to
+me the facts themselves show--so many palpable crimes do you fasten on
+me; while my _Diatribe_ was not even intended to stir up those matters
+which the world itself knows of.
+
+You imagine, I suppose, that Erasmus has no supporters. More than you
+think. But it does not matter what happens to us two, least of all to
+myself who must shortly go hence, even if the whole world were
+applauding us: it is _this_ that distresses me, and all the best spirits
+with me, that with that arrogant, impudent, seditious temperament of
+yours you are shattering the whole globe in ruinous discord, exposing
+good men and lovers of good learning to certain frenzied Pharisees,
+arming for revolt the wicked and the revolutionary, and in short so
+carrying on the cause of the Gospel as to throw all things sacred and
+profane into chaos; as if you were eager to prevent this storm from
+turning at last to a happy issue; I have ever striven towards such an
+opportunity. What you owe me, and in what coin you have repaid me--I do
+not go into that. All that is a private matter; it is the public
+disaster which distresses me, and the irremediable confusion of
+everything, for which we have to thank only your uncontrolled nature,
+that will not be guided by the wise counsel of friends, but easily turns
+to any excess at the prompting of certain inconstant swindlers. I know
+not whom you have saved from the power of darkness; but you should have
+drawn the sword of your pen against those ungrateful wretches and not
+against a temperate disputation. I would have wished you a better mind,
+were you not so delighted with your own. Wish me what you will, only not
+your mind, unless God has changed it for you.
+
+
+XVIII. TO THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS[100]
+
+Basle, _c._ March 1527
+
+To the most skilled physician Theophrastus of Einsiedeln, etc.,
+greetings:
+
+... It is not incongruous to wish continued spiritual health to the
+medical man through whom God gives us physical health. I wonder how you
+know me so thoroughly, having seen me once only. I recognize how very
+true are your dark sayings, not by the art of medicine, which I have
+never learned, but from my own wretched sensations. I have felt pains in
+the region of the liver in the past, and could not divine the source of
+the trouble. I have seen the fat from the kidneys in my water many years
+ago. Your third point[101] I do not quite understand, nevertheless it
+appears to be convincing.
+
+As I told you, I have no time for the next few days to be doctored, or
+to be ill, or to die, so overwhelmed am I with scholarly work. But if
+there is anything which can alleviate the trouble without weakening the
+body, I beg you to inform me. If you will be so good as to explain at
+greater length your very concise and more than laconic notes, and
+prescribe other remedies which I can take until I am free, I cannot
+promise you a fee to match your art or the trouble you have taken, but I
+do at least promise you a grateful heart.
+
+You have resurrected Froben[102], that is, my other half: if you restore
+me also, you will have restored both of us by treating each of us
+singly. May we have the good fortune to keep you in Basle!
+
+I fear you may not be able to read this letter dashed off immediately
+[after receiving yours]. Farewell.
+
+Erasmus of Rotterdam, by his own hand.
+
+
+XIX. TO MARTIN BUCER[103]
+
+Basle, 11 November 1527
+
+Best greetings:
+
+You plead the cause of Capito with some rhetorical skill; but I see
+that, eloquent advocate as you are otherwise, you are not sufficiently
+well equipped to undertake his defence. Were I to advance my battle-line
+of conjectures and proofs, you would realize that you had to devise a
+different speech. But I have had too much of squabbling, and do not
+easily bestir myself against men whom I once sincerely loved. What the
+Knight of Eppendorff[104] ventures or does not venture to do is his
+concern; only that he returns too frequently to this game. I shall not
+involve Capito in the drama unless he involves himself again; let him
+not think me such a fool as not to know what is in question. But I have
+written myself on these matters. Furthermore, as to your pleading your
+own cause and that of your church, I think it better not to give any
+answer, because this matter would require a very lengthy oration, even
+if it were not a matter of controversy. This is merely a brief answer on
+scattered points.
+
+The person who informed me about 'languages'[105] is one whose
+trustworthiness not even you would have esteemed lightly; and he thinks
+no ill of you. Indeed I have never disliked you as far as concerns
+private feelings. There are persons living in your town who were
+chattering here about 'all the disciplines having been invented by
+godforsaken wretches'. Certainly persons of this description, whatever
+name must be given them, are in the ascendancy everywhere, all studies
+are neglected and come to a standstill. At Nuremberg the City Treasury
+has hired lecturers, but there is no one to attend their lectures.
+
+You assemble a number of conjectures as to why I have not joined your
+church. But you must know that the first and most important of all the
+reasons which withheld me from associating myself with it was my
+conscience: if my conscience could have been persuaded that this
+movement proceeded from God, I should have been now long since a soldier
+in your camp. The second reason is that I see many in your group who are
+strangers to all Evangelical soundness. I make no mention of rumours and
+suspicions, I speak of things learned from experience, nay, learned to
+my own injury; things experienced not merely from the mob, but from men
+who appear to be of some worth, not to mention the leading men. It is
+not for me to judge of what I know not: the world is wide. I know some
+as excellent men before they became devotees of your faith, what they
+are now like I do not know: at all events I have learned that several of
+them have become worse and none better, so far as human judgement can
+discern.
+
+The third thing which deterred me is the intense discord between the
+leaders of the movement. Not to mention the Prophets and the
+Anabaptists, what embittered pamphlets Zwingli, Luther and Osiander
+write against each other! I have never approved the ferocity of the
+leaders, but it is provoked by the behaviour of certain persons; when
+they ought to have made the Gospel acceptable by holy and forbearing
+conduct, if you really had what you boast of. Not to speak of the
+others, of what use was it for Luther to indulge in buffoonery in that
+fashion against the King of England, when he had undertaken a task so
+arduous with the general approval? Was he not reflecting as to the role
+he was sustaining? Did he not realize that the whole world had its eyes
+turned on him alone? And this is the chief of this movement; I am not
+particularly angry with him for treating me so scurrilously: but his
+betrayal of the cause of the Gospel, his letting loose princes, bishops,
+pseudo-monks and pseudo-theologians against good men, his having made
+doubly hard our slavery, which is already intolerable--that is what
+tortures my mind. And I seem to see a cruel and bloody century ahead, if
+the provoked section gets its breath again, which it is certainly now
+doing. You will say that there is no crowd without an admixture of
+wicked men. Certainly it was the duty of the principal men to exercise
+special care in matters of conduct, and not be even on speaking terms
+with liars, perjurors, drunkards and fornicators. As it is I hear and
+almost _see_, that things are far otherwise. If the husband had found
+his wife more amenable, the teacher his pupil more obedient, the
+magistrate the citizen more tractable, the employer his workman more
+trustworthy, the buyer the seller less deceitful, it would have been
+great recommendation for the Gospels. As things are, the behaviour of
+certain persons has had the effect of cooling the zeal of those who at
+first, owing to their love of piety and abhorrence of Pharisaism, looked
+with favour on this movement; and the princes, seeing a disorderly host
+springing up in its wake made up of vagabonds, fugitives, bankrupts,
+naked, wretched and for the most part even wicked men, are cursing, even
+those who in the beginning had been hopeful.
+
+It is not without deep sorrow that I speak of all this, not only because
+I foresee that a business wrongly handled will go from bad to worse, but
+also because at last I shall myself have to suffer for it. Certain
+rascals say that my writings are to blame for the fact that the
+scholastic theologians and monks are in several places becoming less
+esteemed than they would like, that ceremonies are neglected, and that
+the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff is disregarded; when it is quite dear
+from what source this evil has sprung. They were stretching too tight
+the rope which is now breaking. They almost set the Pope's authority
+above Christ's, they measured all piety by ceremonies, and tightened the
+hold of the confession to an enormous extent, while the monks lorded it
+without fear of punishment, by now meditating open tyranny. As a result
+'the stretched string snapped', as the proverb has it; it could not be
+otherwise. But I sorely fear that the same will happen one day to the
+princes, if they too continue to stretch _their_ rope too tightly.
+Again, the other side having commenced the action of their drama as they
+did, no different ending was possible. May we not live to see worse
+horrors!
+
+However it was the duty of the leaders of this movement, if Christ was
+their goal, to refrain not only from vice, but even from every
+appearance of evil; and to offer not the slightest stumbling block to
+the Gospel, studiously avoiding even practices which, although allowed,
+are yet not expedient. Above all they should have guarded against all
+sedition. If they had handled the matter with sincerity and moderation,
+they would have won the support of the princes and bishops: for they
+have not all been given up for lost. And they should not have heedlessly
+wrecked anything without having something better ready to put in its
+place. As it is, those who have abandoned the Hours do not pray at all.
+Many who have put off pharisaical clothing are worse in other matters
+than they were before. Those who disdain the episcopal regulations do
+not even obey the commandments of God. Those who disregard the careful
+choice of foods indulge in greed and gluttony. It is a long-drawn-out
+tragedy, which every day we partly hear ourselves and partly learn of
+from others. I never approved of the abolition of the Mass, even though
+I have always disliked these mean and money-grabbing mass-priests. There
+were other things also which could have been altered without causing
+riots. As things are, certain persons are not satisfied with any of the
+accepted practices; as if a new world could be built of a sudden. There
+will always be things which the pious must endure. If anyone thinks that
+Mass ought to be abolished because many misuse it, then the Sermon
+should be abolished also, which is almost the only custom accepted by
+your party. I feel the same about the invocation of the saints and about
+images.
+
+Your letter demanded a lengthy reply, but even this letter is very long,
+with all that I have to do. I am told that you have a splendid gift for
+preaching the Word of the Gospel, and that you conduct yourself more
+courteously than do many. So I could wish that with your good sense you
+would strive to the end that this movement, however it began, may
+through firmness and moderation in doctrine and integrity of conduct be
+brought to a conclusion worthy of the Gospel. To this end I shall help
+you to the best of my ability. As it is, although the host of monks and
+certain theologians assail me with all their artifices, nothing will
+induce me wittingly to cast away my soul. You will have the good sense
+not to circulate this letter, lest it cause any disturbance. We would
+have more discussions if we could meet. Farewell. I had no time to read
+this over.
+
+Erasmus of Rotterdam, by my own hand.
+
+[Illustration: XXXI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 60]
+
+
+XX. TO ALFONSO VALDES[106]
+
+Basle, 1 August 1528
+
+To the most illustrious Alfonso Valdes, Secretary to His Imperial
+Majesty, greetings:
+
+... I have learned very plainly from other men's letters what you
+indicate very discreetly, as is your way--that there are some who seek
+to make _Terminus_,[107] the seal on my ring, an occasion for slander,
+protesting that the addition of the device _Concedo nulli_ [I yield to
+none] shows intolerable arrogance. What is this but some fatal malady,
+consisting in misrepresenting everything? Momus[108] is ridiculed for
+criticizing Venus's slipper; but these men outdo Momus himself, finding
+something to carp at in a ring. I would have called _them_ Momuses, but
+Momus carps at nothing but what he has first carefully inspected. These
+fault-finders, or rather false accusers, criticize with their eyes shut
+what they neither see nor understand: so violent is the disease. And
+meanwhile they think themselves pillars of the Church, whereas all they
+do is to expose their stupidity combined with a malice no less extreme,
+when they are already more notorious than they should be. They are
+dreaming if they think it is Erasmus who says _Concedo nulli_. But if
+they read my writings they would see that there is none so humble that I
+rank myself above him, being more liable to yield to all than to none.
+
+[Illustration: XXXII. ERASMUS'S DEVICE]
+
+Now those who know me intimately from close association will attribute
+any vice to me sooner than arrogance, and will acknowledge that I am
+closer to the Socratic utterance, 'This alone I know, that I know
+nothing,' than to this, 'I yield to none.' But if they imagine that I
+have so insolent a mind as to put myself before all others, do they also
+think me such a fool as to profess this in a device? If they had any
+Christian feeling they would understand those words either as not mine
+or as bearing another meaning. They see there a sculptured figure, in
+its lower part a stone, in its upper part a youth with flying hair. Does
+this look like Erasmus in any respect? If this is not enough, they see
+written on the stone itself _Terminus_: if one takes this as the last
+word, that will make an iambic dimeter acatalectic, _Concedo nulli
+Terminus_; if one begins with this word, it will be a trochaic dimeter
+acatalectic, _Terminus concedo nulli_. What if I had painted a lion and
+added as a device 'Flee, unless you prefer to be torn to pieces'? Would
+they attribute these words to me instead of the lion? But what they are
+doing now is just as foolish; for if I mistake not, I am more like a
+lion than a stone.
+
+They will argue, 'We did not notice that it was verse, and we know
+nothing about Terminus.' Is it then to be a crime henceforward to have
+written verse, because _they_ have not learned the theory of metre? At
+least, as they knew that in devices of this kind one actually aims at a
+certain degree of obscurity in order to exercise the guessing powers of
+those who look at them, if they did not know of Terminus--although they
+could have learned of him from the books of Augustine or Ambrose--they
+should have inquired of experts in this kind of matter. In former times
+field boundaries were marked with some sign. This was a stone projecting
+above the earth, which the laws of the ancients ordered never to be
+moved; here belongs the Platonic utterance, 'Remove not what thou hast
+not planted.' The law was reinforced by a religious awe, the better to
+deter the ignorant multitude from daring to remove the stone, by making
+it believe that to violate the stone was to violate a god in it, whom
+the Romans call Terminus, and to him there was also dedicated a shrine
+and a festival, the Terminalia. This god Terminus, as the Roman
+historian has it, was alone in refusing to yield to Jupiter because
+'while the birds allowed the deconsecration of all the other
+sanctuaries, in the shrine of Terminus alone they were
+unpropitious.'[109] Livy tells this story in the first book of his
+_History_, and again in Book 5 he narrates how 'when after the taking of
+auguries the Capitol was being cleared, Juventas [Youth] and Terminus
+would not allow themselves to be moved.'[110] This omen was welcomed
+with universal rejoicing, for they believed that it portended an eternal
+empire. The _youth_ is useful for war, and _Terminus_ is fixed.
+
+Here they will exclaim perchance, 'What have _you_ to do with a mythical
+god?' He came to me, I did not adopt him. When I was called to Rome, and
+Alexander, titular Archbishop of St. Andrews,[111] was summoned home
+from Siena by his father King James of Scotland, as a grateful and
+affectionate pupil he gave me several rings for a memento of our time
+together. Among these was one which had _Terminus_ engraved on the
+jewel; an Italian interested in antiquities had pointed this out, which
+I had not known before. I seized on the omen and interpreted it as a
+warning that the term of my existence was not far off--at that time I
+was in about my fortieth year. To keep this thought in my mind I began
+to seal my letters with this sign. I added the verse, as I said before.
+And so from a heathen god I made myself a device, exhorting me to
+correct my life. For Death is truly a boundary which knows no yielding
+to any. But in the medal there is added in Greek, [Greek: Ora telos
+makrou biou], that is, 'Consider the end of a long life,' in Latin _Mors
+ultima linea rerum_. They will say, 'You could have carved on it a dead
+man's skull.' Perhaps I should have accepted that, if it had come my
+way: but this pleased me, because it came to me by chance, and then
+because it had a double charm for me; from the allusion to an ancient
+and famous story, and from its obscurity, a quality specially belonging
+to devices.
+
+There is my defence on _Terminus_, or better say on hair-splitting. And
+if only they would at last set a _term_ to their misrepresentations! I
+will gladly come to an agreement with them to change my device, if they
+will change their malady. Indeed by so doing they would be doing more
+for their own authority, which they complain is being undermined by the
+lovers of good learning. I myself am assuredly so far from desiring to
+injure their reputation that I am deeply pained at their delivering
+themselves over to the ridicule of the whole world by these stupid
+tricks, and not blushing to find themselves confuted with mockery on
+every occasion. The Lord keep you safe in body and soul, my beloved
+friend in Christ.
+
+
+XXI. TO CHARLES BLOUNT[112]
+
+Freiburg im Breisgau, 1 March 1531
+
+To the noble youth Charles Mountjoy, greetings:
+
+... I have determined to dedicate to you Livy, the prince of Latin
+history; already many times printed, but never before in such a
+magnificent or accurate edition: and if this is not enough, augmented by
+five books recently discovered; these were found by some good genius in
+the library of the monastery at Lorsch by Simon Grynaeus,[113] a man at
+once learned without arrogance in all branches of literature and at the
+same time born for the advancement of liberal studies. Now this
+monastery was built opposite Worms, or Berbethomagium, by Charlemagne
+seven hundred years and more ago, and equipped with great store of
+books; for this was formerly the special care of princes, and this is
+usually the most precious treasure of the monasteries. The original
+manuscript was one of marvellous antiquity, painted[114] in the antique
+fashion with the letters in a continuous series, so that it has proved
+very difficult to separate word from word, unless one is knowledgeable,
+careful and trained for this very task. This caused much trouble in
+preparing a copy to be handed to the printer's men for their use; a
+careful and faithful watch was kept to prevent any departure from the
+original in making the copy. So if the poor fragment which came to us
+recently from Mainz was justly welcomed by scholars with great
+rejoicing,[115] what acclamation should greet this large addition to
+Livy's _History_?
+
+Would to God that this author could be restored to us complete and
+entire. There are rumours flying round that give some hope of this: men
+boast of unpublished Liviana existing, now in Denmark, now in Poland,
+now in Germany. At least now that fortune has given us these remnants
+against all men's expectations, I do not see why we should despair of
+the possibility of finding still more. And here, in my opinion at least,
+the princes would be acting worthily if they offered rewards and
+attracted scholars to the search for such a treasure, or prevailed upon
+them to publish--if there are perchance any who are suppressing and
+hiding away to the great detriment of studies something in a fit state
+to be of public utility. For it seems perfectly absurd that men will dig
+through the bowels of the earth almost down to Hades at vast peril and
+expense in order to find a little gold or silver: and yet will utterly
+disregard treasures of this kind, as far above those others in value as
+the soul excels the body, and not consider them worth searching for.
+This is the spirit of Midases, not of princes; and as I know that your
+character is utterly at variance with this spirit, I doubt not that you
+will most eagerly welcome this great gain. Now, there are chiefly two
+considerations which remove all possible doubt as to this half-decade's
+being genuinely by Livy: in the first place that of the diction itself,
+which in all features recalls its author: secondly that of the arguments
+or epitomes of Floras, which correspond exactly with these books.
+
+And so, knowing that there is no kind of reading more fitting for men of
+note than that of the historians, of whom Livy is easily the chief (I
+speak of the Roman historians), particularly as we have nothing of
+Sallust beyond two fragments, and bearing in mind what an insatiable
+glutton, so to speak, your father has always been for history (and I
+doubt not that you resemble him in this also): I thought I should not be
+acting incongruously in publishing these five books with a special
+dedication to you. Although in this point I should not wish you to
+resemble your father too closely. He is in the way of poring over his
+books every day from dinner until midnight, which is wearisome to his
+wife and attendants and a cause of much grumbling among the servants; so
+far he has been able to do this without loss of health; still, I do not
+think it wise for you to take the same risk, which may not turn out as
+successfully. Certainly when your father was studying along with the
+present king while still a young man, they read chiefly history, with
+the strong approval of his father Henry VII, a king of remarkable
+judgement and good sense.
+
+Joined to this edition is the Chronology of Henry Glareanus, a man of
+exquisite and many-sided learning, whose indefatigable industry refines,
+adorns and enriches with the liberal disciplines not the renowned
+Gymnasium at Freiburg alone, but this whole region as well. The
+Chronology shows the order of events, the details of the wars, and the
+names of persons, in which up till now there has reigned astonishing
+confusion, brought about through the fault of the scribes and dabblers
+in learning. Yet this was the sole guiding light of history! Without
+this Pole star our navigation on the ocean of history is completely
+blind: and without this thread to help him, the reader becomes involved
+in an inextricable maze, learned though he be, in these labyrinths of
+events. If you consider your letter well repaid by this gift, it will
+now be your turn to write me a letter. Farewell.
+
+
+XXII. TO BARTHOLOMEW LATOMUS[116]
+
+Basle, 24 August 1535
+
+To Bartholomew Latomus, greetings:
+
+... In apologizing for your silence you are wasting your time, believe
+me; I am not in the habit of judging tried friends by this common
+courtesy. It would be impudent of me to charge you with an omission
+which you have an equal right to accuse me of in turn.... The heads of
+the colleges are not doing anything new. They are afraid of their own
+revenues suffering, this being the sole aim of most of them. You would
+scarcely believe to what machinations they stooped at Louvain in their
+efforts to prevent a trilingual college being established. I worked
+strenuously in the matter, and have made myself accordingly very
+unpopular. There was an attempt to set up a chair of languages at
+Tournai, but the University of Louvain and the Franciscans at Tournai
+did not rest until the project was abandoned. The house erected for this
+purpose overlooked the Franciscans' garden--that was the cause of the
+trouble....
+
+I have had a long life, counting in years; but were I to calculate the
+time spent in wrestling with fever, the stone and the gout, I have not
+lived long. But we must patiently bear whatever the Lord has sent upon
+us, Whose will no one can resist, and Who alone knows what is good for
+us.... The glory [of an immortal name] moves me not at all, I am not
+anxious over the applause of posterity. My one concern and desire is to
+depart hence with Christ's favour.
+
+Many French nobles have fled here for fear of the winter storm, after
+having been recalled.[117] 'The lion shall roar, who shall not fear?'
+says the Prophet.[118] A like terror has seized the English, from an
+unlike cause. Certain monks have been beheaded and among them a monk of
+the Order of St. Bridget[119] was dragged along the ground, then hanged,
+and finally drawn and quartered. There is a firm and probable rumour
+here that the news of the Bishop of Rochester having been co-opted by
+Paul III as a cardinal caused the King to hasten his being dragged out
+of prison and beheaded--his method of conferring the scarlet hat. It is
+all too true that Thomas More has been long in prison and his fortune
+confiscated. It was being said that he too had been executed, but I have
+no certain news as yet.[120] Would that he had never embroiled himself
+in this perilous business and had left the theological cause to the
+theologians. The other friends who from time to time honoured me with
+letters and gifts now send nothing and write nothing from fear, and
+accept nothing from anyone, as if under every stone there slept a
+scorpion.
+
+It seems that the Pope is seriously thinking of a Council here. But I do
+not see how it is to meet in the midst of such dissension between
+princes and lands. The whole of Lower Germany is astonishingly infected
+with Anabaptists: in Upper Germany they pretend not to notice them. They
+are pouring in here in droves; some are on their way to Italy. The
+Emperor is besieging Goletta; in my opinion there is more danger from
+the Anabaptists.
+
+I do not think that France is entirely free of this plague; but they are
+silent there for fear of the cudgel....
+
+Now I must tell you something about my position which will amuse you. I
+had written to Paul III at the instance of Louis Ber, the distinguished
+theologian. Before unsealing the letter he spoke of me with great
+respect. And as he had to make several scholars cardinals for the coming
+Council, the name of Erasmus was proposed among others. But obstacles
+were mentioned, my health, not strong enough for the duties, and my low
+income; for they say there is a decree which excludes from this office
+those whose annual income is less than 3,000 ducats. Now they are busy
+heaping benefices on me, so that I can acquire the proper income from
+these and receive the red hat. The proverbial cat in court-dress. I have
+a friend in Rome who is particularly active in the business; in vain
+have I warned him more than once by letter that I want no cures or
+pensions, that I am a man who lives from day to day, and every day
+expecting death, often longing for it, so horrible sometimes are the
+pains. It is hardly safe for me to put a foot outside my bedroom, and
+even the merest trifle upsets me.[121] With my peculiar, emaciated body
+I can only stand warm air. And in this condition they want to push me
+forward as a candidate for benefices and cardinals' hats! But meanwhile
+I am gratified by the Supreme Pontiff's delusions about me and his
+feelings towards me. But I am being more wordy than I intended. I should
+easily forgive your somewhat lengthy letter, if you were to repeat that
+fault often.... Farewell.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Servatius Roger (d. 1540), whom Erasmus came to know as a young
+monk soon after his entry into Steyn, became eighth Prior of Steyn; it
+was as Prior that he wrote to Erasmus in 1514 to urge him to return to
+the monastery, see pp. 11, 87 f., 212 ff.
+
+[22] Juvenal, ix. 18-20.
+
+[23] N. Werner (d. 5 September 1504), later Prior of Steyn.
+
+[24] Probably James Stuart, brother of James IV of Scotland, Archbishop
+of St. Andrews, 1497, aged about twenty-one at this time.
+
+[25] Relative of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Took his doctor's
+degree in Italy, returned to England 1507.
+
+[26] William Grocyn (_c._ 1446-1519), Fellow of New College, one of the
+first to teach Greek in Oxford.
+
+[27] Thomas Linacre (_c._ 1460-1524), Fellow of All Souls College,
+Oxford, 1484. Translator of Galen. Helped to found the College of
+Physicians, 1518.
+
+[28] James Batt (1464?-1502), secretary to the council of the town of
+Bergen.
+
+[29] Anne of Burgundy, the Lady of Veere (1469?-1518), patroness of
+Erasmus until 1501-2, when she remarried.
+
+[30] i.e. to replace Greek words either corrupted or omitted. Erasmus is
+here referring probably to the text of the _Letters_ of Jerome; he uses
+the same expression in his letter of 21 May 1515 to Leo X (Allen 335, v.
+268 ff.): 'I have purified the text of the Letters ... and carefully
+restored the Greek, which was either missing altogether or inserted
+incorrectly'.
+
+[31] Brother of Henry of Bergen (Bishop of Cambrai) and by this time
+Abbot of St. Bertin at St. Omer, where he was forcibly installed by his
+brother the bishop in 1493.
+
+[32] 'And my sin is ever before me,' where _contra_ could be rendered as
+either 'before' or 'against'; the ambiguity is resolved by referring to
+the Greek, where [Greek: enopion] = face to face with.
+
+[33] Apparently a loose statement of the _Constitutions_ of Clement V,
+promulgated after the Council of Vienne, 1311-12, Bk. 5, tit. 1, cap. 1,
+in which for the better conversion of infidels it was ordained that two
+teachers for each of the three languages, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaean
+be appointed in each of the four Universities, Paris, Oxford, Bologna
+and Salamanca. Greek was included in the original list, but afterwards
+omitted.
+
+[34] Probably George Hermonymus of Sparta.
+
+[35] Cf. Juvenal, iii.78. (_Graeculus esuriens_.)
+
+[36] William Warham (1450?-1532) became Archbishop of Canterbury in
+1503, Lord Chancellor of England, 1504-15, Chancellor of Oxford
+University from 1506. This letter forms the preface to _Hecuba_ in
+_Euripidis_ ... _Hecuba et Iphigenia; Latinae factae Erasmo Roterodamo
+interprete_, Paris, J. Badius, September 1506.
+
+[37] [Greek: en to pitho ten kerameian], i.e., to run before one can
+walk, to make a winejar being the most advanced job in pottery.
+
+[38] Politian translated parts of Iliad, 2-5 into Latin hexameters,
+dedicating the work to Lorenzo dei Medici. Published by A. Mai,
+Spicilegium Romanum, ii.
+
+[39] Nicholas de Valle translated the _Works and Days_ (_Georgica_),
+Bonninus Mombritius the _Theogonia_.
+
+[40] Martin Phileticus.
+
+[41] No. 3; his Funeral Orations were printed _c._ 1481 at Milan.
+
+[42] Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) founded the Aldine Press at Venice,
+1494.
+
+[43] Published by Aldus, 1513.
+
+[44] Published by Aldus, 1528.
+
+[45] Published by Aldus, 1518, although projected in 1499.
+
+[46] _Euripidis ... Hecuba et Iphigenia_ [in Aulide]; _Latinae factae
+Erasmo Roterodamo interprete_, Paris, J. Badius, 13 September 1506.
+Reprinted by Aldus at Venice, December 1507 (and by Froben at Basle in
+1518 and 1524).
+
+[47] Thomas More (1478-1535). This letter is the preface to the _Moriae
+Encomium_, published by Gilles Gourmont at Paris without date, reprinted
+by Schuerer at Strasbourg, August 1511.
+
+[48] The Greek 'laughing philosopher'.
+
+[49] John Colet (1466?-1519), Dean of St. Paul's 1504, had founded St.
+Paul's School in the previous year (1510).
+
+[50] Raffaele Riario (1461-1521), Leo X's most formidable rival in the
+election of 1513.
+
+[51] Francesco Alidosi of Imola, d. 1511.
+
+[52] Robert Guibe(_c._ 1456-1513), Cardinal of St. Anastasia and Bishop
+of Nantes (1507).
+
+[53] Leo X.
+
+[54] Wolsey.
+
+[55] _Enchiridion militis Christiani_, printed in _Lucubratiunculae_,
+1503.
+
+[56] A new and enlarged edition under the title _Adagiorum Chiliades_,
+printed by Aldus in 1508.
+
+[57] _De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo_, Paris,
+Badius, 1512.
+
+[58] The Hebrew scholar, who adhered to the Reformation, 1523.
+
+[59] F. Ximenes (1436-1517), confessor of Queen Isabella, Archbishop of
+Toledo, 1495, founded Alcala University, 1500; he promoted the Polyglot
+Bible.
+
+[60] (1428-1524), taught medicine at Ferrara and made translations from
+Aristotle, Dio Cassius, Galen and Hippocrates.
+
+[61] (d. 1525) Professor of Medicine at Naples, and from 1507 at Venice;
+physician to Aldus's household, where he met Erasmus.
+
+[62] (1466-1532), physician, astronomer and humanist; learned Greek with
+Erasmus in Paris. He was physician to the Court of Francis I.
+
+[63] (1479-1537), Dean of the Medical Faculty at Paris, 1508-9, and
+Physician to Francis I.
+
+[64] (1467/8-1540), the Parisian humanist, whose _Annotationes in xxiv
+Pandectarum libros_ were published by Badius in 1508.
+
+[65] Ulrich Zaesi or Zasius (1461-1535) Lector Ordinarius in Laws at
+Freiburg from 1506 until his death.
+
+[66] Henry Loriti of canton Glarus, usually known as Glareanus
+(1488-1563), had an academy at Basle where he took in thirty boarders.
+
+[67] Published at Basle, March 1519.
+
+[68] A translation of Galen's _Methodus medendi_, not printed until June
+1519. Lupset supervised the printing.
+
+[69] This may be the _De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis_,
+composed in Italy. More writes to Erasmus in 1516 (Allen 502) that he
+has received part of the MS. from Lupset, but it was not published until
+1529.
+
+[70] Luther's _Theses_, posted 31 October 1517 and printed shortly
+afterwards at Wittenberg.
+
+[71] The proposals for a crusade drawn up at Rome, 16 November 1517.
+
+[72] The _Julius Exclusus_, an attack on Pope Julius II, who died 1513.
+Erasmus never directly denied his authorship, and More speaks of a copy
+in Erasmus's hand (Allen 502).
+
+[73] Beat Bild (1485-1547), whose family came from Rheinau near
+Schlettstadt, became M.A., Paris, in 1505. He worked as a corrector at
+Henry Stephanus's press in Paris, with Schuerer in Strasbourg, and from
+1511 for fifteen years with Amerbach and Froben in Basle, where he
+edited and superintended the publication of numerous books.
+
+[74] Haecceity, 'thisness', 'individuality', t.t. of Scotistic
+philosophy, cf. quiddity, 'essence'.
+
+[75] I.e. the Literary Society of Strasbourg. A letter survives,
+addressed to Erasmus in the name of this Society, dated 1 September
+1514, in which occur all the names mentioned here, with the exception of
+Gerbel's.
+
+[76] A portrait drawing of Varnbueler by Albrecht Duerer is in the
+Albertina, Vienna; Duerer made also a woodcut from it.
+
+[77] Hermann, Count of Neuenahr (1492-1530), a pupil of Caesarius, with
+whom he visited Italy in 1508-9. In 1517 he lectured in Cologne on Greek
+and Hebrew, and became later Chancellor of the University. Among his
+works is a letter in defence of Erasmus.
+
+[78] _Operationes in Psalmos_. Wittenberg, 1519.
+
+[79] James Probst or Proost (Praepositus) of Ypres (1486-1562).
+
+[80] Ulrich Hutten (1488-1523), the German knight and humanist.
+
+[81] Satires 2, vii. 96 (where however the gladiators are the subject,
+and not the artists, of a crude charcoal sketch).
+
+[82] Sir Thomas More's portrait at the age of fifty was painted by Hans
+Holbein; it is now in the Frick Collection, New York. Two portrait
+drawings of him by Holbein are in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.
+See also p. 236, note 4.
+
+[83] John More (1453?-1530), at this time a Judge of Common Pleas,
+promoted to the King's Bench in 1523.
+
+[84] Jane Colt (_c._ 1487-1511).
+
+[85] More's second daughter was Elizabeth; Alice was the name of his
+stepdaughter.
+
+[86] Alice Middleton.
+
+[87] A group portrait of Sir Thomas More with his entire family was
+painted by Hans Holbein about 1527-8 at More's house in Chelsea. It was
+commissioned from the artist at the recommendation of Erasmus. The
+original has been lost; see Plate XXIX and p. 260.
+
+[88] More was elected Under-Sheriff, 1510.
+
+[89] W. Pirckheimer (1470-1530), humanist. After studying law and Greek
+in Italy he settled at Nuremberg. Some of his works were illustrated by
+Duerer.
+
+[90] Alexander Stewart (_c._ 1493-1513), natural son of James IV of
+Scotland, fell at Flodden. Erasmus was his tutor in Italy in 1508-9. For
+details of this ring see p. 247 f.
+
+[91] Duerer made three portraits of him, two drawings (now in Berlin and
+in Brunswick) and an engraving.
+
+[92] The Greek sculptor, _c._ 350 B.C. In a letter to Pirckheimer dated
+8 January 1523-4 (Allen 1408, 29 n.) Erasmus appears dissatisfied with
+the reverse of the medal cast by Metsys in 1519. Extant examples all
+show a reverse revised in accordance with his suggestions.
+
+[93] A drawing of Erasmus was made by Duerer in 1520 (now in the Louvre),
+and an engraving in 1526.
+
+[94] Erasmus had his portrait painted by Holbein several times in 1523-4
+and 1530-1. A number of originals and copies are still extant.
+
+[95] Luther's letter, in which he evidently attempted to mitigate
+Erasmus's indignation against his _De Servo Arbitrio_ (The Will not
+free), which was a reply to Erasmus's _De Libero Arbitrio_ (On free
+Will), 1524. Luther's letter came 'too late' because Erasmus had already
+composed the _Hyperaspistes Diatribe adversus Servum Arbitrium Martini
+Lutheri_, Basle, Froben, 1526.
+
+[96] John Fisher (1459?-1535).
+
+[97] John Dobeneck of Wendelstein.
+
+[98] i.e., the _De Libero Arbitrio_.
+
+[99] Reading _reticeo_ for _retices_.
+
+[100] Theophrastus Bombast of Einsiedeln (also known as Theophrastus of
+Hohenheim, whence his ancestors came), 1493-1541. The name Paracelsus
+may be a translation of Hohenheim, or may signify a claim to be greater
+than Celsus, the Roman physician. Appointed _physicus et ordinarius
+Basiliensis_ in 1527.
+
+[101] Paracelsus had diagnosed the stone, from which Erasmus suffered,
+as being due to crystallization of salt in the kidneys.
+
+[102] Froben died before the year was out.
+
+[103] Martin Butzer (_c._ 1491-1551), later Bucer, a Dominican, who
+obtained dispensation from his vows in 1521 and adhered to the
+Reformation. At this time he was a member of the Strasbourg party, and
+this letter is probably an answer to a request for an interview for
+Bucer and other Strasbourg delegates on their way through Basle to
+Berne. He eventually became Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge
+under Edward VI.
+
+[104] Henry of Eppendorff, a former friend who followed Hutten on his
+quarrel with Erasmus.
+
+[105] Erasmus stated in the _Responsio_ of 1 August 1530, that in the
+Reformed schools little was taught beyond _dogmata et linguae_ and it
+may be some such criticism, based on what he had heard from a reliable
+source (perhaps Pirckheimer at Nuremberg), to which Bucer had taken
+exception in his letter.
+
+[106] Alfonso Valdes (1490?-1532), a devoted admirer of Erasmus, was
+from 1522 onwards one of Charles V's secretaries. He wrote two dialogues
+in defence of the Emperor.
+
+[107] On this gem see Edgar Wind, 'Aenigma Termini,' in _Journ. of the
+Warburg Institute_, I (1937-8), p. 66.
+
+[108] Greek god of ridicule.
+
+[109] Livy, I, 55, 3. Livy refers to the clearing of the Tarpeian rock
+by Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 B.C.), involving the deconsecration of
+existing shrines, as a preliminary to the building of the temple of
+Juppiter Capitolinus. The auguries allowed the evacuation of the other
+gods, Terminus and Juventas alone refusing to depart.
+
+[110] Livy, 5, 54, 7.
+
+[111] See p. 66.
+
+[112] Preface to _T. Livii ... historiae_, Basle, Froben, 1531. Charles
+Blount (b. 1518), eldest son of William Blount, Lord Mountjoy.
+
+[113] _c._ 1495-1541, Professor of Greek at Basle, 1529. He found the
+MS. containing Livy, Bks. 41-5, in 1527.
+
+[114] Not 'illuminated.' Erasmus refers elsewhere (Allen 919. 55) to a
+codex as _non scripto sed picto_.
+
+[115] The MS., now lost, containing Bks. 33, 17-49 and 40, 37-59, found
+in the cathedral library at Mainz, published in Mainz, J. Schoeffer,
+November 1518.
+
+[116] (1498?-1570). Taught Latin and Greek at Freiburg and became head
+of a college there; in 1534 became the first Professor of Latin in the
+College de France. Retired to Coblenz in 1542.
+
+[117] By the Edict of Courcy.
+
+[118] Amos iii. 8.
+
+[119] Richard Reynolds of the Bridgettine Syon College at Isleworth.
+
+[120] More had been executed 6 July 1535.
+
+[121] Lit. 'not even the peeping of an ass is safe.' This Greek proverb,
+used of those who go to law about trifles, refers to the story of a
+potter whose wares were smashed by a donkey in the workshop going to
+look out of the window. In court the potter, asked of what he
+complained, replied: 'Of the peeping of an ass.' See Apuleius, _Met._
+IX., 42.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+I. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. By Quentin Metsys. 1517. Rome, Galleria Corsini.
+_Facing p. 14_
+
+One half of a diptych, the pendant being a portrait of Erasmus's friend,
+Pierre Gilles (Petrus Aegidius), town clerk of Antwerp. The diptych was
+sent to Sir Thomas More in London; the portrait of Gilles is now in the
+collection of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle.
+
+II. VIEW OF ROTTERDAM at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
+Contemporary engraving, hand-coloured. _Facing p. 15_
+
+III. PORTRAIT BUST OF JOHN COLET, Dean of St. Paul's (1467-1519). By
+Pietro Torrigiano. St. Paul's School, Hammersmith, London. _Facing p.
+30_
+
+John Colet, a close friend of Erasmus (see pp. 30-1), founded St. Paul's
+School. The artist, a Florentine sculptor, was active in London for many
+years and is best known for his effigies on some of the royal tombs in
+Westminster Abbey. The attribution of this bust is due to F. Grossmann
+(_Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes_, XIII, July 1950),
+who identified it as a cast from Torrigiano's original bust on Colet's
+tomb (destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666) and also pointed out that
+Holbein's drawing of Colet in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (No.
+12199) was made from the lost monument after Colet's death.
+
+IV. PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS MORE (1477-1535). Dated 1527. By Hans
+Holbein. New York, Frick Collection. _Facing p. 31_
+
+See also Holbein's drawing of Thomas More with his family, Pl. XXIX.
+
+V. Pen and ink sketches by Erasmus. 1514. Basle, University Library (MS
+A. IX. 56). _Facing p. 46_
+
+These doodles of grotesque heads and other scribbles are found in
+Erasmus's manuscript copy of the _Scholia to the Letters of St. Jerome_,
+preserved in the Library of Basle University and published by Emil Major
+(_Handzeichnungen des Erasmus von Rotterdam_, Basle, 1933). Erasmus
+worked on this manuscript shortly after his arrival in Basle in August
+1514. His edition of the _Letters of Jerome_ was published by Froben in
+1516 (see p. 90).
+
+VI. A Manuscript Page of Erasmus. Basle, University Library. _Facing p.
+47_
+
+See note on Pl. V.
+
+VII. Title-page of the _Adagia_, printed by Aldus Manutius in 1508.
+_Facing p. 62_
+
+The printing of this edition was supervised by Erasmus during his visit
+to Venice (see pp. 64-5). On this title-page is the emblem of the Aldine
+Press, which is found again on the reverse of Aldus's portrait medal
+(Pl. IX).
+
+VIII. VIEW OF VENICE, 1493. Woodcut. _After p. 62_
+
+From Schedel's _Weltchronik_, Nuremberg, 1493.
+
+IX. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS. By an unknown Venetian medallist.
+Venice, Museo Correr. _After p. 62_
+
+On the reverse, the emblem adopted by Aldus in 1495 from an antique
+coin, an anchor entwined by a dolphin. The Greek inscription, [Greek:
+Speude bradeos] (Hasten slowly), is also of antique origin. Cf. Hill,
+_Corpus of Italian Medals_, 1930, No. 536.
+
+X. A page from the printed copy of the _Praise of Folly_ with a drawing
+by Hans Holbein. Basle, Oeffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing
+p. 63_
+
+This copy of the _Laus Stultitiae_, which Holbein decorated with
+marginal drawings in 1515, belonged at that time to Oswald Myconius, a
+friend of Froben's. Apparently not all the drawings in the book are by
+Hans Holbein.
+
+The drawing shows Erasmus working at his desk, fol. S.3 recto. Above
+this thumbnail sketch there is a Latin note in the handwriting of
+Myconius: 'When Erasmus came here and saw this portrait, he exclaimed,
+"Heigh-ho, if Erasmus still looked like that, he would quickly find
+himself a wife!"'
+
+XI. A page from the printed copy of the _Praise of Folly_ with a drawing
+by Hans Holbein. Basle, Oeffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing
+p. 78_
+
+See note on Pl. X. This is the last page of the book, fol. X.4 recto;
+the drawing shows Folly descending from the pulpit at the close of her
+discourse.
+
+XII. THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS. Woodcut by Albrecht Duerer,
+1520-1. _Facing p. 79_
+
+Josse Badius of Brabant had established in Paris the Ascensian Press
+(named after his native place, Assche); he printed many books by
+Erasmus. See pp. 60, 79-83.
+
+XIII. PORTRAIT OF JOHANNES FROBEN (1460-1527). By Hans Holbein. About
+1522-3. Hampton Court, H.M. The Queen. _Facing p. 86_
+
+On this portrait of Erasmus's printer, publisher and friend, see Paul
+Ganz, _The Paintings of Hans Holbein_, 1950, Cat. No. 33.
+
+XIV. DESIGN FOR THE PRINTER'S EMBLEM OF JOHANNES FROBEN. Tempera on
+canvas, heightened with gold. By Hans Holbein. 1523. Basle, Oeffentliche
+Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 87_
+
+The emblem shows the wand of Mercury, and two serpents with a dove, an
+allusion to the Gospel of St. Matthew, x. 16: 'Be ye therefore wise as
+serpents and harmless as doves.'
+
+XV. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS. Drawing by Hans Holbein. 1523. Paris, Louvre.
+_Facing p. 102_
+
+These studies were used by Holbein for his portraits of Erasmus now at
+Longford Castle (Pl. XVI) and in the Louvre (Pl. XXVIII).
+
+XVI. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57. Dated 1523. By Hans Holbein.
+Longford Castle, Earl of Radnor. _Facing p. 103_
+
+The Greek inscription, 'The Labours of Hercules', alludes to Erasmus's
+own view of his life (see p. 125). On this portrait see P. Ganz, op.
+cit., Cat. No. 34.
+
+XVII. VIEW OF BASLE. Woodcut. _Facing p. 134_
+
+From the _Chronik_ by Johann Stumpf, 1548.
+
+XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament, printed by Froben in 1520.
+Designed by Hans Holbein. _Facing p. 135_
+
+XIX. THE ERASMUS HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT NEAR BRUSSELS. _Facing p. 150_
+
+From May to November 1521 Erasmus stayed here as the guest of his
+friend, the canon Pierre Wichmann. The house was built in 1515 under the
+sign of the Swan. It is now a museum in which are preserved numerous
+relics of Erasmus and his age.
+
+XX. The Room used by Erasmus as study during his stay at Anderlecht.
+_Facing p. 151_
+
+XXI. PORTRAIT OF MARTIN LUTHER AS A MONK. Engraving by Lucas Cranach.
+1520. _Facing p. 158_
+
+XXII. PORTRAIT OF ULRICH VON HUTTEN (1488-1523). Anonymous German
+woodcut. _Facing p. 159_
+
+XXIII. THE HOUSE 'ZUM WALFISCH' AT FREIBURG-IM-BREISGAU. _Facing p. 174_
+
+When Erasmus arrived in Freiburg in 1529, he was invited by the Town
+Council to live in this house, which had been built for the Emperor
+Maximilian. See p. 176.
+
+XXIV. PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL HIERONYMUS ALEANDER. Drawing. Arras, Library.
+_Facing p. 175_
+
+One of the 280 portrait drawings collected in the codex known as the
+_Recueil d'Arras_.
+
+XXV. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. By Hans Holbein. 1531-2. Basle, Oeffentliche
+Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 190_
+
+'Holbein may have painted this little roundel on the occasion of a visit
+to Erasmus at Freiburg' (P. Ganz, op. cit.).
+
+XXVI. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY. Woodcut, 1530. _Facing p. 191_
+
+The woodcut shows the aged Erasmus dictating to his amanuensis Gilbertus
+Cognatus in a room of the University of Freiburg. From _Effigies
+Desiderii Erasmi Roterdami ... & Gilberti Cognati Nozereni_, Basle, Joh.
+Oporinus, 1533.
+
+XXVII. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ERASMUS. By Quentin Metsys. 1519. London,
+British Museum. _Facing p. 206_
+
+The reverse shows Erasmus's device, Terminus, and the motto _Concedo
+nulli_, both of which were also engraved on his sealing ring. For
+Erasmus's own interpretation see his letter, pp. 246-8. The Greek
+inscription means, 'His writings will give you a better picture of him'.
+
+XXVIII. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. After 1523. By Hans Holbein. Paris, Louvre.
+_Facing p. 207_
+
+XXIX. THOMAS MORE AND HIS FAMILY. Pen and ink sketch by Hans Holbein,
+1527. Basle, Oeffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 238_
+
+'The portrait, probably commissioned on the occasion of the scholar's
+fiftieth birthday, shows him surrounded by his large family. It is the
+first example of an intimate group portrait not of devotional or
+ceremonial character painted this side of the Alps. At that time Thomas
+More was living in his country house at Chelsea with his second wife,
+Alice, his father, his only son and his son's fiancee, three married
+daughters, eleven grandchildren and a relative, Margaret Giggs. The
+artist, who had been recommended to him by his friend Erasmus, was also
+enjoying his hospitality.' (P. Ganz, op. cit., Cat. No. 175).
+
+The original painting is lost; a copy by Richard Locky, dated 1530, is
+at Nostell Priory. The drawing was sent by More to Erasmus at Basle so
+as to introduce his family, for which purpose the names and ages were
+inscribed. In two letters to Sir Thomas and his daughter, dated 5 and 6
+September 1530, Erasmus sent his enthusiastic thanks: 'I cannot put into
+words the deep pleasure I felt when the painter Holbein gave me the
+picture of your whole family, which is so completely successful that I
+should scarcely be able to see you better if I were with you.' (Allen,
+vol. 8, Nos. 2211-2).
+
+Compare also Erasmus's pen portrait of Sir Thomas More in his letter to
+Hutten, pp. 231-9.
+
+XXX. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. Charcoal drawing by Albrecht Duerer, dated
+1520. Paris, Louvre. _Facing p. 239_
+
+Drawn at Antwerp, during Duerer's journey to the Netherlands. When he
+received the false news of the murder of Luther at Whitsuntide 1521,
+Duerer wrote in his diary: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou?
+Listen, thou Knight of Christ, ride out with the Lord Christ, defend the
+truth and earn for thyself the martyr's crown!'
+
+XXXI. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. Engraving by Albrecht Duerer, dated 1526.
+_Facing p. 246_
+
+In his _Diary of a Journey to the Netherlands_, Duerer noted in late
+August 1520: 'I have taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait once more',
+but he does not say when he took his first portrait. The earlier work is
+assumed to have been done one month before, and to be identical with the
+drawing in the Louvre (Pl. XXX). This drawing is mentioned by Erasmus
+himself in a letter to Pirckheimer of 1525 (p. 240); in an earlier
+letter to the same friend (1522) he says that Duerer had started to paint
+him in 1520. The second portrait drawing is lost; hence it cannot be
+proved that this second portrait was made in metal point--as is usually
+assumed--and not in charcoal, or that the engraving here reproduced was
+based on it.
+
+XXXII. TERMINUS. Erasmus's device. Pen and ink drawing by Hans Holbein.
+Basle, Oeffentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 247_
+
+_Frontispiece_: DECORATIVE PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS WITH HIS DEVICE,
+TERMINUS. Engraving by Hans Holbein, 1535.
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+
+For help in the collection of illustrations we are specially indebted to
+M. Daniel van Damme, Curator of the Erasmus Museum at Anderlecht and
+author of the _Ephemeride illustree de la Vie d'Erasme_, published in
+1936 on the occasion of the fourth centenary of Erasmus's death. For
+photographs and permission to reproduce we have to thank also the Frick
+Collection, New York (Pl. iv), the Oeffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle (Pl.
+X-XI, XIV, XXV, XXIX, XXXII), the Library of Basle University (Pl.
+V-VI), and the Warburg Institute, University of London (Pl. iii). The
+photographs for Pl. II, VII, XVIII-XX and XXVI are by M. Mauhin,
+Anderlecht, those for Plates VIII and XVII by Dr. F. Stoedtner,
+Duesseldorf, and that for Plate IX by Fiorentini, Venice.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF NAMES
+
+
+Adrian of Utrecht, Dean, later Pope, 55, 131, 162
+
+Agricola, Rudolf, 7
+
+Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mayence, 140, 145
+
+Aldus Manutius, 63, 64, 81, 207
+
+Aleander, Hieronymus, 64, 124, 147, 149, 171, 184, 187
+
+Alidosi, Francesco, 214n.
+
+Amerbach, Bonifacius, 176, 186, 223n.
+
+Amerbach, Johannes, 83, 90
+
+Ammonius, Andrew, 37, 58, 67, 79, 80, 81, 83, 86, 90, 93, 94, 119, 123,
+  134
+
+Andrelinus, Faustus, 21, 25, 26, 29, 47
+
+Anna of Borselen, Lady of Veere, 27, 28, 35, 37, 38, 55, 62, 200-1
+
+Asolani, Andrea, 64
+
+Ath, Jean Briard of, 131, 133, 134, 135, 137, 229
+
+Aurelius (Cornelius Gerard of Gouda), 11, 13, 14, 33, 44
+
+
+Badius, Josse, 57, 60, 79, 81, 82, 83, 90, 133, 208, 219n.
+
+Balbi, Girolamo, 20
+
+Barbaro, Ermolao, 21
+
+Batt, James, 18, 19, 27, 28, 37, 38, 47, 48, 49, 55, 200
+
+Beatus Rhenanus, 39, 64, 83, 96, 119, 156, 177, 184, 186, 187, 223
+
+Becar, John, 181
+
+Beda (Noel Bedier), 120, 125, 157, 158
+
+Bembo, 173
+
+Ber, Louis, 186, 253
+
+Berckman, Francis, 82, 83
+
+Bergen, Anthony of, 85, 202
+
+Berquin, Louis de, 158
+
+Berselius, Paschasius, 229
+
+Blount, Charles, 249
+
+Blount, William, Lord Mountjoy, 27-8, 30, 35, 36, 37, 58, 59n., 67, 68,
+  79, 86, 87, 95, 184, 199, 215, 251
+
+Boerio, Giovanni Battista, 60
+
+Bombasius, Paul, 63
+
+Bouts, Dirck, 3
+
+Boys, Hector, 25
+
+Brie, Germain de, 96
+
+Bucer (Butzer), Martin, 177, 243
+
+Budaeus, William, 94, 95, 96, 97, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 132, 153,
+  173, 219, 221
+
+Busch, Hermann, 224
+
+Busleiden, Francis of, archbishop of Besancon, 55, 135
+
+Busleiden, Jerome, 135
+
+
+Cajetanus, 141
+
+Calvin, 165, 167, 182
+
+Caminade, Augustine, 37, 47, 48, 155
+
+Canossa, Count, 86
+
+Capito, Wolfgang Fabricius, 96, 132, 140, 165, 166, 171, 218, 243
+
+Catherine of Aragon, 168
+
+Charles V, 92, 95, 99, 145-6, 218
+
+Charnock, prior, 31
+
+Cinicampius, _see_ Eschenfelder
+
+Clement VII, 184
+
+Clyfton, tutor, 63
+
+Cochleus, 241
+
+Colet, John, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 56, 57, 58, 80, 81, 91, 92, 96,
+  104, 109, 141, 144, 154, 181, 200, 211, 215
+
+Cop, William, 49, 61, 94, 219
+
+Cornelius, _see_ Aurelius
+
+Cratander, 85
+
+David of Burgundy, bishop of Utrecht, 16
+
+Decanus, 224
+
+Denk, Hans, 178
+
+Dirks, Vincent, 137, 149, 157, 158
+
+Dobeneck, John, _see_ Cochleus
+
+Dorp, Martin van, 77, 94, 126, 131, 133, 134
+
+Duerer, Albrecht, 148-9, 240, 224n.
+
+
+Eck, Johannes, 98, 141
+
+Egmond, Nicholas of (Egmondanus), 119, 133, 137, 148, 149, 158, 161
+
+Egnatius, Baptista, 64
+
+Episcopius, Nicholas, 186
+
+Eppendorff, Henry of, 124, 159, 160, 243
+
+Eschenfelder, Christopher, 186, 224
+
+Etienne, _see_ Stephanus
+
+
+Faber, _see_ Lefevre
+
+Farel, Guillaume, 166, 167
+
+Ferdinand, archduke, 175
+
+Ficino, Marsilio, 21
+
+Filelfo, Francesco, 205
+
+Fisher, John, bishop of Rochester, 58, 80, 92, 119, 181, 182, 214n.
+
+Fisher, Robert, 26, 27, 34, 199
+
+Flaminius, John, 225
+
+Foxe, Richard, 58, 59
+
+Francis I, 94, 99, 144, 145, 218-19
+
+Frederick of Saxony, 139, 143, 147
+
+Froben, Johannes, 83, 83, 87, 89, 90, 91, 134, 143, 156, 170, 182, 221,
+  223n., 243
+
+Froben, Johannes Erasmius, 156, 183, 186
+
+Fugger, Anthony, 176
+
+
+Gaguin, Robert, 21, 24, 25, 26, 125
+
+Gallinarius, 223
+
+Gebwiler, 224
+
+George of Saxony, 162
+
+Gerard, Cornelius, _see_ Aurelius
+
+Gerard, Erasmus's father, 6
+
+Gerbel, 224
+
+Gigli, Silvestro, bishop of Worcester, 93
+
+Gilles, Peter, 66, 86, 92, 94, 107, 119, 133, 184
+
+Glareanus, Henri (Loriti), 96, 219, 251
+
+Gourmont, Gilles, 79, 80, 82, 209n.
+
+Grey, Thomas, 23, 26
+
+Grimani, Domenico, 66, 67n., 68, 214
+
+Grocyn, William, 34, 58, 200, 208
+
+Groote, Geert 3
+
+Grunnius, Lambertus, 93
+
+Grynaeus, Simon, 249
+
+Guibe, Robert, bishop of Nantes, 215n.
+
+
+Hegius, Alexander, 7
+
+Henry of Bergen, bishop of Cambray, 16, 17, 25, 27, 35, 38, 47, 55
+
+Henry VII, 58, 67, 251
+
+Henry VIII, 30, 37, 67, 84, 99, 144, 145, 146, 162, 182, 218, 251
+
+Hermans, William, 11, 13, 16, 18, 26, 28, 38, 44, 47, 49
+
+Hermonymus, George, 204n.
+
+Holbein, Hans, 114, 121, 151, 232n., 236n.
+
+Hollonius, Lambert, 156
+
+Hoogstraten, Jacob, 145
+
+Hutten, Ulrich von, 96, 118, 119, 125, 128-9, 140, 148, 159, 231
+
+
+James IV, 66, 84
+
+John of Trazegnies, 50n.
+
+Julius II, 58, 62, 84, 93, 152, 217
+
+
+Karlstadt, Andreas, 141
+
+Lachner, 221
+
+Lang, John, 141, 142, 144
+
+Langenfeld, John, 224
+
+Lascaris, Johannes, 64
+
+Lasco, Johannes a, 186
+
+Latimer, William, 58, 208
+
+Latomus, Bartholomew, 251
+
+Latomus, James, 133, 135, 149
+
+Laurin, Mark, 229
+
+Lee, Edward, 119, 122, 128, 133, 134, 135, 145, 157
+
+Lefevre d'Etaples, Jacques, 21, 119, 120, 132, 133
+
+Leo, Ambrose, 219
+
+Leo X, 66, 93, 94, 134, 140, 144, 146, 215, 218
+
+Leonicenus, Nicholas, 219
+
+Linacre, Thomas, 34, 58, 200, 208, 219, 221
+
+Longolius, Christopher, 172, 173
+
+Loriti, _see_ Glareanus
+
+Loyola, Ignatius of, 189
+
+Lupset, 221n., 222
+
+Luther, Martin, 54, 96, 120, 128, 131, 135, 138, 139-50, 159, 161-5,
+  177, 178, 179, 209, 229, 240, 244
+
+Lypsius, Martin, 125, 134
+
+Lyra, Nicholas of, 57
+
+
+Maertensz, Dirck, 66, 90, 92, 134, 156
+
+Manutius, _see_ Aldus
+
+Mary of Hungary, 168, 187
+
+Maternus, 224
+
+Matthias, 225
+
+Maximilian, emperor, 84, 99, 141, 147, 176, 218, 219
+
+Medici, Giovanni de', _see_ Leo X
+
+Melanchthon, 145, 152, 165, 178, 180, 231
+
+Metsys, Quentin, 92, 240n.
+
+More, Thomas, 29, 30, 34, 35, 58, 69, 70, 92, 107, 119, 126, 127, 141,
+  146, 148, 153, 154, 182, 183, 200, 209, 221, 231-9, 252
+
+Mountjoy, _see_ Blount
+
+Musurus, Marcus, 64
+
+Mutianus, 165
+
+
+Neuenahr, Hermann Count of, 225, 226
+
+Northoff, brothers, 26, 27
+
+
+Obrecht, Johannes, 62
+
+Oecolampadius, 157, 166, 167, 168, 174, 175, 180
+
+Osiander, 244
+
+
+Pace, Richard, 159, 222
+
+Paludanus, Johannes, 131
+
+Paracelsus, Theophrastus, 242
+
+Paul III, 184, 185, 253
+
+Peter Gerard, Erasmus's brother, 5-10
+
+Phileticus, Martin, 205n.
+
+Philip le Beau, 56, 59n.
+
+Philippi, John, 58
+
+Pico della Mirandola, 21
+
+Pio, Alberto, 77, 158, 167
+
+Pirckheimer, Willibald, 95, 165, 184, 239
+
+Platter, Thomas, 182
+
+Politian, 205
+
+Poncher, Etienne, 94, 96
+
+Probst (Proost), James, 231n.
+
+
+Reuchlin, 90, 94, 128, 145
+
+Reynolds, Richard, 252n.
+
+Riario, Raffaele, 67, 214n.
+
+Roger, _see_ Gerard
+
+Rombout, 8
+
+Rudolfingen, 224
+
+Ruell, John, 219
+
+
+Sadolet, 93, 94, 164, 173, 177
+
+Sapidus, Johannes, 98
+
+Sasboud, 15
+
+Sauvage, John le, 92
+
+Scaliger, 173
+
+Schuerer, M., 90, 209n., 223n., 224
+
+Servatius Roger, 11, 12, 58, 59, 60, 62, 87, 93, 119, 197, 212
+
+Sixtin, John, 31
+
+Sluter, 3
+
+Spalatinus, George, 139
+
+Stadion, Christopher of, bishop of Augsburg, 182
+
+Standonck, John, 21, 22, 38
+
+Stephanus, Henricus, 223n.
+
+Stewart, Alexander, archbishop of St. Andrews, 66, 67, 84
+
+Stewart, James, 198n.
+
+Stunica, _see_ Zuniga
+
+Suderman, 226, 227
+
+Synthen, Johannes, 7
+
+
+Talesius, Quirin, 184, 193
+
+Tapper, Ruurd, 137
+
+Theodoric, 228
+
+Thomas a Kempis, 4, 54
+
+Tunstall, Cuthbert, 58, 96, 97, 132, 162, 208
+
+
+Urswick, 221
+
+Utenheim, Christopher of, bishop of Basle, 166, 173
+
+Utenhove, Charles, 184, 193
+
+Valdes, Alfonso, 246
+
+Valla, Lorenzo, 27, 57, 58, 90
+
+Varnbueler, Ulrich, 224
+
+Veere, _see_ Anna of Borselen
+
+Vianen, William of, 137
+
+Vincent, Augustine, 26
+
+Vitrier, Jean, 50, 181
+
+Vives, 161, 164
+
+Voecht, Jacobus, 38
+
+
+Warham, William, archbishop of Canterbury, 58, 59, 68, 81, 92, 95, 184,
+  204, 215
+
+Watson, John, 98
+
+Werner, Nicholas, 198, 216
+
+William of Orange, 193
+
+Wimpfeling, Jacob, 80, 166
+
+Winckel, Peter, 8
+
+Woerden, Cornelius of, 212
+
+Wolsey, Cardinal, 31, 95, 137, 145, 215n.
+
+
+Ximenes, F., archbishop of Toledo, 95, 130, 158, 218n.
+
+
+Zasius, Ulrich, 96, 153, 165, 187, 219
+
+Zuniga, Diego Lopez, 158
+
+Zwingli, Ulrich, 96, 177, 179, 180, 244
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, by
+Johan Huizinga
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