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THE

EPISTLES OF ERASMUS

THE

EPISTLES OF ERASMUS

FROM HIS EARLIEST LETTERS
TO HIS FIFTY-FIRvST YEAR

ARRANGED IN ORDER OF TIME

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS

FROM THE EARLY CORRESPONDENCE, WITH

A COMMENTARY CONFIRMING THE CHRONOLOGICAL

ARRANGEMENT AND SUPPLYING FURTHER

BIOGRAPHICAL MATTER

BY FRANCIS MORGAN NICHOLS

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1901

M' \

ERRATA.

Introduction, p. xxx, line 15. For 712 read 707.

„ ,, p. liv, line 16. For Cornelius read Cornelium,
„ ,, p. Ixix, note, first line. For le read les.

At begintting of Section XXII. add
280 To Wolsey, Bishop [London, Jan. 1514] Pliitarchi O/. Basel,
of Lincoln 1514; ^xix. 50; C. iv. 23

and correct numbers to foot of page.

P. 15, last line but one. Omit See Chapter xxx.

P. 31, line 8. For scoliast read scholiast.

P. 32, first note. For Inghivami read Inghirami.

P. 34, line 23. For John read Bruno.

P. 65, line 5. For sentences read thoughts.

P. 82, lines 10, II. Read Unseasonable discourse is as Music in
mourning.

P. 105, line I. For last read eighteenth.

P. 129^ line 9. For Strasburg read Basel.

P. 137, line 2. For See Chapter xviii. read See Academy (Journal),
vol. xlviii. p. 317, 318.

P. 141, line 4 from foot of page. For began read\t&^\xn.

P. 170. Epistle 79 is misplaced. It should be the second Epistle in
Chapter vii. See Register of Epistles.

P. 242, line 27, and p. 255, line 25. For Dibden read Dibdin.

P. 288, line 8. For 109 read no.

P. 340, line 5. For 363 read 361.

P. 402, line 15. For 157, 158 read 140, 141.

P. 460, line 21. For 277 read 278.

P. 465, last line but one. For 265 read 264.

P. 467, line 7. For 170 read 166.

P. 480, in Index, urider Boece. For 141 read 146, 147.

PREFACE

HE present work on the Epistles of Erasmus has a
two-fold object. The more important purpose of
its publication is to answer a demand, which was
lirst made by the author's personal friends in his hfetime, and
has been repeated by four centuries of students, who have re-
gretted their inability to read his correspondence in the order
in which it was written. The Epistles have always constituted
the principal authority for his biography, both literary and
personal, but the uncertainty of their dates and order,
especially in the case of the earlier letters, has impeded
their use. The Chronological Register which forms the
first part of this work extends as far as the end of the year
15 17, and comprises more than seven hundred epistles.
Dedications and Prefaces in epistolary form are included
in the series, some of these compositions having been
already admitted among the collected Epistles. The
epistles of a later time are more numerous, but their dates
do not give rise to the same difficulty.

The other purpose of the book is to enable English
readers of every country to follow the author through the
earlier years of his life, by means of translations from his
correspondence, accompanied by a commentary, in which
the date assigned to each letter, or its place in the chrono-
logical series, is explained, and further illustrative matter

vi Preface

is supplied. The translations here published do not cover
the whole period included in the Chronological Register ;
neither do they include every registered epistle for the
period to which they extend ; but to complete the epistolary
narrative for this period, every letter not represented by
translation is described or mentioned in the commentary, with
its number in the Register, the word Epistle being printed
in capital letters to call attention to it. The omission from
translation is seldom found among the earlier letters, not on
account of their relative importance, but because they are
generally short, and their translation affords the easiest means
of justifying the position assigned to them. The judicious
reader will pass with a rapid glance over the Epistles con-
tained in the two first chapters, the arrangement of which in
their probable order has nevertheless cost no little considera-
tion. Where for economy of space in the later chapters
some abbreviation is necessary, it has been thought better to
give an accurate translation of part of an epistle, omitting
the passages of less personal interest, than to attempt an
abstract of the whole, in which the spirit of the original
would be lost. If the part omitted contains matter of any
importance, the omission is marked by asterisks ; but when
it is immaterial, the reader is not troubled with these signs.
No passage having an important bearing on the mind or
history of the writer is suppressed. It must not therefore be
regarded as a fault of the translator, if in some of his pages
Erasmus falls short of the ideal presented by biographers,
who have had more liberty in the selection of their docu-
ments ; and the reader must make allowance for the un-
sparing light thrown upon his character by the perusal of
epistles, some of which acquire for the first time their full
significance by being arranged with other letters in the
order in which they were written.

In order to complete the early biography of Erasmus,
a Preliminary Chapter is inserted, including a translation

Preface vii

of the Coinpenduim Vitse attributed to his own pen, auto-
biographical extracts from his works, relating to his child-
hood and early writings, and the biographical portions of
two Prefaces written by his friend Beatus Rhenanus.

The Register of Epistles terminates with the year 15 17.
The public life of Erasmus divides itself distinctly into two
parts. In the first he pursues his career of Apostle of Humane
Letters, of Social Satirist, of Political Theorist, of Liberal
Theologian, unconscious, as were those around him, of the
religious storm which was about to break over Europe. His
outspoken opinions about abuses of all kinds, and also his
enlightened comments on the New Testament, to the study
of which his labours gave a new stimulus, had raised a host
of censors, against whom, however, he was still able to make
head, having secured the support of influential patrons, in-
cluding the reigning Pontiff, and princes, nobles, and eccle-
siastics of the highest rank in every country of Western
Christendom. This was his position when, at the close of the
year 15 17, being then in his fifty-second year, he kept the
Christmas festival at Louvain. In the course of the follow-
ing year the name of Luther appears for the first time in the
Erasmian Correspondence. A revolution was at hand, for
which the writings of Erasmus had undoubtedly prepared the
way, but in which he was not fitted to take the leading part.
During the period extending from January, 15 18, to his death
on the I2th of July, 1536, he carried on a voluminous corre-
spondence with the most important personages of Europe, as
well as with his private and literary friends, and some of his
epistles form part of the history of the Reformation. The
end of our Register coincides nearly with the close of the
earlier period above described, when the most important
religious and literary movements of the time were combined,
and Erasmus was still at their head.

The present volume of translations, terminating at an
earlier date, embraces a long period of acquisition of

viii Preface

knowledge, the protracted Lehrjahre and Wanderjahre of
Erasmus, extending from his school-days to his journey to
Italy, and culminating in the production of the revised
Adages, a monument of laborious and wide-reaching study.
The nine years following his return from Italy, — a period of
unbiassed literary efifort, mainly directed to the establish-
ment of a Theology founded upon a fresh study of the New
Testament and the early Fathers, — may furnish the materials
for another volume, in completion of the present work.

The periods chosen for our Register and translations have
not however been mainly determined by the changes which
we have observed in the life of Erasmus. To deal with the
entire series of Epistles upon the present plan would be a
labour far surpassing the translator's powers ; and, with
regard to their chronological order, the analysis of every
letter, which is required for the satisfactory arrangement of
the earlier correspondence, has ceased to be necessary
before the time when our Register terminates. The letters
of this period and onward are more generally dated, and
the year-dates, as well as the dates of day and month, are
for the most part original, not. as in the earlier letters,
subsequently added and consequently untrustworthy. The
difficulty in placing the Epistles arises therefore only in
exceptional cases, occurring most frequently in letters
dated between Christmas and Easter, owing to the various
commencements of the Aiimis Domini.

Some observations on the interpretation of these dates
will be found in the Introduction, which also deals with the
history of the collection and publication of the Epistles of
Erasmus, both in his lifetime and since, and with the
questions that have arisen respecting the authenticity of some
of the letters attributed to him.

The reasons, which have guided the Editor in determining
the dates and chronological arrangement adopted in the
Register, are explained, so far as the present volume extends,

Preface ix

in the commentary which accompanies the translations, and
the footnotes to the same part of the book ; where the reader
will find the original date, if any, assigned to each Epistle on
its first publication, and the additions, if any, made to the
date in the later authorized editions of the Latin text. It
should be observed, that at the head of each translation,
the reference which immediately follows the number of the
Epistle, is to the first book in which the original letter is
known to have been printed. The same order of reference
is observed in the Register of Epistles, the letter D being
prefixed where the Epistle was printed from the Deventer
Manuscript.

Before concluding my Preface I am bound to acknow-
ledge my obligations to many benefactors, — some of them
only known to me by their handwriting, — who have helped
me in my researches. Among these I must be permitted to
name first my friend, the Rev. John M. Heald of Ventnor,
who when I began this work in the Isle of Wight, far from
all public libraries and from my own study, assisted me
from his stores both of books and learning. To my friend,
Mr. Percy Stafford Allen of Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
and now Professor in the Government College at Lahore, a
devoted student of the Epistles of Erasmus, I am indebted
for much valuable advice and aid. I hope that some day
he may be encouraged to give to the learned world a
new and more worthy edition of these celebrated Epistles,
to which I may have contributed my mite by facilitating
the chronological arrangement of some of the earlier mate-
rials. To Mr. James Hutt and Mr. Strickland Gibson
I am indebted for assistance in the Bodleian Library.
Mr. Ferdinand Vander Haeghen, the learned librarian of
the University of Ghent, who, with the concurrence of his
colleagues, has begun to publish a bibliography of Erasmus
of exemplary completeness, has been always ready to spare
some of his valuable time to answer the many questions

X' Preface

wherewith I have troubled the best authority to which I
could apply. Dr. Bernoulli, the Librarian of the University
of Basel, has most kindly helped me on more than one
occasion. I am indebted for like assistance to Prof. Schnorr
von Carolsfeld, the Librarian of the Public Library of
Dresden, to Dr. Albert, Keeper of the Archives at Freiburg,
to Dr. Otto von Heinemann, the Librarian of the Grand-
ducal Library at Wolfenbiittel, and to Dr. Geny, the
Librarian of the Town of Schlettstadt, which still possesses
the library of its old citizen, Beatus Rhenanus, the intimate
and trusted friend of Erasmus. And among those who have
kindly contributed their aid, I must not forget my friend,
the Rev. J. C. van Slee, the Librarian of the Public Library
of Deventer, from whom I have received much useful
information, and who has under his charge a manuscript
collection of correspondence which has evidently come from
Erasmus's own hands, and of which some account will be
found in the following Introduction.

My work is incomplete, even as compared with what I
myself proposed. A second volume, of which most of the
materials are collected, was intended to accompany this, and
to carry my translations and commentary to a later period.
But I am advised, I believe wisely, to publish the volume
which has been printed. In the absence of the intended
commentary on the later Epistles, I have added a few notes
to the latter part of my Register, where the order of the
Epistles appeared to require explanation.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface ...... v

Table of Contents ..... xi

Introduction ...... xv

Chronological Register of Epistles to the end of i^ij (i)
Table of Names of Correspondents with their

Epistles as numbered in the Register . . (34)

Preliminary Chapter.

Materials for the early biography of Erasmus . i

Chapter I.

Earliest Epistles; Epistolary exercises at Stein.

Epistles 1-15 . . . . . 40

Chapter II.

Early Correspondence; Literary work at Stein.

Epistles 16-34 • • • • -56

Chapter III.

Erasmus with the Bishop of Cambrai ; Bergen and

Brussels. Antibarbari. 1493-4. Epistles 35-41 89

xii Contents

PAGE

Chapter IV.

Paris^ College of Montaigu ; Bergen and Holland ;
Paris, English Boarding-house, 1494-7.
Epistles 42-54 . . . . .104

Chapter V.

Paris; Holland and Camhrai; Paris. Bachelor s
Degree, July to December, 1497. Epistles
55-63 ^3^

Chapter VI.

Pans ; Holland and Brabant ; Paris. De con-
scribendis epistolis libellus. January to
November, 1498. Epistles 64-80 . . 151

Chapter VII.

Paris; Tournehem and Antwerp; Paris. The
Lady of Veer. Collection of Poems. No-
vember, 14(^8, to y^une, 1499. Epistles Si -(^6 175

Chapter VIII.
First visit to England; London, Oxford, Lojidon.
Return to France. Loss of money, jf-une,
14^^^ to J-anuary^ 1500. Epistles <^']- wo . 200

Chapter IX.
Paris. Publication of the first collection of Adagia.

J-anuary to 'June, 1500. Epistles 111-122, . 228

Contents xiii

PAGE

Chapter X.

Orleans. J-uly to December^ ^500. Epistles 124-

133 . . . . . .263

Chapter XI.

.Paris. Monastic Reform at Livry. Cicero de
Ofiiciis. December^ ^500) i^ May, 1501.
Epistles 134-147 .... 288

Chapter XII.

J-ourney to Holland ; Residence in Artois. Enchi-
ridion Militis Christiani. May^ I50i> ^0 J-uly,
1502. Epistles 148-167 . . .319

Chapter XIII.

Residence at Louvain, Panegyricus / Business at
Antwerp ; Translations from Libanius and
Lucian ; Visit to Hammes. August, 1502,
to December^ 1504- Epistles 168-179 . 351

Chapter XIV.
Return to Paris ; Adnotationes Vallae. Jfanuary to

March, 1505- Epistles 180-183 . . 373

Chapter XV.

Second visit to England; Archbishop War ham ;
Translations from Euripides ; Offer of Degree
at Cambridge. April ^ 1505, io May, 1506.
Epistles 184-193 . . . . 387

xiv Contents

PAGE

Chapter XVI.

J-oiirney to Italy ; Paris, Turin, Florence, Bologna.
Doctor s Degree. June, 1506, to December,
1507. Epistles 194-206 . . .410

Chapter XVII.

Continued residence in Italy ; Venice; Revision of
//zg Adagia. December, 1507, to October, 1508.
Padua, November^ December^ 1508. Siena,
Rome, December , 1508, to y^une, 1509. Return
to England, J^une, J-uly, 1509. Epistles 207-
211 . . . . . .437

Appendix I.

Epistle 74 (latin text). Erasmus Roberto Fischero 467

Appendix II.
Epistle 147 {Lati)i text). Erasmus lacobo Tutori . 468

Appendix III.
Epistle 175 {Latin text). Erasmus Roberto Cs&sari 470

Appendix IV.

Epistle of Rabelais to Erasmus, dated 2^0 Nov. 1532,

cited in p. ^/\2 . . . . .471

Appendix V.

Note on the Birth-year of Eras}nus . . . 474

INTRODUCTION

N this Introduction it is proposed to give a short
account of what is known concerning the com-
position and preservation of the Epistles of
Erasmus, from which the principal materials of the follow-
ing work have been drawn ; concerning the transcription
and circulation in manuscript of some of his epistles; and
finally concerning the publication of his correspondence in
various collections and editions by means of the Press. In
connexion with this part of our subject we shall have to
deal with the questions suggested by modern criticism
concerning the authenticity of Epistles which have been
accepted as coming from the hand of this writer, but are not
authenticated by his own imprimatur or that of his literary
executors ; and to take note of the various kinds of com-
position,— some genuine epistles, some only epistles in name, —
which are included in the published series. It will be
also our business to inquire into the extent and causes of the
uncertainty as to the dates and order of these epistles, which
has been so frequent a cause of complaint with biographers
and students, and to explain what has been done, both by
former editors and in our own work, to make these matters
more clear. Lastly, at the end of the Introduction it is pro-
posed to give translations from the Prefaces to the successive
collections of epistles, as they were originally published.
VOL. I. b

xvi Introduction

It is important to bear in mind that during the early years
of Erasmus's Hfe the Printing-press, — of which he, among all
his contemporaries, was to make the most extensive use, —
was still in its infancy. This art had been already invented
before the birth of Erasmus, but until near the close of the
fifteenth century the learned reader, especially in the north of
Europe, was dependent upon the transcriber for most of the
authors that he required ; the early printed books of Ger-
many being mainly of a popular, educational or religious
character. The monastic library, which was so useful to
Erasmus in his student days, possessed a store of books, of
which during his residence in the Convent he and his friend
William Herman were assiduous readers (see pp. 9, 26, 51,
81) ; and among these books there were probably no printed
volumes at all ; or if there were any, they were regarded as
something new and rare. In the Catalogue of Lucubrations
Erasmus himself describes this state of things in very few
words : " In my boyhood. Printing being either not dis-
covered or little known, no new books reached us." See
p. 20. Hence the idea of multiplying copies by transcription
still remained, until near the close of the fifteenth century,
more familiar to the student. Among the circle of Erasmus,
Georgius Hermonymus, from whom he had some Greek
lessons at Paris in 1501, was a transcriber of books in that
language, and John Reuchlin, the most learned of German
scholars, is said to have supported himself by his transcrip-
tions. Mr. Hallam has somewhat hastily observed, that
the invention of Printing put a sudden stop to the occu-
pation of the transcriber (Hallam, Literature of Europe^
vol. i. chap. 3, p. 243). Those who remember the early
days of railways may recall the expectation which was
entertained, that the mechanical means of locomotion would
soon diminish the demand for horses, and how completely that
expectation was falsified, so far as any immediate effect was

Books published by transcription xvii

concerned. A similar observation may be made respecting
the introduction of printing. This invention was in the first
instance an effort to meet the increased demand of the new
generation for copies of the books most in use for purposes
of devotion and scholastic teaching ; and during the early
years of its existence it could do little more than imperfectly
satisfy this demand. Copies of books less generally required
were supplied by the transcribers, for whom there was still
abundant employment. Erasmus in 15:1 complains of the
want, at Cambridge, of transcribers ready to earn money by
making fair copies of his works.

The father of Erasmus had been a skilful transcriber and
had gained his living by that profession (pp. 6, 40) ; and
Erasmus himself, for the purpose of supplying his own needs
and sometimes of obliging a friend (Epistle 30, pp. jy^ 130,
^SS), pursued in his early years his father's occupation, which
had probably included the decoration of books with orna-
mental Capitals and borders, as well as the transcription of
the text. Pp. 54, 55. When recommended by a corre-
spondent in his Convent days (perhaps about 1490) to read
the Epistles of Jerome, he answers, that he has not only read
them long ago, but has copied them out with his own fingers.
See p. 75. This assertion furnishes a striking illustration of
Erasmus's independence of printed copies at this period, as
the work transcribed was one of the books most frequently
reproduced by the early Press, not only of Italy but of
Germany, no less than five editions having been printed
before the end of 1490 on this side of the Alps, and still
more in Italy. Some years later, being intent on the study
of Greek, and finding it difficult to procure copies of Greek
authors, he had recourse to his old accomplishment, and spent
nights and days in copying some books that he had bor-
rowed. P. 313. When in his young days he had become an
author himself, we may assume that his works were for some

b 2

xviii Introduction

time distributed in manuscript. See pp.86, 122, 123, 177, 178.
He had at an early age achieved some distinction as a Latm
poet (Epistle 61) ; and his poetry was doubtless circulated
in this way. His earliest prose work, for which there was
any considerable demand among purchasers, was the useful
abridgment of the Elegantise, of Laurentius Valla, made
apparently about 1485 ; and there are several traces in his
early epistles of this work being transcribed for the purpose
of sale. Pp. 86, 121, 123, 177, 182. As late as August, 1500,
he proposed to send some of his books, including the first
rudiments of the Colloqiiia and the Treatise on Letter-writing,
to his friend Batt for transcription. See p. 266. Of his familiar
epistles, which he also learned at an early period to regard as
part of his literary stock, we shall presently speak more fully.
The first printed work of Erasmus appears to have been
an epistle inserted at the end of Gaguin's History of
France, published in September, 1495 (Epistle 45) ; and
towards the end of the next year Erasmus superintended
the printing of a little volume of Poetry by his friend,
William Herman (published 20 Jan. 1497), which included
a Dedication written by Erasmus (Epistle 50), and one poem
of his composition. In Epistle 94, dated the 2nd of May,
1499, we find him for the first time writing familiarly about
printers and printing. See pp. 195, 196. This was probably
after the publication by the Press of a small collection of
his own poetry ; an important event in his life, of which an
account is given in the Catalogue of Lucubrations. See pp.
22, 198. But in spite of his increased familiarity with the
Press it was still his practice in the earlier years of the fol-
lowing century to present his shorter works in manuscript
to his patrons, accompanied with dedicatory epistles. This
was the case with the translation of the Hecuba of Euripides
inscribed to Archbishop Warham in January, 1506 (p. 395),
and various translations from Lucian dedicated about the
same period to several patrons. Pp. 370, 391, 408, 409.

Early printed works of Erasmus xix

On his return to France from England in January, 1500,
Erasmus brought back with him part of the materials of the
first edition of the Adages^ which was published at Paris by
means of the Press in the middle of June, with a Dedicatory
Epistle to Lord Mountjoy, first presented to him in a printed
form, Epistle 121. The same volume contained the Poem
entitled Prosopopoeia Briiannix^ with the accompanying
Epistle to Prince Henry, which had been already presented
to the Prince in manuscript. Epistle 97, pp. 202, 245. We
may presume that soon after this time, with his various
experience of the Press, the idea of multiplying copies of his
own works by transcription, for the purpose of sale, passed
out of Erasmus's mind. Even before any copyright was
thought of, the printing-press secured a great advantage to
the author or editor, by enabling him to supply a number of
copies more rapidly and at a cheaper rate than the transcriber.

To turn to the genesis of the epistles, there can be no
doubt that Erasmus took great pains in his boyhood to
acquire an easy epistolary style ; but his writings appear to
furnish little information respecting the studies which were
so successfully directed to this object. We have already
mentioned one collection of Epistles, — those of St. Jerome,
— which Erasmus had not only read through in his youth,
but had transcribed with his own hand (Epistle 29), and
there can be no doubt that he highly appreciated the
vigour and purity of language of this author. His funeral
oration in honour of Bertha van Heyen was expressly
modelled upon an epistle of St. Jerome (see p. 87) ; and
the epistolary form adopted in one of the most elaborate of
his early prose compositions, the defence of Monastic Life,
entitled De contemptu Mundi (see p. 88), may be attributed
to his familiarity with the same work. But although the
intiuence of Jerome may be traceable in the ideas of
Erasmus and in the structure of his works, it was not from
him that he derived that inimitable epistolary style, the

XX Introduction

prevailing character of which is its lightness and flexibility,
passing readily from grave to gay, and reflecting every shade
of feeling, with a charming air of confidence in his corre-
spondent. In the treatise entitled De conscribendis Epistolis,
he refers his readers to the works of Cicero, of Pliny, and of
Politian, for their models ; and in the Epistle to Beatus
Rbenanus, which serves as a preface to the collection of
epistles published in 1521, and also to later collections, he
recommends among modern writers, the epistles of Aeneas
Silvius (Pope Pius II.), as belonging to the more interesting
class of letters, which reflect both the sentiments of the
writer, and the circumstances of the time in which he lived.
There can be little doubt, that Erasmus had read these
authors with attention, and with a special view to the
improvement of his own style. Of the pains which he took
in the acquisition of this talent, he speaks in the same
Preface. " As a boy, and also at a riper age, I wrote a vast
number of letters, but scarcely any for the purpose of pub-
lication. I practised my pen, I beguiled my leisure, I made
merry with my acquaintance, I indulged my humour, in fine,
did nothing but exercise and amuse myself, without the least
expectation that friends would copy out or preserve such
trifles." In these words he gives a happy picture of the
long practice by which he acquired his consummate skill,
somewhat exaggerating perhaps the absence of any thought
of publication, and without any further hint of the masters
under whom he was silently studying. In a later part of
the same Preface a sentence escapes him, which shows that
he was not unconscious of his success. " As a writer
of epistles, I may perhaps have seemed not altogether
incapable." See more of this Preface, pp. Ixxvii-lxxxiii.

The Epistles of Erasmus, some of which are among his
earliest prose compositions, constitute, as a whole, his most
attractive literary work, and the style which he formed in
the production of them became his easiest and most natural

Early circulation of Epistles xxi

manner of writing. Not only the early works already
mentioned, but many of the Hterary essays of his mature
period, as the Enchiridion Militis Christiani and the dis-
courses De l/irtute amplectenda, and De Ratione Stiidii
are thrown into the epistolary form.

The epistles written during the latter part of the Con-
ventual period (Chapter II.), though they have not the
charm of his later letters, are among the principal literary
remains of his early manhood, but with two exceptions, they
were not published until long after his death. In making
the above assertions about them, I am assuming the authen-
ticity of this collection, as I have done in the chapter in
which translations of them are given. Upon this point some
observations will be found in page xlvi. Some of the early
epistles appear to have been among the works of Erasmus
circulated in manuscript before they were multiplied by the
Press. How soon this practice began it is impossible to say,
but we may observe that Beatus Rhenanus, in speaking of the
introduction of Erasmus to the Bishop of Cambrai, appears
to imply, that while Erasmus was still in the Monastery, his
elegantly written epistles had already obtained some reputa-
tion, p. 26. We have evidence that some years after he had
left the Convent he was collecting his compositions of this
kind (p. 390) ; and when he was in Paris in 1499, a collection
of his correspondence with Herman was already in the
hands of Batt for transcription, pp. 178, 197. The greater
part of this collection, which would have been of more
interest than much that has been preserved, has apparently
been lost. See p. 94. Two letters to Herman, printed in the
Farrago Epistolarum of 15 19 (Epistles 51 and 79 of our
series), seem to be the only part of this correspondence
which was printed with the sanction of Erasmus. Epistles
32, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41 (the first of Erasmus, and the rest of
Herman), all published for the first time in 1703, may
possibly have been included in the collection of 1499.

xxii Introduction

Epistle 163 (Herman to Servatius) also first published in
1703, and Epistles 168 and 174 (Erasmus to Herman), pub-
lished in the collection of 1607, belong to a later date.

We find in the earlier letters, that Erasmus employed his
friends, including Herman and Batt (pp. 123, 178, 235), to
make transcripts of his works. That some of his epistles
were published in this form is shown, not only by the
allusions to their transcription in his early letters (pp. 197,
317, 339), but by the facts which he mentions in the Preface
addressed to Beatus Rhenanus, from which it appears that
manuscript collections of his epistles were not uncommon
in Germany, and that one such collection at least had been
brought under his notice in Italy in 1509. P. Ixxviii.

The views of Erasmus concerning the preservation and
publication of his epistles may very well have changed at
different periods of his life. When he was first aware in his
younger days, that his letters might become a valuable part
of his literary stock-in-trade, he set to work to collect and
preserve them. But in later times, when his epistles were
addressed to more important correspondents, he did not care
to publish those early productions. Only two epistles earlier
than his thirtieth year (Epistles 26, 27) are included in the
Farrago Epistolarum of 15 19; and none others were pub-
lished by the Press in his lifetime. It was apparent before
long, that if all his epistles were preserved, the mass would
be too great for publication. " I have written and am still
writing," he says in 1523, "such a quantity of letters, that
two waggons would scarcely be equal to carry them." ( Cata-
logus Lucubrationum, Jortin ii. 441).

It is of some interest to enquire by what means the early
epistles actually contained in our printed collections have sur-
vived. The correspondence with Herman, apparently pre-
served for a time by Erasmus, but for the most part lost, has
been already mentioned. See p. xxi. Assuming the authenticity
of the epistles of the conventual period printed by Merula in

Preservation of the early Epistles xxiii

1607 and included in our two first Chapters, we may attribute
their preservation either to the care of Erasmus himself,
or possibly to the exertions of Francis, w^io, if we can trust
Epistle 1 85, was asked in 1505 to collect such letters, and whose
efforts for this purpose may have been made both in that
and the following years. It has been already observed that
only two of these earliest epistles (Epistles 26, 27) were
published by Erasmus himself, being included in the Far-
rago EpistolariLin (15 19), which also contains several fami-
liar letters of the period of Erasmus's student life at Paris
from 1496 to 1499, of his first visit to England (1499- 1500),
and of his subsequent residence in Paris, Orleans, and Artois
from 1500 to 1502. These latter letters could not well
have come into Francis's hands, and may perhaps be attri-
buted to a collection made by Erasmus himself. For a
considerable time after his removal to Brabant (August, 1502,
to December, 1504), no further private letters appear in
the collections published during his life or by his literary
executors, the few familiar epistles that we have of this
period being found in the later publication of Merula,
which was possibly indebted to the collection of Francis,
as the letters are addressed to friends in Holland. After an
interval of two years and a half, the scanty contributions
from the Farrago begin again by three letters written
during Erasmus's short stay at Paris in the spring of 1505 ;
but they cease entirely during the English visit of about
a year (1505-6), the few private letters that we have of this
period being contributed by Merula (1607), and having
apparently been part of the collection made by Francis, a
letter addressed to him, requesting him to collect, being
one of them. We have, next, in the Farrago three farewell
letters to English friends written upon Erasmus's arrival at
Paris on his way to Italy in June, 1506. During his Italian
journey, lasting about three years from this time, — June, 1506,
to June, 1509, — the only familiar epistles of Erasmus that

xxiv Introduction

have been preserved are four short letters dated from Florence
and Bologna, first published by Merula (Epistles 198-201),
which,being addressed to correspondents in the LowCountries,
may have formed part of the assumed collection of Francis, and
four others (Epistles 204, 206, 208, 209), lately printed for the
first time by M. de Nolhac from the originals preserved by
Aldus and now at the Vatican. See pp. 428, 432, 451. It may
be conjectured that during the greater part of his stay in
Italy, being busily engaged in his studies, and in the com-
pletion of the Adages^ and having no clerks or assistants at
command, Erasmus omitted to preserve copies of his corre-
spondence. If any were preserved, they have been entirely
lost. The contributions from the Farrago come in again with
two letters addressed to Erasmus by Mountjoy and Jacobus
Piso at the close of his residence in Italy ; and after another
pause of nearly two years, — June, 1509, to April, 151 1, —
they are continued by the correspondence with Ammonius,
during Erasmus's short journey to Paris in 151 1, and with
the same friend as well as Colet and others during his resi-
dence at Cambridge (with intervals in London) during the
years 151 1, 15 12, 15 13, and 15 14. The correspondence with
Ammonius produced some of the most charming epistles
of the collection, and probably led to a more careful pre-
servation by Erasmus both of his own familiar letters and of
the letters of his friends. From this time we may perhaps
assume that he habitually kept a letter-book, in which he
caused the most interesting and scholarly of the epistles of
his correspondents to be entered together with his own.

Erasmus left England in July, 15 14, and a few weeks later
settled himself for the work of several months at Basel. His
journey and change of residence led to a great increase in
the number of his learned friends, but he was too busy to
devote much time to correspondence. Of the thirty-eight
published letters attributed in our Register to the period
between his departure from England for Basel in July, 15 14,

Letter-hooks of Erasmus xxv

and his second departure for the same place in June, I5i5>
six are Dedications or complimentary Epistles written for
the press ; three are part of the correspondence with the
Pope and Cardinals, which were among the first printed
epistles of Erasmus (see p. xxviii.) ; two are long controver-
sial epistles exchanged between Dorpius and Erasmus on
the proposed printing of the New Testament in Greek ; one
is the disputed Epistle to Servatius (see p. xli.) ; eight only
are familiar epistles (five of Erasmus and three addressed to
him), included in the collections of his epistles published
in his lifetime ; one other epistle of Erasmus, addressed to
Pirkheimer, is taken from the posthumous publication of
Scriverius (1615); two epistles of Erasmus were first pub-
lished in the book entitled Illiistrium viroriim Eptstolx ad
loannem Reuchlin^ 15 19; and one addressed to Zasius is from
a recent publication. The fourteen that remain are epistles
addressed to Erasmus, which were first printed by Le Clerc
in 1703 from a letter-book which will presently be described.
The above sketch of the preservation of the epistles from
Erasmus's childhood to the time of his leaving England for
Basle in 15 15 comprises all the correspondence described in
the first twenty-four sections of our Register, which are made
up, beside the Prefatory Epistles (see note p. xxvii.), i. of
epistles taken from Farrago^ with a few printed in the other
early authorized collections ; 2. of epistles published by
Merula (including most of the early letters of the first two
chapters), and one published by Scriverius ; 3. of nineteen
epistles of, and to, Erasmus, all except one (Epistle 163)
earlier than 1500, first printed by Le Clerc in 1703, the
previous history of which is not known, and which, assuming
their genuineness, may have been part of the old collections
of Erasmus or of Francis ; 4. of twenty-two epistles addressed
to Erasmus, first printed by Le Clerc out of the letter-book
described in the following paragraph ; 5. of four unimportant
letters found in the English Record Office.

xxvi Introduction

We have referred to letter-books assumed to have been
kept by Erasmus for the preservation of his correspondence.
It is of more interest to observe, that the existence of such
collections is not a mere matter of conjecture. The Library
of Deventer still possesses one of Erasmus's original letter-
books, or collections of Epistles, in which his own handwriting
frequently appears. It contains, in two parts, i86 epistles of
his own and 173 epistles addressed to him. The epistles
belong for the most part to the years 15 14 to 15 18, with a
few of earlier years, those of Erasmus himself being prin-
cipally of the years 15 17 and 15 18, and are entered in
such order, or disorder, as suggests rather the binding
together of detached copies, than the regular transcription of
epistles at the time when they were composed or received.
Some of the epistles are among those printed in Erasmus's
lifetime, but by far the greater number had not been pub-
lished when Le Clerc was preparing in 1703 the third
volume of the Leyden edition of the Opera Erasmi^
and, — the manuscript book having been placed at his
disposal, — were included by his editor in the Appendix
epistolarum quse, loco suo reponi non potuerunt (C. 1522-
1776),* or in the later Appendix of undated letters alpha-
betically arranged by the names of the correspondents
(C. 1 775- 1 922). It is to this accession that the reader
has to attribute the large proportion of epistles of Erasmus's
correspondents which is found among the Epistolae, Erasmi
from 1514 to 1517 ; the additional epistles of Erasmus being
mostly later. This may be seen by a glance at the lines in
italics, pp. (14) to (27) of our Register of Epistles. The
manuscript volume above referred to is more fully described
by Professor Kan of Rotterdam in a publication entitled
Erasmiani Gymnasii Programma^ Rotterdam, 1881.

We may now direct our attention to the first printing of

* Throughout this work the third volume of the Opera Erasmi, ed. Clerici,
is cited as C. and the London edition of Epistles, as Ep.

First printed Epistles of Erasmus xxvii

the Epistles. It has been already observed, that the earliest
printed work of Erasmus was in the form of an epistle to
Robert Gagiiin. Epistle 45. It is not however a private letter,
but an elaborate commendation appended to the original and
to several subsequent editions of Gaguin's History of France,
first published at Paris on the last day of September, 1495 ;
the Epistle has no date of its own. This was the one prose
writing of Erasmus with which Colet was acquainted, when
the two men met at Oxford in 1499. Before this publica-
tion several private letters had already passed between
Gaguin and Erasmus, three of which are preserved in a little
volume of Epistles and Orations of Gaguin first printed at
Paris in 1498, and twice reprinted; but unfortunately Gaguin
published his own compositions without those of his then
obscure correspondent. These letters of Gaguin (Epistles
42, 43, 44) belong apparently to the years 1494 and 1495.

During the twenty years following this correspondence
and ending in July, 15 15, the only epistles of Erasmus which
are known to have 'been committed to the press are the
dedicatory Epistles prefixed, first to Herman's Silva Odarum,
1496, and afterwards to a long succession of publications of
Erasmus himself, and a prefatory Epistle contributed in
1503 to a book by James Middelburg on the Imperial
Power. We should add to the above list one of the theolo-
gical discourses exchanged with Colet in 1499 (Epistle 106),
and two complimentary Epistles of James Wimpfling to
Erasmus and of Erasmus to James Wimpfling, dated i and
21 Sept. 1 5 14 (Epistles 295 and 298), which were wTitten
for publication and printed by Schiirer at Strasburg in his
edition of the Copia of that year.*

* These numerous Epistles, Prefaces and Dedications, are placed in our
series with the following numbers: 45, 50, 74, 87, 97, 106, 121, 147, 160,
170, 173, 176, 177, 178, 182, 186, 187, 191, 192, 193, 202, 205, 207, 212,
213, 226, 247, 248, 249, 258, 259, 274, 279, 291, 295, 298 302, 303, 315,
316, 320.

xxviii Introduction

The first book of Erasmus separately printed under the
name of Epistles was a small 4to volume issued by Froben,
in August, 1515,* which contained the Epistles to Leo X.
and to the Cardinals Grimani and Riario, dated in April
and March, 15 15, afterwards the first three letters in the
Second Book (Epistles 323, 318, and 319), and an Epistola
Apologetica ad Martiniun Dorpiinn on the subject of the
Moria, apparently written in March, 15 15, which was not
included in the larger authorized collections of Epistles, but
is in the London Collection. Ep. xxxi. 42 (Epistle 317).

The same Epistle to Dorpius (Epistle 317) was also
printed, together with the epistle of Dorpius to Erasmus
(Epistle 314) to which Epistle 317 was the reply, in a
pamphlet, published at Louvain by Thierry Martens in
October, 15 15 ;t which also conidiinQd Erasmi Enari-atio in
primmn Psalmitm, and the accompanying dedicatory letter
to Beatus Rhenanus (Epistle 320), both already printed in
the preceding month by Schiirer at Strasburg.J

A volume entitled Epistolse, aliquot etc. was printed at
Louvain by Thierry Martens in October, I5i6.§ On this
occasion Erasmus thought it more becoming to remain in
the background himself, the responsibility for the publication
being thrown upon Peter Gillis. ' I was myself,' he says after-

* Erasmi Rot. Epistola ad Leonevi X. P.M. Epistola ad Cai-dinalem Grima-
num : Epistola ad Cardinalem Raphaelem Riarium : Epistola Apologetica ad
Martimim Dorpium de suarum lucubrationuin aeditione. Basilese, Frobenius,
Mense Augusto, m.d.xv. 410. This little book, which is in the British
Museum, contains some other matters beside the Erasmus epistles, the first
thing appearing in the title being lani Damiani ad Leonem X. Elegia.

f Erasmi Enarratio in primum Psalmum ; Martini Dorpii Epistola de
Morix Encomio deque Novi Testamenti e7nendatio7ie ; Erasmi ad Dorpium
Apologia. Lovanii, Theod. Martinus, menseOct. 1515. 4to. In British Museum.

X Erasmi Lucubrationes. Argentorati, M. Schurerius, mense Sept. 15 15. 4to.
In British Museum.

§ Epistola aliquot illustrium virorum ad Eras??mm et huius ad illos.
Lovanii, Theod. Martinus, 15 16, mense Oct. 4to. In British Museum.

Early collections of Epistles xxix

wards in a letter to Bude (Epistle 467), 'rather a conniving
than a consenting party.' A translation of the Prefatory
Epistle, which was addressed by Gillis to Gaspar Halmal,
26 Sept. 15 16 (Epistle 457), will be found near the end of our
Introduction. This collection contains the epistles to the
Pope and Cardinals already printed, followed by epistles of
Pope Leo X. to Erasmus and to Henry VIII. (Epistles 328,
329), and an answer of Erasmus to the Pope (Epistle 434),
with twelve other letters, — all included, in slightly different
order, in the Second Book of the later collections of Epistles,
and three letters forming the commencement of the corre-
spondence with Bude, included in the First Book.* All
these epistles were of recent date, none of them being earlier
than October, 15 14.

This collection of Epistles had scarcely been published
when Gillis was occupied with an enlarged edition. In
forwarding some letters to him (Epistle 466), Erasmus adds :
'I admit no embellishments anywhere. Please put in a pre-
face, addressed to some one else rather than to me ; Bus-
leiden would do very well ; in every thing else do the
work of a friend.' This enlarged collection, entitled Aliquot
Epistolse sane quafn elegantes etc. f was issued from the
Louvain press in April, 15 17, with a prefatory letter by Peter
Gillis to Antonius Clava, dated 5 March, 15 17. The print-
ing of this work appears to have been superintended by
Rutger Rescius, who wrote to Erasmus, then at Antwerp, to
solve a difficulty arising out of his handwriting. Epistle 532.
This collection was reprinted by Froben in the following
January. Containing all the epistles printed in the collec-

* Epistolie, ed. Lond. ii. i — 18; i. 6-8. The numbers of the Epistles in
these and similar references are taken from the London edition. In the
collections printed at Basel the Books are numbered, but not the Epistles.

t Aliquot Epistolse. sane quain elegantes Erasmi Roterodatni et ad hunc
aliorum etc. Lovanii, Th. Martinus, 15 17, mense Aprili. 4to. Reprinted by
Froben at Basel, January, 15 18. The latter in the British Museum.

XXX Introduction

tion of the previous year, and also including the correspond-
ence relating to an invitation sent to Erasmus by order of
Francis I., and several additional letters which had passed
between Erasmus and Bude, and other correspondents about
the same period, it comprises the First Book of the Epistles,
as afterwards arranged (with the exception of the first three
letters), and the Second Book as far as Ep. ii. i8. The Pre-
fatory Epistle of Gillis to Clava, which will be found among
the translations at the close of our Introduction, contains
an allusion to the old practice of publication by transcrip-
tion ; which, the writer observes, would on this occasion be
insufficient to meet the demand, even if a hundred transcribers
were employed. In an epistle to Berus of the same year,
preserved in the Deventer manuscript and first printed in
1703 (Epistle 712), Erasmus disclaims responsibility for the
epistles published by Peter Gillis while he himself was visiting
his patrons in England. C. 1645 e. He appears to have gone
to England about the time of its publication.

The next published collection of Epistles of Erasmus was
issued by Froben at Basel in August, 15 18, with the title
Aiictariiim etc.* preceded by a prefatory epistle of the
editor, Beatus Rhenanus, to Michael Hummelberg, dated
22 Aug. 1 5 18, in which Beatus represents himself as ven-
turing to publish this selection from the letters of Erasmus
without his authority. An extract from this preface will be
found at p. Ixxvi. In a letter to Mountjoy, first printed in the
Leyden collection from the Deventer manuscript, where it
is by mistake addressed to Warham, Erasmus, while he dis-
claims all liability for the intended publication, invites his
correspondent to send any epistles that he may have, to be
pubhshed after due revision, commutatis quae erunt com-

* Auctarium Sekctarum aliquot Epistolarum Erasmi Rot. ad eruditos et
horicm ad ilium. Basilese, Frobenius, mense Augusto, 1 5 1 8, 4to. The Auctarium
was reprinted at Basel in March, 15 19, and with some alterations at Venice
in 1524. Both these later editions are in the Bodleian Library.

Continued publication of Epistles. xxxi

mutanda. C. 1695 a. The epistles here published are (in the
later collections) Ep. ii. 20 (Biide to Erasmus) followed by
Erasmus's answer (afterwards Ep. iii. 51), with the other
eight epistles which complete the second Book, and those of
the third Book as far as Epistle iii. 50.

The Auctarium was soon followed by a larger collection,
entitled Farrago Epistolariun etc.* published by Froben in
October, 1519, without preface. It was apparently with
reference to the Farrago that Erasmus wrote to Gerard
Lystrius on the 22nd September [15 19], in the following
terms. " At this next Fair, a new volume of Epistles is to
come out, of considerable size. We shall revise those
already printed, and with the addition of others make a proper
volume." t This collection comprises, first, Ep. iii. 5 1 (already
in a different place in Auctarium) and the later epistles of
the Third Book as far as Epistle 62 (except Ep. iii. 56,
which comes in afterwards between Ep. iv. 5 and 6) ;
then Ep. iii. 64, and an epistle to Richard Pace (Ep. iii.
14) ; then the epistles contained in Books iv. to xii., as far
as Ep. xii. 7 ; an epistle of Erasmus to Bude in Greek and
two epistles of Bude to Erasmus in Latin (afterwards Ep. iii.
67, 66, 65) being inserted between Ep. xi. 11 and Ep. xi. 12 ;
and two other epistles addressed to James Hoogstraten
and Edward Lee, afterwards Ep. xvi. 19 and xvii. i, being
added at the end. One epistle (Epistle 535), which is found
\n Farrago^ p. 229, is omitted in all the later collections. It
is a confidential letter concerning his Dispensation, addressed
by Erasmus to Ammonius and dated Antwerpias, Id. Mart.
[15 1 7], which appears to have been incautiously published.
See pp. Ixi., Ixxvii.

* Farrago nova epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami ad alios et alioriim ad
hunc: admixtis quibusda?n qiias scripsit etiam adokscens. Basilese, Frobenius,
mense Octobri, 15 19. In British Museum.

■f Ep. xiii. 9; C. 265 B. With two epistles (Ep. xiii. 31 and 34, C. 382 e,
409 c), written from Louvain some three months later, Erasmus sends his
volumen Epistolariun to two friends at Brussels.

VOL. I. C

xxxii Introduction

Two years later, on the last day of August, 152 1, appeared
a further collection, entitled Epistolse ad dwersos etc.* with
a prefatory epistle of Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus, dated
27 Mav, 1 52 1, which in the later collections was retained
as the first Epistle of the first Book (Ep. i. i). From this
preface, a translation of which may be found at p. Ixxvii., it
appears that all the three collections hitherto printed at
Basel were edited by Beatus. The prefatory epistle was
followed by two letters not before printed (Ep. i. 2, 3).
Then followed the epistles already published in the previous
collections, Epistolas sane quam elegantes^ Auctarium, and
Farrago^ the correspondence with Bude mentioned in our
description of the contents of Farrago being put into the
earlier position, which it afterwards occupied, and the
general arrangement of the epistles comprised in the earlier
publications being altered to that followed in the Opus
Epistolarum and later collections. The Epistle to Urbanus
Regius (Ep. ii. 18), which is not in Epistolse. sane quam
elegantes nor in Auctarium^ is first printed here, p. 98; and
an epistle to Longolius (Ep. iii. 63), which is not in Farrago^
is also found here in the position which it retains in Opus Epis-
tolarum. The large addition of letters not hitherto published,
which follows, fills nearly two hundred small folio pages. They
are, in the later collections. Book xii. Epistles 8 to the end.
Books xiii. to xvi. and Book xvii. Epistles i to 26. These
epistles belong for the most part to the years 1 5 1 9 to 1 5 2 1 ; but
several letters of an earlier date are interspersed among them.

Among the epistles included in the two important publi-
cations of 15 19 and 1 52 1, there are some, which had been
already published in a separate form. This was the case
with the two epistles addressed, one to Luther, 29 May, 15 19,
{Farrago^ p. 136; Ep. vi. 4; C. 444), and the other to the

* Epistolx D. Erasjui Roterodami ad diversos et aliquot aliorum ad tllum
per amicos eruditos ex ingentibus fasciculis schedarum collects^. Basileas
Frobenius, 152 1. Pridie Cal. Septembris. Fol. Copy in Bodleian Library.

Unauthorized publications of Epistles xxxiii

Cardinal of Mainz, i Nov., 15 19 {Ep. ad div. p. 474 ; Ep. xii.
10 ; C. 513), the publication of which by means of the Press
is mentioned by Erasmus in his Epistle to Cardinal Cam-
peggio, 6 Dec. 1520, as a thing done without his approval^
and, as he suspected, for the purpose of injuring him. C. 596 a.
And in his Epistle to Mosellanus, 31 July, 1520, Erasmus
ascribes the publication of the epistle to the Archbishop of
Mainz to the admiration of German friends, which was more
injurious to him than the hatred of his enemies. Ep. xiii. 5;
C. 560 F. In the same letter he refers to the collection of epis-
tles then in preparation {Epistolae ad diversos)^ and declares
his intention to reject some epistles already published and to
modify others. C. 561 a. I do not think that any important
alterations were made in any epistle already published.*

In February, 1524, an unauthorized collection of Epistles
of Erasmus was published by Gregorius de Gregoriis at
Venice, for which two titles were borrowed from the
authorized collections, the title in the opening page being,
word for word, that of the Aiictariiim^ while in the colo-
phon we read : Des. Erasmi Roterodami Epistolariun ad
diversos et aliquot aliorum ad ilium Finis. This book
appears to contain a short selection from the epistles in the
authorized collections.

Another unauthorized publication, entitled Breviores ali-
quot Epistolae^^ published by Savetier at Paris in December,
1525, also contains selections from the Epistles of Erasmus
already published, concluding with the dedication of the
early treatise dc Conscribendis epistolis, printed at Cam-
bridge in 1 52 1, Epistle 74 of our series, slightly altered, and
addressed to Peter Paludanus. Erasmus, in his address
amicis lectoribus (Ep. xxvii. 42, C. 1527 e ; see p. Ixxxviii.),
notices an epistle inscribed to Peter Paludanus, as prefixed

* One omission is mentioned in p. xxxi.

t Des. Erasmi Roterodami Breviores aliquot epistola. Paris, Nic. Sauetier
13 Cal. Jan. 1525. 4to. Copy in British Museum.

C 2

xxxiv Introduction

to a pirated edition of the book on Letter-writing, printed at
Leyden; with the observation that he never knew any
person of that name. See pp. 169, 467.

In August, 1527, a volume was published by Froben^
containing a treatise of St. Chrysostom in Greek, entitled dc
Baby la Martyre, printed between two epistles of Erasmus,
the first being a Preface to the work of St. Chrysostom,
dated 14 August, 1527, and addressed to Nicolaus Marvilla-
nus, President of the Busleiden College at Louvain (Ep.
xxviii. 24), the other addressed, in the same month, 23
August, 1527, to Robert Aldrige, defending a passage in the
author's New Testament, which had been attacked by an
English preacher. Ep. xxiii. 8.*

Some time in the year 1529 a small volume was published
by Peter Quentell at Cologne, entitled Selectse. Aliquot
Epistolds^ etc.f containing an epistle of Germanus Brixius to
Erasmus, another of Erasmus to Brixius, two epistles of
Erasmus addressed " loanni Gac," and one to Martinus
Lipsius. All these letters are dated in 1528, and were in-
cluded in 1529 in the Twenty-second Book of the Opus
Epistolai'um, Ep. xxii. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31.

In the latter part of the same year appeared the first
edition of the Epistles of Erasmus arranged in Books, as they
are found (with additions) in the subsequent authorized collec-
tions. This volume, entitled Opus Epistolarum etc.j contains
twenty-four Books, which are made up of the same letters as
the first twenty-four Books of the later editions, except that

* Epistola Erasmi de modestia profitendi linguas ; Libellus D. loan. Chry-
ostonii Graecus de Baby la Martyre ; Epistola Erasmi in tyrologuvi quetidam
impudentissimum calut7iniatorem. Basileae, mense Augusto, 1527. 8vo. Copy
in British Museum.

I Selectee, aliquot Epistolee, Des. Erasfni Rot. tiunquam a?itea evulgatx.
Coloniae, Pet. Quentell, 4to, 1529. 4to. Copy in British Museum.

\ Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roteroda?7ii per autorem diligenter recog-
nitum et adiectis inmwieris Jiouisfere ad trietitem auctum. Basileae, Frobenius,
Hervagius et Episcopius, 1529. Fol. Copy in British Museum.

Later collections authorized by Erasmus xxxv

the last Book ends with Ep. xxiv. 15 (Erasmus to Botzem),
followed by another long epistle to the same correspondent,
omitted in the later Epistolarum Opus, but inserted in the
London collection as the second epistle in the Thirtieth Book.
The order of the epistles follows that oi Epistolse. ad diver sos
as far as Ep. xvii. 26. But in this edition many epistles, which
in the earlier collections were undated or without year-dates,
are provided with dates of place and year. To this alteration,
which was probably the work of Beatus Rhenanus, Erasmus
alludes in his Preface, inscribed Des. Erasmus Roterodamus
Lectori s. d. and dated at Freiburg on the 7th of August, 1529,
which is reprinted at the beginning of the London edition, and
in C. Preef. 2 dors. A translation of this preface will be found
at p. Ixxxiii. The additional epistles, completing Book xvii.,
and fining the remaining Books (xviii. to xxiv.), are 407 in
number, and are mainly derived from the correspondence of
Erasmus, while residing at Basel between 1522 and 1529, and
at Freiburg in the summer of the last named year.

In September, 1 53 1 , was published the book entitled Epistolse.
Florida^ etc.* the materials of which, — being, with the ex-
ception of the letter to Hutten, Ep. xxvii. 3, epistles of
Erasmus dated from Freiburg in 1529, 1530, and 1531, — were
sent from that town with a prefatory epistle addressed to
Johannes Hervagius of Basel (the successor of Froben), by
whom the volume was printed. An extract from this epistle
will be found at p. Ixxxv. The contents of the volume appear
in the later collections as part of the Twenty-fifth Book (Ep.
XXV. 8 to the end), the whole Twenty-sixth Book, and part of
the Twenty-seventh (Ep . xxvii. i -4). But, if my observation is
right, two epistles contained in Epistolaa Floridse, are missing
in the later Collections. The first, at p. 60, addressed Simoni
Pistorio, and dated, Friburg. Prid. Id., Mart, m.d.xxxi,

* Dcs. Erasmi Roterodami, Epistolartim Floridarum liber unus, antehac
?}ini(/uam excusus. BasileiB, lo. Hervagius, Septemb. 1531. Fol. Copy in
British Museum.

xxxvi Introduction

begins with the words, Quum semper intellexerim. The
other, at p. 129, addressed Haioni Hermanno Phrysio, LL.
Doctori, Senatori, and dated, Friburg. Prid. Calend. Februar.
M.D.xxx, begins with the words, Petis prolixam epistolam.
At p. 119 an epistle to Nicolas Winmannus (Ep. xxxi. 56 in
the London collection) occurs between Epistles xxvi. 41
and 43 instead of the Epistle to the Archbishop of Besancon's
officials, which is in this place in the later collections. Ep.
xxvi. 42. And at p. 134, the Epistle to Gerardus ab Herema
(Ep. xxxi. ^^j in the London book) comes in between
Epistles xxvi. 59 and 60. It should also be observed that an
epistle of Erasmus addressed in later editions, Liicse Bonsio,
Ep. XXV. 33, C. 1297 (11 19), is here, p. 53, addressed, loanni
Dantisco episcopo, regis Poloittae Oratori, probably its true
address ; the name of Bonsius is not otherwise known to us.

The correspondence of Longolius, published at Basel in
1533,* contains epistles of Peter Bembo, Sadoletus, Bude
and Erasmus ; but there is only one epistle of the last ; which
had been already printed in Epistolse ad diversos. Epistle
iii. 63, C. 425 (402). See p. xxxii.

One more edition of the collected Epistles of Erasmus
was published during his life, about five months before he
died.f To this he contributed a spirited Preface, addressed,
Des. Erasmus Roterodamiis ainicis lector ihiis, a trans-
lation of which will be found at p. Ixxxvii. I have not seen
this edition, but I presume that the epistles contained in it
correspond with those of the editions published by his
literary executors after his decease.

The death of Erasmus occurred on the 12th of July, 1536.
But before turning our attention, as w^e shall have to do, to
the publications to which this event gave occasion, it will be
well to complete our account of the authorized collections

* Christophori Longolii Epistolix. Basileie, lo. Valderus. Septemh. 1533.
t Opus Einsfolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami. Basilere, 1536. P'ol. Copy
in Bodleian Library.

Collections published after Erasmus's death xxxvii

of Epistles, edited by his literary executors during the few
years that followed. These several editions, each in a folio
volume, printed at Basel by the press of Froben, have four
different dates of time, 1538, 1540 (vol. iii. of the Opera),*
1 54 1 and 1558.1 I have seen only the second and fourth,
which resemble each other, page by page ; and I presume
that the contents of all these editions, as well as the Opus
Epistolarmji of 1536, are the same, that of 1541 being pro-
bably the third volume of the Opera with a different title.
Beatus Rhenanus, who appears to have edited the collections
issued at Basel during his life, died in 1547. In all these
editions the epistles are arranged in twenty-eight Books, the
first twenty-four of which correspond with those of Opus
Epistolariun, 1529, except that the last epistle of the
twenty-fourth Book is suppressed (see p. xxxv), and several
additional letters dated at Freiburg in the years 1531 and
1532 are added to that Book, and at the beginning of the
twenty-fifth. Ep. xxiv. 16-31, xxv. 1-7. The last Book is
made up of a selection of Prefatory Epistles and Dedications.

We have now before us one of the most difficult subjects
with which we have to deal in this part of our work, — the
question of the genuineness of epistles attributed to Erasmus,
but not published with his sanction or that of his literary
executors. Among the writings which were circulated in
his name but without his authority, while he was still living,
we may allude in passing to an epistle, which has found
a place in several of the Collections of his correspondence

* Des. Erasmi Roterodami Operuiii Tertius tomus Episiolas compkctens
universas qiwtquot ipse autor unquam evulgavit aut evulgatas vohdt quibus
prve.ter nouas aliquot additve. stmt et Prrefationes quas in diner sos omnis generis
scriptores ?ion paucas idem conscripsit. Basiled, Frobenius et Ei)iscopius, 1540.
Fol. Copy in Bodleian Library-

t Des. Erasmi Rofcrodami Episfolarum Opvs complecteiis universas quotquot
etc. Basileie, Frobenius, 1558. Fol. The title-page also contains a warning
against unauthorized Epistles. Coi)y in the British Museum.

xxxviii Introduction

(including the publication of Merula, the London volume of
Epistles and the third volume of Le Clerc), as an Epistle of
Erasmus to Peter Cursius. Merula, p. 124 ; Ep. xxx. 68 ; C. iii.
1496.* This is neither a genuine epistle of its assumed
author, nor properly speaking a forgery, but the witty com-
position of a Roman satirist, broadly caricaturing the manner
of Erasmus, by whom it is described with some vexation in
his genuine Responsio ad Petri Cursii Defensionem, printed
in 1535. C. x. 1756 F. He also mentions in one of his
letters some fictitious epistles written in his name by a
young man named Sylvius, who imposed them in Rome on
his friend Paulus Bombasius and on Pope Leo X. C. 1478 d.
The death of Erasmus furnished an occasion to the
booksellers for the publication of commemorative volumes,
which would naturallv be in some demand. An oflScial work
was prepared at Basel under the editorship of his testa-
mentary heir, Boniface Amerbach ; and while this book was
in hand, Erasmus's edition of the works of Origen, with a
Dedicatory Epistle of Beatus Rhenanus to the Bishop of
Cologne, containing some particulars of Erasmus's life (see
p. 23), was published by Froben in time for the September
Frankfort fair. Before the fuller authorized memorial of
him was ready at Basel, a rival publication was issued from
the press of Josse Lambert of Ghent, with the following
title : Epistola quxdani D. Erasmi Rot. nunquam ante hac
xdita rationem fere totiiis vitse eiiis continens. Epitaphia
nonniilla in eundem [etc.]. Gandavi^ excudebat J^odocns
Lamhertiis, 1536. The more important publication
announced in this title was the Epistle of Erasmus to
Servatius (Epistle 289), so often quoted as an authority
for the biography of its assumed author. It is described
in the title as never before published ; and no previous
publication of it is known, unless priority can be claimed

* It is amusing to observe that this Epistle is cited even by Bayle as a
genuine letter. Bayle, Didionaire^ art. Erasme (first note).

Authorized and unauthorized memoirs xxxix

for an undated printed sheet, which contains this docu-
ment alone (in the form in which it is printed in C. iii.
1527, where the Greek phrases, found in other versions
including that published at Ghent, are replaced by Latin),
with the title : Erasnii Roterodami Epistola qua se
excusat^ cur mutarit monasticam vitam, item habitum. Of
this little pamphlet a copy (perhaps unique) is preserved in
the Grand-ducal Library at Wolfenbiittel. No printer or
locality is named, but the printer's sign is a shield (bearing a
rampant lion empaling a coat with two pallets) supported by
two savage men with clubs.

The Basel volume devoted to the memory of Erasmus
appears to have been issued in February, 1537. It was
entitled : Catalogi duo operum D. Erasnii Roterodami ah
ipso conscripti et digesti. Cum praefatione D. Bonifacii
Amerhachii iuriscons. ut omnis deinceps imposturse, via
intercludatur ne pro Erasmico quispiam sedat quod vir Hie
non scripsit dum viveret. Accessit in fine Epitaphiorum ac
tumulorum libellus quihus Erasmi mors defletur cum ele-
gantissima Germani Brixii Epistola ad clarissimum virum
d. Gul. Langaeum. Basiiex, Anno M. D. xxxvii. Cum
privilegio Csesareo ad annos quatuor. The book answers
the description of the title, the two Catalogues being the
so-called Catalogue of Lucubrations (Erasmus's Literary
Autobiography), addressed to James Botzhem, printed at
Basel in 1523, and revised in 1524, and the Epistle to
Hector Boece, written apparently in 1530, accompanied by
the Index of Works (both printed in C. i- Praef.), these
being followed by a collection of Epitaphs, Poems, and
Inscriptions in honour of Erasmus ; with the Colophon :
Basile8R, per Hieronynum Frohenium et Nicolaum Episco-
pium^ Anno M. D. xxxvi. The true date of publication is
shown by the date of the Preface to be not earlier than
February, 1536-7. The Preface of Boniface Amerbach,
dated Basileae,Calend. Febr. Anno M. D. xxxvii.,is addressed

xl Introduction

to John Paungartner ; and contains the warning against
unauthorized publications attributed to Erasmus, to which
attention is specially called in the title of the book, and
which can scarcely be regarded as unconnected with the
recent publication of the Ghent volume containing the
Epistle to Servatius. This passage ought therefore to be
before the Reader in forming his judgment of the authen-
ticity of that epistle. It runs as follows. " It is not un-
known, how often in the life of Erasmus he was compelled
to ward off Calumny from the books he published. That
she will be no less cruel to him now that he is dead, is
shown by t}\e prooemia of books published at the last Frankfurt
fair. If the assumption of a false name or surname is punished
by the Lex Cornelia, what shall be our judgment of him, who
not only imposes on the reader by a false title, but attributes
the name of an approved author to a writing which is not
his, and by so doing renders that name invidious to some
province or class of persons. Such a crime deserves still
severer censure, when the name prefixed is that of a dead
man, incapable of coping with the odium that may arise.
* * * I desire that it may be everywhere known, that all
the lucubrations of Erasmus which he left at his death are
to be found in the two catalogues published by him in his
life-time. If anything else be published in his name, let it
be known by all to be spurious."

As the Memorial volume of the executors of Erasmus
had been anticipated by the Ghent pamphlet, it was followed
about the beginning of the following August by a still more
audacious publication, printed at Antwerp by " the widow
of Martin Cassar at the cost of John Coccius." The long title
of this book was taken word for word from that of the Basel
volume, with the addition (in the middle) of the words
Accessit Vita Erasmiper Beatuin Rhcnannni ad Episcopuin
Coloniensein Monodia Frederici Nanscse, Erasmi vitam
graphice depingeus : Vita Erasmi ex ipsius epistola ad

Epistle to Servatius xli

Ser. patrem.. The whole contents of Amerbach's volume
were here reprinted, with additions mostly derived from the
Ghent pamphet, including the Epistle to Servatius. Among
other appropriations Amerbach's Preface was included at
the commencement of the volume, with its solemn warnings
against such works as that in which it was reproduced. The
Epistle to Servatius, already once, if not twice, pubHshed, is
described nevertheless as nunquam antehac sedita. It is
printed with the Greek phrases, — in the form in which it
had appeared in the Ghent pamphlet, and in which it is re-
printed in Merula's Vita Erasmi, and in the Prefaces to the
London Volume of Epistles, and to the first volume of
Le Clerc's Opera Erasmi.

I have dwelt at some length upon these publications
following Erasmus's death, which are not otherwise of much
interest to us, in order that the reader may have before him
the facts relating to the original circulation of the first-
published of the epistles seriously attributed to Erasmus, for
the authenticity of which we have not the assurance of him-
self or his literary executors. The Epistle to Servatius has
been more often quoted by his biographers than any other,
and it is therefore of considerable importance to form a judg-
ment of its authenticity. If the somewhat vague denuncia-
tions of Amerbach are rightly interpreted as referring to
the recent publication of Ghent, by which his own work
was anticipated, they imply a denial, on the part of Erasmus's
heir, of the genuineness of the lately published epistle. But
I do not think that this statement concludes the question.
The denial is conveyed in general terms ; and it was
obviously the interest, and might well be regarded as the
duty, of those who represented the deceased scholar, to warn
the pubHc against unauthorized works attributed to him.
The document in question is not expressly named, and there
is no mention of the class of Epistles at all, of which it
might be assumed that there was a great number, unknown

xlii In tro dii ctio n

to the executors, in the hands of various persons over whom
they had no control. If Erasmus did in fact write a letter
to Servatius, when he was on his way to Basel in the year
1 5 14, it need not have been among those of which the
executors had drafts or transcripts ; and their judgment as
to the authenticity of a letter so described is not more con-
clusive than that of others, unless it was founded, which
there is no special reason to believe, upon information
derived from Erasmus. It seems therefore to be a question
which still remains to be determined upon a criticism of the
epistle itself. In forming a judgment upon it we should
observe that this epistle has obviously not had the advantage,
which the published Epistles have generally had, of careful
correction and editing by the author or one of his literary
friends. It is full of errors, which may be attributed to careless
writing or ignorant transcription ; but when such corrections
have been made as it would under favourable circumstances
have had, there is perhaps no conclusive reason why it should
not be accepted as the work of Erasmus. On this assumption
it would seem to have been written with a double object, its
reasoning being quite as much intended for his friends and
brother-theologians of Louvain, as for his old companions at
the Convent. And this observation may perhaps account
for what might otherwise appear strange, that in a letter
addressed to Servatius, who was probably ignorant of Greek,
the sentences which are intended to describe the monastic
observances are ostentatiously expressed in that language.
It may however be observed, that even among the monks
of Stein there was at least one, William Herman, who
was capable of interpreting this parade of learning. It is
interesting however to observe, that the Epistle to Servatius
has come down to us in two forms, in one of which all the
Greek phrases are replaced by their Latin equivalents. If
the epistle was intended for two audiences, it is possible
that it may have been also originally transcribed in two

Authenticity of Epistle to Servatius. xliii

different copies, one for Loiivain and the other for Stein,
and that on the death of Erasmus some possessors of
transcripts in either form found a favourable opportunity of
making a profit out of its publication. It is perhaps more
probable, that in the ruder impression the Greek words
were replaced by Latin for want of Greek types.

Not to go into a detailed examination of the letter, there
are two or three passages which claim to be noticed as
bearing upon its authenticity, and the purpose for which it
was written. One of these passages involves a question of
language ; it runs as follows : Neminem adhuc reperi qui
mihi consuleret [another reading, consuluerit] ut ad vos me
reciperem. The word consulere used in this construction
is not sanctioned by Cicero, and I am not able to cite any
other example from Erasmus's writings.* But it was not his
rule to confine himself entirely to Ciceronian precedent ; and
in his Epitome of the Elegantise, of Valla occurs the following :
Consulere cum. dativo significat consilium dare, vel potius
providere. C. i. 1079 e. With respect to the substance
of the epistle, the following points may be observed. In the
description of the English Universities, the Collegiate system
is commended, which had the distinct approval of Erasmus's
friends, Fisher and Foxe. Some inaccuracies of fact occur,
which will be obvious to the reader ; as where he says, that
he had himself taught Theology and Greek at Cambridge
for some months, and that his teaching had been gratuitous
in accordance with his constant practice. In this sentence
the duration of his Cambridge professorship appears to be
somewhat understated, and the conditions of his instruction
are distinctly misrepresented ; but the reader of his Epistles
will not be surprised at a certain freedom of assertion, which
the writer may perhaps have justified to himself on the

* It occurs in the Epistle of a correspondent, Jacobus Piso, Epistle 211.
C. 102 B.

xliv Introduction

ground that no one on earth was injured by it, while certain
considerations, possibly connected with the rules or practice
of his Order, may have made him unwilling to put his hand
to a candid description of his profits as a Professor. Compare
p. 54. Upon other matters this narrative is generally con-
sistent with what we read in his other epistles. In the descrip-
tion which he gives of his studies of the New Testament, and
of the theological apparatus which he was taking with him
to Basel, he uses the following language : His duobus annis
prseter alia multa castigavi Hieronymi Epistolas ; adulterina
et substititiaobelis jugulavi, obscura scholiis illustravi. Grae-
corum et antiquorum Codicum collatione castigavi Novum
totum Testamentum, et supra mille loca annotavi non sine
fructu theologorum. The interest of this passage for our
present purpose is derived from a comparison of it with the
(undated) Epistle of Martinus Dorpius to Erasmus, which
appears to have been circulated in manuscript in the early
weeks of 15 15, and printed at Louvain together with an
answer of Erasmus in October of the same year. The
Epistle of Dorpius contains the following words : Audio te
divi Hieronymi Epistolas a mendis quibus perscatebant re-
purgasse, adulterina injugulasse obelis, obscura elucidasse,
rem profecto te dignam ; sed Novum quoque Testamentum
te castigasse intelligo et supra mille locos annotasse non
sine fructu theologorum. If the Epistle to Servatius is a
forgery, there is no doubt that the language above quoted
from it was borrowed from the Epistle of Dorpius. But on
the other hand the sentence contained in the latter epistle
has so distinctly the air of a quotation from a letter or
other writing of Erasmus himself, that it may be regarded
rather as furnishing some confirmation of the genuineness of
a letter assumed to have been written by him shortly before,
in which we find these expressions used. I am disposed on
the whole to acquiesce in the acceptance which has been
accorded to this epistle by Erasmus's biographers.

Epistles published by Merula xlv

After the death of Erasmus, and the publications that
have been described, nearly half a century elapsed before
any addition of importance was made to his published
epistles. In the year 1606, Paul Merula, Professor of
History at the University of Leyden, vv^ho had published
in 1595 an edition of the remains of Ennius, among which
he has been suspected of inserting some forged fragments,*
was occupied with the preparation of a small 4to volume,
which was issued from the Press early in the following year,
with the title Vita Erasmiy etct This work included two
books of unpublished epistles of Erasmus, with an intro-
ductory part, which will presently be described. The first
book of Epistles, continens qiias aetata provectiore scripsit^
includes forty-two letters, thirty-nine of which, placed in
order of time, and dated from 15 18 to 1536, the year of
Erasmus's death, are attributed to him ; eleven among these
being addressed to Conrad Goclen. At the end are three
epistles of others to Erasmus, dated in the years 1524, 1521
and 1530. The epistles contained in this book belong to a
time of Erasmus's life which is well known to his readers,
and appear, as far as my observation goes, to be for the
most part free from suspicion ; but among them (p. 124) is
included the so-called Epistle to Peter Cursius, already
mentioned, which is not even a forgery, but a mere jeu d'esprit.
See p. xxxviii. The inclusion of this epistle without any com-
ment is not creditable to the perspicacity of the editor, and on
the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief, or, with more
reason, a forger to catch a forger, one can scarcely believe
that the person who edited this letter as a genuine work of

* See Godofredus Hermannus, Elementa dostrinx jnetricse,^ Lipsise, 18 16,
pp. 628, 632 ; Jos. Lawicki, De fraiide P. Meru/x Ettnii editoris. Bonn. 1852.

t Vita Des. Erasmi Roterodaini, ex ipsius tnatiu Jldeliter reprxsetitata: conii-
tatitibtis, quee ad eandem, aliis. Additi sunt Epistolaruin quse 7iondum liicem
aspexerunt, Libri duo : quas conquisivit, edidit, dedicavit S. P. Q. Roterodamo
Paullus G. F.P.N. Merula. Lugduni Batavorum, Th. Basson. ^607. Small 4to.

xlvi Introduction

Erasmus, was capable of forging a long series of letters
which have been accepted by several generations of
biographers as authentic.

This last description refers to Merula's second Book,
which presents an altogether different collection of Epistles
of Erasmus, continens quas xtate luvenili scripsit. It
includes forty-two letters ; half of which supply the greater
part of our first two Chapters, devoted to the boyhood and
conventual period of his life ; the rest belong to the
thirteen years that follow, including towards the end a batch
of letters apparently sent from Florence and Bologna to
the Low Countries in November, 1506. Epistles 198-201.
The reader of our translations may distinguish these
epistles, as they occur in our first six chapters, and in
Chapters xiii, xv, and xvi, by the reference to Merula at
the head of each. If there be any doubt of their authen-
ticity, it will principally fall upon those contained in the
first two chapters, where the reader who misses some of
the spirit and elegance of the later epistles of Erasmus, may
be disposed to ask, especially if he has been warned of the
alleged character of their original editor, whether these
letters may not be fictitious. I think, however, that there
is not sufficient reason to reject them. If the reader
will glance through our early chapters, or the early sections
of our Register, observing the source from which each
letter is derived, he will find that, together with the epistles
of Erasmus published by Merula, there are other epistles,
apparently part of the same series, either attributed to Eras-
mus or to some of the correspondents to whom the letters
printed by Merula were addressed. There is no reason to
suppose that Merula had anything to do with these other
epistles, which were first printed by Le Clerc in 1703; and
our opinion of the genuineness of Merula's letters is con-
firmed by observing that they appear to form part of a cor-
respondence to which these epistles of Le Clerc also belong,

Epistle to Goclen and Compendium VHse xlvii

and not these epistles only, but also two others (Epistles
26, 27), included in the Farrago^ which were the only-
epistles of this period published with the authority of
Erasmus himself. It is worth while also to note, that the
genuineness of some of the letters of Merula's Second Book
is confirmed by comparing their details with extrinsic evi-
dence not likely to have been known to a writer living in the
next century. See pp. 89, 116, 125, 161, and compare p. 171,
where Merula appears to supply a more genuine text than
Farrago. The collection and preservation of most of these
early epistles may probably have been due to the care of
Francis, one of Erasmus's monastic brothers. See p. xxiii.

We have yet to describe the first or introductory part of
Merula's volume, to which its title, Vita Erasmi^ is intended
to apply. It contains, after a formal Dedication of the work
to the Senate and People of Rotterdam, an Epistle con-
cerning the Compendium Vitse,^ addressed by Merula to Otho
Werckmann (partly translated at the end of this Introduc-
tion), and an Epistle to Merula by Dominicus Baudius upon
the parentage, names, and genius of Erasmus. See p. 16.
After these compositions and some complimentary verses
in honour of Erasmus and of Merula, we have the Epistle of X
Erasmus to Conrad Goclen, dated Saturday after Easter, and
the Compendium Vitm which is mentioned in it (see pp.
4" 1 3)) followed by some other documents, already published
elsewhere, relating to the biography of Erasmus.

The articles which claim our attention here are the Com-
pendium Vitas and its accompanying epistle, both of which,
if genuine, are of the greatest interest in the history of
Erasmus. It is impossible usefully to discuss the question
of their authenticity without the Latin text before our eyes.
But after several perusals of them at various times, and
assuming the correction of such errors as may be fairly attri-
buted to faults of transcription or of the Press, I am inclined
to accept both the Epistle of Erasmus to Goclen and the
VOL. I. d

xlviii Introduction

Compendium as genuine.* The former is a long and hastily
written epistle, intended for the perusal of Goclen alone,
composed under the influence of nervous excitement, mainly
caused by the writer's suspicion of his former companion,
Henry Eppendorf, the intimate friend of Ulrich von Hutten,
whose controversy with Erasmus, followed immediately by
the death of Hutten, had occurred in the preceding autumn.
We must take into consideration the character of Erasmus.
He readily made friends, but when once he distrusted them,
there was no crime of which he was not ready to believe
them guilty ; and his imagination was never so active as
when his suspicions were aroused. His early relations with
Augustine Caminad afford a remarkable example of this.
See Epistle 125, and compare Epistle 122. His conviction
of the villany of Eppendorf, by whose machinations he
imagined his life to be in danger, influences the whole tone
of the Epistle to Goclen, which, beside its narrative of
Erasmus's last relations with Hutten, contains other impor-
tant matters of personal interest. The fit of depression
under which he was labouring made him anxious to com-
plete some preparations for his own decease, which he
apprehended might be near. With this view he proposed
to inclose in his letter some memoranda relating to his
life. He also sent to Goclen directions for the distribution
after his death of a sum of money in various kinds of coin,
which he had left in the care of his correspondent, proposing
to include in his letter a more formal instrument (syngrapha)
which might, if necessary, be produced after his death. The
letter ends with a review of his immediate circumstances,
alluding to a possible change of residence, to his invitation
to France, and to his relations with his servants, one of
whom, Levinus, was the bearer of the Epistle, which he had

* Professor Kan of Rotterdam, who has lately raised the question of the
authenticity of these publications of Merula, appears to accept the Epistle as
genuine, but to regard the Compendium as a forgery. See pp. 2, 3.

Authenticity of Epistle and Life xlix

to deliver to Goclen before continuing his journey with
other despatches to England. With respect to the hoard
of money in Goclen's hands, we should remember, that
Erasmus's will, dated 12 Feb. 1536, contains a mention of
this fund, and of the directions which the testator had
already given to Goclen about it. I do not remember that
this will had been made public before the date of Merula's
book, but a copy of it may well have been within his reach,
since it was printed (not very correctly) in the little volume
published at Leyden in 16 15 under the sanction of Scriverius.
A most accurate transcript of this document, with a photo-
lithographic facsimile, has been published by Professor Kan,
in a brochure entitled Erasmiansch Gymnasium, Pro-
gramma, Rotterdam, 1881.

The epistle to Goclen is dated on the Saturday after
Easter [1524], and it is worth while to mention that we
possess several letters of Erasmus written within a few days
of this date ; in which no reference to the principal subjects
of that epistle is to be expected ; but while these letters
show, that the writer was not incapable of turning his
attention to other matters, there are passages in some of
them, which betray a condition of despondency quite
consistent with that epistle. A letter to Guy Morillon,
dated on Good Friday [1524] and preserved among the
papers belonging to the Dutch Church in London, which
has been printed by Jortin {Erasmus, ii. 414), contains the
following expressions : Si mihi liceret per sycophantas tran-
quille vivere. Ego istas Prasbendas . . nihil moror. Sunt
lentae spes et ego jam morior. In another letter written the
next day (a week before the epistle to Goclen) to Nicholas
de la Roche, Erasmus refers to his transactions with Hutten,
and speaks of the satietas studiorum, by which he is over-
come. Ep. xxi. 9 ; C. 793 c. And in a short note addressed
to John de Hondt in the same Easter week, and probably
despatched with the letter to Goclen, he says : Ego puto

d 2

1 Introduction

mortem esse leviorem his quae patior, et si novissem statiim
hujus conjurationis, maliiissem ad Turcas demigrare quam
hue. Ep. XXX. 1 1 C. 795 b.

It may be observed that the Compendium Vitag, pubHshed
by Merula, does not answer the description contained in the
Epistle to Goclen, which promises an abridgment of the whole
life of Erasmus, whereas the narrative of the Compendium
ends with his return from Italy to England more than
twenty years before, referring only in three lines to his
subsequent settlement in Brabant. See p. 1 1. But the words
that follow, "the rest is known to you," are perhaps a suffi-
cient explanation of this. Since his return to England his
life had been mainly that of an author, its principal events
being the publication of books which were read in every
country of Europe ; and for many years Goclen had been
his intimate friend. The Compendium does in fact supply
materials for that part of his biography, which was unknown
to his friend, and would otherwise have been unknown to
us. With respect to the question of its authenticity, some
remarks may be found in our Preliminary Chapter, pp. i — 4.
It is scarcely necessary to observe, that, if the Compendium,
especially the early part of it, is not in Erasmus's ordinary
style, neither is it such an imitation of his style as might be
ascribed either to a skilful or a clumsy forger. It is begun
in the fashion of rough notes intended to supply the materials
for a biography ; but not unnaturally, whether genuine or
not, the notes, as they are continued, assume more and more
the character of a narrative. The change of style appears
rather favourable to its authenticity, as Erasmus, adopting at
first an abrupt style to which he was unaccustomed, would
naturally fall, as he went on, into one more like his usual
manner, whereas a forger might be expected to adhere to
the style he had purposely assumed. As to the facts
narrated, we may observe, that the return of Erasmus to
the Bishop of Cambrai after his illness at the college of

Later editions of the Vita Erasmi li

Montaigu (p. lo), is not mentioned by any other authority,
but is in itself probable ; and that he was welcomed at
Bergen is also probable, when it is known (as it appears to
have been to the author of the Compendium, but not to the
later biographers of Erasmus) that the Bishop was at this
time hereditary lord of the little principality of Bergen. See
pp. 92, 109.* The assertion that during his subsequent
residence at Paris he made a visit every year to the Nether-
lands is confirmed by the epistles that have been preserved
(see pp. 122, 145, 160, 169, 189), but this would scarcely be
known to any one who had not spent some pains in arranging
his correspondence. Other examples might be pointed out,
of statements which come naturally from the assumed
author, and of accuracy where an imitator might well have
tripped. On the whole I accept the Epistle to Goclen and the
Compendium Vitee as authentic works of Erasmus, for this
reason, among others, that it appears extremely difficult to
forge both these long documents without some betrayal of
such fabrication, of which I find no distinct evidence.

The Compendium Vitse was reprinted in a little volume,
entitled Magni Des. Erasmi Vita^ etc.,t issued from the
same press in 16 15, ' under the auspices of Peter Scriverius,'
and dedicated by the printer to the magistrates of Rotterdam
and their syndic, Hugo Grotius. In this volume the Epistle
to Goclen is separated from the Compendium, and placed
first among the epistles in the later part of the book. The

* M. Durand de Laur has assumed, that Erasmus in this visit to Bergen
was the guest of Batt. Erasme, i. 24. And Mr. Drummond supposes, that
both his former residence with the Bishop and this visit to him took place at
Cambrai. Drummond, Erasmtis, i. 36.

t Magni Des. Eras??ii Roterodami Vita, partim ab ipsomet Erasmo, partim
ab amicis squalibus fideliter descripta Acciedunt Epistolse, Illustres plus qi/avi
septuaginta quas xtate provectiore scripsit nee inter vulgatas in magna voluviine
cfljnparent. P. Scriverii et fautor-um auspiciis. Lugduni Bat. Godf. Basson,
1615.

Hi Introduction

Epistles are not the same collection as that of Merula,
all those in his second book with five out of his first being
omitted, and thirty-five epistles of Erasmus to Bilibald
Pirkheimer, two of which were already in the Epistolariun
Opus (Ep. xix. 50, xxiv. 10), being inserted instead. The
publisher explains in his Preface, that, according to the
opinion of his learned advisers, it was enough that the
earlier letters should have been once printed, not being
such as their author would have acknowledged, although
there were some of the same character in the Epistolarum
Opus (see p. xxiii.) ; and that those which he was publishing
in their stead were more correct and elegant. The volume
published under the auspices of Scriverius was three times
reprinted at Leyden, in 161 7, 1642 and 1649. "^^^ edition
of 1642 was dedicated to John Neale, an English gentle-
man, who appears from the dedication to have himself com-
piled a Life of Erasmus collected from his works, before he
had become acquainted with the Compendium. Some of
the copies have a portrait of Neale engraved by William
Marshall.

The London volume of the Epistles of Erasmus, with
which are included separate collections of the Epistles of
Melancthon, More, and Vives, bears date in the year 1642,"^
and contains the best engraved portrait of Erasmus, by
William Marshall after one of the Holbein pictures. After
some twenty pages of biographical matter, derived from
previous publications, this work contains thirty-one Books

* Epistolarum D. Erasmi Roterodami libri xxxi, et Melanctho7iis libri iv.
Qinbus adiicluntiir Th. Mori et Ludovici Vivis Epistolse. Vtia cum Indicibus
lociipletissimis. Londini. Excudebunt M. Flesher et R. Young, m.dc.xlii.
Prostant apud Cornelium Bee in vico vulgo vocato Little Britaine. The book
was entered in the register of the Stationers' Company of London, March 16,
1639 (1640), as Opus Epistolarum Desideri Erasjni Roterodami^ in the names
of Master Flesher and Master Young. Arber, Register of Stationers Co. iv.
475. Miles Flesher had printed in 1631 an edition of Erasmus's Colloquies,
which appears to have been edited by John Clarke of Lincoln.

London edition of the Epistles liii

of Epistles, of which the first twenty-eight correspond with
the twenty-eight Books of the Epistolariun Opus of 1558,
with the addition, at the end of the twenty-eighth Book,
of a Preface to the Copia, addressed to Colet. Of the three
additional books, the twenty-ninth contains fifty-three Pre-
faces and Dedications not included in the twenty-eighth
Book, or in the earher Books ; the thirtieth Book, after two
controversial epistles, the first addressed to Hubert Barland,
— I know not where first published, C. 1 194(1055), — the other
addressed to Botzem, formerly the last epistle in the Opus
Epistolarum, 1529 (see p. xxxv), and an Epistle to the Nuns
of a Convent near Cambridge (see p. 1 15 n.), which had been
separately published by Froben in 1527, contains all the
epistles published in the first Book of Merula and in the
later Leyden collections, which are not already in the pre-
ceding Books. Ep. XXX. 4-80. The thirty-first Book contains,
first, Merula's second book of early epistles (Ep. xxxi. 1-41),
and afterwards (Ep. xxxi. 42-59) several epistles of a more
or less public or controversial character, — all, I presume,
previously published among the works of Erasmus,* —
beginning w4th the Epistle to Dorpius in defence of the
Moria (Epistle 317, see p. xxviii.) and ending with two
epistles, or rather pamphlets, one addressed Omnibus veri-
tatem amantibiis^ and the other Fratrihiis Germanic, in-
ferioris et Phrysix orientalis^ which alone fill together
sixty-eight columns. Ep. xxxi. 58, 59. It is a convenient
improvement in this last edition of the Epistles arranged
in Books, that the Epistles, as well as the Books, are
numbered.

This edition of the Epistles of Erasmus, Melanchthon,
More and Vives, contains no distinct mention of the name of
its editor, who contributed nothing in the way of comment

* I have been unable to find Ep. xxxi. 58 in Le Clerc's Opera Erasmi.
The last Epistle, addressed Fratribus etc. is in C. x. 1589.

liv Introduction

to his useful work beyond a short preface of a page and a
half prefixed to the Epistles of Erasmus, and a still shorter
Prsdfatiuncula to the other collections. Both prefaces are
without any signature, and contain nothing to reveal the
personality of the writer, unless the use of the expression,
nostra Britannia, in the first preface, may imply that he
was an Englishman, or wished to be so considered. But
another name, which is found, not on all, but on some copies
of the title-page, throws an important light on the history of
the book. Most of the copies which I have seen in this
country have on the title-page, after the printers' names and
the date, the name of a bookseller, Cornelius Bee, which
itself appears to point to a Dutch origin ; but in other
copies, of which there is one in the Library of the University
of Ghent, and another in my possession, the words, Prostant
apud Cornelius Bee etc. (see note in page lii.) are replaced
by the words : Sumptibus Adriani Vlacq. We appear to have
here the name of the publisher who was responsible for
the work, and who may very probably have been also its
editor. Adrian Vlacq was a learned bookseller of Gouda,
who published there in 1631 and 1633 some tables of
logarithms, in which the Latin language appears to be used,
and who is said to have come in 1633 to reside in England,
— which country he left ' for political reasons ' in 1642, — to
have lived for the next six years in Paris, and to have died
after 1655, probably at the Hague. Algemeine Deutsche
Biograpliie. The two different title-pages of the volume
of Erasmus may be either successive forms, the second
adopted upon Vlacq's departure from England, or both
original, the one being used for the copies intended for sale
in London, and the other for those destined for export to
the publisher's native country. I observe that my copy
belonged in its earlier days to a Professor of Dordrecht.

The last important collection of the Epistles of Erasmus
is that contained in the third volume of the Opera Erasmi

Edition of Le Clerc Iv

edited in 1 703 by John Le Clerc* To make this edition more
complete, contributions were invited from the various public
and private collections in which such epistles were pre-
served, with the result that, whereas the epistles in the
London collection number 1463, those contained in the
Leyden edition amount to 1816. But of the additional
letters, a large proportion are not written by, but addressed
to, Erasmus. This collection of the correspondence of
Erasmus also differs from all the previous editions in its
form, owing to the laudable ambition of its editor to intro-
duce a chronological arrangement ; which with the materials
and leisure at his disposal could not but be very incomplete.
The mass of letters is divided into three parts. The first
part occupies 1521 folio columns and includes 1299 epistles,
twenty-seven of which do not appear to be included in any
earlier collection of the epistles of Erasmus. t In this part
the earlier epistles are absent for want of date, and those of
his middle life are in no very trustworthy order, owing to
the uncertainty of the year-dates of this period, which are for
the most part later additions to the letters. See p. xxxv. But
the epistles of the maturer years of Erasmus's life, say from
1517 to 1536, being generally provided with dates, supplied
the materials for a chronological arrangement, which a careful
revision might have made fairly accurate. The second part,
which begins with a fresh numeration, includes 385 epistles,
filling 254 columns, and is entitled, an Appendix of Epistles
which could not be arranged in their proper place. The con-
tents are dated epistles, some of which, being included in the

* Eras mi Opera Omnia, Toiiius tertius qid complectitur Epis tolas. Lugduni
Batavorum, 1703. Folio.

t Of two of these, C. Nos. 334 and 705, there are copies in the Deventer MS.
but I think that the copies here given are from another source. The twenty-
seven epistles appear to be principally, perhaps wholly, derived from collections
of Epistles already published, as the Epistles of Thomas More, of Peter Bembo,
of Jacobus Sadoletus, of Luther and Melanchthon.

Ivi Introduction

earlier collections, appear to have been omitted by oversight
from the first part, but by far the greater number are epistles
printed here for the first time and for the most part derived
from the Deventer Manuscript, see p. xxvi. A Third Part
follows, in which the foregoing numeration is continued,
containing 131 undated epistles, arranged in alphabetical
order by the names of the correspondents to or by whom
the letters are written. It is in this part, that the letters
of our early chapters, being undated, are to be found.

It is not worth while to point out the shortcomings of
this, the last edition of the correspondence of Erasmus, with
which the editor, Le Clerc, who probably did little for it
himself, appears by his Preface to have been very well satis-
fied. Among other things he claims credit on behalf of his
sub-editor, for having altered the original dating of the
epistles by substituting the modern reckoning of the days
of the month for the notation by Ides or Calends, or by
reference to Church festivals, used by Erasmus.* He also
calls attention to the full and accurate Index. This part
of the work is indeed worth looking at, as one of the most
remarkable indexes which have been ever prepared by the
most ingenious of sub-editors. It occupies 372 foHo columns,
of which sixty-five are under the special head of Erasmus^
followed in column after column by a series of questions,
beginning with the words, qiiid^ ctir, qiiein, qiios, etc., as
Erasmus^ quid rogat J-oanyiem Canonicum Bruxellanumf
49 B. qiiid sibi doletf ibid. e. quid cupitf 50 e. quid non
patietitrf ibid, qiiodnam hominum genus describitf 53 B.

We cannot part with the posthumous editions of Erasmus's
Epistles, published by Merula, Scriverius and Le Clerc,

* The original words, which often, especially in the case of festivals, supply
the materials for correction, should of course have been retained, and the
additional dates found in any later authorized publication, appended. The
date translated into modern reckoning, or suggested by the editor, might have
been added at the end, or perhaps better at the beginning.

Other works on Erasmus's Epistles Ivii

without some lingering glance at the quantity of fresh
and autograph materials which were used in these several
publications. What has become, we naturally ask, of these
various manuscripts ? I have not heard of any considerable
collections of the kind existing in any of the public libraries
of Holland, with the important exception of Deventer ; and
I am sorry to say that I have no information respecting
private manuscript collections in that country. How gladly
should we find the Compendhun Vitse^ with its accompanying
Epistle to Goclen, in the manuscripts which were borrowed by
Merula from the collection of Werckman. See pp. xlvii, xcii.
But we may presume, that Professor Kan, who has specially
occupied himself with the question of the authenticity of
these very documents (see p. 2), would have discovered the
originals, if they were still existing in Holland. It is to him
that we owe a careful account of the Deventer Manuscript,
from which, as we have seen, the greater number of the
additional Epistles of Le Clerc's edition were derived.

To turn to the little that remains to be added concerning the
publication and arrangement of the Erasmian correspondence,
Dr. John Jortin's learned volumes on the Life of Erasmus
founded upon his Epistles* can scarcely be regarded as a work
bearing on iheir chronology, inasmuch as the author accepts
without any criticism the arrangement of the epistles as
published by Le Clerc. But his second volume contains a
useful Appendix of extracts from Erasmus's works and other
illustrative documents, including some epistles not so readily
found elsewhere. See the list of documents in Jortin,
Erasmus^ vol. ii. 276.

Since the date of the Leyden edition of the works of
Erasmus no general collection of his epistles has been
published ; but isolated letters, found either in manuscript
collections, or in some of the early printed books over-
looked by the editors of the Epistles of Erasmus, maybe

* Life of Erasmus. 2 vols. London, Whiston and White, 1758, 1762.

Iviii Introduction

found in some later volumes. Few of these letters belong to
his first fifty years, but two epistles printed in the Illustrinm
Virorum Epistolss ad '^oannem Reiichlin in 1519, and re-
printed in the recent collection of Reuchlin's Epistles (edited
by Ludwig Geiger, Tubingen, 1875), may be mentioned here.
The first (the date of which has required correction) is
Epistle 315 in our Register; the other is Epistle 459. We
are indebted to M. Pierre de Nolhac {Erasme en Ttalie) for
the publication of some of the few remaining letters written
by Erasmus in Italy. The autographs of these are preserved
in the Vatican Library. Epistles 204, 206, 208, 209.

Before dismissing this part of my Introduction, I may
mention two learned publications recently issued from the
German press, which came to my knowledge after I had
nearly completed my own arrangement of Erasmus's corre-
spondence, and which might seem in some respects to have
anticipated my labours in that direction. The first of these
is entitled Erasmus-stiidien^ by Arthur Richter, Dresden,
1891 ; the other, Erasmus von Rotterdam^ Untersuchiingen
zu setnem Brief wechsel iind Leben in den J^ahren 1509-
15 1 8, by Dr. Max Reich, Treves, 1896. These two dis-
sertations deal wnth Erasmus's correspondence during two
successive periods. The former relates to the time before
his return from Italy in June, 1509, the period comprised
in the present volume of translations ; and the latter work
continues the same subject from the date last mentioned to
the end of April, 151 8, a little beyond the time chosen for
the close of my own Register of Epistles and the further
translations which I had proposed to publish.

Mr. Richter's essay is concerned with Epistles for the most
part either not dated or not provided with trustworthy dates,
and very difficult to arrange. Since I have had it in my
possession, I have compared his work with my own, and
though I have seldom, if ever, preferred his arrangement, I
have found ample occasion to appreciate his care and dili-

Genuine epistles and epistles in name lix

gence in the illustration of his subject. The evidence relating
to the birth-year of Erasmus has been carefully collected
by this writer, to whose observations I have referred in my
note on this subject at the end of this volume. See
Appendix V. The work of Dr. Reich deals with a period in
which the arrangement and chronology of the Epistles are
for the most part no longer matters of conjecture, but of
evidence and legitimate inference. I have with great
advantage compared his Register with my own. If I am able
to finish the second volume which I hope to prepare for the
Press, I shall be able to state more fully the reasons which
have led me in some cases to a different arrangement from
that which he has adopted and explained with much ability
and learning, I am bound to acknowledge my obligation to
both these authors for references to works, of which I might
otherwise have been ignorant.

A few pages have been already devoted to an imperfect
discussion of the authenticity of some epistles, which have
been received as compositions of Erasmus. See pp. xli. — li.
It may be worth while to remember here, that with regard
to works published as epistles there may be a question of
genuineness as distinct from authenticity. A true epistle is
a communication addressed by the author to his corre-
spondent, and intended primarily, if not exclusively, for his
reading. It is an interesting problem, — which may be better
considered by some future editor with the whole series of
Erasmian Epistles before him, — what epistles of those pub-
lished under the authority of Erasmus himself are genuine
letters, printed wholly or substantially in their original
state, what may be assumed to have been subjected to
considerable revision, commutatis quae erant commutanda,
as he says in his epistle to Mountjoy (see p. xxx), and what
finally may be placed in the class of writings, in the form of
epistles, composed originally for publication. Of the revision
which some of the genuine epistles may have undergone

Ix Introduction

before they were published, we cannot expect to have much
information. But the fact that Erasmus was obliged by
circumstances, especially by his own absence from Basel,
where the principal collections were printed, to leave the
editing of them in a great measure in the hands of Beatus
Rhenanus, was probably favourable to their publication with-
out any considerable change or omission. Of a free revision,
almost assuming the character of a fresh composition, by the
author himself, we have an innocent and entertaining example
in Epistle 122, of the genesis of which a conjectural account
is given in the comment which precedes the translation.

Not to speak of several controversial pamphlets in episto-
lary form, which are printed among the Epistles of Erasmus,
and of which the character is sufficiently apparent, a notable
example of what may be called an epistolary fiction from his
hand may be found in the well-known letter to Lambertus
Grunnius with the answer of Grunnius to Erasmus. Of the
character and history of this work, which is included in our
Register (Epistles 443, 444), a few lines may be added to
justify the position in which it is found there. The Epistle
to Grunnius is as undoubtedly authentic as anything that we
have of our author, but the correspondence must, I think,
be regarded as pure fiction. The name of Grunnius, which
is elsewhere given by Erasmus to an imaginary correspon-
dent,* appears to have been suggested to him by his favourite
author, St. Jerome, who mentions a comic piece, entitled
Griinnii Corocottae Porcelli testamentum,'\ to which Erasmus

* See the Epistle inscribed Erasmus Rot. Grunnio S. (which may be
rendered, ' to Mr. Grunt,' apparently a Lutheran critic), which is printed in
the ninth volume of the Basel Opera Erasmi; Ep. xxxi. 51 ; C. x, 1590. The
word Lamherto, introduced into the address of this epistle in the London
volume, is a mere mistake of that edition.

t Hieronymi Conunetitaria in EsaiajJi, lib. xii. ad init. This old jeu d'esprit
has been disinterred and printed at the end of an edition of Adagia, sumpti-
bus loan. Prescii, 1643, p. 775. Jerome gives the nickname of Grunnius to
his opponent, Ruffinus. Conim. in leremiam, lib. iv. cap. 22.

History of the Grunnius Letters Ixi

cursorily refers in the Dedication of the Moria. Epistle 212.
The object of the Epistle to Grunnius was evidently to serve
as an apology for the bold step, which Erasmus had taken
in rejecting his monastic profession and adopting a secular
life. We have no certain evidence of the existence of this
epistle before it was published in the Opus Epistolariun
of 1529; but there is a passage, — in a letter which he
received from Ammonius in August, 15 16, when the latter
was negotiating on his behalf with the Roman authorities, —
which, if the epistle to Grunnius was composed at that
time, may very probably refer to it. The object of these
proceedings was to obtain a Dispensation on behalf of
Erasmus, which would, in the first place, set his mind at rest
with respect to his monastic obligation, and in the second
place, serve as a defence to any objection which might be
taken, on account of the circumstances of his birth, to the
validity of his Orders, and consequently to his title to any
benefice, which had been, or might be, conferred upon him.
In the midst of this business Erasmus made a journey to
England to confer with Ammonius, and while there, wrote
a letter to Pope Leo X., which was probably placed in his
friend's hands to be forw^arded to Rome. Epistle 434. In his
way back from London to Calais, Erasmus was detained for
some days at Rochester by Bishop Fisher ; and if the Epistle
to Grunnius belongs, as appears likely, to this period of
Erasmus's life, it was probably at Rochester that it was
begun, if not entirely written. A letter of Ammonius to
Erasmus, sent from Westminster during this visit, contains
the following enigmatic words: "As for that fiction, I am
still in favour of it ;* but, for the caution that must be used
about it, how I wish I was by you at both ears, as they say.
I can assure you, no less care shall be taken by me about
the matter than if my own head were at stake." Epistle 439.

* Commejitum illud consta}iter probo.

Ixii Introduction

The Epistle to Grunniiis, if composed at this time, was pro-
badly written in the hope that, through the Bishop of Wor-
cester or one of the author's other friends in the Papal Court,
it might be privately submitted to the appreciative eye of
Pope Leo, and assist in stimulating the interest felt by him
in the cause of its author. The subject of the epistle was the
sad history of Florentius, a tale founded upon the facts of
Erasmus's own early life ; and no better plan could have
been devised for pleading the cause of the narrator. The
suggested reply of the Papal Secretary, w^hich was probably
sent to Rome with the epistle, was of course conceived in
the most indulgent terms. In the above explanation of these
epistles, it has been assumed that Lamhertus Grunniiis^
scriba Apostoliciis^ is an imaginary person. The name of
Grunnius in some measure tells its own story. No such
name occurs in Buonamici, De Claris pontijiciariun episto-
lariim scriptoribiis. And some years ago I asked the late
John Baptist de Rossi, then the greatest authority upon the
ecclesiastical antiquities of Rome, whether any person of this
name w^as known to have been employed in the capacity
suggested. In a letter in reply he said that he knew of none,
and added that the name w^as also unknown to Monsignor
Carini, Prefect of the Vatican Library, who had long been
interested in the history of the Pontifical Secretaries.

Professor Vischer of Basel, to whose care and learning we
owe the publication of the Basel documents relating to
Erasmus's Dispensation, is disposed to assign a later date to
the Grunnius epistles.* I cannot find in their contents any
evidence of a later composition, but we have no distinct
proof of their existence before their publication in 1529.
Assuming them to have had the origin I have suggested, we
can understand that Erasmus, whose great desire at this time
was to get his Dispensation quickly through, without the

* Vischer, Erasmiatia, Basel, 1876, p. 20.

Early epistles without date Ixiii

notice of his enemies being attracted to the scandals that it
was intended to cover, might well, after the fulfilment of his
object, put his own copy of this epistle at the bottom of one
of his repositaries ; from which, after his effects had been
removed from Brabant to Basel, and from Basel to Freiburg,
he appears to have taken it out with other documents of a
more genuine epistolary character, and sent it for publica-
tion to Jerome Froben in 1529. See p. Ixxxiii. Its publica-
tion now was not likely to do him any harm. The reader
who knew enough to recognize Erasmus under the name of
Florentius, would learn nothing from it, which would not
serve rather to palliate than to darken the known circum-
stances of his early history. The obligation of Erasmus to
the Roman pontiff for relieving his mind from an over-
whelming anxiety may well have made him, a few years
later, less willing to join with Luther in a sweeping con-
demnation of Papal pretensions.

We have now to add some observations upon the arrange-
ment of the epistles of Erasmus and his correspondents in
the present work, of which one of the principal objects
is the determination of the chronological order, and of the
true or approximate date of these epistles for the period to
which it extends. As they are published in the various col-
lections, some of the epistles are fully, some partially dated,
others not dated at all.* Those belonging to the first thirty
years of Erasmus's life are generally without date ; and with
respect to these the utmost that can be done is to conjecture
from their contents, and from a comparison of one letter
with another, their approximate period, probable order, and
the place where they appear to have been written. This
observation applies especially to the epistles contained in
the first three sections of our Register (Epistles 1-41),

'* In the latter part of this book the printed date, if any, of every epistle
translated or recorded in it is mentioned either in text, comment, or note.
VOL. I. 6

Ixiv Introduction

which correspond with the first three Chapters of our
Translations, among which the onlv date found is in
Epistle 21, which is dated, Ex Stein, Idus Maias.*

The primary object of dating a letter is to inform its
receiver when and where it was written, and if these
facts are otherwise perfectly known to him, it may well
seem that no date is necessary. This was the case with
respect to the early epistles of Erasmus, written when he
was living in his Convent, and generally addressed to other
monks resident in the same or some other house of his
Order, and delivered by some person attached to one of the
houses. The further advantage of dating letters for the after
information of the writer or receiver, or of other readers
in case of later perusal or publication, had not yet occurred
to Erasmus, who if he preserved his letters, valued them
as literary compositions, and not as contributions to his
own biography. This was afterwards shown by his pre-
ference of the miscellaneous disorder in which they were
published during his life, to anything like a chronological
arrangement. See pp. Ixxxii, Ixxxiv. Nevertheless, in spite of
the absence of dates in the early correspondence of Erasmus,
the chronology of this part of his life will not be found to
be so uncertain as his biographies would lead us to suppose.
Among his intellectual gifts he had a memory of extraordinary
powder and exactitude, which gives a special value to the auto-
biographical reminiscences contained in his later works.

The general habit of not dating his epistles continued for
some time after Erasmus had left the Convent, but change
of residence naturallv led to his occasionally supplying a
date of place or of time in letters to distant correspondents.

* The form Idus for Idibus or ad Idus is fouiid elsewhere, as in Epistles 2 1
and 170. As this date is an exception, we may conjecture that the writer had
either some special reason for giving the information to his correspondent, or
that the date was added to show the Roman manner of dating. But if it was
given as an example, it is strange that the form is not altogether exemplary.

Practice of dating gradually adopted Ixv

In Epistle 37 William Herman, who does not appear to
have dated his own letters, begged Erasmus to add the day
on which he despatched his. Epistle 49, dated from Paris,
13 September, is the earliest example, after Epistle 21, of a
letter of Erasmus with a date both of place and time. But
the year-date (probably 1496) is not given. The following
epistle, being a Dedication, has a date including the year,
which was commonly added, possibly by the Printer, in
epistles intended for the Press. There is reason to think
that the year-dates printed at the end of the earlier private
letters are generally a later addition, made either on their
first printing or in Opus Epistolarum (see p. Ixxxiv.), and in
many cases the place-dates also, since it would never occur
to Erasmus, writing at Paris to friends in the same city,
to put in such a useless address as Lutetiae or Parisiis alone
(Epistles 46, 47, 48, 56, 58), which might be usefully added
by the editor, when the letters were published among those
of various places and times in the mixed collections which
Erasmus preferred. In the early years of the sixteenth
century the dated epistles, rare at first, become gradually
more frequent. During Erasmus's journey and residence in
Italy, the letters that we have are few, but dated more
often than not, and after his return to England in 15 10, the
practice of dating may be said to be fairly established,
though undated letters are not uncommon.

When Erasmus first began to date his letters, he inserted
for the most part, a date of place and day, or of the day only,
without any indication of the year. This is in accordance with
the practice still everywhere usual with respect to unimpor-
tant letters, no information on the latter point being required
by the recipient of the letter. We may further suspect,
that in Holland and Brabant, as in England, the practice
of adding the current year of the Christian era, so con-
venient in case of the letter being for any reason pre-
served, had not yet come into use in the dating of private

e 7

Ixvi Introduction

letters ; the reader of the Paston Letters will have observed,
that in English correspondence a year-date is rare, and if
considered necessary, is expressed in the year of the king's
reign, — the era still used in the date of our Acts of Parlia-
ment ; the only letter which I have observed in that collec
tion dated by the Christian era being one of an ecclesiastic,
who had spent many years of his life at Rome.*

It is not easy to trace with certainty what was Erasmus's
own early practice in dating bis letters with reference to the
addition of a year-date, because in many cases where a year-
date is found in the printed Epistles it is clearly a subse-
quent insertion of his editor, being often found in a later
edition, but not in that in which the letter first appears. I
think that at least up to the time of his first visit to Basel
(15 14-5) it may be safely said, that when he took the pains
to date a letter, it was not his practice to add a year-date,
except in the case of compositions obviously intended for
publication, such as dedications, and solemn epistles occa-
sionally addressed to important personages. See Epistles
50, 135, 137, 158, 160, 170. When during his visits to Basel
his correspondence with the learned of Upper Germany be-
comes important, we find him among persons more directly
influenced by the Roman or Italian usage, whose habit it was

* Paston Letters (Ed. 1875), iii. 363. The absence of dates, which we
obsen-e in Erasmus's early correspondence, is still more remarkable in the
historical work of his companion, William Herman, where the chronology is
of more vital importance. His little book, which was printed at Amsterdam
in black letter, without date of publication, narrates the events of one
campaign of Charles, duke of Guelderland, in which he attempted an
invasion of Holland. The stor}' being without dates, has been conjectured
to relate to the occurrences of 1507. Foppens, Bibliotheca Belgica, i. 407 ;
Matthaeus, Anakda, ed. 1738, i. 321. But supposing that the allusion of
Erasmus in his Panegyricus to Herman as the historian of Holland (see
pp. 87, 362) refers, as is probable, to this work, the incidents described
belong to an earlier period. The emperor Max, who appears in Herman's
narrative, was there in person on two different occasions.

Year-dates added by editor Ixvii

to add a year-date, — anno Domini, — to their letters. The
convenience of this usage, especially when the epistle was
intended to be copied and preserved, could not fail to affect
Erasmus himself, who appears after this time to have more
generallv adopted the same practice. The recognition of
the fact, that year-dates appended to familiar epistles written
by Erasmus before, — we may say, — the beginning of the
vear 151 7, are for the most part not original dates, but later
additions, is a very important condition of the true arrange-
ment of these epistles. The year-dates so added may
perhaps in some cases have been suggested by Erasmus, but
may be assumed to have been generally contributed by his
editor, who regarding the epistles as literary compositions,
and not as biographical materials, was contented with an
approximate indication of the period to which a letter
belonged. Thus in the Farrago^ and more freely in the
Opus Epistolariim^ the dates 1497, 1498, 1499 are thrown in
at the end of letters belonging to the time of Erasmus's
early residence in Paris ; and any of the years from 15 10 to
1 5 1 5 may mark a letter belonging to any one of those years. A
good example of the wide margin allowed in affixing year-
dates is found in Epistles 260, 261 (Ep. xiii. 3, vii. 19), the
latter being an answer to the former, evidently written
within a very few days. The former in Epistolse ad diversos
is dated, Cambridge, 1515 ; the latter, in Farrago, is dated,
London, the 5th of February, the year-date, 1 5 1 2, being added
in Opus Epistolarum. These letters appear to have been
written in January and February, 1513 ; so that allowing
for the late commencement of the year then in use in
England, the latter date may claim to be right.

When after his visits to Basel, Erasmus had adopted the
habit of adding the annus Domini in the original dates of his
letters, and had many correspondents whose epistles were
so dated, a question sometimes arises respecting the inter-
pretation of such dates in letters written between Christmas

Ixviii Introduction

and Easter. The meaning of a year-date, anno Domini,
depends not only upon the epoch from which it is reckoned,
but also to some extent upon the day on which each year
begins. As to the epoch, there was no such variance in
Christian countries as need claim our attention here. But
the day on which the annus Domini began was not every-
where the same. The ancient Roman calendar, upon which
the mediaeval and modern calendars were founded, began
the year on the ist of January. But as the new era was
reckoned from the birth of Christ, it might be expected that
each year should begin on the Feast of the Nativity, which
is celebrated seven days before the first day of the Roman
year ; and in early times, — say, in or before the tenth century,
— the annus Domini appears to have been reckoned from
this festival very generally throughout Christendom. At
the time with which we are concerned, this commencement
of the year still continued in use in a great part of Italy,
including Rome. But at Florence the year began on the 25th
of March, the Feast of the Annunciation, which was regarded
as the anniversary of the Incarnation of Christ ; and this
computation, which was known as the era of Florence, is
said to have prevailed there from the tenth century, and it
remained in use until 1749 ; it was adopted at a somewhat
later time in England, where it was used in the time of
Erasmus, and continued until 1753. But when the year
began on the Festival of the Annunciation, it might seem
that the annus Domini should be reckoned from the 25th of
March in the year preceding the ordinary epoch, and this
mode of dating is said to have been in use at Pisa, but not
apparently elsewhere. In Germany, where the year began
at Christmas, the emperor Maximilian is said to have intro-
duced into the Imperial Chancery early in the sixteenth
century the commencement from the ist of January; but the
popular usage retained its relation to Christmas. In France
also the ancient practice was to reckon the new year from

Various commencements of the year Ixix

Christmas day, but in the time of Erasmus, both the official
and customary commencement of the annus Domini at
Paris appears to have been on Easter eve ; while in
Brabant, where Erasmus so frequently resided, it is said
to have been on Good Friday.* And we are told in a
letter of Erasmus to the chancellor of Poland, that in that
country the year began at Easter. Epistle xix. 1 1 ; C. 979 a.
It is of some interest however to add, that even where the
annus Domini was reckoned from an earlier or a later date,
the first of January was still regarded in some sense as New
Year's day. See Epistle 186. In his treatise De Conscri-
bendis Epistolis^ published in 1522, Erasmus lays down
some rules for concluding and dating a letter, which are
here given with considerable abridgment. The Epistle con-
cludes, he savs, with the word, Vale^ which is followed in
ancient authors by Place and Time. Of this he gives a
variety of ancient examples. The public time, he continues,
is added thus: "In the 1500th year from the birth of Christ,"
or by a similar phrase. Some, he adds, commence the year
at Christmas, some from the First of January, some from
Easter, some from the Feast of the Annunciation, — a variance,
which gives rise to mistakes and ought to be abolished. The
day is indicated either in Roman fashion by Ides and Calends,
or by its number in the month, or by some Christian festival.

C. i. 375, 376.

The above statement shows, that in the places where the
epistles of Erasmus and his correspondents were for the
most part written, the commencement of the year varied by

* See, for the whole of this paragraph, BArt de verifier le dates, Paris, 1783,
torn. I. pp. ix.-xii. The proceedings at Ghent before the States General in
1 537-1 540, indicate an Easter commencement of the year, not without an eye
to another practice, the number of the preceding year being continued, but
the words avatit Basques and stil de cour being added to dates between
Christmas and that feast. Gachard, Relatiofi des Troubles de Gand sous
Charles V. Bruxelles, 1846.

Ixx Tntroduction

several steps from Christmas to Easter, and is of importance
in interpreting the dates of some of the letters in the latter
part of our Register, and of many more in the succeeding
years of his correspondence. It may generally be pre-
sumed that a person writing a letter adopts the era of the
place where he is residing ; but even this is not always
certain. In one of his epistles written from Freiburg,
where the year was reckoned from Christmas, Erasmus in a
letter dated the 31st of March, 1531 (Easter day being the
9th of April), reminds his correspondent, Andrea Alciati,
then residing at Bourges, that his year-date is expressed
according to the German reckoning. Ep. xxvi. 6 ; C. 1393 c.
But in another letter, dated the 7th of February, 1531, he
warns a French correspondent, Pierre Chastelain, that he is
himself adopting the era of Paris, by adding, after the year-
date, the words, iuxta vestram supputationem. Ep. xxvi. 24;
C. 1353 B. If therefore this reading is right, this epistle
belongs to 1532, instead of 1531, where it is placed by Le
Clerc. But a letter to Mountjoy, printed by Merula, dated
from Freiburg, 5 Cal. Aprilis (28 March), 1529, and placed
by Le Clerc in that year, clearly belongs by its contents to
March, 1530, and is therefore dated according to the French,
and not the German, computation. C. 1176 (1034). P^s-
siblv the writer may have thought, that his correspondent was
not familiar with the German usage, and therefore adopted
the Easter reckoning. If so, he forgot for the moment, that
the English changed their year-date on the 25th of March, and
that consequently the 28th of March was in the same anno
domini both in England and Germany. In the preceding
year, 1529, the 28th of March was Easter day. These
observations may serve to show the necessity of keeping in
mind the various commencements of the year in interpreting
the dates of correspondence of this period. The second
part of our work contains full information concerning the
first published dates of the epistles occurring in it, and those

Inferential datino; of Epistles Ixxi

added in the later authorized editions. This, with the trans-
lations and commentary, will in most cases enable the reader
to form his own judgment upon the question whether the
epistle before him is rightly dated, or has been placed in its
most probable position in relation to the other letters.

The want of an express date in a letter may be more or
less supplied by the mention of some event of which the
time is otherwise ascertained. Such side-lights are necessary,
when we have to determine not only the order of undated
letters, but the period to w^hich they belong; and the absence
of any such lights makes it impossible to assign even approxi-
mate dates to the letters written during Erasmus's conven-
tual life. Illustrations of this kind become more frequent
as we proceed, and are seldom wanting at a later date, when
he was living among statesmen and diplomatists, and persons
whose movements can be traced. An accident which led
the present writer some years ago to follow minutely the
biography of Lord Mountjoy, has assisted in supplying dates
to that otherwise obscure period of Erasmus's early life, when
he w^as closely associated with his English pupil :, and I was
able to mention in a note printed in 1891, as a matter
affecting the biography of Erasmus, that Mountjoy was twice
at Paris under his teaching, first in 1496-7 before his marriage,
and afterwards from about March, 1498, to about June, 1499;
that Erasmus returned with him in 1499 to England, where
he remained till January, 1500; and that he was at Oxford
only during the October term of 1499; this first visit of
Erasmus to England and his residence at Oxford, having been
exaggerated in duration by his biographers.*

No complete biography of Erasmus, and no adequate
estimate of his character, can be expected, until we have
the whole series of his epistles in fairly chronological order
before us But it is of interest to observe, that he himself
appears rather to have shrunk from the searching light

* Ttie Hall of Lawford Hall. Preface, p. vii.

Ixxii Introduction

which the indiscriminate publication of his correspondence
might cast upon some transactions of his life, if the epistles
were arranged in the order in which they were written, and
to have preferred a mode of publication which afforded his
admirers some agreeable reading without tempting them to
scrutinize too curiously the motives of the author. See pp.
Ixxxii, Ixxxiv. The arrangement here attempted sets before
us upon the best authority the principal events of the earlier
part of his life, and enables us to trace with accuracy his
changes of localitv. And it is of interest to observe, how
many of the places which were familiar to him can still be
identified, some of them remaining little changed since his
eves rested upon them. In Gouda I do not think there is
any locality associated with its greatest townsman, and the
site of the Monastery of Stein is scarcely to be found ; but
when we move to Bergen, we see, in the Markiezenhof still
standing, the palace of its old lords, where Erasmus was
probably received into his household by the Bishop of
Cambrai. At Paris we sit in the Library of St. Genevieve
on the site of Erasmus's College of Montaigu. Even at
Tournehem we may spy some small fragment of the Castle,
where he paid his court to the Lady of Veer ; and at St.
Omer the Abbey of St. Bertin, so often visited by him, is
now an imposing ruin. In Italy, after the University of
Turin, where an inscription records his degree, the first spot
with which we can distmctly associate him is the house of
Asulanus and Aldus at Venice near the Rialto Bridge,
where he spent the greater part of one year, and got through
the work of many. At Siena, though we still find ourselves
in the same medieval city, we cannot distinguish the palace
where he lived with his pupil, the Archbishop of St.
Andrew's ; but at Rome we follow him to the Vatican and to
the Cancelleria, — then the palace of the Cardinal Riario, —
and, with more distinct detail, to the Palace of Venice, the
residence of Cardinal Grimani. See p. 461. At Freiburg

Places associated with Erasmus Ixxiii

the two houses in which he lived, the one a mansion built
by the emperor Maximilian, the other a smaller house in
which Erasmus made some alterations himself, are still
standing; and at Basel we may visit the localities, " Zum
Sessel " and " Zum Luft," where he lived at different
times with the two Frobens, father and son, and at the
latter of which he died. At Lambeth we may well
imagine ourselves in the manor house of Warham,
though a great part of the building is not the same.
The Bucklersbury of to-day does not retain m.any
features of the street in which Thomas More received
Erasmus as a guest ; and the buildings which surround the
former chapel of St. Stephen at Westminster but faintly
recall the houses of the Canons of St. Stephen, in one of
which, accessible from the river on one side and from
Palace Yard on the other, Erasmus was entertained by
Ammonius. At Oxford we come more closely upon his
traces in the remains of St. Mary's College, where he lived
during his short residence at that University, and at Cam-
bridge his rooms at Queen's College are occupied by a
student of the twentieth century. It would be difficult to
find any other private person of his time, whose footsteps
can be followed in so many places.

It only remains to add, as proposed at the beginning of
this Introduction, some translations of the Prefaces by which
the published Epistles were ushered into the world.

The first of the following compositions served as a Preface
to the collection of Epistles entitled Epistolse. aliquot etc.,
which was issued from the press of Thierry Martens at
Louvain in October, 1516, under the editorship of Peter
Gillis, see p. xxviii. This Preface (Epistle 457 in our
Register) is addressed to Caspar Halmal, Doctor of Laws
and one of the magistrates of the City of Antwerp. It is
not reprinted in any of the collections of Epistles.

Ixxiv Introduction

Peter Gillis to Gaspar HahnaL

I cannot say, most illustrious and learned Gaspar, how
much I have been distressed by the news of your being laid
up with fever. As I think no less of your health than of my
own, I pray Heaven to quell the disease without injury to
the patient, who has been a loving friend to me from my
bovhood. When I was considering by what sort of antidote
I could reUeve your sickness, it occurred to me to make a
selection out of the great heap of Epistles, which Erasmus
Roterodamus, that most learned and eloquent of theologians,
has written to illustrious and distinguished men, and they
to him; but only of a few, which I guessed would be most
to your taste, although I know^ that nothing is not to your
taste, that proceeds from Erasmus.

His rare accomplishments are so well known to the whole
world, so celebrated by the testimony of eminent men, so
approved bv the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, that he
himself mav well dispense wdth any supports of this kind.
Nevertheless to provide you with the means of enjoyment I
have put together this collection of letters. Such is your
affection for the man, and such your delight when anything
Erasmian is offered to you, that I hope and trust they will
restore vou to your old health. Do pray let us see you
soon as hale and as hearty as ever. Farew^ell.

Antwerp, 26 September, 15 16.

The larger selection of Epistles printed bv Thierrv
Martens at Louvain in April, 15 17, and reprinted by Froben
at Basel in January, 15 18, with the title Epistolse sane quarn
elegantes etc. has another short prefatory Epistle of Peter
Gillis, which is addressed to Antonius Clava, Councillor of
Flanders. Epistle 530. Attention has been already called
to the allusion made in this letter to the practice of circu-

Two Prefaces by Peter Gillis Ixxv

lating the correspondence of learned persons by means of
written copies. This dedication is not printed in any of the
later collections of Epistles.

Peter Gillis to Antonius Clava.

The same request which you make, most distinguished
Antony, is pressed upon us by many others. Having lately
published a few notable and learned letters, we are asked to
do the same with some others, still more learned, which
have followed them, and in which Erasmus and Bude are
engaged in a friendly conflict. It is indeed an occasion for
using the printer's assistance in place of the transcriber, as a
hundred clerks would scarcely suffice to meet the demands
of so many persons. I am prepared to comply, and while
I perform this service on behalf of many, I inscribe it to
Clava alone. In what I am doing I by no means expect to
gratify my Erasmus, who is not so ready to consent to the
general circulation of such trifles, as he is wont to call them,
fearing they may aff"ord some handle to detraction. But I
know that it will be an extremely agreeable spectacle to all
cultivated persons, and especially to one so erudite as vou,
to see two princes of Letters, one from France, the other
from our own country, encountering one another in the lists
of eloquence, and each so excelling by his own peculiar
merits, that you may well doubt which to set above the
other, while you admire each in turn as supreme. Farewell,
most learned Clava.

Antwerp, 5 March, 15 17.

The epistle of Beatus Rhenanus to Michael Hummelberg,
prefixed to the Aiictariiim Epistolariun (see p. xxx), need
not be translated in full. The following extract from its
commencement will show, how the writer enters, scarcelv
with sufficient seriousness, into Erasmus's wish to represent

Ixxvi Introduction

the publication as made behind his back and without his
consent. This epistle is reprinted in Horawitz und Hart-
felder, Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus, p. 119.

Beatiis Rhenaniis to Michael Hummelberg.\

You must hear, my dear Michael, what an audacious
transaction I have lately had in hand. I have committed a
theft upon Erasmus, that incomparable champion of the
best studies and of almost extinct theology. What new
thing is this, you will say, — you are playing some trick upon
me. No indeed ; I am only relating a fact. A few words
will explain the matter.

I have lately by the favour of Mercury obtained from
Erasmus's library some Epistolary parcels, out of which I
have forthwith chosen a collection of the greatest note, both
epistles of his own, and others written by the most dis-
tinguished persons of this age in answer to his. I have been
encouraged to commit this theft by the thought, that as
those fortunate persons who are burdened with wealth of all
kinds, are not aware of trifling depredations, so Erasmus,
laden as he is with the Muses' treasures, will not blame me,
if I have abstracted some portion of them. I believed him to
have so sincere a love for me, however little I have deserved
it, that he would readily forgive me, even if I committed a
more serious offence against him. See what a confidence is
bred bv sincere friendship. After the departure of Erasmus,
I delivered these Epistles to Froben to be printed. * * *

Basel, 22 September, 15 18.

The Farrago Epistolariim was issued at Basel in October,
1 5 19, without Preface. The following epistle of Erasmus to

I I take the spelling of this name from Horawitz and Hartfelder, BrieJ-
wechsel des Rhenanus, Leipzig, 1886, not from Horawitz, Skizze von Michael
Huvwielberger, Berlin, 1875, Erasmus writes Humelbergius.

Preface of Erasmus^ J 521. Ixxvii

Beatus Rhenanus, who appears to have been the editor of all
the authorized collections of his Epistles published at Basel,
was prefixed, by way of preface, to the collection entitled
Epistolse, ad diversos, printed by Froben in 1521. See
p. xxxii. It shows the anxiety of the author to have it
believed, that the publication of his letters was contrary to
his own wish ; and it also shows, that he had corrected or
authorized the correction of them, when it appeared desirable
to do so. This epistle became in the later Opus Episto-
larinn the first Epistle of the first Book. Ep. i. i ; C. Praef. * 2
dors.

Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus.

I see, my good Beatus, that what you write is more true
than I should wish. But then I wonder why my German
friends insist so strongly upon that which brings down upon
me such a burden of ill-will. For you know how unhappy
was the issue of those epistles, of which you first undertook
the editing, and still more unfortunate that Farrago, the
publication of which was extorted from me partly by the
importunity of friends, and partly by absolute necessity,
when I saw there were persons prepared to publish the
epistles they had of mine, whether I liked it or not, and
who plainly threatened to do so in letters they wrote me.
It was to prevent this, that I sent you a medley,* giving you
authority to select, and even to make corrections, in case
there should be anything that seemed likely to injure my
own reputation, or seriously to embitter anybody's feelings.
Nor do I doubt that you performed the duty of a sincere
friend with a care proportioned to the affection you feel for
us. And yet even in that collection enough was found to
excite in some breasts animosities of quite a tragic sort. I
had therefore made up my mind to desist entirely from this

* farraginem.

Ixxviii Introduction

kind of writing,* especially now that affairs are everywhere
in a marvellous state of agitation, and the minds of many
so embittered by hatreds, that you cannot write anything so
mildly, so simply or so circumspectly but they will turn it
into a libel.

Though as a young man and also at a riper age, I have
written a great number of letters, I scarcely wrote any w4th a
view to publication. I practised my style, I beguiled my
leisure, I made merry with my acquaintance, I indulged my
humour, in fine, did scarcely anything in this way but amuse
myself, expecting nothing less than that friends would copy
out or preserve any such trifling compositions. When I
was at Siena, that most courteous Piso, who was then Envoy
for his King at the Court of Pope Julius, found a manuscript
volume of Epistles of Erasmus for sale at a bookseller's,
which he bought and sent me. And although there were
many things in it which might perhaps seem not unworthy
of being preserved, yet I was so shocked by the unexpected
incident, that I devoted the whole volume to Vulcan. After
my return to Germany I found that similar books were kept
in several copies among a number of people ; and here too
whatever I could procure from those I knew, was delivered
to the flames. But I found at last by experience, that I had
to do with a Hydra. I therefore permitted some to be
published, first, in order that people, having their appetite
satisfied, might cease from demanding more, or at any rate
abstain from any intention of publication, when they saw
that I had myself set my hand to the business ; next, that
the letters might be issued with some selection, and in a
more correct form than as they existed in several copies ;
and finallv, that they might contain less of the bitter ingre-
dient. With this design I have revised the Farrago, cleared
up some points which had been unfairly construed, expunged
some passages by w^hich the too tender and irritable minds

*' ab hoc genere scripti desistere.

Editing of the Epistles Ixxix

of some people had been offended, and softened others.
But again the character of the time made me repent my
decision. Formerly there was a burning hatred between
the advocates of the learned languages and of Good Letters,
and those who foolishly persuade themselves that whatever
advance is made in the better literature is injurious to their
own interests. And of late the Lutheran tragedy has kindled
so fierce a strife, that it is neither safe to speak nor to hold
one's tongue. Everything is misconstrued, although it has
been written with the best intention. Even the date at
which one wrote is not taken into consideration, but what
was right at the time it was written is transferred to the
most inappropriate season.

Having regard to these considerations, I wrote strictly to
our friend Froben, to suppress entirely this part of my work,
or keep it for some other time ; or at any rate put it off till
my return ; and to hasten on the work of the Paraphrases,
which I had not yet found to give offence to any one.
But he, inconsiderate as I frequently find him, appears by
what I hear to have postponed everything else and hurried
on the work of the Epistles, and by this time to have reached
the forty-first sheet without my hearing about it ; and
nothing now delays the publication, except the Preface and
final words. Moreover he declares that he will not keep
the work back, even if I am disinclined to add anything,
but will rather send it out dKecf^aXov koI fieiovpoi^, without head
or tail, than put up with such a loss of expenditure. There
is nothing for it but to let the man have his way ; and to
secure his profit, I shall perhaps suffer some loss of reputation
myself.

But seeing that what I wanted cannot be had, I shall
trust, my Beatus, to your loyal care, to keep watch over the
work, that its publication may do as little harm to my name
as possible. I do not quite recollect what Letters I sent ;
and for that reason I gave orders that he should send back

VOL. I. /

Ixxx Introduction

what was printed of the Epistles with the young man by
whom I sent the first part of the New Testament. Why he
has made a difficulty in doing this, I cannot guess, There-
fore in this matter, most learned Beatus, I beseech you by
our friendship, to do what I should do myself, if I were
allowed. Act in every way as my second self, so that my
absence from Basel may not be felt. Do not trouble your-
self about any little loss that may be incurred by altering a
few pages. I desire that any cost of that kind may be
entirely charged to my account, and it is my order that
Froben be put to no expense. I reckon it a gain, whenever
money is lost to maintain honour. The trifling expense we
shall easily make good ; but when honour is affected, the
remedy is not easy.

But even if my honour were not at stake, I still deem it
part of a Christian spirit to endeavour to exert our abilities
for the good of all in such a way as not to give offence, even
unwittingly, to any. But it comes to pass by some evil
destiny of mine, that I am driven by fortune from the pur-
suits for which I seemed naturally adapted into a widely
different field, whether you regard my manner of life or the
character of my studies. For, not to go into every particu-
lar, whereas I seemed to be born for that free and fluent
kind of oratory which is used in speeches, debates and decla-
mations, I have consumed a great part of my study in col-
lections of proverbs, and in commentaries and annotations.
As a writer of epistles I may perhaps have seemed to have
some slight capacity ; but there were many things which
deterred me from this kind of composition. In the first
place, if epistles are wanting in feeling and do not represent
a man's real life, they do not deserve to be so called. Such
are those of Seneca to Lucilius. So of the epistles written
by Plato,* and of those which Cyprian, Basil, Jerome and

* The epistles ascribed to Plato are not now admitted to be his.

Various writers of Epistles Ixxxi

Augustine composed, apparently in imitation of the Apostles,
there are few which you would not more properly call
books. Those again which have been left us in the name of
Brutus, in that of Phalaris, and in the names of Seneca and
Paulus, can scarcely be regarded otherwise than as short
declamations. But letters of that genuine kind, which repre-
sent, as in a picture, the character, fortune and feelings of
the writer, and at the same time the public and private con-
dition of the time, such as are most of the epistles of Cicero
and Pliny, and among more modern writers those of ^neas
Pius, involve considerably more danger than recent history,
a work, as Flaccus says, full of perilous hazard.* Therefore
if anything of this sort is to be published, I would not advise
anyone to bring it out in his lifetime, but rather to commit
it to some Tiro, although het is thought to have shown
more zeal than judgment in editing his patron's memoirs.
Whether you praise or blame a person, some one is sure to
take offence ; not to mention, that there are people who can-
not bear even to be praised in published books, whether it
be that they disdain to be named by any one that chooses,
or that they fear to be suspected of a love of flattery.
Considering these objections, I am the more surprised that
St. Bernard should have published his epistles, in which
there are so many names marked with charcoal. In the
present day, if any one mentions a Jacobite monk or a Car-
melite without a long complimentary preface, even if the
name is suppressed, it is thought a crime that deserves
hanging. And there is this additional inconvenience, that
in the present state of human affairs our greatest friends are
sometimes turned into our greatest foes, and the reverse ;
so that one may regret both the praise bestowed on the one,
and the reflections cast on the other. Finally the reputa-
tion of the author is apt to suffer, because most people form

* periculosse plenum opus alese. Horat. Od. ii. i, 6.

t Marcus TuUius Tiro, the freedman and secretary of Cicero.

Ixxxii Introduction

an estimate of the whole character of the man from some
single letter, whereas we sometimes write after taking a glass
of wine, sometimes when sleepy, occasionally when wearied
out, or even sick, or attending to some other matter, some-
times when not in the humour; and we frequently adapt our
language to the capacity or judgment of the person to whom
we are writing. Whence it happens that with inexperienced
persons we fall under the suspicion of inconstancy, when the
variation they observe is to be ascribed to a difiference of
age and of feeling, a change of persons and of circumstances.
The reasons I have given might well deter any other
person, however fortunate, from publishing his letters. But
in my case there was that, which might especially dissuade
me from such a course. My fortune has not only always
been humble, but has remained constantly depressed, and
the tenor of my life has not been such as I should either
care, or be able, to vindicate from every accusation. There
was no reason therefore for me to wish, that many traces
of either should be preserved. The same argument might
perhaps affect those to whom we write, who would not like
the tattle, which they poured by letter into the bosom of a
friend, to be betrayed to everybody, considering that there
are persons who, born under the curse of the Graces, put an
ill construction upon everything. It happens over and over
again, that a phrase which, uttered at dinner or in friendly
company, has a sort of charm, gives rise, if repeated out of
its proper place, to dire tragedies. For this reason we have
inserted fewer of the letters to which our own are answers ;
although we have added some, especially those of learned
scholars, partly because I was too lazy to take the trouble,
which Angelo Poliziano generally takes, of repeating the
purport of the letter to which he is replying, and partly
because, supposing this to be added, there still seems to be
a want of light and life, where one does not first read the
letter that is answered.

Preface to Opus Epistolarum, 1529 Ixxxiii

I have explained my whole plan. Nothing remains, but
in the first place, to beg you to exert your truly friendly
spirit in the choice you have to make, and then to pray the
Powers above to grant that your judgment, and my com-
pliance may prove happy, not only to myself, who am
unable to oppose an obstinate resistance to the sentiments
of comrades, but also to those who, with more zeal than
discretion, have extorted from me this compliance. Fare-
well.

Louvain, 27 May, 1520.

The following further Introduction was prefixed by
Erasmus to the edition of his Epistles printed at Basel
in 1529. Opus Epistolarum^ Praef. ; Ep. Praef. ; C. Praef. * 2
dors. See p. xxxiv.

Erasiniis to the Reader.

I have formerly testified, that there are none of my lucu-
brations for which I care less than my Epistles, and I have
accounted for this feeling. I have not changed my mind.
Nevertheless, now that Jerome Froben asserts that this
work has for full two years been demanded by students, I
have revised what was before printed, and made a consider-
able addition thereto. Such is my nature, good Reader, I
can refuse nothing to those I heartily hold dear.

There were among the published letters several addressed
in terms of love and honour to persons, whom I then took
for loyal friends, but from whom I now suffer the most
relentless hostility ; so insecure is everything in human
affairs. I have not, however, displaced any of them, and I
think those persons will be more shamed than honoured by
their retention. Neither have I thought right to change the
order ; only I have divided the w^hole work into Books, so
that the reader may find more readily what he seeks. Some

Ixxxiv Introduction

friends have written to advise me, that they should all be
arranged in order of date. This, even if it had been easy
to do, did not for certain reasons appear expedient. Neither
again did I care to follow the connexion of subjects, because
in this kind of writing there is no greater charm than variety.
But in case anyone should require any such information, we
have added the day and year at the foot of each letter.*
Moreover we have prefixed an Index w^ith the names of the
persons and the numbers of the Books and Epistles ; this
wall show who writes to whom, and how many letters.

There were a number of epistles which I desired to have
added, if they had come to hand ; but my removal has led
to many things being lost, which I should have wished to
be preserved, and everything is in such confusion, that the
greater part has been looked for in vain. This I thought it
worth while to mention, in order that if any one, seeing
letters to other friends of inferior note included in the
publication, should be disappointed at not finding those
written to himself, he may not suspect that this has arisen
from intentional neglect.

In this age I do not know what can be written which will
not give offence, either to this man or to that. We have
however taken the greatest pains, that passages likely to
produce much irritation should be either omitted or at any
rate softened. We have willingly refrained from dragging
names into discredit, and should have been glad if this could
have been done entirely, but it was not consistent with the
publication of epistles.

We have omitted ceremonial titles, which are not only
ostentatious, but unscholarly and troublesome to the reader.
I entreat that this mav not be misconstrued, as if it were
done in contempt. For who does not know, that kings are
Unconquered and most Serene, Abbots Venerable, bishops

* See pp. XXXV., Ixv. The addition was more often of place and year ; the
day-date was not so easily added.

Preface to Epistolse Floridse, Ixxxv

Reverend, cardinals most Reverend, popes most Holy.
These epithets therefore, as well as those titles, most Un-
conquered Majesty, most Reverend Lordship, most Gracious
Highness, and your Reverend Fatherhood, not only spoil
the purity of the Latin diction, but also burden the reader
with needless and troublesome words. Farewell.
Freiburg in Bresgau, 7 August, 1529.

The following epistle to John Hervagius was sent from
Freiburg to be prefixed to the volume entitled Epistolse,
Floridse,. See p. xxxv. It is reprinted in the London
volume of Epistles, Ep. xxxi. 55, and by Le Clerc, C. 1749
(362). Froben had died in consequence of a fall, occasioned
by paralysis, which is attributed by Erasmus to his devotion
to work, and consequent neglect of his health. C. 1055.
Hervagius had married his widow, and was carrying on his
business. C. 1330 f. It may be observed, in explanation
of an allusion of Erasmus, that for a trade-mark Hervagius
displayed upon his title-page a three-headed Hermes holding
in his hands the Anchor and serpents of his predecessor.
The following epistle was written from Freiburg at the time
when Erasmus, being compelled to leave the public palace,
where he had resided for about two years, was preparing
for his own occupation a house which he had bought.

Erasmus to J^oannes Hervagius.

John Froben of blessed memory had many good qualities,
which commended him to my affection ; but nothing bound
me to him more closely than his life-long determination, at
any cost of money and of labour, to promote general learn-
ing by the publication of the most approved authors, in
which noble enterprise this excellent man met his death,
and I cannot see what fairer end he could have had. By
his labours the prosperity of Literature was more advanced
than his own, and he left his family more honour than

Ixxxvi Introduction

fortune. But when I see that you have not only received
into your household his respected widow, but are ambitious
to succeed him in his devotion to the honour and advance-
ment of literature, I cannot but transfer to you no little part
of the goodwill I always felt for him. Would that I were
able to further your purpose as much as my heart desires,
and your good qualities deserve. But my age and condition
of health demand if not a cessation, at least a remission of
my studious labours. Consequently you taskmasters, to
whom I have been often more subservient than was good
for me, must not expect such strokes of work in future.

At the present time my condition is such, that if I had no
sort of excuse on account of age or health, I am cut off
from all commerce with the Muses. What strange thing
has happened, you will ask ; have I married a wife ? Indeed
I am engaged in a matter, which is no less troublesome,
and equally remote from my character and genius. I have
bought a house here, of respectable name, but of exor-
bitant price. So that Erasmus, who used at any cost to
redeem his leisure for literature, is now familiar with
contracts of purchase, opinions of counsel, conveyances,
covenants, and conditions ; he is pulling down and building
up, he is engaged with masons, smiths, carpenters, and
glaziers, — you know the sort of people, — with so much repug-
nance, that I would rather spend three years in any literary
work, however exacting, than be troubled for a single month
with this kind of business. I never understood before, as I
do now, the supreme wisdom of Diogenes, who took refuge
in a tub, rather than be worried with such matters. To this
miserable condition I have been brought by the infelicity of
the age, and the colourable dishonesty of persons, whom
some day perhaps I shall not deprive of their due praise.
The least of these annoyances is the constant outpouring of
money ; I leave you to guess the rest.

I have put all this on record, my Hervagius, that you may

Preface to Epistolarwn Opus. 1536 Ixxxvii

receive with indulgence the parcel I now send. It repre-
sents what I can, not what I would. My choice was either
to send this, or nothing at all. It contains a number of
Flowery Epistles. You \n\\\ wonder, I know, what this
title means. To save you from a false impression, — it
means nothing of consequence. During the troublesome
occupation of moving from house to house I have just found
time to look over an immense heap of Epistles, and mark
with a little floweret those that it might be expedient to
publish, though I seldom write any with that end in view.
They will make a small book, which whatever its worth
may be, I hope will at any rate be of some benefit to you.
It will be so, if your three-headed Hermes is propitious in
its circulation. I hope that god will show you a short and
easy way to Plutopolis. That is the place to which most
people in these days are running as fast as they can, but not
all with like success.

To be serious, I pray that the Lord, who is the only true
source of safety and happiness, may grant success to vour
sacred calling ; to which end we will not fail to lend our
small share of aid, as soon as we are restored to our former
tranquillity. Farewell, with those who are dearest to you.

Freiburg in Bresgau, the eve of St. Laurence [9 August]
1531-

The following epistle was written by Erasmus between
four and five months before his death, as a preface to the
edition of his Epistles then in the press. Opus Epistolarum,
1536. See p. xxxvi. In the later Epistolariun Opus, 1541,
it was placed in the twenty-seventh Book. Ep. xxvii. 42 ;
C. Prsef. * * I dors.

Erasmus to Friendly Readers.

Within the last few days I determined to look over some
confused heaps of papers, partly for the sake of one or two

Ixxxviii Introduction

letters which I wished to be published, and partly in order
to destroy some documents which others might perhaps pub-
lish after my death, or even during my life ; for what is beyond
the daring of those, to whom profit, however slight, or some
little notoriety is of more account than honesty or friendship ?
Not everything that is written is meant to be given to the
world. When we were young we often amused ourselves
in this way for the sake of practising our pen ; sometimes we
dictated to others as we took our exercise, thinking of nothing
less then of any publication ; and some things we wrote for
dull pupils. Our Colloquies are an example of this, which
one Holonius got hold of, I know not how (for I never had
any copy myself), and sold to John Froben at a high price,
pretending there were other printers who wanted to buy
them. Such is the itch for purchasing ! The ' Paraphrases
of Elegances ' are another example. They came out, much
to my surprise, under that absurd title, — when I had never
given them any, — and disposed in alphabetical order, which
really disturbed the entire arrangement; and finally with a
number of additions, of which the sense was as bad as the
scholarship, and which even when a boy I should never have
dictated to a boy. I saw not long ago a treatise on Letter-
writing printed at Leyden with the address, ' Erasmus to
Peter Paludanus,' although I never knew a mortal of that
name. On reading the book I found out the mean theft ; I
had at one time written, in the course of a day or two, a
book on Letter-writing for the use of an English disciple,* a
dull book for a dull fellow. The editor had picked out some
parts of this, mixing with them some matter of his own.
He added a prolix letter, not a word of which is mine,
remarkably silly, and having nothing to do with the subject
in hand. If he had published the work in his own name,

" See the history of the treatise De conscribendis epistolis in Chapter VI.
p. 165.

Literary thefts Ixxxix

without tampering with it, it would have been much more
tolerable ; but some profit was to be gained by using mine.

I am aware that some of my juvenile exercises are pre-
served in the possession of other people; and in that box
which I lately searched there were formerlv a great many
papers written in a young hand very unlike that I now write.
Every one of those I found had been removed, and I have a
good idea, who has them in hiding ! But hterary pillage is
extenuated, in reality with no better face than the tailors
excuse a theft of cloth, the carriers a theft of wine, the
millers one of flour, and other tradespeople find a special
defence for what is done in their own trade. But if we
allow it to be only a light offence to break open a man's
desk and purloin papers, which he wished to hide, does it
seem a trifling crime to publish to the author's discredit,
defaced with unskilful patches, works which he never meant
to publish at all? How others may feel, I do not know;
but for my own part I should be more willing to put up, as
I have often done, with a theft of money from my cash-box.
And yet those who do that are sent to the gallows, and the
other people are called men of literature. I think for my
own part these literary persons deserve, not to be hung, but
like Thurinus, to be suffocated with burned paper. For in
this one act how many crimes are included ! Theft, sacri-
lege, forgery, libel, treason. What will these fellows not
do when T am dead, if they venture so far in my lifetime ?

Some years ago it was often in my mind to ransack my
papers, and burn what was not to be published. But while I
put off doing this, — being hindered by various occupations, —
others have anticipated me ; may it do them as much good
as they deserve. The lucubrations which I publish myself,
bring me discredit enough, without these people printing my
nonsense, which I never wrote for the public.

Finding among the epistles many written to me in most
loving terms by almost all the Kings of Europe, by Dukes,

xc Introduction

Cardinals, Bishops, and Popes, or by men distinguished for
their learning, I have chosen to publish a few of these to
give a sample of my gossips,* to adopt the language of those
who mistake scurrility for eloquence. I have picked out
those epistles only, which I observed, not to be the work of
a secretary, but composed out of the author's own head and
written with his own hand

I have not for some years taken any pains to preserve any
copies of my own, partly because I had not clerks enough
to write them all out, and partly because in answering so
many correspondents I am forced to write some and to
dictate others, without preparation. I was also a little
ashamed of the former publications. And lastly I think
those people are wise, who keep their letters to be published
after their death. I may add that epistles which are written
on a studied subject to show the writer's erudition, as they
have no genuine feeling, are to my thinking not epistles at
all. On the other hand, among those that are candidly
written, you will not readily find such as, being composed
for one, can be read by all without offending any.

The Cardinal of Gaeta has lately written to me several
times, and I wanted to add his last epistle to those now
published, but it has not come to hand. In my last letter
to him I complained of persons, who treated unfairly my
essay on restoring Concord in the Church. That letter was
read by Pope Clement ; for people are more pleased to
read those addressed to others than to themselves, because
they think they will find more truth in them. He asked the
Cardinal whether he had read the tract. He said, yes. Did
he approve of it ? "I see," said he, " no harm in it.'' This
expression was accepted by the Pope with the greatest
alacrity. When they came to a passage in which I com-
plained of Nicolas Herborn, Cismontane Commissary, he

* quales habeam combibones.

Collections of autographs '^^^

forthwith called the Master of the Sacred Palace, and asked
whether he had created such a person Commissary. He
said, no. It was clear from this, that the Pope does not
approve of Herborn's petulance, and that the grand title of
which he boasted was given him by the Franciscan Fathers,
and not by the Pope.

In ransacking those papers I have been reminded of
human frailty by the fact, that among so many letters, most
of them wTitten within the last ten years, so few came to
hand, of which the authors are still living. Man is a bubble.

I have brought these matters to your notice, candid
reader, that you may not too lightly believe everything to
be mine above which my name is written ; and also that you
may not think Erasmus has no one to take his part but a
few gossips. Farewell.

Basel, 20 February, 1536.

Some extracts are added from the Preface, with which,
seventy years after Erasmus's death, an important addition
to his published Epistles was ushered into the world,
together with the Compendium or Abridgment of his
Life, attributed to his own authorship. See p. xlv. In
the Prefatory Epistle addressed by the editor, Paul Merula,
Professor of History in the University of Leyden, to
his friend, Otho Werckman, the sentiments of a Dutch
scholar of the beginning of the seventeenth century, who
loved the documents which he collected, not only for
their literary and historical value, but also as autographs of
distinguished men, appear to me to be of some interest ;
especially when we recollect that he was a contemporary of
Shakspeare, whose autograph plays, some sixteen years later,
appear to have been destroyed after the printing of the first
Folio. If the autograph mania, as Merula calls it, had
extended to England, it might in this case have been indeed
of service to us. The disappearance of the Dutch collec-

xcii Introduction

tions, which were so rich in autographs of Erasmus, is
probably due to the disturbances, in which that country was
involved in the century following the death of this enthusiastic
collector, which took place not long after the publication of
the Erasmian volume.

Paul Mem I a to Otho Werckmann.

I have received the document, which has been so long in
your keeping, and so long an object of curiosity to others, —
I mean the Life of the great Erasmus, faithfully and candidly
written with his own hand about the year 1523, and trans-
mitted to his sincerest friend, as he himself styles him,
Conrad Goclen, Professor of Greek t in the University of
Louvain. I had seen copies of it some years ago in the
possession of Scriverius and the brothers Lvdii, but it was a
great pleasure to me to see the autograph original. You
ought to know, that an elaborate paraphrase of this document
is to be found in the lengthy epistle to Lambertus Grunnius,
which may be read in the 24th Book. I have committed the
Compendium to the Press, just as I received it from you,
and a work which has been for so many years in the de-
positary of one, will now, by your desire, be distributed
among many. To make a more complete volume, I have
added some other Epistles of our Erasmus, which were
worthy of seeing the light. Some are taken from my own
library. For, old as I am, I have that mania, if so it is to
be called, of collecting the Aurdy/Da^a not only of Emperors,
Kings and Princes, of w^hich I possess a great quantitv, but
also of those magnates of the Literary world. It is a delight
to refresh my weary mind in their venerable society, and
hear them, as it were, conversing with me. * * * Other
contributions have come from my dear colleague, Bona-

t Goclen was Professor of Latin, not, I think, at any time of Greek.

Preface of Meriila xciii

Ventura Vulcanius, Greek Professor in this University, Peter
Scriveriiis, the brothers Lydii, Jerome Backer my relative
and fellow citizen, and Hadrian Bimannus of Leiden, Doctor
of Medicine. This addition will, I hope, be not unwelcome
to our readers.

Leyden, 14 November, 1606.

The Preface to the volume published in 161 5 under the
auspices of Scriverius, by which a considerable addition was
made to the published epistles of Erasmus, has been men-
tioned in p. Hi, and need not be further set out.

The still more important addition to the published cor-
respondence of Erasmus made in the third volume of the
Opera Erasmi^ edited by Le Clerc, has been described,
pp. Iv.-lvi. I do not think it worth while to trouble the
reader of this prolonged Introduction with a translation of the
lengthy Preface of that volume, in which the editor proposed
to place the epistles for the first time in chronological order.
The partial success of this well-intended project has been
already mentioned.

CHRONOLOGICAL REGISTER
OF THE EPISTLES OF ERASMUS

FROM HIS EARLIEST LETTERS TO DECEMBER, 1517.

N the following list, the Epistles of which the writer is not named
are by Erasmus himself. Those of others are registered in Italics.
Dedications and Prefatory Epistles prefixed to books are in-
cluded, some of them having already taken their place among
the Epistles. The dates in brackets are supplied or corrected by inference or
conjecture, but when the alteration made has been only the addition of the
historical year-date to that formerly in use in some countries during the early
part of the year, no brackets are inserted. Upon the variance of year-date
before Easter some remarks will be found in the Introduction.

The usual references are, first, to the book in which the Epistle was first
printed ; but in the case of Epistles derived from the Deventer Manuscript (see
Introduction, p. xxvi.), the sign D precedes ; then follow references to other
books in which the Epistle may be more readily found. In the first references
to books, the following abbreviations are used. E. a. = Epistolx. aliquot etc.
(see Introduction, p. xxviii.) ; E. s. q. e. = Epistolae, sane quam elegantes (p. xxix.) ;
Auct. = Auctariic77i Epistolarut7i (p. xxx.) ; F. = Farrago Epistolarum (p.
xxxi.) ; E. a. d. = Epistolx ad diversos (p. xxxii.) ; O. E. = Opus EpistolaruTn^
1529 (p. xxxiv.); M. = the volume published by Merula (p. xlv.); S. = Vita
etc. Scriverii auspiciis, 161 5, (p. li.). The other references are generally to
the London edition of the Epistles of Erasmus (p. Hi.), the two numbers (as
in the sixth Epistle, xxxi. 12) being those of the Book and Epistle m tnat
collection ; and to the third volume of Le Clerc's edition of the works of
Erasmus (p. liv.), cited as C, the number which follows C referring to the
numbered columns, of which there are two in every page, and the number
added in parenthesis being the number of the Epistle in that edition. If
the reference is to any other volume of Le Clerc's book, the number of the
volume is mentioned before that of the column, as C. i. 559.

For the history of the publication of the Epistles of Erasmus, and for the
causes of the prevalent errors and uncertainty in their dates, the reader is

(2)

Chronological Register

referred to the Introduction. The evidence determining the dates and order
here adopted appears in the latter part of this work, so far as the translations
extend. The numbered sections, into which the Register is divided, corre-
spond with the Chapters in the latter part, to which this list may in some
measure serve as a Table of Contents. To the later sections, which have no
corresponding Chapters, a few notes have been added to explain the order of
the Epistles.

It should be noted, that owing to the absence of evidence a complete
chronological arrangement of the first thirty-four Epistles has not been
attempted. But the Epistles to Servatius and the correspondence with
Cornelius are severally arranged in what appears to be their probable order.

I. Early letters. Epistolary exercises at Stei?i.

To Peter Winckel

[ about

1480] M. 161

xxxi.

1885 (506)

To Peter, brother of
Erasmus

[Stein,

] M. 156

xxxi.

20;

1859 (470)

To Servatius

[Stein,

]

1872 (490)

To Servatius

[Stein,

]

1871 (488)

To Servatius

[Stein,

]

1872 (489)

To Servatius

[Stein,

] M. 171

xxxi.

12 ;

1867 (481)

To Servatius

[Stein,

] M. 164

xxxi.

1865 (479)

To Servatius

[Stein,

] M. 166

xxxi.

1866 (480)

To Servatius

[Stein,

] M. 172

xxxi.

13;

1868 (482)

To Servatius

[Stein,

] M. 185

, xxxi.

19;

1869 (483)

To Servatius

[Stein,

] M. 154

xxxi.

2 ,

1864 (478)

To Francis Theodorik

[Stein,

] M. 163

xxxi.

1874 (496)

To Francis

[Stein,

] M. 177

, xxxi.

15;

1816 (434)

To Francis

[Stein,

] M. 170

; xxxi.

II ,

1815 (433)

To Sasboud

[Stein,

] M. 162

; xxxi.

1863 (476)

II. Early literary

correspondence. Later ;

'■eside?ice at Stei

To Cornelius of Gouda

[Stein,

]

1800 (413)

Cornelius to Erastnus

1803 (417)

To Cornelius

[Stein,

] M. 178

; xxxi.

1796 (410)

To Cornelius

[Stein,

] M. 169

; xxxi.

1796 (409)

Cornelius to E.

1803 (416)

To Cornelius

Stein, I

5 May. M. 15

7; xxxi. 3

; c.

1793(407)

of the Epistles of Erasmus

(3)

] M. 179; xxxi. 17; C. 1797 (41 0

C. 1805 (419)

C. 1801 (414)

C. 1804 (418)

F. 175; vii. 3; C. 2 (2)

F. 174; vii. 2 ; C. I (i)

M. 209 ; xxxi. 41 ; C. 1799 (412)

M. 157; xxxi. 9; C. 1795 (408)

Revius, Daventrta, p. 143

M. 175; xxxi. 14; C. 1785(398)

M. 149; xxxi. I ; C. 1833 (444)

M. 188; xxxi. 21 ; C. 1808(425)

C. 1802 (415)

III. Departure from Stein. Service with the Bishop of Cambrai.
35 To James Batt [Stein, about 1493] M. 184; xxxi. 18 ; C. 1779 (393)

To Cornelius

[Stein, ;

Cornelius to E.

To Cornelius

[Stein, ]

Cornelius to E.

To Cornelius

[Stein, ]

To Cornelius

[Stein, ]

To Cornelius

[Stein, ]

To Cornelius

[Stein, ]

To Cornelius of * *

[Stein, ]

To James Canter

[Stein, 1490]

To William Herman

To Elizabeth, a nun

To Cornelius

Herman to E.

Herman to Cortielius

Her??ian to Batt

To Francis

41 Herma7i to John

[Stein, about 1493]
[Stein, about 1493]
[Stein, about 1493]
[Stein, about 1493]

[Stein, about 1494]

C. 1838 (447)
C. 1838 (448)
C. 1800 (420)

C- 1779 (394)

C. 1816 (436)
C. 1842 (454)

IV. Paris, Mo?itaigu. Holland. Paris, English Boarding-house. 1494-1497.
42 Robert Gaguin to E. [Paris, 1494] Gaguini Epist. 70; Richter,

Eras??ius-St2(dien, 1 7
Paris, 24 Sept. [1494] Gag. Ep. 71; Richter, 18
[Paris, Aug. 1495] ^^S- ^P- ^2; Richter, 20

[Paris, Sept. 1495] Gaguini Hist, ad fin.

C. 1817 (437)
Paris [1496] F. 204; x. 2; xxix. 14; C. 68 (79)
Paris [1496] F. 99 ; V. 7 ; C. 17 (19)

Paris [1496] F. 251 ; ix. 6 ; C. 34 (33)

Paris, 13 Sept. [1496] M. 192; xxxi. 23; C. 1883

(501)

To the Bp. of Cambrai Paris, 7 Nov. 1496 Hermani Odce, Paris,

(Dedication) i497 J C. 1781 (395)

44
45

47
48

Gaguin to E.
Gagui?i to E.
To Gaguin

To Christian
To Christian
To Christian
To Nicolas Werner

(4) Chronological Register

51 To Herman Paris [Feb. 1497] F. 79; iv. 25 ; C. 74 (83)

52 To Werner [Paris, Feb. 1497] M. 196; xxxi. 27; C. 1834(504)

53 To Bp. of Cambrai [Paris, 1497] F. 251 ; ix. 5 ; C. 34 (34)

54 To Lord Mountjoy [Paris, 1497] F. 248 ; ix. 1 ; C. 41 (43)

V. Paris, IIona?id, Brussels, Paris. August to December, 1497.

55 Henry to Christian Paris, [2 Aug. 1497] F. 85 ; iv. 35 ; C. 30 (32)

56 To Thomas Grey Paris [Aug.] 1497 F. 254; ix. 13; C 18 (20)

57 To Grey [Paris, Aug. 1497] F. 252 ; ix. 11 ; C. 44 (47)

58 To Grey Paris, 1497 F. 253 ; ix. 12 ; C. 21 (21)

59 To Grey Paris [1497] F. 169 ; vi. 39 ; C. 76 (85)

60 To Robert Fisher Paris [1497] F. 252 ; ix. 10 ; C. 38 (38)

61 To Hector Boece 8 Nov. [1497] M. 189; xxxi. 22 ; C. 1784 (396)

62 To Evangelista [Paris] 1497 F. 253; ix. 9; C. 22 (23)

63 To Nicasius Paris, 14 Dec. [1497] F, 78 ; iv. 33 ; C. 66 (77)

VI. Paris, HoIIatid and Brabant, Paris. January to November, 1498.

64 To one of Lubeck Paris [Feb. 1498] F. 73; iv. 18; C. 15 (17)

65 To Christian Paris, 13 Feb. 1498 F. 83 ; iv. 32 ; C. 24 (26)

66 To Gaguin [Paris] 1498 F. 252 ; ix. 7 ; C. 44 (45)

67 Gaguin to E. [Paris] 1498 F. 253 ; ix. 8 ; C. 44 (46)

68 To a friend [Paris, 1498] M. 198 ; xxxi. 29 ; C. 1885 (507)

69 To Arnoldus Boschius [Paris, 1498] F. 99 ; v. 6 ; C. 1785 (397)

70 To Werner [Paris, May, 1498] M. 193; xxxi.24; C. 1883(502)

71 To Arnoldus [Paris, May, 1498] F. 108 ; v. 21 ; C. 4 (3)

72 To Dr. Martin Brussels [July, 1498] M. 204; xxxi. 34; C. 1852(460)

73 To Werner Brussels [July, 1498] M. 194; xxxi. 25 ; C. 1883(503)

74 To Robert Fisher [Paris, July, 1498] DeConscribendisEpist.Csin-

(Dedication) tab. (1521); Appendix I.

75 To Christian Paris [1498] F. 74 ; iv. 19 ; C. 4 (4)

76 To Mountjoy [Paris, 1498] F. 74 ; iv. 20 ; C. 4 (5)

77 To Cornelius Paris [1498] F. 72 ; iv. 17 ; C. 16 (i 8)

78 To John of Brussels Paris [1498] F. 77 ; M. 211 ; iv. 22 ; C. 15 (16)

79 Faustus to Herman'^ [Paris, 1498] C. 1839 (499)

* In the translations, p. 170, Epistle 81 has been inadvertently placed before Epistles
79 and So.

of the Epistles of Erasmus

(5)

VII. Erasmus and the Lady of Veer. November, 1498, to June, 1499.

80 To Batt Paris, 29 Nov. 1498 F. 285 ; ix. 32 ; C. 27 (31)

81 To Herman Paris, 14 Dec. [1498] F. 74 ; iv. 21 ; C. 13 (15)

82 To Mountjoy Tournehem, 4 Feb. [1499] F. 70; iv. 14; C. 5 (6)

83 To Richard Whitford [Tournehem, Feb. 1499] F. 72; iv. 16; C. 7 (9)

84 To John Falke Tournehem, Feb. [1499] F. 71; iv. 15; C 6 (7)

85 To Batt Antwerp, 12 Feb. 1498-9 F. 78; iv. 24; C. 6 (8)

86 Herman to Servatius [Stein, Feb. 1499] C. 1873 (491)

87 To Adolf of Veer Paris, 1498-9 De Virtute Ampkctenda{Lucu-

bratiunculx, 1504) ; C. v. 65

88 Faustus Andrelinusto E. [Paris, 1499]

89 To Faustus [Paris, 1499]

90 Faustus to E, [Paris, 1499]

91 To Faustus [Paris, 1499]

92 Faustus to E. [Paris, 1499]

93 To Ludolf [^&f. Adolf] Paris, 29 April [1499] F. 104; v. 17; C. 1852 (458)

94 To Batt Paris, 2 May, 1499 F. 291 ; ix. 36 ; C 47 (53)

95 To Batt Paris [1499] F- 9^ ; iv- 36; C. 37 (37)

96 To Batt Paris [1499] F. 102 ; v. 9 ; C. 22 (22)

VIII. First Visit to England. Midsummer, 1499, to January, 1500.

97 To Prince Henry [London, 1499] Ode de laud. Brit. {Adagia,

F. 103 ; V. II ; C. 56 (66)
F. 103; V. 12; C. 57 (67)
F. 103; V. 13; C. 57 (68)
F. 103; V. 14; C. 57 (69)
F. 104; V. 15; C. 57 (70)

(Dedication)

98 To Faustus

99 John Co let to E.
100 To Colet

England, 1499
Oxford [Sept. 1499]
Oxford [Sept. 1499]

1 01 loannes Sixtinus to E. [Oxford Oct. 1499]

102 To Sixtinus

103 To Thomas More

104 To Mountjoy

105 To Sixtinus

Paris, 1500); xxix. 27;

C. i. 1213

F. 103; V. 10; 0.56(65)

F. 96; V. 3; C. 9 (11)

F. 96; V. 4; C. 39 (41)

Auct. 24; ii. 21; C. 9 (12)

Oxford, 28 Oct [1499] Auct. 25; ii. 22 ; C. 9 (13)

Oxford, 28 Oct. 1499 F. 143 ; vi. II ; C. 55 (63)

106 To Colet

107 Colet to E.

Oxford [1499]
Oxford [1499]
[Oxford, 1499]

[Oxford, 1499]

F. 98 ; V. 5 ; C. 41 (42)

F. 92 : V. I ; C. 42 (44)

Lucubratiunculse, Antwerp,

1504; C. V. 1265.

Lncubr. Strasburg, 1 5 1 6 ;

xxxi. 46; C. 1791 (404)

(6) Chronological Register

loS To Colet Oxford[i499] Z«^^«/^r.i5i6jXxxi.45;C.i789(403)

109 To Mountjoy Oxford, 1499 F. 142; vi. 10; C. 56 (64)

no To Rob. Fisher London, 5 Dec. [1499] F. 95 : v. 2 ; C. 12 (14)

IX. Return to France ; Paris. January to July, 1500.

111 Batt to Mountjoy Tournehem [1500] F. 247; viii. 53; C. 55 (62)

112 To Batt Paris [March, 1500] F. 290; ix. 35 ; C. 69 (80)

113 To Batt Paris, 1 2 April [1500] F. 289; ix. 34; C. 26 (29)

114 To Gaguin Paris [1500] F. 81 ; iv. 26; C. 76 (84)

115 To Gaguin [Paris, 1500] F. 104; v. 16; C. 78 (86)

116 To a friend F. 81 ; iv. 28 ; C. 44 (48)

117 To a friend F. 81 ; iv. 29; C. 45 (49)

118 To a friend F. 84; iv. 30; C. 45 (5°)

119 To a friend [Paris, 1500] F. 82 ; iv. 31 ; C. 45 (51)

120 Faustus to E. Paris, 15 June, 1500 Adagia, Paris, 1500;

Richter, Erasmus-Stud. p. 38

121 To Mountjoy Paris [June, 1500] Adagia, Paris, 1500;

(Dedication) C. ii. Prcef. 5

122 To Batt Paris [1500] F. 258; ix. 14; C. 69 (81)

123 To Batt Paris [July, 1500] F. 282 ; ix. 31 ; C. z^i (36)

X. Visit to Orleans. July to December, 1500.

124 To Batt [Orleans, Aug. 1500] F. 277; ix. 28 ; C. 53 (60)

125 To Batt Orleans [Sept. 1500] F. 280; ix. 30; C 64 (76)

126 To Augustine Caminad [Orleans, 1500] F. 84: iv. 33 ; €.78(87)

127 Augustine to physician [Orleans, 1500] F. ioi;v. 8;C.i854 (464)

128 To Batt Orleans [Nov. 1500] F. 287; ix. Z3 \ C. 62 (74)

129 To Faustus Orleans, 20 Nov.[i5oo] F. 109 ; v. 23 ; C 57 (71)

130 To Augustine Orleans, 9 Dec. [1500] F. no ; v. 24 ; C. 58 (72)

131 To Antony Lutzen- Orleans, 11 Dec. [1500] F. 104; v. 18 ; C. 91 (99)

burg

132 To Batt Orleans, 1 1 Dec. [1500] F. 243; viii. 49; C. 59 (73)

133 To Peter Angleberm Orleans [Dec. 1500] F. i38;vi. 7; 0.86(93)

XL Erasmus in Paris. December, 1500, to May, 1501.

134 To Greverad Paris, 18 Dec. [1500] F. 106; v. 19; C. 66 (78)

135 To the Abbot of St. Paris, 14 Jan. 1500-1 F. 297 ; x. i ; C. 79 (91)

Bertin

of the Epistles of Erasmus

(7)

136 To Nicolas of Bur- Paris, 26 Jan. [1501]

gundy

137 To Ann, lady of Veer Paris, 27 Jan. 1 500-1

138 To Lutzenburg Paris, 27 Jan. [1501]

139 To Batt [Paris, 27 Jan. 1501]

140 To Batt Paris, 27 Jan. [1501] F.

141 To loannes Mau- Paris, 4 Feb. [1501]

burnus

142 To Mauburnus Paris [1501]

143 To Abb. of S. Bertin [Paris, 16 Mar. 150 1]

144 To Lutzenburg Paris, 16 Mar. [i 501]

145 To Lutzenburg [Paris, 1501]

146 To Batt Paris, 5 April [1501]

147 To James Tutor Paris, 28 April [1501]

(Dedication)

F. 108; V. 20; C. 23 (24)

F. 293; ix. 38; 0.83(92)

F. 266; ix. 16; C. 23 (25)

F. 237 ;viii. 48 ;C. 86(94)

24i;viii.48(2);C. 46(52)

Gall. Christ, vii. 283

Gall. Christ, vii. 282
F. 264 ;ix. 15; 0.63(75)
F. 268 ; ix. 17 ; C. 25 (27)
F. 268 ;ix. 18 ;C. 79(89)
F. 268; X. 19; C. 25 (28)
Cicero de Officiis, Basel,
1520 ; Appendix IL

XIL Journey to Holland ; residence in Artois. May, 1501, to August, 1502.

148 To Batt [Holland, 1501] F. 247; viii.52; C. 74(82)

149 To Augustine St. Omer [July, 1501] F. 84; iv. 34 ; C. 38 (39)

150 To James Antony of Tournehem, 12 July F. 275 ; ix. 26 ; C. 48 (54)

Middelburg [1501]

151 To Bp. of Cambrai Tournehem, 12 July F, 277 ; ix. 27 ; C. 49 (56)

[1501]

152 To Johr, Canon of Tournehem, 12 July F. 274; ix. 25 ; C. 49 (55)

Brussels [i5°i]

153 To James Tutor [Tournehem, 17 July, F. 272 ; ix. 23 ; C. 35 (35)

154 To Nicolas Benserad Tournehem [i 7 July, F. 2 74 ; ix. 24 ; C. 39 (40)

155 To James Tutor Tournehem, [18 July, F. 269 ; ix. 20 ; C. 51 (59)

1501]

156 To Benserad Tournehem, 18 July F. 270; ix, 21 ;

[1501] C. 51 (58)

157 To Lutzenburg Tournehem, 18 July F. 271 ; ix. 22 ;

[1501] C. 50(57)

(8) Chronological Register

158 Abbot of St. Bertin St. Omer, 30 July, 1501 F. 292 ; ix. 37 : C. 90 (98)

to Card. Medici

159 To Batt St. Omer [1501] F. 279; ix. 29; C. 54(61)

160 To a Courtier [John St. Omer, 150 1 E?ichiridiofi, Antw.isoz;

Germain] (Dedication) xxix. 93 ; C. v. i

161 To Edmund, priest Courtenburne [1501] F. 249 ; ix. 2 ; C. 90 (96)

162 ToxVdrianofSt. Omer Courtenburne [1501] F. 250; ix. 3; 0.89(95)

163 Herman to Servatius [Haarlem, 6 Jan. 1502] C. 1873 (492)

164 To Lewis Courtenburne [1502] F.247; viii. 51; C. 78 (88)

165 To Edmund Courtenburne [1502] F. 250; ix. 4 ; C. 90 (97)

166 To Peter Bastard [St. Omer, Mar. 1502] F. 246; viii. 50; C 79(90)

167 To James Tutor St. Omer, 2 July [1502] F. 109; v. 22 ; C. 27 (30)

XIII. Louvain, Antwerp, Hammes. August, 1502, to December, 1504.

168 To Herman [Louvain, Sept. 1502] M. 203; xxxi. 32;

C. 1837 (446)

169 To Werner [Louvain, 1502] M. 197; xxxi. 28;

C. 1884 (505)

170 To James Antony of Louvain, 15 Feb. 1502-3 De potest, imper at. x'^oy,

Middelburg xi. 26 ; C. 92 (100)

171 lacobus \Faber'\ to E. Deventer, 9 July, 1503 HegiiCarmi?ia,Y)Q.vtXi\.Qx,

(Dedication) 1503; Richter, p. 51

172 To Dr. James jSIaurits Louvain, 28 Sept. [1503] M. 208; xxxi. 38;

C. 1853 (461)

173 To the Bp. of Arras Louvain, 17 Nov. 1503 Libanii Declam. (1519)

(Dedication) xxix. 16; C. i. 547

174 To Herman Louvain, 2 7 Nov. [1503] M. 194; xxxi. 26;

C. 1856 (445)

175 To Robert Ccesar Louvain [Dec. 1503] C9/z<r/(?, etc. ; Appendix III.

176 To the Bp. of Arras [Antwerp, 1504] Panegyric. Antw. 1504;

(Dedication) xxix. 57 ; C. iv. 555

177 To loan. Paludanus Antwerp, [i5°4] Panegyric. An\.\\\ 1504;

(Preface) xxix. 56 ; C. iv. 549

178 To Christ. Ursewick Hammes, 1503-4 Luciani Op. Paris, 1506;

(Dedication) xxix. 5 ; C. i. 243

179 Reyner Snoy to E. Gouda, i Sept. [1504] D; C. 1861 (474)

of the Epistles of Erasmus

(9)

XIV. Erasmus at Paris. January to April, 1505-

180 To Colet Paris, 1504-5 F. 307 ; x. 8 ; C. 94 (102)

181 To Peter Gillis Paris [Feb. or March, F. 81; iv. 27; C. 94(101)

1505]

182 ToChristopher Fisher Paris [March], 1505 Valise, Adnotat. 1505;

(Dedication) F. 5 1 ; iv. 7 ; C 96 ( 1 03)

183 fosse Bade to E. Paris, 8 March, 1505 Valise Adnotat. 1505;

C. 1522 (2)

XV. Second visit to England, April, 1505, to June, 1506.

184 To Servatius London, [1505] M. 204; xxxi. t,t, ; C. 1870 (485)

185 To Francis London, [1505] M. 201; xxxi. 30; C. 1816 (435)

186 To Bp. Richard Foxe London, i Jan. 1506 Luciani Op. Paris, 1506;

(Dedication) xxix. 3; C. i. 213

187 To Archbp. WiUiam London, 24 Jan. [1506] ^2^r/})/^(?i-, Paris, 1506;

Warham (Dedication) xxix. 24; C. i. 1129

188 To Servatius London, i April [1506] M. 202 ; xxxi. 31 ;

C. 1870 (484)

189 To Dr. Maurits London, 2 April [1506] M. 204 ; xxxi. 39 ;

C. 1853 (462)
More to Dr. Thomas [London, 1505] Luciani Op. Vz.n?,, 15063

i??///za// (Dedication) C. 1862 (475)

To Richard Whitford i May, 1506 Luciani Op. Paris, 1506;

190

191

192

193

(Dedication)
To Ruthall

(Dedication)
To Paludanus

(Dedication)

xxix. 7 ; C. i. 265
London [June, 1506] Luciani Op. Paris, 1506;

xxix. 6; C. i. 255
[London June, 1506] Luciani Op. Paris, 1506;

xxix. viii; C. i. 297

XVL Journey to Italy. Paris, Turin, Florence, Bologna. June, 1506, to

December, 1507.

194 To Thomas Linacre Paris [12 June], 1506 F. 305 ; x. 6 ; C. 100 (105)

195 To Colet Paris, 12 June, 1506 F. 318 ; x. 21 ; C. 99 (104)

196 To Roger Wentford Paris, 12 June [1506] F.233;viii.42; C. 100(106)

197 To Bp. of Chartres Paris [Aug. 1506] Lucia?ii Op. Paris, 1506;

(Dedication) xxix. 4; C. i. 229

198 To John Obrecht [Florence, 4 Nov. 1506] M. 207 ; xxxi. 36 ;

C. 1858 (468)

( I o) Chronolog ical Register

199 To Dr. Maurits Florence, 4 Nov. [1506] M. 209 ; xxxi. 40 ;

C. 1854 (463)

200 To Servatius [Florence, Nov. 1506] M. 206; xxxi. 35 ;

C. 1871 (486)

201 To Servatius Bologna, 16 Nov. [1506] M. 207 ; xxxi. 37 ;

C. 1871 (487)

202 To Jerome Busleiden Bologna, 17 Nov. 1506 Luciani Op. Paris, 1506;

(Dedication) xxix. 9; C. i. 311

203 Henry, Frttice of Richmond, 17 Jan. 6>/. -£/w/. 1529, p. 973 ;

Wales to E. [1507] xxiii. 16; C. 1840(451)

204 To Aldus Manutius Bologna, 28 Oct. [1507] Nolhac, Erasme, p. 97

205 To Warham [Bologna, Nov. 1507] Euripides, Venice, 1507;

(Dedication) xxix. 25; C. i. 1153

206 To Aldus [Bologna, Nov. 1507] Nolhac, Erasme, p. 100

XVII. Residence ift Italy. Venice, Padua, Rome. January, 1508, to Jiaie, 1509.

207 To Mountjoy [Venice, Sept. 1508] Adagia, Venice, 1508;

(Dedication) C. ii. in Pr^ef.

208 To Aldus Padua, 9 Dec. [1508] Nolhac, Erasme, p. 105

209 To Aldus [Padua, Dec. 1508] Nolhac, Eras?ne, p. 106

210 Mountjoy to E. Greenwich, 2 7 May [1509] F. 49 ; iv. 6; C. 7 (10)

211 Jacobus Piso to E. Rome, 30 June, 1509 F. 3 10 ; x. 12; C. 101(108)

XVIII. Return to England ; short visit to Paris. July, 1509 to August, 151 1.

212 To More [London] 9 June [1510] Moria, Paris, 1510;

(Dedication) xxix. 55 ; C. iv. 402

213 To Guil. Thaleius* London, 1 5 Mar. [i 5 1 1] Ratio Studii, Paris, 1511;

(Dedication)

214 To Andr. Ammonius Dover, 10 Ap. [1511] F. 230; viii. 38 (2);

C. 147(169)

215 To Ammonius Paris, 27 Ap. [1511] F. 202; viii. 4; C. 102(110)

* The short tract in epistolary form, entitled de Ratione Studii, appears to have been
originally addressed to Thaleius; who was for a time estranged from Erasmus. Cf. C. 653 D.
In the edition of 1512 and later editions the opening clause is inscribed to Petrus Viterius.
Epistle 247. The inscription to Thaleius is in an edition published at Paris by Granion,
20 Oct. 151 1. In this edition, of which there is a copy in the British Museum, the tract
concludes with the date, Londini, Idibus Martiis.

of tlie Epistles of Erasmus

(lO

216 AmmoniustoMountjoy\yox\<lQ)\\VL'2i)', 151 1 F. 179; vii. 6; C. 1855(465)

217 At?imo}iius to E. London, 29 May [15 11] F. 230; viii.39;C. 155(175)

218 James Wwipfling to E. Strasburg, 19 Aug. 1511 3ibr/a, Strasb. 151 2.

219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226

227
228
229
230
231
232

233
234

235
236

237
238

239
240
241

242

243
244

245
246

XIX. ErasjHus at Cambridge. August to December^ 1511-

To Colet Camb. 24 Aug. 151 1 F. 309; x. 10; C. 108

To Ammonius Camb. 25 Aug. 1511 F.211; viii. 16; C. 108

To Colel Camb. 13 Sept.[i5ii] F. 314; x. 17 ; C. 131

To Ammonius Camb. [18 Sept.] 151 1 F. 201 ; viii. i ; C. 107

Colet to E. London [Oct. 1511] D; C. 152

To Colet Camb. 5 Oct. 151 1 F. 309; x. 9;C 109

To Ammonius Camb. 5 Oct. 15 11 F. 202; viii. 2; C. no

To Bp. Fisher Camb. [Oct. 151 1] Basil. in Esaiam,'QdiSe\ i
(Dedication) xxix. 90 ; C. viii

To Ammonius Camb. 16 Oct. 1511 F.202; viii.3; Cue

To Ammonius [Camb. Oct ] 15 11 F. 2i9;viii. 22; C. no

Am?}ionius to E. London, 27 Oct. 15 11 F.22o;viii.23; C. iii

To Roger Wentford [Camb. Oct. 1511] F.234;viii.45;C. 140

To Colet Camb. 29 Oct. [151 1] F. 314; x.i8; C.131

To Ammonius Camb. 2 Nov. 151 1 F. 204; viii. 7 ; C. 112

AmmoTiius to E. London, 8 Nov. 1 5 1 1 F. 207 ; viii. 8 ; C 1 1 2

To Ammonius Camb. 11 Nov. [1511] F. 203; viii. 9; C. 119

Amtnonius to E. London, iSNov. [i5ii]F.22ijviii.25;C.ii3

To Ammonius Camb. 26 Nov. 15 11 F..235;viii. 24;C. 115

To Ammonius Camb. 27 Nov.[i5ii] F. 205; viii 6; C. 120

Amjiwtiius to E. London,28 Nov.[i5ii] F.208; viii. 10; C. 120

To Ammonius Camb. 2 Dec. [1511] F.205; viii. ii;C. 121

Am7no7iius to E. London, 5 Dec. 15 11 F.209; viii. 12; C. 116

To Ammonius Camb. 9 Dec. [1511] F.2o6;viii. 13; C. 122

XX. Cambridge and London^ 15 12.

To Abb. of S. Bertin London, 6 Feb. [15 12] F.311; x. 13; C. 118

To Thomas Halsey London, 8 Feb. [1512] F.310; x. 11; C. 102

To Card, of Nantes London, 8 Feb. [15 12] F.317; x. 20; C. 118

To Ammonius Camb. 16 Feb. 1512 F.210; viii. 15; C. 106

Colet to E. [London, Feb. 1512] D; C. 1792

117)
118)

149)
116)

5(4)
121)
122)

518;

.483

123)
124)

125)
166)

150)
126)
127)

138)
128)

130)

139)
140)

141)

132)
142)

135)
109)

136)

113)
406)

12)

Chronological Register

247 To Petrus Viterius London, [15 12]* Ratio Studii,^\x^%\)VLX'g^\^\2;

xxxix. 13 ; C. i. 519

248 To Archbp. Warham London, 29 April, 15 12 Luciani Opera, Louvain,

(Dedication) 1 5 1 2 ; xxix. 2 : C. i. 183

249 To Colet (Dedication) London, 29 April, 15 12 C(?//fl, Paris, 1 5 1 2 ] xxviii.

28 ; C. i. I
Camb. 9 May [15 12] F.211; viii. 17; €.106(114)
Camb. II July [1512] E.a.d.; xii.21; C. 106(115)
[London] 24 Aug. [15 1 2] RecordOff. H.VIILix.359
Cambridge [15 12] F. 183; vii. 15; 0.105(112)

London, 18 Oct. [1512] D; 0. 1873 (493)

255 Bishop Fisher to E. London, [Nov. 1512] D; 0. 1813 (430)

256 To G. S. [Oamb.] 8 Nov. [15 12] Record Off.H.VIILix. 359

257 Sixtinus to E. London, 20 Nov. [15 12] D; C 1521 (i)

258 To Henry VIIL [London, Dec. 15 12] Plutarchi Opuscula, Basel,

(Ded. of Plutarch) 15 14, Praef. 0. iv. i

250

To Ammonius

251

To Oolet

252

To G. S.

253

To More

254

Sixtinus to E.

XXL Cambridge a?id London. January, 1^1 2,, to January, i^i^.

To Dr. John Young London, i Jan. 15 13 Plutarch, de ValX.o\i\2im,

15 13; Jortin, ii. 164
Camb. [Jan. 1513]! E.a.d.; xiii. 3; 0.164(188)
London, 5 Feb. [1513] F.185; vii. 19; 0. 117(134)
London, [15 13] F. 168 ; vi. 36; 0. 147(170)

London, 2 8 April [15 1 3] F.168; vi.37; 0. 148(172)
London [1513] F.313; x. 16; 0. 122(143)

[Camb.] I Sept. [1513] F.2i3;viii.i9;C. 108(119)
[Cambridge, 1513] F.233;viii.43; 0. 139(165)
[Cambridge, 1513] Record Off. H.YIII.ix. 359

[Cambridge, 1513] RecordOff. H.VIII.ix. 359

Cambridge [Sept. 15 13] Record Off. H. VIIL v.

217 ; Brewer, i. 4428
Camb. 26 Sept. [1513] F 187; vii. 20; 0.109(120)

259

(Dedication)

260 To Warham

261 Warham to E.

262 To William Gonell

263 To Gonell

264 To Adolf of Veer

265 To Ammonius

266 To Wentford

267 To G. S. and O. S.

268 To Robert Smith

269 Univ. Camb. to

Mountjoy

270 To Gonell

* See note to Epistle 213, p. (10.)

t Epistle 260 and the following letter are placed by Dr. Reich in 1514. The former
alludes to the first effect of the war with France in producing a scarcity of wine. See the
Proclamation of Dec. 17, 1512, in Brewer, i. 3597.

of the Epistles of Erasmus (13)

271 To Colet [NearJCamb. I Nov. [1513] F. 142; vi. 9; C loi (107)

272 To G. S. [Cambridge,Nov.i5i3] Record Off.H. VIII. ix. 359

273 To Warham [London, Nov. 15 13] E.a.d.; xii. 37 €.164(189)

274 To Battista Boerio London, 11 Nov. [15 13] F. 312; x. 14; C. 119 (137)

(Ded. of Lucian)

275 Ammo7iius to E. London, 25 Nov. [15 13] F.23i;viii.4o;C. 163(186)

276 To Ammonius Camb. 26 Nov. [1513] F.2i8;viii.2i;C. 114(129)

277 To Ammonius Camb. 28 Nov. [15 13] F.211; viii. 18; C. 116(131)

278 To Ammonius Camb. 21 Dec. [15 13] F.2i4;viii.2o; C. 103(111)

279 To Wolsey (Thomas), Camb. 4 Jan.* [15 14] Basel MS. A. N. vi. i;

King's Almoner Plutarchi Op. Basel, 1514 ;

(Dedication) C. iv. 23

XXII. Erasmus in a7td near London. January to July ^ I5i4-

280 To Gonell London [Jan. 15 14] F. i69;vi. 38;C. 148 (173)

281 To Gonell [near London, Feb. 1514] F. 195; vii. 37; C. 147 (171)

282 To Peter Gillis [London, Mar. 15 14] F. 313^ x. 15; C. 135 (154)

283 To Abb. S. Bertin London, i4Mar. 1513-4 ^?/ir/. 62; ii. 28; C. 122 (144)

284 To Peter Gillis [London, Mar. 1514] F. i95;vii.36;C. 1775(387)

285 John Reuchlin to E. Frankfort, April 1514 D; C. 1524 (5)

286 John Borssele to E. Middelburg, 20 Ap. 1514 D; C. 1524(6)

287 To Peter Gillis London, [July] 15 14 F. 194; vii. 32;C. 136(156)

XXIII. Visit to Flanders and Brabant, July., August., 15 14. Sojourn in
Basel, August, 15 14, to March, 15 15.

288 To Ammonius Hammes, 8 July 1514 F- 236;viii.47;C. 136(159)

289 To Servatius Hammes, 8 July [1514] Ep.Prref.C.i.Prsef.C. 1527(8)

290 To Mountjoy [Ghent, July 15 14] F. 2oo;vii.46; C. 160 (182)

with postscript Basel, 29 Aug. [15 14]

291 To loan. Nevius Louvain, i Aug. 15 14 Cato?iispr3:cepta,'Lovi\am,

(Dedication) 15 14; Reich, 252

292 ToAndr. Hochstraten Liege [Aug. 1514] E.a.d.473; xii.8; €.290(296)

293 To ReuchHn [Basel, Aug. 15 14] Illustriumvir. Ep.ad R.;

Geiger, Reuchlin, 224

* The month-date of Epistle 279 is in the Basel MS.

(14)

Chronological Register

296 Udalric Zasius to E. Freiburg, 7 Sept. 15 14

297 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 21 Sept. 1514

298 To Wimpfling Basel, 21 Sept. 15 14

294 To Wolsey Basel, 30 Aug. [15 14] F.227;viii. 34; €.1565(74)

295 Jas. Wimpfling to E. Strasburg, i Sept. 15 14 Copia, Strasburg, 15 14;

Jortin, ii. 456

D; C. 1530(9)
D; 0.1531(10)

C(?//(i!, Strasburg, 15 14;
Jortin, ii. 457

299 To Zasius Basel, 23 Sept. 15 14 F. 387;xii. 7; C 1531 (11)

300 Prior Gregory to E. Freiburg, 4 Oct. 15 14 D; 0.1532(12)

301 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 11 Oct. 1514 E. a. 72;ii. 15; 0.138(161)

302 To Matthias Schiirer Basel, 15 Oct. 15 14 Copia, Strasburg, 1514;

(Dedication) xxviii. 27; O. 1533 (13)

303 To Peter Gillis Basel, 15 Oct, 15 14 Similia, Strasburg, 15 14;

(Ded. oi Similia) xxix. 17; 0. i. 559

304 Colet to E. London, 20 Oct. [1514] D; 0.1573(85

305 Jatnes k Eevre to E. Paris, 23 Oct. [15 14] E.a.6i;ii. i3;C. 1812 (427)

306 To Zasius Basel, 28 Oct. [1514] Neff,Zrri'/?/.y,Programma,ii. 33

307 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 7 Nov. 1514 D; C. 1533 (14)

308 Wilibald Pirckheimer Nuremberg, 9 Dec. 15 14 D; C- 1534 (15)

to Beatus

309 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 22 Dec. 15 14 F. i68;xii.6;C. 133(152)

310 Borssele to E. Arlun, 4 Jan. 1515 D; 0.1535(18)

311 Henry Bebel to E. Tubingen, 20 Jan. 15 15 D; 0.1536(19)

312 To Pirckheimer Basel, 24 Jan. [15 15] S. 152 ; xxx. 21 ; 0. 155 1 (48)

313 loan. Sapidus to E. Schlettstadt, 31 Jan. 15 15 D ; 0. 1536(20)

314 Martinus Dorpius [Louvain, Feb. 1515] Enarratio Psalmi I.

to E. Louvain 151 5; Jortin, ii. 336

315 To Reuchlin [Basel] i Mar. [15 15] HI. vir. Ep. ad P.; Ge\ger,

Peuchlin, 119

316 To Bp. Ruthall Basel, 7 Mar. 15 15 Senecx Opera, Basil. 1515
(Dedication)*

* Epistle 316, a dedicatory Preface to a new edition of the Works of Seneca, was written
upon Erasmus's departure from Basel, the edition being left to be completed by Froben and
his assistants. The title of the book bears the date, An. m.d.xv. JSIense Iiilio, and the
Colophon, An. m.d.xv. Aletise Augusta. It is stated in the Dedication that the editor mainly
depended upon two MSS., one belonging to Archbishop Warham, the other borrowed from
the Library of King's College, Cambridge.

of the Epistles of Erasmus (15)

XXIV. Erasmus in England. March to June ^ 15 1 5-

317 To Dorpius [London, Mar.] 15 15 ^/zV/.(i5i5*); xxxi. 42; C.ix. i

318 To Card. Grimani London, 31 Mar. 1515 ^//j-/. (i5i5);ii.2;C. 141(167)

319 To Card. Riario London, 31 Mar. 15 15 ^/z>/. (1515); ii. 3;C. 144(168)

320 To Beatus [London] 13 Apr. 15 15 Enarratio Psalmi I. \yiy\y.. 2,'^;

(Dedication) C. v. 171

321 Beatus to E. Basel, 17 April, 1515 D; C. 1537 (21)

322 William Nesen to E. Basel [April, 15 15] D; C. 1589 (107)

323 To Pope Leo X. London, 29 Apr. 15 15 ^//.y/.(i5i5);ii.i;C. 149(174)

324 Beatus to E. Basel, 30 April, 1515 D; C. 1538 (23)

325 BrimoAmerbachtoE. Basel, i May, 15 15 D ; C. 1539 (24)

326 To Peter Gillis London, 7 May [15 15] F. 196; vii.4o;C. 135(155)

327 Bp. Fisher to E. Hailing [June, 1515] D; C. 1813(429)

XXV. Second journey to Basel, June., July, 15 15. Sojourn at Basel.,
July to December, 15 15.

328 Leo X. to E. Rome, 10 July, 15 15 E.a. 27; ii.4; C. 156 (178)

329 Leo X. to Henry VIII. Rome, 10 July, 1515 E.a. 29; ii. 5 ; C. 157 (179)

330 Card. Riario to E. [Rome] 18 July, 15 15 O.E.869;xxii. i3;C. 157(180)

331 Nicolas Gerbel to E. Strasburg [Aug], 15 15 D ; C. 1548 (42)

332 Gerbel to E. Strasburg, 8 Aug. 1 5 1 5 D; C. 1539(26)

333 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 9 Aug. 1515 D; C. 1540 (27)

334 To Zasius [Basel, Aug. 15 15] yi?/^/. 222; iii.49; C. 383(371)

335 Bade to E. Paris, 20 Aug. 1515 D ; C. 1540 (28)

336 To Wolsey Basel, 30 Aug. [15 15] F. 227; viii. 33; C. 1565(74)

337 Gerbel to E. Strasburg, 3 1 Aug. 1 5 1 5 D; C. 1541 (29)

338 Gerbel to E. Strasburg, 9 Sept. 1515 D; C. 1541 (30)

339 Gerbel to E. Strasburg, 11 Sept. 15 15 D; C. 1542 (31)

340 Sapidus to E. Schlettstadt, 12 Sept. [1515] D; C. 1569 (78)

341 Sapidus to E. Schlettstadt, 15 Sept. 1515 D; C. 1543 (32)

342 John Kierher to E. Spires, 16 Sept. 15 15 F. 199; vii.44; C. 162(184)

343 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 21 Sept. 15 15 D; C. 1543(33)

* See, as to this reference, Introduction, p. xxviii., and first note there.

(i6)

Chronological Register

To Kierher
To Zasius
Pirckheimer to E.
To Ammonius
To Pirckheimer

Basel [Sept. 1515] O.E. 300; vii. 45; C. 163(185)
[Basel, Sept. 15 15] F. 385; xii. 5; C. 139 (164)

Nuremberg, i Oct. [15 15] D; C. 1571 (83)

Basel, 2 Oct. [1515] F. 224; viii. 29; C 1523 (3)
Basel, 16 Oct. [1515] Vita{i6i^), 160; xxx. 24;

C. 1637 (194)
Wolfga?ig Angst to E. Hagenau, 19 Oct. [1515] D; C. 1777 (389)

More to Dorpuis Bruges, 21 Oct. 15 15 Epist.\.o\\^. 1642. Aiict. ex

Mora 14; C. 1891 (513)
Ulric Hutten to E. Worms, 24 Oct. [15 15] D ; C. 1573 (86)

Zasius to E. Freiburg, 30 Oct. 15 15 D ; C. 1544 (35)

Pmil Voltz to E. Haugshofen, 30 Oct. 1515 D; C. 1543 (34)

To Zasius Basel, [Nov. 15 15] ^2/r/. 223 ; iii. 50; €.286(289)

344
345
346
347
348

349
350

351
352
353
354

355 /^^'^ Borssele to E. Arlun, 21 Nov. 15 15

356 Jolm Desmoidins to E. Tournay, 2 3 Nov. 1 5 1 5

357 Voltz to E. Schlettstadt, 25 Nov 15 15

358 loan. Ccesarws to E. Cologne, 3 Dec. [15 15]

359 Pirckheimer to E. Nuremberg, 13 Dec. 15 15

360 Zasitis to E.

361 To Peter Caraffa

362 To Ammonius

363 Zasius to E.

364 To Zasius

365 Gerbel to E.

D; C. 1544(36)
D; C. 1545 (37)
D; C. 1546(38)

D; c. 1578(93)

D; C. 1546(39)
Freiburg, 15 Dec. 15 15 D; C. 1547 (40)

Basel, 23 Dec. [1515] F. 182; vii. 12; €.1534(16)
Basel, 23 Dec. [1515] F.235; viii. 46; 0.1651(224)
Freiburg, 26 Dec. 1515 D; C. 1547 (41)

[Basel, Dec. 1515] F. 385; xii. 4; C. 138 (162;

Strasburg, [Dec] 15 15

D; C. 1548(43)

XXVI. Contimied residence at Basel. Ja?mary to May, 15 16.

366 To Sapidus

367 Augustin Aggeus to E. Paris, 11 Jan. 1516

368 Andr. Hochstraten to E. Liege, 11 Jan. [ 1 5 1 6]

369 Wimpfling to E. Schlettstadt, 15 Jan. 15 16

370 NicolausBaselliustoE.Y^\x%QS\2M, 1516

371 Gerbel to E. Strasburg, 21 Jan. 15 16

372 Urbafius Regius to Ingolstadt, [Jan. 1516]

Joannes Faber

Basel, 1516 E.s.q.e.i7o;i.35; 0.1581(96)

D; C. 1549 {45;
D; C. 1590 (hi)
D; C. 1550 (46)
D; C. 1585 (loi)
D: C. 1550 (47)
E. s. q. e. 266 ; ii. 17;
C. 227 (229)

of th e Ep istles of Erasm its (17)

373 Jiegius to Faber Ingolstadt, [Jan. 1516J E. s. q. e. 270 ; ii. 18 ;

C. 228 (230)

374 To Leo. X. (Ded. of Basel, i Feb. 15 16 Nov. Instrtimentian, i ;

New Testament) xxix. 79 ; C. vi. Praef.

375 To Wimpfling Basel, 3 Feb. 15 16 Riegger, ^wa'^. Z//. p. 478

376 Thomas Bedi/i to E. London, 10 Feb. 15 16 D;C. 1551 (49)

377 A/iwwfjius fo E. London, i7Feb.[i5i6] E. s. q. e. 228; ii. 7 ;

C. 233 (236)

378 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 20 Feb. 15 16 D ; C 1552 (50)

379 To Urbanus Regius Basel, 24 Feb. 15 16 O. E. 92; ii. 19; C. 1552 (51)

380 To Urbanus Regius Basel, 7 Mar. 15 16 O.E.618; xviii.35; C.i553(53)

381 Efuser to Pirckheimer Leipsig, 15 16 D; C. 1590(110)

382 Pirckheimer to E. Nuremberg, 1516 D ; C. 1590 (109)

383 Nicolas Eik7tl?ogentoE.OVier\heuren, 30 Mar. 1516 D; C. 1554 (55)

384 To Archb. Warham Basel, i Ap. 15 16 Hiero7iyini Op . Basilese,

(Ded. of Jerome) 1516; Jortinii. 528

385 Georg.PricelliustoE. Ulm, 5 Ap. 1516 D; C. 1555 (57)

386 Sapidus to E. Schlettstadt, 11 Ap. 1516 D; C. 1555 (58)

387 Jerome Baldung to E. Ensisheym, 24 Ap. 1516 D; C. 1556 (59)

388 Hulderic Zivingli to E. Glarus, 29 Ap. [1516] D; C. 1538 (22)

389 To Prince Charles [Basel, April 15 16] Institutio Pri7icipis, Basil.

(Dedication) 1516; C. iv. 559

390 To Ellenbogen [Basel, April, 15 16] Horawitz, Erasmiana^ i. 71

391 William Bude to E. Paris, i May [1516] E. a. 48 ; i. 6 ; C. 247 (250)

392 Zasius to E. Freiburg, 9 May, 15 16 E. a. 60 ; ii. 14 ; C. 195 ;

C. 213

393 To Pirckheimer Basel, 12 May, 1516 S. 154; xxx. 22; C. 1553 (62)

394 To Bonif. Amerbach Basel, May [1516] Ep. Favi. ad. B. A. p. 7 (3)

395 Pirckheitner to E. Nuremberg, 20 May, 15 16 E. a. 47 ; ii. n ;

C. 96 (214)

396 More to E. [London, May, 1516] E. s. q. e. 258; ii. 16,

C. 220 (227)

XXVIL Antwerp, Brussels, and St. Omer. June and July, 15 16.

397 To John Sauvage Antwerp, i June[i5i6] F. 182; vii. 11; C. 155(176)

398 To Rimaclus Antwerp, i June [1516] F. 181; vii. 10; C.252(252)

(i8)

Chronological Register

399 To More

400 To Bishop Fisher

401 To Ammonius

402 To Ursewick

403 To Linacre

Brussels [3 June 1 5 16]* F. 187 ; vii. 22; 0.380(364)
St. Omer, 5 June[i5i6] F. 180; vii. 9; C. 255 (256)
St.Omer,5june[i5i6] F.203; viii.5; C. 136(158)
St. Omer, 5 June [15 1 6] F.228; viii.35; 0.255(255)
St.0mer,5june[i5i6] F. 306; x. 7; C 136(15?)

404 To William Latimer [St. Omer] 5 June [15 16] E. a. d.; xii. 19; 0.255(254)

405 Reuchlin to E. Stuttgard, 5 June, 15 16 D; 0. 1558 (63)

406 JerovieBiisleide)itoE.\)A^Q!a!{\x\,']\mQ, \^\(i\ Wcve, Renaissance, ^. 122

407 Gerard Lystrius toYj. ZwoUe, [June] 1516 D; 0. 1588 (105)

408 John Froben to E. Basel, 17 June [1516] D; O. 1539 (25)

409 To Bude [Antwerp,i9 June, 1516] E.a.53; i.7; 0. 249 (251)

410 Colet to E. Stepney, 20 June [151 6] E. a. 59; ii. 12; 0. 1572(84)

411 GuilielmusBrielistoE. 20 June, 1516 D; 0. 1559(64)

412 Archbp. WarhafntoE. Otford, 22 June[i5i6]t D; E.s.q.e.; ii.8; 0. 260

(261), 1559 (65)

413 Thomas Bedill to E. Otford, 22 June [15 16]

414 Ammonius to E. London, 22 June [15 16]

415 Bp. Fisher to E. Rochester, [June] 15 16

London [June, 15 16]
Antwerp, 23 June, 15 16

416
417

More to E.
To Osesarius %
(Dedication)
Sixtinus to E.
Ami7ionius to E.

D ; 0. 1609 (142)
D; 0.1526(7)
D; 0. 1587(103)
D; 0. 1664(252)
Gaza, Gramm. Grsec.
Louan. 1516; 0. i. 115

D ; 0. 1874 (494)
F.232;viii.4i;0.i56(i77)

418 ^ixtums to F,. London, 26 June [15 1 6]

419 Amj7ionius to E. Westminster, 26 June

[1516]

420 Thomas Lupset to E. London, 28 June [1516] D. ; 0. 1852 (459)

421 Alardiis Amstetredainusto E. Louvain, i July, 15 16 D ; 0. 1560 (66)

422 fosse Bade to E. Paris, 6 July, 1516 D ; 0. 1561 (67)

* The date of this letter is shown by the arrival of Tunstall at Brussels, announced in it.
Compare Brewer, Abstracts, ii. 1994.

t Two slightly varying copies of Epistle 412 are in the printed epistles and in D. I have
taken the day-date from D. (C. 1560), as agreeing with that of Bedill's letter (Epistle 413),
probably sent with it. There is no year-date in Epistolse, sane quain elegantes or in D.

I This dedication, which is that of the first part of Gaza's Grammar, is dated in the
orioinal edition, Antwerpim, anno M.D.xvi. Pridie Natalis loannis Baptists. This book-
was published at Louvain in July, 15 16. The second part has another dedication to the
same friend, dated from Louvain, 10 Cal. Mart, m.d.xviii. In C. i. 115, the latter
dedication is omitted and the year-date of the first altered to 151S.

of the Epistles of Erasmus (19)

423 Bude to E. Paris, 7 July [15 16] E. a. 48; i. 9; C. 256 (257)

424 John Sauvage to E. Brussels, 8 July, 1516 D;C. 1561 (68)

425 To Bishop Ruthall Antwerp, 9 July, 1516 F. 180; vii.8; €.196(215)

426 To Dorpius * Brussels 10 July, [15 16] E.O. 117; xxvii. 58;

C. 1807 (423)

427 Dorpius to E. Louvain, [July], 1516 D; C. 1660 (247)

428 To Bude Antwerp,i4july[i5i6] E. a. 58 ; i.8; €.259(260)

429 Count Niioiar to E. Cologne, 14 July, 15 16 C. 1562 (69)

430 FetrusBarbiriustoE.Bx\i?,?,e\s, 18 July, 15 16 D; C. 1562 (70)

XXVIII. Erasmus in England^ August, 1516.

431 Petrus Vitcrius to E. Paris, 2 Aug. 1516 D;C. 1563(71)

432 A7itonius Clava to E. Ghent, 3 Aug. 1516 D; C 1564 (72)

433 Thomas Grey to E. Paris, 5 Aug. 15 16 D ; C 1564 (73)

434 To Leo X. London, 9 Aug. 1 5 16 E. a. 30; ii. 6; C. 158 (181)

435 Sixtinus to Gillis London, 12 Aug. [15 16] D; €.1874(495)

436 Hen. Bullock to E. Cambridge, 13 Aug. [1516] E.a, 36; ii.9; €.197(216)

437 To Ammonius [London, 14 Aug. 15 16] F. 206; viii. 14; €.117(133)
Rochester, i7Aug.[i5i6] F. 221; viii. 26; €.125(146)

Westminster [i8Aug.i5i6] F.223; viii.27;€.i25(i45)
Rochester, 22 Aug. [1516] F. 223; viii.28;€.i25(i47)
Rochester, Aug. i5i6t E.a. 37; ii. 10; €.126(148)

442 John Watson to E. [Cambridge, Aug. 15 16] E. s. q. e. 129 ; i. 23 ;

€. 160(183)

XXIX. Epistle to Grunnius, August, 15 16.

443 To Lambertus [Aug. 1516] O. E. 982; xxiv. 5; C. 1825 (442)

Grunnius %

444 Grunnius to E. [Aug. 15 16] O. E. 992 ; xxiv. 6; €. 1833 (443)

* Epistle 426 is dated Brnxellm, sexto Idus lulias, without year. Erasmus was summoned
to Brussels by Epistle 424, and Tunstall (mentioned in Epistle 426 as with the writer) was
there, 4, 10, 18 July, 1516. About the same dates in 1517 he was at Middelburg. Brewer,
Abstracts, ii. 2150, 2189, 3453, 3472. Erasmus had lately had some talk about Dorpius
with his friend, Paludanus of Louvain, who may himself have been on a visit to Brussels.
C. 1807 F. Epistle 427 appears to be an answer to 426, probably sent without loss of time.

t Epistle 441, which is dated Roffic in xdibus Episcopi pridie Cakndas Septembres, was
probably written a few days earlier. It answers Epistle 436 ; and Erasmus appears to have
crossed the Channel before the end of the month. See Epistle 445.

% As to the date and the history of this Epistle, see Introduction, pp. Ix.-lxii.

h 2

438

To Ammonius

439

Aftitnonius to E.

440

To Ammonius

441

To Bullock

(2o) Chronological Register

XXX. Cci/ais, Toin->iny, Anfzverp. August to October, 15 16.

445 To Reuchlin Calais, 27 Aug. [i 5 16] ///. vir. Ep. s. 4b.; Geiger,

Reuchlin, p. 251.

446 To Wolsey [Tournay, Aug. 15 16] F. 183; vii. 14; €.164(187)

447 WoIfgatigFahertoE. Basel, 2 Sept. 1516 D; C. 1566 (75)

448 Beatus to E. Basel, 3 Sept. 1516 D; C. 1569 (76)

449 More to E.'' London, 3 Sept. [1516] D; C. 1628(174)

450 To Guil. Nesenus Antwerp, 3 Sept. 15 16 Be Copia, Basel, 15 16;

(Preface to Copi'a) Jortin, ii. 593.

451 Bruno Amerbach to E.^z&q\ 5 Sept. 1516 D; C. 1569 (77)

452 Henry Gla7-ean to E. Basel, 5 Sept. 15 16 E.s.q.e. 155; i. 34; C. 197(217)

453 Amnwnius to Leo X. [ Westminster, Sept. 15 16] Vischer,^ra.yw/a;^a, p. 24

454 Nesenus to E. Frankfort [Sept.] 15 16 D ; C, 1588 (106)

455 Archb. Warham to More Otford, 16 Sept. 15 16 D; C. 1570 (80)

456 More to E. London [22 Sept.] 1516! D ; C. 1553 (52)

457 Gillis to Caspar Antwerp, 26 Sept. 15 16 Epistolee aliquot, Prsef-

Halmal (Dedication) See Introduction, p. Ixxiv.

458 To Jerome Busleiden Antwerp, 28 Sept. 1516 D; C. 1571 (81)

459 To Reuchlin Antwerp, 29 Sept. [1516] ///. vir. Ep. t. ; Geiger,

p. 258

460 Bade to E. Paris, 29 Sept. 1516 D;C. 1571 (82)

461 To More Antwerp, 2 Oct. 1516 F. i82;vii. 13; C. 202 (218)

XXX L Brussels, October, 15 16, to February, 1517.

462 Bp. Fisher to E. Rochester [Oct. 15 16] D ; C. 1813 (428)

463 More to E. London [3 Oct. 15 16] D ; C. 1664 (251)

* There are five letters of More, dated from September to December, 1516, in which the
forthcoming Utopia is mentioned. In the first three it is called Niisqtiama. Possibly the
name Utopia was suggested by Erasmus as more euphonious, and having for the majority of
readers a less obvious meaning. In the Epistle of Erasmus (461) where he had originally
written Nnsqua7me, (Farrago, 183) the later editions substitute Utopix.

t The date in D has been read, Postj-idie MatthisR Apostoli (25 Feb.); but the contents
point to September. I therefore read Postridie Maithmi. This date is confirmed by the
preceding letter of Warham, which appears to relate to the same transaction. In both letters
Erasmus is assumed to be at Louvain, to which place he had probably announced to his
English friends his intention of going. See C. 1663 c, and note on Epistle 496. I see
that Dr. Max Reich has anticipated this conjecture about the date. Reich, Erasmus, p 263

of the Epistles of Erasmus

(21)

464

465

466

To Peter Gillis
To Ammonius
To Peter Gillis

Brussels, 6 Oct. 1516 Auct.;ii. 27 ; C 203 (219)
Brussels, 6 0ct. [1516] F. 2i4;viii. 30; C 137(160)

Brussels, 17 Oct. [1516] M. 137 ; xxx. 75; C. 1776

(388)

467 To Bude
468

469
470

471

472

A. Baarland to C.

Baarland*
Colet to E.

Brussels, 28 Oct, 15 16
Louvain [Oct.] 15 16

London [Oct. 15 16]
Sebastiati Giustiniani London [Oct. 1 5 1 6]

to E.
More to E. London, 31 Oct. 15 16

Ammonius to E.

E. s. q. e. 40 ; i. 10 ; C.

212 (221)

E.s. q.e. 134; i. 25;

C. 1582 (98)

D; C. 1660 (246)

D; C. 1661 (249)

D; 0.1574(87)

Westminster, i Nov. [15 16] F. 225 ; viii. 31 ; C.

139 (163)

473 Jerome Busleiden to E. Mechlin, 9 Nov. 15 16

474 To Ammonius Brussels, 9 Nov. [15 16]

475 Alardus to E. Louvain, 11 Nov. 1516

476 Mountjoy to E. Tournay, 12 Nov. 15 16

477 LudovicusBerustoE. Basel, 12 Nov. 15 16

478

Gerardus Novio-
niasus to E.

Louvain, 12 Nov. 15 16

D; C. 1575 (88)
F. 219 ; viii. 32 ;

c. 133 (15O

13; C. 1575 (89)

D; C. 1576 (90)

E.s. q.e. 152 ; i. 32 ;

C. 217 (223)

L>; C. 1577 (91)

479

Louis Canossa,

Bp.

Amboise, 13 Nov. 1516 E. s. q. e. 125; i. 20;

of Bayeux, to E.

C. 217 (224)

480

Nesenus to E.

Basel [Nov. 1516] D ; C. 1589 (108)

481

Glarean to E.

Basel, 13N0V. 1516 D; C. 1577 (92)

482

To Peter Gillis

Brussels, 18 Nov. [1516] F. 194; vii. 33; C.

357 (345)

483

Bude to E.

Paris [26Nov.i5i6]t E.s.q.e. 53;i. 11; 0.204(220)

* The epistle of Barland, containing an account of Erasmus's works, may have been
originally written in the spring or early summer of 1516, after the publication of Jerome, and
before the arrival in the Low Countries of the InstittUio Principis, printed at Basel in April
of that year. But a clause about the appearance in the book-shops of the Epistolen, aliquot,
the publication of which at Louvain had been watched by the writer of the letter, points
to October, 15 16. A copy of Epistle 468 was sent to Erasmus with Epistle 592.

+ This Epistle, answering Epistle 467, which is dated v. Cat. Novembres, is itself dated
in the printed copies vi. Cal. Novembres. I have ventured to subslilutc vi. Cat. Deceinbres.

(22)

Chronological Register

484

485
486

487

488

489

490

491

492

493
494

495
496

497

498
499

500
501

502
503

More to E. London [Nov. 15 16] D ; C. 1663 (250)

Seb.GiustiniafiitoE. London [Nov. 15 16] D ; C 1661 (249)

Ajnmonius to E. Westminster, 4 Dec. [ 1 5 1 6] Vischer, Erasmiana, 2 5

Geo.Spalatinus to E. Lochan, 11 Dec. 15 16
More to E. London, 15 Dec. [15 16]

Petrus Viterius to E. Paris, 18 Dec. 15 16
Francis De lorn to E. Paris [Dec. 15 16]

To Ammonius

To Berus

Mountjoy to E.
To Watson

A'lore to E.
Peter Gillis to E.
To Peter Gillis

D orpins to E.
Leo X. to E.\

[Brussels] 29 Dec. 15 16

Brussels, i Jan. 15 16-7

Tournay, 4 Jan. 15 16-7
Brussels, 13 Jan. 15 16-7

London, 13 Jan. 15 17
Antwerp, 18 Jan. 15 17
Brussels, 20 Jan. [1517]

Louvain [Jan. 15 17]
Rome, 26 Jan. 15 16-7

Rome, 26 Jan. 15 17

D; C. 1579 (94)
D; C. 1649(221)
D; C. 1580 (95)

E. s. q. e. 103; i. 13;

C. 181 (201)

F. 228 ; viii. 36 ; C.

218(225)

E. s. q.e. 153 ; i. 33;

C. 165 (191)

D; C. 1549 (44)

E. s.q.e. 133 ; i. 24 ;

C. 166 (192)

D; C. 1590 (112)

D; C. 1591 (113)

F. 194; vii. 34; C.

292( 300)

D.; C. 1660 (247)

E. s. q. e. 146 ; i. 28 ;

C. 166 (193)

Vischer, Erasm. p- 29

Vischer, Erasm. p. 26

Leo X. to E.
(Absolution)

Leo X. to Ammoinus Rome, 26 Jan. 15 17
(Authority to dis-
pense)

WilIiainLati»ier to E. Oxiox A, 30 Jan. [1517] F.318; x.22;C. 292(301)

Bishop of Worcester Rome, 31 Jan. 1516-7 E. s. q. e. 147; 1. 29;

to E. C. 167 (195)

* Before the iSth of January, 15 17, Erasmus appears to have gone to see Paludanus at
Louvain, with a view to his own residence there. C 1590 E, 1591 A, 1660 F. But he pre-
ferred to put off his removal till after Lent (Durius nos acciperet Quadragesima. C. 292 c.) ;
and did not go in fact till July.

t The documents authorising the Dispensation obtained by Erasmus (see Introduction,
p. Ixii, and Epistles 500, 501, and 550) were accompanied by a gracious letter of the Pope
addressed to Erasmus himself.

of the Epistles of Erasmus (23)

504 Peter Gillis to E. Antwerp, [Feb.] 15 16-7 L). ; C. 1582 (97)

505 Biide to E. Paris, 5 Feb. 1516-7 E. s. q. e. 109; i. 15;

C. 168 (197)

506 William Cop to E. Paris, 6 Feb. 15 16-7 E. s. q. e. 121 ; i. 17;

C. 171 ( 198)

507 Anto7iy Clava to E. Ghent, 6 Feb. [1517] E. s. q. e. 142 ; i. 26;

C. 1788 (400)

508 Robert Ccesar to E. Ghent [February], 15 16-7 €.1586(102)

509 To Grey and Viterius Brussels, 13 Feb. 1516-7 E. s. q. e. 127; i. 22;

C. 171 (199)

XXXII. Antwerp. February, 15 17.

510 Ricardus Bartholinus \Bxvi^se\s, Feb. 15 17] E. s. q. e. 173; i. 36;

to E. C. 223 (228); 1779 (392)

511 To Clava Antwerp [Feb. 1517]* E. s. q. e. 144; i. 27;

C. 1788 (401)

512 To Stephen Poncher, Antwerp, 14 Feb. 1517 E. s. q. e. 13 3 i. 5 ;

Bishop of Paris C. 231 (235)

513 To Bude Antwerp, 15 Feb. 1516-7 E. s. q. e. 76 ; i. 12 ;

C. 172 (200)

514 Guy Morillon to E. Brussels, 18 Feb. 1517 C. 1591 (114)

515 To Francis I. Antwerp, 21 Feb. 1516-7 E. s. q, e. 123; i. 19;

C. 185 (204)

516 To Bude' Antwerp, 21 Feb. 15 16-7 E. s. q. e. 117 ; i. 16;

C. 184 (203)

517 To Deloin Antwerp, 21 Feb. 1516-7 E. s. q. e. 107; i. 14;

C. 183 (202)

518 To Dorpius Antwerp, 21 Feb. [15 17] F. 179; vii. 7;

C. 1808 (424)

519 To Cop Antwerp, 24 Feb. 1516-7 E.s.q.e. 122; i. 18;

C. 186 (205)

* Epistle 511 is dated in E. s. q. e., Antwerpiee, without date of time. It answers Epistle
507 (which, containing a message of compliment to the Chancellor, was probably addressed
to Brussels), and concludes with an assurance of the Chancellor's goodwill to Clava. It may
well have been written on returning from a visit to the Court at Brussels, of which we have
some indication in the date of Epistle 509.

(24) Chronological Register

520 To the Bishop of Antwerp, 24 Feb. 15 16-7 E. s. q. e. 126 ; i. 21;

Bayeux C. 186 (206)

521 To Ammonius Antwerp, 24 Feb. [1517] F. 229; viii. 38; C 228 (231)

522 To Fabricius Capito Antwerp, 26 Feb. 1516-7 E. s. q. e. 5; i. 4;

C. 186 (207)

523 To Latimer Antwerp [Feb. 15 17] O.E. 178 ; x. 23; C. 378(363)

XXXIII. Brussels a7id Antwerp. March, April., 1517-

524 Marianus Accardus to E. Brussels, i March, 1517 D;C. 1591(115)

525 To More Antwerp, i Mar. 1516-7 F.184; vii. 16; €.189(208)

526 To Pope Leo X. Brussels, March, 15 16-7 E. s. q. e. 148 ; i. 30;

C. 166 (194)

527 To the Bishop of Brussels, March, 15 16-7 E. s. q. e. 151; i. 31;

Worcester C. 168 (196)

528 To Henry Glarean [Brussels, March, 1 5 1 7] Declamatio de Morte, Basil.

(Dedication) 1517 ; C iv. 618

529 To Philip, Bp. of [Brussels, March, 151 7] Querela Fads. Basil.

Utrecht 1517; C. iv. 626

530 Gillis to Clava^ Antwerp, 5 Mar. 1517 Epistolse sane guam

(Dedication) elegantes, Praef.

531 To More Antwerp, 8 Mar. 151 7 F.185; vii. 17; €.234(237)

532 Rictger Rescius to E. Louvain, 8 Mar. 1516-7 D; C 1554 (54)

533 To Bartholinus Antwerp, loMar. 15 16-7 E.s.q.e. 183; i.37; C. 190

(210)

534 To Ammonius Antwerp, 11 Mar. 15 16-7 F.229;viii.37; 0.191(211)

535 To Ammoniusf Antwerp, 15 Mar. [15 17] F. 229

536 Jerome Emser to E. Leipsic, 15 Mar. 1517 D; C. 1592 (116)

537 Beatus to E. Basel, 22 Mar. 1517 Dj C. 1595 (119)

538 Wolfgang Faber to E . Basel, 23 Mar. 15 17 D ; C 1597 (122)

539 Warham to E. Canterbury, 24 Mar. 1517 D; C. 1597 (121)

540 Peter Mosellanus to E. Leipsig, 24 Mar. 1517 D; C. 1596 (120)

• Translated in Introduction, p. Ixxv.

t Omitted in the later collections. See Introduction, p. xxxi.

of the Epistles of Erasmus (25)

541 CEcolampadius to E. Weinsberg, 2 7Mar. 1517 F. 198; vii. 42 ; C 235

(238)

542 Reuchlin to E. 27 Mar. 15 17 D ; C. 1598 (123)

543 To Henricus Afinius* Antwerp, [March] 1517 E. a. d. ; xiii. 23 ;

C. 289 (295)

544 Accardus to E. Brussels, i April, 1517 D; C 1599 (124)

545 Petrus Barbirius to E. Brussels, 3 April, 15 16-7 D; C. 1554 (56)

546 Bicde to E. Paris, 5 April, 1516-7 D; C 1556 (60)

547 lo. Harenaceus to E. Angia, 6 April, 1517 D ; C. 1599 (125)

548 Cuthbert Tunstall [Antwerp, April, 1517] y^?/^/.; ii. 29 ; C. 252(253)

to Bude

549 Gertnain Brice to E. Paris, 6 April, 1516-7 F. 55; iv. 8; C. 191 (212)

XXXIV. Short visit to England, April, 15 17.

550 Ammotmis to E, Westminster, 9 Ap. 15 17 Vischer, p. 28

(Dispensation)

551 John Babham to E. Oxford, 12 April, [1517] D ; C. 1778 (391)

552 Tunstall to E. Antwerp, 22 April, 15 17 D ; C. 1603 (131)

553 Nicolaus Sagundinus London, 22 April, 1517 D;C. 1601 (130)

to Marcus Musurus

554 Cornelius Batt to E. Groningen, 22 Ap. 1517 D; C 1600(129)

555 Beatus to E. Basel, 24 April, 1517 D; C. 1604(134)

556 Watson to E. Cambridge [April, 15 17] D ; C. 1882(500)

557 Stromer to E. Frankfort, 30 April, 151 7t D ; C 1605 (136)

* Of four epistles addressed to Afinius two are without date of day. Epistle 543 is a
formal address, written at Antwerp, where this correspondent resided, and seems by its con-
tents to belong to the period of the Treaty of Cambrai, March 1517. Epistle 677 demands
with some want of delicacy a promised present of plate, and accompanies a letter to Gillis,
Epistle 678, probably written early in November, 1517. The third Epistle is dated Louvain,
Jan. 6, 1518, C 1663 (256). and repeats the demand for the present. The fourth is the short
dedication of the Declamation de laiide Medicinx, dated at Louvain, March 13, 15 18,
C. i. 536. We may assume that by this time the present had been received.

f Erasmus left England on or about the last day of April, and was "thrown ashore" near
Boulogne on the 1st of May. Epistle 563, C. 287 B. The letter of Fisher, Epistle 565,
seems to show that Erasmus paid a visit to the Bishop on his way to the coast, as he had done
in August, 1 5 16.

(26)

Chronological Register

558

559
560

561

574
575
576

577
578

579
580

581

XXXV. Antzverp and Brussels, May, June, July, 15 17.

Bullock to E. Cambridge, i May [1517] D;C. 1557

Cambridge, 4 May, 15 17* D ; C. 1606

Basel, 10 May, 1517 D; C. 1606

Basel, II May, 1517 D; C. 1607

Antwerp [May] 15 17 Luciani Opusc. Basil., i

xxix. 10; C. i.

Bullock to E.
Beatles to E.
Bents to E.
562 To Eutychius

(Ded. of Lucian)

563 To More [Antwerp, May] 15171 F.189; vii. 24; C. 287

564 Budc to Tunstall Paris, 19 May, 1517 Auct; ii. 30; C. 229

565 Bishop Fisher to E. Rochester [May, 15 17] D

566 Clava to E. Ghent, 4 June [15 17] D

567 Guy Morillon to E. Ghent, 5 June, 15 17 D

568 Baptista Egnatiusto E. Venice, 21 June, 151 7 D

569 Andreas Asulanus to E. Venice [June] 151 7 D

570 Sagundinus to E. London, 22 June, 15 17 D

571 Lupset to E. London 28 June [15 17] D

572 Gitistiniani to E. London 29 June, 15 17 D

573 Beatus to E. Basel, 8 July, 151 7 D

C. 1812
C. 1789
C. 1607
C. 1608
C. 1666
C. 1609
C. 1852
C. 1611
C. 1613

XXXVI. Louvain, July, August, 1517

To More Louvain [July] 1517I

TheBp.of Basel to E. Basel, 13 July, 1517
Lucas Paliurus to E. Basel, 13 July, 15 17
Eabricius CapitotoE. Basel, 15 July, 15 17
More to E. London, 16 July, 151 7

D; C. 1658

Auct.; iii. 28 C. 259

Auct.; iii. 23; C. 259

C. 1613

D ; C. 1614

To Peter Gillis

To Tunstall

To Peter Barbier

[Louvain, 1 7 July, 15 17] F. 189; vii. 23; C.384
Louvain, 17 July, 1517 D; C. 1616

Louvain, 17 July, I5i7§ D; C 1616

61)

137)
138)
139)
517;
• 329
291)
249)
428)
402)
140)
141)
253)
143)
459)

145)
146)

241)
258)
259)
147)
148)

373)
150)
151)

* Dated in D. Quarto nonas Maias (4 May). In C. it isj" Maji.

t Epistle 563 appears to have been written about 15 May, as it mentions the Court being
at Ghent, Compare Brewer, ii. 3246.

X Epistle 574 has no date but of place and year. Erasmus has lately removed his quarters
to Louvain, "having remained with Tunstall as long as he could." Tunstall, having been
at or near Brussels for some time, had now gone to Middelburg, probably in company with
King Charles on the 5th of July, 15 17. Brewer, ii. 3426, 3453. This gives us the near
date of Erasmus's rerooval to Louvain.

§ Date in D. 16 Kal. Aug. not 18 July, as in C.

of the Ep is ties of Erasni tts (27

582 Bude to E. Paris, 17 July, 1517 D; C 1615 (149)

583 loan. Juliacejisis Cologne, 21 July, 1517 D; C. 1617 (152)

\Civsarius\ to E.

584 Htctten to E. Bamberg, 21 July, 1517 D; C. 1617 (153)

585 Matt. Schiirer to E.* Strasburg, 21 July, 1517 D;C. 1619 (154)

586 Colet to E. London [July] 1517 D: C. 1660(246)

587 Dorpius to E, Louvain [July] 1517 D; C. 1661 (247)

588 Nic. Barbier to E. Middelburg, 24 July, 151 7 D ; C. 1619(155)

589 Stromer to E. Mayence, 29 July, 1517 D; C. 1620(156)

590 Ceesarius to E. Cologne, 30 July, 1517 D; C. 1620(157)

591 Bude to Lupset Paris, 31 July [1517] Utopia, Basil. 1518, Prsf.

592 A. Barland to E. Louvain [Aug. 1517]! D; C. 1585 (100)

593 Glarean to E. Paris, 5 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1620 (158)

594 Pace to E. Constance, 5 Aug. [15 17] Jortin, ii. 347

595 Peter Barbier to E. Sensebardeau, 12 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1621 (159)

596 To John Ruser Louvain [Aug.] 1517 F. 157 ; C. 1659 (242)

597 To Csesarius Antwerp, 16 Aug. i5i7t C. 1622 (160)

598 More to E. London, 19 Aug. [1517] F. 177 ; vii. 4; C. 370 (522)

599 Sixtinus to E. London, 19 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1623 (161)

600 To Beatus Rhenanus Louvain, 23 Aug. 1517 D; C 1624 (164)

601 To the Bp. of Basel Louvain [23 Aug.] 1517 Auct.;m.2^; C.285(286)

602 To Berus Louvain, 23 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1623 (162)

603 To Nesenus Louvain, 23 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1623 (163)

604 To Lucas Paliurus Louvain, 23 Aug. 1517 Auct.; iii. 24; C. 262(262)

605 To Henry Stromer Louvain, 24 Aug. 1517 y^?^^/./ iii. 30; C.26o(263)

606 To Bruno Amerbach Louvain, 24 Aug. 15 17 D ; C. 1625 (165)

* The writer of this epistle forwards some letters from Wimpfling, Gerbelius, and Ruser.
In Manuscript D. it is followed by some verses of Wimpfling which are not printed in C.

t There is nothing in Epistle 592 (in which a copy of Epistle 468 was inclosed) to fix its
date, but it is probable that Barland, being an ardent admirer of Erasmus and having common
friends, made his acquaintance soon after his arrival at Louvain, and took an early oppor-
tunity of communicating to him the account he had himself written of his works. He appears
to have acted as tutor to the young Cardinal de Croy. See Epistle 620, which is probably
an answer to a civil note of Erasmus thanking him for Epistle 592 and its inclosure.

:!: This epistle is printed in C. among letters taken from the Deventer Manuscript, but I
find no mention of it in Kan's account of that collection (see Introduction, p xxvi), and my
friend, Mr. Van Slee of Deventer, does not find it there. The date in C. is that given
above, but I am not aware of any other evidence of Erasmus having left Louvain at this
lime.

(28) Chronological Register

607 To Guolfangus Au- Louvain, 24 Aug. 15 17 D 3 C 1625 (166)

gustanus

60S To Ruser Louvain, 24 Aug. 15 17 D ; C. 1625 (167)

609 To Count Nuenar Louvain, 25 Aug. 1517 D; C 1626 (168)

610 To John Froben Louvain, 25 Aug. 1517 D; Utopia, Basil. 1518

Prsf. ; C. 1626 (169)

611 To Peter Gillis Louvain, 28 Aug. 1517* D; C. 1610 (144)

612 Chiregattus to E. Antwerp, 28 Aug. 1517! D ; C 1627 (170)

613 To George Haloin Louvain, 29 Aug. 15 17 Auct.; iii. 27; C 261(264)

614 [To an Italian Prelate] Louvain, 29 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1627 (171)

615 ToTunstall| Louvain, 30 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1627 (172)

616 To Tunstall Louvain, 31 Aug. 1517 D; C. 1628 (173)

617 To Richard, Chap- Louvain, 31 Aug. 1517 ^«^/.; iii. 26; C 261(265)

lain of Tunstall.

618 To Gerardus Louvain, 31 Aug. 1517 E.a.d.; xii.9; C. 261(266)

Noviomagus

XXXVn. Louvain, September, 1517.

619 To Lachner and Louvain [Sept.] 1517 D; C. 1655 (236)

John Froben

620 A Bar land to E. Louvain [Sept. 15 17]§ D;C. 1584(99)

621 To Clava Louvain, 7 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1629 (175)

622 To Marcus Laurinus Louvain, 7 Sept. 1517II D; C. 1629 (176)

623 [To the Bishop of Louvain, 7 Sept, 1517 D ; C. 1630 (177)

Worcester]

624 To Peter Barbier Louvain [Sept.] 1517 D; C. 1652 (230)

625 To More Antwerp, 8 Sept. 1517 H D ; C. 1630 (179)

* Dated in D. Lovmi. pridie loannis. Considering the contents of the letter, in which
reference is made to the recent death of Ammonius, who was buried 19 August, 1517
(C. 1613 b), the feast intended must be the Decollation of St. John Baptist, 29 August. It is
dated in C. 23 Junii, the eve of the Midsummer Feast.

f This epistle is dated from Antwerp. It was written by an Italian, who was returning
to Rome, having left England to escape the "fatal sweat," which had carried off Ammonius.

% Probably a draft, rewritten more at length the next day. Epistle 616.

§ The date of this epistle is no more certain than that of Epistle 592. See p. (27).

II This epistle gives an approximate date for Erasmus's removal at Louvain to the Collegium
Liliense, which was to take place within four days. He had hitherto been the guest of Paludanus.

\ This and the four following epistles were written at Antwerp, where Erasmus was paying
for his portrait by Quentin Matsys and sending it to More at Calais. C. 1630 F.

of the Epistles of Erasmus (29)

626 To Bishop Fisher Antwerp, 8 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1630 (178)

627 To Sixtinus Antwerp, 8 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1631 (180)

628 To Henry VIII. Antwerp, 9 Sept. 1517 AucL; iii.32; C. 263 (268)

629 To Cardinal Wolsey Antwerp, 9 Sept. 1517 And.; iii.31; C.262 (267)

630 To Peter Vannes * Louvain [9 Sept] 1517 C. 1652 {228)

631 To loannes Fevinus Louvain, 9 Sept. 15 17 E.a.d.; xiii. 8; 0.264(269)

632 To Giles Busleiden Louvain [Sept. 151 7] And,; iii. 33; C. 266 (271)

633 To Jac. Faber Stapu- Louvain, 11 Sept. 1517 Auct; iii. 9; C. 236 (239)

lensis

634 Archbp. of Mayence Steinheim, i3Sept.[i5i7] D;C. 350(334)

to E.

635 Stromer to E. Steinheim, 13 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1605 (236)

636 Timstall to E. Bruges, 14 Sept. 1517 D; And. 125; iii. 2;

C. 266 (272)

637 Lupset to E. Paris, 15 Sept. [1517] D; C. 1570 (79)

638 [To a young Prelate] Louvain [Sept.] 1517 D; C. 1659(243)

639 To Clava Louvain, 16 Sept. 1517 D; C 1631 (182)

640 To More Louvain, 16 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1631 (182)

641 To Sixtinus Louvain, 16 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1632 (184)

642 To Marc. Laurinus Louvain, 16 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1632 (185)

643 To [Bishop Fisher] Louvain, 16 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1632 (186)

644 Warham to More Otford, 16 Sept. [15 17] D; C. 1570 (80)

645 ToAnt. of Lutzenburg Louvain, 17 Sept. 1517 D; C. 1632 (187)

646 PaschasiusBerselhistoE. Liege, 17 Sept. 15 17 D ; C. 1633 (188)

647 To loannes Atensis Louvain [Sept.] 1517 D;C. 1652 (229)

648 [To a young Prelate] Louvain [Sept.] 1517 D; C. 1660 (244)

649 To Tunstall t Louvain [Sept.] 15 17 y^?/^/. 130; iii. 3; C. 288(293)

650 Ceesarius to E. Cologne, 22 Sept. 151 7 | D; C. 1633 (189)

651 Fet. Gillis to E. Antwerp, 27 Sept. 15 17 C. 1634 (190)

* I do not find this epistle in Mr. Kan's list of the contents of the Deventer MS. It is
addressed in C. Petro Aviniojiio, but in the will of Andrew Ammonius the name of his
kinsman and executor is Peter Vannes.

t This epistle answers Epistle 636. It was probably sent to Calais, where Tunstall
awaited his recall to England. Brewer, ii. 3690, 3727.

\ Corrected date in D. (10 Cal. Oct. for 10 Cal. Sept.), apparently right. T\\q Apo.ogia
ad Fabruin was already published ; on the 23rd of August it was still in the press. C.
1624 B ; Epistle 600.

(30) Chronological Register

XXXVIII. Louvain, October, 15 17

652 To Philip, Bp. of [Louvain, 3 Oct. 151 7 Querela Fads, '&2iS\\.T)ec.

Utrecht (Dedication) 1517; C. iv. 626

653 To Gerardus Novio- Louvain, 3 Oct. 1517 D; C. 1634 (191)

magus

654 More to Gillis Calais, 6 Oct. 1517 Auct. ; iii. 7; C. 1635 (192)

655 More to E. Calais, 7 Oct. 1517 D; C. 1635 (193)

656 To Giles Busleiden Louvain, 19 Oct. 1517* And.; iii. 40; C. 353 (338)

657 To Lachner Louvain [October], 1517 D; C. 1655 (237)

658 To Gillis Louvain [Oct. 15 1 7] F. 192; vii.29; C.382 (368)

659 To Bude Louvain, 26 Oct. 1517 D; C. 1637 (195)

660 To Glarean Louvain [26 Oct.] 1517 D; C. 1654 (234)

661 E. to Lupset Louvain, 26 Oct. 1517 D; C. 1638 (196)

662 To Giles Busleiden Louvain [Oct] 1517 D; C. 1653 (232)

663 Charles Ofhuys to E. Paris, 30 Oct. 1517 D; C. 1638 (197)

664 To Schurer Louvain, 31 Oct. 15 17 D ; C. 1638 (198)

XXXIX. Louvain^ November 15 17.

665 To Giles Busleiden [Nov. 1517] Auct.; iii. 6; C. 377 (362)

666 To Pirckheimer Louvain, 2 Nov. 15 17 C. 268 (274)

667 To John [Germain]! Louvain 2 Nov. 1517 D; C. 1639 (199)

668 To Peter Barbier Louvain, 2 Nov. 1517 Auct.; iii. 36; C. 270 (275)

669 To Lystrius Louvain, 2 Nov. 1517 D; C. 1639 (200)

670 To Gillis Louvain, 3 Nov. 15 1 7 F. 196; vii. 38; 0.216(222)

671 To Jac. Banisius Louvain, 3 Nov. 1517 D ; C. 1639 (201)

* Of the three epistles of Erasmus (656, 662 and 665) to Giles Busleiden concerning the
foundation of the trilingual college under the will of his brother Jerome, the first, dated
postridie Lucie (19 Oct.), and recommending a Hebrew professor, was published by Erasmus.
The second, found in MS. D., which is without date of day, thanks Busleiden for accepting
the Hebrew, and sends some Latin verses. The third is an epistle, also without date of day,
in honour of Jerome Busleiden (with a Greek ode and the Latin verses more complete),
published by Erasmus and apparently written for publication.

+ Epistle 667 is addressed to the person for whom the Enchiridioti viilitis Chj-istiani was
originally composed. He appears to have prospered at the court of the young Prince
Charles. The name of Germain is not in the address, but is indicated by a punning allusion
in the body of the letter. See pp. 341, 342.

of the Epistles of Erasmus (31)

672 To Caesarius Louvain, 3 Nov. 15 17 D; C. 1639 (202)

673 To [Count Nuenar]* Louvain, 3 Nov. 15 17 D; C 1641 (203)

674 To Ernest, Duke of Louvain, 4 Nov. 1517 Auct.; iii. 34; C. 271 (276)

Bavaria

675 More to E. Calais, 5 Nov. 1517 Auct.; iii. 8; C. 1641 (204)

676 Bp. of Utrecht to E. Vellenhoe[6 Nov.] 1517! .^«(r/./iii.47;C. 273(282)

677 To Afinius Louvain [Nov.] 1517 D; C. 1652 (227)

678 To Gillisl Louvain [Nov.] 1517 D; C 1651 (226)

679 To Gillis Louvain, 10 Nov.[i5i7]§ F. 195; vii.35;C. 1775(386)

680 To Gillis Louvain [12 Nov.], 1517 F. i93;vii.3o;C. 286(288)

681 Jac. Bayiisius to E. Antwerp, 12 Nov. 1517 F. 167; vi.34; C.271 (277)

682 Geo. SpalatimistoE. Aldenburg, 13N0V. 1517 F. 374; xi. 23; C. 272(278)

683 To Cardinal Grimani Louvain, 13 Nov., 15 17 Paraphrasis in Ep. ad

(Dedication) Romanos, Pr?ef. ; C. vii. 771

684 To Berselius Louvain [Nov.] 1517 D; C. 1653 (231)

685 To Gillis II Louvain, i5Nov.[i5i7] F. 185; vii. i8;C.357(344)

686 To Reuchlin Louvain, 15 Nov. [15 17] ///. "vir. Ep.; Geiger,

Reuchlin, 266

687 Warhmn to E. Lambeth, 15 Nov., 1517 IT D ; C. 1642 (205)

* Epistle 673 is addressed in C. (following an insertion in D.) to Pirckheimer. In the
above address I have adopted a conjecture of Mr. Reich.

t Epistle 676 (which answers Epistle 652) is dated in Auctarhim, sexto Decembris, Amto
M.D.XVli., but is clearly anterior to Epistles 688 and 705, which are dated 16 Cal. Dec.
(16 Nov.) and Profesto die dim Nicolai (5 Dec.) in the same year. I have therefore
ventured to read in the first date sexto Noveinbris for sexto Decembris.

X The word which seemed illegible in Epistle 678 is probably exciisabilibus. Gillis might
excuse himself for neglecting a commission, but when Afinius proposed io excuse himself from
completing his long promised present (already mentioned in Epistles 611 and 658), the last
act in the comedy of Excusables was reached. As to the day-date of Epistle 678, which is
wanting in D., compare Epistles 679 and 685, in both of which Erasmus refers to a seal,
mentioned in Epistle 678, and also to his relations with Afinius, about whom in Epistle 679
he begs Gillis not to trouble himself further. See note on Epistle 543.

§ Date in F. pridie Martijti, not 12 Nov. as in C. Epistle 680 follows, on receiving an
immediate answer from Gillis, and Epistle 685 on receiving by the messenger the news of
the death of Gillis' father, whose critical condition is mentioned in Epistle 679.

II The father of Gillis died between the loth and the 15th of November. His sickness is
mentioned in Epistle 670, and his death in Epistle 685 ; and a later Epistle (Ep. xvii. 17 ;
C. 541 (495)) is devoted to his memory. This is dated in Epistolse, ad diversos, Louanii,
Anno M. D. X.IX. It contains expressions which show it to have been written some little time
after the event.

^ This date appears to be XV. Nov. in the Deventer MS. In C. it is // Novembris.

(32) Chronological Register

688 To the Bp. of Utrecht Louvain, [16 Nov. 1517] * Auct.; hi. 48;

C. 290 (298)

689 To Noviomagus Louvam, 16 Nov., 1517 ^?^<r/',/m.35; 0.272(279)

690 Lystrius to E. ZwoHe [Nov. 1517]! D ; C. 1587 (104)

691 To Laurinus Louvain, 19 Nov. 1517 D; C. 1643 (208)

692 To Gilhs Louvain [Nov. 15 1 7] E. a. d.;xvn. 17 ;C. 541(495)

693 To Banisius Louvain [Nov. 15 17] F. 167; vi.35; 0.368(355)

694 To Clava Louvain, 21 Nov. 1517 D; C. 1643(209)

695 To Laurinus Louvain [25 Nov.] 15 17^ D ; C. 1643 (206)

696 To Pace Louvain [25 Nov.] 1517 D ; C. 1643 (207)

697 [To a young Prelate] Louvain [Nov.], 1517 D; C 1660 (245)

698 To Count Nuenar Louvain, 30 Nov. 151 7 D ; C. 1664 (210)

699 To More Louvain, 30 Nov. 15 17 D ; C. 1664 (212)

700 To Bude Louvain, 30 Nov. 15 1 7 F. 49; iii. 56; €.273(280)
70T To Glarean Louvain, 30 Nov. 1517 D; C. 1655 (235)

702 To Faber Stapulensis Louvain, 30 Nov. 1517 D; C. 1644 (211)

703 To Pyrrhus Louvain, 30 Nov. 151 7 D ; C. 1645 (213)

704 To Petrus Viterius [Louvain] 151 7§ F. 151 ; vi. 1 7; 0.289(294)

XL. Louvain, December, 151 7.

705 Noviomagus to E. [Vellenhoe] 5 Dec. 1517 || Aiict.;\\\. 41 ; C. 273 (281)

706 Paulus Bombasius to E. Zurich, 6 Dec. 15 17 ^?<;^/.; ii. 23; C. 274(283)

707 To Berus Louvain, 6 Dec. 1517 D; C. 1645 (214)

708 To Capito Louvain, 6 Dec. 1517 D; C. 1646 (215)

* Epistle 688, answering the Bishop's letter (Epistle 676), is in Auciarinm dated
Louanii, quarto Idus Ia7iuarias, Aiino M.D.xviii. I have corrected the date from Epistle
689, which probably accompanied Epistle 688. Erasmus had now established his quarters
in the CoUegitim Liliense, where Nevius or Nsevius was the Head. C. 273 ae.

f It may be observed with reference to the date of Epistle 690, that Longicampanius
mentioned in it, having been recommended by Dorpius to Erasmus (Epistle 587) and by him
apparently to Lystrius, had been with the last long enough to pursue some studies ; and on
the other hand Erasmus had not yet published his first Paraphrase on the Epistles of St. Paul,
which appears to have been issued near the end of November, 15 17.

% Epistles 695 and 696 (both sent to Bruges) are dated in D. 17 Cal. Dec. (15, Nov.). I
have ventured to read 7 Cal. Dec. Erasmus sends with them copies of his newly printed
Paraphrase, mentioned in Epistles 691 and 694 as still in the Press. C. 1643 CF

§ Epistle 704 is printed in Farrago without date, in Opjis Epistolarjwi with a year-date
only, and I find nothing to fix the month or day.

II Profesto die diui Nicolai, Anno M.D.Xvii. See note on Epistle 676.

7i6

To Pace

717

To Clava

718

Lystrius to E.

719

To Desmoulins

720

To Dorpius

721

Bp. of Liege to E.

722

Berselius to E.

723

Pirckheimer to E.

of Ihe Epistles of Erasmus (33)

709 To Beatus Rhenanus Louvain, 6 Dec. 1517 D; C. 1646 (216)

710 To Berselius Louvain, 9 Dec. 1517 D; C. 1647 (217)

711 To Capito Louvain, 9 Dec. 1517 D; C. 1648 (218)

7 1 2 Bude to E. Louvain [i i Dec. 1 5 1 7]* Auct.T,; ii. 20 ; C. 298 (304)

713 To the Bp. of Utrecht Louvain, 12 Dec. 1517 D ; C. 1649 (219)

714 [To the Bp. of Louvain, 13 Dec. 15 17 D ; C. 1649 (220)

Liege f]

715 To the Abbot of St. Louvain, 13 Dec. 1517 C. 275 (284)

Bertin

Louvain, 21 Dec. 151 7 D ; C. 1650 (222)

Louvain, 21 Dec. 1517 D; C. 1650 (223)

Zwolle, 28 Dec. 1517 D; C 1651 (225)

Louvain, [Dec] 1517 D; C. 1655 (240)

Louvain, 1517:!: D; C. 1654(233)

Liege, 30 Dec. 15 17 Aiict.; iii. 45 ; C. 359 (348)
Liege [Dec. 15 17] § Auct.; iii. 43; C. 229 (232)
Nuremberg, 31 Dec. 15 17 F. 65; iv. 12;

C. 218 (226)

* It appears from Erasmus's answer, dated 22 Feb., 15 18, Ep. ii. 51, C. 299 (305), that
Epistle 712 was dated die Briimse,. This is interpreted the shortest day, which before the
Gregorian reformation of the Calendar would, I think, fall on the nth of December. I do
not know whether there are other examples of this mode of dating.

t Epistles 713 and 714 are placed together in Manuscript D. and addressed to the Bishop
of Utretcht, but in both cases the address appears to be a later addition. For Epistle 713
it is probably right. But Epistle 714 seems from its contents to be intended for the Bishop
of Liege. This is shown by the reference in it to the promotion of Aleander. Compare C.
230 E, C. 1647 F, 1649 E. Its date is after the publication of Erasmus's first Paraphrase in
November, 1517; and I accept in both cases the emendation suggested by the annotator in
D. oi pridie and nat. Lticise, (12, 13 Dec.) iox pridie and nat. Liicee, (17, 18 Oct. ). In
Epistle 713 Erasmus has his plans ready for Easter and the following summer.

X Epistle 720 has in D. no date of day, and the dates of place and year are probably not
original. It relates entirely to a difference between Dorpius and Nrevius, which does not
help us to a more precise date, except that it may be assumed to be after Erasmus's
removal to the Collegium Liliense, where Nsevius was his companion. See Epistles 622,
688. In a eulogy of Na^vius, written after his death, Erasmus says that his one fault was
that, though not easily irritated, he was difficult to appease. C. 784 F.

§ Epistle 722 is in the authorized editions dated 7 Id. Ia7i. the same day as the epistle of
Erasmus in answer to it, where the date is written, postridic Epiphaiiix. The letter of
BerseUus was probably sent to Louvain with that of his patron, the Bishop (Epistle 721),
which is dated tertio cal. Ian.

An alphabetical Table of Corresp07idents follozvs.
i

(34)

Chronological Register of Epistles

TABLE OF Correspondents, and of Epistles as numbered in the

The cornspoiident, ivJiere not named, is Erasmus.

Accardus (Marianus), 524, 544
To Adolf of Veer, 87, 93, 264
To Adrian, 162

To Afinius (Henricus), 543, 677
Aggeus (Augustinus), 367
Alardus of Amsterdam, 421, 475
To Aldus, 204, 206, 208, 209
To Amerbach (Boniface), 394
Amerbach (Bruno), 325, 451
To Amerbach (Bruno), 606
Ammonius (Andrew), 217, 229, 233,
235> 238, 240, 275, 377, 414,
4i9> 439. 472, 486, 550
Ammonius to Leo X., 453
Ammonius to Mountjoy, 216

To Ammonius, 214, 215, 220, 222,
225, 227, 228, 232, 234, 236,
237. 239, 241, 245, 250, 265,
276, 277, 278, 288, 347, 362,
401, 437, 438, 440, 465, 474,
491, 521, 534, 535
Ammonius (Peter). See Vannes
Andrelinus. See Faustus
To Angleberm (Peter), 133
Angst (Wolfgang), 349
To Anne, Lady of Veer, 137
To Antony of Bergen. See Bertin, St.
To Antony (James), 150, 170
To Antony of Lutzenburg, 131, 13S,

144, 145, 157. 645
To Arnold. See Boschius
To Arras, the Bishop of, 173, 176
Asulanus (Andreas), 569
To Atensis (loannes), 647
To Augustanus (Guolfangus), 607

Augustine Caminad to a physician,
127

To Augustine Caminad, 126, 130,
149

Baarland (Adrian), 592, 620

Baarland (Adrian) to Baarland (Cor-
nelius), 468

Babham (John), 551

Bade (Josse), 183, 335, 422, 460

Baldung (Jerome), 387

Banisius (Jacobus), 681

To Banisius, 671, 693

Baptista Egnatius. See Egnatius

Barbirius (Nicolas), 588

Barbirius (Petrus), 430, 545, 595

To Barbirius (Pet.), 581, 624, 668

Bartholinus, 510

To Bartholinus, 533

Basel, the Bishop of, 575

To the Bishop of Basel, 601

Basellius (Nicolaus), 370

To Bastard (Peter), 166

Batt (CorneUus), 554

Batt (James) to Mountjoy, 1 1 1

To Batt, 35, 80, 85, 94, 95, 96,
112, 113, 122, 123, 124, 125,
128, 132, 139, 140, 146, 148,
159
To Batt, from Herman, 39
To Bavaria (Ernest, duke of), 674
Bayeux, Bishop of. See Canossa
Beatus Rhenanus, 321, 324, 448,
537> 555> 560, 573

Table of Correspondents

(35)

To Beatus Rhenanus, 320, 600, 709

To Beatus, from Pirckheimer, 308

Bebel (Henry), 311

Bedill (Thomas), 376, 413

To Benserad (Nicolas), 154, 156

Bergen, Antony of. Abbot of St.
Bertin. See Bertin

Bergen, Henry of. Bishop of Cam-
brai. See Cambrai

Berselius (Paschasius), 646, 722

To Bersehus, 684, 710

St. Bertin, Abbot of, to Card.
Medici, 158

To St. Bertin, Abbot of, 135, 143,

242, 283, 715
Berus (Ludovicus), 477, 561
To Berus, 492, 602, 707
To Boece (Hector), 61
To Boerio (Battista), 274
Bombasius (Paulas), 706
Borssele (John), 286, 310, 355
To Boschius (Arnoldus), 69, 71
Bovillus. See Bullock
Brice (Germain), 549
Brielis (Guillielmus), 411
To Brussels (John of), 78, 152

Bude (Wilham), 391, 423, 483, 505,
546, 582, 712

Bude to I.upset, 591

Bude to Tunstall, 564

To Bude, 409, 428, 467, 513, 516,
659, 700

To Bude from Tunstall, 548

Bullock (Henry), 436, 558, 559

To Bullock, 441

To Burgundy (Nicolas of), 136

To Busleiden (Giles), 632, 656, 662,
665

Busleiden (Jerome), 406, 473

To Busleiden (Jerome), 202, 458

Caesar (Robert), 508

To Caesar, 175

Cccsarius (loannes, Juliacensis), 358,
583, 590, 650

To Csesarius, 417, 597, 672

To Cambrai (Henry of Bergen,
Bishop of), 50, 53, 151

Cambridge Univ. to Mountjoy, 269

Caminad. See Augustine

Canossa (Louis, Bp. of Bayeux), 479

To Canossa, 520

To Canter (James), 31

Capito (Fabricius), 577

To Capito, 522, 708, 711

To Caraffa (Peter), 361

To Charles (Prince), 389

To Chartres (Ren^ dTlliers, Bishop
of), 197

Chiregattus, 612

To Christian, 46, 47, 48, 65, 75

To Christian from Henry, 55

Clava (Antony), 432, 507, 566

To Clava, 511, 621, 639, 694, 717

To Clava from Gillis, 530

Colet (John), 99, 107, 223, 246,
304, 410, 469, 586

To Colet, 100, 106, 108, 180, 195,
219, 221, 224, 231, 249, 251,
271

Cop (William), 506
To Cop, 519

Cornelius of Gouda, 17, 20, 23, 25
To Cornelius of Gouda, 16, 18, 19,
21,22, 24, 26, 27, 28,29, 34, 77
To Cornelius from Herman, 38
To Cornelius of * * , 30
To a Courtier, 160

Deloin (Francis), 490
To Deloin, 517

(36)

Chronological Register of Epistles

Desmarais. See Paludanus
Desmoulins (John), 356
To Desmoulins, 719
Dorpius, 314, 427, 498, 587
To Dorpius, 317, 426, 518, 720
To Dorpius from More, 350

To Edmund, 161, 165
Egnatius (Baptista), 568
To Elizabeth, 33
Ellenbogen (Nicolas), 383
To Ellenbogen, 390
Emser (Jerome), 536
Emser to Pirckheimer, 381
To Eutychius, 562
To Evangelista, 62

Faber (lacobus of Deventer), 171

Faber (lacobus of Paris), 305

To Faber (lacobus Stapulensis), 633,
702

To Faber (loannes) from Urbanus
Regius, 372, 373

Faber (Wolfgangus), 447, 538

Fabricius Capito. See Capito

To Falke (John), 84

Faustus Andrelinus, 88, 90, 92, 120

Faustus to Herman, 79

To Faustus, 89, 91, 98, 129

To Fevinus (loannes), 631

To Fisher (Christopher), 182

Fisher (John, Bishop of Rochester),

255. 327. 415. 462, 565
To Bp. Fisher, 226, 400, 626, 643
To Fisher (Robert), 60, 74, no

To Foxe, Richard, Bishop of Win-
chester, 186

To Francis I., 515

To Francis Theodorik, 12, 13, 14,
40, 185

To a friend, 68, 116, 117, 118, 119

Froben (John), 408

To Froben, 610

To Froben and Lachner, 619

Gaguin (Robert), 42, 43, 44, 67
To Gaguin, 45, 66, 114, 115
Gerardus Noviomagus. See Novio-

magus
Gerbel (Nicolas), 331, 332, 337,

2>2>^^ 339> 365, 371
To Germain (John), 160, 667
GilUs (Peter), 496, 504, 651
Gillis to Clava, 530
GiUis to Halmal, 457

To Gillis, 181, 282, 284, 287, 303,

326, 464, 466, 482, 497, 579,

611, 658, 670, 678, 679, 680,
685, 692

To Gillis, from More, 653
To Gillis, from Sixtinus, 435
Giustiniani (Sebastian), 470, 485,

572
Glarean (Henry), 452, 481, 593
To Glarean, 528, 660, 701

To Gonell (William), 262, 263, 270,
280, 281

Gregory, Prior, 300

To Greverad, 134

Grey (Thomas), 433

To Grey, 56, 57, 58, 59

To Grey and Viterius, 509

To Grimani, Cardinal, 31 8, 683

Grunnius (Lambertus), 444

To Grunnius, 443

To Halmal (Gasper) from Gillis, 457

To Haloin (George), 613

Table of Correspondents

(37)

To Halsey (Thomas), 243
Harenaceus, 547
Henry, Prince of Wales, 203
To Henry, Prince, 97
To Henry VHL, 258, 628
Henry [Noorthon] to Christian, 55
Herman (WiUiam), 36, 37
Herman to Batt, 39
Herman to CorneHus, 38
Herman to John, 41
Herman to Servatius, 86, 163
To Herman, 32, 51, 81, 168, 174
To Herman from Faustus, 79
Hochstraten (Andrew), 368
To Hochstraten, 292
Hutten (Ulrich), 351, 584

[To an Italian Prelate], 614
To luliacencis. See Csesarius

To John, Canon of Brussels, 78, 152

Kierher (John), 342
To Kierher, 344

To Lachner, 657

To Lachner and Froben, 619

Latimer (William), 502

To Latimer, 523, 404

To Laurinus (Marcus), 622, 642,
691, 695

Leo X., 328, 499, 500

Leo X. to Henry VHL, 329

Leo X. to Ammonius, 501

To Leo X., 323, 374, 434, 526

To Lewis, 164

Liege, the Bishop of, 721

To Linacre (Thomas), 194, 403

Lubeck, to one of, 64

To Ludolf {qu. Adolf), 93

Lupset (Thomas), 420, 571, 637

To Lupset, 661

To Lutzenburg (Antony), 131, 138

144, 145. 157, 645
Lystrius (Gerard), 407, 690, 718
To Lystrius, 669

To Dr. Martin, 72

To Mauburnus (loannes), 141, 142

To Dr. Maurits (James), 172, 189,
199

Mayence (Archbp. of), 634

To Medici (John, Card.) from the
Abbot of St. Bertin, 158

To Molendinus. See Desmoulins

More (Thomas), 396, 416, 449,

456, 463, 47 1> 484, 488, 495,

578, 598, 655, 675

More to Gillis, 654
More to Ruthall, 190
To More, 103, 212, 253, 399, 461,
525> 531, 563. 574, 625, 640, 699
To More from Warham, 455, 644
Morillon (Guy), 514, 567
Mosellanus (Petrus), 540
Mountjoy (Lord), 210, 476, 493

To Mountjoy, 54, 76, 82, 104, 109,
121, 207, 290

To Mountjoy from Batt, in

To Mountjoy from Ammonius, 216

To Musurus from Sagundinus, 553

To Nantes (the Cardinal of), 244
To Naevius or Nevius, 291
Nesen (William), 322, 454, 480

(38)

Chronological Register of Epistles

To Nesen, 450, 603

To Nicasius, 63

NoviomagLis (Gerardus), 478, 705

To Noviomagus, 618, 653, 689

Nuenar (Count), 429

To Nuenar, 609, [673], 698

To Obrecht (John), 198
QEcolampadius, 541
Ofhuys (Charles), 663

Pace (Richard), 594

To Pace, 696, 716

Paliurus (Lucas), 576

To Paliurus, 604

To Paludanus (loannes), 177, 193

To Peter, brother of Erasmus, 2

Pirckheimer (Wilibald), 308, 346,

359, 382, 395, 723
To Pirckheimer, 312, 348, 393,

666

To Pirckheimer from Emser, 381

Piso (lacobus), 211

To Poncher (Stephen\ Bp. of Paris,

512
To a Prelate (French), 714
To a Prelate (Italian), 614
To a Prelate (young), 638, 648, 697
Pricellius (Georgius), 385
To Pyrrhus, 703

Regius (Urbanus), 372, 373

To Regius, 379, 380

Rescius (Rutger), 532

Reuchlin (John), 285, 405, 542

To Reuchlin, 293, 315, 445, 459,
686

Rhenanus (Beatus). See Beatus

Riario (Cardinal), 330

To Riario, 319

To Richard (Chaplain of Tunstall)>
617

To Rimaclus, 398

To Ruistre, Nicolas, Bishop of Arras,
173, 176

To Ruser (John), 596, 608

To Ruthall (Dr. Thomas), 192, 316,

425
To Ruthall from More, 190

To G. S., 252, 256, 267, 272

To O. S., 267

Sagundinus (Nicolaus), 570

Sagundinus to Musurus, 553

Sapidus (loannes), 313, 340, 341,
386

To Sapidus, 366

To Sasboud, 15

Sauvage (John), 424

To Sauvage, 397

Schiirer (Matthias), 585

To Schiirer, 302, 664

To Servatius, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
II, 184, 188, 200, 201, 289

To Servatius from Herman, 163
Sixtinus (loannes), loi, 254, 257,

418, 599
To Sixtinus, 102, 105, 627, 641
To Smith (Robert), 268
Snoy (Reyner), 179
Spalatinus (Georgius), 487, 682
Stromer (Henry), 557, 589, 635
To Stromer, 605

To Thaleius (Guilhelmus), 213

Theodorik (Francis). See Franci
Theodorik

Table of Correspondents

(39)

Tunstall (Cuthbert), 552, 636

Tunstall to Budd, 54S

To Tunstall, 580, 615, 616, 649

To Tunstall, from Bud(^, 564

To Tutor (James), 147, 153, 155,
167

Urbanus Regius. See Regius

To Ursewick (Christopher), 178,

402
Utrecht (Philip, Bp. of), 676
To Bp. of Utrecht, 529, 652, 688,

713

To Veer (Anne, lady of), 137
Viterius (Pelrus), 431,489
To Viterius, 247, 704
Voltz (Paul), 353, 357

Wales (Prince ofj. See Henry
Warham (William, Archbisho]) of

Canterbury), 261, 412, 539,

687

Warham to More, 455, 644

To Warham, 187, 205, 248, 260,

273> 384
Watson (John), 442, 556
To Watson, 494
To Wentford (Roger), 230, 266
To Werner (Nicolas), 49, 52, 70,

73> 169
To Whitfield (Richard), 83, 191
William Herman. See Herman.
Wimpfling (James), 218, 295, 369
To Wimpfling, 298, 375
To Winckel (Peter), i
To Wolsey (Thomas, Cardinal),

279> 294, 336, 446, 629
Worcester (Bishop of), 503
To Bp. of Worcester, 527, 623

To Young (Dr. John), 259

Zasius (Udalric), 296, 297, 301,
309> 333, 343, 352, 360, 363,
378, 392

To Zasius, 299, 306, 334, 345, 354,

364
Zwingli (Hulderic), 388

THE EPISTLES OF ERASiVIUS

PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.

Materials for biography of Erasmus. Compendium Vitse.
Some Autobiographical Matter from his Works. Extracts
from, Beatus Rhenanus.

jHE chronological arrangement of the Epistles of Erasmus,
which is one of the main objects of the present work, if it
be rightly carried out, cannot but supply important evidence
to correct and complete the story of his life. On the other
hand no arrangement of the correspondence can be satisfactory,
which fails to take account of independent biographical materials.
It is proposed therefore to devote the opening chapter of this book
to the other chief authorities for his biography during the period
which comes within its scope. The first writing of this kind that
claims our attention is the Compendium or Abridgment of his Life,
which has furnished the principal materials for the current history
of his early years. This document has been generally accepted as
Erasmus's own work, of which the original was enclosed by him in a
letter to his friend, Conrad Goclen, Professor of Latin at Louvain,
some twelve years before his death. If it is rightly attributed to the
pen of Erasmus, it was evidently not intended for publication in its
actual form, but to supply some memoranda, especially relating to
his origin and early history, to be used after his death at the discre-
tion of Goclen or of some other confidential friend, in case it should
be thought expedient to publish an authorized Life, or to correct the
errors of unauthorized biographers.

The Compendium, with the letter accompanying it, was first

printed in 1607, by Paul Merula, Professor of History at Leyden,

together with a considerable collection of unpublished epistles of

Erasmus, partly belonging to his early years, and partly to a late

VOL. I. B

2 Compendium of Life

period of his life. For the manuscript of the Compendium, with
its accompanying letter, he acknowledges his obligation to Otho
Werckman, in whose possession it had long been, and to whom
Merula's volume was dedicated ; the original autograph had been
lately put into his hands, but he had seen copies of it some time
before in the possession of Peter Scriverius and the brothers Lydii.
The facts are so stated in the editor's prefatory dedication to
Werckman, a translation of which is given in the Introduction to this
volume. Both the Compendium and the letter accompanying it were
edited by IMerula with a great appearance of care, the autograph
originals being frequently cited.

Of the subsequent history of these original documents very little
is known. Merula died in the same year in which his collection of
letters was published. The Life, together with some of the Epistles
printed by Merula (the juvenile letters being omitted), and some
additional Epistles, principally from the collection of Peter Scriverius,
was republished by Basson at Ley den in 1615. This work was
reprinted in 161 7, and republished at the same place by John Maire
in 1642 and 1649. The last edition has a preface by A. Thysius, in
which it is stated, in order that there might be no doubt about the
Life, that the original autograph of Erasmus was still preserved
entire in the library of Jerome Backer. It may be observed that a
person of this name was one of those to whom Merula was indebted
for contribution to his publication forty years before, and appears to
have been his kinsman. See Merula's Dedication. Nothing further
appears to be known of the existence of this manuscript, neither have
we any information, how it came into the possession of Werckman.

The unauthenticated history of the Compendium, and a criticism of
its language, — its abrupt sentences especially in the earlier part having
no resemblance to the ordinary style of its assumed author, — have led
to some doubt whether it can be trusted as a genuine writing of
Erasmus. This question has been raised by Dr.J.B. Kan {Eras?niansch
Gymnasium, 1881, pp. 3, 4; Erasmiana, in Rotterdamsch Jaarboekje,
1890, pp. 43-70; Nederlandsche Spectator, 1896, p. 409), who recalls a
suspicion suggested by Bayle in his article on Erasmus, in which the
Compendium is described as " une Vie d^Erasme composee par lui-
meme, a ce qu'on pretend, et publiee par Merula" (Bayle, Diet. Article
Erasme), and discusses the question of authenticity at considerable
length. His arguments are founded both upon the contents of the
writing itself, and upon the character of the editor, who is said to have

Authenticity of Compendium 3

introduced some forged fragments in his edition of Ennius. Dr. Kan's
conclusion appears to be, that the Compendium was a forgery of the
beginning of the seventeenth century, which was placed with Erasmus's
letter to Goclen (for this he appears to regard as genuine) in substitution
for the original Compendium totius vitae mentioned in the same letter,
which he supposes to have been lost or destroyed. A full discussion
of this doubt, which involves the question of the authenticity of the
Epistle to Goclen, and also indirectly of other letters not published in
Erasmus's lifetime or by his authorized literary executors, would occupy
more space than can be afforded to it here.^ But as it is intended
to give in this chapter a translation of the Compendium, a few-
observations may be added on the character of its contents, without
claiming to determine the question of its authorship.

If we judge the Compendium, not by its style or want of style, but
by its matter, the statements of fact which it contains appear for the
most part to be such as might not improbably proceed from Erasmus
himself. The account of the relation existing between his parents
and of the circumstances of his origin agrees both in its allegations
and in its omissions with what he might well have thought it expedient
under certain conditions to publish. The subsequent incidents of his
parents' lives, meagre and imperfect as the story is, are such as he
might have heard from his mother in his childhood ; for, owing to the
circumstances of his position, he probably had little personal inter-
course with his father. The account of his school-life at Deventer
and Bois-le-duc is more complete than any description of it we can
find elsewhere. In the paragraphs that follow, relating to his intro-
duction to conventual life, there is a reminiscence (inevitable, whether
recalled by Erasmus or another) of the elaborate history of the same
transaction contained in his Epistle to Grunnius (Chapter xxx.),
probably written nearly eight years before the date assigned to the
Compendium, but not published until some five years later. The
brother who is brought in so prominently by that narrative is here
suppressed, out of regard, as it might seem, to the character of
one or both of his parents, and yet we find some allusion to his
conduct in the mention of a " partner who betrayed his friend." In
the latter part of the Compendium, where we are able to test its

* In the Introduction to this volume some further observations will
be found upon the Epistles and documents ascribed to Erasmus, the authen-
ticity of which is in any way open to question

B 2

4 Conipendiinn of Life

accuracy by the evidence of the Letters, the main incidents of
Erasmus's life are briefly indicated with sufficient fidelity ; and the
description of his character with which the Abridgment ends, if not
written by Erasmus himself, is the work of some one who has caught
not unskilfully his manner of thought.

The following observation may be added. The Compendium, even
if regarded as apocryphal, is a document of considerable interest, its
statements having been accepted for nearly three centuries as the
principal authority for the early history of Erasmus, and having
furnished the plot of one of the most popular romances of our time.

Before the translation of the Compendium I have given the
commencement of the Epistle to Goclen, and the clause that
refers to the document sent with it. Of this Epistle a great part is
occupied with an account of the quarrel between Erasmus and Ulric
von Hutten, and of the proceedings, after Hutten's death, of his
friend, Eppendorf, by w^hich the writer represents his life to be
endangered. A postscript is added at the end of the Compendium,
which might more properly be inserted at the end of the Epistle, but
which has been left where it is found, in order that the reader may
have the document before him as much as possible in its original
shape, and be better able to form his own judgment about it. For the
same reason the biographical memoranda are printed immediately after
the Epistle without inserting any title or name, which may well have
been purposely omitted. In the edition of Merula the Compendium has
the following title, not intended, as it seems, to be read as part of the
original: "Compendium of the Life of Erasmus Roterodamus, whereof
he makes mention in the preceding Epistle." In other respects our
translation represents closely that edition. In the edition printed
by Basson at Leyden in 1615, some verbal alterations occur in the
first line, and part of the second is omitted, the following additional
words being placed at the head of the Compendium, where a name
is otherwise wanting : " That eternal miracle of nature, Desiderius
Erasmus." These words can scarcely be attributed to Erasmus, but
if we suppose them to be his, they may recall the well-known passage
of Sir Thomas Browne : "■ Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty
years, which to relate were not a history but a piece of Poetry, and
would sound to common ears like a Fable" {Religio Medici^ s. 11).
Browne, whose book was printed in 1642, had probably read the Vita
Erasmi. The translation of the Compendium follows the abruptness
of the original.

Epistle to Goclen 5

Erasmus to Goclen.*
( To be read alone and in private.) f

There remains the last act of this play, for the performance
of which a Pylades is needed, that is, someone like yourself.
For I have conceived this confidence in you, and have no
doubt that you will maintain the character which you have
hitherto borne. But profound silence is required, so that
you must not trust my secret even to your most intimate
friend. I would come myself, but it is a long and hazardous
journey, and I think my messenger is sufficiently safe. * *

But inasmuch as I am at times in peril of life, it remains
for me to commend to you, as the sincerest of friends,
that which I hold most dear, my memory, which I suspect
will be exposed to many calumnies. I send you therefore,
an abridgment of my whole life. It is an Iliad of woes, for
nothing was ever created more unfortunate than I. But there
will perhaps be some who will feign more evils still. * *

Basel, Saturday after Easter [2 April, 1524].$

The Life^ private.^

Born at Rotterdam on the vigil of Simon and Jude
(27 October). Numbers about fifty-seven years.]] Mother

* Merula, Vita Erasmi, 1607, p. i ; Erasmi Epistolx, Londini, 1642,
Praf. p. I ; Erasmi Opera, Lugd. Bat., torn. i. in Prsef. The Leiden edition
of the works of Erasmus is henceforth cited as C. When no volume is
named, vol. iii. (the volume of Epistles) is intended. See pp. 40, 41.

\ This letter is without year-date, and is attributed by Merula to 1523,
and by Jortin (i. 371) to 1525, but its proper date is shown by the recent
invitation to France mentioned in it (compare C. 743 f, 744 c, 784 b) by
the revision of the Catalogue of Lucubratio'-ns promised in the Postscript to
the Compendium (p. 12), which revision was printed by Froben in Sept., 1524 ;
and by the recent dedication to Viandalus. See p. 13, commentary.

§ 6 \Vios Xudpa. So printed by Merula, but omitted in later copies.

II Supputat annos circiter 57. So Merula, but unaccountably omitted in
later editions. See, as to the birthday and birth-year of Erasmus, pp. 13, 14-

6 Compendium of Life

was called Margaret, daughter of a physician named Peter.
She was of Zevenberge. He saw her two brothers at Dor-
drecht, nearly ninety years of age. Father was named
Gerard ; he had secret intercourse with Margaret in antici-
pation of marriage ; some say that words of betrothal had
passed between them. This affair gave great ofifence to the
parents and brothers of Gerard. His father was Helias, his
mother Catherine ; both lived to a great age, Catherine to
near ninety-five. There were ten brothers, — no sister, —
by the same father and mother ; all the brothers married.
Gerard was the youngest but one. It was the general wish
that out of so great a number one should be consecrated
to God. You know the humours of old people, and the
brothers wished to save the property from reduction, and
themselves to be provided with a hospitable resort. Gerard,
finding himself quite debarred from marriage by the opposi-
tion of all, took a desperate course ; he secretly left the
country, and sent on his way a letter to his parents and
brothers, with a hand clasping a hand and the sentence,
Farewell, I shall never see you more. The woman he had
hoped to make his wife was left with child. The boy was
nursed at his grandmother's. Gerard betook himself to
Rome. There he earned a sufiicient livelihood bv writing,
printing not being then in use. His handwriting was very
fine. And he lived after the fashion of youth. After a
time he applied his mind to honourable studies. He was
well versed in Latin and Greek. He was also no ordinarv
proficient in Jurisprudence. For Rome was then wonder-
fully stocked with learned men. He attended the lectures
of Guarino. He had made copies of all the authors with
his own hand. When his parents were informed that he
was in Rome, thev wrote to him that the vouns: woman

I J J CI

whom he had wished to marry was dead. He, taking
this to be true, was so grieved that he became a priest and
applied his whole mind to religion. When he returned
home, he found out the deception; but she never afterwards

School-days of Erasmus 7

had any wish to marry, nor did he ever touch her again.
He provided a liberal education for his boy, and sent him to
school when scarcely more than four years old : but in his
early years he made Httle progress in that unattractive sort
of learning for which he was not born. In his ninth year
he was sent to Deventer; his mother followed him to watch
over his tender age. That school was still barbarous. The
Pater Mens was read over, and the boys had to say their
tenses ; * Ebrardus and 'Joannes de Garlandia were
read aloud. t But Alexander Hegius and Zinthius were
beginning to introduce some better literature ; and at last
from his elder playmates who w^ere in Zinthius' class, he first
got scent of the better learning. Afterwards he sometimes
had instruction from Hegius, but only on festivals, when he
gave a lesson to all. In this school he reached the third
class. J Then a plague which at that time raged in the town,
carried off his mother, who left her son in his thirteenth
year. When the sickness became worse and worse every
day, so that the whole house where he lived was ravaged by
it, he returned home. Gerard on receiving the sad news
fell ill ; and died soon after. Both died not much over
forty years of age. He appointed three guardians, in whom

* Prsilegebatur Pater mens exigebantur tempora. Merula professes himself
in despair over Pater meits, and suggests that Gerard may have written some
book used in schools. Probably it was only an exercise in concords to be
repeated by the boys after the master, Pater mens, patris met, etc. It may be
assumed that the younger boys had no books. Hence the prelections.

f Among the books in Beatus Rhenanus' juvenile library (1502) was one
entitled Modus Latinitatis cum tractatulo de Orthographia by Ulricus
Ebrardus of Neuburg. (Knod, Bibliothek des B. Rhenanus^ p. 50.) Joannes
de Garlandia was an English poet of the thirteenth century, whose Faceius, a
poem on morals, was often printed at Deventer towards the end of the
fifteenth century. A book entitled Synonyvia Joannis de Garlandia was
printed by Pynson, London, 1496.

\ In the old German schools there were eight classes, the head class
being called the first, with removes after one year's satisfactory progress.
Kammel, Deuisch-Sclnilwesen^ p. 222, cited byRichter, Erasmus-studien^ p. 8.

8 Compendiujn of Life

he had the greatest confidence, the chief of them being
Peter Winckel, then schoolmaster at Gouda ; and he left a
moderate fortune, if it had been faithfully administered. The
boy was now sent to Bois-le-duc, when he was already ripe
for a University ; but they were afraid of a University, be-
cause they had decided to bring him up to Religion. There
he lived, that is to say he lost, nearly three years at the
Brothers' House, as they call it, in which Rombold then
taught. This class of teachers is now widely spread through
the world, a destruction to good intellects, and seminaries
of monasticism. Rombold, who was much pleased with the
capacity of the boy, began to solicit him to become one of
his flock. The boy excused himself on the score of youth.
A plague having arisen in the place, after he had suff"ered
some time with a quartan fever, he returned to his guardians,
having acquired by this time a sufficiently fluent style out
ol some good authors. One guardian had died of the
plague ; the other two, not having managed the property
well, began to arrange about a monastery. The youth, then
weak with the fever which had affected him for more than
a year, was not disinclined to piety, but shrunk from a
monastery. He was therefore allowed time for considera-
tion. His guardian employed friends to influence his
unsteady mind by enticements and threats ; and meanwhile
found a place for him in a monastery of Canons Regular, at a
College near Delft, named Sion, the principal house of that
Chapter. When the day for answering came, the youth
answered prudently, that he did not yet know, what the
world was, nor what a monastery was, nor yet what he was
himself ; consequently it seemed wiser, that he should pass
some years in the Schools, until he was better known to
himself. When he found the lad firmly saying this, Peter
fell foul of him at once. " It is all in vain then," said he,
" that I have taken the pains to get such a place for you by
great solicitations. You are a scoundrel and under no good
influence. I renounce your guardianship. Look out for

Erasmus at Stem 9

yourself how to get your living." The youth answered that
he accepted the renunciation, and was old enough not to
require guardians. When he saw that he made no way by
bluster, he put forward his brother, who was also a guardian,
to conduct the business. His plan was cajolery ; and there
were further promptings from all quarters. A partner he had,
who betrayed his friend.* The fever was pressing. Never-
theless, no monastery was acceptable to him, until by mere
chance he was making a visit to one of the same order at
Emmaus or Stein, near Gouda.f There he fell in with Cor-
nelius, formerly his chamber-fellow at Deventer, who had not
yet put on the religious habit ; he had seen Italy, but had
come back without having learnt much. This young man, for
a purpose of his own, began to depict with marvellous fluency
that holy sort of life, the abundance of books, the ease, the
quiet, the angelic companionship, and what not ? A childish
affection drew Erasmus towards his old schoolfellow. Some
friends enticed and some pushed him on. The fever
weighed upon him. He chose this spot, having no taste for the
other. He was tenderly treated % for a time, until he should
put on the sacred robe. Meanwhile, young as he was, he
felt the absence of real piety there. And yet the whole
flock were led by his influence to study. Before profession
he was preparing to go away, but was detained partly by
human shame, partly by threats, and partly by necessity.§

* Habebat sodalem qui prodidit amicum. These words apply to Peter, the
natural brother of Erasmus, who, having been placed by his father under the
same guardians, yielded to persuasion and entered the Convent. Perfidus
ilk prodito fratre accepit iugum (Epistle to Grunnius, C. 1824 F). See p. 15.

t Emmaus was the name of the Convent, Stein of the locality. See p. 41.

X Ladabar with side-note, sic in autogr. Merula ; laciabatur, Scriverius.
The expression is used in the Epistle to Grunnius. C. 1827 B.

§ Merula notes that at this point occur in the margin, apparently in the
same hand, the words Professus est. The profession is hastily passed over
in the text as if Erasmus was unwilling to mention it. The circumstances
are detailed at greater length in the Episde to Grunnius (Chapter xxx.).

10 Compendium of Life

At last, by a lucky chance, he became known to the
Bishop of Cambrai, Henry of Bergen, who was then hoping
for a Cardinal's hat, and would have had one but for w^ant
of ready money. For the journey he required a person
skilled in Latin. By him accordingly Erasmus w^as taken
out of the Monastery with the authority of the Bishop of
Utrecht, which was enough of itself ; but he also obtained
the authority of the Prior and General. He entered the
Bishop's household, retaining however his dress. When the
Bishop had lost all hope of the Hat, and Erasmus w^as con-
scious of a certain want of constancy in his affection for
those about him, he contrived to be sent to Paris for the
purpose of study. Some yearly allowance was promised ;
nothing was sent. That is the fashion with Princes.

At Paris, in the College of Montaigu, from the bad eggs
and an infected bedchamber he contracted a disease, that
is, an ill condition of body, having been before free from
taint. He therefore returned to the Bishop ; was honor-
ably received ; and recovered from his sickness at Bergen.

He went back to Holland with the purpose of remaining
among his comrades. But by their unbiassed advice he
returned to Paris. There, deprived of the help of his
Maecenas, he lived rather than studied, and was obliged to
return every year to his own country by reason of the plague
that continued in that city for many years. He shrunk from
the study of Theology, feeling no inclination for it, as he
feared he might upset all their foundations, * with the result
that he should be branded as a heretic. At last, when the
plague raged all the year round, he was compelled to remove
to Louvain.

Before this time he had visited England to gratify lord
Mountjoy, then his pupil and now his Maecenas, but more
friendly than munificent. At that time he conciliated the

* Quod sentiret animum nori propensum, [fore] ut omnia illorum funda-
nienta subverteret. The word/c?r^, or an equivalent, appears to be needed.

England and Italy 1 1

goodwill of all the worthy people in England ; especially by
his conduct, when he was pillaged at the port of Dover, and
not only abstained from any act of revenge, but soon after-
wards issued a publication in praise of the King and of the
whole realm. At last he was again summoned to England
from France by great promises ; * and it was at this time that
he won the friendship of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
When however the promised advantages were not forth-
coming, he went to Italy, which he had always longed to
visit. He passed more than a year at Bologna, at an
advanced time of life, that is when he was about fortv.
Then he betook himself to Venice, and published the
Adages ; thence to Padua, where he wintered ; and soon
after to Rome, whither a wide-spread and honorable repu-
tation had preceded him. His principal friend was Raphael,
Cardinal of St. George. He might well have obtained an
ample fortune, if he had not been recalled to England on
the death of Henry VH. and the accession of Henry VHI.
by letters from friends promising the highest advantages.
He decided on settling there for life ; but when even then
the promises were not fulfilled, he withdrew to Brabant,
being invited to the court of Charles, now Emperor, to whom
he was made a Councillor by the procurement of John le
Sauvage, Great Chancellor.

The rest is known to you. His reason for changing his
dress was explained in the first pamphlet in which he replied
to Lee's calumnies. f His appearance you can describe
yourself. His health has always been delicate, and conse-
quently he has been much subject to fever, especially at the

* A similar statement occurs in the Catalogue of Lucubrations. See p. 393.
It is probable that some prospect of preferment was held out by his English
friends. Compare Epistle 184.

t This first reply to Lee is not in the Opera Erasmi, Leiden edition, but is
printed in the Appendix to Jortin's Life. Jortin, Life of Erasmus, ii. 496 —
528. The change of dress Is explained, p. 523. There is no reference there
to the adventure at Bologna, elsewhere narrated in connection with this
change. See further, p. 29.

12 Compendium of Life

season of Lent, on account of the fish diet, the mere smell of
which was always offensive to him.

His character was simple, and so averse to lying, that even
as a child he hated any boys that had that habit, and in his
old age the very sight of such persons caused him a shudder.
Among friends his language was free, sometimes too much
so ; and, often as he was deceived, he could not learn to
distrust his friends. He was rather fastidious, and never
wrote a thing which pleased himself. In the same w^ay he
took no pleasure in his own face, and his friends had great
difficulty in extorting from him his consent to be painted. For
dignities and wealth he had a constant contempt, not caring
for anything so much as leisure and freedom. A candid
judge of the learning of others, and a singular encourager of
talent, if his means had been sufficient. In the advancement
of good letters, no one had greater success, and on this
account he incurred the bitter jealousy of barbarians and
monks. Up to his fiftieth year he had never attacked any
author, nor been attacked by any, and had determined to
keep his pen altogether free from bloodshed. The first
attack made on him was by Faber ; for the movement of
Dorpius came to nothing. In replying he was always
courteous. The Lutheran tragedy burdened him with in-
tolerable odium, being torn in pieces by either party,
while he tried to benefit both.

I will add something to the Catalogue of my works,
from which much information may be collected. Gerardus
Noviomagus has written to me, that some people are pro-
posing a life of Erasmus, part in verse and part in prose.
He w-anted to be privately instructed himself, but I have not
ventured to send. If you happen to talk with him, you will
be able to communicate some information. But it is not
expedient to try anything of a Life, unless circumstances
require it. But of this perhaps on another occasion, or even
when we meet.

Birth-day of Erasmus 13

When I had written the above, Berckman came in, laden
with lies. I know how difficult it is to keep a secn^t, never-
theless to you alone I trust everything. I have celebrated
our Viandalus ; Levinus will show the pamphlet. En-
courage Ceratinus, whenever he reads over an author, to
make some notes. Some regard must be paid to Froben ;
I cannot be always with him. And I am burdened with
much jealousy on his account. You know it is the case
of two of a trade.* Again farewell.

Berckman, named in the last clause, was a bookseller of Antwerp
(see Ep. XXX. 17, C. 822 c), frequently mentioned by Erasmus as
' Francis bookseller/ and called by Beatus Rhenanus, ' Francis Fire-
man/ who was employed by Erasmus as his agent in 15 14, and by
his dealings with Froben, was the means of bringing Erasmus to
Basel. See p. 34 and Epistles 283, 288. Levinus appears by the
letter to Goclen to have been its bearer, and sent on by Erasmus to
England. Melchior Viandalus was honoured by the dedication of
Erasmus's Paraphrase of the Third Psalm, dated 25 Feb. 1524, and
published by Froben in that year (C. v. 234). Jacobus Ceratinus (van
Hoorn), who appears to have been at this time at Louvain, was recom-
mended by Erasmus in the following year to be Greek Professor at
Leipzig. Ep. xx. 27, 31 ; C. 855, 856.

The following observations upon some points in the early biography
may serve as a commentary on the Compendium.

1. Birth-day. According to this document Erasmus was born on
the eve of the festival of SS. Simon and Jude (Oct. 27). But in the
epistle to Marcus Laurinus, dated i Feb., 1523 (Ep. xxiii. 6, C. 750 D),
Erasmus says that his birthday was that of these apostles (Oct. 28) ;
and in his verses on Old Age, written in his 40th year, he names the
latter day (v. Cal. Nov.) as his natal day. This date has been
followed by Beatus Rhenanus, p. 23. If the birth took place on the
eve of the festival, the anniversary might naturally be kept on the
feast-day.

2. Birth-year. The year of birth is not distinctly stated in the
Compendium, but the estimate of his age in the second clause,

* Nosti quam sint figuli. See Adag. Chil. i. 2, 25.

14 Parentage of Erasmus

compared with the assumed date of the letter to Goclen, supplies the
year 1466. It is remarkable that this clause, which is found in the
Compendium as first printed by Merula^ has been omitted in all the
subsequent editions, and has consequently escaped the notice of all
the biographers. The passages relating to his age contained in his
own writings are very numerous, the author generally expressing
himself with the air of certainty with which persons brought up by
their parents are accustomed to speak about their own age, and with
only two or three exceptions point to 1466 as the year of his birth.
The evidence, which excludes any reasonable doubt, is described
more fully in a note at the end of this volume. It is sufficient to say
here, that the apparent differences which have been found in the
statements of Erasmus on this subject, are in a great measure removed
by the corrected dating of his Epistles.

3. Parentage of Erasmus. It should be observed, that for all the
facts mentioned in p. 6, from the first line to the last, including the
names of his parents and kinsmen, the biographers of Erasmus have
depended upon the information of the Compendium. But we shall see
(Chapterxxix.) that in the year i5i6Erasnius foundit expedient to apply
for a Papal Dispensation to guard himself against objections, founded
on the circumstances of his birth, which might seriously affect his
status and fortune, and that the admissions which it was necessary
for him to make in this proceeding place his illegitimate birth beyond
doubt, and also shew that, beside the fact that his parents were not
married, he had reason to apprehend that there was an impediment
which involved a further condemnation of their union. The nature
of this impediment is not explained, but there can be little doubt that
it arose from the clerical status of his father. According to the
Compendium Gerard was not in priest's orders at the time of his
intimacy with Margaret ; but the Dispensation obtained by Erasmus,
if it has been rightly construed, was intended to cover this objection.
See chapter xxxiii. And it may be observed that the age of Gerard at
his death, as stated in the Compendium, would make him about twenty-
seven years old at the commencement of 1466, an age at which he
might well have already taken priest's orders.

The circumstances of Erasmus's birth must have been more or less
notorious in his own neighbourhood when he was young, and known
for some time after to those who cared to remember them. But there
is no evidence that in his lifetime his foreign friends, except his inti-
mate confidants in England and at Rome, knew anything of his illegi-

Erasmus's brother Peter iS

timacy until some of his assailants in his old age took the pains to
discover it. One of the pamphlets of Scaliger, in which he made an
ungenerous attack upon the private history of a literary adversary,
seems for the time to have been suppressed by Erasmus. And the
allusions of Eppendorf to his base birth do not appear to have been
printed in his lifetime. As to these works, see Bayle, Diet. Art.
Erasme. In the funeral sermon preached upon his death by Guiliel-
mus Insulanus, he is described as having been born at Rotterdam of
respectable parents in moderate circumstances (C. x. 1850). Jovius,
writing soon after his death, when the scandal had been divulged,
describes him as the son of a parish priest living near Gouda. And
this, until the publication of the Compendium, was about the sum of
what was known or believed about his birth. The origin of his names
is discussed, p. 37-39-

4. Erasmuses brother Peter. The Compendium contains no
mention of Erasmus's brother Peter, though there is an unexplained
allusion to him as a sodalis, upon whose assistance Erasmus had
relied (p. 9). One of the early letters of Erasmus, not published in
his life time (Epistle 2), was addressed to this brother, and one of the
poems of William Herman, printed by Erasmus in 1497, was inscribed
ad Petrum Girardum Rotterdammensem Herasmi germanum virum
turn perhumanum turn eruditissimum. It appears from this address
and also from an expression referring to Servatius in Epistle 2, that
Peter, as well as Erasmus, was a native of Rotterdam. In his later
years Erasmus may well have been disinclined to revive the history
of a kinsman, whose existence threw an additional slur on the memory
of both his parents. For in the Epistle to Grunnius (Chapter xxx.),
where Erasmus is introduced under the name of Florence, and Peter
under that of Antony, the two brothers have the same mother
as well as the same father: Adiuodufn pueri rnatre orbati sunt;
pater aliquanto post decedens exile quidem patrimonium reliquit.
C. 1822 C If we suppose the Compendium to have been written by
Erasmus relying upon the information derived from his mother, the
hope that she once entertained of becoming the wife of Gerard may
be referred to the period preceding the birth of Peter, when it may
be presumed that Gerard was not a priest. According to the Epistle
to Grunnius, probably written in 15 16, Erasmus was about three years
younger than his brother, who is described as if he were then living.
C. 1822 c. See Chapter xxx. According to the same authority he
entered the convent where their guardians wished to place them both,

1 6 Residence of Family

which appears from the Compendium to have been that of Sion, near
Delft, a more important Augustinian monastery than that of Stein.
We do not know when Peter died, but in speaking of the death
of Froben, which occurred towards the end of 1527, Erasmus alludes
to the loss of a brother, which had not affected him like that of his
friend. Ep. xxiii. 9; C. 1053 E.

5. Residejice of the Family. The Compendium does not mention
the residence of Erasmus's father or grandfather. Subsequent tra-
dition pointed to Gouda as their home (Epistle of Baudius to Merula,
C. 19 1 7, D.E.); and this is confirmed by a passage of Erasmus,
in which he speaks of Herman of Gouda as conterraneus mens
(Apol. adv. Sutorem, C. ix. 788), and by the fact that his education
began under a schoolmaster of that place. C. 1822 D. But it is
remarkable that both Erasmus and his brother took their names from
Rotterdam. We have no satisfactory evidence to show what was the
connection of their parents with that town, which may possibly have
been their residence at the time of the birth of their children. The
story that Margaret was sent there to conceal her condition at the
time of Erasmus's birth rests upon no very certain foundation.
C. 19 1 7 E. The house in v/hich Erasmus was born is believed to be
known, Wijde Kerkstraat, No. 3, near the church of St. Laurence, the
architecture of which dates from the period of Erasmus's childhood.

6. Early Teaching. The first school to which Erasmus was sent
when four years old appears to have been that of Peter Winckel of
Gouda, afterwards his guardian (Epistle i.) ; and we may presume
that his instruction was continued at Utrecht. See p. 25.

7. Deventer School. The school of Deventer was not originally,
as some of Erasmus's biographers have supposed, an institution of the
Brethren of the Common Life, but a school belonging to the Chapter
of the church of St. Lebuin ; although many of the Brethren were
employed in it, and they had several establishments in the town,
including an endowed Hall called the Rich Frater-house or Florence
House, founded by Florence Radewynsz, the friend and ally of Gerard
Groote, the founder of the Brotherhood, who was himself a native of
Deventer. Alexander Hegius, the rector under whom the school
obtained its great celebrity, does not appear to have been himself a
Brother, but Sinthen (or Zinthius), one of his most able assistants,
belonged to the Society. And it may be observed that Erasmus never
speaks of Deventer with the dislike which he shows for the schools
controlled by the Brothers.

Deventer School 17

The number of scholars in the time of Hegius rivalled that of a
University, amounting, it is said, at one time to 2200. After his
death in 1498, the number fell off; but as late as 1510, when Deventer,
which was under the dominion of the Bishops of Utrecht, was attacked
by Charles, duke of Gueldres, more than 600 students were among
the defenders of the town (Chronicle of Holland, cited by Revius,
Daventria Illustrata, p. 181). The mastership of Hegius appears
to have begun in 1465, since he was master for thirty-three years
(Oratio de Rud. Langio, Hamelman, Opera, p. 257), and retained the
office to the end of his life. The date of his burial in the Church of St.
Lebuin at sunset on St. John the Baptist's day, 1498, is recorded in a
manuscript book, entitled Auctarium de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, be-
longing to the Library of the University of Bonn, by John Boutzbach,
Prior of the Benedictine Convent of Lachersee, who describes himself
as Hegius's last disciple, having been five months under his tuition
when he died. The school of Deventer has never been altogether
suppressed, and the existing Gymnasium claims to represent this
ancient institution. For information used in this and the preceding
paragraph I am indebted to the Rev. J. C. van Slee, the learned
Pastor and Librarian of Deventer.

The description of the studies of the junior class at Deventer given
in the Compendium may be compared with a retrospect contained in
Erasmus's tract ^^ Pueris Instituendis published in 1529. 'Heavens,'
he exclaims, ' what an age was that, when with so much ceremony the
couplets of John of Garland were read out to the boys accompanied
by a prolix commentary, and a great part of the school time was
employed in dictating, repeating, and saying by heart, some silly
verses.' (C. i. 514 F.) We have here the same picture of boys taught
the elements of Grammar without books ; and the same expression
{exigere) is used for hearing the boys say their tasks. See p. 7, note.
The master read the grammar aloud, the boys repeating his words ;
he then heard them say their tenses, concords, or versified rules.

8. Time of leaving Deventer. Erasmus, according to the Compen-
dium, was in his thirteenth year when his mother died ; and a poem
has been preserved {Carmen Bucolicum, C. viii. 561) composed by him
* at the age of fourteen, when he was still under Hegius at Deventer/
which place, according to his epistle, dated 17 April, 15 19, he left
at that age (C. 429 a). In the Catalogue of Lucubrations he says
that he saw Rodolphus Agricola at Deventer, when he was a boy
of about twelve. See p. 20. Agricola appears, in fact, to have been at
VOL. I. C

1 8 Later School-days

Deventer, after his return from Italy, in August or September, 1480,
when Erasmus was a year or two older than the age he mentions.
See the letters of Agricola, Hartfelder, p. 20, 23 ; and, as to the date,
Richter, Erasmus, App. xiv. The date of Erasmus's departure from
Deventer is further shown by his epistle last cited, where he adds that,
when he left that place, the river was not yet spanned by a bridge.
According to Revius {Daventria Illustrata, p. 128) the building of
the bridge was begun, i August, 1481, and finished, 16 March, 1482.
Erasmus having completed his fourteenth year in October, 1480, we
may conclude that he left Deventer about that time.

9. School of Bois-le-duc. We shall see that Beatus Rhenanus
appears to know nothing of this school, as he expressly says that
Erasmus was thrust into a convent of Canons Regular out of the
school of Deventer, which he calls a fertile seminary of monks. But
we learn from the epistle to Grunnius (Chapter xxx.), that ' Florence,'
when ripe for a University, was sent with his brother to a school of
the ' Collationary Brothers,' described as a seminary of monasticism.
Beatus appears to have erroneously applied this description to Deven-
ter. For the locality of Erasmus's later school and the name of Rombold
we depend entirely upon the Compendium. There is no doubt that the
Brothers of the Common Life had a school at Bois-le-duc. The name
Collationarii appears to be founded upon their conferences with their
pupils, which were called collationes. According to the Grunnius
Epistle, * Florence ' stayed at this school more than two years, and was
in his sixteenth year when he entered the Convent. C. 1523 E, 1525 B.
Epistle 290 alludes to his profession in his seventeenth year.

10. Aversion to lying. The sentence on this subject in p. 12 is
abbreviated from a passage in the Spotigia adversus aspergines
Hutteni, written in August, 1523. C. x. 1663 F. It may be observed
that in both places, the sin which is specially represented as repugnant
to Erasmus is mendacity in others. In the Treatise de Lingua the
habit of Lying is strongly condemned. C. iv. 698, 701. But his
arguments upon the quarrel with Eppendorf do not display a high
standard of truthfulness. C. 1078 CD. Compare p. 366. Neither do
his Epistles generally give the impression of a scrupulous observance
of truth in the minor matters of life. He probably shared the senti-
ment expressed by More in one of his letters, where he says that
Erasmus was aware that he (More) was not so superstitiously veracious
as to shrink from a fib as he would from a murder (C. 220 A). On the
other hand it may be asserted, that though Erasmus was incapable of

Anecdote of childhood 19

the calm resolution which animated his friend in laying down his life
for what he believed to be a principle of importance^ he was habitu-
ally honest in the expression of his opinions upon subjects in which
the interests of humanity or religion were concerned. He could not
be induced to sell his support to a cause which he did not approve ; and
while cautious of his personal safety, he never surrendered his inde-
pendence of judgment.

It may be worth while to add here an anecdote of the childhood of
Erasmus from a tract already quoted (p. 17), in which he made one of
his vigorous protests against the cruelties practised in schools.

De Pueris Instituendis. C. i. 504, 505.

There are some children whom you may kill but can-
not make better by blows, whereas by affection and kind
words you may lead them where you please. This was my
own nature as a child, when my teacher, who had a special
regard for me as a boy of great promise, conceived the idea
that he would like to try how I should bear a flogging. He
therefore charged me with some offence, of which I had
never dreamed, and punished me for it. The effect was to
dispel all my love of study, and to bring on a fit of discou-
ragement and melancholy, which almost broke my heart,
and led to an attack of ague. When the master perceived
his mistake, he expressed his regret to his friends, saying
that he had almost destroyed a genius before he was aware
of it. This master was not a stupid, nor an unlearned, nor,
as I judge, a bad man ; he saw his error, too late for me.
But from my story you may imagine, that a vast number of
the happiest characters are ruined by ignorant, ill-tempered
and cruel masters, who find a pleasure in inflicting pain.
Such men may be fit to be butchers or hangmen, but not to
be guides or instructors of youth.

It is useless to speculate to which of Erasmus's schoolmasters this'
anecdote relates. The fact that he was suffering from ague when he
left Bois-le-duc (C. 1825 b) is not sufficient to inculpate his master

C 2

20 Catalogue of Lucubrations

there, who had some respect as well as affection for Erasmus, then
in his precocity almost a man. See p. 8, and Epistle to Grunnius,
Chapter xxx. He was sickly at various times of his childhood, and
the incident may have occurred when he was a much younger boy.

At the end of the Compendium, p. 12, the Catalogue of Lucubra-
tions, written by Erasmus in 1523 and revised in 1524, is referred to
as a source from which further biographical particulars might be
drawn. For his literary biography the whole of this work is important.
The following extract has a personal interest.

Catalogue of Lucubrations. C. i. Prsef jfortin ii. 416.

My feeling about my lucubrations is much like that which
parents have about children that are deformed or sickly, or
otherwise such as to bring disgrace or misfortune upon their
progenitors ; and I am all the less satisfied with myself,
when I think that, while what is amiss in children cannot
always be ascribed to their parents, the faults of books can
be imputed to no one but their authors. Unless indeed we
take to task the infelicity of times and countries. When I
was a boy, good letters were beginning to revive in Italy,
but the art of printing being then either not yet discovered
or known to very few, no books were current among us,
and a deep calm prevailed under the reign of those who
taught the most illiterate of letters. It v/as Rodolphus
Agricola who first brought with him from Italy some gleam
of a better literature. When I was about twelve years old,
it was my fortune to see him at Deventer, but that was all.
It is of no little consequence to an author, in what country,
in what age, and with reference to whose judgment he writes,
and also who are his opponents. For our wits are sharpened
by a distinguished antagonist, and arts are nourished by ap-
plause. Destitute of all such aids, some secret natural
impulse drove me to good literature. Discouraged even
by my masters, I stealthily drank in what I could from

Literary habits 21

whatever books came to my hand ; I practised my pen ; I
challenged my comrades to enter the lists with me, little
thinking that the printing press would some day betray such
trifles to the world. These circumstances, if they cannot
justify, may at least extenuate my faults. But there are
some things which I am not able and do not wish to defend.
It is most important for any one who wishes to obtain an
honourable name by his writings, to choose that subject for
which he is naturally fitted and in which he is most strong.
This is what I have never done, as I have either been led
to my subject by accident, or have undertaken some task
with more regard to the wishes of friends than to my own
judgment. The next point is, that you should treat your
subject carefully, dwell upon it long, and revise your book
frequently before it sees the light. For my part, whatever
I take in hand I generally finish without stopping, and have
never been able to swallow the tediousness of correction.
In this way I usually experience what Plato speaks of.
Being too much in a hurry at the beginning, I am delayed
at the end ; and after a hasty publication I am sometimes
compelled to remodel the whole work from beginning to
end. Consequently I wonder myself, that there are persons,
especially when our age has become so learned, who care to
read my books. That such persons are, is shown by the
many editions issued by the printers.

But you have been long expecting a catalogue, not an
apology. I will therefore first give an account of what I
wrote in verse, to which kind of study I was as a boy more
inclined, so that it was with some difiiculty I turned my
attention to prose composition. I succeeded easily, if
indeed I succeeded at all ; and there was no kind of poetry
I did not try. The pieces that have been fortunately lost
or hidden, we will leave to rest, and according to the
proverb, let sleeping dogs lie. It was at Paris that our
temerity was first betrayed to the world, where my friends

22 Poetical works

published a poem addressed to Faustus Andrelinus in heroic
hnes with alternate tetrameters ; also another in hendeca-
syllables to Robert Gaguin, who was at the time much in
esteem at Paris, and another to the same in Glyconic and
Asclepiadean mixed. Then there was the poem on the Hut
in which Jesus was born ; I do not remember whether any-
thing else. On another occasion we published the Expos-
tulation of Jesus with the man perishing by his own default.
But many years before I had written a poem on the Arch-
angel Michael at the request of a great man over whose church
the Archangel presided. In this I so tempered my style
that it might have passed for prose, but he did not dare to
put it up, because it was so poetical that, as he said, it might
be taken for Greek ; such was the infelicity of those times.
After the pains I had spent upon it, my liberal friend re-
turned the poem, and offered me money enough to buy a
pint of wine. I thanked him and declined the present with
this reason, that it was bigger than was suitable to my own
littleness. There is no kind of composition to which I have
given less attention than to epigrams, though some of my
epigrams were collected by partial friends, and edited at
Basel. To make the book more lively, they were joined with
those of More, who is very happy in this kind of composition.

As to the publication of his early poems, see pp. 86, 198. The poems
to Faustus and Gaguin are to be found, C. i. 12 17; the verses a'^ Casa
Natalitia pueri lesu, the Expostulation and the Ode to St. Michael,
C. V. 1317-1321. Of his other metrical compositions Erasmus recalls
the poem on Old Age written during his journey to Italy in 1506 (see p.
417), and his translations from Greek Tragedies, which we shall have
occasion to mention hereafter (Epistles 187, 205). The further descrip-
tion of his writings contained in the Catalogue of Lucubrations tra-
verses the whole field of his literary labours, and is too long for
translation here. As to his early poems, see further, pp. 86, 141-144.

For his personal history, after the extracts already cited, and the
Epistles, which form the main material of this work, the chief authorities
are two dedicatory Prefaces by his friend Beatus Rhenanus, prefixed,

Preface to Origen 23

one to the edition of Origen, 1536, and the other to the Works of
Erasmus, 1540. The Preface to the edition of Origen contains, to-
gether with a most interesting narrative of his last days, the following
short passage relating to the date of his birth and to the studies of his
youth.

Beatus Rhenanus to Herman of Wted, Archbishop of
Cologne. Origenis Opera, Basel, 1536.*

As to the year in which the birth of Erasmus took place
we have no certain evidence, though the day is ascertained,
namely the 28th October, the Feast of the Apostles Simon
and Jude. His apprenticeship in letters was begun at De-
venter, where he imbibed the rudiments of both languages
under Alexander Hegius, a native of Westphalia, who had
made the acquaintance of Rodolphus Agricola shortly after
his return from Italy, and been taught Greek by him ; he
being the first person to import into Germany a knowledge
of that language. As a boy Erasmus knew the Comedies
of Terence as familiarly as his own fingers, having a most
tenacious memory and clear head.

With the exception of the rudiments he may be said to
have been self-taught. For the visit, w^hich later in his life,
in company with the sons of the English king's physician,
he made to Italy (where he was for a while preceptor to the
Archbishop of St. Andrew's in Scotland, then at Siena) was
made for the purpose of seeing that famous country, and
not for hearing Professors. For when at Bologna, he did
not attend any lectures ; but contented with the friendship
of Paulus Bombasius (who afterwards died at Rome in the
time of Leo X.) pursued his studies at home, being then
collecting his Adages, which were shortly after published
by Aldus Manutius. He taught at Louvain and at Cam-
bridge, and also privately at Paris, where in his younger

* Reprinted in the Prefaces to the London edition of the Epistles, and to
Le Clerc's Opera Erasmt, vol. i.

24 Biography by Rhenanus

days he studied Theology. He afterwards received the
Doctor's cap at the University of Turin on his journey to
Italy. His patrons were Henry of Bergen, Bishop of
Cambrai, William Mountjoy, and William Warham, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury and Primate of England, the most
liberal of all, who is often mentioned in his books. His
friends were John Colet, Grocin, Latimer, Linacre, and
Thomas More in England ; Peter Gillis at Antwerp ; and
Conrad Goclen at Louvain. His figure was small but well
knit, his constitution delicate and easily affected by any
trifling changes, as of wine, food or climate.

At Basel he lived some time with John Froben, and
afterwards by himself in another house belonging to Froben.
At a later time, when he returned from Freiburg, he lived
with Jerome Froben, John's son, and there he died.

Schlettstadt, 1536.

The following extract is from the Dedication by Beatus Rhenanus
to the Emperor Charles V. of the collected Works of Erasmus, pub-
lished at Basel in 1540. It will be seen that the details given by
Beatus of Erasmus's childhood and early life do not always agree with
the Compendium. The description of his residence at Paris may be
confronted with the narrative of that part of his life presented in the
present volume by means of a careful arrangement of his letters. The
obsers-ations of Rhenanus upon the University of Paris and its
professors derive some importance from the fact that he was himself
a student of that University, w^here he commenced his studies in
April 1503, and continued his residence until the autumn of 1507.
The other parts of the biography that have an especial interest are the
reminiscences (derived, as we may presume, from Erasmus's conversa-
tion) of his Italian journey, of which we otherwise know so little, the
details of his literary labours at Basel, of w^hich Beatus was the
witness and partner, and the description of his person and manners,
which were so familiar to the writer.

With reference to the opening paragraph we may observe, that
Erasmus w^as born under the immediate sovereignty of Philip the
Good, duke of Burgundy and count of Holland, who died 13 July
1467, a lineal ancestor of Charles V. through his grandmother Mary,

Childhood of Erasmus 25

daughter of Charles the Bold, and heiress of Burgundy and the Low
Countries. The family of Erasmus were living at Gouda under the
sovereignty of the Bishop of Utrecht, who was the temporal as wel^
as the spiritual lord of a large part of his diocese.

Beatus Rhenaniis to Charles V. Opera Erasmi, 1540,
Praef. Ep. Pr^ef. xv. ; C. i. in Prsef.

Erasmus was born in the early years of the empire of
your great-grandfather Frederic III. on the 28th of October,
at Rotterdam in Holland, a province of Lower Germany,
formerly held by the Batavi^ but now better known to all
students as the cradle of Erasmus, than from the memory
of its old inhabitants, however renowned they may have
been for prowess in war. As his birthplace the town of
Rotterdam will always be entitled to the reverence of the
learned. The next praise is claimed by Deventer, where
he had his education, having been before a choir-boy in
Utrecht Cathedral, where after the fashion of such churches
he had been employed for the sake of his small high-pitched
voice. The head master of the school of Deventer at that
time was Alexander Hegius of Wesphalia, a man not
deficient in scholarship, with some knowledge of Greek. This
he acquired from Rodolphus Agricola, with whom he was
intimate upon the return of the latter from Italy, where he
had attended the lectures of Guarino of Verona, who was
then professor at Ferrara, and of several other celebrated
scholars. The ability of Erasmus was soon shown by the
quickness with which he understood, and the fidelity with
which he retained, whatever he was taught, surpassing all
the other boys of his age. Among the Brothers, as they
were called, who are not monks but like them in their mode
of living and their simple and uniform dress, was John
Sintheim, a man of good learning for that time, as is shown
by the Grammatical Commentaries which he published, and
who attained a great name in the schools of Germany.

26 Erasmus at the Convent

This class of long-cloaked cenobites are employed in the
work of education ; and Sintheim was so delighted with the
progress of Erasmus, that on one occasion he embraced
the boy, exclaiming, " Well done, Erasmus, the day will
come when thou wilt reach the highest summit of erudi-
tion ; " and having said this, dismissed him with a kiss.
Every one will admit, that his prophecy came true.*

Erasmus soon after lost both his parents ; and by the per-
sistence of his guardian, who wished to shake off the burden
of his charge, he was thrust from the school of Deventer, a
most fertile seminary of all sorts of monks, into a convent of
Canons Regular.t In that place he had for several years
as a partner in study, William Herman of Gouda, a youth
devoted to literature, and author of a book called Odariim
sylva. Assisted and encouraged by this companionship,
there was no volume of the Latin authors that he did not
peruse. By day and by night they were employed in study;
and the time that others of their age spent idly in jesting,
sleeping, and feasting, these two devoted to poring over
books and practising their pen. The Bishop of Cambrai,
Henry of Bergen, having heard of his fame, invited Erasmus,
after he had been ordained, to join him, when he was him-
self preparing to visit Rome. He saw in Erasmus a person
endowed with cultivated manners and of great ability in
learning and eloquence, as was shown by his elegantly
written Epistles. It was evident that such a companion
would be creditable as well as useful in case of any inter-
course or correspondence with the Pope or Cardinals.
Some cause however, which I cannot explain, prevented the
Bishop from undertaking this journey. William Herman

* A similar prophecy is attributed by later writers to Rodolphus Agricola
(Val. Andreas, Biblioth. Belg.^. 174; Revius, JDaventria Illustrata^-^. 134), a
natural sequence to Erasmus's own recollection of that scholar. See p. 18.

f Beatus passes without mention Erasmus's later school, which is described
in the Letter to Grunnius as a seminary of monasticism. See p. 18.

The Bishop of Cambrai 27

was certainly much grieved at Erasmus being separated
from him, and expressed his sorrow in one of his Odes.

At nunc sors nos divellit, tibi quod bene vertat,

Sors peracerba mihi.
Me sine solus abis ; tu Rheni frigora et Alpeis

Me sine solus adis.
Italiam, Italiam laetus penetrabis amoenam.

Although the Bishop changed his mind about going to
Italy, he still kept Erasmus in his court, being delighted
with the charm and distinction of his character. Here his
amiable qualities gained him many friends, especially Antony,
Abbot of St. Bertin, who was one of the family of Bergen,
and James Batt, Secretary to the town of Bergen,* to
whom many of the Epistles are addressed, and who after-
wards lived in an honorable position in the house of Ann
Borssele, mother of Adolf, Prince of Veer.

After a time the Bishop, taking into consideration the
happy genius of Erasmus, furnished him with the means of
going to Paris and applying himself to Scholastic Theology.
He thus became a Scotist in the College of Montaigu,
Duns Scotus being in the highest esteem among theological
disputants for the subtlety of his intellect.f When he found
the college life too hard, he was glad to remove to the
house of an English gentleman, who had with him two
young Englishmen, one of whom I conjecture to have been
Mountjoy ; J the English being aware that among all the pro-
fessors of literature in the University of Paris there was no

• As the commencement of the acquaintance with Batt, see p. 89.

t In writing these Hnes Beatus probably had in his mind one of the letters
which he had edited in the Farrago Epistolarum, Epistle 67 (Nuper Scotista
esse coepi, etc.) which however belongs to a somewhat later date than the
residence at Montaigu. See Chapter v.

% See Episde 51 (p. 123), from which this is evidently taken. According
to the Compendium the next step after leaving the College of Montaigu was a
visit to Bergen. See pp. 10, 109.

28 Paris, Eitgland, Italy

teacher so learned or so painstaking. For Faustus Andre-
linus, being much occupied with the composition of his
poetry, was a perfunctory professor, courting the applause of
an ignorant audience by jests more amusing than learned.*
Gaguin being much employed in embassies to foreign powers,
and not very perfect in his scholarship, did not teach pub-
licly. It was then that Erasmus became known in England,
to which island he shortly afterwards went, being invited by
his pupils who had returned home.

He returned to England afterwards more than once, and
taught for some time in the University of Cambridge ; t as he
did also at Louvain, when he was staying with Johannes
Paludanus the Orator of that University.

At last by the persuasion of friends, having always had a
strong desire to see Italy, he accompanied John and Ber-
nard, the sons of Baptist Boerio of Genoa, the King of
England's physician, to Bologna. Among the professors at
that place he acquired the friendship of Paulus Bombasius, a
learned man of stainless character, who was on his part much
delighted with the genius and learning of Erasmus. For
Beroaldus, the Achilles among the Professors of his time,
was dead, and Baptista Pius, an unfortunate imitator of
Antiquity, was slumbering among his Oscans and Volscians.

In Erasmus's journey he was made a Doctor of Theology
at Turin, together with his English travelling companion.
Thus he carried with him into Italy the dignity as well as
the erudition w^hich others are wont to bring back from that
country. At Bologna he finished the volume of Adages
which had been begun some years before ; the book pub-
lished at Paris being only a brief and rough specimen of his
future work.

* It is not improbable, that Beatus had been himself one of Faustus's
audience; see p. 24. Compare Erasmus to Vives, C. 535 ef, 689 d.

t Beatus mentions somewhat out of its time, Erasmus's professorship at
Cambridge, which really took place after his return from Italy. Respecting
his teaching at Louvain, see p. 372.

Change of Dress 29

He had hitherto worn the regular costume of his Order,
but was constrained to change it by the following occasion.
There is a laudable pra^Hice in the city where he was, that
if there is any suspicion of plague, a surgeon appointed for
the purpose is to be sent for at once ; and in order that he
may more easily be avoided by all that meet or pass him, he
carries a white napkin hanging across one of his shoulders,
and a rod in his hand. It so happened that one day Eras-
mus was walking along an unfrequented lane in his usual
canon's dress ; and was met by two or three inexperienced
youths, who seeing his white tippet, took him for the plague
inspector ; and as he was proceeding on his way without
suspecting anything of the kind, they picked up stones and
pursued him with threats and abuse, but without proceeding
to blows. He enquired with surprise what was amiss, and
some people looking on from one of the houses, who heard
the disturbance, explained that it was that scapular tied in
a knot at his side, which had caused their anger, as they
were misled by the similarity of the dress, and thought he
was returning from some infected patient, and yet took no
pains to go out of their way. To prevent a recurrence of
this danger Erasmus sent a petition to Pope Julius H. to
grant him a grace either to use or not to use the dress of his
Religion, which in consideration of his singular merits was
granted without difficulty, with the proviso that he should
wear the dress of a priest. This privilege was for various
considerations confirmed in the fullest form, as the term is,
by Pope Leo X. all and singular objections to the contrary
being specially and expressly over-ruled, and their tenour
being held to be thereby sufficiently expressed.* And who
can doubt that the Popes have power to deal with such
human constitutions, when the expounders of the Law allow

* The story of Erasmus's adventure at Bologna, which has been rejected
as improbable by some of his biographers, (Drummond, i. 168; Pattison,
Encycl. Brit. Article, Erasmus) is told by himself in the Epistle to Grunnius

3© Sojourn at Venice

them no slight authority in the interpretation and decision
of matters appertaining to the Law of God and the Law of
Nations, and attribute to them a free power of disposition
and dispensation, to use their own word, in all things except
articles of Faith ?

When his work on Proverbs was complete, he wrote to
Aldus Manutius to ask him whether he would undertake
the printing of it, to which he willingly consented. Erasmus
then removed to Venice. At that citv he was welcomed bv
Aldus, who found room for him in the house of his father-
in-law Andreas Asulanus, where he had as his chamber-
fellow Jerome Aleander of Motta, a distinguished scholar,
now a Cardinal. He was also on intimate terms with Paolo
Canale a nobleman, Ambrosio Nolano an eminent physician,
and Battista Egnazio. His stay at Venice lasted a con-
siderable time, since he revised and republished there two
tragedies of Euripides, Hecuha and Iphigenia in Aulis, and
corrected the comedies of Terence and Plautus, with special
regard to the metres.

At this time Alexander, son of James king of Scots, was
studying at Padua, and attending the lectures of Raphael
Reggio, having been already appointed Bishop of St.
Andrew's. Erasmus was invited to become his teacher in
Rhetoric, and afterwards accompanied him to Siena, having

(Chapter xxx.) ; and also in the Epistle to Servatius (Chapter xxiii.), the
authenticity of which is not so certain. The slight details related by Beatus
differ from those in the Epistle to Grunnius enough to suggest an independent
authority, derived perhaps from Erasmus's conversation. The pontifical dis-
pensation obtained at Bologna is mentioned in the Epistle to Grunnius ; but it
is remarkable that in the Bull of Leo X. and the documents connected with
it there is no such reference to the earlier dispensation as Beatus appears to
suppose. The formal language cited above makes it probable that the Bull
of Pope Leo had been shown to Beatus by Erasmus himself or his executors.
The original remained among Erasmus's papers at Basel, and has been printed
by Professor Vischer in Erasmiana, Basel, 1876. See more about these docu-
ments in Chapter xxxiii.

Italian Scholars 31

some time before parted with the Boerios by reason of the
ill-humour of their father, after having been with them one
year. At Padua Erasmus was much in the company of the
learned Marcus Musurus of Crete and Scipio Carteromachus
of Pistoia, whose kindness I have often heard him extol,
having had frequent proof of its sincerity, when he required
their counsel in decyphering corrupt manuscripts of Greek
authors, such as Pausanias, Eustathius, the scoliast of Lyco-
phron, and the commentaries on Euripides, Pindar, Sopho-
cles, Theocritus and others. There was nothing so recondite
or confused that Musurus, that guardian and high priest of
the Muses, could not illustrate and explain. He had read
everything, mastered everything. Modes of expression,
myths, histories, ancient rites, he knew them all exactly.
This consummate erudition was recommended by a filial
piety no less remarkable. He had a little Greek for a
father, an aged man whom he tended with the most loving
and constant care. Scipio was endowed with varied learning
and a noble spirit. Both died at Rome, Musurus having
first obtained from Leo X. the archbishopric of Monovasia.

At Siena Erasmus lived in the house of the Archbishop of
St. Andrew's, whom he instructed, and whose character he
has often praised. The truth of his estimate would have
appeared more plainly if this noble youth had not been
shortly after killed at his royal father's side, in that field
where the English army met the invading Scots, who were
in alliance with the French ;* the English king, whose sister
was wife to the king of Scots, being then in Picardy be-
sieging Tournaybythe instigation of Pope Julius II. While
he was living with the young Archbishop, Erasmus took
leave to go to Rome. It is impossible to describe with what
applause he was there received and with what rejoicing on
the part of all cultivated persons, not only of ordinary
station, but of the highest dignity, among whom were

* Flodden Field, 9 Sept. 15 13.

32 Visit to Rome

Cardinal Medici, afterwards Pope Leo X., Dominic Grimani,
Cardinal of Venice, and Giles, Cardinal of Viterbo, learned
in three tongues, all distinguished men born for the en-
couragement of studies in which they themselves excelled.
I remember hearing that among other professors he saw
Thomas Phaedra,* a man unrivalled in extemporary elo-
quence, whose reading of plays and comedies recalled the
manners of antiquity. Erasmus was offered the dignity of
Penitentiary, if he would remain at Rome. This would have
been a step to higher offices, the profits of the place not
being inconsiderable. But he had to return to the Arch-
bishop ; in company with whom he came again to Rome,
which the young man wished to see before returning to
Scotland. He not only did this, his Episcopal rank being
concealed in order not to give trouble, but made a tour in
that lower part of Italy as far as Cumas, visiting the Sibyl's
cave,t which is still shown in those parts.

After the departure of the Archbishop of St. Andrew's,
the remembrance of the old friends whom he had left in
England induced Erasmus to hasten his own return to his
country. He travelled first to Coire by the Grisons, thence
to Constance on the lake of Bregenz, and passing the tract
of the Lentienses, who dwell at the beginning of the Martian
Forest, which was the Orcynium of the ancients, he came by
Bresgau to Strasburg, and from thence took his passage to
Holland down the Rhine. J After visiting his friends at

* Tommaso Inghivami, commonly called Phccdrus, having acquired the
name from acting the part of Phaedra in Seneca's tragedy of Hippolytus. See

P- 454-

t Virg. Aenetd, vi. 42. The Sibyl's cave was shown in the rock under the

Citadel of Cums.

X We probably owe this particular description of the route of Erasmus to
the fact of his having travelled through a part of Germany in which Beatus took
a special antiquarian interest. He places a tribe of Lentietises, on the borders
of Switzerland and Germany to the south of the Black Forest, where we still
find the names of Lenzburg and Lenzkirch. Erasmus probably left Italy by
Milan and Como, and crossed the Alps by the Spliigen Pass.

Return to England 33

Antwerp and Louvain, he presently crossed to England, to
which he was attracted by his love of Colet the theologian,
who was dean of St. Paul's in London, and of Grocin, Lati-
mer and Linacre, and especially of Thomas More. His old
Maecenas was William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Primate of all England, and Chancellor of the kingdom, that
is, Suprem.e Judge, who surpassed all the bishops of that
island in liberality. He gave Erasmus money, and also pre-
sented him to the living of Aldington in Kent. This he had
some scruple at first in accepting, considering that the entire
emoluments rather belonged to the pastor, whose business it
undeniably was to be present night and day to instruct the
people placed under his charge ; but the Archbishop met
his hesitation with the following question ; " Who," said he,
" has a fairer claim to live out of a church income than
yourself, the one person who by your valuable writings
instruct and educate the pastors themselves, and not them
alone but all the churches of the world, which they seve-
rally direct and serve ? " Certainly I have more than once
heard Erasmus say, that princes ought to assist scholars by
their own liberality, whereas in order to spare their purses
they were accustomed to present them to benefices, which
the followers of learning were compelled to accept, if they
wished to secure leisure for their studies.

John Froben had printed at Basel an edition of the
Adages rivalling that of Aldus,* with which Erasmus was
pleased, having heard at the same time of the extraordinary
diligence of that press. He had also been informed, that an
enlarged copy of the Adages, which was intended for the
printer Bade, and had been promised to him, together with

* Adagiorum chiliades tres. Folio, Basel, Froben, Aug. 15 13. This was
a close imitation of the Aldine edition ; and another still closer imitation,
printed at Tiibingen by Thomas Anshelm with the date, March, 1514, is
noticed by Erasmus in Epistle 283. Both these editions follow the Aldine
page by page, and in the latter even obvious errors are copied. Both are
in the British Museum Library.

VOL. I. D

34 First visit to Basel

some books of Plutarch lately translated, had by the contri-
vance of Francis Pircman, gone astray to Basel,* and that
all the works of St. Jerome were about to be pubUshed by
Froben. He therefore resolved to go thither himself, pre-
tending a pilgrimage to Rome in pursuance of avow.f The
rumour that had reached him was not false. John Amer-
bach, having finished the books of Ambrose and Augustine,
had already applied himself to the correction of the volumes
of Jerome, for which purpose old copies had been collected
from all quarters, and some learned men had been engaged
to restore the Greek passages throughout. One of these
was John Reuchlin, a lawyer, who tried to fill up gaps
out of lists of words. He was succeeded by a happier
emendator, John Kiihn (Joannes Conus), a Dominican of
Nuremberg, who pursued a better plan, following the traces
of old manuscripts in his careful restoration of missing or
corrupt passages. He had a special capacity for this work,
being almost more learned in Greek than in Latin, and well
acquainted with the best authors, having for many years
attended with great profit the lectures of the ablest pro-
fessors in Italy, the before-mentioned Musurus and Scipio,
and John of Crete.

At this time, their father being dead, John and Basil
Amerbach together with John Froben had begun the setting
up of Jerome, and had made some progress with the Pro-
phets. Erasmus being at once received as a guest in
Froben's house, was pleased with the beauty of the edition,
and especially with the incredible industry and care of the
brothers Amerbach in their correction of it. Accordingly
whenever he was consulted, his judgment being required

* See p. 13, and Epistles 279, 283.

t I do not remember a vowed pilgrimage being mentioned in any letter.
But Erasmus seems to have contemplated the possibility of extending his
journey, or thought it expedient to speak of it as part of his plan. See
Epistles 2QO, 294.

Printing of the New Testament 35

on account of some variation in the manuscripts, he was
always ready to give his opinion. But the volumes of
Epistles were specially claimed by him as his own ; being
occupied partly in finishing the SchoHa which he had begun
long before, and partly in adding new annotations, and
writing the Arguments.

This was no light task, and another much more important
was added. The students of France and Germany required
a separate edition of the New Testament in Greek, which
had been joined at Venice with the Old.* Erasmus had
formerly written some notes upon it in imitation of Lauren-
tius Valla, and having found them among his papers he
revised and extended them in great haste amid the bustle
of the press. There were some who thought the Latin
version itself required correction, being a work written or
rather translated, as may be presumed, for the general body
of Christians ; and with this demand he showed his usual
readiness to comply. The whole book he dedicated to
Pope Leo X., and with good reason, the principal docu-
ment of our religion being inscribed to its presiding chief.
The revised works of Jerome were consecrated to Arch-
bishop Warham, an everlasting memorial of extraordinary
respect.

He then withdrew on account of business to Lower Ger-
many, but having returned to us not long after, he had gone
back just at the time when your Majesty was invested at
Aix with the insignia of the Roman Empire, whose antiquity
dates from the Gothic Conquerors, Theodoric of Verona
and the rest.t

Soon after, he was at Cologne before the assembling of
the Diet of Worms, a notable person among the members
of your Council, having been most wisely admitted by you

* Beatus speaks as if a Venetian edition of the Bible in Greek had been

already published in 15 14. But the Greek Bible of Aldus bears date Feb. 15 18.

t Theodoric is known in German legend as Dietrich von Bern (Verona).

D 2

36 Personal appearance and character

to that dignity a long time before, when John Le Sauvage
was still living and filling the office of Chancellor.

After the Diet was concluded and the city of Tournay
was recovered, when your Majesty had gone again from
Brabant to Spain, Erasmus came back to Basel with the
intention of re-editing the Chiliads of Adages and finishing
the Paraphrases of St. Paul and the Gospels. It is doubtful
whether the applause with which these works were received
by the world of readers was greater than the pleasure which
he took in writing them. "Here," said he, "I am on my
own ground." And so he was. His chief study was of
the old interpreters ; among the Latins Ambrose, Jerome,
Augustine, and Hilary ; among the Greeks, Chrysostom and
his imitator Theophylact. Only the style was his own.
* * «

In stature Erasmus was, as your Majesty knows, and as he
himself describes More in one of his letters, not a tall
man, without being notably short, his figure being compact
and elegant- His constitution was extremely delicate, and
easily affected by trifling changes, as of wine or food or
climate. As he advanced in years he was subject to frequent
attacks of stone, not to speak of catarrh, which is so common
and constant a complaint with studious people. His com-
plexion was fair, with hair that in his younger days had a
touch of red, bluish grey eyes, and a lively expression of
face ; his voice not strong, his language beautifully explicit,
his dress respectable and sober, as became an imperial
Councillor, a divine and a clergyman. He was most con-
stant in his attachments, no inscription on his list of friends
being ever on any account changed. His memory was most
retentive, having as a boy the whole of Terence and Horace
by heart. He was liberal to the poor, among whom as he
came home from mass, as well as on other occasions, he
used to distribute money by his servant, and especially
generous and kind to any young and promising students who

Narnes home by Erasmus 37

came to him in want of help. In society polite and charm-
ing, without anv air of superiority, on every occasion really
ipdcrixLo<; (that is, amiable), a name that he regretted he had
not assumed when he first began to write and become known
by his books ; for, said he, who ever heard a man called
Love, which is what Erasmus means in Greek ? * »

Schlettstadt, i June, 1540.

The last observation cited from Rhenanus may serve to introduce
a few words upon the names borne by Erasmus. In accordance with
a suggestion which appears to have been first made by Baudius in
1606 [C. iii. 19 1 7) it was for some time generally assumed by his
biographers, that, having received in baptism his father's name, and
being called Girardus Girardi, or in the language of his country Gerrit
Gerritzoon, the young Gerrit, when he left school with a good
equipment of Latin and a smattering of Greek, finding in his own
and his father's name the German root (also found in gern, Gier,
gierig) signifying desire and love, adopted a name (Desiderius)
derived from the Latin word for desire, and another name (Erasmus)
derived from the Greek word for love. This assumption receives no
support from any allusion in his own letters or other writings, or
from the reminiscences of his friend Beatus, whose story indeed of
the prophecy of Sinthen implies, if taken literally, that he was called
Erasmus in his childhood. See p. 26. There is no reason to doubt
that his baptismal name was Erasmus, or " Herasmus," as the word
was probably spelt in the popular Calendars and Martyrologies, and
as he himself continued to spell it until after the publication of the
first edition of the Adages. There are two saints of this name in the
Roman Calendar, the more famous of whom, St. Erasmus of Campania,
a Christian bishop, was a martyr under Diocletian and Maximian, his
sufferings being, according to his legend, accompanied by a multitude
of those marvellous circumstances which gave to so many chapters of
the Acta Sanctorum a prolonged and thrilling interest. His body was
preserved at Gaeta. (Baronius, Martyrologia, 2 Jun. Pet. de Natalibus,
V. 75.) That St. Erasmus was at that time to some extent a popular
saint, is shown by the allusion to him in the Moria (C. iv. 443 c),
from which it appears that persons who longed to become rich burned
tapers at his altar. Prayers to this saint are also mentioned in a
letter to Gaverus (C. 785 E). A chapel in honour of St. Erasmus

3 8 Desidcriiis Erasmus Roterodamus

was founded in Westminster Abbey about 1470 by Queen Elizabeth
Wodevile ; and the popular belief mentioned in the Moria is curiously
confirmed by a picture, formerly in Cirencester Church, with an in-
scription, which promised to the man or woman worshipping this holy
Saint, Bishop and Martyr, or bringing any candle light to his altar,
that he should, among other blessings, have reasonable good to his
life's end {Archa:ologia, xv. 405). The name, though uncommon, was
not out of use in the Low Countries, as we find a confusion arising
at Louvain between Erasmus and another Doctor of the same name,
one of whose letters he had opened (C. 272 f). Erasmus d'Assonville,
who died in 1469, had governed for twenty-four years the great
Monastery of St. Denys de Mons, where our Erasmus's patron, Henry
of Bergen, was afterwards Abbot. And a poor student, from Rotterdam
itself, of the name of Erasmus, is found in the matriculation register
of the University of Cologne in 1496 (See p. 109). It is not
impossible that it was the name of one of his father's brothers, or
of some other of his kindred.

The cognomeii Roterodamus, or Roterdamus, as he appears at first
to have written it, was probably assumed while he was still at Stein.
It appears in the title of an oration written in his twentieth year (C.
viii. 545).' but it is not certain when this title was affixed; and see the
address of Epistle 17. The prsenomen of Desiderius was, we may
suppose, adopted as the Latin equivalent of Erasmus, to complete the
Roman complement of three names. This was the least used, and
probably the last assumed, of the three, but it is found in the dedication
of the Odes of Herman to the Bishop of Cambrai, 7 Nov. 1496. The
Epistles of St. Jerome, one of whose correspondents was Desiderius,
had long been familiar to Erasmus; see Epistles 29, 182, p. 384.

The following are the names of Erasmus, as they are found in some
of the early books. In Robert Gaguin's Epistles, 1494, 1495 (Epistles
42, 43, 44), he is simply Herasmus ; in the Epistle prefixed to Gaguin's
History (Epistle 45), he is Herasmus Roterdainus\ in the dedication
of the Sylua Odarum of Herman, 1496 (Epistle 50), he is Desyderius
Herasmus. In the title to the first edition of the Adages, 1500, he is
Desyderius Herasmus Roterdamus] in that of the Panegyric, 1504,
he is Desyderius Erasmus Roterodamus. See pp. 245, 318, 363.

With reference to the supposed connection of the name of Erasmus
with Gerard, we may observe that Erasmus himself derived, or affected
to derive, this name from another German root, Geyer, in Dutch Gier
(a vulture). In explaining why he called Gerhard Geldenhauer Vul-

Erasmus Roger li 39

turius Neocomus, he says : Scire poteras me allusisse ad verum illius
nomen iuxta linguam Germanicam. Ep. xxxi. 48; C. x. 1589 A.

Erasmus's observation upon his name, recorded by Beatus, that he
ought to have made it Erasmius (the name he gave to his godson, the
son of Froben), is consistent with the supposition that Erasmus was
his baptismal name, without excluding the possibility that he had
assumed it in early youth. But it may well be observed that, if it had
been of his own assumption, he would more readily have corrected it,
as he did the Roterdamus. If it was his baptismal name, it was the
one name he could not legally alter. It has been judged a similar mis-
take, that he did not write Roterodamensis (Drummond, i. 4). This
he might have done, if he had used the word as a description, but the
form Roterodamus, perhaps originally a description (applied also to
his countryman Servatius, Epistle 6), was probably retained as more
distinctly a name. I do not doubt, as Prof. Vischer appears to have
done, the correctness of the address inscribed on the autograph letter
of Francis the First : A notre cher et bon ajny maistre Erasme
Roterodame. Vischer, Erasmiana, p. 32.

In discussing the names of Erasmus it should not be forgotten, that
the Dispensation granted to him by Pope Leo X. in 15 17 (Vischer, Eras-
miana, p. 29; see Chapter xxxiii.) is addressed Erasmo Rogerii Rotero-
damenst, the last word being evidently not a name but a description.
We may safely infer, that in the confidential information respectmg
Erasmus's birth and family furnished to the Papal Curia the name of
Erasmus was given as his baptismal name, and the name Rogerii was
attributed as a surname or patronymic to one of his parents or
grandparents, and consequently assumed to be his proper surname,
Desiderius and Roterodamus being rejected as arbitrary assumptions.
Dr. Richter {Erasmus-studien, p. 7) thinks that Roger was the baptismal
name of the father of Erasmus ; but on this point the testimony of the
Compendium and of Baudius is confirmed by the name Girardus
adopted as a patronymic by his brother Peter, an ode of Herman being
addressed ad Petruni Girardum Rotterdamrnensem Herasmi ger-
manum. (Hermani Sylva, Paris 1497-) His paternal grandfather^
according to the Compendium, was called Elias. If this was his name,
he may possibly have been described in Erasmus's documents as Elias
Rogerii; or it may be on the other hand, as Professor Kan has sug-
gested [Erasmiana, in Rotterdamsch Jaarboekje, 1890, p. 66), that the
parentage of the reputed father was ignored, and the surname of Roger
derived from the mother's family.

CHAPTER I.

Earliest Letters. Epistles to Peter Winckel and brother
Peter. Epistolary Exercises at Stein. Letters to
Servatius, Francis and Sasboud. Epistles 1-15.

The fifteen epistles contained in the present chapter include the
earliest letters attributed to Erasmus that we possess, and with the
exception of the first (which probably belongs to his schooldays),
they all appear to have been written during his residence at the
convent of Stein. None of these letters were published in the
lifetime of their author; twelve were first printed by Merula in 1607,
and the other three. Epistles 3, 4 and 5, were added by Le Clerc in
1703. They are all here assumed to be genuine ; see the Introduction
to this volume. None of them has any date of place or time.

The first epistle may claim to be regarded as the earliest prose
writing that we possess of Erasmus, his earliest extant poem being
of about the same date, see p. 17. In the Epistle to Grunnius (Chapter
XXX.) he narrates how " Florence " in his fourteenth year wrote a
polished letter to his guardian, who had been his first schoolmaster,
and who sarcastically advised him, if he wrote in that style, to add a
commentary'. It is not improbable that Erasmus kept the draft of
what appeared to him at the time an important letter ; and if this is
a copy of it, we may w^ell imagine how a schoolmaster, whose own
Latinity was elementary, would be likely to receive advice, conveyed
in such a form, from a boy of thirteen. The letter indicates the nature
of the property of which Gerard had died possessed ; he appears
to have continued the trade of a transcriber of books. See p. 6. The
majority of books in use were not printed.

In the heading of each Epistle the first reference is to the book in
which it was first published. The other references are to the books in
which the Latin text is most conveniently found ; these are, for Epistle i ,
the London edition (fol. 1642) of the Epistles of Erasmus, cited as Ep.
(the first twenty-eight books of which correspond to the twenty-eight
books of the Epistolarum Opus, Basil, 1558) ; and the third volume
of Le Clerc' s edition of his works^ cited as C.

Erasmus to his guardian 41

Epistle i. Merula, p. 161 ; Ep. xxxi. 4; C. 1885 (506).
Erasmus to Master Peter Winckel.

I am very much afraid the close of the short current
period will find our affairs not yet placed in safety, but still
at that late hour requiring to be so placed. I think there-
fore that every contrivance, every care and every effort
should be used to prevent any loss occurring. You will say
perhaps, that I am one of those who are anxious the sky
should not tumble down. I admit it might be so said, if the
amount were waiting in the cash-box. But your prudence
will press on with due caution the settlement of our ac-
counts. The books are still to be offered for sale, still to
look out for a purchaser, still to find a bidder. See how far
they are from being disposed of. The grain is to be sown,
from which the loaf is to be made ; and meantime, as Naso
says, "Time with swift foot glides."*

I do not at all see what can be gained by delay in this
matter; what may be lost, I see well enough. Besides, I
hear that Christian has not yet returned the books, which he
has had. Pray let his slowness be overcome by your insist-
ence. If beseeching does not hasten him, a command may
make him send them. Farewell.

The remaining epistles of this chapter belong to Erasmus's con-
ventual life, which appears to have begun in 1482 or 1483 (see p. 18),
and was passed at the Augustinian monastery of Emmaus in the
district called Stein, which adjoined Gouda on the east. This house
was founded in 1419 under the protection of John, Bastard of Blois,
then possessor of the lordship of Stein, which was purchased in 1458
by the town of Gouda. Beschryving der Stad Gouda door J. W.
Leyden, 17 13, p. 119. No remains of the convent exist, but its situa-
tion, near the River Yssel and nearly opposite to Haestrecjit^ shown
by an old map preserved in the Library at Brussels and copied in
M. Ruelen's reprint of the Silva Carminum-fierasmi^ Brussels, 1864,
and by another old map existing in the Museum at Gouda.

* Cito pede labitur aetas. Ovid. De Art. Atnat. iii. 65.

42 Erasmus to his brother

Epistle 2 is addressed by Erasmus to his brother ; as to whom see
page 15. In the Grunnius Epistle (Chapter xxx.) his character is
presented in a very unfavourable light ; and the following letter, what-
ever its origin, is not founded on the picture there drawn. With its
air of youthful pedantry, it has, if genuine, a biographical interest,
as representing the actual relations at this time between the brothers.
In a letter to Herman dated at Paris in 1497 (Epistle 51) Erasmus
enquires after his brother ; and in the volume of poems of Herman
printed at Paris in that year (see p. 118) one is addressed to him.

Epistle 2. Merula, p. 186 ; Ep. xxxi. 20; C. 1859 (47o)-
Erasmus to his brother^ Master Peter.

Have you quite thrown off the character of a brother ?
Have you ceased altogether to care for your Erasmus ? I
write, send and send again. I expostulate, I enquire of
those of your house that come here, and find they have no
letter and no message ; only they say you are safe and
sound. Nothing is more cheering for me to hear than that,
but your part still remains unperformed. You seem to be
so resolved, that I think it would be an easier thing to draw
milk from a grindstone than anything like a letter from you.
But what has become, my Peter, of that original kindness of
yours, and of that' love which was no ordinary love, but
worthy of a brother ? Have you so soon passed from Mitio
to Demeas ? * * But if vour affection be estrangfed, I do
not say by any fault of mine, but by any suspicion of fault, I
beseech you to accept my apology at once ; and as you
never failed me in the hardest times, stick to me now that
Fortune, though not favorable, is less cruel. * *

If you want to hear w^hai I am doing, I love you greatly,
as you deserve, carry you on my lips and in my mind, think
of you, dream of you, have frequent talk about you with
friends, and with none more frequent, more familiar or more
pleasant than with our countryman, Servatius, a young man
of the brightest character and sweetest temper, and devoted
to those studies which have chiefly delighted both you and

Convent friends 43

me from our boyhood. He wants very much to see you.
If you will, as I hope, come to see us before long, you will
not only esteem him w^orthy of your friendship, but will easily
like him better than your brother ; he is a person that no one
can help loving. For this reason I am more disposed to ask
you to lend him that small copy that you have of Juvenal's
Satires. Do not fear, my Peter ; you will never confer a
favour on a better object. You will find him grateful, and
he will not forget it. Farewell, sweetest brother.

When Erasmus joined the monastery, he was prepared, boy as he
was, to assume the part of a missionary of Letters. According to the
Compendium he inspired all his companions with a zeal for study.
His first pupil was a youth a little older than himself, called in the
Compendium Cornelius, who had been his chamber-fellow at Deventer,
and was instrumental in inducing him to enter the Convent. His
surname according to the Epistle to Servatius (Epistle 290) was
Woerden, and he appears in the Epistle to Grunnius under the name
of Cantelius. With this companion Erasmus used to sit up at night,
coaching him in Terence, and completing, in such furtive studies,
to the detriment of his own health, a long course of classical authors
(Epistle to Grunnius, Chapter xxx.). Cornelius had, according to
the Compendium, been already in Italy, and if we may believe a late
recollection of Erasmus, he himself nourished the hope, even in those
early days, of making that alluring pilgrimage. What prospect had
offered itself of carrying out his wish we are not informed {Responsio
ad Cursii defensionem, C. x. 1750 E. See p. 93). This comrade, for
whom Erasmus had a strong boyish affection, makes no later appear-
ance in his life. In William Herman, whose father was living at
Gouda (Epistle 62, p. 150), and who probably joined the community
at Stein soon after Erasmus, the latter met a kindred spirit. They
were nearly of the same age, as there is among Erasmus's poems a
piece entitled, Certamen Erasmiet Guielmi anno eorum decimo nono
(C. viii. 565) ; and being both of Gouda families, they had known
each other from their early childhood. C. x. 1693 C A collection of
their early epistles appears to have been lost. See pp. 80, 94, 197.

We may infer from letters written at this period, and from allu-
sions in later letters, that the young monks, many of whom owed

44 Correspondence with Servatius

their position, not to any conscious vocation, but to the decree of their
parents or friends, were not exempt from the frailties of youth.
Erasmus sagely observes in one of his juvenile letters, that love is the
passion of a vacant mind, and he fought more or less successfully
against his own temptations by constant intellectual work, the special
value of which in this point of view, is recognised in the Enchiridion
Militis Christiani. C. v. 60 B.

Among the younger members of the Convent was Servatius, called
in Epistle 86 Servatius Rogerus and in Epistle 6 Roterodamus, after-
wards Prior of the same House, who appears to have lately joined
their body when Erasmus wrote to his brother. Nine letters addressed
to him by Erasmus in their juvenile days are included in this chapter.
If these are regarded as part of a correspondence between persons
living at a distance from one another, we should refer them to the
time when Erasmus had lately left Stein. But, assuming their
authenticity, I am inclined to look upon them rather as epistolary
exercises, written when both the correspondents were inmates of the
Convent, though they do not appear to have always had free access
to each other, perhaps meeting only in Chapel. They are of little
interest, except as illustrating a somewhat feminine side of the
character of Erasmus, whom they exhibit as having formed a de-
voted attachment to one of his own sex, which not being returned
with equal fervour, was a source of pain to himself and of some
annoyance to the object of his affection. Perhaps Erasmus amused
himself in expressing his feelings with an exaggeration which was
embarrassing to his correspondent. Some examples and extracts
will give the reader an idea of the character of these letters ; they
have been selected partly for this purpose, and partly to justify their
chronological position and the opinion expressed above as to the
circumstances of their origin. There is the less reason for passing
them over, as they appear to have escaped the attention of most
of the biographers.

Epistle 3. C. 1872 (490).
Erasmus to Servatius.

You are wondering perhaps, my Servatius, what has hin-
dered me so long from writing to you, and it may be you

Monastic restraints 45

suspect that I have dropped my intention or that my love
for you has grown weak. Pray do not think that either of
these obstacles has existed. It is not mind that has been
wanting, but time ; not will, but power. I wish the fates
permitted me to enjoy that freedom of life, which Nature
conferred ; you would find me far more prompt to teach
than to receive. But you see yourself in what a hubbub
everything is, and I suppose you are not unaware how little
leisure is left me among the anxieties of my life. Forgive
therefore, I beseech you, our silence, and do for yourself
all you can to come out a man. When a calmer state of
things shall arise, we will resume our proposed work. Fare-
well and love me, as you do.

Epistle 4. C. 1871 (488).
Erasmus to Servatius.

* * You say there is something you find it difficult to
bear, which distresses you and makes your life wretched.
This fact, even if you said nothing about it, is declared by
the appearance of your face and person. What is become
of that cheerfulness which used so much to delight us, that
old charm of form, and glance of vivacity ? Whence has
come, that sad dejection of the eyes, that constant and
unusual silence, that sick man's look in the face ? * *

I beseech you therefore by all that is sweetest to you in
life, and by our prevailing love, if you have any care for
your own health, if you wish me to preserve mine, confide
to safe ears whatever is amiss, I will help you in whatever
way I can either by aid or counsel. If I can do neither, it
will still be all that I desire, to rejoice w^ith you or to
weep, with you to live or with you to die.

Farewell, my Servatius, and let your health be your care.

46 Love and Leisure

Epistle 5. C. 1872 (489).

Erasmus to Servatius.

What are you doing, my Servatius ? for I suspect you are
doing something great, which prevents your fulfilling your
promise to me, You pledged yourself to send me a letter
very soon ; and see what a great interval has passed, and
you neither write nor speak. What shall I guess to be the
reason ? You must certainly be either too busy or too idle ;
I suspect both, and that you are living in that leisure, than
which nothing is more busy. For a state of desire implies
leisure, since love is the passion of a vacant mind. You
will therefore do what will please me and be of use to
yourself, if you interrupt that leisure, and write to me with-
out any delay. For the rest treat me with confidence, and
you will be no more afraid of my conscience than your own.
Speak with me about everything as with yourself. That
will be what I should wish. Farewell.

In the address of the following letter the title given to Servatius in
the original was probably Roterdamus. See pp. 38, 39.

Epistle 6. Merula, p. 171 ; Ep. xxxi. 12 ; C. 1867 (481).
Erasjnus to Servatius Roterodamus.

I should write more frequently to you, very dearest Ser-
vatius, if I knew for certain that you would not be more
fatigued by reading my letters than I by writing them. And
your comfort is so dear to me, that I had rather be tortured
by what gives you rest, than fatigue you by what gives me
pleasure. But since lovers find nothing so distressing as
not to be allowed to meet one another, and we very rarely
have that in our power, I cannot forego the opportunity of

Attachment to Servatuis 47

bidding this letter find its way to you in my stead. How I
wish it may be some time our fortune to have no further
need of letters, but to be able to meet face to face as often
as we please. That joy is denied us ; I cannot think of it
without tears ; but am I therefore to be deprived of all
intercourse with you ? * * *

So suspicious are those that love, I sometimes seem to
see, I know not what, — that you do not often think of me,
or have even quite forgotten me. My wish would be, if it
were possible, that you should care for me as much as I do
for you, and be as much pained by the love of me, as I am
continually tormented by the want of you. Farewell.

Epistle 7. Merula, p. 164 ; Ep. xxxi. 7 ; C. 1865 (479).
Erasmus to Servatius.

When my love for you, my dearest Servatius, has always
been and still is so great, that you are dearer to me than
these eyes, than this soul, than this self, what is it that has
made you so inexorable that you not only do not love, but
have no regard at all for him who loves you best ? Are you
so inhuman as to love those that hate, and hate those that
love you ? * * *

When you are away, nothing is sweet to me ; in your
presence I care for nothing else. When I see you happy,
I forget m_y own sorrows ; if anything painful has occurred
to you, so help me Heaven, if my pain is not greater than
your own. Has this crime deserved so much hatred as you
show me ? But now, my Servatius, I am not unaware what
reply you will make to me. It is what you often answer.
You will say, " What on earth do you require me to do for
you ? Do I hate you ? What is it you want ? " Can you
ask this question ? I demand no costly presents. Only let

48 Conventual Life

your feeling for me be as mine is for you, and you will
make me happy. * *

Farewell, my soul, and if there is anything human in you,
return the love of him who loves vou.

Epistle 8. Merula, p. 166 ; Ep. xxxi. 8 ; C. 1866 (480).
Erasmus to Servatius.

As nothing in nature is so delightful or so sweet, as to
love and be loved, so nothing to my mind is more distress-
ing or more unhappy, than to love without return ; and as
nothing is more human than to love the being that loves
you, so nothing is more alien to humanity or nearer to the
nature of a wild animal than to repulse, not to say hate,
such a being. You will perhaps suspect that I have com-
posed this exordium, to attempt a reconciliation and patch
up again our broken friendship. But how can I promise
myself from a mute epistle, that which no blandishments
nor prayers poured forth in your presence, nor even tears
were able to effect ? I left nothing untried by which a
young mind might be affected, but harder than adamant
you still persist in yoar resolve. * *

Yesterday, my Servatius, I should have come to you to
offer you some comfort, if I had not known that my very
presence is disagreeable to you. I saw your looks were
altered, your eyes cast down, your complexion sad, and all
your gestures portended some sorrow. * *

Not Xh detain you long, if Erasmus' prayers have any
weight with you, if you will do anything for my sake, I beg
and entreat one thing of you, that you will pull yourself
together, show yourself a man, and not give way any longer
to sorrow. On the contrary strive with all your might to
make yourself such a man, that you may laugh at those who

Inducements to study 49

now insult you. This might have been long ago accom-
plished, if my advice had been listened to. But still you
have nothing about you that is not favourable to study.
Your circumstances, your locality, the very mildness of the
season seem to offer no slight inducement to the pursuit of
literature. Pray shake off whatever torpor and cowardice
has hitherto possessed you. It may serve as an incentive
for you to know that our Walter has done the same ; he is
entirely occupied with study ; and there is nothing that so
much grieves him as the thought that he did not begin long
ago. Do not lose heart ; there is nothing else that I
require of you. My William, since you shrink from me,
will be in everything an assistance and comfort to you.
I shall remind him without fail to take pains to be so.
Farewell.

Epistle 9. Merula, p. 172 ; Ep. xxxi. 13 ; C. 1886 (482).

Erasmus to Servatius,

It is no slight pleasure to me, my dearest Servatius, to see
you are in good health ; for I cannot but rejoice at the good
fortune of one who, though he will not be my friend, is still
most dear to me. But your long forgetfulness of your loving
Erasmus does indeed afflict me. So help me heaven, these
very few days that I have been deprived of your society have
seemed to me longer than a whole year. I have suffered
such sorrow, been tormented with such regrets, that I have
sometimes prayed to be relieved from a life that I hated.
The very sadness of my face, the paleness of my complexion,
the dejection of my eyes, might easily show you the grief of
my mind, if you paid any attention to them. * * *
There would be some excuse, if I asked you for anything
arduous, anything difficult, anything wrong. What is it then ?
Only return my love. What more easy, more agreeable,

VOL. I. E

50 Love and Tears

more worthy of a generous mind ? Only love, and I am
satisfied. * *

If, my dearest Servatius, I cannot have that friendship,
which of all things I most desire, I beg at least that the
ordinary intercourse between us may be resumed. If you
think that also ought to be denied me, I have nothing left
to live for. Let me soon hear your decision by letter.
Farewell, only hope of my life.

Epistle io. Merula. p. 185 ; Ep. xxxi. 19 ; C. 1869 (483).
Erasmus to Servatius.

Although, my dearest Servatius, I could not read your
letter without tears, still it not only chased away the grief
which had afflicted me, but caused me incredible and unex-
pected pleasure. Before, I had all day long wept tears of
grief; then the flood which moistened your letter flowed
not from sorrow of heart but from unutterable love of you.
Love, believe me, has its tears, and has its joys. And who,
my Servatius, is of so strong a heart that such a letter would
not force him to weep ? What sweet words ! What gracious
sentiments ! Nothing in it but is redolent of aff"ection and of
love ! Whenever I read it, — and I read it every hour, — I
seem to hear the sweet voice, to see the friendly face of my
Servatius. And when I am not allowed to have any talk
with you face to face, this letter is my comfort. * * *

But I entreat you throw me not again into the abyss of
sorrows. Believe me, I sufi"er so much from your anger,
that if I hear of it again, it will kill me outright. I am of
too tender a spirit to be able to bear repeatedly such cruel
sport. * * *

Farewell, my hope, and the one solace of my life. Pray
let a letter come from you as soon as possible.

Latm Composition 51

Epistle 1 1 purports to be written four years after Servatius entered
the Convent. He appears to have been younger than Erasmus (p. 48),
and to have joined the Society later (p. 43), but we do not know how
long after. The date of the Epistle must therefore remain uncertain.
It is apparently the last extant letter written in the Convent to this
correspondent. The Bernard imitated by the young monk was
probably St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose Epistles (more than three
hundred) were printed in a handsome black-letter folio at Brussels as
early as 148 1. See p. 83.

Epistle ii. Merula, p. 154; Ep. xxxi. 2; C. 1864 (478).
Erasmus to Servatius.

I am every day, my Servatius, more surprised at your
quiescence, not to say indolence, and cannot admire a man,
who having all the conveniences of study at command, does
not care to supply the only thing that is wanting, a little
pains. * *

It will be worth your while to share your mind with me,
and not to be ashamed of asking a question about anything
you doubt, or confessing anything you do not know. It will
also conduce greatly to your object if you will write to me
more frequently than you do ; but do not write in your old
way with borrowed sentences, or even what is worse, heap-
ing up expressions, here out of Bernard and there out of
Claudian, and fitting them or rather unfitly sewing them on
to your own, as a crow might do with a peacock's feathers.
That is not composing a letter, but merely putting letters
together. Neither should you fancy that we are so dull as
not to discern what you have taken from your own spring,
and what you have borrowed from another's. It would
be better for you to write as best you can (and I would
rather you did it without preparation), whatever comes into
your head. You need not be ashamed of barbarisms, if any
such should occur ; you shall have from us correction, and
not ridicule. How is a wound to be healed if it is not laid

E 2

52 Erasmus as preceptor

open ? Shake off your torpor, cast off the coward and put
on the man, and set your hand even at this late hour to the
work ! Only look what a long time has slipped through our
fingers, as they say. Four years have gone by, while you
still stick in the same rut, whereas if you had followed our
advice at first, you would by this time have come out such a
man as might not only equal us in literature but instruct us
in return. If you think me unworthy of your intimacy, I do
not dispute the matter ; only do not run away from me in
such a way as to leave your own welfare behind. And in
that case trust your mind to William, who thinks as much
of your advantage as of his own, and believe his advice.
If anything further can be supplied by my assistance, you
will find me ready. Farewell.

The three following epistles are addressed to Francis Theodorik,
who was apparently one of the younger brethren of the Convent.
These letters are probably of the same period ris some of those w'ritten
to Servatius, and have the same character of epistolary exercises.
See p. 44. Francis was one of the few members of the Convent who
appear in Erasmus's subsequent correspondence. See Epistles 40, 185.

Epistle 12. Merula, p. 163 ; Ep. xxxi. 6 ; C. 1874 (496).

Erasmus to Era^icis Theodorik.

Your having given your mind to letters, and so begun to
have some consideration for your own welfare, as it will be
of the greatest use to you, will also be an unspeakable
pleasure to me. But in order that you may reach the
point you desire, — as you are not yet acquainted with the
road, — it will be worth your while to give ear to our
counsel, and be assured that I shall deal with your case as
if it were my own. Therefore if you are wise, you will
arrange your life by our advice, for if you begin the journey
without a guide, you will easily go astray. Farewell.

Letters to Francis 53

Epistle 13. Merula, p. 177 ; Ep. xxxi. 15 ; C. 18 16 (434).

Erasmus to Francis.

Feeling the greatest possible affection for you, I cannot
but write to you now and then. For I do not think any
office of friendship more agreeable than this exchange of
letters. When I have lately, my dearest Francis, looked
carefully at your face, I have seen marks of sadness which
seem to portend some evil. * * I beg you again

and again to show me what is amiss. If anything can be
done by my exertions, I will aid by act, or at any rate by
advice. If the cause of your sorrow has arisen from me, I
will take care that it shall be removed by me as quickly as
possible. I beseech you, half of my soul, do not torment
yourself so seriously for a small matter. Show yourself a
man, and shake off all feebleness of mind. In this way you
will do what is best for yourself, and make me, your most
loving friend, happy.

Epistle 14 has so much the air of an exercise (see p. 44), that
I have placed it in the Conventual series. The courier, like the
correspondence itself, may have been founded on fiction. Or it may
have been written during a temporary absence from the Convent.
Compare Epistle 32.

Epistle 14. Merula, p. 170 ; Ep. xxxi. 11 ; C. 1815 (433).

Erasmus to Francis.

Although I have been long assured of your love, yet I
understand it more and more every day from the very
affectionate letters you have lately sent me by the courier;*
and it will therefore give me unspeakable pleasure if you
will contrive, that letters shall fly in greater numbers from

* Per tabeUarinm.

54 Erasmus a painter

where voii are to us. You have hitherto not had so many
from me in return as you anticipated, but you must not
suspect me of negligence. It has not arisen from indif-
ference, but an excess of engagements has come in the way.
When I have got clear of business, I shall pelt you with
such a multitude of letters, that you will begin to beg me
to stop, more eagerly than you have ever entreated me to
write. Farewell. Give my greeting to your friends, whom
I hold to be my own as well as yours.

We may assume that the person to whom Epistle 15 is addressed was
a young brother of the Order, who had been a temporary inmate of
the Convent of Stein, and whom Erasmus had endeavoured to enlist
among the students of the New Learning. It is interesting to find
that he had also assisted him in the art of painting, probably with a
view to the illumination of books. Compare Epistle 150. Sasboud
appears to have put Erasmus into some danger of rebuke or penance
by suggesting that the latter had sold him a book of drawings, in
defiance of the rules of the Order which admitted no right of property
as between its members. It may be worth while to mention in this
connection an old report, that in the cabinet of Cornelius Musius,
Provost of the Convent of St. Agatha at Delft, there was a picture of
Christ on the Cross, painted by Erasmus when he was at Stein.
Bleiswijk, Beschreijving van Delft, 1667, p. 361 ; Burigni, Vie
d'Erasme, i. 37.

Epistle 15. Merula, p. 162 ; Ep. xxxi. 5 ; C. 1863 (476).
Erasmus to Sasboud.

Although I would rather have received something of a
letter, still I am not a little pleased to have a message from
you. For as it is a long time since you have made any sign,
I was afraid that you had forgotten our mutual friendship.

I would willingly comply with vour request, if I could
have guessed your meaning with certainty from the words
of the messenger. His story was that there were some
flowers that you desired me to give you. * * » I do

Letter to Sasboud 55

not see what flowers you mean, unless it may be that Httle
book, in which I painted some flowers for you when we
were together, and which somehow or other has lately come
back to my hands. I cannot tell you how much mischief
your heedlessness in this matter has nearly caused me.
Henry, who brought the message from you, said that you
had asserted it was sold to you by me ; and you are well
aware how far that is from the truth. I therefore denied it
stoutly, as I was bound to do, and convinced the man at
last that the facts were not as he had understood.

But I beg you, Sasboud, dearest of my companions, to
beware of so devoting yourself to this art of painting as to
give up your interest in Letters. You know, at any rate,
what you promised me, when you were leaving this place,
and on what condition you took the books of poetry from
me, I mean that you would dedicate yourself wholly to the
study of Letters. * * If I were not prevented by the
limits of time and of this letter, I could mention a great
number of persons, and those of our own body, who having
seen what glory is gained by Letters and what shame by
ignorance, feel the deepest regret when they see too late,
that the season of youth, which is adapted to study, has
slipped between their fingers. Therefore, my sweetest
Sasboud, while your age is still unwasted, take the ant for
an example, and exert yourself to prepare the materials
which may delight and feed your age. And that you may
do that more earnestly, it is worth your while, if you cannot
altogether guard yourself from the dominating passions of
youth (for that is almost more than human), at any rate to
control and restrain them. You know what I mean; I have
said enough. Let me know soon by letter, how you are,
what you are doing, what you want of me, and anything else
that I am interested to know, and bear in mind your once
united and still most loving comrade.

CHAPTER II.

Later years at Stein. Early literary correspondence ;
Cornelius^ J^ames Canter and William Herman.
Literary work at Stein. Epistles i6 to 34.

This chapter contains nineteen Epistles ascribed to the later period
of Erasmus's residence at Stein. His principal correspondent at this
time was Cornelius of Gouda (uncle of his comrade William Herman),
an Augustinian Canon resident at one of the numerous houses of his
Order in Holland, whose full name and description, — Cornelius
Girardus Gondensis Hieronymians Vallis Canonicus Regularis, —
are given at the head of a letter to Gaguin, printed in 1504 in the fifth
edition of that author's History of France; see p. 172. The convent of
Vallis Hieronymiana was situated near Leyden, and the locality was
also known by the name of Lopsen.'^ The acquaintance was not
wholly new; both the correspondents being connected with Gouda; and
in C. viii. 545 E Erasmus alludes to Cornelius's character as a boy. The
letters of Erasmus are generally addressed to Cornelius Goudanus ; but
one of them, clearly belonging to the series (Epistle 27), is inscribed
Cornelia Aurotino, a title which has been ingeniously interpreted as
a fanciful variation of the ordinary form, the Latin aurum being
equivalent to the Dutch goud. This early friend of Erasmus has been
identified by the literary historians of his country with Cornelius
Aurelius Lopsen, a person not altogether unknown as a poet and
historian at the commencement of the sixteenth century, who is said
to have been a Canon Regular at the Convent of Hemsdonk in the
territory of Dordrecht, and to have been decorated with the Laurel by
the Emperor Maximilian (Miraeus, Elogia Belgica ; Valerius Andreas,
Biblioth. Belg. p. 204; Foppens, Biblioth, Belg. \. 193). Lopsenus
ille noster Aurelius is mentioned in a letter of Alardus of Amsterdam

* I am indebted for this information to Mr. Van Slee, the learned
librarian of Deventer.

Idejitity of Cornelius Lopsen 57

to Erasmus, dated 11 Nov., 15 16; and he appears to have been living
several years later, since a letter addressed from Dordrecht by
Cornelius Aurelius Lopsen to Joannes Berius, a schoolmaster of
Rotterdam, without date of time but apparently recently written,
was printed in 1529 in a volume containing Erasmus's Paraphrase
of the Elegantias of Valla and a short work called Farrago sordi-
doriim verborum by Cornelius Crocus. In this letter he admits that
he was publishing the Paraphrase without the permission of his old
comrade Erasmus, but pleads that the latter had printed at Paris,
upon doubtful authority, the poems of the writer's countryman (he does
not say nephew) William of Gouda (see Epistle 50) ; if he has been
wrong, he claims indulgence on account of his age : bis pueri senes.
Erasmus's opinion of this publication is given in the Preface, written
in his last year, to the volume of Epistles at that time in the press ;
where however he makes no direct mention of Cornelius, who was
probably then dead. A translation of this Preface will be found in
the Introduction to this Volume. The Elegantisc of Valla and his own
epitome of them are frequently mentioned in the early epistles of
Erasmus. See Epistles 22, 25, 26, 27, and p. 86.

In spite of the distance of time that had passed since the extant
correspondence of Erasmus and Cornelius, the assumed identity of the
author of the epistle to Berius with the early friend of Erasmus need
not be rejected. The latter was apparently older than Erasmus ; see
Epistles 16, 22. He was the uncle of Erasmus's contemporary William
Herman ; but the difference in age may have been not very great. In
1529 Erasmus was in his sixty-third year, and Cornelius Girardus, if
living, was not improbably between seventy and eighty. The corre-
spondent of Berius describes himself in his letter as an old man, a
native of Gouda and an ancient comrade of Erasmus; the Aurelius
assumed as part of his name recalls the Aurotinus which occurs in
the address of Epistle 27, both additions being probably fanciful equi-
valents for Goudanus ; and his third name, Lopsen, points to the
locality with which Cornelius Girardus was connected in 1504; see
p. 56. Le Mire describes Cornelius as preceptor of Erasmus ; but this
description, which is repeated by Valere Andre and Foppens, is con-
tradicted by the following correspondence, most of which was not pub-
lished until after the date of Le Mire's work. See Epistles 17, 19, 21.

The correspondence of Erasmus and Cornelius belonging to this
period consists of fourteen letters, ten of Erasmus and four of Corne-
lius. Of these, two of Erasmus are authenticated by their publication

58 Correspondence with Cornelius

in the author's lifetime, being included in the Farrago Epistolarum,
15 19. Six others were printed by Merula in 1607, and the other two
of Erasmus with four of Cornelius were added in Le Clerc's edition
in 1703. It may be observed that the first two letters (Epistles 16 and
17), which illustrate most distinctly the relation of the correspondents
to each other, were among the last published. The letters with one
exception are without date. See p. 65.

It appears from Epistle 17, that Cornelius had sometime before sent
a poem of his own composition to Erasmus, who, according to the
report of the messenger, treated it with contempt. Cornelius was
nevertheless still anxious to improve his acquaintance, and the corre-
spondence began with an epistle from Cornelius (which has not been
preserved), accompanied by a present, — probably a volume from his
shelf of books. See p. 73. The following epistle is Erasmus's answer.

Epistle 16. C. 1800 (413).
Erasmus to Cornelius Goiidanus, Poet and Divine.

Although there is nothing of which I was more certain,
most friendly Cornelius, than your regard and esteem, I see
them more plainly by the letter you have lately sent me, a
letter sufficiently diffuse, but too short to satisfy my longing
for you, though it has in no small degree relieved it. For
while the hearty feeling which it shows is as agreeable to me
as anything can be, I am still tortured with regret, that our
circumstances compel me to experience your kindness at a
distance. I should be better pleased, if I were allowed to
talk with you face to face, and with embraces and sacred
kisses to enjoy more closely your society. It is indeed an
auspicious day, to be distinguished with a snow-white mark,
on which I have gained you for a friend, and you have
become no small a part of my own soul ! I am not only
admitted to your friendship, but profit substantially by it. I
should be the most ungrateful of men, if I did not give the
heartiest thanks, and strive, whenever the occasion may arise,
to make some return, to one who treats me with so much
kindness and beneficence. * * *

Commencement of Correspondence 59

Whatever concerns the maintenance of your credit and
dignity will be of so much interest to me, that no one shall
take more account of his own welfare than I of your honour
and name. If therefore you judge anything to be procurable
by my zeal or labour, pray consider it as absolutely and
entirely your own.

Your kindness to our William is most pleasing to me and
worthy of your character. He deserves your affection, not
only for his distinguished erudition as a young man, but for
the love he bears you. Farewell, my sweetest Cornelius,
and love me much, as you do.

Epistle 17. C. 1803 (417).

Cornelius Goudanus to Erasmus Roterodamus^ Poety
Orator and Divine.

Although, dearest Erasmus, there is nothing I could wish
for more than to recognise your kind disposition towards
me, promising as it does, in so gratifying a way, the grace
and fidelity of friendship, still I am overcome by the con-
sciousness of my defects, when you distinguish me with
praises which I little deserve.

Some time ago, when that friend of ours had told me a
long story about your industry, I conceived the idea of
entering into a treaty of friendship with you, and relieving
the distance of a long journey by a frequent interchange of
letters. I then first gave him in pledge the story of St.
Nicolas written by me in rude verse, with this caution,— for
I will tell the plain truth, — that he should first look care-
fully at your poems, and if he thought the match was a fair
one, should then communicate my trifles to you. For I was
afraid, having long heard of your fame by means of our
John, that I must be overcome by your incomparable
genius, and put down with opprobrium for my temerity in

6o Erasmus and Corneliiis

throwing my chaff at your learned ears. But if he saw (as
I then suspected with little doubt, and have now ascertained
with hearty satisfaction) that you moved with a more power-
ful step, then my lame palfrey, which had been put into his
charge, was to be kept in the stable. The man lost his
head, and when he returned, informed me that you had read
my verses, but that when you had done so, you wrinkled
your forehead, stretched out a nose like a rhinoceros, derided
and, to use his expression, gnawed and tore them in every
direction. When I heard of this not undeserved censure, I
call Heaven to witness that I was not at all angry, but con-
sidered that I had received such a rebuke as my foolish
trifles deserved. But from this subject I am resolved to
abstain for ever, not wishing to throw any stain upon our
friend who is now a lav brother, or to stir up a sleeping fire.
For the rest, setting aside the cavils of the envious, I will
tell you in a few words in what spirit I accept your praises.
I believe myself, my sweetest Erasmus, that you have com-
plimented me in order to do away with my timidity and
cowardice, and by spurring me on to run with you in the
race of literary exercise, to make out of a rude disciple
another like yourself. * * * Farewell, and study to
serve God with good works.

In the fifth line of the following letter M. Ruelens suggests {Silva
Carminutn, Praef. p. xxiv), that for Bavo we should read Hiero, Valere
Andre having seen in a Convent at Louvain a poem by William
Herman entitled Divi Hieronis Vita et Passio. Possibly the mis-
reading is that of Andre ; the saint in his note being described as a
hero and martyr of Holland ; Val. Andreas, Bibl. Belg. p. 320. Bavo
was a Belgian saint with a story, but not a martyr ; Hiero an obscure
Armenian martyr ; Baronius, Martyrologia, i Oct. 7 Nov. The lugu-
bris oratio mentioned in the same page was probably that written
in honour of Berta van Heyen, printed C. viii. 551, and said to have
been composed by Erasmus in his twenty-first year (i486- 148 7). See
p. 87. This gives an approximate date for the Epistle.

Early writings of Erasmus 6 1

Epistle i8. Merula, p. 178 ; Ep. xxxi. 16 ; C. 1796 (410).
Erasmus to Cornelius.

Your epistles, dearest Cornelius, afford a pleasurable
occupation to my mind, while they kindle in my heart a
vehement longing for your society. You say you have
heard of my having produced a versified history in praise
of St. Bavo. This is one of the false tales of deceptive
Rumour. For it is not I, but my other self, that is the
author of that poem ; I mean your loving nephew, William,
between whom and me there is so intimate a friendship that
you may say there is one mind in two bodies. However I
am resolved for the future, since you advise me so kindly,
not to compose anything but what may savour either of the
praises of saints or of sanctity itself ; and if any of the
verses I present to you may seem to have too tender a tone,
you will with your usual indulgence excuse it in con-
sideration of the age at which they were written. For,
except the lyric poem, which was in hand when your letters
were delivered to me, and the mournful Oration lately com-
posed, which I thought right to give you that you might see
what I could do in prose, and that single Satire, all the rest
were written by me when a boy, and almost still in the
world. In fact I had nothing else at hand to give you,
for whatever there was besides had been partly sent to
Alexander Hegius, the Schoolmaster, formerly my teacher,
and Bartholomew of Cologne, a man of erudition, some of
whose poems I have,— and partly carried oflf to Utrecht by
the friendly violence of an intimate comrade of mine. I
have also directed a copy of a letter, which I once wrote
by special request to Master Engelbert, a man whose life
has made him venerable, to be given to you, on the chance
that by your intercession I may be thought worthy of

62 Engelhert Shut

receiving some return from him, which I have hitherto
been unable to obtain. Not that I therefore suspect so
admirable a man of haughtiness or arrogance, but rather mis-
trust the loquacious tongues of some of my friends, who in
a most unfriendly way have cast a stain on my credit with
him. It will be like your kindness, to bring me once more
into his good graces. Farewell.

The Engelbert whom Erasmus wished to conciliate (compare p. 72)
was probably Engelbert Schut of Leiden, who is described as a versi-
fier and grammarian. Among his works were Tractatus metricus de
locis rhetoricis and De moribus menss carmen. Foppen's Biblioth.
Belg. i. 265. His examples of Epistles are contemptuously mentioned
in the revised De Conscribendis Epistolis of Erasmus. C. i. 352.

Epistle 19. Merula, p. 169 ; Ep. xxxi. 10 ; C. 1796 (409).
Erasmus to Cornelius.

I plainly see, my very best of friends, that I am in high
favour with you, when you heap letter on letter, every one
full of love and kindness.

When you write, that you can safely put in my hands
whatever you have of vour works, being convinced that I
have been a faithful friend, and free from jealousy, I recog-
nise your kind feeling towards me, and will take good care
that you shall not be mistaken in your opinion * * *
I promise you my help in matters of this sort, upon con-
dition of your returning me the like service. Farewell, and
keep me in mind.

In Epistle 20 Cornelius tells Erasmus^ that he has by long-continued
importunity obtained from brother Martin a copy of a Poem of Eras-
mus On the Contempt of Poetry, out of which, with some few verses
of his own, he has composed a Dialogue. This seems to be the origin

Apologetic Dialogue 63

of the poem printed in the Silva Carminum Herasmi published by
Reyner Snoy in 15 13, as a Dialogue of Herasnius and Cornelius
against the deriders of Ancient Eloquence, reprinted C. viii. 567.

Epistle 20 ; C. 1803 (416).

Cornelius to Erasmus.
% % %

I have thus composed an Apologetic Dialogue, as appears
by the title prefixed to this little work, in which we have a
common interest. And I hope you will not be angry at my
having here and there altered a very few words in your
verses, and changed the metre towards the end. I was
anxious that it should be possible for the readers, if they
pleased, to sing it to an agreeable air, and in order that this
might be done more easily and without trouble to the voice,
I have carefully omitted every vowel hiatus. You will be
goodnatured enough to pardon me for thrusting my foolish
hand into your harvest of flowers, and will I hope find in it
a proof of the closest friendship. Finally, as I have the
highest esteem for your capacity, I urgently beg you to
apply your diligence to my work De Morte, and send it
back to me as soon as you conveniently can, corrected by
your judicious file. I trust there will never be any jealous
rivalry between us, such as a certain person laboured to
create, but that while mutual concessions must sometimes
be made between two minds, we shall abide in one bond of
love. Farewell and return my affection.

Epistle 21. Merula, p. 157 ; Ep. xxxi, 3 ; C. 1793 (407).

Erasmus to Cornelius,

Dearest Cornelius, the receipt of your little book through
our common friend. Master John, has been a surprise to me,

64 List of Authors

as I had quite ceased to hope for it. When you told me
yourself that it was finished, I can hardly say how much I
was delighted ; learning, as I did, that I had actually ob-
tained from you more than I could ever hope. * * *

I am pleased that you have received my poem ; and I
gather that you have not only not been offended with it,
but that it has greatly increased your kind feeling towards
me, inasmuch as you have not only condescended to approve
it, but to show the value you put upon it by mixing it with
your own magnificent verses. * *

Furthermore, as you write, may whatever savours of
jealousy or rivalry, and I will add of any unfriendly suspicion,
be far removed from our intercourse, and mav God spare
the man, — not to use anv sinister imprecation against one
that is a lay brother, — who has heretofore contrived any
such hindrance.

But do you really suppose me to be of so uncivil a temper
as not to know how to bear with equanimity vour sometimes
thinking differently from myself? Do I not bear in mind
that Augustine and Jerome, men not only eminent for their
erudition but famed for the holiness of their lives, held
different opinions, and maintained them too against each
other. * * *

I have my guides whom I follow ; if you perhaps have
others, I shall not take it amiss. Mv authorities in Poetrv
are Maro, Horace, Naso, Juvenal, Statius, Martial, Claudian,
Persius, Lucan, TibuUus and Propertius ; in prose, Tully,
Quintilian, Sallust, Terence. Then, for the observation of
elegances, there is no one in whom I have so much con-
fidence as Laurentius Valla, who is unrivalled both in the
sharpness of his intelligence and the tenacity of his memory.
Whatever has not been committed to writing bv those I
have named, I confess I dare not bring into use. If vou
admit some other authors, I am not at all readv to blame
you.

••»•

Writmgs of Cornelius 65

You write that I should take pains to apply my file to
your little work on Death. I must inform you that I read
that long ago, as well as the History of the War of Utrecht,
and the story of St. Nicolas composed by you with a
marvellous charm of language and affluence of sentences ;
but these, my Cornelius, seemed to be too good to be
subjected to my stupid file. You ought to know, however,
that your work on Death has long ceased to be in my
possession, as I returned it to Martin, who had brought it
me. It will be your business therefore to see that I have it
again as soon as may be, and I will take every pains to
mark anything I find in it that seems in the slightest degree
faulty, and will nevertheless leave whatever I have touched
with my file to be filed afresh by your acuteness. Farewell,
sweetest Cornelius, and love me as you do.

From Stein, May 15.

The above date, Ex Stein, Idus Maias is in Merula, and is the only
date found in any letter of this part of Erasmus's life. It may be
noted, that in his list of authors, Erasmus classes Terence among the
writers of prose. In an important Vatican manuscript, and in two
early printed editions, the plays are copied without any distinction of
verses. In the editions of Terence superintended by Erasmus in 1508
and 1532 special attention is directed to the metres. See pp. 30, 445.

Before the receipt of the answer of Cornelius to Epistle 21, Erasmus
writes again, recalling the names of living and recent scholars and
poets.

Epistle 22. Merula, p. 179 ; Ep. xxxi. 17 ; C. 1797 (411).
Erasmus to Cornelius.

Having already, as I think, sufficiently answered your
letter, I am induced by the excess of my love for you to
write something for you to answer in return. * * *

I find it most difficult to say, how much pleasure both
VOL. I. F

66 German Renaissance

your Apologetictis and your letters have given me. I pray
you therefore, to make me always a partner in your studies ;
and moreover, if there are any others where you are, not
unskilled in the poetic art, be so good as to give us some
notice of them. It will be a pleasure to us in the first place,
and we also shall be able to make their praises known here.
I see that in your poem you mention a certain Hieronymus,
who has passed five and twenty years in Italy and Paris in
poetical studies, and take pains to comment on an Epitaph
of his, but too briefly to give us a clear conception of the
man's ability. I shall be obliged if you will send us some
larger and more striking proof of his genius. But I am sur-
prised when you say that he is the only writer who has kept
to the footprints of the Ancients. For, not to speak of your-
self, I think I see a great many most learned men of our
own time who make no slight approach to the ancient elo-
quence. The first that occurs to me is Rodolphus iVgricola
the preceptor of my school-master, Alexander Hegius, a
man eminently learned in all the liberal arts, and specially
skilful in Rhetoric and Poetry, and finally expert in Greek
as well as Latin. Alexander is himself no degenerate
disciple of such a master ; and represents with so much
elegance the style of the ancients, that if his verse were
before you without a title, you might easily mistake the
author. He too is not altogether ignorant of Greek.
Again, Antony Gang and his ally Frederick Norman have
dignified Westphalia by their scholarship, and are both
worthy in my judgment to be remembered by posterity.
Moreover I am far from thinking that Bartholomew of
Cologne should be excluded from the list of men of letters.
Neither should I pass over in silence our own William of
Gouda, your kinsman, if it were not for his close union with
myself both as a friend and as a student. But I prefer to
hear his praises from you, as I might be supposed to be
misled by my personal feelings. All these are seen or have

Revival of Letters and Art 67

been seen by our own age, and produced by our own
Germany. If you are curious about their poems, I will
undertake that they shall fly to you forthwith.

But if we come to Italy, where do you find more ob-
servance of ancient elegance than in Laurentius Valla, or
Philephus, where more eloquence than in Aeneas Silvius,
Augustinus Dathus, Guarino, Poggio or Gasperino ? And
all these, as every body knows, lived almost down to our
own times.

But the revolution in literature seems to me to be the
same as that which has taken place in the more mechanical
arts. For we have the testimony of almost all the poets,
that in early times there were famous artists of every kind ;
but if you look at the pictures, sculptures, buildings, or
monuments of any craft beyond the last two or three hun-
dred years, you will, I think, be surprised and amused at the
excessive rudeness of the work, whereas again in our own
age there is no sort of art that has not been produced by the
industry of the craftsman. In like manner it is certain that
in early ages the study of eloquence, as of other arts, was
most flourishing, and afterwards, as the obstinacy of Barba-
rians increased, it disappeared. * * * Our Thalia
was well nigh extinct when Laurentius and Philelphus by
their admirable erudition saved her from perishing. The
books of the former, which are called Elegantiae, will show
you with what zeal he exerted himself both to expose the
absurdities of the Barbarians and to bring back into use the
observances of Orators and Poets long covered with the
dust of oblivion. If you have already read them, as I sus-
pect, there is no need of my advising you to do so ; if not, I
not only exhort but entreat you to begin their perusal. You
will never regret the pains you spend upon them. If you
wish to see them, ask John, who is devoted to you. * * *

Farew^ell, most reverend father. You will see by William's
letter what is his feeling towards you. If there are any

F 2

68 Hieronymiis Balbiis

persons in your company who join with you in love for me,
I beg you to salute them in my name. Farewell.

In Epistle 23, C. 1805 (419), Cornelius answers a question con-
tained in Epistle 22, which had come to hand before Epistle 21. He
describes Hieronymus Balbus, about whom Erasmus had inquired
(p. 66), as a poet resident in Paris. He still maintains his pre-
eminence, and appears to have sent Erasmus some specimens of his
poetry. Erasmus in his reply (Epistle 24) discusses at some length
the merits of this author, and concludes as follows.

Epistle 24. C. 1801 (414).
Erasmus to Cornelius.

It is difficult to say how much pleasure it has given me to
read the poems of Hieronymus, and to find in them such
striking traces of ancient eloquence. But I do not know
whether I should dare to prefer him to all the poets who are
now living, both because it is easy to write pretty epigrams,
and because there are other poems that make the palm a
matter of doubt. Nevertheless you will do me a great
favour, if you will lend me his other works, or those of any
other poet. I am very grateful to you and shall remain so
while I live, for the benefits you have heaped upon me.
Farewell.

Epistle 25, first published by Le Clerc (1703), answers Epistle 21
(which had apparently been delayed in its passage) as well as Epistle 22,
both first published by Merula (1607), and is answered by Epistle 26,
published by Erasmus in the Farrago Epistolarum, 15 19. In an
earlier part of Epistle 25 Cornehus alludes to Erasmus's reference to
the example of St. Jerome and St. Augustine (see p. 64) ; and in the
extract given he answers the advice contained in p. 67.

Laurenthis Valla 69

Epistle 25. C. 1804 (418).
Cornelius to Erasmus.

In begging me so urgently to read Laurentius Valla, you
amuse as well as edify me. If I may speak jestingly, I do
not know what you have done with your eyes, when you
propose for my imitation a person, against whom so many
men of no contemptible learning are known to have joined
hands in waging war. He is hunted down by a multitude of
assailants who insist that he should not be read, as he could
only cavil about letters and points. It was against Lauren-
tius that Poggio wrote that epigram.

Since Valla went the trembling Shades to seek.
No word of Latin Pluto dares to speak ;
Jove fears to call him to the blest abodes.
Lest carping censure vex the blameless gods.f

Are you right then in committing me to one who is
denounced by the whole world as a defamer ? So far in
jest. How much I have in fact profited by his books in
accordance with your recommendation, you may very easilv
judge, unless it seems arrogant to say so, by the fluent style
I now write.

I find it difiicult to tell you, how gratified I am by your
giving me a note of your instructors. You show the sin-
cerest kindness, free from all jealousy, and are pleased, as
very few would be, to make me a partaker in your secret
store. Farewell.

t Nunc postquam Manes defunctus Valla petivit
Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui.
Juppiter hunc superis dignatus honore fuisset,
Censorem linguae sed timet ipse suae.

7o Early Letters published by Erasmus

Epistles 26 and ^7 were included in the Epistolse ad diversos, pub-
lished in 1 52 1, and in later collections, with the note scripsit puer,
which note however is not found in the Farrago Epistolarum, where
they first appeared in 15 19 in the midst of letters of a later time.
Epistle 27, which is there placed first, is addressed Cornelio Aurotino.
See p. 56. They are clearly part of a correspondence, to which the
preceding letters appear to belong, Epistle 26 being the answer to
Epistle 25. The two epistles published in 15 19 were probably selected
from among a mass of early letters, as containing a eulogy of Valla,
upon whose critical works Erasmus always set a high value, and of
whose Elegayitise he had prepared in his early years an epitome, which
was published in 1529 by his correspondent Cornelius. See pp. 57, 381.

Epistle 26. Farrago, p. 175 ; Ep. vii. 3 ; C. 2 (2).
Erasmus to Cornelius.

Upon what you say about our Valla, I put this interpre-
tation, that you do not express your real opinion, but write
either to practise the facility of your pen in defending a
paradox, t or to supply me with a subject to write about ;
and as, in Plato, Glauco challenges Socrates to defend
Justice by finding fault with it himself, so in order to draw
me out in the defence of Valla, you quote those unworthy
insults with which the high priests of Barbarism have
assailed a most learned man. This may be gathered from
your admission, that you have not only read Valla but
copied him ; a fact which, if you denied it, is proclaimed by
the elegance of your style and phrase. * *

t kv h^6i(^ viroditxei. The Greek words in a letter of this date are remark-
able, and it is fortunate that they occur in a letter published in the author's
lifetime, as they might otherwise lead the reader to suspect its authenticity,
especially as there is no reason to suppose that Cornelius had any know-
ledge of Greek. Possibly they may have been introduced by Erasmus in
preparing the Epistle for publication at a later date.

Valla and Poggio 7^

But here some one may say : Putting vulgar murmurs
aside, what is the picture of him drawn by Poggio, a man
not without elegance and learning ? It is true, Poggio found
fault with him, but he alone ; and Poggio was rather minded
to display his learning than to improve it ; a man whom I
should place among the erudite, but so as not altogether to
part him from the society of the Barbarians. He has indeed
rather a natural command of language, than one based on
learning, and more fluency than eloquence. He censures
Laurentius, but in an openly hostile and acrimonious spirit.
So Sallust and Asinius disliked Cicero, so Caligula disliked
Virgil and Livy, so Rufinus disliked Jerome. And further
it is not difficult to show, how Laurentius provoked so much
rancour. For Terence's Sosia says wisely " Flattery begets
friends, truth foes."' * * * Where is the man whose
heart is so narrowed by jealousy, as not to have the highest
praise for Valla, a man who with so much energy, zeal, and
labour refuted the stupidities of the Barbarians, saved half-
buried letters from extinction, restored Italy to her ancient
splendour of eloquence, and forced even the learned to
express themselves henceforth with more circumspection ?
To his guidance therefore, my Cornelius, you will safely
commit yourself. When you do so, you will find your
writings w^ill acquire no little polish, — unless perhaps you
are preparing your work for Dutchmen only ! Farewell.
[Stein, .]

Epistle 26 is dated in Farrago, Anno M.CCCC.XC, while Epistle 27
has the date of M.CCCC.LXXXIX. Both may be regarded as approxi-
mations, probably added at the time of publication, rather than precise
dates, and both contradict the note scripsit puer.

Epistle 27 appears to have been written after a personal meeting at
which Cornelius had still affected to depreciate the merits of Valla.
We may suspect from the mention of Engelbert, that Erasmus's
advances had not been well received. See pp. 61, 62.

72 Laurentius Valla

Epistle 27. Farrago, p. 174 ; Ep. vii. 2 ; C. i. (i).

Erasmus to Cornelius Aiirotiniis.

As wolves and lambs are born to disagree,
A fatal discord severs you and me.*

If you are wise, you will at once make friends with my
Laurentius, or you must understand that war is declared.
You ask, whence this sudden stir, as if you had forgotten
what foul and deadly reproaches you uttered against him,
when you were lately with us. I shudder when I recall the
shamelessness of your language. The man who is eloquent
above all others, the man who has been rightly called The
Marrow of Persuasion, you venture to describe as ' a Croak-
ing Crow, a jester and not an orator.' If he still lived
what a drubbing you might expect ! You remember only
too well that the dead do not bite, and think it safe to do or
say what you like against him. Not quite so safe, I tell you
to check your triumph ; you see in me the avenger of Lau-
rentius' wrongs. Though I am careless of injuries done to
myself, you may find how pugnacious I am in defending my
literary friends. If you want assistance, you may send for
your hero Engelbert,f — who according to you has so drunk
of the Castalian waters that nothing comes away from him
but poetry, — and for any others like him, of whom there is
everywhere a safe abundance. Neither need you suppose
that I shall lack my band of warriors ; for this quarrel belongs
not only to me, but to all friends of sound scholarship ; for
in striking Laurentius you have wounded all men of letters.

But for my part, my Cornelius, there is nothing I hate so
much as civil war, to which I prefer peace on the hardest

* Lupis et agnis quanta sortito obtigit

Tecum mihi discordia est. Horat. Epod. iv. i.
t See p. 62.

Library of Cornelius 73

conditions. Wherefore if you also prefer peace to war, you
will find me indulgent enough, provided you accept the
terms which my heralds will offer you. There are three
main conditions, and you will have no cause to complain of
them as unfavourable. First, if you have sinned by evil-
speaking you may atone by speaking well. Instead of
Croaking Crow, you will call Laurentius Marrow of Persua-
sion and Attic Muse. Secondly you will learn his Elegances
so well as to hold them at your fingers' ends. Lastly you
will put at my disposal your books, of which you have
a good store, and over which you sit like some Hesperian
dragon. You laugh and think me joking. Laugh as much
as you please, but do not take all I have said for jest, as I
should be sorry you should suppose me not in earnest about
your sending the books. Moreover as to Laurentius do not
think it becoming for a votary of Letters like yourself to aim
your shafts at one that only Barbarians dislike. Farewell.
[Stein *.]

The following undated Epistle is not placed with the other letters
of the series in Merula's book ; but the reference to a solitary life at its
commencement confirms the attribution of it to a time when Erasmus
and his correspondent were both inmates of a convent. He sends
Cornelius an Oration, as a lesson in Rhetoric, which from the terms in
which he speaks of it, he appears to destine for a wider audience.
Some of his early Orations are described, p. 87.

Epistle 28. Merula, p. 209 ; Ep. xxxi. 41 ; C. 1799 (412).

Erasmus to Cornelius.

There are two things, according to Cicero, which more than
anything else produce intellectual languor, leisure and soli-
tude ; and both these conditions are ours. Solitude is re-
quired by the very scheme of our life. And leisure is not

* Anno M.CCCC.LXXXIX. Farrago. See p. 71.

74 ^ Model Oration

likely to be wanting, when we see letters, which formerly
bred for their votaries the greatest gain as well as glory, are
now a loss and a disgrace to those who pursue them. For
it is come to this, that the more imbued with letters a man
is, the more ridiculous and wretched a being he becomes.
Hence, my Cornelius, I have seen no reason why I should
choose to waste my life to no purpose in literary study, and
have therefore for some time quite turned my attention away
from letters. Besides those two things, I have had in addi-
tion imperfect health, which itself is wont not only to lessen,
but even to quench the ardour of the mind. Nevertheless,
since I have no other purpose in life so settled as that of
gratifying and serving you in every possible way, as indeed
I am most bound to do in return for the favours you have
heaped upon me, I have taken up this work again for your
sake, and have finished with all possible pains the Oration
for which you have asked ; taking great care to mark the
oratorical divisions, and what character and colour is proper
to each, so that you in the first place may have your wish ful-
filled, and that the learned may be pleased with our labour,
the illiterate may see and envy, the sciolist and boaster may
blush, and the ordinary reader may carry off some profit.
* * * Finally, my sweetest Cornelius, you will, I
hope, receive some help, or at any rate some pleasure,
from the pains I have taken. In any case I shall have
done my duty as a loyal friend. Farewell, and love me as
you do.

Epistle 29 contains no distinct evidence of date ; but we may safely
assume that it was written from Stein during the latter part of Eras-
mus's residence there. The reference to Jerome's Epistles might supply
an argument for placing it before Epistle 18, as the mournful Oration
sent therewith was written in imitation of Jerome's Epistle to Eusto-
chium, which is expressly referred to in it. See p. 87.

Epistles of Saint J-erome 75

Epistle 29. Merula, p. 168 ; Ep. xxxi. 9 ; C. 1795 (408).

Erasmus to Cornelius.

Eternal thanks for your kindness, sweetest Cornelius, in
taking so much pains to prepare me a dart with which, as
you write, I may pierce the sides of the scoffers. But alas,
it is not with the weapons of argument, but with those of
jealousy and abuse, that the battle is fought, when any con-
test arises about Poetry. If they could adapt their ears to
reason, nothing could be easier than to convince them.
They condemn the impurity of matter that accompanies the
beauty of language. Well, we unite in condemning it.
They blame an excessive devotion to poetic studies.
Neither do we praise it. If they fairly looked at the
Epistles of Jerome, they would understand that dullness is
not sanctity, nor elegance of language, impiety. I am
obliged to you for inviting me to the perusal of those
Letters. I have not only read them long ago, but have
written every one of them out with my own fingers. While
we find in them a great many darts with which the
reproaches of the Barbarians may be refuted, that one
alone may suffice, which is so carefully prepared and sharp-
ened for us in the page where after commenting on the
husks of the Prodigal Son, he brings in the example of the
Captive Woman. * * *

The above passage shows how earnestly Erasmus had devoted his
labours to the Epistles of Jerome. In this instance, as in others
(Epistle 65), the manuscript used by the young student had been
written with his own hand. The lesson cited from Jerome is found
in the twenty-first Epistle (Ed. Vallarsi, i. 75), and furnishes a good
example of the allegorical method of interpretation, which continued
in use for so many centuries. The husks which the swine did eat are

76 Cornelius, Author of the Mariad

first taken as a symbol of profane literature. Then the Captive
Woman, admitted into the family of the Israelite after certain cere-
monies (Deuteron. c. xxi. 11-13), which, Jerome observes, if literally
construed appear somewhat ridiculous, is interpreted as a type of the
use of profane learning among Christians. Erasmus refers at greater
length to this passage of Jerome in his Antibarbari (C. x. 1729), the
first sketch of which was probably in hand before the date of this
Epistle. See pp. 84, 100.

Cornelius of Gouda was not the only member of his Order who
received assistance in his studies from Erasmus. A younger Augus-
tinian Canon, also named Cornelius, whose story is told by Revius
{Daventrta Illustrata, p. 143), was educated under Hegius at
Deventer, where he was a contemporary of Jacobus Faber, after-
wards an undermaster there, who in 1503 edited a collection of the
Latin poems of Hegius. See Epistle 172. Cornelius having acquired
at school a taste for poetry, and having afterwards entered into Reli-
gion, devoted his studies to the composition of a sacred epic entitled
the Mariad. The first six books of this work, intended to be com-
pleted in thirty books, are still preserved in the Public Library of
Deventer, together with a Preface addressed to Jacobus Faber, in
which we read, that when the author's courage was failing him, he
had been piously exhorted to pursue his work by a Canon Regular
named Herasmus, who is described as aetate floridus, religione com-
positus et omnium fere nostri aevi tam prosa quam metro praestantis-
simus, and who often repeated to him Virgil's saying, Labor omnia
vincit improbus. In the same preface, he quotes a part of a letter of
Erasmus (Epistle 30), in which he was not contented with empty
praise, but had offered to assist the author in transcribing his work.

Epistle 30. Revius, Deventria Illustrata, p. 143.
Erasmus to Cornelius.

I readily suspect, such is your modesty, that you are rather
vexed with me for my commemoration of your merits. But,
angry as you may be, 1 can never cease to sound your praises.
Moreover I have the boldness to request that that humortal
work, the Mariad, may be dedicated to my name. * *

Two distinct Cornelii 77

Pray send it to us to be copied, as you undertook to do,
when we were reading it.

We do not know in what monastery the poet was resident. And it is
no wonder, that with the same name, the same profession and similar
pursuits, Cornelius of Gouda and the author of the Mariad have been
identified by M. K\xe\&r\s {Silv a Carminum (reprint 1864), p. xvii.) and
by subsequent biographers. But they are distinguishable by several
marks. If the preceding Epistles are to be trusted, Cornelius of Gouda,
uncle of William Herman, appears to have been Erasmus's senior
(p. 67), and not a scholar of Hegius (pp. 61, 66) ; and in a long corre-
spondence between Erasmus and Cornelius (including some of the first
letters that passed between them), the latter requests Erasmus's assist-
ance in revising various writings, without any allusion to the Mariad.
The other Cornelius was Erasmus's junior, a contemporary of Jacobus
Faber, and a scholar of Deventer, who upon making Erasmus's ac-
quaintance at once sought his assistance in the one poetical work,
which appears to have been his sole or principal literary occupation.
I observe that Revius does not identify these two Cornelii ; and that
there are sixty-three authors of this name commemorated in Foppens,
Bibliotheca Belgica.

Epistle 31 is an example of the freemasonry which existed among
the learned of the Renaissance, with whom the possession of a good
Latin style was a sufficient mutual introduction. James Canter was a
gentleman of Friesland, whose father, Antony, had been noted for his
learning, and who had himself lately delivered at Antwerp some
readings upon Virgil. This poet was then not generally read in schools ;
but a work known as the Cento of Proba, in which lines taken from
all parts of Virgil's works were ingeniously strung together to cele-
brate the mysteries of the Christian religion, was widely read, and
frequently reproduced by the early printers. It is of interest to
observe, that Proba was one of the books recommended twenty years
later by the Statutes of St, Paul's School for the instruction of the
junior classes. Lupton, Life of Colet, p. 279. It appears to
have occurred to Canter, that a school edition of this work, with
short explanatory notes, might serve to recommend his favourite
author to Christian teachers. Such a work, edited by him, was
accordingly issued at Antwerp by Gherardus Leo, on the 12th of

78 The Cento of Proba

September, 1489, with the title, Probe coniugis Adelphi centona
Virgilij vetus et nouum continens testanientum. It was preceded
by a Prologue, dated 30th July, in which the editor dedicates his work
to his young sister Ursula, and condemns the withdrawal of Virgil
from the schools. At the end is a note upon its authorship, and also an
Epistle addressed to those who had encouraged his readings at Ant-
werp. This letter was written while he was preparing for a journey
to Italy, and he proposed to make any corrections of his book which
might be thought advisable, on his return.

Epistle 31, which is without date in Merula, may be placed in the
summer of 1490, when Canter may be assumed to have returned
from his journey, and Erasmus "was sure where a letter would find
him." It was forwarded to its destination by one of the Canons of
Stein ; who appears, from the terms in which Erasmus speaks of
him at the end of the letter, to have been William Herman.

Epistle 31. Merula, p. 175 ; Ep. xxxi. 14; C. 1785 (398).
Erasmus to the most learned yames Canter.

Although, most learned Sir, I have long been assailed by
a mighty desire to write to you, I have been hindered till
to-day by the want of a convenient messenger, especially as
I was not sure where a letter would find you. But being
now provided with a person who may rely on a favourable
reception, who I am confident will spare no pains in deliver-
ing my letter nor pertinacity in exacting an answer, and
from whom even without my writing you might learn my
whole mind, I cannot let the opportunity pass of giving him
this letter to accompany him on his journey. In reaching
your hands, it will enjoy a happiness, which the writer can
only envy. * * * The praises of your family fly
from mouth to mouth, and rumour tells of the tenderest age
imbibing Latin with its mother's milk, and of sentences
worthy of learned ears being heard at the distaff, instead of
the gossip in which women for the most part take delight.

J-ames Canter 79

The father was worthy of such a family, and the family of
such a father. Who, even without being acquainted with
you, could doubt, that brought up from the very cradle in
such a method, you have come to be a most learned
scholar ? But not to let you suppose that a sceptic like me
founds his opinion upon mere conjecture, you must know
that Gerardus Leo the printer, a very pleasant person, has
furnished me with full particulars. When he was leaving
us, I accompanied him as far as the bank of the Yssel, which
he was going to cross, and hstened eagerly while he Lold me
a multitude of things about you. I lost no time in sending
for the poem of the lady Proba, which I had heard was
yours. When I began to read it, and found it was the
Cento of Proba,* it did not interest me much ; but your
letter and prefaces so pleased me, that I was not satisfied
till I had read them several times.

Therefore, having ascertained that you are not only a
distinguished scholar, but also a patron of Letters, I deter-
mined to beg of you, first that we may be loving friends, a
thing delightful whoever the parties may be, but especially
delightful between scholars ; secondly that you will continue
to deserve well of Letters, now so cruelly oppressed, and
labour to drive away the disgusting barbarism which almost
universally prevails ; and lastly, since we cannot meet
together, that we may relieve our separation by an inter-
change of letters. I cannot write at greater length, neither
do I think there is any occasion for it, as the bearer of this
letter will tell everything by word of mouth. He is asso-
ciated with me both in my studies and in everything else.
Farewell, and pray return the regard I have for you.
[Stein, 1490.]

* Simulque Probse * * comperi. The omitted word I have assumed
to be centonem. This term was so little understood, that it is miswritten even
in the title of Canter's book (p. 78), and in many of the later editions of the
work is made part of the name of the author, Probse, Centonx opusculum.

8o Monastic trials

Epistle 32, belongs to the conventual period, when the two friends
were practising their style, writing letters and communicating orations
and poems. But they were for the time separated, William being
apparently at the Convent with access to a good library, and Erasmus
under sentence of prolonged rustication, charged perhaps with some
distant mission or conventual business. The fact that Herman's last
letter had been delivered by Servatius, shows that Erasmus was still
within reach of the monastery. This epistle probably formed part of
the correspondence with Herman, preserved by Erasmus (p. 197),
most of which has been lost.

Epistle 32. Merula, p. 149; Ep. xxxi. i. ; C. 1833 (444)-
Erasmus to William of Gouda.

You will perhaps, my William, be feeling by this time no
slight surprise, that while you are piling letter on letter, I
slumber and make no return. You alternate prose with
verse and verse with prose, and try by your very pertinacity
to extort something from me and force me to break silence.
I on the other hand appear to have forgotten my old habit
(for I was wont to harass you with the frequency of my
letters), and to be prepared with no reply. * * *

That old love of mine for thee, which thou hast guessed
to be extinct, is not only not dead, it is not grown cold or
weak ; it grows stronger every day, and will never yield to
anv chances of fortune or to any jealousies of rivals. They
may separate our bodies, intercept our meetings, forbid our
intercourse, but the one thing they shall never do, is to
make my mind travel away from thine. * *

You pretend to be so impatient of my silence, that you
say you have no heart left. And yet when you learned that
the epistle which I was hastening to send you was in hand,
you attacked it while on its way, and pulled it to pieces before
you had seen it, a process which I should call prophecy
rather than criticism, unless perchance you estimate it by

Erasmus and William Herman 8i

your judgment of some poems which I composed some time
ago, and which you charge with obscurity. I admit for my
part that it is important for the poet as well as the orator,
that his speech should be not only learned, but brilliant and
lively. Witness Horace :

No verse is perfect where we fail to find

The charm that captive leads the hearer's mindf.

But there is one thing that perplexes me, that whereas,
when I used to recite my poems to you, you praised to a
marvellous degree the agreeable and brilliant lucidity which
you found in them, you have now changed your mind, or
your language, and find fault with them for obscurity and
sleepiness, — whether in jest or in earnest I am not sure. * *

Nevertheless I will put this letter before you to be
censured, and if you see anything in it that demands the
file or erasure, I entreat you to correct a friend in a friendly
way. I shall not only not take it amiss, but shall consider
myself to have received the greatest favour, and be thankful
for it. But if it is really your purpose to give pain to a
friend, it is indeed an unequal contest. You are living in
the midst of studies of Ciceronian art, while I have been
quite deprived of all facilities of reading.

You of each newest book unfold with curious hand the

stainless page.
While scarce a volume soiled and old has reached my

fingers for an age.
In tiny chamber calm and still you sit, and build the

lofty rhyme. J

t Non satis est pulchra esse poemata : dulcia sunto
Et quocunque volent aiiimum auditoris agunto.

Horat. Ars Poet. 99.
% Tu nova quaeque legls et munda volumina versas :
Sordida charta legi vix datur ulla mihi.
Tu facis in parva sublimia carmina cella.
VOL. I. G

82 Dejection of Erasmus

All the vivacity of my former character has been taken
out of me by my melancholy situation.

Assiduous toil has bruised the brain, and worn my
ancient strength away.f

Nevertheless, if there is no way of escape, do pray fore-
warn me, that I may not expose the epistles I am going
to send you to the risk of such a contest without some
protection. * * *

I wonder that you are so much surprised at our silence,
as if you had never read that saving of the wise man, Music
in mourning is unseasonable discourse. % Are the gentle
studies of humanity adapted to this bitter time ? Truly
Poetry, as some one has said, is a glad occupation and one
that requires peace of mind. Where now is gladness, where
tranquillity of heart ? Every thing is full of bitterness and
trouble ; wherever I turn my eyes, I see nothing but what
is melancholy and cruel. It is for you, who live under
happier stars, to devote, while you are permitted, your
loftiest efforts to immortalitv, and to produce some poetical
masterpiece, in which posterity may take delight. There is
nothing for me but weeping and sighing, with which my mind
is so blunted and my spirit so broken, that I have no taste at
all for my old studies. The graces of poetry have no attrac-
tion for me, the Muses, once mv only care, have lost their
charm. And yet I confess, that when our common friend,
Servatius, brought me your short oration, a sprightly work
invested with all the air of Tully (though I am quite for-
gotten in it), I began to breathe again as if awakened from
a deep sleep, and, cursing my laziness, I forced myself to
write something.

I would answer your letter sentence by sentence, if the

t Contudit ingenium patientia multa laborum,
Et pars antiqui nulla vigoris adest.
\ Musica in luctu importuna oratio. Ecrlesiasticus^ xxii. 9.

A Lady Correspondent 83

end of my paper did not bid me come to a conclusion. To
your question what I think of John's letter, I answer briefly.
It seems to me to savour more of Bernard than of Tully.f
Yet I observe in it with wonder a not ungraceful composi-
tion of words, and at the same time an old man's heart in a
young man's body. The scantiness of my paper forbids me
to sav what I feel about Cornelius, with whom I am on the
most affectionate terms. The facts are in evidence. One
thing I beg of you, that you will exhort and entreat him to
apply himself to literary work, and to persevere in bringing
his wTitings before the public. He has the power of doing
so, for everything is in his favour ; although the gods sell us
all things for labour. Farewell, and love me, as you do.

The terms in which the writer speaks of his circumstances in
Epistle 33, suggest the possibility that it was written about the same
time as the last. The lady addressed was an inmate of some convent
in Gouda or the neighbourhood, possibly one of the daughters of
Berta van Heyen, on whose death Erasmus composed a mournful
oration. See pp. 60, 87.

Epistle 33. Merula, p. 188; Ep. xxxi. 21 ; C. 1808 (425)

Erasmus to Elizabeth^ a Virgin dedicated to God.

I have received your letter, dearest sister in Christ, and
cannot tell you how much pleasure it has given me, carrying
with it, as it does, the surest evidence of your good-will,
which I have always endeavoured to conciliate. It is no
small comfort that there are still those who have some care
and sympathy for me, even in such bitterness of fortune.
And indeed I think it all the more obliging, as it is seldom
that such treatment befalls the wretched. * * It is

t See a similar criticism in Epistle 11, and comment, p- 51. Dominus
Joamies was the bearer of a letter from Cornelius (Epistle 21). See pp. 59,
63. 67.

G 2

84 The Antibarbarians of Erasmus

now, as people say, as clear as noonday, that this class of
inconstant friends does not include you, who alone in my
trouble and reverse of fortune have never discontinued your
affection for me. If therefore I cannot match you in kind
offices, I must never fall short in the interchange of love
and letters ; and far as you may be before me in act, I will
not allow myself to be behind you in mind and will. If you
distrust my professions, make trial of me, and I will do what
I can to make you understand how much I value you.
Farewell.

The contents of Epistle 34 supply no distinct evidence of its date ;
but the fact that it was written inter rusticationem recalls the circum-
stances dwelt upon in Epistle 32, and suggests the probability that it
belongs to the same period of enforced absence from the Convent.
It is of interest as containing the first mention of an early work of
Erasmus, to which he gave the title of The Antibarbarians. The
description, 'long threatened,' supports the author's later assertion, that
he first took up the subject before his twentieth year. C. x. i6gi E. But
the plan here proposed does not entirely agree with the form after-
wards adopted, in which the first book (not the second) is arranged
as a dialogue, without introducing Cornelius among the speakers ;
and, the scene of the dialogue being laid at Bergen, we may assume
that this part of the work was not completed until after Erasmus had
joined the household of the Bishop of Cambrai. It will therefore be
convenient to speak of it more fully in the following chapter. See
p. 100.

Epistle 34. C. 1802 (415).

Erasmus to Cornelius.

I am glad you are beginning to remember your poor
friends. Why, when your talk was of nothing but farms
and stock, we were out of it altogether. The worst fate I
can wish for those who made you proctor, is, that they may
be made proctors themselves ! But, sweetest Cornelius,
now that you have either steered yourself into harbour, or
been cast by some wind ashore, do pray return in good

Erasmus ordained Priest 85

humour to your interrupted studies. After this separation
the Muses will be more agreeable to you, and you to them,
than if you had never been divorced.

You ask whether I am doing anything. I have in hand a
work on Letters, which I have very long threatened, and
am now busy with it in my country retreat.* How it
proceeds I do not quite know. My intention is to finish it
in two books. The first will be entirely occupied in refuting
the stupid methods of the Barbarians. In the second I shall
make you and other learned friends like you, speak in praise
of Letters. Therefore, as the glory is to be shared between
us, it is fair that we should share the work. If therefore
you have read anything, — and what is there you have not
read, — w^hich you think bears upon this subject, that is to
say, by which the pursuit of literature can be either dis-
praised or extolled, I pray you for our friendship's sake to
send it to me, and candidly allow me to share it. Farewell.

We have no later Epistle of Erasmus, that can be ascribed to the
time of his conventual life, except the letter to Batt (Epistle 35),
which is given at the commencement of the next chapter, and attri-
buted to the close of this period. The date of his departure
from the convent is not known; but we learn from Beatus (p. 26),
that he was already ordained, before he joined the household of the
Bishop, and from Valere Andre {Biblioth. Belg. p. 175), that he was
ordained priest by David Bishop of Utrecht on St. Mark's day (25
April), 1492. See C. x. 1573 A. He was then in his twenty-sixth
year (see pp. 13, 14), and if he left the convent later in the same
year or early in the next, the duration of his residence would be
about ten years. See pp. 18, 41, 92. This duration of his monastic
life is confirmed by the statement of Reyner Snoy, a friend both of
Erasmus and William Herman, who says in his Preface to the volume
which he published of Erasmus's Juvenile Poems, that his two friends
were for ten years comrades in the Convent of Stein. Silva Car-
minum Herasmi, Gouda, 15 13, Praef.

Before parting with this period of Erasmus's life, a few observations
may be added respecting his early literary productions. A bucolic

* Inter rusticationem.

86 Early Poetry of Erasmus

poem written in his school-days has been mentioned, p. 17; and his
earliest extant prose, p. 40. The poem in laiide^n Annse avide lesu
Christi (C. v. 1325) is described by the author as written by him
when quite a boy, p. 297. And in the Catalogue of Lucubrations
(Jortin ii. 418), he mentions an Elegiac poem on Lust and Ambition,
written before he was eighteen, which w-as printed in his absence by
some friends ; nothing further is known of this poem. Compare pp.

21, 22. The verses de Casa natalitia piieri lesu, the expostulatio
lesu cum homine suapte culpa pereunte, and the Sapphic Ode in
laudem Michaelis et omnium angelorian (C. v. 1317, 1319, 1321)
may also be probably attributed to the conventual period. See pp.

22, 198. The last contains, at the end of the first part, an allusion
to the constant warfare by which the country of the author was
disturbed. See p. 87. The Varia Carniina (C. viii. 561-584) belong
for the most part to the same period. Among them is a poem on
Spring, a joint production, in alternate couplets, of Erasmus and
William Herman " in their nineteenth year." In another poem
Erasmus was associated with Cornelius (see p. 63) ; and the Oda
Amatoria, C. viii. 562, may have been among the works for which
Erasmus apologizes in Epistle 18, as written when he was "almost
still in the world." It may be added, that there are three Satires
by Erasmus, and a poem entitled Ad Lesbium de Nummo, printed
by Reyner Snoy in his Herasmi Silva Carminu?n, 15 13, which are not
included in any of the later collections. All these belong to the Stein
period. A Satire, apparently lately written, was among the specimens
of his work sent by Erasmus to Cornelius with Epistle 18.

Of his prose compositions, one of the earliest was a book of no liter-
ary pretension, but of considerable utility at the time, being an Epitome
of the Elegayitias of Laurentius Valla. That great Italian scholar was
the author of one of the first works of practical Latin criticism which
followed the Renaissance, containing a list of words, phrases and
synonyms, with dissertations upon their meaning and construction.
This book was too long for ordinary teaching or reference ; and Eras-
mus, when he was about eighteen years of age, at the request of the
master of a school, compiled an abridgment of it, and in so doing
fixed in his mind a mass of useful scholarship. The book was not
intended for the press, but manuscript copies passed into the hands
of his friends, and were not improbably supplied to the booksellers
for sale. (See Epistles 51, 81.) But as no copyright was recognised,

Prose works of this period 87

it might as easily be multiplied for others as for the compiler; and at
last it was printed at Cologne without his sanction from a copy supplied
by Cornelius Lopsen (see p. 57), with the title, Paraphrasis in Elegan-
tiarum libros Laurentii Valise. Erasmus then revised and re-arranged
the book himself ; and published it with the word Epitome in the title
as an alternative for Paraphrasis, and a Preface narrating its history.
This work is reprinted, C. i. 1069. We have already seen that both
Cornelius and Erasmus had been under obligations to Valla's Elegantise
in the formation of their Latin style. Epistles 21, 22, 25. Another
of his early works was the treatise already mentioned (p. 84) entitled
Antibarbari, which the author tells us was begun before his twentieth
year (C. x. 1691). Some account of this work will be found in p. 100.
A rhetorical composition, entitled Oratio de Pace et Discordia
contra factiosos ad Cornelium Goudanum (C. viii. 545-561), appears
from its opening paragraph to have been written at the request of
Cornelius, and is said in a note at the end, to have been composed
by Erasmus in his twentieth year. This oration was doubtless
occasioned by the political strife and civil wars, which disturbed the
peace of Holland for many years after the death in 1477 of Charles
the Bold, duke of Burgundy and count of Holland, during the reign of
his daughter Mary, and the continued regency of her husband Maxi-
milian, which ended in July, 1494, when his son Philip was declared of
age. The same troubles are probably alluded to in the Sapphic ode above
mentioned (p. 86). Another discourse (mentioned in Epistle 18) is
entitled Oratio Funebris in Funere Bertse de Heyen Goudanse Viduae
probissimse (C. viii. 551-560). This is addressed to the surviving
daughters of the deceased lady, who w'ere nuns in a convent at
Gouda. Its composition is attributed, in a note at the end, to
Erasmus's twenty-first year. The author quotes as his model the
Epistle of St. Jerome to Eustochium on the death of her mother
Paula; and the oration is followed, as is Jerome's Epistle, by an
Epitaphium (cf. Hieronymi Opera, ed. Vallarsi, i. 725). A small
addition is made to the biography of Erasmus, when we learn that he
was under personal obligations to the subject of this Oration at the
time when he lost his parents, and frequently afterwards. " You
know well," he says, "what she was to me, my nurse, my bene-
factress ; who took charge of me as an orphan, assisted me in my
poverty, comforted me in my desolation, encouraged me in my
cowardice, and (I am ashamed to say it) sustained me, when the

88 Eulogy of Monastic Life

occasion arose, by her advice." The two orations here described
were printed, apparently for the first time, at the end of the eighth
volume of the Leiden edition of the Opera Erasmi.

Another composition, having a more important biographical interest,
IS the so-called Epistle, entitled De Contemptu Mimdi (C. v. 1239),
addressed in the name of Theodoricus Harlemeus to his learned
nephew Jodocus, in which the current arguments in favour of a
monastic calling are rhetorically set forth. This work, written by
Erasmus when he was scarcely twenty years of age, having had some
circulation in manuscript during the five and thirty years that followed
its composition, the author in the year 152 1, determined to revise it
himself, and publish it with an explanatory preface. In this he
informs the reader, that it was written upon the entreaty of a person
who wished to induce his nephew to adopt his own profession. The
piece, as it now stands, consists of an Introduction, and of ten
Chapters (each of which has an appropriate heading, as Pericidosxivi
est 7norari in mundo^ De felicitate vitx solitarise) recommending a
monastic life, and a final Chapter (with no heading), in which all the
preceding rhetoric is neutralized by a severe criticism of the habitual
condition of the monasteries of the time. We cannot doubt that the
last chapter was added upon the revision, by which, according to the
author's preface, only a slight alteration was made, while he begs the
reader to remember that his main argument was written alieno
stomacho. If we suppose that Erasmus was insincere in his praise of
a monastic life, we cannot acquit him of the blame which he casts
upon those, who, according to the Epistle to Grunnius and the Com-
pendium, united to induce him by false representations to enter a
convent. If his commendations were at the time more or less sincere,
they throw some doubt upon the extreme unwillingness with which he
represented himself to have adopted that profession. It may be
observed, that the main authority for this reluctance is the Epistle to
Grunnius, in which the author may have allowed himself some of the
licence of a writer of fiction. No sign of discontent appears in his
early letters, where he shows his appreciation of the opportunities of
study, which his Convent afforded, and which he could not have
obtained elsewhere. See Epistles 8, 11, 15, 32. Mr. Drummond has
truly observed, that the years spent at Stein were the best possible
preparation for the work of his life [Life of Erasmus, i. 28). The
only objection was the difficulty of leaving it, when it was no longer
the place for him. Even for this a way was found.

CHAPTER III.

Departure from Stein, y ames Batt. Erasmus with the
Bishop of Cambrai at Bergen and Brussels, 1493-4.
Composition of the Antibarbari. Epistles 35 to 41.

The present chapter includes all the correspondence that we possess
relating to Erasmus's departure from Stein and to the period of his
attendance upon the Bishop of Cambrai. Of the seven epistles con-
tained in it, not one was printed in the lifetime of Erasmus. Epistle 35
was published in the work of Merula, 1607, the others by Le Clerc
in 1703. For the facts connected with this period the biographers
of Erasmus have been mainly dependent upon the concise narratives
of Beatus Rhenanus and the Compendium. See pp. 10, 26.

We are not informed by either of these authorities, by what means
the learning and accomplishments of Erasmus were brought under the
Bishop's notice. According to Beatus, it was during his engagement
with the Bishop that Erasmus formed the acquaintance of James Batt,
a learned lawyer, who was then Secretary or Town-clerk of Bergen-
op-Zoom, in the province of North Brabant. This town was under
the lordship of the head of the family of Bergen, the father of the
Bishop ; and Epistle 35 was evidently written when the writer was
endeavouring to obtain some favour through the influence of Batt
with his patron, the lord of Bergen. We are tempted to conjecture,
that the acquaintance of Erasmus with Batt began at an earlier time
than Beatus supposed, and that this letter, which was not known to
him, formed part of a correspondence relating to a recommendation to
the Bishop, which Erasmus hoped to procure through Batt's interest
with the Bishop's father. It will be observed that Erasmus and Batt
were exchanging letters by barge, as they would naturally do between
Gouda and Bergen-op-Zoom. In a letter written to James Tutor, 18
July, 1 50 1 (Epistle 155), Erasmus speaks of Batt's love for him having

90 jf antes Bait

begun at a time when he was in the deepest affliction (amare coepit
vel afflictissimum. C. 52 B.) ; and he says in a letter to Batt, written
from Orleans, 11 Dec. 1500 (Epistle 132, p. 284), that the auspices of
his own better fortune had proceeded from him (felicitatis nostrae a te
profecta sunt auspicia. C. 60 c). These acknowledgments are es-
pecially appropriate, if it was through Batt's influence with the family
of Bergen that he was extricated from the convent. On the other
hand, his circumstances during the early part of his residence with
the Bishop, when, according to the tradition of Beatus, he was first
introduced to Batt, were not those of affliction. He was then enjoying
his new freedom, and the Bishop was on affectionate terms with him.
See Epistle 150, C. 48 F, 49 A. We may find in a letter of Herman
to Batt (Epistle 39), further evidence that the acquaintance between
Erasmus and Batt existed before the former left the convent, as
he had frequently before his departure spoken of Batt to the writer.

With respect to the previous history of this correspondent, who
remained until his death in 1503 Erasmus's most useful and confiden-
tial friend, we gather from the treatise entitled Antibarbari, that
Bergen was his original home ; that he had passed some time as a
student in the University of Paris ; that on his return to Bergen
within two years before Erasmus's arrival there, he was appointed
Master of the high school of the town, having been before a severe
critic of its old-fashioned teaching and management ; that his own
methods were no less loudly censured by those whom he had attacked ;
and that after a few months he resigned the mastership on his appoint-
ment to the post of Town-clerk, which he occupied at the time of
Erasmus's sojourn at Bergen. C. x. 1697 ^ ^j 1700 F.

It is curious to observe in Epistle 35 something of the same peremp-
tory tone which we find in later letters of Erasmus to the same corre-
spondent. This might lead us to conjecture, that the friendship, which
now became so useful to Erasmus, was founded upon an old acquaint-
ance, and that the ascendancy which he so evidently exercised over
Batt was originally established at Deventer or Bois-le-duc. But it
should be observed, that in the Antibarbari Erasmus speaks of
William Herman as vetus sodalis, and of Batt as sodalis recens
C. i. 1673 D ; and the words cited above from Epistle 155 do not
favour the supposition of a schoolboy intimacy.

Erasmus and the lord of Bergen 91

Epistle 35. Merula, p. 184 ; Ep. xxxi. 18 ; C. 1779 (393).

Erasmus to the very learned J^ames Batt,
Secretary of the town of Bergen.

I am rejoiced to find that my letters have come to your
hands, for I was a little afraid that the skipper, a thoughtless
fellow, might not have attended to our directions. Your
own letter was so much desired and so anxiously expected,
that, when it was delivered to me at the boat, I opened it at
once and began to look into it. A succession of feelings
came into my mind. At the first glance I was vexed at you
for sending me so short a letter ; for such is my greediness
for my Batt, that I should like him to write, not letters
but volumes. Then, as I glanced with rapid eye, and saw
that you had been attacked with an obstinate fever, my heart
trembled, and with eyes fixed on the page I began to read
the lines again with more care. When I gathered that you
were recovering on the receipt of our letter, I was relieved
from that feeling of sorrow or fear, and read what remained
in better spirits.

I leave the whole affair, my sweetest Batt, to your pru-
dence, while I warn you again and again not to spoil my
chances by any unseasonable importunity. The business
that comes first is for you to look after the interests of your
Erasmus ; afterwards, if my zeal or commendation or writings
can do anything for your advancement, they shall all be used
in your service. I am glad that my lord of Bergen was
pleased with my letter. It was not written, however, merely
to please him, but to induce him to gratify my wish,* and what
hope there is of that, you have never mentioned. I have
begged you most earnestly, and now again I beg, entreat
and adjure you, to give no ordinary attention to a matter

* Ut voluntati inav inorevi gererei. So Merula ; geterem C,

92 Family of Bergen

which I have so much at heart. Therefore pray read my
letters with care, taking it for granted that I write nothing,
however informal, without a purpose. Farewell.

If Epistle 35, which is entirely without date^ is rightly interpreted
as relating to the introduction of Erasmus to the Bishop of Cambrai.
it concludes the series of letters written during his conventual life.

Epistle 36, which appears to have been written immediately after
Erasmus's departure from Stein, gives the impression that Erasmus's
first journey did not carry him far in material distance from his con-
vent, and Epistle 37 appears from the mention of Batt to have been
addressed to Bergen. We may therefore conclude that it was there
that Erasmus joined the household of the Bishop. This is confirmed
by the locality described in the Antibarbari, the first part of which
was completed about this time (see p. loi). There is little to be found
in the Epistles of Erasmus concerning this period of his life, but in a
letter addressed by him to Carolus Utenhovius, dated g Aug. 1532
(Ep. xxvii. 5 ; C. 145 1 D E), he describes the character of an exem-
plary Franciscan friar, whom he had known at Bergen " nearly forty
years before." This reckoning carries us back precisely to the
time (the winter of 1492-3), at which we have placed the commence-
ment of this period of Erasmus's life (p. 85) ; and it is worth while
to observe, that it was during part of the winter season that he had
the opportunity of observing the friar's habits. C. 145 1 E. See p. 85.
Henry of Bergen, Bishop of Cambrai, was the eldest surviving son
of John, hereditary lord of the town and territory of Bergen-op-Zoom
in North Brabant, who was living at the time when Erasmus joined
the Bishop's household, his death being placed in 1494 ; this fact is
confirmed by the Epistle cited above. C. 145 1 D. The Bishop's
elder brother, Philip, had fallen with his lord, Charles the Bold, duke
of Burgundy and Brabant, in the Field of Nancy fifteen years before-
Of several younger brothers, John, who in 1502 succeeded the Bishop
in the lordship of Bergen, was for many years a prominent figure in
the Court of Brussels ; and Antony (born 1454, Gallia Christ, iii. 500),
who became a friend of Erasmus, was Abbot of the great Monastery
of St. Bertin at St. Omer. A pedigree of the family is found in
Butkens, Trophies de Brabant^ i. 657.

The proposed journey to Rome, of which we read in the narrative
of Beatus and the Compendium, as the special occasion for the en-

Residence in Bergen 93

gagement of Erasmus, makes no appearance in any of the Epistles.
It is shortly referred to in a work written in 1535 [Responsio ad Petri
Cursii defensionem), where Erasmus says (C. x. 1750 E), that he was
thrice disappointed in his expectation of going to Italy, once when a
youth of nearly seventeen (see p. 43), a second time at the age of
twenty (so the passage is printed), when he expected to go from
Holland, and a third time at the age of twenty-eight, from Paris ; and
that he finally went to that country when he was nearly forty. There
can be little doubt that the second disappointment was when he left
Holland to join the Bishop, although his age is misstated in the printed
copy [annos natus xx.), the letters xx. having probably been substi-
tuted, either in copying or printing, for xxv. or xxvi'.*

It has been assumed by the biographers of Erasmus, that this part
of his life was spent at Cambrai. The bishops were the temporal
sovereigns of the Cambresis, but do not appear at this period to have
generally resided at their cathedral city and capital. John of Bur-
gundy, the preceding bishop, who died in 1479, was scarcely ever
seen at Cambrai, and Henry of Bergen had then resided there as
the bishop's coadjutor [Gallia Christiana, iii. 50). Now that he was
himself bishop, he had occasion, as one of the Councillors of the Bur-
gundian Court, and Chancellor of the Order of the Golden Fleece, to be
frequently at Brussels, the seat of the ducal court, which was at that
time within the diocese of Cambrai, and where the lords of Bergen
appear to have had a mansion. (Epistle 71; Brewer, Abstracts, ii.
2150.) The scanty evidence of the Epistles shows Erasmus to have
been, during his service with the Bishop, at Bergen and at Brussels
(Epistle 41), without excluding the possibility of his having attended
his patron to Cambrai. It is of some interest to note, that the town
of Bergen possesses in one of its principal old streets an hotel or
palace (now used as a barrack) which was the residence of its ancient
lords, and is still called het Markiezenhof, the lordship of Bergen
having been erected into a Marquisate by Charles V. in 1533.! It is

* A similar error appears in the statement of his age when disappointed at
Paris, the sign xxviii. being substituted for xxxiii. See pp. 176, 190, 194.
This mistake might easily be made in copying. The other ages, seventeen and
forty, are given in words at length, and are correct. Erasmus's memory was so
accurate, that the errors in the numbers cannot probably be ascribed to him.

+ I have seen the house, and am indebted to Messrs. Mes and Fersteg of
Bergen for some particulars of its history. It appears to have formerly occu-
pied, with its external defences, a larger area.

94 journey to Bergen

not unreasonable to imagine, that it was in this house, recently built
by the proprietor then living, that Erasmus was received on his arrival
at Bergen. There is nothing in the contemporary letters bearing upon
the personal relation between Erasmus and his patron ; but if we may
trust a later Epistle addressed to the Bishop's Vicar, their intercourse
was most cordial (Epistle 150); and this agrees with what Beatus
appears to have gathered from the conversation of Erasmus. P. 27.

The following Epistle from William Herman evidently relates to
Erasmus's departure from Stein, and was probably addressed to
Bergen. (See Epistle 37.) The " man," whom the writer blames
for not letting him make the journey with his friend can be no other
than the Prior, Nicolas Werner. Theoderik appears to have been a
younger member of the Convent, who was ordered to accompany
Erasmus ; probably the same person called elsewhere Franciscus and
Franciscus Theodoricus (Epistles 12, 39 and 40). As to his usefulness
in domestic matters, see p. loi. Epistles 36 and 37, first printed in
the Leiden edition of 1703, are the only letters addressed to Erasmus
by the most intimate and most scholarly friend of his early life, which
have come down to us ; and yet we find that in 1499 Erasmus was
collecting William's Epistles with his own (Epistle 95). It may be
observed, that very few of Erasmus's own early letters were printed
with his sanction, or in his lifetime. See Introduction, pp. xxi, xxii.

Epistle 36. C. 1838 (447).

Willia??i of Goiida to Erasmus.

I should like to have been with you in that journev. It
would have given me a great deal of pleasure and perhaps
some to you, and w^ould have been advantageous to both of
us. When I had received your message, T begged and
entreated the man to allow it ; and after your departure he
was most bitterly reproached for his unkindness. I look
after your business here as our friendship mav fairlv lead me
to do, and you to expect. Theoderik will be of service to
you ; he is civil, will praise you on occasion, will be of
some use in domestic matters, and has a verv good idea of

Regret of Herman 95

cookery. And finally, if he is burdensome or in the way,
you will easily get rid of him, as he has gone there against
his will.

You bid me be of good cheer, as you will not be away
for ever. The consolation you offer is gratifying to me, as
it cannot but proceed from love. Nevertheless I do not
wish to hide my opinion on this matter from you, and it will
be as well to begin further back. I have never ceased to
wonder, my Erasmus, at your not only taking no advice
about your going, but not even communicating to me the
resolution you had formed. It cannot be expressed how
much I desire to see you back again (for with whom can I
live so pleasantly ?) but so that your return may be to your
advantage, and no less at the same time to your credit. The
trouble you have escaped no one knows better than I, who
am even now tossed about in the same storms. I often
congratulate you, and think how happy you are to have
swum out of the billows.

Of my own affairs I have nothing to write. I have deter-
mined that I must do nothing in a hurry, but imitate the
astuteness and patience of Ulysses. I must needs do so, if
I want to find a way to safety. But please do not distress
yourself about me. I have fortified my mind, and am grown
so callous, that I can readily despise the violence of Fortune.
I reckon that the wise man wants nothing.

The Muses are my friends ; and me
Should sorrow threat or fears assail,
I cast them where a fitful gale
May bear them to the Cretan Sea.*

So Flaccus wills. Although I am under the pressure of
tyranny, and must long continue so, 1 sustain myself by the

* Musis amicus tristitiam et metus
Tradam protervis in mare Creticum
Portare ventis. Horat. Carm. i. 26.

96 Translations of Thucydides

example of great men, and have before my eyes the unde-
served prison of the virtuous Socrates, the hard servitude of
the great Plato. I live therefore wholly for Letters, and in
that way, thanks to Philosophy, am not only clear of
trouble, but can even laugh. Meantime how goes it with
vou ? Is everything as you expected : and are you able to
do as you wish ? Farewell.
[Stein, 1493-]*

Epistle 37 also contains a reference to Erasmus's recent migration;
and the mention of Batt in the last line shows that it was wTitten
when Erasmus was in his society. I infer that it was addressed to
Bergen, soon after Erasmus joined the household of the Bishop. The
person spoken of with displeasure had been at the Convent. Perhaps
the Theoderik mentioned in the last letter had spoken indiscreetly of
Erasmus instead of singing his praises, as William hoped.

The obscure clause in the middle of the letter may perhaps relate
to some half-formed scheme of William to follow Erasmus's example
in obtaining release from the Convent. The same matter appears to
be alluded to in the first paragraph.

The translation of Thucydides by Laurentius Valla was first printed
at Venice without date, probably a few years before the following
letter was written. But the book in William's hands may have been a
manuscript copy. Valla's Latin work was translated into French by
Claude de Seyssel, afterwards Archbishop of Turin ; and the first
English Thucydides, printed in London in 1550, was translated by
Thomas Nicolls from Seyssel's version of Valla's translation.

Epistle 37. C. 1838 (448).
William of Goiida to Erasmus.

I received your letters, by which I learned what I already
knew, and could not learn what I wanted. I had asked,
and am in suspense until I know, whether this migration of
yours will be of use to both of us.

* No date in C.

Laurentiiis Valla 97

That person deserves to be hated, if it is indeed as you
write. I am glad I did not give my full consent, but left
the matter to your own judgment, although even when that
Proteus was with us, I had some scent of his tricks. I
know the monster ; but what are you to do ? It is the rule :
embark with the Devil, and you must make the voyage
with him.

As to the matter about which I wrote in my former
letter, I will listen to advice, whether you advise one way
or the other, and am therefore a little in a hurry to be
informed, because I am afraid some resolution may be
taken w^hich will not be for the interest of us both, and
want you to do what may seem best with a full knowledge
of what I wish.

I am reading through Laurentius's Thucydides, which I
find somewhat obscure, both because Greece is little known
to me, and because he moves in a concise and hurried way,
like Sallust. It is no fault of Laurentius ; he is terse,
careful, refined and most observant of his own Elegances ;
there is no ornate passage on which he fails to lay stress.
He undertook this province by the command of Pope
Nicolas the Fifth, a man to whom our Latin speech is under
great obligations. Meantime what are you doing? what are
you reading, or writing ? Send your writings here, that I
may have something of my Erasmus.

I have sent what I could scrape together of your poems ;
and my own too, as you desired it. When I have leisure I
will answer more fully the questions on which I have now
rapidly touched. Please in future add the day on which
you send out anything. Farewell.

I hope your Batt, who is also mine, is well.

[Stein, 1493.] t

t No date in C.
VOL. I. H

98 George of Trehizond

Epistle "^Z (also without date) may be presumed to have been written
soon after the last. The Thucydides and Trapezuntius had probably
been borrowed from the library of Cornelius. See p. 73. The latter
book, which seems to have been of some weight, was probably the lengthy
Treatise on Rhetoric by George of Trebizond, a learned Greek residing
in Italy in the 15th century. This book was printed, apparently at
Venice, in an early folio volume without date, and reprinted at Milan,
30 July 1493 ; but Cornelius's copy was quite as likely to be in manu-
script. The same work was borrowed by Erasmus from Gaguin at a
later time. Epistle 115.

Epistle 38. C. 1806 (420).

William of Gouda to Cornelius,

In obedience to your wish, I send the Thucydides, and
will soon send Trapezuntius, but I am afraid of a heavier
parcel being a burden to the bearer. I have been reading
your poems, and admire the fervour of your genius. But it
is ridiculous to wish to make me a censor and Aristarchus.
However I will say this, that I see you need a curb. If
you would turn your attention not so much to copious-
ness as to elegance, you might soon enter the field, not
only with me, whom you can easily thresh without taking
ofif your coat, but with Erasmus, on equal terms. Do, my
Cornelms, study purity. I prefer that you should hear
from others how much I appreciate your work, and how
highly I commend it. As you ask my opinion what you
ought to do, I say plainly that you should by all means
seize this opportunity, which may never return. It is beyond
belief, what a longing I have to pay you a visit. My good
wishes to Thomas, a fine fellow and very much your friend.
Farewell.

Epistle 39 is a long letter of William Herman to Batt, of which the
greater part is a dissertation on the barbarism and vices of the age ;
among these the writer stigmatizes the ambition and jealousy, which

Herman and Batt 99

led so many to ruin ; a plague, which had been lately experienced by
Holland in that destructive war which arose from the desire for place
and power. (See p. 87.) But the few sentences here translated from
the beginning and the latter part of the letter have a sufficiently per-
sonal character. It may be observed that the writer shared Erasmus's
conviction, that his own compositions could confer immortality on his
friends. At a later time his respect for Batt was diminished by
familiarity. Epistle 86.

Epistle 39. C. 1779 (394).
William of Gouda to J-ames Batt.

Although we are not personally known to each other, I
am possessed with a strong desire to write to you for the
purpose of establishing a friendship between us. It is diffi-
cult for me to say, and will be more difficult for you to
believe, how much I already love you. Our Erasmus (for
he is yours as well as mine) has often so warmly com-
mended you in his familiar talk, and also in his letters
since he has been away, that his love for you is beyond all
question ; and such is my confidence in him, that I cannot
fail to love whomsoever he thinks worthy of his affec-
tion. * *

It is no wonder if Wilham holds you dear, understanding
as he does that you have advanced so far by your own
exertions, that, born among barbarians, you might well be
thought a Roman by birth. For you have not only acquired
the tongue of the Romans, — though that is no small matter,
— but also the experience of affairs which prevails among
them, and what is more admirable than either — their
eloquence. * *

I am not unaware what a value you have set on me and
my writings. I owe it to you, that there are those in your
country by whom William is known and loved. For this
your goodness I am beyond measure grateful ; and will

H 2

lOO The Antibarbartans

make it my care that my love for you shall be known, not
only to our contemporaries, but to all posterity.

Farewell, dearest Batt, and love me and my Erasmus, as
you do. Accept the good wishes of my friends, Servatius,
Francis, and all the rest, who are no less yours than mine.

[Stein, 1493-]*

When the above was written, Herman and Batt had not met; whereas
it will be seen that Herman introduces himself to his correspondent
in Epistle 41 as a friend of Batt, and refers to a conversation he has
lately had with him (p. 102). We may conjecture that in the interval
Herman had found an opportunity of visiting Bergen. In the Anti-
barbarians of Erasmus such a visit is described with imaginary cir-
cumstances. We have already seen the author during a temporary
absence from the Convent (Epistle 34) engaged upon this work, a part of
which was printed for the first time at Cologne in 15 18 under the title,
Antibarharorum Liber primus. From the Epistle to Johannes Sapidus
prefixed to that publication (C. x. 1691) we learn, that Erasmus was first
engaged upon its composition before he attained his twentieth year, and
that a few years later he resolved to recast the same matter in the
form of a dialogue. See p. 84. The complete work, as finally arranged,
was to have consisted of four books, of which only two were completed.
The first contained a general defence of the New Learning. The
second contained an elaborate arraignment of the practice of Rhetoric,
which, according to Erasmus, appeared so convincing to Colet, that
he declared upon reading it, that he was resolved to give up the pur-
suit of Eloquence. This was to have been answered in the third book
by a triumphant defence of Rhetoric, which was never completed.
The fourth book, the materials of which were collected but not arranged,
was intended to plead the cause of Poesy, the object, as the author
says, of his boyish love. The two completed books were revised by
Erasmus at Bologna in 1506 or 1507, and, together with the materials
collected for the rest of the work, were left by him at Ferrara in the
charge of Richard Pace, the English minister there, and were by some
accident lost. See p. 452. This mishap is frequently mentioned in the
correspondence of Erasmus, who seems to have believed that his
work still existed in the hands of someone who was concealing it for

* No date in C.

Criticism of Gaguin lOl

a dishonest purpose (C. x. i6gi e). Some years after his death Roger
Ascham wrote from Augsburg to Jerome Froben that he knew where
the missing books were in England, and had had them for some
months in his possession at Cambridge. Epistolse Aschami, lib. iii.
244; Jortin, Erasmus, ii. 280. They do not appear to have been
heard of since, but may perhaps still be found. The first book, in
its older form, existed in other copies ; and being too well known
to be suppressed, Erasmus revised it again, and printed it at Cologne
in 15 18. In the dialogue so published, the scene of the colloquy
is laid in the neighbourhood of Bergen, and one of the inter-
locutors,— the Antibarbarians of the title, — is James Batt. As the
book appears to have been shown to Gaguin in this form, about
August, 1495 (Epistle 44), it may be conjectured that the plan
of so arranging it was adopted at Bergen during Erasmus's first
residence there with the Bishop. The book, as printed, shows
signs of the work not having been originally cast in the form of
a dialogue ; for after the foundation is laid by an ingenious and
graceful description of the place of meeting and of the persons of the
intended speakers, the argument is placed almost entirely in the
mouth of one, that one being Batt. This fault in the composition is
pointed out by Gaguin in Epistle 44. The other persons, who are for
the most part listeners, are, besides Erasmus, William Herman, who
has come to him for a short visit, and two leading citizens of Bergen, —
the mayor [consul) and a physician. Batt has returned from Paris
nearly two years, and has been lately appointed Town-clerk. The
scene is laid at a country house, where Erasmus is living, in the imme-
diate neighbourhood of the town.

Assuming this description of the residence of Erasmus to be founded
on fact, we may conjecture that, after having joined the Bishop at
Bergen, he was lodged, not in the town, but in a separate house in the
neighbourhood, where his companion Theodorik might well be service-
able in the way contemplated in Epistle 2^, p. 94. The first line suggests
a seclusion on account of plague (C. x. 1693A), a fiction recalling the
Decameron, which is not kept up in the narrative, as visitors are
received both from the neighbouring town and from elsewhere. That
the work was not composed during a later visit to Bergen, after
Erasmus's flight from the College of Montaigu, is shown by the
criticism in Epistle 44, if the correspondence with Gaguin has been
rightly assumed to have begun soon after Erasmus's first arrival at
Paris.

I02 Brother Francis Theoderik

If the Francis of Epistle 40 was the same person who accompanied
Erasmus to the household of the Bishop of Cambrai (see pp. 94, 96) the
suspicion here alluded to probably arose on that occasion, and this
letter may be assumed to have been written from the Bishop's resi-
dence, perhaps from Brussels, after Francis had returned to the
Convent. Erasmus continued in friendly relation with brother Francis
for many years ; and it is not improbable that we may attribute to his
care the preservation of most of the early letters of this series. See
Introduction, p, xxiii.

Epistle 40. C. 1816 (436).
Erasmus to Francis.

That you not only request but beg and implore me to
write something to you, is, I must confess, my Francis, an
indication of a kind feeling on your part. And if the
condition of times and circumstances, including your own
loyalty, answered in every respect to my regard for you, I
should not wait to be asked to write. But now that I
suspect your good faith, — I speak in plain terms, — and
things are generally so disturbed that the most trusty cannot
safely be trusted, what do you suppose I ought to do ?
Should I write or keep silence ? The latter is surely safer,
but the former I reckon more kind. It is indeed unseemly
that any hatred or estrangement should come between us,
who are united by the tie of brotherhood. When therefore
you hav^e shown a sweeter disposition to me, you shall
receive a sweeter letter from me. Farewell.

Among the Epistles of this time is one, without date, addressed by
William Herman to Master John (preceptor of Philip, Duke of
Burgundy), whom we may presume to have been residing with his
pupil at Brussels. The Duke, who was born 24 July, 1478, was
declared of age in July, 1494, and the Epistle should probably be
dated before this time. The writer introduces himself as a friend of
James Batt, who had spoken in the highest terms of Master John, and
encouraged William to write to him. The letter, which is principally

John^ Duke Philip's Preceptor 103

occupied with some commonplaces on the subject of education, con-
tains towards the end the following passage relating to Erasmus, from
which we may conclude that he was then with his patron at the Court
of Brabant.

Epistle 41. C. 1842 (454).

William of Gouda to Master John^ Preceptor of
Duke Philip.

* « *

You have in your town Erasmus, the most learned person
of our age, — but I had better hold my tongue, lest I should
be thought to be misled by my affection. I lived in the
closest intimacy with him as long as I was allowed to do so,
and there is nothing that annoys me so much as the loss of
his society. The Bishop of Cambrai, a friend of Letters,
has attached him to his household. If you care to make
the acquaintance of a person so learned and loyal, so wise
and so witty, you will procure yourself a great pleasure.

In the dearth of information concerning Erasmus at this period, we
may mention, that among his associates in the Bishop's household
was one, with whom he renewed his acquaintance at Louvain many
years after, when his friend, probably member of an influential family,
had become a bishop. Three epistles addressed by Erasmus to him
in 15 1 7 have been preserved, but his name is lost. C. 1659, 1660 (243,
244, 245).

Epistle 41 is the last which we can attribute to this act of Erasmus's
life. Of the circumstances of his parting with the Bishop and of his
migration to Paris we have no information from any contemporary
correspondence ; and it is only in the Compendium that we read of
any want of cordiality on the part of his patron. The impression left
by Erasmus's conversation upon the mind of Beatus appears to have
been, that the Bishop showed his goodwill by seconding the wish of
Erasmus to reside for a time at the University of Paris. Pp. 10, 27.

CHAPTER IV.

Erasmus at Paris in the College of Montaigu^ 1494-95/
at Bergen and in Holland^ 1495/ teacher of Rhetoric
in Paris, 1496/ at the English Boarding-hojise^ Sept-
ember, 1496, to J-iily, 1497; Lord Moiintjoy at Paris,
September, 1496, to April, 1497. Epistles 42 to 54.

The date of Erasmus's removal to Paris is not ascertained; but it may-
be probably placed in the summer or autumn of 1494 (see p. 1 07) ; and we
learn from Beatus Rhenanus as well as from the Compendium Vitse, that
he began his University residence in the College of Montaigu. We have
no contemporary description of his manner of life or his literary
occupations at this time. At the end of the Catalogue of Lucubrations,
written in 1523, after mentioning some of his works which had been
lost, he adds : " A great deal has perished which I should not care to
have survived. But I should be glad to think that some of the sermons
which I delivered at Paris, when I was in the College of Montaigu,
were still in existence" (C. i. Praef.; Jortin, ii. 441). This sentence
may serve to remind us, that Erasmus, when he joined this society of
students, was a man of mature age, in priest's orders, and already the
most accomplished scholar of his time. We may conjecture that his
sermons were preached at St. Genevieve, the great monastery of his
own order, where the Abbot, Philip Cousin, appears to have been
among his acquaintance. See p. 108.

The College of Montaigu was established under the shadow of this
celebrated Augustinian Foundation, its position being at the corner
of the two streets formerly called Rue Saint Etienne des Gres and
Rue des Sept Voies (now renamed Rue Cujas and Rue Valette), look-
ing, east, on two little churchyards, one for clerks, where it is to be
feared too many of this College found interment, and the other for
the parish of Saint Etienne du Mont, whose church, then a small
building, rose behind it. The abbey church of St. Genevieve lay to
the south of St. Stephen, with the monastic buildings beyond it ; and
to the south of the College of Montaigu, where the later Abbey Church

Scottish Students 105

(refounded in the last century) has now become the Pantheon, were
some small houses built on the edge of the Abbey Close, which ex-
tended as far as the city wall^ where is now the Rue des Fosses Saint
Jacques. The site of Montaigu is partly included in the present
Library of St. Genevieve, and partly in the now widened streets. The
College was at that time under the presidency of John Standonk, an
educational reformer from Brabant, who with the assistance of friends
had enlarged the buildings and was preparing to erect a new chapel
[Gallia Christiana, vii. 156) ; and who, in his anxiety to protect the
institution under his care from the ordinary fate of foundations esta-
blished for the assistance of poor scholars, drove away the richer class
of students by the ascetic character of the accommodation provided.
It is possible that Erasmus in consideration of his age, profession and
learning may have been treated with more respect and consideration
than the younger pupils ; but we may safely assume, that for all the
inmates under Standonk's charge, whether pupils or professors, and
also for the Principal himself, the life was a hard one.

Another inmate at this time, in whom we may feel some interest,
was Hector Boece of Dundee [Hector Boetius Deidonanus), the
future historian of Scotland, who was about coetaneous with Erasmus,
and is said by his biographers to have been at this college from about
1492 to 1498, and to have acted during the latter part of his residence
as Regent or Tutor [Diet. Nat. Biogr.). With him Erasmus became
intimate ; they exchanged letters at Paris after Erasmus had shifted his
quarters (p. 147) ; and as late as 15 March, 1530, when they were both
old men, and Boece settled at the University of Aberdeen, which he had
helped to found, Erasmus wrote to him from Freiburg, reminding him of
their having been fellow-students in Paris thirty-two years before, and
inclosing a full list of his own literary works, which was intended for
other readers as well as his correspondent (C. i. Praef.). It may be
assumed that Erasmus's reckoning of years (accurate as usual) was not
intended to go back to the residence at Montaigu, but to his later
intercourse with Boece while they were both still at Paris (see
Epistle 61). A second Scottish scholar and historian, John Mayor,
appears to have been at the same time a student at Montaigu, but is
not mentioned in the correspondence of Erasmus. His book De
gestis Scotorum, which I have not seen, is said to be comparatively
free from the fabulous character which distinguishes the Scottish
chronicles (Cooper, Athenae Cantab, i. 93). The same can scarcely be
said of Boece, who in the second chapter of his Third Book has so

io6 Intercourse with Gaguin

far advanced in his story, as to be telling how the Britons sent
ambassadors to Edier, king of Scotland, to ask (in a speech of two
pages) for his support against Julius Caesar.

During his residence at the College of Montaigu we may assume
with Beatus Rhenanus (p. 27), that Erasmus's principal studies were
theological, that he entered the University as a student in that faculty,
and that he attended the lectures of some of the Scotist Professors.
And we may conjecture that for his own satisfaction he at the same
time extended his knowledge of Patristic literature, which he had
commenced as a boy by the study of St. Jerome.

Settled in Paris, Erasmus was naturally desirous of making the
acquaintance of the learned persons resident there. The University
maintained a high rank among the schools of Europe, but at this
period could make no great muster of men of literary renown. The
names best known were those of Robert Gaguin and Faustus Andre-
linus, the latter a native of Italy, who had been invited to Paris
through the influence of Gaguin, and had become Court-poet as well
as Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry at the University. Gaguin, a
native of Artois or of French Flanders, was an ecclesiastic who had
been employed in the diplomatic service of the French Government,
and who at the time when he became known to Erasmus, was pre-
paring a History of France, which was published at Paris, 30 Sept.
1495. To him Erasmus addressed himself by letter, as he had done
to Canter (p. 78), plying him with compliments and soliciting his
friendship, and also inclosing some verses [Ad Gaguinum nondum
visutn Carmen Hendecasyllahum (C. i. 12 17), which were included in
the collection printed by the author before he left the College (p. 108).
The letter has not been preserved, but a book of Epistles and Orations
of Gaguin, printed at Paris by Andrew Bocard, 22 Nov. 1498, contains
three letters of the author addressed to "Herasmus," all without date of
year. One of these (EPiSTLE 42, Ep. 70 in Gaguin's series; reprinted by
Richter, Erasmus-studieyi, p. 17) is his answer to the letter of Erasmus.
The writer disclaims at some length the compliments paid him, as
excessive and savouring of assentation and falsehood, but having read
Erasmus's letter and his verses [lyricas cantationes), he recognizes
his erudition, and willingly accepts his friendship, begging him to
write in future in a more candid way. This epistle is entirely with-
out date. Another letter (Epistle 43; Gaguin, Ep. 71; Richter, p.
18) is dated at Paris 8 Kal. Oct (24 Sept.), but without year. In this
the writer acknowledges the receipt of a second letter from Erasmus,

Sickness of Erasmus 107

which he praises as written in a serious style, worthy of an ecclesiastic
and man of Religion, alluding again to the extravagant compliments
of the former letter. He invites Erasmus to meet Faustus, who is an
old friend of the writer, as he desires his correspondent to become a
new one. A third letter, without date (Epistle 44; Gaguin, Ep. 62;
Richter, p. 20), which, though evidently later in time, has an earlier
place in Gaguin's series, criticizes a work of Erasmus directed against
the opponents of Humane Literature, in which Batt was introduced as
taking part in a discussion, evidently the Antiharbari (see p. loi),
and gives a short narrative of the latter part of the campaign of
Charles VIII. in Italy, including the battle of Fornova (6 July, 1495),
and terminating with the last intelligence of the king's position in the
neighbourhood of Turin. The narrative suggests August, I495) as
the probable date of this epistle. Both of the other letters, which are
of an earlier date, and apparently written within a few days of each
other, and one of which is dated the 24th of September, may safely
be placed in the preceding year. It was no part of Gaguin's plan to
mix the letters of his correspondents with his own. If he had done
so, his learned readers might have drawn a very unfavourable com-
parison between his epistolary style and that of Erasmus.

When Gaguin's History was pubHshed, 30 Sept., 1495, Erasmus
contributed a commendatory Epistle (EPiSTLE 45), without date,
inserted at the end of the first and also of the later editions. C. 18 17
(437). This Epistle, written in or about September, 1495, was the
first printed work of Erasmus It is an eloquent composition dealing
with the common-places suggested by the publication of the first
History of France attempted upon the classical model. A purple
patch upon the ruder home-spun of the author, it attracted some
attention in Paris. John Colet, who appears to have been there soon
after its publication, read it, and took note of the name of the writer.
See Epistle 99.

The correspondence and Epistle above described may be attributed
with some confidence to the time of Erasmus's residence at the college
of Montaigu. Before the close of this period he had an attack of the
intermittent fever, from which he had suffered as a boy. He had the
advantage of the advice of William Cop, a Swiss doctor a little older
than himself, who obtained his degree at Paris in 1495, and who
successfully practising his profession in France, had in later times an
honourable position in the Court of Francis I. Cop was unable to
promise him any immediate freedom from the recurrence of the dis-

io8 Erasmus and Rabelais on Montaigu

ease, and Erasmus in his distress addressed a prayer to St. Genevieve,
promising that, if he was relieved by her intercession, he would
devote a poem to her honour. His prayer was followed by a speedy
recovery to the surprise of his physician. This marvellous cure is
narrated in the Preface to a poem by Petrus de Ponte dated in 15 12,
upon the authority of Philip Cousin, abbot of St. Genevieve, as having
occurred about eighteen years before, when Erasmus was in the College
of Montaigu. Gallia Christiana^ vii. 765. When several months later
he had another attack of quartan fever at Paris, he again experienced
the favour of the same Saint (Epistle 52). His debt as a poet was
not discharged until long afterwards, when the verses entitled Erastni
Divde Genouefs presidio a quartana febre liberati Carmen votivum
(C. V. 1335), in which the whole story is told, were written apparently
during his residence at Freiburg, where they were first published in
1532. We may conjecture that his departure from the College fol-
lowed as soon as possible after his recovery from this attack of fever.
It did not require the skill of a Cop to discover, that the regimen
of Montaigu was not suitable to the constitution of his patient.

In one of the Colloquies of Erasmus, entitled Ichthyophagia or Fish-
diet, first published in 1523 or 1524, one of the interlocutors describes at
considerable length the wretched life of the inmates of this college, as
it was thirty years before — in other words, at the time when Erasmus
was himself there. According to his account the pupils were sub-
jected to such hardships that a single year's experience produced
several cases of blindness, madness or leprosy ; some died, while none
escaped danger. " I know many," he adds, " who cannot even now
shake off the delicacy of health there contracted." He alludes to the
defective diet and sanitary arrangements ; and amongst other hard-
ships does not forget the gown and cowl which the members were
compelled to wear (C. i. 806 D, 807 b). From their cowls of coarse
brown cloth the students were known as "les pauvres Capettes de
Montaigu." Dulaure, Hist, de Paris, ii. 406.

A shorter but not less vigorous onslaught upon the management
of this institution is made by Rabelais. In the Gargantua, chap-
ter xxvii, Grandgousier suspects, from something he sees, that Gar-
gantua has been at this college. Then Ponocrates answered : " My
lord, think not that I have placed him in the lousy college they call
Montagu. I would rather have put him among the beggars of St.
Innocent's, for the enormous cruelty and villainy I have known there.
For the galley-slaves among the Moors and Tartars, or the murderers

Departure from the College 109

in the criminal prison, yea surely the dogs in your house, are much
better treated, than those poor wretches in that college ; and if I were
king of Paris, the devil take me if I would not set it on fire and burn
both Principal and Regents, who suffer such inhumanity to be prac-
tised before their eyes." The attack of Rabelais, who had no personal
experience of the College, was not independent of that of Erasmus, of
whose works he was a devoted reader. See Appendix IV.

We are unable to fix the precise date of Erasmus's departure from
the College, but he probably left it before the end of 1495. We are
informed by the Compendium, that he returned to his patron the
Bishop, by whom he was honourably received, and recovered his
strength during a stay at Bergen. He then, according to the same
authority, went back his old comrades in Holland. P. 10.

To this later sojourn at Bergen, where the Bishop had now suc-
ceeded his father as head of the family, we do not find, as far as I am
aware, any allusion elsewhere. A return to the Convent appears a
probable sequel to his departure from the College, and is confirmed
by Epistle 50. He spent some days in happy intercourse with William
Herman, but could not prolong his stay without relinquishing the
degree of liberty he had gained. The head of the Society was Father
Nicholas Werner, whom Erasmus succeeded in convincing that it was
inexpedient for him to remain permanently at Stein.

It appears by the records of the University of Cologne, that a
scholar of the name of Erasmus from Rotterdam was matriculated
there on the 6th of June, 1496. The entry is as follows: Erasmus de
Rotterdammis ad artes iuravit . . pauper. (C. Kraff, Zeitschrift fur
Preuss. Gesch. und Alter thuinsk. v. 1868, p. 471; cited by Richter,
Erasmus-studien, p. 22). This poor student has been identified with
the illustrious scholar whose name he bore ; but considering the circum-
stances of the latter, this conjecture does not appear at all probable.
They may possibly have been kinsmen. It is remarkable that, six
years later, when Erasmus was driven from Paris by the plague,
Cologne appears to have had some attraction for him. See p. 351.

Early in the year 1496 Erasmus was again in Paris, where he
entered upon a new period of his life. He was now master of his
time, and thrown for his subsistence mainly, if not entirely, on his
own resources. He appears to have been chiefly dependent upon what
he earned as a teacher of Rhetoric, that is, of Latin speech and com-
position. Meantime his theological studies were suspended ; according
to the expression of the Compendium^ vixit verius quam studuit. One of

no Erasmus as preceptor

his earliest pupils at Paris was Augustine Caminad, of whom we shall
presently have to speak (see p. iii); another was a young merchant
of Lubeck named Christian, whose surname I suspect to have been
Noorthon (see Epistle 134), with whom he lived on very intimate terms.
It was probably at an early period of their acquaintance that Erasmus
put together some general advice upon study in the form of a letter to
Christian. We may find room for a few words from the conclusion,
which furnish a picture of the daily habits of the student.

Epistle 46. Farrago, p. 304, Ep. x. 2, xxix. 14; C. 68 (79).
Erasmus to Christian.

Avoid nocturnal lucubrations and studies at unseasonable
times. They exhaust the mind and seriously affect the
health. The dawn, beloved of the Muses, is the fit time for
study. After dinner either play, or walk, or take part in
cheerful conversation. Possibly even among these amuse-
ments some room may be found for improvement. Take as
much food as is required, not for your pleasure, but for your
health. Before supper take a short walk, and after supper
do the same. Before going to bed read something exquisite
and worth remembering, of which you will be thinking when
overcome by sleep, and for which you will ask yourself
again w^hen you wake. Let this maxim of Pliny rest always
in your mind : All your time is lost which you do not
impart to study. Remember that nothing is more fugitive
than youth, which, when once it has flown away, never
returns. But I am beginning to preach, after promising to
be nothing but a guide. Follow, sweetest Christian, the plan
I have traced, or any better that you can. Farewell.

Paris, [ 1496]. t

t Lutetise m.cccc.xcix. Op. Epist. No date in Farrago.

Augustine Caminad iii

It appears from Epistles 47 and 48, that Erasmus, to encourage his
pupil in Latin composition, had arranged an interchange of letters,
and that Christian had sent Erasmus a present, accompanied by a
letter in the composition of which he had been helped by Augustine,
with whom he appears to have been living.

We here meet for the first time with a person, who for some years
played an important part in Erasmus's life. Augusttnus Vincentius
Caminadus, a native of Germany or the Low Countries, now resident
at Paris, where he had been a student, and had profited by the
teaching of Erasmus (Epistle 130), was engaged in some employ-
ment connected with the book-trade. We read of him in Epistle 51,
as assisting in advertising Herman's poems, when they were
published by Erasmus ; and in 1500 he superintended the printing
of the first edition of the Adages (p. 242). He also edited
an edition of the works of Virgil, which is without date of time
or place, but is attributed to the press of Jean Philippe of Paris,
a copy of which exists in the Library of Beatus Rhenanus at Schlett-
stadt (Knod, Biblioth. des Beatus Rhenanus, p. 50). We shall find
him for a few years continuing to be useful to Erasmus not only in
his literary ventures, but also in his domestic necessities. But while
accepting his help, Erasmus never expresses any cordial feeling, and
seems, in spite of the material ties w^hich drew them together, to
have felt rather an antipathy to him. See Epistles 48, 51, 125, 132.

Epistle 47. Farrago, p. 99 ; Ep. v. 7 ; C. 17 (19).
Erasmus to Christian.

Hail, Attic honey ! I wrote nothing yesterday, and that
on purpose, because I was out of humour. Now, do not ask
with whom ; it was with you. What had you done ? Well,
I was afraid that such a clever fellow as you are might be
laying a trap for me. I had my suspicions about that box of
yours, lest it should bring us something like what Pandora's
box brought to Epimetheus. When I opened it, I could
only blame myself for my suspicion.

But why have you not written earlier to-day ? you will
say. We have been engaged, sitting at the play, and very

1 1 2 Erasmus and Christian

entertaining it was. A tragedy, you will ask, or a comedy ?
Whichever you please ; only no masks were worn by the
players, the piece was one act, the plot neither Roman nor
Greek, but quite on a low level, without either music or
dancing. The ground formed the stage, and my parlour the
gallery. The denouement was exciting, and the last scene
most animated.

What the devil, you will say, is this play you are in-
venting ? Nay, Christian, I am relating a fact. The
spectacle we saw to-day was that of our landlady engaged
in a desperate fight with the maid. The trumpet had
sounded long before the encounter, as violent abuse was
hurled from both quarters. On this occasion the forces
parted on equal terms, neither party gaining a triumph. It
took place in the garden while we looked on in silence
from the parlour, not without laughter. But hear the
catastrophe. After the fight the girl came up to my
chamber, to make the beds. In talking to her I praised
her courage in having been a match for her mistress in
noise and abuse, and said I wished she had been as brave
with her hands as with her tongue. For the mistress, a
stout termagant that might have passed for an athlete, kept
on pommelling the head of the girl, who was shorter than
herself, with her fists. " Have you then no nails," I said,
"that you put up with such blows for nothing?" She
answered with a grin, that she did not want will, but
strength. " Do you fancy," said I, "that the issue of battles
depends only on strength ? The plan of attack is always
most important." Then she asked what advice I had to
give her. "When she attacks you again," said I, "do you
at once pull off her cap." For these housewives of Paris
are marvellously fond of wearing a black cap of a peculiar
fashion. " When you have pulled that off, you can then fly
at her hair." As all this was said by me in jest, I supposed
it had been taken in the same sense. But just before

Comedy at Erasmus's lodging 113

supper-time, a stranger comes running up breathless. This
was a pursuivant of king Charles,* commonly called Gentil
Gargon. "Come here," said he, "my masters, and you will
see a bloody spectacle !" We ran to the spot, and found
the landlady and the maid struggling on the ground ; and
it was with some difficulty that we parted them. How
bloody the battle had been, was shown by the result.
Strewn on the floor lay on one side the cap, on the other
the girl's kerchief, and the ground was covered with tufts
of hair ; so cruel had been the slaughter. As we sat at
supper, the landlady related to us with much indignation
how stoutly the girl had borne herself. "When I was
preparing," said she, "to chastise her" (that is to pommel her
with fisticuffs), " she at once pulled my cap off my head ! "
I recognised that my song had not been sung to deaf ears.
" As soon as that was off, the hussy brandished it in my
eyes." That was no part of my counsel. "Then," said she,
" she tore out as much of my hair as you see here." She
took heaven and earth to witness, she had never met with a
girl so small and so vicious. We did our best to palliate
human events and the doubtful fortune of war, and to treat
of peace for the future. Meantime I congratulated myself
that the mistress had no suspicion of the affair having been
conducted by my advice, as I should otherwise have found
for myself that she had a tongue in her head.

You have now heard our comedy ; and we may turn to
serious matters. You have undertaken a double contest
with me, one of writing letters, the other of sending presents.
In the first you plainly declare yourself beaten, having begun
to contend with a borrowed pen. Will you have the
impudence to deny it ? I think not, if you have any shame
at all. The other contest I have not even tried, but give it
up at once. In letter-writing you are overcome, indeed you

* Charles VIII. 1483 to 1498.
VOL. I. I

1 14 Rival instruction in Latin

do not fight, except like Patroclus, in the armour of Achilles.
In presents I am not prepared to contend with you. A
poet with a merchant ! Was ever heard the like ? But
look you ! I challenge you to a fairer struggle. Let us
try, whether you tire me out first by sending, or I you by
writing. This will be a battle worthy of a poet, and worthy
of a broker ! If you have the courage, come on.
Paris, [ 1496]. t

Epistle 48. Farrago, p. 251 ; Ep. ix. 6 ; C. 34 (33).

ErasDiiis to Christian {who had written in an affected style
with the help of Augustine).

T wish you all the health you can desire. I really had
not expected so much elegance from you ; I should rather
say eloquence, for that you would be elegant I knew before.
Your letter was therefore quite a pleasure to me. I exhort
you accordingly to proceed in the same course, and you will
soon come out as like your master as possible. But I think
you should set before yourself as a model some style of
oratory, so that your manner may not be inconsistent with
itself. * * * You seem to recall a Punic or rather
Allobrogic taste, which ought to be very well tempered, as
being a mixture of Arabian and Iberian, — Calenian wine
dissembling the parent bramble.

But it is quite out of place for me to give you these instruc-
tions, when you have so wise an adviser at home. However,
his new courtesy is such, that he will excuse my putting my
sickle into his harvest. * * *

Farewell, with your Daedalus !

Paris, [ 1496]. J

t Parisiis, Anno m.cccc.xcvii. Farrago.

% Luteti^, anno millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo octavo. Farrago.

English boarding-house Ii5

When Christian returned before long to his business at Lubeck, his
place at Paris was supplied by a younger brother named Henry, who
became in his turn an attached pupil and friend of Erasmus.

Among the foreigners in Paris at this time there were generally a
few young Englishmen of noble and wealthy families, who spent a year
or two there for the completion of their education. To provide accommo-
dation for these young men, a spacious apartment had been hired in the
Latin quarter, in which they were received and boarded under the charge
of a gentleman who acted as their tutor or temporary guardian.

The services of Erasmus as a teacher were much appreciated by the
English students, and in the autumn of 1496 he accepted an invitation
to reside in the boarding-house, in which he had several pupils. One
of these was a youth named Thomas Grey, whom Erasmus's English
biographers have generally supposed to be a son of the marquis of
Dorset, but who did not belong to that family.^ Another pupil, whose
acquaintance was of more importance in the life of Erasmus, was
William Blount, lord Mountjoy, then about eighteen years of age, an
English peer, and stepson of Thomas Butler, earl of Ormond, a person
of importance in the court of Henry VII., and Chamberlain to the
Queen. Another inmate of the house w^as Robert Fisher, a cousin of
Dr. John Fisher, afterwards Bishop of Rochester (see p. 165), who had

* This mistake originated with Dr. Knight, who is generally more trust-
worthy (Life of Erasmus, p. 18). Thomas Grey, son of Thomas, first marquis
of Dorset, born 22 June, 1477, succeeded his father as marquis in 1501, and
died in 1530; and no other Thomas of that generation is known. I have
not been able to identify Erasmus's friend. The following marks may enable
some one else to do so. He was a stripling in 1497, and we may therefore place
his birth about 1480. He appears throughout his Hfe to have resided much
abroad. He wrote to Erasmus from Paris, Aug. 5, 15 16, mentioning his
children as living and his father and mother as dead (C. 1565 d). He was at
Louvain in or about April 15 18, and, being desirous of redeeming some of his
father's lands, which were mortgaged to Colet, he took back a letter of intro-
duction from Erasmus to More (C. 1694c). If I am right in reading Greius
for Grevij (Merula, p. 89 ; C. 645 f), Erasmus introduced him in or about 1521
to Conrad Goclen, the Latin Professor at Louvain, as a person desirous to
place a son at the University there. He was staying with Erasmus at Basel
accompanied by his youngest son in October, 1526 (Ep. xviii. 11, C. 908 c).
Two or more ladies of his name, who were in the Sisterhood of St. Clare at
Cambridge, were known to Erasmus (Ep. xxx. 3 ; C. 1879 ^)-

I 2

ii6 J^ antes Stanley

been already employed in diplomacy and rewarded with some church
preferments, and was desirous of using an interval of leisure to
improve his Latinity under the instruction of Erasmus. A fourth
pupil was the Tutor himself, who at a more advanced age had contracted a
taste for Humane Letters. As to this gentleman, see more, pp. 130, 136.
Having obtained an extended leave of absence from his convent for
the purpose of pursuing his theological studies, Erasmus was anxious
to convince the Father Superior that he was not neglecting this object.
The English ecclesiastic mentioned in Epistle 49, who wished to
engage the services of Erasmus, was conjectured by Dr. Knight to be
James Stanley (a step-son of Margaret, countess of Richmond, the
King's mother), who was appointed in 1506 Bishop of Ely (Knight,
Erasjnus, p. 19). This identification, which is extremely probable, has
been rejected upon a mistaken assumption of the Bishop's age
(Bentham, History of Ely, p. 185 ; Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, 227 ;
Drummond, Erasmus, i. 43). James Stanley, son of Thomas, earl of
Derby, by his first wife, Alianore Nevil, daughter of Richard, earl of
Salisbury, and sister of Richard, earl of Warwick, was probably born
before 1470. He was one of the younger members of a numerous
family ; his father was 24 years of age in 1459, and his elder brother.
Lord Strange, was born about 1460 (Cockayne's Peerage). Of his
preferments we are informed, that he was Warden of Manchester
College, 1485 (succeeding in that office an uncle of the same name,
some of whose preferments have been attributed to the nephew, and so
given rise to misapprehension as to his age) ; Dean of St. Martin's,
London, 1485 ; Rector of Rosthorn, 1489 ; Archdeacon of Chester ;
Archdeacon of Richmond, 1500; Prebendary of Salisbury, 1505; and
doubtless incumbent of many other less important benefices. He
obtained a special licence at Oxford to proceed D.C.L. in 1506; and
his appointment to the bishopric of Ely was confirmed by Pope Julius IL
17 July, 1506. His bastard son, Sir John Stanley, who won his spurs
at Flodden Field (9 Sept. 15 13), may have been born before his father
was in priest's orders. But traditional scandal accused the bishop of
living after his consecration for a part of every year with the mother
of his children at his episcopal manor of Somersham in Huntingdon-
shire (Godwin de Praesulibus, p. 271 ; Fuller's Worthies i. 541). It
is certain that he provided by his will, not only for Sir John Stanley,
but for the brother and sisters of Sir John (Prerog. Wills, 7 Holden).

In Epistle 51 Erasmus bears witness to the high consideration with
which he was treated in the Boarding-house ; and it will be observed

A visitor at the Boarding-house 1 1 7

that he dates Epistle 49, E mea bibliotheca, and in the body of the
letter speaks of the household as his own. He may have thought it
expedient to impress his country friends with a sense of his social
importance, as well as his devotion to theological studies.

Epistle 49. Merula, p. 192 ; Ep. xxxi. 23 ; C. 1883 (501).
Erasmus to his Father in religion^ Nicolas Werner.

If you are all well at Stein, it is what we wish and trust.
For my part I am thankful to say I am heartily well. If
any one has doubted how much I value sacred learning, I
have now shown it by evidence of fact. I am using boastful
language, but Erasmus must not hide anything from his
loving father.

I have lately fallen in with some Englishmen, all of noble
birth and high rank. Very lately a young man in priest's
orders joined the party. He had abundance of money, and
had refused the offer of a bishopric, because he was aware
of his deficiency in learning. Nevertheless within a year he
is to be again invited to that dignity by the King, although
without any bishopric he possesses two thousand crowns a
year. When he heard of my knowledge of Letters, he
began to exhibit an incredible regard and respect for me ;
for he lived some little time in my household.* He
offered me a hundred crowns, if I would instruct him for a
year. He offered me a benefice within a few months ; and
he offered to lend me three hundred crowns, if I needed it
to maintain my position, until I should repay it out of the
benefice. If I had chosen to accept his proposals, I should
have obliged all the English in this city, for they are all of
the highest families, and through them all England. I have
turned my back on an ample fortune and still more ample
expectations. I have disregarded entreaties backed with

* aliquandiu in familia mea vixit. Compare Epistle 52, p. 122.

Ti8 William Hcrmaiis Poems

tears. I am telling you what has really happened without
any exaggeration. The English now understand that I care
nothing for all the wealth of England. Neither is it without
consideration that I refused and still refuse these ofifers.
I will not by any bribe be led away from sacred studies.
I have come here to learn, not to teach or to heap up
money. Indeed I intend to apply, God willing, for a doc-
torate in theology.

The Bishop of Cambrai is a wonderful friend to me. He
promises liberally, but to tell the plain truth he does not
send liberally. Farewell, most excellent father. I pray
you again and again to commend me in your prayers to
Almighty God. The same will I do for you.

Paris, from my Library, 13 Sept. [1496].*

Just at this time Erasmus was preparing to pass through the press
a volume of Latin poems by WilHam Herman, about which, after his
return from Stein in the earHer part of the year (see p. 120), he
had consuked Gaguin, who contributed a long commendatory letter
[Gaguini Epistolge, f. 79 b), addressed to Herman and dated at
Paris, 16 Sept. [1496]. The book is a small 4to volume, with the
title, Guielermi hennani Goudensis theologi ac poetx sylua odarum,
printed at Paris by Guido Mercator, and dated An. 1497, ^^^i- cal. Feb.
which, according to the customary Parisian reckoning, ought to mean
Jan. 20, 1498, but the dedication by Erasmus to the Bishop of Cambrai,
printed with it, bears date Parrhisijs 1496, Septifno Id. Nouemb.,
and the year of publication, 1497, is confirmed by the series of letters.
It included one composition of Erasmus, entitled Hendecasyllahum
Herasmi ad stzidiosos, which does not appear to have been reprinted.

Some extracts only are given from the dedicatory epistle (Epistle
50) ; which contains a passage where the author expresses his admira-
tion for Baptista Mantuanus, whom he ventures to compare with his
greater countryman, and to claim for him the title of the Christian
Maro, while he augurs from the immature work of his own friend, that
his later poems may raise Stein to such a level of fame, as even
twice-happy Mantua would not be able to despise.

"* Parisijs e mea Bibliotheca. Idus Septembris. Merula.

Dedication to the Bishop of Camhrai 1 19

Epistle 50. Hermani Odae (1497) ; C. 178 1 (395).

Erasmus to Hem^y Bishop of Cambrai.
m * *

William of Gouda, who from my earliest youth has been
my Patroclus or my Pirithous, my one sweetest companion
in every thing and especially in liberal studies, is now the
first and highest hope of our country of Holland ; which
formerly neglected and untilled grew nothing but briars and
thistles and weeds, but has begun at last to produce a harvest
worthy of Italy. A train of circumstances has led to the
first fruits of this harvest being offered in sacrifice to your
name. When some time ago I was staying several days
with this friend in order to complete the recovery of my
health, among many subjects of familiar and delightful con-
versation he discovered and brought out some Odes which
had been the amusement of his youth, but only to submit
them to my censure with a view to their destruction. For
he said, in his own modest and humorous way, that their
faults were such as could not be mended by six hundred
blots, but might by one, and that he thought they would
make a fit offering, not to Apollo, but to Vulcan or Neptune.
He jestingly added that he had long hated his immature and
therefore degenerate offspring, from which a parent could
expect nothing. '' A natural scruple," said he, "forbids me
to do myself what I wish ; * I pray you to be Harpagus."
And with that he put them in my hands to be destroyed,
little apprehending what has been the result. Pleased with
the omen suggested by the name of Harpagus, and passing
from the story of Cyrus to that of Moses, of OEdipus and of
Romulus, I resolved by a pious fraud to save the offspring
which he in impious severity had doomed, hoping that it
might flourish in a future day and mount the throne, whether

* Me, inquit, ipsum facere pietas prohibet valentem (read volenteni),
C. 1782 D.

I20 Sickness of Ei'asmtts

the parent wished it or not. Accordingly I let him suppose
that it had perished, and came back to Paris bringing my
plunder with me. Here, not to enjoy my stolen goods
alone, I could not refrain from showing them to some
intimate friends. These at first were few, but afterwards
they were communicated to several more. The upshot was
that I was entreated on all hands not to bury so promising a
crop, but to make a present of it to the multitude of young
students. In dealing with this request I did not altogether
trust my own judgment, fearing that my perspicacity might
be dimmed by my affection for one so attached to me. But
when Robert Gaguin, who is justly recognised by France as
her literary parent, priest and chieftain, had approved most
highly of my William's poems, and had advised me to publish
them, I readily acquiesced in his judgment. * *

If you, most distinguished prelate, will take these found-
lings under your fostering care, you will do an act which
will be like your old kindness. They will not miss their
parent, if they have you for a patron. I will say no more.
They are here in person, dressed in such an outfit as I can
afford to give them. Accept our duty, and farewell.

Paris, 7 Nov. 1496.

The printing of the book does not appear to have been completed
until the 20th of January 1497 (see P- 118) ; and while it was in the
press Erasmus was absent for a time from Paris (see p. 122), probably
in the preceding month. We are not informed whither his travels led
him, but we may infer from Epistle 51, that it was not to Holland.
When he came back to his quarters at the English boarding-house, he
was seized with an attack of quartan fever, his recovery from which
he attributed (as on a former occasion, pp. 107, 108) to the aid of St.
Genevieve. See Epistle 52. The following letter to William Herman,
begun upon his return to Paris, was interrupted by his illness, and the
greater part was written after his recovery. The last lines, which
mention some copies of the book which were to be sent to the author,
may safely be dated after the 20th of January ; and the reference to

Confidential letter to William 121

hard living (p. 124) perhaps points to the commencement of Lent,
which began early in this year; Ash Wednesday, 1497, being the 8th of
February. The Epistle is of some interest as illustrating the character
and habits of Erasmus, and also the bookselling practices of the time.
Erasmus appears to have employed the services of Herman to transcribe
his Epitome of the Elegantise of Valla (see p. 86). And Augustine had
been useful in advertising Herman's book by a viva voce reading and
interpretation of it (it may be presumed at a bookseller's shop). But
Erasmus shows here, as we shall find elsewhere, an unaccountable
dislike of Augustine (see p. iii). The N. of the second paragraph is
clearly the prior of Stein. It is worth while to observe, that this letter,
so full of confidences, was published with the author's sanction as
early as 15 19.

Epistle 51. Farrago, p. 79 ; Ep. iv. 25 ; C. 74 (83).
Erasmus to his Comrade William.

Hail to you, my only delight ! I congratulate you on
being in the position you are, if only you are pleased your-
self ; and you ought to be so, for I am confident you have
gained one step to glory. I am indeed sorry that the letter
did not come to hand ; not so much because I have not
received something else I wanted, as because I have been
disappointed of your sweet letter. I shall die if you do not
keep up my spirits by often writing

I have received a letter from N, in which he discloses his
mind more freely, as I had desired him to do. He does not
venture openly to acknowledge my study ; says that many
do not approve of it ; and that some are afraid I shall run
into debt and so burden my colleagues. I have relieved
him of his fear, though he writes indeed, that he is not
afraid himself, but wished to satisfy others. He loves me,
apparently ; and does not dislike you, for he speaks of you
affectionately enough. I have answered in accordance with
my character and with such authority as I may possess ; and
have written fully enough about my circumstances.

122 Augustine expected in Holland

I am surprised that you trouble yourself about the Bishop.
I have written ten times or more. Everything is well ; he
promises enough, but gives nothing.

You say there is much talk, where you are, about me.
What kind of talk ? If good, I am glad, if otherwise, it is
their own affair. Here at any rate there is nothing but
praise of me, perhaps because I have deserved it. In ex-
horting me to virtue, you do as becomes William. And
I in return exhort you to be courageous in pursuit both
of virtue and of learning. If you do so, I am persuaded
you will be the one glory of Holland. And you will more
easily come out a theologian there, than I here. Believe
me this is the case. But let us turn to gossip.

You will ask what I am doing. I play my usual part of
Ulysses, and having lately fallen ill after a journey, am
scarcely well again yet. One of those in my household *
was seized with a slight fever, but is recovering.

Augustine, your interpreter, has been some time parted
from me. He deals cunningly with me ; and I in return
with him. There is no sincere love between us, nor ever
was, such is the difference between our characters. He is
to go before long to your neighbourhood. You will also
deal cunningly with him. Defer to him before others, and
treat him as magnificently as possible. He will say some-
thing perhaps in your praise. You will listen. He will
never be seen there again. Therefore for your own sake
you will pay some respect to the man, who indeed has a fair
claim on you. He has publicly interpreted your poems, and
that for nothing. You will thank him, but not give him
anything, especially anything that may be of use to me.

I wrote to you what I wanted done. If you have done
them, I beseech you to send them. For it is a matter
of no small importance. If you have not yet done them, I
will reUeve you of part of the work. Send at any rate my

* Quidam familiarium meorum. See observation, p. 117.

The tutor at the English Boarding-house 123

Elegantise ; also the third book of Laiirentius, if it is
written out. If not, I should like you to undertake a
different work. Moreover communicate to me everything
of your own that you write. I will explain why I so much
wish this. I am living with a most courteous English
gentleman,* together with two young men of good condition,
and I am so treated that if I were in a bishop's house, I
could not be more splendidly or honourably used, even if
I were a bishop myself. This gentleman has a marvellous
confidence in your writings, so that if you will take care that
the courier may always bring something fresh, you will do what
will be most agreeable to me, and not without advantage to
yourself. Above all things write a friendly letter to him, in
which you will compliment him on disregarding everything
but Letters. You will extol learning united with probity,
commend me, and politely offer your own services. BeHeve
me, William, you may also advance your own reputation.
There is one of the party, who has great influence in his
own country, and you will have a friend who can spread
your writings through England. I beg you again and again,
if you have any love for me, give your heart to this matter.

I am angry with you for writing so briefly and so seldom.
Poor me ! has it come to this, that you grudge giving up
one night's sleep for my sake ? Or are we fallen among
pleasures ? I wish I may live to share them with you.
But see where ambition has cast us. We are still rolling
Sisyphus's stone. I have a scheme in hand ; but if it fails,
I shall fly to you. As to an honorable livelihood I have no
anxiety ; I am eagerly courted and sought for all round.
But oh, that I could live with you, or you with me ! You
do not know how I am tormented with the wish for you and
for you alone. I believe you practise some witchcraft ; I

* The name of the gentleman was no doubt given in the original letter (in
order that Herman might write to him), and struck out in editing the Epistle
for publication. The reason for doing this will appear in Epistles 55, 56.

124 Erasmus longing for William

had rather live with you than with the Pope himself. Out
of regard to our character we are living here rather strictly.*
Farewell to the name of Theologian ; farewell to fame, and
useless dignity. I have already tasted what it is to be some-
body. What is there better than a snug chat with a friend ?

It is now three months since I have paid a visit to
Faustus or Gaguin. Nevertheless you must write a brief
and learned letter to Faustus, and to Gaguin at greater
length, discussing a few points in a friendly way or rather
providing material for discussion.

That your cousin the messenger may be the more careful
in forwarding our papers, you must talk to him in the
grandest style, for he has a good appetite for praise. As to
payment, that shall be my business. If you want or wish
for anvthino:, let me know. We have alwavs a crown or
two for William. See how French we have become !

To speak seriously, my affair with the bishop of Utrecht
has cooled. I hear he is a niggardly man. Let me know
how life is going on with you there, what my brother is
doing, what Cornelius, what Servatius and the others ; w^rite
at length and with attention ; and always have a letter
ready when the messenger comes Boschius writes that he
has received a letter from Cornelius, who asks for your
poems, but I understand does not write anything about me.
I suspect Cornelius is offended ; he has never written to me.
I wonder what is the matter. I love the man provided he
loves you, for about myself I do not care.

Write and say what vou receive, for I am sending fifteen
copies of your poems. I have written a rather long letter,
partly before my illness and partly since my recovery. I
receive nothing from the bishop of Cambrai. Farewell.

Paris [February, 1497]. f

* Honestatis studio duriuscule hie vivimus.
t Lutetiae. Anno m.cccc.xcix. Farrago.

Inundation at Par is ^ J^ an, 1497 125

The reference in the above letter to the Bishop of Utrecht may
perhaps be explained by the Epistle to Servatius (Chapter xxiii),
where it appears that Erasmus had been advised by Prior Nicolas to
seek admission into the household of a bishop.

Epistle 52 may possibly have accompanied the last to Holland. In
writing to the Prior of his convent, Erasmus takes care to attribute his
late recovery from sickness to the favour of St. Genevieve, whose
relics, being preserved in the church of the Augustinian monastery at
Paris, gave the Order a claim on her protection as well as an interest
in her glory. The winter of 1496-7 had been marked in Paris by
excessive rain, and consequent inundations. The procession men-
tioned in the following Epistle took place on the 12th of January,
1497 (Felibien, Hist. Paris, ii. 892). The prominence assigned to
the Augustinian Order in this procession, a distinction to which
Erasmus calls the Prior's attention, gave offence to the Benedictines
of Paris, and was the occasion of a contest between the two Orders
concerning the manner of marching in processions, which, on the
15th of March following, was referred to the Rector of the University
for his opinion (Bulaeus, Hist. Universit. Paris, v. 814). It is m-
teresting to note, that in the year 1236 a great inundation at Paris had
been successfully encountered by a similar procession. On that occa-
sion it occurred to some " astronomers " to attribute the lowering of
the river to the cessation of rain. But this suggestion was met by
another marvel ; three weeks of wet weather followed, and the river
continued to fall every day. Recueil des Histoires de France, tom.
xxiii. p. 136.

Epistle 52, Merula, p. 196 ; Ep. xxxi. 27 ; C. 1884 (504).

Erasmus to Father Nicolas Wer7ier.

Most reverend Father, I wrote some time ago to your
fatherhood, but I conclude that the messenger failed to
deliver my letter. I hope you are in good health. We are
fairly well. We have lately had an attack of quartan fever,
but have now recovered our health and strength, not by any
doctor's aid, though we do employ one, but by the aid only

126 The patron Saint of Erasmus and of Paris

of the noble virgin St. Genevieve, whose bones, preserved
in the church of the Canons Regular, are illumined by daily
miracles.

I am afraid the rain must have drowned the fields and
everything else about you. Here it rained continually for
nearly three months. The Seine left its bed and poured
into the fields and into the middle of the city. St. Gene-
vieve's shrine was brought down from its place to Notre
Dame, the Bishop with the whole congregation coming out-
to meet it in a grand procession. The Canons Regular led
the way, the Abbot and all the Brethren walking barefoot.
Four, with their bodies bare, carried the shrine. Now we
have a quite cloudless sky.

I am prevented from writing further, being more than
fully occupied. I commend William, who is part of my
own soul, to your fatherly kindness and esteem. His name
is worshipped in this University, and with good reason. He
deserves to be admired and loved by the whole world, though
his singular learning brings him nothing but envy among his
familiars. He cannot but become a man of great renown.
Those who are pleased to do so may turn up their noses.
Nevertheless no one will prevent it. Farewell.

[Paris, February, 1497].*

The following letter forms a sort of postscript to Epistle 50, to
which the Bishop had failed to pay sufficient attention.

Epistle 53. Farrago, p. 251 ; Ep. ix. 5 ; C. 34 (34).
Erasmus to Henry Bishop of Cambrai.

When, most distinguished Prelate, I was anxious to
secure the greatest celebrity for the rare genius of one to

* No date in Merula.

Success of William's Poetns 127

whom I am much attached, I thought this purpose would
be effectually attained, if your illustrious name shone like a
torch before his new work. Not that I judged the present
either of any great importance or suitable to your high posi-
tion, but I hoped that the new author might gain from your
reputation some small portion both of favour and of autho-
rity. In this I appear to have been fully successful. With
such warmth is my William seized and read by all the
students of this University, that the facts could scarcely be
believed. Already his name is echoed everywhere in the
pubHc class-rooms and in the colleges.

If I find that you are not offended with this present, I am
satisfied with my success ; if you are pleased, I triumph. I
give what belongs to another, since I have not been able to
publish anything myself, occupied as I am with theological
studies. Following Jerome's advice we learn in order that
we may teach. It will not be long however before you may
expect some fruit of our labours, which we shall appropriate
to your name. I have been much exhausted by illness.
My skin and my purse both need filling, the one with flesh,
the other with coins. Act with your usual kindness, and
farewell.

[Paris, about March, 1497]. *

Lord Mountjoy was recalled home about April, 1497, for the cele-
bration of his wedding, his mother and guardian, the countess of
Ormond,t having arranged a marriage for him with Elizabeth, one of

* M.ccccxcvin, Op(S Epist. No date in Farrago,

t Lore, daughter of Sir Edward Berkeley of Beverston, married, first,
John, Lord Mountjoy (father of William), who died 1485, secondly, Sir
Thomas Montgomery, K.G. who died 1495, ^"^ thirdly, Thomas earl of
Ormond, who survived her and died 15 15. The young Lord Mountjoy's
wardship and marriage were bought from the king by Sir James Blount, his
father's brother and executor, who appears to have assigned the marriage to
Sir Thomas Montgomery, who bequeathed it by will to his wife. Tesfamenia

128 Marriage of Lord Mou7itjoy

the daughters and presumptive heirs of Sir William Say, a rich pro-
prietor in Hertfordshire. Erasmus in the Catalogue of Lucubra-
tions, written in 1523, has an anecdote, which is of some use in
fixing the chronology of his own life, as it evidently belongs to the
time when Mountjoy was his pupil before his marriage, and, as we
may guess from the circumstances, very shortly before it, that is in
the early part of 1497. The subject of matrimony had probably been
suggested by Mountjoy's correspondence with his mother.

Catalogue of Lucubrations. C. in Prasf. Jortin, ii. 427.

* * *

We have also tried the declamatory style, for which we
are naturally more fitted than for those compilations, to
w^iich however we have been conducted by some sort of
genius. In that way we wTote playfully a long time since
in praise and blame of matrimony. It is now part of the
little book on Letter-wTiting, and was done to please a
voung nobleman, William Mountjoy, to whom we were then
giving lessons in rhetoric. When I asked him how he
liked what I had written, he answered with a laugh " I like
it so much that you have quite persuaded me it is right to
marry." "Nay," said I, "suspend your judgment, till you
have read the other side." "I pray you," said he, "keep
that for yourself, I am content wnth the first side." He is
now a widower for the third time, and is likely enough to
marry a fourth wife,f so easy is it to upset the coach on the
side to which it leans. * * *

Vetusta, p. 396. The evidence of the date of Lord Mountjoy's marriage
depends principally upon a recovery suffered in Easter term, 12 Hen. VII.,
to the use of the feoffees of his marriage settlement. For details of Lord
Mountjoy's life, see The Hall of Lawford Ball, 175-350-

t Lord Mountjoy became a widower for the third time, 8 June, 1521, and
before 11 Nov. 1523, was married to his fourth wife, Dorothy, widow of Lord
Broke, and daughter of Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset {Hall of Lawford
Hall, 308, 310). The Catalogue of Lucubrations appears to have been
written in the spring of 1523.

Treatise on Letter -writing 129

About the time of Lord Mountjoy's departure from Paris, Erasmus,
to meet the requirements of his pupils, and especially by the desire of
Robert Fisher, began to compose a treatise on Letter-writing. In
this he inserted the argument in favour of matrimony above referred
to, which was retained in the revised work, De conscribendis Epistolis
C. i. 414, 415, This book, after having been taken up and laid aside
by the author more than once, was first printed surreptitiously at
Cambridge in 1521, and afterwards with his sanction and revision at
Strasburg in 1522 (see p. 165). Upon the subject of this inchoate work
Erasmus appears to have written to Mountjoy in England, and to have
received an answer urging him to complete it. Meantime the young
lord, then nineteen years of age, had been introduced to the duties
incumbent on his class, having been among the knights and noblemen
assembled in London in the summer of 1497 ^^r the suppression of
the Cornish insurgents, who had marched into Kent. " In which
company," says Hall, "was the erle of Essex, the lord Mongey^ with
diverse other" (Hall, Chron. f. 42; Pol. Verg. Hist. f. 600). At this
time the letter t in the name of Mountjoy or Montjoy was not sounded,
and the name was frequently written Monjoy. See Epistle 76.

Epistle 54 may be a draft of an intended preface or dedication of
the treatise on Letter-writing. Only the opening words, which have
a personal interest, are here given. In the part omitted the author
criticizes a book on the same subject by Franciscus Niger, and another
circulated under the name of Marius Philelphus, which contained
examples of epistles ; and refers to the grammatical, or rhetorical,
treatises of Sulpitius and Perotus, as furnishing some hints on the
same subject.

Epistle 54. Farrago, p. 248 ; Ep. ix. i ; C. 41 (43).

Erasmus to William Lord Mountjoy.

When you ask us for a fuller and more complete treatise
on Letter-writing, — a request which you make with your
usual excess of modesty, but still in such a way as to
convince me how warmly you are interested in the matter,
— I am not a little delighted with the disposition you show,
while I cannot but highly approve your judgment. I am
VOL. L K

130 Lord Mountj ay's avocations

pleased on the one hand to recognize that, involved as you
have suddenly been in so many affairs both private and
public, and much occupied, as is natural, with your recent
marriage, you have not wavered in your old affection for
Good Letters. * * *

[Paris, i497-]t

We have seen in Epistle 51, on what excellent terms Erasmus was
with the Tutor of the English boarding-house ; to whom as a token of
regard he presented a manuscript book, upon which he had spent
much pains, libruin multis sudoribus evigilatum. This fact is shown
by a fragment of a letter, evidently addressed to the Tutor by Erasmus,
which is found in the edition of the Treatise on Letter-writing printed
at Cambridge in 1521, and is retained in the later edition. C. i. 463 C.
Of Erasmus's skill as a transcriber and decorator of books other examples
occur in these pages. See pp. 54, 155. He continued to reside in the
boarding-house until about the end of July, 1497. fhe circumstances
attending his departure form the subject of the first two epistles
included in the following chapter.

f Anno M.cccc.xc.vm. Farrago.

CHAPTER V.

Erasmus leaves the English boarding-house^ ^?^6s H97/
Correspondence with Thomas Grey ^August; Theological
lectures; Visit to Holland and Cambrai, Octobers-
Paris, November, December ; Letter to Hector Boece
upon Poetry, November, 1497. Epistles 55 ^ 63.

Towards the end of July, 1497, Erasmus had a quarrel with the head
of the establishment in which he was living, which led to his suddenly
changing his residence ; and on leaving the boarding-house he found a
temporary refuge at the lodging of his pupil Henry. Epistle 55 was
written by Erasmus in Henry's name to his brother Christian, to apprise
him of what had taken place, and Epistle 56 is devoted to the same
subject; but, long as these letters are, the cause of the quarrel is left
unexplained. We infer that some charge was made which affected
Erasmus's character (see pp. 138, 170, 171) ; and in these and subse-
quent letters he could find no language too opprobrious to be applied to
the person, by whose courteous treatment he had been at first so much
gratified. The extreme violence of his language may lead to the sus-
picion that he was in the wrong ; but he does not appear to have lost
the respect and friendship of the other inmates of the house. We
must remember that he was extremely sensitive by nature, and by
profession a rhetorician. His status prevented his crossing swords
with his antagonist, but he had a more deadly weapon at his command
to revenge his real or imaginary wrongs, and to use this weapon in the
most ruthless way afforded some consolation to his wounded pride.
The circumstances of his position may also palliate the extravagant
self-praise with which he seeks to salve the humiliation to which he
has been exposed. It will be seen that he represents the Tutor as a
spy in the service of Henry VII. His position in the English colony
was a favourable one for observing the movements of his countrymen

K 2

132 Henry^s Dream

who obtained leave to stay at the French court, and he may possibly,
with or without treachery, have supplied some useful information to
the Government.

Epistle 55. Farrago, p. 85 ; Ep. iv. 35 ; C. 30(32).

Henry to Christian.
(A letter composed by Erastnics.)

You want to know, sweetest Christian, what we are about
here. We dream. What dream, vou ask. We dream of
what we love, — Letters, than which nothing in hfe is more
agreeable to us, and after that, we dream of Christian, our
soul's dearest part. Think you that you are absent from
us ? Nothing less. * * * *

If aught that poets say is true, I cannot doubt that the
dream I lately had, came from the gate of horn. It was the
most charming dream that ever was, and I shall be glad to
tell it you, if you are willing to listen. On the first of August,
which was to me the brightest of days, when we had had a
cheerful, and quite luxurious supper, — but who and how
many, you will ask. I answer, three as good men and true
as ever trod the ground ; Erasmus, now indeed our own,
Augustine the common friend of all, and especially devoted
to you, and thirdly myself, while you were not altogether
absent. Delightful companions, the time suitable, the place
well-chosen, the proper arrangements not neglected. How
often did we drink Christian's health, how often did we long
for his company ! Did you not feel, my dear Christian, some
tingling in your right ear? After the second course we took
a stroll in the very place among the vineyards, where, as
Erasmus told us, he had more than once sauntered with you
after finishing a bottle, when he recalled you by his eloquent
exhortations from sordid cares, and ravished your whole soul
with love of Letters. Do you recognise the spot ? There

Erasmus the supreme good 133

Erasmus fed us with lettered speech, more delicate fare
than the supper we had eaten. When we had returned
home, we prolonged till late our talk about you ; at last we
retired to bed, where partly in consequence of my supper
with the wine I had taken, and partly of my fatigue in w^alking
(for you know my habitual indolence), I was soon wrapt in
the deepest sleep. Then the scene of the day returned. I
walked in the same vineyards, and remeasured the whole
space, but all by myself. The thought of you came into
my mind ; and I became anxious to know what you were
doing, not having heard from you for some months. While
I was longing for our old companionship, you were suddenly
before me, as if walking at your ease, with cheerful face
and in good condition. And this, my dear Christian, I accept
as an omen of your present happy state of health. f * *

The supreme good, said I, if there be any supreme good
in this life, has by the blessing of heaven fallen to my lot.
For what could be more in accordance with my prayers or
my needs than a friendly and learned teacher. Erasmus,
whom I have long sadly sought, I possess at last all to my-
self, and enjoy his society night and day.

You seem, said you, more fortunate than Fortune herself.
But what propitious god has blessed you, brother, with such
a guest ?

It is, I said, a long story of wrong, which it is difficult to
trace, and I fear the whole day would not suffice to tell it ;
but I will try to reduce it to a small compass. Do you
know the old man named N. ?

When offended at the barbarous sound, you exclaimed,
What devil's name is that ? Stop, said I, the name would
not strike you as barbarous, if you knew, even in part, the

t In the part omitted the shade of Christian relates at some length, how in
the midst of his commercial pursuits he missed the delights of literature and
the society of Erasmus, and became so jealous of his brother that he could
bear the privation no longer.

134 ^^^ Tutor as pupil

barbarity of the man. His history is this. Having dili-
gently spent his whole life in the practice of every sort of
wickedness, so as to fear no competition with any thief or
impostor, he reached that degree of proficiency in his trade,
as to fill the part of traitor at Paris on behalf of his king.
This is a class for which no one is fit who is not a thorough
traitor ; and although there was no villany of which he was
not a master, he claimed the credit of counting this ap-
pellation as specially his own.

I do not know, said you, with some hesitation, whether I
have ever seen this portent.

You are lucky, said I, if you never see him. I had rather
set eyes on any fury than on this creature. But to present
you with his portrait in a few words, if you will weld
together in one image whatever you recollect to have seen
that is disagreeable, horrid, distorted, or ugly in men's bodies
you will then have a faithful likeness of the old man. If
you could see him, you would say he was neither man nor
beast, but Erinnys herself. And, not to detain you longer,
this half-Scot is the assassin of our Erasmus. It w^ould be a
long tale to tell with what acts this consummate hypocrite,
when it came into his head to persecute Letters, decoyed
our simple and candid friend.

Ah, wretched Letters, said you, that they have even begun
to be named by such creatures ! You would indeed have
thought so. Christian, said I, if you had seen this ' ass at the
harp.' There the man sat, grey-headed, wrinkled, looking
at his teacher from under his bushy eyebrows with those
brutal eyes ; his head trembling, his lips livid, his teeth dis-
coloured, he breathed a poisonous air from those foul jaws.
And to increase your wonder, he used to say that he in-
tended to be admitted to holy orders. Would you not
think a play was being acted, in which they commonly bring
in a reprobate, who pretends in his sickness that he wishes
to become a monk ? However, with his grey hairs and

Erasmus leaves the boarding-house 135

his tears, which in harlot fashion he has always ready, he
imposed on our Erasmus, who taught the man for some
months, not aware that he was nursing a serpent in his
bosom. But venom cannot exist for ever without showing
itself, and those Furies that he had kept in his breast
did in the end burst forth. Then at last Erasmus, finding
he had bestowed so much service on an ungrateful villain,
left him at once of his own accord ; and I, who had long
been anxious for his companionship, was thought most
worthy of affording him a retreat. The wretch has so much
confidence in his wealth, that he has no fear of being unable
to recall Erasmus. The rest of the household weep for his
return. Robert, a man with abundance of money, solicits
him with promises, Thomas, a noble youth, opposes his
going with endearments. The master and mistress of the
household call him back, the maid-servants and lads all beg
him to come again to his old quarters, so completely had he
gained the attachment both of great and small by a mar-
vellous sweetness of character. The old wretch himself is
now sorry for what he has done, but a strong and resolute
man is ashamed of recovering too quickly from a fit of
madness. He rages, and lives detested not only by his own
household and by all the rest of mankind, but by himself.
Erasmus, who is no more disturbed by these events.

Than if he stood a mass of flinty rock.
Or Parian marble,*

has become one of our household , and consoles himself by
saying, that it was by God's grace he fell in with that ruffian,
as a means of teaching him patience, as Xantippe is said to
have exercised the virtue of Socrates. In this way the
comedy has had a happy ending for us both ; and you,
Christian, may well clap your hands at your brother's
success.

* Quam si dura silex aut stet Marpesia cautes. Virgil. Aen. vi. 471.

136 Further particulars of the Tutor

Indeed, said you, I am quite unable to express my pleasure.
But why not go straight home and pay our compliments to
Erasmus ?

You are right, said I, it is the very first thing to be done.

At this point, while I was trying to place myself on your
left, and you were insisting on taking the other side, in this
mutual struggle of politeness, I awoke, and my Christian
was lost to me. Erasmus, who was sleeping in the same
bed with me, became conscious of my agitation, and asked
me what was the matter. I told him the story as it occurred.
He then called up his boy, and had the matter set down in
writing, so that you might understand, that not even our
dreams are to be kept from your knowledge. Farewell.

Paris, 2 Aug. [1497].*

Erasmus, after leaving the boarding-house, still remained on good
terms with his fellow-lodgers, Thomas Grey and Robert Fisher,
although the former being in statu pupillari W3iS compelled to employ
the services of another Latin teacher. Epistle 56 is a long letter from
Erasmus to Grey, written soon after their parting, a great part of which
is occupied with copious invective against the tutor, whose disagree-
able features and manners, as well as his jealous and ungrateful con-
duct, are all again described with unsparing amplification, but no
further explanation is given of the cause of quarrel. The greater part
of the letter is therefore omitted in the following translation ; but it
may be remarked, in case there should be any hope of identifying the
object of Erasmus's wrath, that while a second portrait is drawn of him
with all the deformities of old age, he is described in another place as
a boy of fifty [puer quinquagenarius). His boasted nobility is alluded
to, and he is denounced as maluvi quod nobis Gothia nuper evomuit,
whereas in Epistle 55 he is Semiscotus, and in the earlier days of
Erasmus's favour, he was nobilis homo et humanissimus Anglus. We
may infer, that he was an Englishman of gentle family from the
Scottish border. Some fourteen years later Erasmus, on a short visit

* Parisijs. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Farrago. The month date is found near
the beginning of the letter.

Thomas Grey 137

to Paris, stayed with an Englishman, named Eden, in the Rue Saint
Jean. (See Chapter XVIII.) The name suggests the possibility that
the Semiscotus was still living in 151 1, and that the old feud was
healed.

Epistle 56 has in Opus Epistolarum, but not in Farrago, the apolo-
getic words Scripsit jiivenis following the address. Glancing in later
years at its exaggerated language, the author or his editor may have
thought of it as belonging to ayounger time, though, in the strict sense of
the Latin word, Erasmus at thirty might still plead calidajuventa. And
the right year-date is by an exceptional good chance set down at the end.
A long passage that is omitted (p. 138) is almost entirely occupied
with the Tutor, but contains a few lines giving a most complimentary
description of Grey, in whose handsome body Nature had implanted a
happy soul, had contributed a charming grace of manner, to which
good birth, wealth and intelligence were added, and in brief had
formed him upon such a mould as the ancients attributed to the sons
of Gods.

Epistle 56. Farrago, p. 254 ; Ep. ix. 13 ; C. 18 (20).
Erasmus to Thomas Grey.

My letter would have come to you sooner, young and
noble Sir, than whom there is no man living more dear to
me, — for though the Fates have grudged you your title of
'merriest,' Fortune cannot snatch from you the character
of dear, — I should have written sooner to you, as my affection
for you led me to wish, and as I knew that our mutual love
led you still more to expect, but I was afraid of chafing the
bitter wound which I had lately received, while it was still
fresh. That wound is so far from bearing any touch, that
even now I feel that it becomes sore at the slightest recol-
lection. See how that most righteous sorrow brings tears to
my eyes ; when I already hoped that the scar had healed
over. No insult is so intolerable as that which is done in
return for acts of kindness. Would that I might drain such
a draught from the river of Lethe, that the old man with

138 Grey s new preceptor

his outrages and my benefits might entirely fade from my
mind. * * *

Considering my friendship, my services, my loyalty, my
almost fraternal love, when could I ever have expected such
a signal indignity from a man grey, as is apparent, noble, as
he boasts himself, and religious, as he pretends to be ? I
used to think it the height of ingratitude not to return kind-
ness with kindness. I had read that there was a sort of men,
to whom it was safer to do wrong than to oblige them with
good offices ; but I did not believe, until convinced by ex-
perience, that it is much more perilous to do good to the
evil than to do evil to the good. For when this ungrateful
scoundrel felt his obligations to me to be greater than he
could repay, he takes a holiday from that literature which he
has too long persecuted, and bends all his study upon ruining
me by his wicked plots ; and after he despairs of doing this
by other efforts, which he has already tried in vain, he
endeavours to kill me with his envenomed tongue, and has
killed me as far as in him lay. That I live and am even
well, I owe to Letters, which have taught me not to yield to
any of Fortune's storms. * * *

If you are disappointed at being deprived of our teaching,
you must consider that it is no great disadvantage to have
changed your preceptor. You have taken one that is fresh
instead of one that is tired out, one that is very industrious
instead of one that was somewhat careless, one perhaps more
learned, but not, I think, more loving. And whatever he
might have been, how small a loss couid you suffer by
my removal ! Even when I was with you, you were but
grudgingly allowed to enjoy my society. What could I say
worthy of you, when that ' ass at the harp ' was always by.
And lastly if there is any loss, we can easily make up for it,
and more than make up for it, by an exchange of letters.
* * * Your model must be yourself ; fix your mind on
what is worthy of your family, of your character and of your

Epistle communicated to friends 139

intellect. You have a teacher as worthy of you as he is ill-
matched with the old man ; follow his instructions.

Do not quarrel with Robert,* for I want the man to be
my friend. If you do not hate the old man, it will show
that you bear in mind modesty and patience ; but if you can
ever love a monster of the kind, you will be the most fickle
of mortals ; if you really mean it, you will be the greatest of
fools, if you do it for adulation, the meanest of flatterers. It
is as mad to embrace an enemy, as it is ungrateful to neglect
a friend. Farewell.

Paris [Aug.], i497-t

The letter of which we have just given an incomplete translation,
not including some of its most violent passages, appears to have been
exhibited by the author to his friends as an example of rhetorical
invective. See Epistle 57. The treatise on Letter-writing contains
an example of an "Epistle of exprobation," which was evidently
addressed at this time to the Tutor himself. See pp. 130, 165.

Epistle 57. Farrago, p. 252 ; Ep. ix. 11 ; C. 44 (47).
Erasmus to Thomas Grey.

If I have ever either done or intended anything to gratify
you, please do not refuse me this favour in return. Deliver
to the bearer the letter I wrote you. When I have given
an opportunity of copying it to those friends who are begging
for it, I will let you have it again. Farewell.

[Paris, 1497.] t

In Epistle 58, also addressed to Grey, the part omitted is occupied
with professions of regard and commonplaces about friendship. This is
followed by a friendly warning as to the choice of books. Some of

* Robert Fisher.

t Parisijs. An. M.cccc.xcvii. Farrago.

X No date in Farrago ; M.cccc.xcviii, Op. Epist.

i^o Some books to be avoided

the least edifying works of the classical authors were those most often
reproduced in the early years of the printing press.

Epistle 58. Farrago, p. 253 ; Ep. ix. 12 ; C. 21 (21).
Erasmus to Thomas Grey.

Although, my sweetest Thomas, I am much occupied, yet
that you may understand that I am not going to allow myself
any excuse, when the time comes for writing to you, I have
made up my mind to have some talk with you by letter even
among the interruptions of business. * * *

I shall think my love for you abundantly repaid, if I see
that singular disposition towards virtue which I was the first
to observe in you, come by my aid to good effect ; and T
entreat you to use every efiFort to that end. This you will
do, if you choose for your reading all the best authors, and
shun those that are lascivious or indecent, especially at your
present age, which is naturally weak, and more prone to
vice than disposed to the reception of what is right. But
what purpose does it answer to read such books to the ruin
of your character, when there is no lack of others which
advance you much more in learning without any taint of
indecency ? Of these you will read, among the first, Virgil,
Lucan, Cicero, Lactantius, Jerome, Sallust, and Livy.

To save you from further wonder at the new colour of
the writing, you must know it is done with lovers' blood.
For want of ink we are writing with mulberry juice.

Paris, I497-*

It had long been part of Erasmus's scheme of life to obtain the
degree of Doctor in Theology, to the possession of which an enormous
significance was attached by his contemporaries. See p. 118. And
there is evidence in some of his letters, that, though he had probably not
attained even the position of a Bachelor, the mere fact that he was a

* Parisijs. Anno m.cccc.xcvii. Farrago.

Erasmus a Bachelor of Theology 141

student of theology in a great university gave him an importance in
the eyes of his fellow Canons. See Epistle 5 1 , pp. 121,1 24. To obtain the
Doctor's degree w^ith greater credit, and still more with the object of
seeing a renowned country and becoming acquainted with celebrated
scholars, his mind was set on a journey to Italy. See pp. 152, 160, 168,
But when in 1506 he was made a Doctor at Turin, it appears by his
diploma, that he was already a Bachelor in the same faculty (Chapter
xvi.). It will also be seen in a future chapter, that some facilities
had been offered to him at Cambridge in the same year for proceeding
to the higher degree. Seep. 401. On the other hand Epistle 59 affords
evidence that at the time when it was written, probably in the autumn
of 1497, Erasmus was turning his attention afresh to the study of
scholastic divinity in Paris ; and we can scarcely doubt that this dis-
tasteful employment had some relation to his proposed diploma. The
lively attack on the theologians contained in this letter was apparently
written to relieve his impatience. In the collected Epistles, but not
in Farrago, it has the words Scripsit Juvenis prefixed to it ; compare
Epistle 56. We may suppose these words to have been added by
Erasmus himself, as a sort of apology for the violence of his onslaught,
in his younger days, upon the professed theologians. It is probable
that the submission to University routine, which gave occasion to this
letter, was followed by his becoming a Bachelor of Theology in the
course of the following year.

Epistle 59. Farrago, p. 169 ; Ep. vi. 39 ; C. 76 (85).

Erasmus to Thomas Grey.

The interruption which has taken place for some days in
my old habit of writing need not make you afraid, however
true it may be that Love is full of anxious fear.* It is not
that my love has grown cold. What then, you will say ;
what has happened to make Erasmus drop his pen ? You
shall hear the cause, marvellous exceedingly and yet true.
I, who have always been a primitive Theologian, have began
of late to be a Scotist, — a thing upon which you too, if you
love me, should pray the blessing of Heaven. We are so

* Res est soliiciti plena timoris amor. Ovid. Heroides, i, 12.

142 Scotistic theology

immersed in the dreams of your compatriot, — for Scotus, who,
like Homer of old, has been adopted by divers competing
countries, is especially claimed by the English as their own, —
that we seem as if we should scarcely wake up at the voice
of Stentor. Then you will say, you are writing this in your
sleep. Hush, profane one ! thou knowest nothing of theolo-
gical slumber. There are many that in their sleep not only
write, but slander and get drunk, and commit other indiscre-
tions. I find many things are done in reality, which the in-
experienced could in no wise be made to believe. I used
to think the sleep of Epimenides was the merest fable ; now
I do not wonder at it, having had myself a like experience.
What on earth, you will say, are these stories you are telling
me ? Well, profane person as you are, and not worthy of
approaching the sacred precincts of Theology, you shall see
what favour I bear you in admitting you to such a secret.

There was once a man called Epimenides, the same who
wrote that all Cretans are liars, being himself a Cretan and
yet for the moment telling no lie. He lived to a great age,
but this was not enough, for long after his death his skin was
found with marks of letters on it. Some declare that it is
preserved in these days at Paris in the Sorbonne, that sacro-
sanct temple of Scotistic theology, and is in as high esteem
as the Diphthera was of old among the Cretans, or the
Sibylline books of Rome. For indeed they are said to go to
it for oracles, whenever they are at a loss for syllogisms, and
no one is allowed to set eyes on it, unless he has borne the
title of M. N.* for full fifteen years. If any other person ven-
tures to direct his profane glances towards it, he straightway
becomes as blind as a mole. That what I am telling you is no
mere song, is shown by that most ancient Greek proverb, to
iTnfjLei'iSeLoi' Sepfia, by which they meant a thing abstruse and

* Alagister Noster, was the title of a Professor or Doctor of Theology. See
Moriee Eticomium, C. iv. 470 c.

The sleep of Epimenides 143

not to be communicated to the vulgar. Epimenides also
published theological books, for he was most distinguished
in the profession of theology ; but prophet and poet have
been held to be the same. In these works he put together
such knotty syllogisms as not even he was able to untie, and
compounded mysteries which he could never have under-
stood himself, if he had not been a prophet.

He is said once upon a time to have gone out of his city
to take a walk, being out of humour with everything at
home. After a while he betook himself to a cavern which
had a deep recess. This he may have done either because
he suifered from the heat, or because he had lost his way (for
Divines do this sometimes) and was afraid of being exposed
by night to the wild beasts in the open country, or, as is
most likely, merely to seek a suitable place for meditation.
While he was biting his nails there, and making many dis-
coveries about instances and quiddities cmd formalities^ he
was overcome with sleep. I know you will not believe me,
if I tell you that he did not wake till the evening of the next
day, though even drunkards sleep longer than that. But this
theological slumber was prolonged, as is constantly affirmed
by authors, for forty-seven years, and they say that there is
some mysterious meaning in his sleep ending at that time,
neither sooner nor later. For my part I think Epimenides
was uncommonly fortunate in coming to himself even so late
as he did. Most divines of our time never wake at all ;
and when they sleep on mandragora, they think themselves
most awake. But to return to the waking of Epimenides,
After he had risen and rubbed his eyes, being not quite sure
whether he was awake or asleep, he walked out of the cave,
and when he saw the whole appearance of the country
altered, while the very entrance of the cavern was changed
by the moss and briars that had grown over it, the man
began to doubt his own identity. He goes into the city,
where he findsfevery thing new. He addresses each person

144 Erasmus at lecture

he meets : " Ho there ! do not you recognize Epimenides ?"
The other thinks he is mocked, and bids him go to the
devil or look out for a stranger. In this ridiculous way he
walked about for several months, until he fell in with
some old boon companions, by whom he was recognized.

But look now, my Thomas, what do you suppose Epime-
nides dreamed of, all those years ? What else but those
subtlest of subtleties of which the Scotists now make boast?
For I am ready to swear that Epimenides came to life again
in Scotus. What if you saw Erasmus sit gaping among
those blessed Scotists, while Gryllard is lecturing from his
lofty chair ? If you observed his contracted brow, his
staring eyes, his anxious face, you would say he was another
man. They assert that the mysteries of this science cannot
be comprehended by one who has any commerce at all with
the Muses or with the Graces. If you have touched good
letters, you must unlearn what you have learnt ; if you have
drunk of Helicon, you must get rid of the draught. I do
my best to speak nothing in true Latin, nothing elegant or
witty, and I seem to make some progress. There is hope
that they will acknowledge Erasmus some time or other.
But what, you will say, is the upshot of all this ? It is that
you are not henceforth to expect anything from Erasmus
that would savour of his ancient studies or character. Re-
membering amongst whom I live, with whom I daily sit,
you must look out for another comrade.

Sweet Grey, do not mistake me. I would not have you
construe this as directed against Theology itself, which, as
you know, I have always regarded with special reverence.
I have only amused myself in making game of some pseudo-
theologians of our time, whose brains are rotten, their lan-
guage barbarous, their intellects dull, their learning a bed of
thorns, their manners rough, their life hypocritical, their
talk full of venom, and their hearts as black as ink. Farewell.

Paris, [1497.]*

* Lutecise. An. m.cccc.xcix. Farrago.

Old scores at the hoarding-house 145

Erasmus and Fisher had been fellow-inmates of the English
boarding-house, and we have no hint of their having lodged together
anywhere else. It is probable therefore, that Epistle 60 has reference
to their relations with that household. The master and mistress of the
house with their servants are mentioned in Epistle 55. See p. 135.

Epistle 60. Farrago, p. 252 ; Ep. ix. 10 ; C. 38 (38).
Erasmus to Robert Fisher.

Only look how greedy ard querulous womankind is. The
day before yesterday my boy brought me a string of com-
plaints from our old landlady. The husband was grumbling
in some sort about both of us. The mother, to keep up her
character as a Norman, complained that she had had no
thanks for the work she had done for me. The daughter
said you had sheered off very ill-naturedly and had forgotten
your former intimacy. For my part I buy a favour ten
times over, for after recompensing a service with a most
exorbitant payment, I am nevertheless still in debt for it !
When I reflect on these ways of women, I am glad to have
fallen into the kind of hfe I have adopted, if by accident,
luckily, if by judgment, wisely.

You have a paltry letter, the subject being furnished me
by that paltry woman. I am glad if you are in good health.
For ourselves we wish, nay, we already hope ; for the sick-
ness is beginning gradually to relax.

Paris, [1497].*

In the late autumn of this year, after a slight threatening of sick-
ness, Erasmus paid his usual annual visit to Holland for the benefit of
his health. Pp. 10, 150, 152.

Epistle 63 suggests the conjecture, that he stayed at Cambrai either
in going or returning. During his residence with the Bishop he had
probably established friendly relations with some of the clergy of that

* Lutetise, m.cccc.xcviii. Op. Epist. No date in Farrago.
VOL. I. L

146 Reputation of Erasmus as a Poet

Cathedral. He appears to have come back to Paris about the end of
October, in which month he had undertaken the charge of the son of
a gentleman of Lubeck, whose name appears to have been Rodolf
Lang. The terms for the boy^s board and instruction had been
arranged during Erasmus's absence by his older pupil Henry, and the
boy had apparently arrived in Paris and been placed with Augustine,
who took care of him and taught him until it was convenient for
Erasmus to receive him. See Epistle 64.

As an author, Erasmus was at this time best known by his
poetry, some specimens of which were circulated among the learned.
In Epistle 61, addressed to Hector Boece, an attempt is made to
define his actual relation to studies of that kind. The letter is dated
the 8th of November, without year, but may most probably be attri-
buted to the latter part of the intercourse between the correspondents
in France, which appears to have ended about 1498. See p. 105. It was
accompanied by some verses " lately composed in a country walk by
the side of a stream." In this description we may perhaps recognize
a poem, composed in honour of Gaguin and Faustus Andrelinus, and
described in the title as Carmen ruri scriptum et autumno, which was
included in a small collection of verse, printed at Paris, probably in
1499. See pp. 22, 198, C. i. 1217. The poem begins with the lines:

Nuper quum viridis nemoroso in margine ripae
Irrigua spatiarer in herba.

Gaguin is described as putting the last touches to his History,
a second edition of which was published at Paris in March, 1497-8 ;
and Faustus is imagined as occupied with his poetry among Gallic
vineyards and in Parisian fields. These words suggest the conjecture
that the author's own country walk was not in France, and that the
verses were written, a few weeks before Epistle 61, in the Cambresis or
Holland. The Epistle itself is also dated from the country, by which is
probably meant some country residence within easy reach of Paris. In
Epistle 64, written soon after this letter, Erasmus speaks of the
necessity of retreating to the country, when the town was more than
usually unhealthy. It will be observed, that in spite of the disclaimer
contained in this Epistle, we find Erasmus printing a collection of his
poetry about two years later. P. 198. The renunciation is repeated
in Epistle 102. But in Colet's banquet, shortly after, Erasmus is still
pleased to fill the part of Poet. P. 215.

Erasmus disclaims the title of Poet 147

Epistle 61. Merula, p. 189 ; Ep. xxxi. 22 ; C. 1784 (396).

Erasmus to Hector Boece.

What is the meaning of so many scolding letters ? What
is all this insistence about? You write again and again, you
threaten, reproach, and in fact, declare open war against
me, if I do not send you a copy of some of my poetry.
Only look, how unfair it is of you, to demand from
me a copy of that, of which I have no copy myself. I
solemnly swear that I have not for a long time been versed
in such studies ; and if I did as a boy amuse myself with
them, I left all that behind me at home. For how could I
dare to bring my barbarous Muses with their dull and
foreign tones to this famous school, in which I knew there
were so many persons absolute in every sort of Letters ?
But I see you do not believe this, and suspect my professions
to be themselves poetical. Who on earth induced you to
believe that Erasmus was a poet ? For you repeatedly call
me in your letter by that name, once honorable, but now
odious, thanks to the stupidity and incompetence of many
that are so called. Therefore, if you love me, pray do not
address me again by that title.

However, Hector, my dear friend, that you may not tire
yourself and annoy me by writing the same thing over and
over again, it is well we should speak more freely and
plainly of the matter. In the first place, I am not such a
fool as to w^sh to be taken by any one at more than my true
value. Although, when I was a boy, the Muses were above
all things my delight, I have not laboured so carefully in
this sort of study, as to produce out of my workshop any-
thing worthy of Apollo. * * *

It is no pleasure to me, when I fail to satisfy my own
judgment, to be approved by that of the unskilful ; of whom

L 2

148 Various Critics of Poetry

one admires nothing but what he does, or could do, himself,
another on the contrary nothing but what he does not com-
prehend. This person is captivated by fine writing and
ornament, ' tuneful trifles ' as Flaccus has it.* Another
worships what is obsolete, derived from the age of the
Aborigines, and reads with respectful emotion, aiirai
frugiferai. A third, delighted with a heap of words, takes
garrulity for eloquence. What is solid, is admired by few,
as indeed there are few that recognize it. The painter
Apelles (unless my memory fails me) disliked to have his
works criticised by Alexander, a powerful monarch. May
not then a learned man well dislike to be judged by every
cobbler or by every clown ? Consider too that persistent
monster of jealousy, which attacks most eagerly everything
that is best. Why should I for no reason at all provoke
the hissing of that cobra? No, I leave the contest for those
who are urged to utterance by the command of hunger, or
who at any rate are so charmed by that siren of praise and
fame, that they had rather be ennobled after the fashion of
Herostratus than live inglorious. For my part I will not
buy glory at such a cost.

But what does this all tend to, you will say. Simply to
this, that as I am not learned enough to satisfy the ears of
the learned, if there be any such, and am too learned per-
haps, or at any rate too proud, to condescend to a contest
with those busybodies, I am resolved, if I have written any-
thing, to dedicate it rather to Harpocrates than to Apollo.

Nevertheless, not to appear too much in the character of
Demea towards a friend who is united to me by so much
kindness, I have taken Mitio for a pattern, and allowed my-
self to be overcome ; for who can resist Hector ? Depart-
ing therefore a little from my plan, I send you a few verses
with which I lately amused my leisure when taking a country

* Nugaeque canorce. Morat. Ep. ad Pisones, 322.

Poem imparted iti confidence 149

walk by the side of a stream, and in which you must not
look for the felicity of Maro, the sublimity of Lucan, the
copiousness of Naso, or the seductiveness and learning of
Baptista Mantuanus. For while I appreciate all excel-
lences, yet in writing I somehow prefer that Horatian dry-
ness and simplicity. If your admiration is given to solid and
more ambitious works, I still hope you will not altogether
despise what I send.

I had almost forgotten, by the way, what of all things I
most wished to enjoin upon you. If you have any love for
Erasmus, do not bring his trifles out anywhere. Farewell.

Written in haste in the country, 8 November [1497].*

Episde 62 is without date in Farrago ; in Opus Epistolarum it is
dated 1497. The passage cited is from Vegetius, De Re Militari, lib. ii.
c. 19. Evangelista may have been one of Erasmus's pupils. P. 155.

Epistle 62. Farrago, p. 253 ; Ep. ix. 9 ; C. 22 (23).
Erasmus to Evangelista.

I have found that word, accensi, over which we stumbled,
in Vegetius, whose words are these : " To take the orders
of the judges or tribunes, and also oi th.Q principales^ certain
soldiers were told off, called accensi, that is, added after the
legion was complete, whom they call supernumeraries." It
is therefore most clear that accensi are so called ab accen-
sendo. I want you to be informed of this. Farewell.

[Paris] 1497.

The following letter is apparently addressed to one of the clergy-
men with whom Erasmus had lately associated during his absence from
Paris, probably at Cambrai. The winter date assigns it to this year
rather than 1498, when Erasmus returned from his journey in the summer.
P. 164. In December, 1499, he was in England.

* Scriptum ruri tumultuarie. Sexto Idus Novemb. Mtrula.

150 Hospitality worthy of a bishop

Epistle 63. Farrago, p. 78; Ep. iv. 23 ; C. 66 {jj)'
Erasmus to Chaplain Nicasius of Cambrai.

Although, most learned Nicasius, you were most dear to
me before by virtue of our correspondence, it will be
difficult for me to say what a mass has been added to my
affection for you by that personal intercourse of ours. I
was before your humble servant, now much more closely
attached to you. But it is a suspicious thing to repay an
act of kindness by words. If you would make trial of my
feeling towards you, pray take your turn, and impose some
task upon me. You cannot throw on me any burden so
heavy or so troublesome as not to seem most light and even
pleasant on your account.

I carefully delivered your letter, and greeted Thomas of
Cambrai in your name. Pray keep your promise of writing
to me as often as you can. You will present my respects
to Michael Pavius my teacher, and especially to our enter-
tainer, a man that ought, so help me Heaven, to be a bishop.
His name has slipped my memory, but the kindness and
courtesy with which he treated me have not been, and will
never be, forgotten. Thank him for me in your own fashion,
that is, most heartily. I pray that you and yours may be well.

Paris, 14 Dec. [1497].*

During the winter of 1497 and the early part of 1498 Erasmus was
preparing for a journey to Italy, where he proposed to spend some
months in study at Bologna, and after taking his Doctor's degree
there, to go on in the next year to Rome in time for the Jubilee.
Pp. 152, 168. But considerations of health, and unwillingness to
undertake so expensive a journey without ample means, led to its
postponement for some years. Pp. 158, 160, 190.

* Parisijs, postridie Id. Decemb. Anno m.cccc.xcix. Farrago.

CHAPTER VI.

Erasmus in Paris ^ J-aniiary to May, 1498; N'ew pupil
from Lubeck ; Fever, April and May ; in Holland and
Brabant, J^une and ^uly ; in Paris, ^uly to December.
The Bishop of Cambrai in England. Lord Mountjoy's
second residence in Paris. The Treatise on Letter-
writing. Scandal reported at Stein, December^ 1498.
Epistles 64 to 80.

If the date of Epistle 65 is to be trusted, Henry, who was himself its
bearer, returned to Lubeck in February, 1498. It is probable that
Epistle 64, addressed to the father of Erasmus's young pupil from
that city (see p. 146), was also sent by the same hand. The allusion
made by Erasmus in the last paragraph to his own want of facility
in writing German is of some interest. He had made Latin his own
language ; and the variety of dialects in his native tongue, — High
German and Low German, — increased the difficulty. The name of the
person addressed appears to have been Rodolf Lang. Epistle 65.

Epistle 64. Farrago, p. 73 ; Ep. iv. 18 ; C. 15 (17).

Erasmus to a gentlejnan of Lubeck.

Most honourable Sir, your son is living with me, and is
taught by me upon the terms which I accepted from Henry,
who promised me in your name thirty-two crowns and a
robe. He has lately been seriously ill, but by the favour of
God and the help of doctors he has recovered. He has been
some few months in my charge, during which time I have
suppHed him with whatever he has required. I took the
boy into my household in October, and he is cared for, not
as a stranger, but as if he were my own son. He is gifted

152 Erasfniis's pupil from Lubeck

with unusual intelligence, and his manners are for his age
tractable and not disagreeable. I shall endeavour to restore
him to you worthy both of his teacher and of his father.

I am surprised that his books have not come to my hands.
That Antwerp merchant wrote, that he had sent them by a
merchant of Paris, and gives his name ; but he stoutly denies
the transaction, I have not yet received any money on your
son's account. Augustine, under whose charge he was while I
was in my own country on account of my health, admits that
he received from Henry five or six florins. He boarded,
and taught him too, for three months, because I thought I
was then on the point of going to Italy. This money I left
with Augustine in return for his labour, and added besides
what was required to satisfy his account, for it was in his
house that the boy was sick. Besides this, he has been
clothed at my cost.

A sort of fever was beginning to break out here, but not
very common. I have consequently moved to the most
open and healthy part of the city ; if the mischief breaks out
afresh, I shall perhaps retreat further. For nothing ought to
be more sacred to us than health and life. If we would live
well, we must needs live. In this matter I wish to be
informed of your decision, — whether you would like the boy
to follow my movements ? For Henry's story was, that
even if I had taken your son to Italy, I should have had
your approval in doing so.

You are now put in possession of all our circumstances ;
it remains for you to inform us of your whole mind. But
do not send either money or letters unless by a very sure
messenger, and do not send to Paris, but to that Antwerp
merchant, lest, if I should retreat from this place, they
should come into the wrong hands.

I should be glad if you would also explain fully, for what
kind of life you have destined your son, and with what
reading you wish him most to be imbued. For we ought in

Difficulty in writing German 153

every thing to put before us the end, to which, as towards a
mark, all our doings should be directed ; and although boys
may well be instructed in every kind of literature, yet it is
important for what purpose their studies are intended, so
that when we cannot learn everything thoroughly, we may
at any rate get some knowledge of what suits us best.

I have written to you at greater length than I ought to
have done, and written in Latin, not from contempt of my
native tongue, but because I should neither have written
easily in that, nor would you have easily understood me. I
pray that you and your excellent wife and whole household
may be well. As far as I am concerned, you may assure
yourself and your family, that in the education of your son
neither loyalty, nor care, nor diligence will be wanting.

Paris [February] 1497-8.

Epistle 65. Farrago, p. 83 ; Ep. iv. 32 ; C. 24 (26).
Erasmus to Christian^ Merchant of Lubeck.

Perhaps you expected a copious epistle with your brother ;
but you are quite wrong, as the worthiest ambassadors are
charged with the shortest despatches or none at all.

Laggard and trifler, what a greeting would I have given
you, if sorrow had not subdued my spirit ! I had already
destined for you an epistle such as you deserve, stuffed full
of a thousand reproaches. You add sin to sin. You not
only do not write, but with your fine -spoken phrases you
tear from me Henry, the one joy of my life. From me,
did I say, or rather from the Muses ? You are jealous of
him, I think, having yourself begun to worship Mercury and
Janus instead of Apollo and the Sisters Nine. If you
do not promptly send my solace back, I have the bitterest

* Lutetiae. Anno m.cccc.xcvii. Farrago.

1 54 Cereales and Anabasii

invective ready, and yon may as well choose the beam on
which to hang yourself. * *

I have jested enough on the first page ; the second must
be given to serious matters. But what serious matters can
be discussed with a ridiculous person like you ? None at all,
I verily think. The printers are looking eagerly for your
works, such a man of erudition you are. I am not laughing ;
your Epistles are already in the press ; Augustine is pre-
paring to interpret them ; Faustus is a candidate for the
same office, and is plainly jealous of Augustine. It is
rumoured that you have been already issuing some impres-
sions at home ; but babies, I fancy, not books. * * *

We have longed to see you, and have often put something
in hand to present to you. But you will hear of all our
fortunes from Henry. What he says may be trusted, but be
on your guard when he praises me. I have written to
Rodolf Lang. You will help me and my letter, with a
good word from yourself. But this epistle is turning out
longer than I intended. The bearer has a tongue of his
own ; I leave him to tell the rest. Love me, and farewell.

Paris, 13 Feb. 1498.!

The two following epistles are without date in Farrago, but in
Opus Epistolariun they have the year-date of 1498. Gaguin's letters
show that in the winter of 1497-8 he was suffering from a tumour.

Epistle 66. Farrago, p. 252 ; Ep. ix. 7 ; C. 44 (45).

Erasmus to Gagiiin.

I am not quite clear, what Cereales and Anabasii in
Jerome's Epistle to Rufinus are. About Cereales I have a

t Parisijs, Id. Februarias. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Farrago. This might mean,
according to historical reckoning, 1499 ; but the letter belongs to the pre-
vious year. On the 12th of February, 1499, Erasmus was at Antwerp after
his visit to Tournehem. Epistle 85.

Income of Erasmus 155

dreamy notion. Both words seem to be used for investi-
gators sent oflf in any direction. Please set me right. I
have wanted for some time the Dialectic of Laurentius. If
you have it, pray lend it to me. If not, let me know from
whom I may procure it. Farewell.
[Paris,] 1498.

Epistle 67. Farrago, p. 253 ; Ep. ix. 8 ; C. 44 (46).
Gagiiin to Erasmus.

A severe attack of illness prevents my remembering any-
thing about the Cereales or Anahasii. I send you the
Dialectic, which you will take care to send back some time
or other, with the Orations which you have from me. Fare-
well, and in better health than your Robert.

[Paris] 149b.

In spite of the loss of Henry and the absence of Mountjoy, Erasmus
appears at this time to have been in receipt of a sufficient income to
enable him to live in comfort and even in luxury at Paris. Epistle 71.
He was moreover able to lay by a sum of money, destined by him for the
journey to Italy, for which he was preparing in the winter of 1497-8, See
pp. 150, 152^ 160, We cannot therefore assume, that his only pupils were
those named in the fragmentary correspondence which has come down
to us. See pp. 149, 178, 193. Epistle 68 purports to be a letter of Erasmus
written to accompany a manuscript copy of Terence, sent as a present to
one who appears from the conclusion of the letter to have stood to him
in that relation. If genuine, it contains a fresh proof of his industry as
a transcriber. Compare Epistles 15, 29, and see p. 130. The mixture
of respect and familiarity, the obligation of the writer to his correspon-
dent, and the fact of the latter being married, might seem to point to
Lord Mountjoy. I was therefore inclined to place it in November, 1499,
when Erasmus was at Oxford, and Mountjoy was living with his wife in
or near London. But in Merula's volume, where it was first published
(without date), the epistle is found among letters addressed to persons
in Holland or Brabant ; while the reference in it to the schoolmasters,
who teach their boys to speak half French and half Latin, does not

156 Manuscript written by Erasmus

point to an English correspondent. And the character of the letter
does not seem quite appropriate to the Oxford time. It is therefore
placed here, on the assumption that it was written to some friend or
pupil, who does not otherwise appear in the correspondence. Erasmus's
early devotion to Terence is testified by Beatus (see p. 36), and by
himself in the Epistle to Grunnius. C. 1826 F. See Chapter xxx.

Epistle 68. Merula, p. 198 ; Ep. xxxi. 29 ; C 1885 (507).
Erastniis to his friend * *

I can never call to mind my many and great obligations
to you, and your generous character, without taxing my own
fortune, which I call malignant, envious and unjust, inasmuch
as after such abundant proofs of your love I want the means
of showing you mine. * * *

^schines, an intelligent youth but poor, seeing his com-
rades bring presents according to their ability to their
teacher Socrates, only felt his poverty when he wanted the
means of showing his gratitude. And yet he had the wit to
find what fortune had denied him. He gave himself to his
preceptor, and by his modesty and wise speech made this
present most agreeable to Socrates. f * * *

The accompanying book written with my own hand I beg
you to regard as a pledge and memento of our mutual love ;
in the correcting of which I have spent almost more time
than I did in writing it. Therefore this little gift, or
memento of ours, if you please to call it so, will be no less
welcome to you than the sender has been dear. If I hear
that you have been industriously reading it, that it is always
in your pocket, in your hands or upon your knees, I shall
then be satisfied that it has been really welcome. In my
opinion the lovers of books are not those who keep them
intact and carefully put away on their shelves, but those
who soil them, crease them and wear them by nightly as

t The story is told by Diogenes Laertius, ii. 34.

True lovers of books 157

well as daily use, who cover all their margins with notes
and various readings, and would rather see the mark where
a mistake has been corrected, than a fairly written but faulty
reading. This is what has to be constantly done with other
authors, and especially with Terence, by any one who
wants to speak, not half Latin and half French, as our
schoolmasters with their Alexander* teach, but the genuine
Roman tongue. For in these Comedies of Terence there is
a marvellous purity, propriety and elegance of diction, and
very little of that roughness which might be expected in so
old a comic writer. His wit (without which all speech is
rude, however loaded with ornament) is both refined and
sparkling. This then, if any, is the master from whom we
may learn, how Latin, now worse jabbered than our ow^n
tongues, was spoken by the ancients ; an author that in my
judgment you ought not only to read over and over again,
but to learn word by word.

Do not be disturbed by the chatter of those unskilful and
jealous teachers who, seeing that they have grown old in the
study of such incapable writers as Florista, Ebrardus,Gr£ecista
and Huguitio, and are unable to find their way out of the
tangled labyrinth of ignorance, regard it as the only comfort
of their folly if they can allure younger students into the
same error. They pronounce it wicked for Christians to be
readers of Terence's plays. Why, I ask. Because, say
they, there is nothing in them but licentiousness and young
men's low amours, by which the reader's mind must needs
be infected. They do not understand that all this sort of
writing is adapted to expose men's faults, and indeed was
invented for that purpose. * * *

On this subject, when we publish what we have written
about Literature, you may, God willing, read our opinions
more at large. For the present purpose it is enough to

* Alexander de Villa Dei, author of a Latin grammar in verse.

158 Lessons taught by Terence

suggest, that Terence's Comedies, if rightly read, not only-
do not tend to overthrow morals, but are of the greatest
use in correcting them. For the learning of Latin I consider
them absolutely necessary, unless we are told to expect that
from the Catholicon, Huguitio, Ebrardus, Papias, and others
more stupid still.

But enough of this. For the rest, I have received your
much desired letter, not ill-composed, and, without jesting,
more Latin than I expected. It delighted me, both with its
tone of pleasantry, and by the affection it shows. We love
you and dream of you, and long to see you. Every good
wish for vour excellent wife, as well as for vourself.

Epistle 69 may be placed here. It is an undated note addressed to
Arnoldus Boschius, described in the Index of the Opus Epistolarum
as a Carmelite monk. One of Gaguin's correspondents is called
Arnoldus Bostius Carmelita (Gaguin, Epist. 67, 74). Boschius is
mentioned in Epistle 51, p. 124 ; and Erasmus writes to him again after
his six weeks' illness. Epistle 71.

Epistle 69. Farrago, p. 99 ; Ep. v. 6 ; C. 1785 (397).

Erasmus to Arnoldus Boschius.

I have already received from you several letters much to
the same effect, — that you suspect me of being offended
with you. To put you in the right, I might well take
offence at your thinking so unlovingly of me. Farewell.

While Erasmus was still hoping, perhaps somewhat faintly, to accom-
plish his journey to Italy (see p. 150), he was overtaken by a fever
which threatened his life. It was not a quartan fever, like that from
which he had formerly suffered (pp. 107, 125), but one that recurred
every night. After six weeks of serious illness [April and May, 1498]
he was able to report his condition to his friends.

Fresh attack of fever 159

Epistle 70. Merula, p. 193 ; Ep. xxxi. 24 ; C. 1883 (502).
Erasmus to his father in religion^ Nicolas Werner.

I have been most grievously sick for a month and a half,
most reverend father, and do not yet see any hope of re-
covery. What is man's life, and with how much sorrow is
it mingled ! I have been almost killed by a slight fever,
but one that recurs daily. I have now no liking for the
world, and despise all those hopes of mine ; I desire that
life of holy rest, in which I may have leisure for myself and
God alone, may meditate on the holy Scriptures, and wash
out with tears my former errors. This is what I turn over
in my mind, and what I hope some time by your aid and
counsel to attain.

Cornelius of Gouda is in high feather here. He is most
dear to the Bishop of Paris ; also most dear to the Abbot.*
Farewell.

[Paris, May, 1498. ]t

Epistle 71. Farrago, p 108 ; Ep. v. 21 ; C. 4 (3).
Erasmus to Arnoldus [Eoschius^.

I have been grievously sick for a month and a half with a
nightly fever, of a low kind, but one that recurs daily and
has almost put an end to me. I am not yet free from the
sickness, and yet I am a little recovered ; not yet alive,
though some hope of life has dawned upon me. You ask
me to communicate to you the purpose of my mind. Take
this for one thing ; the world has long lost its attraction for
me. I pass sentence on all my hopes. I wish for nothing
but that leisure may be given me, in which I may live
wholly to God, bewail the sins of my thoughtless age, busy

* The Abbot of St. Genevieve. t No date in Merula.

i6o Plans for the future

myself with the holy Scriptures, and read or write some-
thing. I cannot do this in a college or retreat, as I am in
extremely delicate health. My constitution, even when at
its best, cannot bear vigils or fastings or any discomforts.
I fall ill from time to time even here, where I live so
luxuriously ; what should I do among the hardships of con-
ventual life ! I had resolved to go to Italy this year, and
to work at theology for some months at Bologna, and take a
doctor's degree there ; and afterwards to visit Rome in the
year of Jubilee. This done, I intended to return to my
country and settle there. But I fear we shall not be able
to carry the plan out as we wish. In the first place I am
afraid my health would not bear so long a journey, and the
heat of that country. And then I call to mind that one
cannot travel to Italy nor live there without great cost ; and
besides, a considerable sum is required for procuring the
title. The Bishop of Cambrai gives sparingly. He is de-
cidedly more generous with his affection than his presents,
and extends his promises further than his performance. I
am myself partly in fault for not pressing him, and there are
many, who go as far as extortion. I shall do however what
seems best for the time. Farewell.
[Paris, May, 1498.] *

When his health was sufficiently restored, probably about the
beginning of June, 1498, Erasmus left Paris for Holland. He con-
sidered a visit to his native country to be the best antidote to the
infectious atmosphere of Paris. See p. 10. While in the Low
Countries, according to his holiday habit, he appears to have indulged
freely in the good cheer which his friends provided for him. Ab-
stinence from wine was at no time part of his regimen. He reached
Brussels on his return journey about a week before the end of June.
Epistle 72 is addressed to a physician, probably residing at Gouda,
where he would have Erasmus's uncles and cousins as fellow towns-

* Anno M.cccc.XLXXXix. Corrected in Errata, m.cccc.lxxxix. Farrago.

The Bishop of Camhrai in England i6i

men. We learn from it, that the Bishop of Cambrai left Brussels on
the 3rd of July on an embassy to England. There is no trace of this
embassy in the Foedera ; but some interesting notices of it are con-
tained in a despatch (dated 25 Aug. 1498) of De Puebla, the Spanish
Envoy in England, who found the Bishop the most truthful Fleming
he had ever seen. The wretched Perkin Warbeck was brought from
his close confinement in the Tower to repeat before the ambassador,
who had known him in Brabant under other circumstances, the con-
fession of his imposture. Bergenroth, pp. 185, 189. The expected
present from the king of England (see p» 168) appears in the Privy
Purse expenses of Henry VII. ''Aug.... 1498. For the Bushipps
of Flanders rewarde, lool. For the Doctour that come with hym,
33I. 6s. 8d." {Excerpta Historica, p. 119). The old diocese of Cam-
brai comprised the greater part of Brabant, Flanders, and Hainault.
The present of ;^ioo sterling received from the king of England was
about equal in value to the six hundred gold florins contributed by the
archduke.

An uncle of Erasmus named Theobald, of whom we do not hear
elsewhere, is honourably immortalized by the following letter.

Epistle 72. Merula, p. 204 ; Ep. xxxi. 34 ; C. 1852 (460).
Erasmus to Master Martin, physician.

Pray go on, as you have begun, most courteous Martin,
and ennoble Erasmus with your praises. I am sensible of
your compliments, which have already cost me something.
For my uncle Theobald was encouraged by them to relieve
me of one of my shirts, being anxious, I suppose, to accom-
modate his nephew by lightening his luggage before his
long journey. Really, my dear Martin, I am gratified
and pleased with your affection. Only, if you are rightly
reported, your praise is not only excessive but inappropriate.
You cry up Erasmus as a man of money. Who will believe
that of a poet, and a fatally unfortunate one ? If you must
glorifv vour new friend with fibs, do feign him a man of
excessive modesty, pretend that he is learned, make him

VOL. I. M

1 62 Erasmus in Holland

out such as he ought and wishes to be. What on earth
has Erasmus to do with money ?

Of my health it is right you should be informed. I tried
it all through Holland, as I began while with you, by
drinking a great deal. However I plunged through all
risks, and came out a man ; both my colour and spirits have
returned. Pray Heaven preserve the gift it has sent me. I
made the last trial of my strength at Dordrecht. It went
well, and I was not conscious of any failing.

Unwillingly as I was dragged from that town, and loth as
I was to leave Holland, I linger here no less against my
will. What, you will ask, detains you? I think it is my
evil genius, which is exhausting my purse here without any
profit. I stayed about ten days with the Bishop, who on
the 3d of July went ofif on his embassy to England. This
embassy too has done me mischief. For the Bishop,
embarrassed by a crowd of engagements, anxious about the
raising of his own supplies, and somewhat angry too, that
Prince Philip, in whose name he is sent, has helped him
with only six hundred gold pieces, expended on me plenty
of complaints and very little money. And now I linger
here to my great inconvenience and cost. No opportunity
of a carriage or of companions has occurred,* and I have
need to be at Paris as soon as possible.

Enough however of this. I was sorry not to meet you on
my return. I visited Louvain, where I stayed a night and
day, and was treated with singular hospitality by Franciscus
Cremensis, a man of uncommon learning, and by others.

If you ask me for any more news, the Pope has sent
a splendid present to our archduke, a golden rose, admir-
able not only for the material but much more for the work-
manship. The Prince went with the Bishop two leagues to
meet the papal Ambassador. That was on the 30th of June.

* Neque vehiculi neque comitatus adfertur copia.

Erasmus detained at Brussels 163

The present was solemnly brought into Brussels, the Bishop
riding on either hand and the Ambassador in the middle
holding the Rose aloft ; and when the Prince had conducted
the Ambassador to his lodging, they all returned home.
The next day, the ist of July, the pontifical gift was pre-
sented to the Prince before a great assembly in the church
of Cold Hill.* A speech was made about the importance
of the present, and the Prince's merits ; and thanks were
returned through the Chancellor.

I have poured forth a mass of trifles. Writing to you
has been, like talking with you, a great pleasure to me.
Farewell, and do not cease to love me.

Brussels, from the Bishop's Library [July, I498].t

Epistle 73. Merula, p. 194 ; Ep. xxxi. 25 ; C. 1883 (530).
Erasmus to Father Nicolas Werner.

We have recovered sound health and the full measure of
our strength ; and have tarried at Brussels for many days
much against our will, not having had as yet either the offer
of companions or of a carriage.^ We spent about ten
days with the Bishop, and have been during the rest of the
time with his Vicar. The former is gone to England as
ambassador from our Prince. What the occasion is, is a
secret. The Bishop, as I guess, besides the Prince's aff'airs,
is looking after his own interest, to obtain the Cardinalate
by English support. For he is much in favour with the
English King, and still more dear to the Cardinal of
England,§ from ^vhom he has lately had a present of a

* In templo Frigidi Montis. The old Augustinian Abbey-church of St-
James on the Cold Hill (Koudeberg) was replaced in the last century by
the present church in the same locality, now the Place Royale.

t Bruxellis e bibUotheca Antistitis. Merula, without date of time.

X Neque comitatus neque essedi copia.

§ Cardinal Morton.

M 2

164 The Bishop and Cardinal Morton

magnificent vestment, and is also by his letters urgently
recommended to the Pontiff and College of Cardinals.

In any case, this Embassy has been most damaging to my
purse, both because the Bishop was so full of business, and
because he was as anxious as myself about the provision of
Ways and Means. A man of his magnificence is being
sent to a people both rich and very ostentatious, with the
help of only six hundred florins from the Prince ; and the
presents which are wont to be given to ambassadors are
contingent, not in hand.

On the I St of July, a most beautiful mystic present was
offered to our Prince by the Pope, — a golden rose, as admi-
rable for the workmanship as for the material.

Myself and my fortunes I commend with the greatest
affection to your prayers, and bid your fatherhood to be of
good confidence. The powers above will, I hope, be pre-
sent and waft our ship to the wished for port. Meantime,
while we hoist our sail to the winds, we will take care not
to let go the helm. May God immortal keep you.

Brussels [July, 1498.] *

The above Epistle is dated in Merula the 13th of September; a date
which may perhaps have been repeated by mistake from Epistle 49,
which is printed near it in the same collection. It was more probably-
despatched from Brussels, together with Epistle 72, soon after the
Bishop's departure on the 3rd of July. It is quite unlikely that
Erasmus, who was anxious to reach Paris as soon as possible, should
have allowed the difficulties of travelling between the capitals of Bra-
bant and of France to detain him for two months and a half. We may
probably assume that he was in Paris again about the middle of July.

Among the reasons alluded to in the letter to Master Martin, which
made it expedient that he should be in Paris as soon as possible, may
be reckoned the arrival in that city of his old pupil, lord Mount] oy,
who had obtained permission, for though married he was still a minor,
to leave his child-v/ife and return for a while to his studies. He

* Ex Bruxellis Id. Septemb. Merula, without year-date.

Mountjoy and Whitford 165

travelled this time with a larger retinue, and among his suite brought
with him as his chaplain, Richard Whitford, a Fellow of Queen's College,
Cambridge, who obtained from the Provost and Fellows of his College
a dispensation for the term of five years to attend the lord Mountjoy
in parts beyond the sea. This document is dated the 23rd of March,
1498.'^ It may be mentioned here, that lord Mountjoy had himself
been a student at Cambridge (Epistle 267), of which University he was
afterwards High Steward ; but there is no evidence to connect him
with any college. Looking at the date of Whitford's dispensation, it
is probable that the English visitors had arrived in Paris during the
illness or absence of Erasmus.

After the return of Erasmus to Paris, Robert Fisher left that city,
and returned to his diplomatic employment, which before long took
him to Italy. See Epistle 1 10. Upon his departure Erasmus presented
him with the most perfect copy in his possession of his unfinished
treatise on Letter- writing (see p. 129), adding a short Preface in the
form of an Epistle to Fisher, which was afterwards prefixed to the
first edition of the treatise, Libellus de conscribendis epistolis, printed
by Siberch at Cambridge in 1521 without the authority of the author.
This Epistle, which is of little importance, has not been reprinted in
any of the collections of Erasmus's works, but may be seen in our
Appendix. (Epistle 74. De conscribendis Epistolis, Cantabrigiae,
1521 ; Appendix I.) The little volume, the issue of which was an
event in the annals of Cambridge typography, beside this dedication
to Robert Fisher, has a preface addressed by the printer to John
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Chancellor of the University, in which
it is stated, that it was printed from a copy of the autograph original
presented by the author to Robert Fisher, who is described as a
cousin of the Bishop. The examples of epistles, real or imaginary,
contained in the treatise, supply some evidence of the period of its
composition. See pp. 130, 139. An Epistle of Narration, which describes
the death of the King, and the speculations to which it had given
rise, shows that the book could not have been completed in the form

* The licence is set out in one of the notes to Dr. Knight's Life of
Erasmus, p. 65. The date in the College register is 23 Mar. 1497, which
according to our modern reckoning would be 1498. I have ascertained, that
the other entries in the Register show that there is no mistake in the year.

1 66 Treatise on Letter-writing

in which Robert Fisher received it, until after the 7th of April, 1498,
the date of the sudden death of Charles VIII."^

In return for a present, upon which he had spent much time and
labour, Erasmus may naturally have expected a handsome compensa-
tion from his wealthy pupil ; and the complaint which he makes of
the perfidy of Fisher in the following Epistle may be attributed to
his disappointment in this expectation. His old discontent reappears
in the Preface which he wrote in 1522 to his revised work. C. i. 343.

Epistle 75 was probably sent in answer to a communication an-
nouncing some arrangement between the brothers, which extinguished
all hope of Henry's return to Paris. The letter to Rodolf Lang may
be presumed to be Epistle 64. The boy appears to have remained in
Erasmus's charge for several months without any letter or remittance
from his father. See p. 178.

Epistle 75. Farrago, p. 74; Ep. iv. 19 ; C. 4 (4).
Erasmus to Christian.

Do you not fear Erasmus's pen, when you have on your
conscience so audacious a misdemeanour, having torn from
me my charming Henry ? English Robert has also deserted
me, but in quite a different way, I mean with the greatest
perfidy, as beseemed his character. Jesting aside, I not only
am not displeased with your plan, but strongly approve of it.
Tt is wiser to throw off a load that is too much for you, than
to sink under its weight. I am as pleased with his courage
as if it were my own. Pray imitate your brother and love
Erasmus, however far away.

I wish you would give Rodolf Lang a hint both to answer
my letter, and to fulfil his engagements. Farewell.

Paris [1498].!

* Another unauthorized edition of this Treatise was printed at Leiden with
a fictitious dedication (imitated from Epistle 74) to Peter Paludanus, a name
unknown to Erasmus (C. 1517 e). This dedication is reprinted in an unau-
thorized collection of Epistles, entitled Breviores aliquot Epistolae Erasvii
Paris, 1525, p. 132.

\ No date in Farrago. Lutetiae. 1496. Op^is Epist,

Lord Monjoy or Mountjoy 167

The date of Epistle 76 is not clearly ascertained. I have thought it
better to place it during Mountjoy's second visit to Paris, when he was
not living in the same house with Erasmus. We may suppose that on
the return of the latter, the old lessons had been resumed. By the
opening words the reader may be reminded, that the young lord's
title was at this time usually written Monjoy (see p. 129), though in
the patent creating the peerage it is Mountjoy (Rot. Pat. 5 Ed. IV. p. i.
m. 6), as this lord afterwards wrote it. The earlier editions of the
Adages were dedicated Gulielmo Monioio, the later Gulielmo Montioio.

Epistle 76. Farrago, p. 74 ; Ep. iv. 20 ; C, 4 (5).
Erasmus io Lord Mountjoy.

My greetings to you, well-named Monjoie. I ought to
beg pardon, but I prefer to make a defence. I acknow-
ledge the trespass I have committed in cheating you of your
lesson to-day, but necessity and not my will has been the
cause. I am compelled to provide their burden of letters
for two messengers at the same time. Beware how you
shift the position, and object that my plea of necessity is
false ; for then the status of the plaintiff and defendant will
be changed, and the subject will cease to be judicial, and
be conjectural, or at least a matter of definition, the question
being, what is necessity. But look what a clever defendant
you have. I plead before I am summoned ; and, with no
prosecutor, and myself both defendant and judge, I am sure
of acquittal. Farewell, and remain in favour with the Muses.

[Paris, 1498.] *

Erasmus, when he went to Holland in the summer of 1498, had left
Cornelius of Gouda at Paris, where he had been well received by the
Bishop and the Abbot of St. Genevieve. Epistles 70, 79. He had
also made the acquaintance of Gaguin, who in a later edition of his
History inserted a commendatory letter from Cornelius, in which

* M.cccc.xcvi. Op. Epist. No date in Farrago.

1 68 Corjtelhis s acquaintance at Paris

' meus Herasmus ' is mentioned (Gaguini Historia, Ed. 1504). It may-
be assumed that some of these great Parisian acquaintances were the
grandees to whom, according to Epistle 77, Cornelius had addressed
his correspondence.

Epistle jj. Farrago, p. 72 ; Ep. iv. 17 ; C. 16 (18).
Erasmus to Cornelius.

Has France sent you home so proud, that you have begun
to be tired of your plebeian friends ? You write to grandees,
but not to Erasmus. How have I deserved this ? You
have however a plausible excuse ; I know not whether it is
the real reason. You will say, " I thought of nothing less
than of your settling again in France, when you were pre-
paring so resolutely for your joarney to Italy." I accept
the excuse, provided you make amends by one of your
longest letters. I wonder what has happened to Boschius;
I have long been expecting an answer from him. There is
some murmuring here about our retreat. t * * *

Please keep our friend Peter, as you do, in your closest
regard. If I remind you to propitiate Harpocrates with
respect to those matters which I imparted to you in con-
fidence, I shall appear to misjudge your loyalty and your
aflfection for me ; though there are some that make a sort
of charge against you, as if you had failed to defend my
honour with entire loyalty. But my own opinion of your
integrity is so confirmed, that I shall doubt of myself sooner
than of you ; and I would have you make sure that Erasmus
will remain, while he lives, your loving friend. Farewell.

Paris [1498].

The correspondent addressed in the following letter appears to have
been one of Erasmus's companions, while staying at Brussels. It is
placed in this, rather than the previous year, because it is certain that

t recessu. j Lutetiae. Anno m.cccc.xcvii. Farrago.

John^ Canon of Brussels 169

Erasmus was at Brussels in this year, with the Bishop's Vicar (p. 163),
and there is no evidence of his being there in 1497. A letter of a later
date (Epistle 152) is addressed in Opns Epistolariim to John, Canon
of Brussels, — probably the same correspondent. Nothing more, as
far as I am aware, is known of the household referred to in Epistle 78.

Epistle 78. Farrago, p. ^'] ; Ep. iv. 22 ; C. 15 (16).
Erasfniis to John of Brussels.

I am really quite at a loss how to begin a letter to you,
and do not know whom to blame, whether the perfidy of
some persons whom you know too well, or the silly sensi-
tiveness of Antonia, or perhaps rather my own credulity.
But about the whole matter, the less said the better. I will
only say this, that in return for the service I performed I
have contracted ill-feeling on all hands. And so Erasmus
is banished from that house, and others reign there, not, I
suspect, to Antonia's satisfaction. But of this better, when
we meet. Meantime pray maintain your old kindness for us.
You will take care to greet severally in my name all those
with whom I lived when with you. But especially you will
commend me again and again to my lord the Vicar. Fare-
well, and return mv love.

Paris [1498].*

Epistle 79, first published in Farrago, was reprinted by Merula, at
the end of his volume, from a copy, which contained some various
readings, perhaps derived from the original draft. It may be sus-
pected, that upon its first publication some alterations had been made,
to conceal the identity of persons named in it, who were then living.
It appears to belong to 1498. Cornelius, if we accept Merula's reading,
has been at Paris. Pp. 159, 168, 171. Erasmus has recently been at
Stein, but has received a letter from William since his return to Paris.
He gives expression to the annoyance he suffered from some imputations

* Luteciae. Anno m.cccc.xcvu. Farrago.

lyo Erasmus and William Herman

on his conduct, which had reached the ears of his comrades, possibly
a renewal of the Paris scandals of the previous year. See pp. 131, 138.

Epistle 79. Farrago, p. 74 ; Ep. iv. 21 ; C. 13 (15).
Erasmus to William of Gouda.

It is so indeed. There was one thing only wanting to
complete the sum of my unhappiness, and that was to re-
ceive from you so insulting a letter, as if I had not here
abundant cause of sorrow. Truly, my William, you would
have done an act more worthy of our old affection, and
more suitable to my fortunes, if you had sent me comfort
instead of rebuke. Why do you pursue with reproaches a
poor friend always devoted to you and now most wretched ?
In my present condition I could not have borne any encou-
ragement without emotion, and you aggravate my troubles
with hard words. What do you lead me to expect from our
jealous comrades, when such blows are dealt me by a friend
united to me not only by ancient intimacy, but by what I
think the closest of all ties, the association of studies. You
have been told by some one, that I had left you in indig-
nation. It is true, I have remonstrated with you often by
letter and latelv bv word of mouth, on account of vour
stopping short in literature and attempting nothing worthy
of your genius. I exhorted you to consider the immortality
of your name, to publish some such work as all expect of
you, to prefer nothing to your glory, and to leave those
frolics of vours to the common herd. If I have been at all
angry with you, the only reason has been, that you do not
rate your own abilities so highly as I do. You cannot now
patiently tolerate my zeal for your good, when you have
very often put up with my ill-humour.

But what is the sense of those words, " in the way you
live there " ? You know your own meaning, and I do not
fail to guess it. I am sadly afraid you think that I do

Confidential intercourse at Gouda 171

nothing here but play the fool and fall in love. But in
truth, my William, you must imagine Erasmus not playing
the fool, but most wretched, and him whom you used to
call unflinching, now quite broken and lifeless. Beware of
measuring me by my old habits or by your own happiness.
It is true that, when I was at Gouda, I chatted somewhat
freely with you in accordance with our old famiharity ; but
that freedom of language you should have attributed either
to the wine, in which you know we were often obliged to
indulge, or to considerations of health, for the full re-estab-
lishment of which, I purposely relaxed somewhat from my
old severity of life. But such is 'now my state of mind that
I would not play the fool if I might, and such the state of
my affairs, that if I wished it ever so much, it would be quite
out of my power. You will perhaps be angry here, and will
say, " What ails you then ? Are you in want ? Have you
not the fullest liberty to do as you please ?" If I had you
with me, I could scarcely explain my woes, so far am I from
being able to do so in this scanty letter. I think even the
labours of Ulysses are not to be compared with ours. I have
experienced too much of this liberty, and you too little !

But why do I disturb the mind of a loving friend with
these complaints ? When you write, that you sustain in those
parts the envy which attaches to my glory, what does that
come to ? I am able in these parts to advance your fame.
And why should you undertake my defence, invidious as it
is ? Who does not know that William, even in the least
favourable case, will take the part of Erasmus ? * *

As to Henry, t pray do not suspect anything of him that is
unworthy of a most friendly soul ; for he has spoken of you
throughout in a very loving way. And if he has made any
complaint to me, such as might arise out of our excessive
intimacy, he has done so with the utmost consideration and

t De Yiennco, Farrago. De Cornelio, Merula; probably right; Pp. 159, 168.

172 Tales told of Erasmus

as one that loved you from his heart. A tale has been
brought to me of his not having dealt quite honourably in
his intercourse with the English, while I was absent with
you. Of anyone else this might readily be believed, so rare
is good faith among mortals, and so inconstant are the hearts
of men ; but of him I am not disposed to believe or even to
suspect it. And indeed in these matters I think it better to
be taken in, than to search out with odious carefulness what
had better be left in the dark.

What I showed you about N.* in reliance on your accus-
tomed taciturnity, I entreat you on your honour to beware
of indicating even by a glance. You would do yourself no
good, while you would give him a very sufficient reason for
being angry with me. f I have written about Henry to Ser-
vatius.f I cannot wonder enough at the man's character.
But what is one to do ? These are the manners of the day.
We are compelled to accept Chilo's saying : Love as one
that is to hate, and hate as one that is to love.

You say, many tales are told of me, J which are not at all
agreeable to hear. For my part, my William, I can make
sure of my own innocence, and that I do ; but not of what
men will say of me. The thing I fear most is what you
think of me after all. I am more concerned about that, so
help me Heaven, than about all the others. For what was
the meaning of your letter, in which you seem to point at my
life? Do you really want to know how Erasmus lives here ?
For there is nothing concerning me which you may not
know. He lives, — if he can be said to live, — the most un-
happy of men, overwhelmed by every sort of sorrow, assailed
by a thousand plots, disappointed over and over again of the
protection of friends, tossed up and down by numberless
accidents ; but he lives most innocently. I know I shall

* de N. omitted in Merula. f-f omitted in Merula.

X Ais Priori nostro multa de me renunciari. Merula.

His attachment to Herman 173

scarcely persuade you to believe this, for you will still
have in your thoughts that old Erasmus, and my freedom,
and my touch of splendour ; but if I could speak to you by
word of mouth, nothing would be easier than to convince
you. If therefore you would form a true picture of Erasmus,
imagine him, not a person given to dissipation, to feasting,
or to love, but one most afflicted, woebegone, hated by
himself, who cares not to live and is not permitted to die ;
and yet full of love and zeal and ardour for you.

Oh, my William, my old and would I might say my
constant support, sorrow almost forces a cry from me with
my tears. If I had done violence to our friendship by some
grievous wrong, still in place of righteous anger you would
have owed some pity and some tears to an unhappy friend.
Now you can assail with hard words, you can pursue with
reproaches one whom no accident, no change of circum-
stances has been able to shake in his affection for you ; as if
there was any lack of men bent heart and soul on my ruin,
who would put an end to me with fire and sword. What
was there at Stein so dear to me, that it has not among
these mischances been lost in oblivion. You have yourself
seen me at times playing the youngster, and have often
laughed. You know the heart that speaks to you. What
have I ever loved more tenderly ? Now it is marvellous
how cold I am. All those common attachments have been
dropped. You alone have remained fixed in my heart, and
so fixed that the interruption of our intercourse has not
extinguished but increased my love. And is it possible that
a friend so obstinately devoted to you, whom you could not
envy in his prosperity, can be hated by you in his misery ?
I know that this is the common habit, but am sorry indeed
if Letters have failed to guard you from the fashions of the
crowd. But let me have done with tears ! One thing I
beg and adjure you by our old kindness and my afflicted
fortunes, that if you must hate and cannot pity me, you will

174 Friendly zeal of Faiistus

at least refrain from chafing my cruel wound with hard
words, and will give to a friend, who has not deserved ill of
you, the treatment which you ought not to refuse to a
vanquished enemy.

Nurse your health all the more carefully, as mine is
beyond hope. Commend me to your father, to whose
courtesy I am much obliged ; also to James your companion.
I am much beholden to your friend Jasper, and am ashamed
of having taken leave so carelessly of so good a friend.

Paris, 14 Dec. [1498].*

Faustus Andrelinus corresponded, probably through the introduction
of Erasmus, with William Herman, to whom we assume the following
letter to be addressed. This extraordinary missive, which is without
date, was apparently provoked by some attack made upon Erasmus's
character, in which his brother Canons were disposed to side against
him ; and on that account it is placed here.

Epistle 80. C. 1839 (499)-
Faustus^ the King's Poet^ to William.

When I think to myself, my William, how great is the
learning of our Erasmus, and at the same time how free his
life is from every kind of fault, I cannot but rejoice that
your Order possesses such a man, whom not only your-
selves, but all this University is bound to admire, esteem,
revere and love. For what can be found more excellent or
more divine, than a man whose Letters and character are
alike brilliant and stainless. * * I would not write this
to you or to any one else, if Erasmus were not a person of
whom, I say it with no little warmth, not only your Order,
but your country is unworthy.

[Paris, 1498.]

* Parisijs, postridie Id. Decemb. Anno m.cccc.xcvii. Farrago. Sim. Merula.

CHAPTER VII.

Correspondence from November 1498 to J-une^ 1499/ Pcl^^^i
Tournehem^ Antwerp^ Paris. Erasmus and the Lady of
Veer, Printed collection of Poems. Epistles 81 to 96.

In the winter of 1498 we find the mind of Erasmus much occupied
with a project for improving his position by means of the patronage
of an illustrious lady. His old friend, James Batt, who appears to
have left Bergen before the end of 1496,^ was now resident in the
household of Anne, lady of Veer, at the castle of Tournehem on the
frontier of Artois, as instructor to her son. The lady was the widow
of Philip of Burgundy, sometime Governor of Flanders, son of Antony,
"le grand batard " (illegitimate son of Philip the Good, duke of
Burgundy), who had been legitimated by Royal Letters dated in 1485,
and was proprietor of the Castle of Tournehem, where his daughter-
in-law was living.f The lady herself could boast a descent more
dignified than that of her husband. Her father, Wolfard de Borssele,
lord of Veer and Flushing in Zeeland, who is styled in a French
record of 1464 Marshal of France, earl of Buchan in Scotland, and
Chamberlain to king Louis XL, J and was stadtholder of Holland
after the death of Charles the Bold, 1477-1480 (see p. 87), made two

* One of Herm.an's Odes printed by Erasmus at the end of 1496 is
addressed to Batt, o^\ fuit senatus oppidi Bergensis publicus a secretis.
Silva Odaruin, num. 36; Richter, Erasmus-studiefi, p. 27.

t Antony of Burgundy died in 1504 aged 83, and was buried at Tournehem,
which had become his property through his wife, Marie de Vieville. Pere
Anselme, Hist. Geneal., vol. i. p. 254.

I P. Anselme, vii. 104. This earl is unknown to the Scottish historians.
In their epitaphs at Sanderburg in Zeeland, Wolfard was styled count of
Buchan, and his wife, Mary of Scotland, countess of Buchan {Genealogist
N. S. vol. 14, p. 11). Mary died in 1465, and Wolfard in 1487. It is
probable, that the territorial earldom was granted to Mary on her marriage,
and that after her death and failure of issue, her husband was unable to
maintain his possession. It was granted in 1469 to James Stuart, uterine
brother of James II. Douglas, Peerage, i. 266.

176 The Lady of Veer.

illustrious alliances. He married, first, Mary, daughter of James I.
king of Scotland ; and secondly, in 1468, Charlotte, daughter of Louis
de Bourbon, count of Montpensier. Ann, lady of Veer, was his eldest
daughter and heiress by the second marriage, his children by the
Scottish princess having died in infancy. (Pere Anselme, Hist.
Genial., vii. 104; Anderson, Royal Genealogies, ii. 761.) Erasmus, in
Epistle 87, alludes to the descent of her son from the princely house
of Burgundy on the one side, and from the royal family of France on
the other. C. v. 67 B.

Batt had already succeeded in interesting the lady of Veer in the
fortunes of his friend, for whom he had obtained an invitation to
Tournehem ; and her mind being bent on a pilgrimage to Rome in
view of the coming Jubilee, Erasmus hoped to receive some assistance
from her in his own proposed journey to Italy.

From the end of 1498 until the death of Batt in 1502, the letters
addressed to him form a considerable part of the extant corre-
spondence of Erasmus. It must be admitted that this series of letters
does not present the author in a favourable light. But in order to
judge him fairly we must endeavour to see his circumstances from his
own point of view. He was then a poor scholar, conscious of the
possession of a degree of ability and learning, which we now recognise
as unequalled in its kind among his contemporaries. These talents
he was prepared to expend in the public service without sparing any
labour of mind or body to accomplish the mission of enlightenment
with which he believed himself to be entrusted, and the importance of
which, however highly he might rate it, could not well be exaggerated.
In order to perform that service to society which he judged himself best
fitted to render, it was necessary that he should be placed in a position
of independence and comfort, so far as regarded the ordinary wants of
life, and also provided with the means of meeting the expenses of the
literary assistance, books and journeys, which might be required in
order to carry out his objects. The position of a man of learning ner-
vously anxious to obtain from some wealthy bishop or illustrious lady
the benefice or pension which may enable him to pursue his literary
labours, is not a dignified one. In watching the struggles of Erasmus
at a period when he thought, not without reason, that his success or
failure in the great purpose of his life depended upon what the lady of
Veer or some other possible patron could be induced to do for him,
let us bear in mind the actual influence of his work upon the age in
which he lived, and the consideration that without the patronage

Publication by transcription 177

which he condescended to solicit with a reckless sacrifice of his per-
sonal dignity, his work could not have been done. The reader must
be prepared for shameless begging and shameless adulation, and what
is worse, for importunate exactions in which the feelings of a devoted
friend and ally are little regarded. See p. 308.

We find in the following epistle the first mention of a new relation
between Erasmus and Augustine Caminad (see p. iii). The latter,
who was by trade a transcriber and seller of books, appears to have
possessed an interest in some of Erasmus's writings. This he may
have had either as a purchaser or as a creditor claiming a lien for
money advanced or service done. It was probably part of his trade
to sell manuscript copies of Erasmus's works, in the preparation of
which the author employed the assistance of Herman and also of Batt
(pp. 123, 182). It should be remembered that of the books in use
among the learned, comparatively few had been printed before the end
of the fifteenth century, and a person requiring a copy of any other
had still to depend on the transcriber. It is therefore not surprising
if Erasmus had some reputation as an author before he had printed
anything of importance. It is probable that specimens of his poetry.
Epistles, and other works had been for some time circulated by means
of transcription. See our Introduction. The long continuance of this
practice side by side with the rival activity of the printing press, has
not been generally realized. But it is well known, that even at the
end of the next century Shakespeare's sonnets and other poems were
circulated in manuscript long before they were printed. Sidney Lee,
Life of Shakespeare, p. 88.

Epistle 81. Farrago, p. 284 ; Ep. ix. 32 ; C. 27 (31).
Erasmus to J^ames Batt.

I am not unaware, most excellent Batt, how contrary it is
to your expectation, that I do not at once fly to you, espe-
cially as the event has turned out even more happily than
we had either of us dared to wish. But when you have
heard my explanation, you will cease to wonder, and will
see that I have considered what is best for you as well as
myself. It can scarcely be expressed how much pleasure

VOL. I. N

178 Engagements at Pans

your epistle has given me. I already form in my mind a
picture of our happy companionship, with what freedom we
shall amuse ourselves together, how we shall constantly live
with our Muses. I already long to fly from this hateful
slavery. " Why then do you delay ? " you will say ; but you
will understand that this is not done without good reason.
I did not expect the message would come so suddenly. A
small sum of money is due to me here, and I am obliged to
think any sum important. And there are engagements un-
fulfilled with several persons, which I cannot relinquish
without loss. I have just begun a new month with my
lord.* I have paid the hire of my chamber. I have business
to settle with Augustine. My boy's books have gone some-
where astray, and I have not received on his behalf either
letter or money, and the accounts give rise to some question. f
These matters are not, as you see, to be neglected. But
another consideration affects me most of all, — that, if I tore
myself suddenly away, the notes that I put together on
Letter-writing would be lost, because Augustine has the
only copy. We could not hope even for the Laurentms^
nor for any of my writings. For there is nothing less to be
expected than that he should send you what are his, while I
am away, on whose authority only he will act, if he does
anything at all. It is only by the greatest exertions that I
have forced him to send you a part of Laurentiiis^ and that
on condition, that you should send him in return something
of our Letters.% He demands an equivalent. "Caw me, caw
thee. Give and take."§ Induced by these reasons I have
made up my mind to stay here another month, until I have

* Cum co?nite. This is the title by which Erasmus elsewhere speaks of
lord Mountjoy. See p. 183.

t See Epistles 64, 75.

% Aliquid nostrarum literarum. Q21. the Epistles in the hands of Batt.
P. 197.

§ Manus enim manum fricat. Da aliquid et aliquid accipe.

A scene before the Provost 179

received the money that is owing me, finished my engage-
ments, and recovered my manuscripts. If you approve of
this plan, I shall not be sorry. If not, you will let me
know. I shall be guided in all things by your decision.

You will hear from the courier a new tragedy. He came
to my house leaving his horse at the Inn, and told me he had
hidden some money in the saddle. On this I bade him run
back to the Inn and take out the money ; and he went. As
he was returning in the twilight, the watchmen set upon
him, hustled him, kicked him, wounded him, haled him to
prison and snatched the money from him. I suspected at
first, that he had found some companions to drink with ; but
when the next day was going by without his return, just as I
was guessing at some adventure of the kind, in he comes
covered with dirt and blood and very pitiably treated.

We went straight to an advocate, and from his chamber
to the Provost.* New portents met us there. I had rather
enter any sewer than that den ! I lay the complaint myself
before the judge. He produces a sword broken in the
middle. The watchmen had reported, that this had been
done while the man was cutting somebody's arm off in the
street, and that he had been apprehended in the act. We
had witnesses to prove that his sword was broken when he
entered the city ; for that accident had happened by the
donkey falling off his horse. The judge replied, that he
would give his decision when we had produced the guilty
parties. But they, after having been at their judge's side,
had taken themselves off, as soon as they saw us enter. This
Adrian f noticed, but only after they were gone. So we left
the case ; I might well be frightened by this omen.

* Ad urbis prsefectum : le Prevot de Paris. In Farrago, p. 285, where
this letter was first printed, this whole paragraph is omitted, and the following
words only inserted : Nos frustra iudici sumus questi. Poteram iam hoc
omine terreri. The full paragraph is printed in the Opus Epistolarum of 1529.

t Adrian, the young courier, who was principal complainant. See p. 182.

N 2

i8o Preliminary arrangements

I was inclined to keep him with me on account of his
wound, but I want you to be informed as soon as possible
about our plans, and to learn your decision without delay.
Besides I am pressed by so many occupations that I have
scarcely time for sleep. I have given him eighteen douzains,*
to make up his travelling money ; he says he received no
more than thirty from you ; and what there was had been
taken by the watch. Besides this, I have changed a gold
crown f for a young man, because the courier had changed
gold for gold with him on the journey. Take care, that
when money is sent him again, as I hear it will be soon, the
proper coin be paid back to me, and I will return them our
coin, to be brought back to you.

There is no need of reminding you, my Batt, to do your
best both for my profit and my honour, for I know your
loyalty and diligence. I am a little frightened at the ways
of a Court ; and I recognise the malignity of my fortunes.
I am heartily glad, that the Lady is so kindly disposed
towards me. But how well disposed the Bishop used to
be ! what hopes he held out ! And now what can be colder ?
For my part I should prefer a certain amount of cash sent
with your letter to a most ample sum on paper. I mil not
cite against you Virgil's saying :

Woman, a fickle everchanging thing. J

For I count her not a mere woman, but a heroine. But
how few in your parts have any admiration for our letters !
Who is there indeed that does not hate all learning ? My
whole fortune depends on you. But if (may Jupiter avert
the omen !) the thing falls out otherwise than we both wish,
what help could you give your poor friend, encumbered as

* Duodenarios. See p. 253.

t Scutatum aureum.

X Varium at mutabile semper,

Foemina.

Virg. Aen. iv. 570

Dignity to be considered i8i

you are with debt, and by a sort of fatality like my own,
unlucky in money matters.

I will not allow that your desire for my society is more
warm than mine for yours. But I think we ought to be
very careful how far this sort of heat carries us. And if I
had not the highest opinion both of your loyalty, your
prudence, and your diligence, I might be already frightened
and regard this beginning of things as an unlucky omen. A
hired horse is sent that might be bought for an old song,
and journey-money not only scanty, but almost none at all.
If the beginnings are so cold, is the end likely to be warm ?
When will vou find a more decent, or a fairer occasion for
begging on my behalf than now, when I am to be fetched,
and that from this city and from the engagements I have ?
With so small a sum I could not even have come on foot.
How is it possible on horseback and v/ith two companions ?
If the affair is conducted with the lady's money, as I sup-
pose, I am not delighted with the outset ; if with yours, I
am still less pleased, because it is done not only with in-
adequate but with borrowed means. What could be more
inconsistent for such a personage as you have described me
in that quarter, than to fly to hand at once at the first
beckoning, and upon such terms ? Who would not con-
clude I was either of no account, or a fool, or at any rate in
the most wretched circumstances ? If I did not love you,
my Batt, so excessively as to regard the happiness of being
with you as a compensation for any inconvenience, these
circumstances might divert me from my intention, but they
have no eifect upon me. I only remind you to have a due
consideration for my honour.

What then do I propose, you will ask. I will tell you.
We will exert ourselves to prepare everything here, collect
our writings, and finish our business. You meantime will
copy what we shall send. You will write fully and carefully
about your decision by the boy, who I understand is shortly

1 82 Horses and money to be sent

to come here for study. Then when you have transcribed
the Laurentius^ after three weeks, if you please, you will
send again by this lad, I mean Adrian, who will bring back
both the Laurentius^ and journey-money, with very positive
letters, — journey-money, I mean, worthy of me. For as to
my coming at my own cost, I cannot do it, naked as I am ;
neither is it reasonable, as I shall be leaving here some
liberal engagements. Besides, I want you to send, if it can
be done, a better horse. I do not ask for a splendid
Bucephalus, but one that a man need not be ashamed of
riding. And you know I shall want two horses, as I have
quite determined to bring the boy. I have therefore des-
tined the one that is here for him. You will easily persuade
my lady to do all this. You have the best of causes, and I
know the eloquence with which you are wont to make even
the worst causes appear the best. And if she makes a
difficulty in doing this, how can she be expected to give a
stipend, after refusing journey-money ?

You are now in possession of the reasons why I am com-
pelled to put oflf our meeting. It remains now for you to
bring the affair to maturity as soon as you can. I shall not
slumber here, and I hope you will be awake there.

John Falke sends you a thousand greetings ; Augustine,
his good wishes. We all love you. I need not suggest to
you what you should say for me to my lady. Farewell, my
Batt. See that you show yourself a man. For with my
packing in view, I have terminated my engagement with my
lord in spite of all his entreaties and promises. I would
add more exhortations if I had not full confidence in your
loyalty. Greet severally in my name Peter and Francis the
doctor, and your noble boys. Farewell, and be awake.

Paris, 29 Nov. 1498.*

* Parisijs. Tertio Cal. Decembr. Farrago. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. added in
Opus. Episf,

The Castle of Tournehem 183

The two persons named in the last sentence were known to Erasmus
either by Batt's report or by some older association. Peter, appa-
rently Peter de Vaulz (p. 233), an official of the little Court, was a
married man and had his own house in the town, where Erasmus appears
to have slept during one of his visits to the castle. Pp. 258, 287.

The proposed visit to Tournehem took place in January, 1499, and
it is no small proof of the importance attached by Erasmus to his in-
troduction to the lady of Veer, that he thought it worth while to travel
so far in the worst season of the year. The journey appears to have
occupied at least four days. The castle, which was in early times
an important fortress, and in the fifteenth century the residence of
a princely household, has long since been pulled down ; but the
village of Tournehem (pronounced Tourn'en) still lies about fifteen
miles from Calais in the picturesque valley of the Hem, an affluent
of the little river Aa, with a station on the railway between Lumbres
and Guines. The district near it is called the Forest of Tourne-
hem ; and the Chronicler Hall mentions this " fair castle standing in a
wood country " in describing the march of Henry VIII. from Calais to
Therouanne in July, 1513. Hall, Chronicle, Hen. VIII. f. 26.

We do not know the duration of Erasmus's visit, which evidently
lasted some days. See Epistle 83. When he wrote to his friends, he
was just concluding his stay, during which he had received from
Mountjoy or Whitford a proposal that he should reside with them on
his return. We have three epistles, all written a day or two before
his departure, and probably sent to Paris by the same messenger. The
short letter to Falke is dated the 3rd of February^ and the longer epistle
to lord Mountjoy the 4th. The note to Whitford is without date. But
as the writer expressly says in the letter to Falke, that he was just
paying his adieux and was going away the next morning, I have
put the letter to Mountjoy first. It is amusing to observe, how
Erasmus furnishes appropriate fare for each correspondent, the finest
rhetoric for my lord, friendly confidence for the chaplain, and familiar
banter for Falke. The address of the first letter in Farrago is Guilhelmo
Comiti Anglo. See p. 178, note.

Epistle 82. Farrago, p. 70 ; Ep. iv. 14 ; C. 5 (6).

Erasmus to lord Mountjoy.

We did arrive at last safe and sound, in despite, as it
seems, of Heaven and Hell. What a fearful journey !

184 Winter journey on horseback

What Hercules or Ulysses will seem of any account to me
again? Juno was in the field, ever hostile to poets. Once
more she had summoned ^olus ; and not only raged against
us with winds, but attacked us with all arms. As the night
came on after long rain, a sharp frost suddenly set in. Then
followed a heavy fall of snow ; then sleet and rain, which
froze as soon as it fell on the ground or trees. Some of the
peasants, elderly men, swore they had not seen the like in
their lives. Meantime the horses had to make their way,
now through heaps of snow, now through thorns coated
with ice ; and sometim.es over a crust covering the snow, too
soft to bear a horse, and too hard not to cut his feet. What
do you suppose was your Erasmus's state of mind ? If the
horse was alarmed, his rider was no less so : as often as he
pricked up his ears, my courage went down ; when he lost
his footing, my heart jumped into my mouth. Now was the
time to think of the poetic warning of Bellerophon, and to
curse my own rashness in trusting to a dumb beast my life,
and with it the fate of my Letters !

One circumstance you might think to be taken from the
true stories of Lucian, if it had not happened to myself
within sight of Batt. When the castle was all but in view,
we found everything coated with ice, which, as I said before,
had fallen upon the snow. The wind was so violent, that
on that day more than one person was blown down and
killed ; and it blew directly behind us. So I slid down the
hill side, sailing on the top of the ice, and guiding my course
with my staff, which served as a rudder, a new mode of navi-
gation ! Almost the whole journey we had met nobody,
and nobody overtook us, the weather was so, I do not say
bad, but portentous. It was not till the fourth day that we
just saw the sun. One advantage we reaped from all these
evils, that we were less afraid of being attacked by robbers.
We were afraid nevertheless, as was natural with moneyed
men !

Reception at Tournehem 185

So much for our journey. As it was bad, everything else
has been most prosperous. We came to the Princess of
Veer ahve. What account shall I give you of this lady's
courtesy, kindness, and generosity ? I know that the ampli-
fications of rhetoric are suspected, especially by those who
are not uninstructed in the art. But in this case, believe
me, that I exaggerate nothing, and that our art is surpassed
by the reality. Nature never made anything more modest
or more prudent, more charming or more kind. To put the
whole matter in a word ; she has gone as much beyond our
deserts in her beneficence, as that old man went against
our deserts in his malice, and has heaped on me as great
attentions, without any courting on my part, as he loaded me
with insults after receiving the highest benefits.* What
shall 1 say in vaunt of my Batt ? He has a heart as single
and loving as the world has ever possessed. I begin now
to hate those ungrateful monsters. How could I have been
a slave to them so long ? And why did I come to know
you so late ? Before we are joined by friendship, we are
parted by fortune.

I am now going to pay my country a visit ; and shall then
return at once to our beloved Paris, where perhaps I may
arrive before this letter. As to our living together, 1 am
not in a position to write with certainty. The matter must
be decided when we meet. Of this at any rate be assured,
there is no one living that loves you more heartily than your
Erasmus. Batt, who shares all my likes and dislikes, regards
you with similar affection. Take care of yourself and farewell.

Tournehem Castle, 4 Feb. [1499]. f

* This appears to have reference to the English tutor, with whom Mountjoy
had lived during his former sojourn at Paris.

t Ex arce Tornenhensi, pridie nonas Februarias. Anno M.cccc.xcvii,
Farrago. Compare p. 187.

1 86 Letters to Whitford and Falke

Epistle 83. Farrago, p. 72; Ep. iv. 16; C, 7 (9).

Erasmus to Richard Whitford, Chaplain to lord
Mountjoy.

I was looking forward with pleasure to writing you a very
full letter, if it had not been that leisure fails me, and I have
determined to be with you soon. I will make no apology
for not writing before, but prefer to plead in person and
hope for acquittal. I have had many a long talk with Batt
about the charming character of my lord and you. I am
pleased with what you both wish, and only regret I did
not know it sooner.

When we have been to Holland, we shall run back at
once to Paris, and then will play the fool with our cheeks
full, as the saying is. Meantime, farewell, and enjoy your
philosophy. My greetings to the prior at St. Genevieve, to
your countryman and our table-fellow, Canon William, and
the other familiars by name.

[Tournehem, Feb. 1499.]*

The following letter to a Brabangon merchant and scholar, resident
in Paris and known to Batt (p. 182), was written on the eve of
Erasmus's departure from Tournehem.

Epistle 84. Farrago, p. 71 ; Ep. iv. 15 ; C. 6 (7).

Erasmus to ^ohn Falke.

You must not expect any greeting from us. I damn you,
whenever your abusive words come to my mind, whenever
I see in imagination those glaring eyes, that mouth shaped
for mere scurrility. It is plain therefore I can have no

* No date in Farrago^ or Opus Epist.

Morality of a man of the world 187

liking for you ; but I shall hate you less, if you contrive to
prefer Good Letters to your paltry gains.

My Fates have pursued me up to this time. For we had
a prodigiously rough and cruel journey. What has followed
I owe to the fortunes of my friend Batt. You are much to
be pitied for having failed to accompany me. Who would
have been more delighted than you ? But I am glad you
have suffered for your pride. Be wise in future, shun poets
and go after butchers !

I shall, please Heaven, be back with you shortly. Keep
what you have of mine, and get together what you can, that
there may be no delay when I come.

I shall bring my epistle tg an end when I have given you
a bit of advice. He is wise in vain who is not wise for him-
self. Admire Literature and praise it, but follow Gain.
Beware of being out of humour with yourself; it casts a
shadow on your beauty. Above all things take care of
number one. Postpone everything else to your own con-
venience. Cultivate friendship for the sake of yourself.
Touch learning with a sparing hand. Love ardently ; study
moderately. Be prodigal of words and sparing of money.
There was more advice for you, but I have to say farewell,
in court fashion, to my lady; and to-morrow I fly off to
Holland.

I am leaving my best coat at home ; and do you know
why ? I am afraid your sisters will tear it, as I have to take
Antwerp on my way. There's a good joke for you! You
see you are not the only clever fellow in the world. I shall
not expect a letter from you ; indeed I am not sure whether
I shall not arrive before this myself. Live well and fare
well for yourself, and love yourself and no one else, as
you do.

Tournehem, Feb. [1499].*

* Ex arce Tornenhensi. Tertio nonas Feb. Anno M.cccc.xcvii. Farrago.
Sim. Epist. Selectee (1520). See p. 183.

1 88 Visit to Holland and Antwerp

The following letter was written from Antwerp, after a hasty visit
to Holland. Parts of it were, we can scarcely doubt, intended to be
translated to the lady.

Epistle 85. Farrago, p. 78 ; Ep iv. 24 ; C. 6 (8).
Erasmus to Bait.

Hail, my protector, my dearest Batt. If the lady of Veer,
formerly your patroness, and now mine as well, is in good
health, and if all things are prospering with her, it is as we
wish and trust. I could not, if I dared, and should not
dare, if I could, to commit to writing, how I desire to know,
whether she has yet taken flight from Tournehem, and whether
she has taken her dear pledges with her. You will be
indeed blessed if you have sailed past those rocks, and are
able to enjoy without ill-will that happiness which from
my point of view seems to be supreme. That this will
be the case, I am encouraged to hope by the character of
the lady, to whom I doubt not the Powers above will be
propitious.

In her case I have experienced the same feeling as I often
have with respect to you, that I begin to love and admire
her more warmly now that I am away from her. Good
Heavens, what unaffected simplicity, what courtesy in her
high position, what mildness of temper in the midst of such
wrongs, what cheerfulness in such anxieties ! And then
what constancy of soul, what innocence of life, what con-
sideration for men of learning, what afifability for all ! I
must fain think you, my Batt, the most lucky of all mortals,
if it is given you to enjoy her favour as long as you would
wish ; and given you it will doubtless be, if you respond, as
vou do, to her kindness by good service in return.

We have reached Antwerp safe. Augustine with his

J-ourney by boat 189

party has already gone on to Brussels ; * he has promised to
wait a few days for me there. I must therefore make haste,
not to lose the convenience of so sure an escort. I have no
instructions to give you ; for I know your diligence in my
aflfairs, and such is the kindness of your most generous lady
towards me, that I blush to think I have been so loaded by
her beneficence, without having deserved anything from her.
But it shall be my business to consider how I may show
that her favours have not been altogether thrown away upon
me. I will fly again to Tournehem as soon as possible, if
the higher Powers permit. I pray that I may find you all
safe and well, and especially her, upon whom the hope and
safety of us both entirely depend.

You need not be surprised at the handwriting being so
hurried, as I am writing this in the boat just before starting,
with everybody around me making the greatest noise.

Farewell. I pray that the amiable young lord, and his
sister, who is so like her brother and mother, may be in
good health. You will greet your companions in the house-
hold severally in my name.

From Antwerp, 12 Feb. 1498-9.!

Erasmus, as we have seen, had been for a few days in Holland,
probably at Stein, where the news of his intended journey to Italy,
and of the wealthy patroness, whom he thought he had secured, made
no slight sensation among his cloistered friends. The name Rogerus,
found in the address of Epistle 86, does not occur in any other Epistle.
William's correspondent is evidently the same Servatius, who was
Erasmus's friend at Stein, and afterwards prior there, and who appears

* The printed text has Parisios, but the sense requires the name of some
place not too far on the way to Paris. I have therefore ventured to read
Bruxellas. It may be observed that Erasmus was just starting by boat.
The Schelde and its tributaries would ease the way to Brussels.

\ Ex Antuuerpia. pridie Idus Februarias. Anno M.cccc.xcvni. Farrago.
This date would mean 1499 both at Antwerp and Paris.

190 Excitement at Stein

to have been for the time away from the monastery. It will be
remembered that Rogerus or Rogerii (Rogierszoon) appears to have
been the patronymical surname of Erasmus (p. 39), but there is no
reason for supposing that Servatius was a kinsman. See Epistle 2.

Epistle 86. C. 1873 (491).
William Herman to Servatius Rogerus.

The letter I received from you yesterday gave me in-
credible pleasure. I am delighted and triumphant, that the
merits and learning of my Erasmus have at last met with a
suitable response from Dame Fortune, whom he has been
pursuing all the world over, and seems to have caught at
last. Our Erasmus has been here, perhaps to see us (may
Heaven avert the omen !) for the last time. After Easter
he is to go to Bologna, a long and troublesome journey, for
which he is now procuring the ways and means. If things
go on well, he will return in triumph with his degree. If
the fates are unpropitious, he will leave us a legacy of
eternal mourning, especially to me, for whom as you know
he has cared most of all. Our friend James Batt is coming
to Holland, and I have no idea what will happen. But you
know the man's magnificence ; he will play the Naso after
his fashion most handsomely. Nevertheless it is incredible
how much constancy, loyalty and sincerity Erasmus has
shown in his attachment to him.

Do make haste and come to me, both for the matters you
know of, and, if there were nothing else, for my own sake
alone. Farewell, most constant of friends, and meantime,
as your character and your leisure demand, devote yourself
to the fairest of tasks, that is, to the study of Letters. What
else is there you can laudably do ?

[Stein, February, 1499.]*

* No date in C.

Epistle to Prince Adolf 191

After his return to Paris in February, Erasmus, either immediately or
after a time, joined the household of lord Mountjoy ; and he wrote two
letters to Batt, which have not been preserved (Epistle 98). Meantime
he remained in Paris, teaching and writing, and hoping now to go to
Italy later in the year. Before Easter (31 March) he addressed an
elaborate discourse {De virtute amplectenda), in the form of an Epistle,
to Adolf, the young heir of the family at Tournehem, who with the other
members of this legitimated branch of the house of Burgundy, appears
to have borne the title of Prince (EPISTLE 87. C. v. 65). The best thing
in this Epistle is a picture of the boy in a riding school, skilfully
controlling the motions of a horse too big to feel the weight of his
rider. In its extravagant compliments Batt comes in for an ample
share. I do not find mention of this composition in any of the other
extant Epistles. The scene in the riding-school suggests that it was
written soon after the visit to Tournehem, and it is dated at the con-
clusion in words at length : E Lutetia. Anno a Christo nato millesimo
quadringentesimo duodecentesimo. This would imply that it was
written before Easter 1499. It was first printed at Antwerp in 1504,
in the book entitled Lucubratiunculae aliquot. See p. 361.

Erasmus speaks in Epistle 94 of his intimacy at this period with
Faustus Andrelinus, the Poet and Professor of Rhetoric, whose studies
were akin to his own earlier pursuits. Though the habits of Faustus
were not exemplary, nor his learning profound (p. 28), his warm and
sociable nature had brought him into sympathy with Erasmus. The
following interchange of (undated) notes may probably belong to
this time.

Epistle 88. Farrago, p. 103 ; Ep. v. 11 ; C. 56 (66).

Faustus to Erasmus.

I should like to have quite a frugal supper, and wish for
nothing but flies and ants. Farewell.

Epistle 89. Farrago, p. 103 ; Ep. v. 12 ; C. 57 (67).

Erasmus to Faustus.

What the devil are these riddles that you are flinging at
me ? Do you count me an CEdipus, or suppose I keep a

192 Exchange of letters with Faustus

domestic Sphinx ? I have a notion that your flies mean
little birds, and your ants, rabbits. However there will be
a time for jesting. At present there is the supper to be got.
You must therefore cease to deal in riddles. Farewell.

Epistle 90. Farrago, p. 103 ; Ep. v. 13 ; C. 57 (68).

Faustus to Erasmus.

1 am now quite convinced you are an CEdipus. I want
nothing but the little birds, and really small ones. Rabbits
are not to be named. Farewell, most excellent reader of
riddles.

Epistle 91. Farrago, p. 103 ; Ep. v. 14 ; C. 57 (69).

Erasmus to Faustus.

Most witty Faustus, by the same act you raised my blushes
and the wrath of the theologian, who was one of the audi-
ence. However, in my opinion, it is not worth while to stir
up a hornet's nest. Farewell.

Epistle 92. Farrago, p. 104 ; Ep. v. 15 ; C 57 (70).

Faustus to Erasmus.

Who does not know that Faustus could die undaunted for
his Erasmus ? Let us think no more of those chatterers
than an Indian elephant of a midge. Farewell. Thine, in
despite of envy, Faustus.

Faustus, protected by the Court, defied the Theologians, but his dis-
trust did not extend to Erasmus, whom he was ahvays ready to defend
(see Epistle 80) ; and who at a later time, after Faustus's death, played
the part of a candid friend. Qua petulantia solitus est ille in theolo-
gorum ordinem debacchari! Erasmus Vivi C. 535 E.

Epistle 93 is dated from Paris, the 29th of April, without year, and
probably belongs to 1499. Erasmus was busy at this time with the

Epistle to Liidolf 193

kind of work mentioned in it. See his work described in p. 195.
That passage might suggest the conjecture, that in the address of
this epistle (Erasmus Ludolpho suo s. d.) the word Ludolpho has been
substituted, by accident or design, for Adolpho. The former name,
not being in the Calendar, was not in common use ; and it is not
found elsewhere in these pages. The person addressed was a boy of
some rank, who might become a patron of literature.

Epistle 93. Farrago, p. 104 ; Ep. v. 17 ; C. 1852 (458).
Erasmus to Liidolf.

In this one thing you may give me credit, most excellent
Ludolf, I will take good care that your present, — for I was
aware it came from you, — shall not appear to have been ill-
bestowed. I have begun a work which will be of the
greatest use in learning Latin. When finished I will send
it to you from here. And afterwards I will not cease to
hammer out something that may advance your studies. I
only ask you to apply yourself with all your heart to the
best kind of literature, and at the same time to continue to
cherish learned men. Farewell, my dearest young friend.

Paris, 29 April [1499 J.*

The first two letters written by Erasmus to Batt after his winter
visit to Tournehem appear to have gone astray ; and when he writes
again in May, he goes back to the story of his return to Paris. He
mentions a friend of the name of Henry, who is not to be identified
with his pupil from Lubeck. One may suspect, that the person, who
had charge of Erasmus's property in Paris, was Augustine, who pro-
bably had claims against him for maintenance and advances.

Epistle 94. Farrago, p. 291 ; Ep. ix. 36 ; C. 47 (53).
Erasmus to Batt.

I have already written you two letters, one of which I
trusted to a person I did not know, and the other, — which
was the longest, — was lost. I will therefore compress my

* Luteciae iii. Cal. Maias. Farrago.
VOL. I. O

194 Erasmus living with Mountjoy

whole story into the fewest words I can. I had an unfor-
tunate journey. A parcel tied on to my saddle fell off, and
after a long search could not be recovered. It contained a
linen robe, a linen night cap, and ten gold pieces* which I
had taken out for the purpose of changing them if I had had
an opportunity ; also my prayer-book of Hours.

The person to whom on leaving Paris I entrusted my
money, has scattered it finely ; some he has lent, some he
has taken for himself. Henry, to whose wife I had made a
loan, is gone off to Louvain, and the wife has followed him.
A third person, a printer, received some money for me in
my absence for some paper that was sold, and does not
refund a farthing. Ghisbert had already gone away. Gold
can scarcely be changed at any tolerable rate. Augustine is
not yet come back ; and while away, has thrown every thing
into confusion, intercepted moneys that were forwarded, and
sent a threatening letter, being afraid I had already clutched
them. I see my sum already running out, and become less
than you would suppose. I sold the horse for five gold
pieces, after he had been fed up nearly a fortnight. He had
something amiss with his feet. I have put off the journey
not only because the means were deficient, but much more
because of the loss of the prayer-book.

I am living with my lord on the old terms, in which,
to have the greater freedom, I have not shown myself
exacting. He loves and respects me. I am most intimate
with Faustus and another poet, — a new one, — and have had
a sharp fight with Delius. I give myself up to books, collect
my scattered works, and compose new ones. I leave myself
no leisure, as far as my health will allow, which I find some-
what broken by hard travelling.

You have heard in what state my afiairs are. I will tell
you shortly what I intend for the future. I have determined

* Aurei decern. In Epistles 71, 72, a«m and y^6'r<f«/ are equivalent.

Literary work I95

to put off the Italian journey till August, if I can meantime
get together the things that such a journey demands. My
lord has himself resolved to visit Italy, if his mother gives
him leave, but not till next year; and not a word has passed
between us about his taking me. I remember how finely I
was disappointed before in a similar hope. And if I wait
here a year, when shall I revisit my Batt ? It would not be
believed how my soul longs to fly back to your companion-
ship ; and for this reason I prefer to hasten my departure
as much as possible.

My book on Letter-writing is put in hand again. It shall
be finished before long and sent to you, and indeed dedi-
cated to your pupil Adolf. The notes on Copiousness, on
Amplifications, on Argumentations and on Figures shall be
added. These being scholastic matters I have resolved to
dedicate to the boy and you together. I had rather send
the work in print, and will see to it. I have gathered to-
gether a few writings which have lately come by accident
out of some hiding-place, and am going to send them to you
corrected, if a sure messenger is available. Therefore please
send Adrian as soon as possible, and let him bring all my
things with him. Do take care that nothing be left behind.
Natalis, a Minorite divine, has been with me, and I will
write by him to my lady and the others. Piquard has
resolved to visit the lady again at Whitsuntide ; * this
individual gives me no pleasure ; he is personified theology,
or rather a fester personified.

Pray endeavour, my dear Batt, that we may live together
at Louvain as soon as possible. Complete what you have
begun. I am ashamed to say how excited I am at the
thought of it. I see that my supphes, which are in great
part exhausted, must be made up, and they are necessarily
reduced every day. I have no substantial hope from any

* Whitsunday, May 19, 1499
O 2

196 Invitation to England

mortal, except from you, and I know by experience what
you can do, provided the decisive mind is not wanting.
You know what I desire to bring to pass, and I should blush
to burden with entreaties a man from whom I have received
so many kind services. If you lend a hand, I will at the
same time make an effort myself. If not, we shall bend
our course wherever the fates invite. You will have no
want of excuse for asking ; either because my journey had
to be put off from inevitable causes ; or because it is better
for the book to be printed at my expense. Let me know
what hope you have, or what is your intention. Farewell.
Paris, 2 May, 1499.*

Batt appears at this time to have indulged the hope of a life of
comparative independence, in charge of his pupil at the School of
Louvain, where his correspondent had still some thought of joining him .
P. 195. But the above letter also contains towards the end an obscure
hint of a proposal that might carry Erasmus in a new direction. In
Epistle 95 he alludes at greater length, but without being much more
explicit, to an invitation which he had received from lord Mountjoy
to accompany him to England. Meantime the courier Adrian had
sent him an alarming report of Batt's health.

Epistle 95. Farrago, p. 91 ; Ep. iv. 36 ; C. 37 (37).
Erasmus to Batt.

Are you so come to life again as to knock me down with
a reproachful letter ? You were reputed to be tied to your
bed and waiting to be cut with the surgeon's knife ; while
we in mournful sadness were meditating what your epitaph
should be. And now, Heaven save the mark, you are all
at once on your legs, and challenging me to invective.
Nevertheless, my dear Batt, I had much rather wage war
against you with the very bitterest invective, than play the

* Postridie Calend. Maij. Farrago. Lutetise, M.cccc.xcix. added in Opus
Epistolarum.

Stress of weather 197

part of a pious friend in writing your epitaph. Let us set to
then, since you are the first to throw down the gage.
What reckless audacity ! Does a twopenny-halfpenny
fellow like you dare to assail with reproaches a man of
such a splendid fortune ? But joking aside, I am most
heartily glad, my Batt, that you have leisure to laugh. For
that lying letter of Adrian had so dispirited me, that I was
deliberating whether I ought not to go to you.

As to what I wrote about the parcel that dropped, I only
wish it was the sort of thing to be written in jest. You say
you are aware which way I am tending. This I will explain
in a word. I mean to steer, not in the course I had begun,
but in a direction in which I am driven by a cross breeze, —
unless you send fresh supplies. This is not said at all in
jest, my dear Batt; as you will soon find by evidence of
fact ; although we shall follow the example of clever ship-
men and use craft to fight against the gale. Even when
the winds are adverse, if we are driven from the straight
course, we shall still use our sails, and if we are not allowed
to reach the harbour we most wish, we shall at any rate be
landed on some shore or other.

We have been hitherto disturbed by changing our quarters
and moving back again, and are scarcely yet settled. I am
collecting all my writings with great care. Please pack oflf
our donkey* with his burden as soon as you can ; I will send
him back to you loaded with a parcel of papers. Besides
the clothes of which I wrote, send also my Epistles and
those of William. Campanus is no longer to be bought
here, and when it was, it was sold too dear. However I
will send both him and Sulpitius. But I am waiting for our
donkey, as I will not trust such wares to an unknown beast.

Natalis the theologian took the trouble to bring me your
greeting, and I learned from him that the lady of Veer had

* Asellus appears to be a nickname for the courier Adrian. See p. 195.

198 Printed Collection of Poems

resolved to go to Rome with her sister. She showed some
wish to have me for a companion.

I should congratulate you on your prospect of flying soon
from the Castle to Louvain, if your new liberty did not make
you so insolent. As you have become so proud, now that
after your long servitude a slight hope of liberty has dimly
dawned upon you, what will happen when you reign at
Louvain in all your glory! Let me know exactly your
whole intention, and what decisive hope is left in your mind
about our affairs; for after my departure you do not seem to
me to have managed cleverly.

I will write by Natalis to the persons you wish. My lord
with his usual politeness returns your good wishes. I will
never permit the doctor's boy to track me as he was tracked
by us. Not to occupy a great part of my letter with court
names, I will ask you to salute in my name those gentlemen
with collars, to whom it is due, and each one in due fashion.
I pray a blessing on your pupil Adolf. Farewell.

Paris, [1499].*

The Campanus mentioned in the above letter was Joannes Antonius
Campanus, bishop of Crotona, whose works, including Epistles and
Poems^ were printed at Venice in or about 1495. Sulpitius was pro-
bably Joannes Sulpitius, whose book on Grammar, already in use, was
printed in an enlarged form at Paris in 1503.

In Epistles 94 and 95 we find Erasmus, among his other occupations,
carefully collecting his scattered works (pp. 194, 197), while he is evi-
dently becoming familiar with the Press (pp. 194, 195, 196) ; of which,
as far as we know, he had not before made use for the multiplication
of his own writings. It was probably about this time, that a small
collection of his poetry was printed, of which he gives the particulars
in the Catalogue of Lucubrations. See pp. 21, 22, 209. 260. The date
of this publication is confirmed by Epistle 141, dated 4 Feb. [1501],
in which he enclosed his nugas ante annum impressas, with the ob-
servation, that he had been hindered by ill health from correcting the

* Parisijs. Farrago. Parisijs M.cccc.xcviii. Opus. Epist.

Retreat beyond the Sea 199

press with his own hand. After his fatiguing journey to Tournehem
and Flanders, he had allowed himself for some time the privilege
of an invalid. See towards the bottom of p. 194. The printing
was probably superintended by Augustine. Of this little brochure,
Erasmus's first independent publication by means of the printing-
press, no copy is known to the bibliographers. The publication of
the Treatise de Copia and other prose compositions (p. 195) was
postponed for some years.

We may conclude from the following Epistle, that Batt had plainly
intimated by letter, that Erasmus must not expect him for the present
to make any further application on his behalf to the lady of Veer ;
who, according to the last news received by Erasmus, was preparing
to leave the Low Countries for Rome.

Epistle 96. Farrago, p. 102 ; Ep. v. 9 ; C. 22 (22).
Erasmus to Batt.

See how successful your denunciations are. Beaten by a
single epistle, I lay down my arms, retire from the field, and
fly to England for refuge. There at any rate I may hope to
be safe from your reproaches. For if you want to pursue
me, you will have to come to another world ; I know your
laziness well, and that, although born in the midst of waters,
you hate nothing so much as waves. If your insulting letters
reach me there, I hear that at the extremity of Britain are
the Orkneys, and intend to fly to them or to any other place
still further, if not to the Antipodes.

Now go and celebrate a splendid triumph for your glorious
victory.

Paris [1499].*

* Parisijs. Anno m.cccc xcvii. Farrago,

CHAPTER VIII.

First Visit to England ; London, Greenwich^ Oxford,
London, 1499, 1500/ Residence at Oxford, October to
December, 1499/ Association with More and Colet.
Return journey and loss of money, January, 1500.
Epistles 97-110.

In the summer of 1499 Erasmus accompanied lord Mountjoy to Eng-
land. The latter had been married for more than two years ; but his
child-wife had remained in the custody of her father, and his long
absence had given her time to grow into a woman. The young lord,
who was himself still a minor, appears on his return to have taken up
his residence with his father-in-law, Sir William Say (Epistle 104),
bringing his preceptor with him as a visitor. We may conjecture that
it was in Say's house in London, that Erasmus began his memorable
acquaintance with Thomas More, who was probably already known to
Say and Mountjoy.* Sir William appears also to have had a house
at Greenwich in the neighbourhood of the Court,t which was occupied
in the autumn by his son-in-law.

This young lord, whose studious habits had attracted the attention
of Henrj' VII., appears to have been already designed by that prudent
king to be an elder companion in the studies of the young duke of
York, afterwards Henry VIII., who was being educated, with the other
younger children of the royal family, in a sort of nursery establishment
which was maintained at Eltham, near Greenwich. Pp. 387, 424. His
elder brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, had his residence on the Welsh

* In a settlement (20 May, 1515) of Sir William Say's property, both
Thomas More and Serjeant John More, his father, were trustees. Miscel-
laneous Charters in Record Office, vol. vi.. No. 64.

t Lord Mountjoy's daughter, the marchioness of Exeter, had an estate at
Greenwich derived apparently from her mother (Gairdner, Letters, etc., Hen.
VIII., ix., No. 401) ; and Sir W. Say, by his will, dated in 1529, left a legacy
for masses to each house of Friars in Greenwich. It appears by the same
will, that he had a residence in London. TopograpJier and Geneaiogist, i. 414.

The English royal family 201

frontier. Prince Henry was receiving what has been regarded as a
clerkly rather than a princely training ; but it seems that the elder
prince had also had a learned education. Erasmus's Catalogue of Lucu-
brations, in an account of his early efforts as a Poet, contains an often
quoted reference to an incident of this period. More was at this time
a member of Lincoln's Inn and resident there. His companion Arnold
Edward was also a lawyer. See p. 235. Prince Henry entered his
ninth year, June, 28. 1499. Edmund, baptized in January, 1499, was
buried in or before May, 1500. Excerpta Histortca, pp. 120, 124.

Catalogue of Lucubrations (1523). C.i. Prsef. ^ortin^ ii. 4 1 9.

A Poem, in heroic lines and iambic trimeters mixed, upon
the Praises of king Henry VH. and his children and also of
the country of Britain, was only a three days' task ; but a
task it was, for I had for some years neither read nor
written poetry ; and it was extorted from me partly by
shame and partly by vexation.

I was staying at lord Mountjoy's country house when
Thomas More came to see me, and took me out with him
for a walk as far as the next village, where all the king's
children, except prince Arthur, who was then the eldest son,
were being educated. When we came into the hall, the
attendants not only of the palace but also of Mountjoy's
household were all assembled. In the midst stood prince
Henry, then nine years old, and having already something
of royalty in his demeanour, in which there was a certain
dignity combined with singular courtesy. On his right was
Margaret, about eleven years of age, afterwards married to
James, king of Scots ; and on his left played Mary, a child of
four. Edmund was an infant in arms. More, with his com-
panion Arnold, after paying his respects to the boy Henry,
the same that is now king of England, presented him with
some writing. For my part, not having expected anything
of the sort, I had nothing to offer, but promised that on
another occasion I would in some way declare my duty

202 Poem in praise of England

towards him. Meantime I was angry with More for not
having warned me, especially as the boy sent me a little
note, while we were at dinner, to challenge something from my
pen. I went home, and in the Muses' spite, from whom I had
been so long divorced, finished the poem within three days.

This poem, entitled Prosopopoeia Britanniae, in which Britannia
speaks her own praise and that of her princes, was printed in 1500,
together with Epistle 97, at the end of the first edition of the Adages.
See p. 245. It is to be found in Erasmus's works, C. i. 1215. A copy
of it was sent to the young prince with a dedicatory letter, in which
the writer magnifies the monuments of Poetry as being more per-
manent and valuable than any other human works. The conclusion
of the dedication, which is without date, is here given.

Epistle 97. Adagiorum Collectanea, Paris, 1500; Ep. xxix.

27; C. i. 1213.

Erasmus to the most illustrious prince, Diike Henry.

* * We have for the present dedicated these verses,
like a gift of playthings, to your childhood, and shall be
ready with more abundant ojBferings, when your virtues,
growing with your age, shall supply more abundant material
for poetry. I would add my exhortation to that end, were
it not that you are of your own accord already, as they say,
under way with all sails set, and have with you Skelton, that
incomparable light and ornament of British Letters, who can
not only kindle your studies, but bring them to a happy con-
clusion. Farewell, and may Good Letters be illustrated by
your splendour, protected by your authority, and fostered by
your liberality.

After a short sojourn in the neighbourhood of the English court,
Erasmus sent the following account of his experience to his friend
Faustus ; from whom he lately received a letter. Delius was a rival,
against whom Erasmus had himself entered the lists. See pp. 194, 261.

Erasmus at Court 203

Epistle 98. Farrago, p. 103 ; Ep. v. 10 ; C. 56 (65).
Erasmus to Faustiis Andreliniis^ Laureate Poet.

Heavens, what do I hear ? Is our Scopus really turned all
at once from poet to soldier, and handling deadly weapons
instead of books ? How much better was it when he did
battle with Delius the Volscian, as he called himself, and
what a triumph awaited him, if he had slain that champion !

We too have made progress in England. The Erasmus
you once knew is now become almost a sportsman, no bad
rider, a courtier of some practice, bows with politeness,
smiles with grace, and all this in spite of himself. If you
are wise, you too will fly over here. Why should a man
with a nose like yours grow to old age with nothing but
French filth about him ? But you will say, your gout
detains you. The devil take your gout, if he will only
leave you! Nevertheless, did you but know the blessings
of Britain, you would clap wings to your feet, and run
hither ; and if the gout stopped you, would wish yourself a
Daedalus.

To take one attraction out of many ; there are nymphs
here with divine features, so gentle and kind, that you may
well prefer them to your Camenae. Besides, there is a fashion
which cannot be commended enough. Wherever you go,
you are received on all hands with kisses; when you take
leave, you are dismissed with kisses. If you go back, your
salutes are returned to you. When a visit is paid, the first
act of hospitality is a kiss, and when guests depart, the same
entertainment is repeated ; wherever a meeting takes place
there is kissing in abundance ; in fact whatever way you
turn, you are never without it. Oh Faustus, if you had
once tasted how sweet and fragrant those kisses are, you
would indeed wish to be a traveller, not for ten years, like
Solon, but for your whole life, in England.

204 Manners of Etiglish ladies

The rest of my story we will laugh over together, for I
hope to see you before long. Farewell.
From England, 1499.*

The freedom and simplicity of manners which prevailed among
EngHsh ladies in the fifteenth century excited the wonder of other
foreigners who visited the country. A very similar account of the
manners of our ancestors is given by Laonicus Chalcondyles, whose
work de Rebus Turcicts, with its incidental description of Northern
Europe, appears to have been written about I470.t

At the time when Epistle 98 was written, probably in the autumn of
1499, Erasmus was already proposing to return to France. His
departure however was retarded by causes which are alluded to in a
subsequent letter (p. 222). The Michaelmas term at Oxford was
approaching, and Erasmus resolved to make use of the delay by visiting
that University, among whose members were some of the few great
scholars that England at that time possessed. It has been assumed,
I do not know on what evidence, that Grocin and Linacre, and Thomas
Latimer, all proficients in Greek, were then in residence. It is certain

* Ex Anglia. Anno m cccc.lxxxxix. Farrago.

f Chalcondyles de Rebus Turctcis, lib. ii. p. 73, ed. Bonn. This passage
of Chalcondyles has been understood in a scandalous sense by Gibbon, and
by the editors both of Gibbon and Chalcondyles. Gibbon, Decline and Fail,
c. 66, vol. viii. p. 88, ed. Milman. It is worth while to clear away, if possible,
this old misconstruction. The passage stands as follows : " Their habits
touching their wives and daughters are excessively simple. Throughout all
the island, when a person is invited to a friend's house, upon his arrival he
kisses the lady, and in this fashion is welcomed as a guest. And even in
every street they permit their friends to use this freedom with their wives.
The same custom extends to the country of the Frantali (qu. Flanders) on the
opposite coast as far as Germany, no shame being felt in allowing their wives
and daughters to be kissed." The whole difficulty has arisen from the words
Kvaavra and Kveirdai, which are used where the English verb, to kiss, appears
in the translation. These words have been interpreted impregnare and
itnpregnari, an interpretation which scarcely makes sense. If the writer had
meant what is supposed, he would have used a more appropriate expression.
The word Kvaai is good Greek for " to kiss," and it is not unreasonable to
suppose that tciieadai may have been used, as the passive verb, by Chalcon-
dyles and his contemporaries.

Erasmus at St. Mary's College^ Oxford 205

that Colet was there, delivering a course of lectures on the Epistles
of St. Paul.

We must not expect to hear from Erasmus what impression the
city of Oxford made upon him as he entered the High Street by the
East Gate, outside which the fair college of Magdalen had just been
built. He was received as an inmate of St. Mary's College, a house
for students of his own Augustinian Order, called by Colet Jesus'
House, whose great gate, says Antony Wood, is almost opposite to
that of New Inn. Wood, Athense Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 97. The gate
still exists, and the site of the college is occupied by a house and
garden, now called Frewen Hall, which was chosen in 1859 as the
residence of the Prince of Wales during his studies at Oxford.
Erasmus found the Prior of his College, Richard Charnock, an intelli-
gent companion and useful friend. Colet, whose acquaintance he had
yet to make, having heard from Charnock of his arrival, addressed to
him a letter of welcome, which in the midst of its formal civility has a
characteristic touch of Puritan sincerity. To this Erasmus replied in
his own rhetorical fashion with a letter of elaborate compliment.

Epistle 99. Farrago, p. 96 ; Ep. v. 3 ; C. ix. 11.

J^ohn Colet to Erasmus.

My friend Broome has written me a letter recommending
you highly to me, as the reputation of your name and the
testimony of some of your writings had done before. When
I was at Paris, Erasmus was not without celebrity in the
mouth of the learned ; an epistle of yours, addressed to
Gaguin, in which you express your admiration of the labour
and skill shown in his French History, served me, when I
read it, as a sort of sample and taste of an accomplished
man with a knowledge both of literature and of a multitude
of other things. But that which recommends you to me
most is this, that the Reverend Father with whom you are
staying, the Prior of the House and Church of Jesus Christ,
affirmed to me yesterday, that in his judgment you were a
singularly good man. Therefore, so far as learning and
general knowledge and sincere goodness prevail with one,

2o6 Colet and Erasmus

who rather seeks and wishes for these qualities than makes
any profession of them, you, Erasmus, both are and ought to
be most highly recommended to me.

When I see you, I shall have to recommend myself to
you and to your wisdom, as others, not so fitly, have recom-
mended you to me. For the less ought to be recommended
to the greater, and the unlearned to the learned. But if in
my insignificance there is anything by which I can either
gratify or help you, it will be as readily and freely at your
service as your surpassing merits demand. I am glad you
are in this country, and hope that our England may be as
agreeable to you, as I am convinced you may by your learn-
ing be useful to her. For myself I am and shall remain
what I ought to be to one whom I believe a good as well as
a learned man. Farewell.

From my chamber at Oxford, [ 1499].*

Epistle 100. Farrago, p. 96 ; Ep. v. 4 ; C. 39 (41).

Erasmus to J^ohn Colet.

If, most courteous Colet, I recognized in myself anything
worthy of the meanest praise, I should indeed rejoice with
that Hector of Naevius, to be praised by you, who are of all
men most praised, and whose judgment I so much regard,
that your silent esteem would be more agreeable to me than
if I were acclaimed and applauded by the whole Forum of
Rome, or admired by a multitude of unlearned persons as
numerous as the army of Xerxes. For as I have followed
Horace's plan, and never tried to catch the votes of the
windy crowd, which is equally hasty in its approval and in its
censure, so I have always thought it the greatest honour to
be praised by men of approved character, who are too

* Ex cubiculo Oxoniae. Farrago. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo
nonagesimo septimo, added in Op. Epist.

Erasmus writes his own character 207

candid to wish to praise any one falsely, and too sagacious to
be deceived, whose wisdom admits no suspicion of error, nor
their life any suggestion of flattery. Nevertheless your praises,
my Colet, have been so far from elating me, that being
naturally diffident I am still less pleased with myself than
before. For I am reminded of what I ought to be, when
those qualities are ascribed to me, which I reverence in
others, but miss in myself. I know only too well where my
own shoe pinches. And yet I do not find fault with the
civility of those who have commended me so lovingly to
you, nor blame your good nature in accepting their com-
mendation. * * *

I am better pleased that you should be led astray by your
kindness, than that you should form a strict and impartial
judgment of me. Nevertheless that you may not complain
of unknown wares having been foisted upon you by a false
recommendation, and may choose before you love, I will
write you my own description, and shall do so all the better
as I am better known to myself than to any one else. You
will find in me a man of slender fortune, or rather of none
at all, averse from ambition, most inclined to love, little
skilled indeed in Letters, but a most warm admirer of them ;
one that religiously venerates goodness in others and thinks
nothing of his own ; who is ready to yield to all in learning,
to none in honesty ; simple, open, free, equally ignorant of
simulation and dissimulation ; of a character humble but
sound ; sparing in speech ; a person in short from whom,
except character, you have nothing to expect. If you,
Colet, can love such a man, if you deem him worthy of
your friendship, then reckon Erasmus as much your own
property as anything you possess.

Your England is delightful to me for many reasons, but
most of all because it abounds in that which pleases me
more than anything else, I mean in men most proficient in
Good Letters, among whom by general consent I reckon

2o8 Praise of Colefs style

you the chief. Such is your learning, that without the com-
mendation of high character, you deserve to be universally
admired, and such the holiness of your life, that you cannot
but be an object of love, respect, and veneration to every
one.

How can I express to you how much I have been
touched and charmed with that style of yours, so placid,
sedate, unaffected, flowing out of the abundance of the heart
like a limpid fountain, everywhere equal and like itself,
open, simple, full of modesty, and having nothing anywhere
rough, distorted, or out of place, so that I seem to recognize
in your letter a sort of likeness of your character ? You
speak what you wish, and wish what you speak. Words
born in the heart and not on the lips spontaneously follow
the thought, instead of the thought following the utterance.
In short, by some happy facility, you pour forth without any
trouble what another person could scarcely express with the
greatest pains. But I must abstain from praising you, at
least before yourself, that I may not throw a stumbling-
block in the way of our new friendship. I know how
um^411ing those are to be praised, who alone deserve it.
Farewell.

Oxford, [ 1499]-*

The compliments on Colet's style are so out of proportion to the
opportunities that Erasmus had apparently had for forming a judg-
ment about it, that it is no wonder if one of his readers should
infer that Erasmus, before he wrote his letter, had heard Colet
lecture. t I do not however think that this was the case. If he had
either heard him lecture, or seen anything more important of his
writing, he would hardly have failed to found some eulogy expressly
upon it. There is a complimentary passage in a later epistle to

* Oxonise. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo octavo. Farrago.
t " How else could Erasmus describe Colet's style of speaking so clearly in
his first letter to him?" Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, p. 42 note.

Doctor Sixtiniis 209

another correspondent, not so elaborate, but expressed in remarkably
similar terms. See Epistle 144. One is reminded by such passages,
that Erasmus was by profession a rhetorician.

Among the persons recommended to Erasmus during his stay at
Oxford by Colet and Charnock was a learned native of Friesland,
loannes Sixtinus, who, having previously graduated at Siena, appears
to have practised as a lawyer in the English Ecclesiastical Courts, and
was in 15 10 admitted to the degree of Doctor of Civil Law in the
English University. He held some church preferments in England,
and died in this country early in 15 19 (Knight, Life of Colet, p. 218).
The poetry of Erasmus to which the following letter refers, is assumed
by Dr. Knight to have been the Ode on the birthplace of Jesus (C.
V. 1317; Knight, Erasmus, p. 20 ; App. xvi.), which he supposes to
have been written in compliment to the College of St. Mary, or, as
Colet calls it, the House of Jesus, where Erasmus was staying. But
this poem appears to have been printed at Paris not long before,
either with some other pieces or separately. See pp. 22, 198, 260. A
copy of the printed poems had probably been presented to Charnock.

Epistle ioi. Auctarium Epist. (15 19) f- 24 dors. ;
Ep. ii. 21 ; C. 9 (12).

J-oannes Sixtmus to Erasmus.

Our kind Master, Prior Charnock, has shown me to-day
some poetry of yours running in no common or trivial
strain, which, if it had been composed with much labour,
would still in my judgment not have deserved to be placed
in the lowest rank. But when we hear that it was un-
laboured * and written off hand, what reader of your verses
that has any taste will not assign you a place with those
ancient and highest bards ? They possess the charm of an
Attic Venus, and reveal the marvellous sweetness of your
genius. Proceed therefore I beseech you, my Erasmus, and
wake those delightful Muses of yours, so that all may learn
from you and those like you, — what has before appeared

* Elaborata ; read illaborata.
VOL. I. P

2IO Poetry of Erasmus

incredible, — that the German wits are in nothing inferior to
those of Italy. Farewell, most accomplished of bards.
[Oxford, October, 1499.]

The above letter, which is without date in the original, was accom-
panied by a short poem in Elegiac metre addressed to Erasmus, in
the last line of which the writer proposes, if his verses are acceptable,
to follow them up with a personal visit. In his reply, Erasmus reviews
his own position in the same spirit as in his Epistle to Hector Boece.
Epistle 61. But in Colet's banquet (p. 215) he is still the Poet.

Epistle 102. Auctarium Epist. (1519) f. 25 ; Ep. ii. 22 ;

C. 9 (13).

Erasmus to Sixtiniis.

Your entire sincerity, Sixtinus, does not admit the slightest
suspicion of flattery, from which you are abundantly vindi-
cated by the weighty testimony both of Charnock and of
Colet, and, independently of any testimony, by your manners
and character, which while they are clear of any stain, are
also so strongly opposed to fiction and pretence, that not
simplicity itself is simpler or freedom more free. If it were
otherwise, I should certainly think myself laughed at, when
I am praised so immoderately by you, and that for a thing
so moderate or rather so trifling and worthless. * * *

But that I may not fail to acknowledge some of your
praise, there is in fact, Sixtinus, something Attic in my
verses. They spare the feelings or touch them lightly,
abstaining altogether from passion ; no storm, no torrent
bursting its banks, no hdvoiai'i. With a wonderful economy
of words they choose to remain within bounds rather than
be carried beyond them, and to hug the shore rather than
launch into the deep. There is no high colouring, but a
natural tint, real, if you like, and dingy. They so thoroughly
hide any artifice, that if you were Lynceus himself, you

Erasmus's judgment of his poetry 2 1 1

could detect none. In this one respect I am superior to
the Greeks themselves ; for while they so conceal their art
as to make it invisible to others, I do the same to myself.
They contrive that it may not attract attention, but if it is
not perceived by the gaping reader, it is plain enough to the
careful student, or the rival author. * * * We do
not adopt the Ennian fashion of not offering to tell of arms
until we have cracked a bottle ; and we do not importune
any Muse. In perfect sobriety we write such sensible verses
as are absolutely without any hint of Apollo. And I am so
far from being sorry for this, that I am pleased with myself
for having this quality in common with Cicero, as I am not
likely to have any other. The fact is, I have fallen into a
dry, poor, bloodless, sapless kind of poetry, partly from
poverty of genius and partly by effort misapplied. Cicero
is rightly of opinion, that nothing does so much to modify
men's genius as locality. We wrote when young, not for
Consentine but for Dutch, that is, for very dull, ears. We
sang for Midases, and in adapting ourselves too reHgiously
to them, we ended by pleasing neither them nor the learned.
We tried to daub two walls out of one jar, to please the
unskilful by simplicity of language, without altogether failing
to please the learned by elegance and wit. This plan,
clever as it then seemed to me, has turned out unsuccessful.
We write too learnedly to please the unlearned and too
unlearnedly for the learned. You have now my own judg-
ment about my verses. * * *

As to your exhortation to wake my Muses, a Mercury's
wand will be required to rouse them again. We did wake
them not long ago from a more than ten years' sleep, and
angry indeed they were, when they were compelled to
chaunt the praises of the royal children. They chaunted
unwillingly and half-asleep some sort of ditty, so drowsy
that it may well dispose any one to slumber. I disliked it
so much myself, that I was glad to let them fall asleep again.

p 2

212 ^^^ o/ Thomas More

But to make the world understand that German wits are
not inferior to those of Italy, that is a thing, Sixtinus, for
you, or nobody, to do, — you whom Friesland, that fertile
parent of noble intellects, that Africa always teeming with
fresh marvels, has produced, it seems, as a sort of Hannibal
to contest with Rome the chieftainship of learning. * *
Your poem appeared to me to have just that merit which
you attributed to mine. It pleased prior Charnock as much
as you are dear. Believe me also, Sixtinus, that you are
dear to me. Farewell.

Oxford, on the festival of SS. Simon and Jude (28 Oct.),
[1499].*

On the same day, Erasmus's thirty-third birthday, he wrote a short
letter to Thomas More. This letter, the first of their correspondence
which has been preserved, shows how intimate the two men had
become during their short intercourse in London. More, born the
7th of February, 1477, was then in his twenty-third year. See Epistle
X. 30 ; C. 4730 ; and, as to the date of More's birth. Proceedings of
Society of Antiquaries^ 1897, P- S^i-

Epistle 103. Farrago, p. 143 ; Ep. vi. 11 ; C. 55 (63).

Erasmus to Thomas More.

I cannot find any malediction sufficiently strong to hurl at
the head of the messenger, to whose carelessness or perfidy
I attribute it that I am defrauded of that letter which I so
certainly expected from my More. For I cannot and ought
not to suppose for a moment, that the fault is yours, though
we were a little vehement in our expostulations in that
former letter ; but we are not afraid of our freedom giving
ofi'ence to you, who are not ignorant of that Spartan fashion
of fighting at close quarters.

* Oxonise, natali Simonis et ludae. Anno m.cccc.xcvu. Auctarium.

Erasmus contented at Oxford 213

Jesting aside, I do beg, sweetest Thomas, that you will
cure that sickness which we have contracted from the long
want of you and your handwriting, by a payment with
interest. We expect not a mere letter, but a huge packet,
enough to weigh down Aegyptus Achthophorus. And it
will be a kindness, if you will incite any persons within your
reach, who are cultivators of Good Letters, to write to me,
that my circle of friends may be complete ; I could not
venture to challenge them myself. As for you, I reckon
you will not care in what fashion I write to the bcst-natured
of men, and one who, I am persuaded, has no little love
for me. Farewell, dearest More.

Oxford, the Feast of SS. Simon and Jude, (28 Oct.) 1499.*

As bearing upon the length of Erasmus's visit to Oxford (p. 224), it
will be observed, that he speaks in the above letter of having been
long parted from More, to whom he had written one or more letters
already.

Lord Mountjoy appears to have proposed to leave his wife, for
a while, in order to renew his studies under Erasmus at Oxford.

Epistle 104. Farrago, p. 98 ; Ep. v. 5 ; C. 41 (42).

Erasmus to lord Mountjoy.

If you and your noble lady and kind father-in-law and
the rest of the family are well, we have every reason to
rejoice. Here we are better and better every day. Indeed
I cannot tell you how your country wins upon me, partly
owing to habit, which softens every asperity, and partly
to the kindness of Colet and prior Charnock, than whose
characters nothing can be imagined more sweet and
amiable. With these two friends I would not refuse to live
in farthest Scythia ! What Horace writes, that even the
vulgar sometimes see true, I learn from experience. You

* Oxoniae. An. m.cccc.cxix. (sic) Natali Simonis et ludae. Farrago.

214 Friendship of Prior Charnock

know it is a vulgar saying, The worse things begin, the better
they end. What could be more ill-omened, if I may say
so, than that arrival of ours was ? Now things turn out
more lucky every day. I have got rid of all that weariness
with which you formerly saw me suffering. I only implore
you, that as you kept up my spirit when it failed, you will
maintain your own, now that mine is not wanting.

I have neither the wish nor the right to find fault with
you for not coming on the appointed day. I do not know
what has detained you ; but I am sure, whatever it was, it
was a legitimate and just reason which hindered your coming,
for I have no doubt of your wish to do so. You have no
cause for pretence, and such is the ingenuous simplicity of
your character, that with the greatest cause you would
neither know how to lie if you would, nor wish to lie if you
knew how.

Send my money carefully sealed with your ring. I am
now much in debt to the Prior in more wavs than one. He
attends to my wants both kindly and promptly. And as he
has been very liberal, it is right that we should be grateful
and readily repay what he has so readily given. I hold that
good friends, like rare furniture, should be sparingly used.
If anything fresh occurs, let me know by letter. Farewell.

Oxford [1499].*

Epistle 105 contains a picture of a social gathering of divines at
the close of the fifteenth century, with an ingenious elaboration by
Erasmus of the story of the offence of Cain. Unfortunately the place
of meeting is not mentioned. It was apparently at Colet's house, or at
the Hall or College where he was residing ; but where that was, does
not seem to be known.

* Oxonice. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Farrago,

Colefs din n er pa rty 2 1 5

Epistle 105. Farrago, p. 92 ; Ep. v. i ; C. 42 (44).
Erasmus to Sixtinus.

How I wish you had been present, as I expected, at that
feast of ours. Nothing was wanting. A choice time, choice
place, no arrangements neglected. The good cheer would
have satisfied Epicurus ; the table-talk would have pleased
Pythagoras. The guests might have peopled an Academy,
and not merely made up a dinner party. First, there was
prior Richard, that high priest of the Graces ; then the
divine who had preached the Latin sermon the same day, a
person of modesty as well as learning ; then your friend
Philip, most cheerful and witty. Colet, asserter and cham-
pion of the old theology, was at the head of the table. On
his right sate the prior, a man in whose composition there is
an admirable mixture of learning, benevolence, and honesty.
On Colet's left sat the more modern theologian. His left
was covered by me, that the banquet might not be without
a poet, while opposite to me sate Philip, to represent the
legal profession. Below was a mixed and nameless assembly.
The ranks being so disposed, many subjects gave rise to
discussion, but upon one point there was a vehement con-
flict of opinion. Colet maintained that Cain first offended
God by this fault, that in distrust of the bounty of his
Creator, and in over-confidence in his own exertions, he
was the first to break up the soil, while Abel was content
with what grew of itself and fed sheep. The theologian
and I did our best to contend against this theory, he with
syllogistic and I with rhetorical arguments. Not Hercules
himself is a match for two, say the Greeks. Nevertheless
Colet alone overcame all ; he seemed indued with a dignity

2i6 New story of Cam

and majesty more than human. His voice had another tone,
his eyes another look, his countenance and figure appeared
magnified and lighted up by inspiration.

At last, when the dispute had continued rather long, and
become more serious and solemn than was suitable to a
banquet, I thought it time to take up my role of poet, and
cheer the dinner with a more lively story, which might have
the effect of breaking up the discussion.

" I chanced," said I, " some time ago to meet with a very
ancient manuscript, of which the title and the author's
name were obliterated by age, or eaten away by those
worms which are the constant enemies of letters. In it
there was one page which was neither decayed nor worm-
eaten, thanks to the Muses who watch over what is their
own. In this page I read an account of the very thing you
are discussing, which was either a true story or at any rate
very like truth. If you wish it, I will repeat it to you."

At their request I continued. " That Cain of yours, as he
was a laborious, was a greedy and avaricious man. He had
often heard his parents tell, how in that garden from which
they were expelled, rich harvests of corn grew unsown, with
full ears, and heavy grain and straw as high as alder sticks,
among which no tares or brambles or thistles were ever
seen ; and bearing this in mind, when he saw the soil which
he was beginning to worry w^ith his plough, produce a stingy
crop, he used craft to eke out his industrv. He went to
the angel who was the guardian of Paradise, and assailing
him with all the wiles of an old hand, endeavoured to bribe
him to supply him privately with a few grains of that happier
harvest. He represented to him, that God had become by
this time secure and negligent of the matter : and if he was
informed of it, there need be no fear of punishment, as the
thing was of no importance, if only they did not meddle
with the apples which alone God had forbidden to be
touched. Come, said he, do not be too careful a door-

Cain seduces the Guardian Angel 217

keeper. What if, after all, your excessive watchfulness may
even be displeasing to him ? Perhaps he would like to be
taken in, and will be better pleased with clever industry,
than with blundering idleness in mankind? And how, may I
ask, do you like yourself in that office ? Instead of an
angel he makes you an executioner, and has tied you to the
door with that flaming sword in your hand to keep us lost
wretches out of Paradise, just the business we are beginning
to train dogs to ! We men are certainly very wretched, but
you do not seem to me to be much better off. We are
deprived of Paradise, because we tasted an apple that was
too sweet for us. And in order to keep us out, you are
deprived of Heaven and of Paradise too ; and are so far
worse off than we, as we are free to wander wherever our
fancy leads us. And let me tell you, this country of ours,
with which we console our exile, has woods with fairest
foliage, a thousand kinds of trees for which we have scarce
yet invented names, springs which issue in all directions
from the hills and rocks, rivers with limpid waters which
glide on by grassy banks, mountains that rise into the sky,
shady valleys, seas full of wealth. Nor do I doubt, but this
earth in her inmost recesses hides some good wares, to
extract which I will probe all her veins, or if my time is not
long enough, my grandsons at any rate will do it. We have
here golden apples, luscious figs, all sorts of fruits, many of
which grow of themselves all around, so that we shall not
much miss that Paradise of yours, if only we could live here
for ever. It is true, we are attacked by sickness, but even
for that, human industry will find a cure. I see herbs that
breathe some marvellous influences. What if some plant
should be found, even here, which may make life immortal.
For as for that Knowledge of yours, I do not see its im-
portance. Why should I trouble myself with things which
do not concern me ? Though in this respect I will not rest,
since there is nothing which may not be conquered by per-

2 1 8 CaiJi's punishment and despair

severing industry. So that, while we instead of one garden
have obtained a wide world, you, shut out from both, neither
enjoy Paradise, nor Heaven, nor even Earth, fixed for ever
to these gates, and always wielding that Flaming Sword for
no other purpose that I can see but to fight the wind.
Come now, if you are wise, do a good turn to yourself and
us too. Give that which you can bestow without any loss
to yourself, and accept in return a full share in all that is
ours. Wretched, excluded, and proscribed as you are your-
self, take part with those who are in like case.

The worst cause prevailed, when pleaded by the worst of
men but the best of advocates. A few stolen grains were
carefully sown by Cain ; they grew with interest ; the interest
was committed to the soil, and this was done over again.
Before many summers had passed, he had filled an extensive
tract of land with this crop. The matter had now become
too glaring to escape the notice of the higher Powers. God
was greatly displeased. This thief, he said, seems to be
fond of labour and sweat ; I will heap it upon him. On
the word an army of ants, weasels, toads, caterpillars, birds,
mice, locusts, and other vermin was sent among the corn, which
ate it up, partly while it was still in the soil, partly while it was
growing, partly when ripe, and partly when stored in the barn.
To complete the destruction, there came a terrific hailstorm
and such a hurricane of wind, that those stalks which were
as big as oak timbers were broken off like a dry straw. The
guardian was changed, and the angel that had favoured man-
kind was imprisoned in a human body. Cain endeavoured
to appease God by a burnt-offering of fruits, but when the
smoke would not rise to heaven, he was assured of His anger,
and despaired."

This, Sixtinus, was the story that was told over our cups,
and which had its birth among them and out of them, if you
please. I have chosen to relate it to you, first, that I might
have something to write, as I owed you a letter, and next.

Disputation of Erasmus and Co let 219

that you might not be altogether excluded from so dainty a

banquet. Farewell.

Oxford, [1499]-*

A more serious theological discussion was carried on at another
meeting at Oxford between Colet and Erasmus upon the right ex-
planation of the discouragement and fear which appear to be
expressed by Jesus in his Agony in the Garden, when he is described
as praying that the Cup might pass from him. The explanation
adopted by Erasmus was founded on the dual nature ascribed to
Christ. Colet, following a suggestion of St. Jerome, attributed this
prayer, not to the fear of his own sufferings or death, but to the com-
passionate horror felt by Jesus for the guilt of the Jews, by which
they were bringing destruction on themselves. On this subject, after
the first verbal discussion, Erasmus wrote a long argument in the form
of a letter (afterwards printed as a Disputation on the subject), which
he sent to Colet, who returned a written answer to the argument,
accompanied by a letter. These two letters are EPISTLES 106, 107,
C. V, 1265, 1291. Epistle 106 was printed with the title, Disputatiun-
cula de taedio etc. by Theoderik Martens, 15 Feb. 1504 (in a volume
including the Enchiridion Militis Christiani, and entitled Lucubra-
tiunculae aliquot, see p. 361), with the observation that Colet sent two
answers and Erasmus as many replies, but that they could not be
found. Colet' s first answer, together with Epistle 107, was afterwards
found, and was published by Schiirer of Strasburg in June, 15 16, in
a small volume also containing the Enchiridioji and Disputatiuncula
with other tracts, and entitled Erasmi Lucuhrationes. In the two
Epistles the disputants exchange civilities in a spirit worthy of the
solemnity of the subject under discussion, the epistle of Colet being
accompanied by a Responsio ad argumenta Erasmta?ta.

We have seen that Colet, on hearing of the arrival of Erasmus at
Oxford, had expressed the hope that England would benefit by his
learning. As the Oxford term went on, and the foreign scholar made
no proposal to place his services at the disposition of the University,
Colet wrote to him, to express the disappointment he felt. This letter
has not been preserved. The following is Erasmus's reply, first pub-
lished in the Lucuhrationes of 1516. Epistles 106, 107, and 108 have
no date of time.

* Oxoniee. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Farrago.

2 20 Colefs disappointment

Epistle io8. Liiciibrationes (Strasburg, 1516), p. 120;
Ep. xxxi. 45; C. J 789 (403) ; V. 1263.

Erasmus to ^ohn Colet.

Most learned Colet, I as little deserve the reproof ex-
pressed in your letter just received, as I did the compliments
paid me in your former letter. But I bear with much more
equanimity the blame which I do not merit, than I bore the
praises which I could not acknowledge. For when we are
accused, we have an admitted right to defend ourselves ;
whereas an over-exactness in declining a compliment may
seem to argue a wish for its repetition. I suppose in both
instances you wanted to put me to the test, how I should be
gratified by the honour paid me by so great a man, and what
irritation I should show when stung by a rebuff. You are
bound to be thoroughly constant in affection, being so
cautious and careful, so hesitating and searching in the
admission of your friends.

In all seriousness, as I was formerly glad to be praised
even unduly by one who of all men is most praised, so I
rejoice now to receive admonition from the dearest of
friends. For the future therefore praise or blame your
Erasmus as you will, only let something of a letter fly
hither every day. Nothing can be more agreeable to me.

But to turn to your epistle, that the boy who brought
it may not go back empty. In your dislike of that sort
of neoteric divines, who grow old in mere subtleties
and sophistical cavillings, your opinion is entirely my own.
In our day. Theology, which ought to be at the head of
all literature, is mainly studied by persons who from their
dulness and lack of sense are scarcely fit for any literature
at alL This I say, not of learned and honest professors of
Theology, to whom I look up with the greatest respect, but
of that sordid and supercilious crowd of divines, who think

Colefs Lectures on St. Paul 221

nothing of any learning but their own. In offering to do
battle, my dear Colet, with this indomitable race of men for
the restoration of genuine theology to its pristine brightness
and dignity, you have undertaken a pious work as regards
theology itself, and a most wholesome one in the interest of
all studies, and especially of this flourishing University of
Oxford, t But, to say true, it is a work involving much
difficulty and much ill-will. The difficulty your erudition
and energy will surmount, the ill-will your magnanimity will
overlook. Among the divines themselves there are not a
few who are willing and able to help your noble endeavours.
Every one indeed will give you his hand, since there are
not any of the doctors in this famous School, who have not
listened attentively to the lectures on the Pauline Epistles
which you have delivered during these last three years.
And in this I do not know which most deserves praise, the
modesty of those who, being themselves authorised teachers,
do not shrink from appearing as hearers of one much their
junior and not furnished with any doctor's degree, or the
singular erudition, eloquence, and integrity of the man they
have thought worthy of this honour.

I do not wonder at your taking such a burden on your
shoulders, for you may be equal to it. I do wonder at your
inviting so insignificant a person as me to be partner in so
noble an office. You exhort me, or rather you urge me
with reproaches, to endeavour to kindle the studies of this
University, — chilled, as you write, during these winter
months, — by commenting on the ancient Moses or the elo-
quent Isaiah, in the same way as you have done on St. Paul.
But I, who have learned to converse with myself, and know
how scanty my equipment is, can neither claim the learning
required for such a task, nor do I think that I possess the
strength of mind to sustain the jealousy of so many men,
who would be eager to maintain their own ground. The
campaign is one that demands, not a tiro, but a practised

222 Erasmus declines to teach

general. Neither should you call me immodest in declining
a position which it would be most immodest for me to
accept. You are not acting wisely, Colet, in demanding
water from a stone, as Plautus says. With what countenance
shall I teach what I have never learned ? How am I to
warm the coldness of others, while I am shivering myself ?
I should deem myself more rash than rashness itself if I
tried my strength at present in so great an enterprise, and,
according to the Greek proverb, trained myself as a potter
by setting to work on an amphora.*

But you say you expected of me some work of this kind,
and complain that you have been disappointed. In that
case you must find fault with yourself, not with me. We
have not disappointed you, for we never either promised or
held out any prospect of such a thing. It is you that have
deceived yourself, by not believing what I said truly of my
own character. Neither again did I come here to teach
Poetry or Rhetoric. These studies ceased to be agreeable
to me when they ceased to be necessary. I decline this
task, because it is below my purpose, as I do the other,
because it is above my strength. As to the one your
reproach is undeserved, because I never proposed to myself
the profession of what is called secular literature ; and to
the other you exhort me in vain, because I am conscious of
my own unfitness for it. And if I were ever so fit, it could
not be, as I am returning before long to Paris. In the
meantime, being detained partly by the winter season and
partly because there is a difficulty in leaving England on
account of the flight of some duke,t I betook myself to this

* 'Ev ro) 7r/9w rr\v Kepafieiav. Adag. Chil. i. Ce7it. vi. Prov. 15.

t The nobleman, whose movements were causing anxiety to the Govern-
ment in the autumn of 1499, was Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, his
father's dukedom having been resigned in Parliament 11 Hen. VII., 1495.
His mother was sister of Edward IV. In the Act of Attainder {^Rot. Pari.
vi. 546) he is said to have been guilty of treason, i July, 1499, probably the

Flight of the Earl of Suffolk 223

learned University, to spend a month or two with men like
you, rather than with those gold-chained courtiers.

However, I am so far from opposing your glorious and
sacred endeavours, that, not being yet a suitable fellow-
labourer, I w^ill promise my earnest encouragement and
sympathy. And further when I am conscious of the need-
ful strength, I will put myself on your side, and will make
an earnest, if not a successful, effort in defence of Theology.
Meantime nothing could be more delightful to me than to
discuss daily between ourselves, either by word of mouth or
by letter, some subject of sacred literature.

The kindest of presidents, Richard Charnock, my host
and our common friend, bids me salute you in his name.

Oxford, at the College of the Canons of the Order of St.
Augustine, commonly called St. Mary's, [1499].*

The first sentence of Epistle 108, and the clause which ends at the
top of the present page, point to the short duration of Erasmus's
residence at Oxford. See p. 224. The only remaining letter, there
written, is a note addressed to lord Mountjoy, from whom Erasmus
has received a letter, and whose arrival he appears still to expect.
The writer is evidently no longer in the same good humour with his
residence, as he was when he wrote to Mountjoy before.

Epistle 109. Farrago, p. 142; Ep. vi. 10; C. 56 (64).

Erasmus to lord Mountjoy.

What is the meaning of that repetition in your salutation :
O salve mi praeceptor^ salve mi praeceptorf Is it sorrow
in being parted from a dear wife, or joy in the prospect of
returning to studies no less dear ? For my part I am still

date of a meeting with Sir William Courtenay, who was also attainted. The
earl appears shortly after to have fallen under suspicion and fled.

* Oxoniae, e collegio Canonicorum Ordinis diui Augustini, quod vulgo
dicitur Sanctae Marise. Lucub ratio nes.

224 Studies of Erasmus at Oxford

determined, however disagreeable things are here, to swallow
every annoyance for your sake, that I may not be inconstant
in my attention to you, when you have shown yourself most
constant in your love for me. Only bring with you such a
resolution, that your leaving your wife's company may be
justified by the result, and my annoyance not borne in vain.
Farewell.

Oxford, 1499.*

The residence of Erasmus at Oxford, the duration of which has been
over-estimated, lasted about two or three months, between September
and December, 1499. Compare pp. 213, 223, and Epistolx Mori
(Lond. 1642), p. 19 D. It has been thought that he came to Oxford an
adherent of the Scholastic Theolog)', and was converted by Colet to a
system founded more directly on the study of the New Testament. t
The influence of Colet has perhaps been exaggerated ; but Erasmus tells
us himself in the Epistle to Jodocus Jonas, that he was led by a conversa-
tion with Colet to distrust the authority of Thomas Aquinas. C. 458 F.
See p. 333. Epistle 59 shows him on the other hand already distrustful
of the Scotists. It has also been supposed that he used his time at
Oxford for the study of Greek under Grocin, Linacre, or Latimer ; and
Gibbon has lent his authority to the statement, that he learned Greek at
Oxford and taught it at Cambridge. J I do not know of any evidence,
that any of the above-named English scholars was in Oxford during
this term ; and none of the letters of Erasmus indicate that his time
was so employed, while his later correspondence gives the impression
that he remained contented with the little Greek he had learned in
his younger days until the spring of 1500, when he set himself
seriously to master that language, while he was preparing for the
press the first edition of his Adages. See p. 232, 233.

The idea of compiling this work appears to have arisen during
his intercourse with lord Mountjoy; and in his first dedication he

* Oxonise, An. M.cccc.xcix. Farrago.

\ Knight, Life of Erasmus, p. 20, 24, Life of Colet, p. 54 ; Seebohm,
Oxford Reformers, p. 40, 76, 103 (2nd ed.) ; Y)xvin\x^orv^, Erasmus, i. 81.
See also Green, Liistory of the English People, p. 298. M. Durand de Laur's
chronology is on this occasion nearly right. Vie cTErasme, i. 42.

X Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. 66, p. 117 note (ed. Milman).

Erasmus again in London 225

ascribes his undertaking to the wishes of Mountjoy and the encourage-
ment of prior Charnock. P. 243. This last reference connects it more
distinctly with the author's residence at Oxford. It may well be, that
in collecting his materials he made use of the libraries of Grocin and
Linacre, either at Oxford or in London, and obtained some assistance
from them personally in the Greek quotations. In Epistle 194, Erasmus
gives Linacre the title of preceptor ; and in a letter written to Went-
ford, in 151 1, he speaks of Grocin as his patron and preceptor, but this
was after having spent some time in his house in the preceding year.

Early in December, Erasmus was again with lord Mountjoy in
London, where, we may observe in passing, Perkin Warbeck had
♦ been hanged and the young earl of Warwdck beheaded a few days
before. We may suspect that Epistle no, which was probably for-
warded to its destination in Italy by lord Mount] oy's care, was as
much intended for his perusal as for that of the person to whom it
was addressed. It is the last known letter sent to him by Erasmus,
who twenty years later had not forgotten his old grudge. See p. 166.
Fisher died shortly before 17 Feb. 151 1-2, when his vacant stall at
Windsor was conferred on the king's almoner, Thomas Wolsey.
Feeder a, xiii. 293.

Epistle no. Farrago, p. 95 ; Ep. v. 2 ; C. 12 (14).

Erasmtis to Robert Fisher^ English Agent in Italy.

I have been rather afraid of writing to you, dearest
Robert, not that I feared your affection had been at all
lessened by such distances of time and place, but because
you are in a country where the walls are more learned and
more eloquent than our men ; so that what we here think
eloquent and beautiful cannot but seem poor and rude and
tasteless there. Your England naturally expects you to
return, not only most learned in the laws, but equally
loquacious in Greek and Latin. You would have seen me
too in Italy before this time, if my lord Mountjoy, when I
was prepared for the journey, had not carried me off to Eng-
land. Whither indeed would I not follow a young man so

VOL. I. Q

226 Return of Erasmus to France

courteous, so amiable ? I would follow him, by heaven, to
the grave itself. You had amply sounded his praises, and
described him like a picture; but he daily surpasses both
your praises and the opinion I had myself formed of him.

But how do you like our England, you will say. Believe
me, my Robert, when I answer that I never liked anything
so much before. I find the climate both pleasant and whole-
some ; and I have met with so much kindness, and so much
learning, not hacknied and trivial, but deep, accurate, ancient,
Latin and Greek, that but for the curiosity of seeing it, I do
not now so much care for Italy. When I hear my Colet, I
seem to be listening to Plato himself. In Grocin who does
not marvel at such a perfect round of learning? What
can be more acute, profound, and delicate than the judg-
ment of Linacre ? What has Nature ever created more
gentle, more sweet, more happy than the genius of Thomas
More ? I need not go through the list. It is marvellous
how general and abundant is the harvest of ancient learning
in this country, to which you ought all the sooner to return.
My lord has so kind a remembrance of you, that he speaks
of no one more often or with more pleasure. Farewell.

From London in haste, this fifth day of December [1499].*

We have no further particulars of Erasmus's proceedings in
England, but we may assume that he passed the remainder of his
time with lord Mountjoy at Greenwich or in London, where he would
frequently have the opportunity of enjoying the society of More. His
English hosts were so little disposed to speed his departure, that,
when he was desirous of returning to his literary work at Paris, he
appears to have been obliged to obtain his conge by means of the
stratagem of a fictitious summons from beyond the Channel. See
Epistle 139. He took leave of his friends in the last week of January,
and appears to have crossed from Dover to Boulogne on the 27th of that

* Londini tumultuarie. Nonis Decembr Farrago. Anno M.cccc.xcvn.
added in Opus Epist.

Money seized at Dover 227

month. This date is given in Epistle 137 (p. 295), and the place of
landing [Gessoriacum) is mentioned in a fragment preserved in the
book on Letter-writing. See p. 277, note. At Dover he met with a
misfortune, to which he alludes in some of his epistles, but of which
we have no full contemporary narrative. Several statutes from the time
of Edward III. to that of Edward IV. had forbidden the export from
England of gold or silver, either in coin or in any other form, upon
pain of forfeiture; and this law had lately been re-enacted by Henry VII.
and his Parliament (Stat. 4 Hen. vii., c. 23), the searchers at the ports
being ordered to seize and confiscate any gold or silver found upon
travellers leaving the country. Erasmus was consequently deprived of
a sum of money, described in a later letter as ^^20, which was his whole
fortune. Epistle 281. In his Catalogue of Lucubrations written in
1523, he recalls the incident as follows.

Catalogue of Lucubrations, C. i. Prcef.; Jortin^ ii. 426.

I embarked at the port of Dover, but before I put to sea,
all my money had already suffered shipwreck. A small sum
it was, but great to me, as I had nothing left. It was done
by the chief, I had almost written thief, of the port,* and in
the King's name, though More and Mountjoy had assured
me that there was no risk, unless I carried English coin ;
and I had none that was English, or gained or received in
England. I found out however at the port, that it was
unlawful to take out of the country any money, though it
might be of iron, beyond the value of six angels. So much
it cost me to learn one English lav7.

So far as regards foreign money Erasmus was right in the practical
lesson of law by which his friends' mistake was so disagreeably cor-
rected, since the statute of 17 Edward IV (recited and re-enacted by
stat. 4 Hen. vii., c. 23) was expressly applicable to any coin of the
realm or coin of other realm. It is strange that More should have
misled his friend in such a particular. Possibly some indulgence had
been at first allowed to foreign coins, which had been withdrawn in
accordance with the strict letter of the law.

* A prsefecto pane dixeram a pr^done litoris.
Q 2

CHAPTEK IX.

J-ourney to Paris^ J-aniiary^ February^ 1500 ; Residence
in Paris^ February to J^iine. Publication of the
Adages^ Jiine^ 1500. Epistles in to 123.

On his arrival at Boulogne with an empty purse, Erasmus was natu-
rally desirous of consulting as soon as possible with his English
friends upon the possibility of retrieving his loss. He was also in
need of some immediate pecuniary aid to supply his present
necessities. Instead therefore of attempHng to proceed at once to Paris,
he put himself in communication with his friend Batt, who was still
residing at the castle of Tournehem in charge of his pupil, Adolf of
Burgundy, during the absence of the lady of Veer upon her Roman
pilgrimage (Epistle 95) ; and, finding the way open, he soon followed
his messenger, and spent two or three days at Tournehem. He lost
no time in writing to Lord Mountjoy, either from Boulogne or from
Tournehem, a narrative of his adventure at Dover, hoping to receive
in reply some substantial consolation for his loss. This letter has not
been preserved ; but in order to keep the matter in Mountjoy's mind,
he addressed another letter, Epistle iii, to the same correspondent
in Batt's name, which was intended to be forwarded after a short
delay. See Epistle 122, p. 257. It will be seen that Epistle 11 1
contains no account of the circumstances of the embarcation, which I
have therefore assumed to have been narrated in a previous letter of
Erasmus himself. There is reason to think, that during this short visit
to Batt, Erasmus found time to go to the neighbouring town of St.
Omer to see his friend the Abbot of St. Bertin, who probably aided
him with some small donation of money, though his liberality does not
appear from Erasmus's point of view to have been equal to the occa-
sion. See p. 256.

Letter of Batt to Lord Mountjoy 229

Epistle in. Farrago, p. 247 ; Ep. viii. 53 : C. 55 {62).

J-ames Batt to Lord Mountjoy.

Much looked for and most welcome to me was my
Erasmus's return, not that I grudged him to you, but on
account of the boundless love I bear him. Nevertheless I
could not help being sadly grieved, when he told me of that
bitter tragedy of his, of which I had long ago some sort of
foreboding. How often have I dreamed of even more seri-
ous disasters ! And indeed I was thinking anxiously of his
fortunes, when his letter reached me. But however it has
come about, I still rejoice, my lord, in having recovered so
dear a part of my life, even maimed and ill-used ; though I
do not love him so unkindly, as not to wish that he had
rather remained whole with you, than returned to us so
robbed, and robbed with such signal contumely. Good
God ! not the Muses, nor Literature itself is free from those
harpies ! Plato, when accused at ^gina of a capital crime,
was allowed some privilege as a philosopher. Even the
cruel Phalaris is said to have treated Pythagoras and Stesi-
chorus, a philosopher and a poet, with kindness and liberality.
But what is the use of tardy complaints in a matter that is
beyond hope ? What cannot be cured must be endured ;
and when he himself bears his disaster with a spirit so un-
broken, it would not become me to give way to sorrow.
What a boon is that philosophy, which he has always both
practised and recommended. I felt bound to say something
to comfort his trouble, but he reproved my tears with a
smile, and bade me be of good cheer. He did not regret,
he said, his journey to England, his money had not been
lost without the greatest profit, since he had gained such
friends, as he would prefer to the wealth of Croesus.

230 Letter dictated by Erasmus

We spent two nights together. Good Heavens ! with w^hat
affection did he describe prior Richard's kindness, Colet's
erudition, and More's sweetness. His eloquence made me
wish, if I were only free, to become mvself known to such
learned, such candid friends. Of you too, most excellent
Mountjoy, he drew such a picture from head to heel, as they
say, that, highly as I regarded you before, I now scarcely
vield in affection to Erasmus himself, who loves you more
than his own eyes. He is so far from casting any blame on
you, that he expressed the greatest regret that you should
have been put to so much expense and so much trouble for
him. Lastly when he left us, he enjoined me again and again
to write to you as often as I could ; and although your
singular learning and my want of skill put me in some fear,
still I make bold to send you this letter rather than fail in
the duty imposed on me. If I find you are not offended
at my presumption, I will venture to repeat it. Erasmus
showed us some hope, which I pray may be fulfilled, that
we might enjoy your presence in this neighbourhood.

For your kindness and liberality to my Erasmus I am
beyond measure grateful, and shall remain so while I live.
I am more obliged by any service done to him than if it
were conferred upon myself. I beg every blessing on your
noble consort, your excellent father-in-law and the rest of
your household.

From the Castle of Tournehem [1500].*

When this letter was sent to him (see p. 257), lord Mountjoy could
scarcely have read it without being forcibly reminded of the manner
of his preceptor. It is the only epistle of this correspondent which
Erasmus has included in his collection ; and as he has not preserved
any of Batt's letters addressed to himself, it may be presumed, that he
did not in general put so high a value upon his friend's compositions,

* Ex arce Tornehensi. Anno m.cccc.xcix Farrago.

J-ourney to Paris 231

The allusion to the likelihood of Mountjoy becoming a neighbour to
the household at Tournehem, suggests the probability that he was
expecting to be appointed captain of the Fortress of Hammes, a post
which had been held by his father until his death in 1485, and was
afterwards held by him. But the first known patent appointing him
to this office is dated 26 June, 1503, to take effect from the 8th of
April preceding. Rot. Pat. (Franc.) 18 Hen. vii. m. 7. See p. 370.

Erasmus had now to make his way to Paris with but poor provision
for his journey, in the most unfavourable season of the year. The
books and papers which he had brought with him (principally the
materials for the Adages) were left in the charge of Batt, to be sent
after him to Paris by the first opportunity. Epistle 112. Another
package of books and clothes which he had left in England was also
to be forwarded, as soon as they arrived at Calais, by the same helpful
friend (pp. 233, 235, 274 n), from whom, if he was not already supplied
by the Abbot, he begged or borrowed a few gold pieces. He set out on
the 29th of January, prepared to travel if necessary on foot, but assisted,
we may imagine, as far as Amiens, a journey of two days, by the loan
of a horse and man from Tournehem. At Amiens he hired a horse
to take him to Paris, which city however he finally (on the 2nd of
February) reached on foot. His journey was not without adventures,
since he was, or supposed himself to be, in danger of robbery and
worse usage at the hands of the stable-keeper, from whom he and an
Englishman, who had become his travelling companion, had hired their
horses. Of these incidents he has left a long narrative in an epistle,
apparently completed some months later, when after the hasty publi-
cation of the Adages he was more at leisure. Epistle 122.

The literary treasures left in the hands of Batt soon followed
Erasmus to Paris ; and the messenger, by whom they were sent,
carried back a letter from him (mentioned in Epistle 112,), giving an
account of his arrival and of the alarm he had had on his journey (to
which he refers, in Epistle 1 13, as a matter already known to his friend).
This first letter has not been preserved in its entirety, but a part of it
appears to be incorporated in Epistle 122. See p. 246.

Epistle 112 was written a short time after the arrival of Erasmus's
literary materials, and before he was far advanced in the composition
of the Adages. He was still expecting the other parcel, which was to
be brought over from London by an English courier, whom he calls
Galba, and who appears to have fetched and carried between the

232 First scheme of the Adages

Continent and England. Pp. 235, 274 n. This Epistle contains the first
indication of Erasmus being seriously engaged in the study of Greek.
Though he may not have learnt Greek at Oxford (see p. 224), it
can scarcely have failed to occur to him, in his discussions with
Colet, that he should be groping in the dark, if he endeavoured to
become an interpreter of the New Testament without a more complete
knowledge of the language in which it is written. And the compilation
of the Adages was constantly reminding him of the same deficiency.

Epistle 112. Farrago, p. 290 ; Ep. ix. 35 ; C. 69 (80).
Erasmus to Batt.

By the same messenger, by whom you had sent me my
Lucubrations, I sent back to you part of Laurentius, with
my letter.* I gave him, as you bade me, eight deniers.

Beyond this there is nothing fresh to write. I have expe-
rienced, what often happens, that the wound received in
England has begun to give pain after it had healed over ;
and all the more, because, however unmerited the insult, I
have no possible means of retaliating. How can I make
war on the whole country, or on the king ? The former
has deserved no ill at my hands, and to write against one,
who could not only proscribe but kill, appears to me mere
madness. I must therefore in this matter hope with Themis-
tocles to learn the art of forgetting. I am deep in Letters,
being bent on compiling a collection of ancient Adages.
It \V\\\ be a hasty work. I see some thousands may be
collected, but I propose to publish only two or three hun-
dred. I will dedicate them to your pupil Adolf. But I am
still in doubt whether I can find a printer, and you know
that my funds are less than nothing.f

* Una meis cum Uteris. Erasmus sent by this messenger not only a letter
to Batt, but also one to Arnold Edward. See Epistle 113.

t These two lines, printed in Farrago^ p. 290, are omitted in later editions.

Erasmus learning Greek 233

I wonder at your having written nothing by this mes-
senger, Francis's brother. Look out carefully for my
package ; for that Galba, as you know, is a harpy ;* and
when you have received it, send it on carefully to me.
There is a black coat in it partly lined with black and partly
with grey : a cloak bought from you, and a pair of violet
hose. There is St. Augustine's Enchiridion^ written on
parchment ; St. Paul's Epistles, and some other things.

My Greek studies are almost too much for my courage ;
while I have not the means of purchasing books, or the help
of a teacher. And while I am in all this trouble, I have
scarcely the wherewithal to sustain life ; so much is our
learning worth to us !

Greet in my name Master Francis, Peter de Vaulzf the
philosopher, your own Peter, and John Chamberlain. Fare-
well, dearest Batt ; pray do not let our complaints disturb
you. It has been a relief to pour out my anxieties before
you, as I always do ; nevertheless we will not lightly abate
our courage, but according to the old adage, while we
breathe we will hope.

Paris, [March, 1500].:!:

In Epistle 112 there is no allusion to the Lady of Veer, who was
probably still out of reach. See p. 199. In Epistle 113, dated the
1 2th of April, she is again mentioned, and was probably at Veer, as
Batt had received a command to go and see her. When this Epistle
was wTitten, Erasmus expected to complete the manuscript of the

* Harpyia est. Op. Epist. In Farrago, p 291, we read, Anglus est, which
was probably in the original ; Erasmus may be excused, if with his recent
experience at Dover, he looked upon rapacity as an English characteristic.
The parcel contained some things left in England. See pp. 235, 274, 285.

I Petrum de Vaulg, Farrago. These two lines are omitted in the later
collections. See more as to Peter de Vaulz, pp. 183, 258, 287. Batt had in 1501
a brother in the service, whose name is not known. See Epistles 162 and 166.

X Lutetiae, m.cccc.xcviii. Op. Epist. No date of place or time in Farrago.

234 Erasmus in feeble health

Adages in a few days. He had not received his package from England,
about which he gives more complete directions. Meantime the season
of Lent had arrived (4 March — 19 April, 1500) and his health was
occasioning him some anxiety. He refuses to adopt a suggestion of
Batt, who appears to have advised him to write some complimentary
Epistles to the Lady and others on whose patronage he depended,
and insists upon his friend begging for him. He had already written
to the Lady in French.

Epistle 113. Farrago, p. 289 ; Ep. ix. 34 ; C. 26 (29).

Erasmus to Batt.

I pray, my dear Batt, that you may be enjoying the
health which I lack myself; for ever since I returned to
Paris, mine has been delicate. The fatigues which we
underwent by land and sea in our winter journey, have been
followed not by careful rest, but by constant night-work,
so that there has been no cessation, but only a change of
labour. And the weather moreover has been both dis-
agreeable in itself and singularly unfavourable to my health.
I call to mind that ever since I came to France, no Lent
has ever gone by without bringing sickness to me. But of
late having removed my lodging, I have been so affected
by the change, as to feel manifest symptoms of that nocturnal
fever which was so near sending us below two years ago.
We are fighting against it with every care and with the aid
of doctors, but have scarcely escaped yet, being still in a
doubtful condition. And if that fever does get hold on me
again, it will be all over, my dear Batt, with your Erasmus.
However, we are not in despair, and have confidence in
St. Genevieve, whose present help we have more than once
experienced, and all the more as we have the advice of

Parcel left in London 23^;

William Cop, a most skilful doctor, and not only that, but a
faithful friend, and, what is more, a votary of the Muses. I
send you an extempore letter of his.

About my package, as to which you ask my attention, I
in return solicit your memory. For we explained to you,
when with you, that it had been entrusted, not to a sailor,
but to Arnold Edward, a lawyer, who was to deHver it for
transmission to the first suitable skipper he met with. His
name is known to all London ; and he lives in the house of
his father, Master Edward, Merchant, on London Bridge.
It does not matter whether you send to him or to Thomas
More, who lives at Lincoln's Inn. I am surprised you do
not know Arnold, as I sent you a letter of mine addressed
to him, by the hands of that talkative messenger by whom I
forwarded the Laurentius. I also gave him directions to
make enquiry about that robber of ours, but he has neither
sent any message back, nor have you written about it. I
should be glad, not to have the scoundrel hanged, but to
frighten him away from the city. As for the other books of
Laurentius^ which you ask for, Augustine asserts that you
have them ; not that he makes any difficulty about sending
them, but if you will first look what is deficient, it shall be
sent at once.

I must beg you, my dear James, to pardon my not sending
you the other things you ask. I only wish the circum-
stances were such, as to give you a right to require from me
an attention of this kind. I have much too good an excuse.
For in the first place, what is the good of my writing long
letters when you are there in person, and prepared to
transact the matter viva voce ? What could I do by the
most elaborate letter which you could not do better by
speech ? And even if it were to the purpose, I durst not
hazard my health by the forbidden labour of writing. I
know by experience how much easier it is to ward off a
disease than to get rid of it when once established, and I

236 Correspondence with the Lady of Veer

feel, by symptoms I recognize too well, what is now
threatening me. Moreover I am devoting all my strength
to the preparation of my Adages, which I hope will be
made public soon after Easter, a work of some length and
demanding an infinity of pains. We have collected some
eight hundred Proverbs, part Greek and part Latin. If
thought proper, it shall bear the name of your Adolf.

I am glad to hear you are off to my Lady, especially as she
has sent for you, since I have no doubt she has done so partly
on my account. For I have written to her about the whole
matter in bad French. We shall maintain ourselves there-
fore for another month upon borrowed money, until we
receive something worth having from you. But for this
expectation I should have returned to your parts myself.
Do pray, my dear Batt, resume your old spirit. I am sure
there is nothing you cannot do, if you exert yourself. I am
only vexed with you for this, that ever since I wrote you
once a fictitious letter from England, you have got it in
your head that all I say is feigned. And yet in that letter
which you suppose to be fictitious, may I die if I put
anything false.* Therefore away with that opinion about
us, and never believe that we write anything, especially to
you, but what is true and comes from the heart.

It is my intention as soon as this work is done, to direct
all my efforts to finish the Dialogue, and to devote the
whole summer to writing books. In the autumn, if possible,
I shall go to Italy to take my Doctor's degree ; I depend
upon you to obtain for me the means and the leisure. I
have been applying my whole mind to the study of Greek ;
and as soon as I receive any money I shall first buy Greek
authors, and afterwards some clothes.

Let me know your opinion about sending Adrian or some
one else to England. I think myself for many reasons it

* The correspondence here alluded to is described more fully, p. 299.

Books borrowed from Gagiiin 237

should not be neglected. When you have answered this, I
will send you a written copy with a letter.

That Gueldrian epigram-writer ought to be arrested and
imprisoned. He is certainly a brazen-faced buffoon and
capable of any enormity.

Farewell, my dear Batt, and do your best to save your
Erasmus. When we have mended our health, we will see
to everything.

Paris, 12 April [1500].*

For the apparatus of books required in the compilation of the Adages,
Erasmus probably had frequent recourse to the assistance of Gaguin,
who appears to have had a good library, and is said to have had the
charge of the library of the King {Nouv. Biogr. Univers.). Epistle 114
may well belong to this time. Macrobius is cited in the Adages, not
only in the body of the revised work, which is mainly of a later date,
but also twice in the original Dedication to lord Mountjoy, Epistle 122.

Epistle 114 Farrago, p. 81 ; Ep. iv. 26 ; C. 76 (84).
Erasmus to Robert Gaguin.

The singular kindness, which exalts you above all others,
being no less commended than your erudition, gives me
confidence to ask a favour which I have done nothing to
deserve. I have occasion to hold a few days' colloquy with
Macrobius, a pleasant fellow as you know ; and shall be
obliged if you will bid him step over to me out of your
learned library. For in such an abundance of the best
authors you will not miss Macrobius alone, while he will
give us a great deal of pleasure in this our poverty. Fare-
well, and much as we are bounden to you already, bind us
to you still more.

Paris [i5oo].f

* Parisijs, pridie Idus Apriles. Farrago. Anno M.cccc.xcviii. Op. Epist.
t No date in Farrago. LutetiE. m.cccc.xcix. Opus Epist.

238 Library of Gaguin

In another letter to Gaguin, Epistle 115, Erasmus makes a similar
application. The treatise on Rhetoric of George of Trebizond is
mentioned, p. 98.

Epistle 115. Farrago, p. 104 ; Ep. v. 16; C. 78 (86),
Erasmus to Gaguin.

Most distinguished Sir, only look at the consummate im-
pudence of your Erasmus. Gaguin never comes into his
head but when he wants something. I have need, for a few
days, of Trapezontius on the Precepts of Rhetoric. I do
not ask whether you have the book, as I know that no good
authors are missing on your shelves, but I beg your kindness
to let me have the use of it. I should be glad to have
Quintilian to compare with him, and will send them both
back before long. Farewell and love us.

[Paris, 1500.]*

Epistles 116, 117, 118 and 119 are printed together in the collec-
tions of Epistles, each being addressed to an unnamed correspondent.
They are all without date in Farrago, but in Opus Epistolarum
Epistle 116 has the date 1498. The last and longest of them, with
its mention of the work on Adages in preparation, belongs to the time
we have now reached, to which also the other three may well be
attributed. The reference in Epistle 116 to an apparently notorious
misfortune which had befallen the writer, and to the literary exertions
which had followed it, are suitable to this period. In each of these
letters the person addressed may probably have been lord Mountjoy.
But there is not sufficient evidence, in the case of any of them, to
justify such an assumption ; though the opening words of the Dedica-
tion of the Adages (Epistle 121) show, that Erasmus was at this time
exchanging letters with his English pupil. It may be presumed that
the address was wanting in the copies kept by him, and that he was
either unable, or did not think it worth while, to recall it.

* No date in Farrago, m.cccc.xcix. Opus Epist.

Letters to unnamed correspondents 239

Epistle 116. Farrago, p. 81 ; Ep. iv. 28 ; C. 44 (48).
Erasmus to a friend.

By your courtesy, dearest N , I beseech you to excuse
my not writing you a long letter or one worth your reading.
Believe me, I heartily wish I could do so, but it is hard to
write pleasantly in such sad circumstances. I have not yet
pulled myself together, not yet returned to my old self; but
am endeavouring with the Muses for helpmates to dedicate
to you something worthy of you. However, that you may
not think meantime that I shirk so trifling an exertion for
your sake, I have constrained my spirit and copied our little
Denise, who sometimes, as you know, dances and sings in
the midst of her tears. When I have got back to my old
state of mind, you shall not ask for anything in vain, pro-
vided I can give it you. I exhort you as a friend to apply
yourself earnestly to Letters, not doubting you will attain
a fair proficiency. If you love them, you cannot hate me.
I therefore exhort you not only for your own sake but also
for mine. I hope you are well, and pray that all the mem-
bers of your family may be so too.

[Paris, I500].t

Epistle 117. Farrago, p. 81 ; Ep. iv. 29 ; C. 45 (49).
Erasmus to * ^ * *

You wonder at my discontinuing my old habit of writing,
but need not suspect anything amiss. I have not ceased to
be what I have always been, your most loving servant and
friend. Farewell.

t No date in Farrago. M.cccc.xcviii. Opus Epist.

240 Letter of recommendation

Epistle 118. Farrago, p. 84 ; Ep. iy. 30 ; C. 45 (50).

Erasmus to i^ ^ *

Hearing that my friend N. is going into your parts I do
not want him to go without anything from me, especially as
he earnestly begs me to recommend him to you. I there-
fore beseech you to treat him according to your old habit.
I know well, and he is quite aware, how much you are able,
and how much for my sake you will be willing to do for him.
You will take care that neither his hope nor my opinion of
you be disappointed, and will acquire in him a new friend,
while you bind me more closely to you. Farewell.

Epistle 119. Farrago, p. 82 ; Ep. iv. 31 ; C. 45 (50).
Erasmus to * * ^

I should have written more frequently to you, — as I am
generally willing enough to exchange this kind of civility
with friends, — but I was afraid that I might seem more
importunate than kind, if my letters interfered with your
studies, or if you do not take so much pleasure in your
correspondence as I do. Now, to say the truth, I can
contain myself no longer ; not that I have much leisure, —
that being the one thing from which I have totally debarred
myself, — but to show that the break in our intercourse has
not at all diminished my old affection for you. I have this
feeling about you, that I have gone altogether astray, if you
do not cling to me with more than common regard.

You want to know what I am doing. I devote myself to
my friends, with whom I enjoy the most delightful inter-
course. With them I shut myself in some corner, where I
avoid the gaping crowd, and either speak to them in sweet

The most delightful friends 241

whispers or listen to their gentle voices, talking with them
as with myself. Can anything be more convenient than
this ? They never hide their own secrets, while they keep
sacred whatever is entrusted to them, They speak when
bidden, and when not bidden they hold their tongue. They
talk of what you wish, as much as you wish and as long as
you wish ; do not flatter, feign nothing, keep back nothing,
freely tell you of your faults, and take no man's character
away. What they say is either amusing or wholesome. In
prosperity they moderate, in affliction they console, do not
vary with fortune, follow you in all dangers, and last out to
the very grave. Nothing can be more candid than their
relations with one another. I visit them from time to time,*
now choosing one companion and now another with perfect
impartiality. With these humble friends I bury myself in
seclusion. What wealth or what sceptres would I take in
exchange for this tranquil life ?

If there is any obscurity in our metaphor, all that I have
said about friends is to be understood of books, whose
familiarity makes me a happy man, unlucky only in this,
that I do not enjoy this felicity with you. Although there
is no need to do so, I shall not cease to exhort you to cling
with all your heart to noble studies. Do not admire any-
thing that is vulgar or commonplace, but strive always to
read what is highest.

I have conceived an aff'air on proverbs, maxims, and witty
sentences ; of which I send you some samples. I trust in
a short time to count up more than three thousand. It will
be, I venture to prophesy, a work both amusing and useful,
and one not hitherto attempted by anyone. If I hear that
you are interested in it, it will be a reason for my under-
taking the labour more willingly and more warmly. Mean-
time farewell, and love us, as you do.

* Committo subinde. Farrago; Opus Epist. Qu. read,commeto. SeeEentley's
note on Horat. Satir. ii. 5. 79.

VOL. I. K

242 Printing of the Adages

When Erasmus wrote to Batt a few days before Easter (April 19),
he was hoping that the book of Adages would be made public in a few
days (statim post Pascha, ut spero, evulgandum. p. 236). The printing
was not completed till the middle of June. This part of the labour
was superintended by Augustine Caminad ; and when the book was
finished, the assistance of Faustus Andrelinus was obtained to recom-
mend it to the learned world. This he did by an Epistle addressed
to Erasmus, dated Paris, the 15th of June, 1500 (EPiSTLE 120),
which was printed at the commencement of the original edition, and
is reprinted in Richter, Erasmus-Studien, pp. 38, 39. In a letter
written to Polydore Vergil, 23 December, 1520 (Ep. xvii. 3 ; C.
671 f), Erasmus, — recalling the date of Faustus's letter in order to fix
the time of the publication of the book, and to meet the charge of
having borrowed the idea of it from Polydore, who had also published
a collection of Proverbs, — says that his own book was printed at Paris
in his absence, and that the letter of Faustus was extorted by the
printer. The contemporary letters (see also Epistle 129) do not con-
firm these recollections as far as regards his absence. It may be
worth while to observe, that Polydore's Proverbiorum Libellus was in
reality printed at Venice in 1498, two years before the Adages.
Erasmus appears to have known nothing of this book, and when, after
Polydore had called attention to its priority, he sought for a copy
of it for the purpose of comparing its age with that of the Adages,
he found one in the library of Busleiden, which satisfied him that it
was published in Italy three months later than his own work. This
book must have been the second edition of Polydore's Proverbs,
printed at Venice in 1500. Dibden's Bibliotheca Spencertana, iii. 469.
In the choice of a patron for the first important book entrusted by
Erasmus to the press, it was natural that he should turn to Lord
Mountjoy, who had been present at the earliest suggestion of its sub-
ject. But we have seen in Epistles 112, 113, that there was some thought
of dedicating it to Adolf of Burgundy, provided his mother signified
her approbation in the way that the author hoped. This she does not
appear to have done, while on the other hand there can be no doubt
that Erasmus during this trying time of impoverishment and sickness
received some assistance from his English patron. See Epistle 122,
p. 255. In inscribing the Adages to him the author probably carried
out his own original intention. The dedicatory Epistle is dated at
Paris, without day or year, but may be assumed to have been written
on the completion of the work of the press in June, 1500. It is re-

Dedication to Lord Moiuitjoy 243

printed in the Leyden edition of Erasmus's works (C. ii.), but incorrectly
described as a Preface to the edition of the Adages printed at Stras-
burg in 15 1 7. It contains a long and witty essay on the subject of
Proverbs ; we have translated only its commencement and conclusion.
A second dedication to the same patron was substituted in the Venice
edition of 1508. Epistle 207, p. 442.

Epistle 121. Adagia Ed. 1500 ; C. ii Praef. 5.

Erasmus to Lord Mountjoy.

Instead of the Epistle for which you modestly ask, your
Erasmus sends you a volume, and that of fair proportions.
Would it were such as to satisfy either your claims upon me
or my affection for you, and to have no reason for fearing
your nice and accurate judgment. The work was not
written, but dictated, at a time when we were suffering,
after our journey, from a slight but daily recurring fever ;
and this was done behind the doctor's back, who was warn-
ing us meantime not to touch a book. Accordingly, laying
aside all serious labours, and indulging in a more dainty
kind of study, I strolled through the gardens provided by
various authors, culling as I went the adages most remarkable
for their antiquity and excellence, like so many flowers of
various sorts, of which I have made a nosegay. I was
induced to undertake the work partly by your own wish,
which was seconded by prior Charnock ; and partly by the
thought, that my labour, if not productive of glory to
the author, might at any rate be neither unprofitable nor
unpleasing to readers, who, weary of our common and trivial
language, were in search of more sprightly and brilliant
modes of expression. * * * If any one should think
that the examples are too few, we reply, that they are a
collection made from the two months' dictation of an
invalid, who had other business on hand. If too many,
that we have left out not a few. If he should observe that

R 2

244 A proverbious epistle

many of them are too bare and naked, let him only wait
patiently for the latest handling. We have sent out these
pages to make a trial, with small expense and risk, what is
likely to be the fate of a New Work. Any one that will
point out our mistakes, if in kindness, shall receive our
thanks, if in malice, shall still be heard ; while he who
blames what he does not understand, will be met by the
Apellean adage. Let the cobbler stick to his last.* There
are some, who will not find in it anything to their taste ; it
is not written for them. * * *

You have here, dearest Wilham, an Epistle verbose and
proverbious, being all about proverbs. We only fear we have
forgotten one time-honoured adage. Not too much of any-
thmg,t and that you may be already sick of the subject, and
go on to the rest of the book with no appetite left. Fare-
well, therefore, noble sir, with your worthy consort, and
accept with indulgence this foretaste of a future work. If
you have good hopes of it, we shall submit what you see
here to the file, and make no small additions to it. After-
wards we shall add another book, composed as they say,
nostro Marte.l (Fye, you will say, what a crowd of Adages !)
These will not be Adages, but something like them, which I
know will delight you much more. Farewell.
Paris [June, i50o].§

In the dedication, to the same patron, of the Venice edition of 1508,
Erasmus says that it had been his intention to make a collection of
remarkable metaphors, graceful allusions, and poetical allegories, as
an appropriate supplement to this work ; and we may presume it is
to that intention that he refers in the last sentence of the earlier
dedication. Some of the materials collected for this purpose were pro-
bably employed in the composition of the little book entitled Parabolse
stve Similia, dedicated to Peter Gillis in 15 14. Epistle 304. A lively

* Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Adagia, Chil. I. Cent. vi. Prov. 16.
t Ne quid nimis. Adagia, Chil. I. Cent. vi. Prov. 96.
t Adagia, Chil. I. Cent. vi. Prov. 19.
§ Parrhysiis. Adagia, ed. 1500.

The first edition of the Adages 245

review of his great completed work on Adages, introduced in the
edition of 1518 as a comment on the phrase Herculei labores (Chil.
III. Cent. i. Prov. i), includes a reminiscence of the production of this
earliest essay, which he attributes entirely to a desire to gratify Lord
Mountjoy. The book having been dedicated in several successive
enlarged editions to the same patron, the author was disposed to
exaggerate his original interest in it. Compare pp. 232, 236.

The first edition of this famous book, of which some dozen copies
are known to exist, is a 4to volume of eight and a half sheets
(144 pages not numbered), entitled Desyderii Herasmi Roterdami
veterum maximeque insignium paroemiarum id est adagiorum
collectanea, printed by John Philippe, and sold at his shop in the Rue
S. Marcel at the sign of the Holy Trinity, and also in the Rue S. Jacques
at the sign of the Pelican. The first half-sheet, which is separate
from the sheets that follow, contains Epistles 120 and 121. Eight
hundred and eighteen Adages are included in the collection, the first
being Similes habent labra lactucas. At the end of the book are
added the Epistle to duke Henry (Epistle 97), and the poem entitled
Prosopopoeia Britanniae. See p. 202. The colophon is as follows :
Impressum hoc opus Parrhisiis in Via diui Marcelli ac domo que
indicatur Diuina Trinitas Augustino Vincentio Caminado a mendis
uindicatore M. Johanne Philippo Alamano diligentissimo impressore
Anno M.Vc. Vander Haeghen, Bibliotheca Erasmiana. Ghent, 1897,
p. 3. At the Pelican in the Rue Saint-Jacques was the shop of the
brothers de Marnef. Dibden, Bibliographical Decameron, ii. 30.
Ryland's Library, Manchester, is said to have a copy of this rare
book. Catalogue, vol. i. p. 626.

Epistle 122 is without date ; and if it were necessary to determine
its proper place in the series by its opening words, or indeed by its
general contents with the exclusion of the last three paragraphs, it
might be very confidently placed before Epistle 112, as the first letter
addressed to Batt after Erasmus's journey to Paris. Seep. 231. But
it is clear, that the last three paragraphs were written after the
return of the Lady of Veer from Rome (see p. 233) ; and the conclud-
ing words after the completion of the Adages, and therefore after
Epistles 119, 120, and 121. I venture to suggest the following ex-
planation of these inconsistent indications of date in the same letter.

Erasmus, early in February, 1500, sent to Batt, by the "talkative
courier " who brought his papers to Paris soon after his arrival there

246 Composite letter to Batt

(see Epistles 112, 113), his first letter, probably of no great length, in
which he gave some account of an alarm he had had on his journey,
the circumstances of which, though they are not mentioned in Epistle
112, were known to Batt before Epistle 1 13 was written (p. 235) . When
Erasmus had more leisure at his command, after the completion of his
book, it occurred to him to substitute in his Letter-book a more
elaborate epistle, partly made up of portions of letters already written,
and partly of a longer narrative of his adventures upon the journey from
Tourneham to Paris. The opening paragraph of the revised Epistle, ac-
knowledging the parcel sent by the talkative courier (pp. 232, 235), is
probably repeated from the original letter ; and the new narrative
begins, in the second clause, where a more ambitious style is adopted,
which reminds the reader at once of the rhetorical picture of the
winter journey to Tournehem (Epistle 82). The paragraph towards
the end of the Epistle (p. 255), in which the writer relates his first
business in Paris (the recovery of his coat), and his contented life
with Augustine, is probably another part of the original letter. The
two paragraphs which follow belong to a later time, when Augustine's
funds were exhausted, when on the approach of summer Erasmus had
become nervously anxious about his own health, and when, the Adages
being not yet published, he had nothing to present to the Lady, and
was sending a begging letter to lord Mountjoy without any excuse
for his exaction (p. 255). These paragraphs were probably extracted
from another letter, written soon after Epistle 113, in which he pro-
poses to send Adrian, one of his young couriers, to England. A short
clause was added at the end, which apparently belongs to a still later
letter, written after the publication of the Adages, when a parcel of
books, containing a hundred copies, was sent to Batt to be forwarded
to England. Epistles 123, 180; pp. 260, 377. The Epistle so com-
posed became part of the stock of Epistles in the hands of Erasmus or
his transcribers, while the original letter of February, 1500, and the
other letters which had contributed to it, were suppressed.

Epistle 122. Farrago p. 258 ; Ep. ix. 14 ; C. 69 (81).

Erasmus to Batt,

I have to thank you, my dear Batt, on more accounts
than one ; you have sent me my labours, which are my
whole fortune, both promptly as you are not wont to do,
and in perfect faith as you always do ; and have sent them

journey from Tournehem to Paris 247

moreover by a messenger not only careful, but with a
tongue in his head, so that there has been not only his
labour but his talk to be paid for. But we have been a
match for him at his own game, and according to the old
proverb, with the Cretan * we played the Cretan.

Our English destiny pursued us to Paris. I have another
tragedy to relate to you, more woeful than the other. It
was the 31st of January when we reached Amiens. Good
Heavens, after what a frightful journey ! Some Juno surely
had once more roused tEoIus against us. As I was already
exhausted by the road and even feared an illness, I began to
think of hiring horses, judging it better to spare my feeble
body than my feeble purse. And from this point everything
turned to disaster. While looking for my usual inn, I
happen to pass a house with the inscription, Horses to let.
I go in ; the master is called, a man in figure and manner so
pointedly suggestive of Mercury, that at the very first
approach he gave me the impression of a thief. We came
to an agreement about the price for hiring two horses, and
began the journey towards evening, accompanied by a young
man, whom he spoke of as his son-in-law, and who was to
take the horses back.

The day after, some time before dark, we arrived at a
village called St. Jullien, a place marked by destiny for
robbery. I urged our going on. The thief's apprentice made
excuses, the horses were not to be over fatigued, it would
be better to sleep there, and to make up for the loss of time
by starting before daybreak. I did not make much opposi-
tion, not as yet suspecting anything wrong. We had almost
done our supper, the young man being at table with us,
when the maid called him aside, saying more than once that
there was something amiss with one of the horses. The lad
left the room, but with such a look as showed that the

* Cretiza cum Cretense, irphs Kpryra KprfTii^eiv, id est adversus mendacem
mendaciis utere. Erasmi Adagia, Chil. I. Cent. ii. Prov. 29. In his use of
the phrase here, Erasmus may perhaps mean, that he repaid talk with talk.

248 Adventures on the road

message was really something different. T immediately
called back the maid. "Well," said I, "my girl, which
horse is ill, this gentleman's or mine?" For I had an
Englishman for my travelling companion. " And what after
all is amiss?" Not being able to hide her consciousness,
she tittered and confessed the imposture, saying that some
one he knew had come and sent for the youth to speak with
him. Soon after the job-master himself, who had destined
our throats to the sacrifice, entered the room. We expressed
our surprise, and asked what had happened, that he had
come so unexpectedly after us. He said he brought lament-
able news, his daughter, the young man's wife, had been so
kicked by a horse, that she was almost breathing her last,
and he had made a hasty journey to fetch the youth home.
To my mind the fiction began to be too perceptible. I
watched carefully the look and gestures of both. In the
master's I at once observed a sort of unsteadiness, in the
youth's, who sat opposite, some confusion. I thought of what
Cicero says. You would not act thus if you were not playing
false. I now thought there was nothing to be done, but to
get clear of the man, as everything I saw pointed to robbery.
There were circumstances in what had passed before,
which increased my suspicion.* When we agreed at Amiens
about the price, the man had particularly asked me what
kind of money he was to have ; and all at once there were
people at our side, — I do not know where thev sprung
from, — who gave their assistance at the parley. They
praised the job-master, congratulated me on having such a
companion, and recommended me to his good offices. The
master asked over and over again what postulate we had,
that is, some special coin.f I said I had none. I took out

* The narrative, which is somewhat involved, goes back here, from the
second evening after leaving Amiens, to what occurred in that city.

t Ecquem haberem postulatum, id est, nomisma rarius. " Florens called
Postulates " are mentioned in some French accounts, cited by Ducange.

Suspicious conduct of groom 249

one or two crowns,* and though there was no fault to find
with them, he quietly insisted that I should give him some
one of special excellence out of the many he supposed I
had. It is a trick of that nefarious trade, to make out what
amount of money each traveller has with him. I showed
him what coins I had, out of which he kept the finest. * *

When it was already dark, after passing a wood, we came
to a town. The youth looked about, and pretended he did
not know the place. He then took us to a house. I bade
him look after himself as he pleased ; and we both went to
bed fasting. The Englishman did this for reHgion,f I for
health, as I was suffering in my stomach. Later on, a
woman came in, when she supposed we were fast asleep,
and had a long and most familiar talk with the youth, who
had pretended he was a stranger there, until at last, on a
hint of his, the conversation was continued in a whisper, so
that I could hear no more of it.

Before daylight I had got them under way. All the
journey I treat the young man with consideration. When
we reached the town of Clermont, I proposed to go in, not
to pass the night there, but to change some gold, that we
might not be put to inconvenience if we slept at a village.
The young man dissuaded me, asserting that he had himself
silver money enough. We accordingly went on, leaving the
town on our right.

When we were near the village (St. Jullien) the English-
man happened to be ahead with the youth, and J was

following.

As my manner is,

Musing of trifles and on them intent. J

* Scutatum unum et alterum.

t The 31st of January, 1500, was a Friday, Easter day being April 19.
The next day was Candlemas eve. See p. 251.
J Sicut meus est mos,

Nescio quid meditans nugarum et totus in illis.

Horat. Satir. i. 9, 2.

250 Arrival at Saint-J-iillien

But before I was aware, the Englishman had dismounted, and
the youth had led the horse to a door, where there never
was an inn. When I looked up, I wondered what he was
thinking of. He stared about him, said he had not been
there for fourteen years, and asked me what inn I chose.
"Suppose," said he, "we turn in here," pointing to the
house he meant to go to. I made no objection, remem-
bering I had been comfortably entertained there before,
and not knowing that the host had been changed. We are
shown a room, as usual, and wine is put before us, but
poorly answering to the palate. And yet we were scarcely
in the house, when I had seen that unknown young man
served in the kitchen with a glass of wine, the look of which
had made my mouth water. Disappointed in my anticipa-
tion, I go down, expostulate with the host, and get the wine
changed. These circumstances had rather occasioned sur-
prise than suspicion. •! now return to the point of my
narrative where I broke off.

By that time being convinced that a theft was intended,
I set to work to find means of escape. "Well," I said to
the job-master, "what do you propose to do?" "Perhaps,"
said he, " I may myself take you to Paris, my son must cer-
tainly return home." " By all means," said I, " and I will
suggest a plan that will suit you better still. Since such an
accident has befallen you as may deprive you of a daughter
and him of a wife, I will do this for you. You have in hand
a crown of mine, stamped with the Sun, and there remain
fourteen miles of the journey ; take off a proportionate
amount of the hire, and go back together. We will either
walk the rest of the way, or procure other horses." The
man shook his head, and went downstairs, like a skilful
thief, leaving the young man behind, in the hope of fishing
out through him what our opinion of the matter was. I
then addressed the youth, "Come now," said I, " tell me
true, what is all this about your wife ? " He confessed the

Erasmus and his fellow-traveller 25 1

story was a fiction, but his father-in-law must needs go to
Paris, to obtain payment of a debt. " Don't be disturbed,"
he said, "by his talking. You had better mount your horses
at daybreak to-morrow, and we will both go with you."
" Nay," said I, "it is not for nothing that he has taken so
long a journey to catch us up in such a hurry, and that by
night and on so sacred a day," — (it was Candlemas-eve), —
"and what is the use of inventing so many lies?" The
youth bade me be easy, they would do everything as 1
wished. "What if he is angry," said he, "I will not desert
you, till my heart burst." And all this with that stolid face
of his, — pretending that he was going to take my part in
secret against his father-in-law ! He then went down, doubt-
less to tell the whole story to his prompter.

Being now left to ourselves, I asked the Englishman,
what he thought about it. He answered, he saw nothing
but a concerted theft. "But what," I said, "is to be done?"
It was now night, and the landlady came to make the beds.
I asked, where w^e were to lie. She pointed to a bed.
And where are the other two to be ? " In this other bed,"
said she, meaning one in the same chamber. " I have," I
said, " some trifling business to transact with my companion ;
allow us to sleep alone in this room, and we will pay for
both beds." The vile woman, who evidently knew what was
going on, began at first to argue, that we had better all be
together ; they were honest people, and there was no reason
why we should wish them not to sleep in our room. If we
had anything to talk of between ourselves, that might be
done in our own language. If we feared for our money, wx
might safely trust it to them — the sheep to the wolf, as they
say ! Then she had the impudence to say, that all the other
chambers were occupied, when besides ourselves there was
not a guest in the house. To end the matter, when she
could argue no longer, she stubbornly said she would not do
it. I then ordered her to open the door, and turn us out.

252 The night at Saint-Y ullien

She said she would not do that either, and went down
muttering in a rage, and lost no time in telling the whole
story to that murderer, while I listened on the stairs.

My English companion had no spirit, no plan, and no
tongue ; for he did not know a word of French. My first
scheme was to bolt the chamber door, and put against it a
heavy oaken settle ; but I gave up this plan, when I con-
sidered that we were alone in a great house with many
opposed to us ; while it was now near midnight, and our
cries could only be heard on the side which looked towards
the street, where there was a convent church opposite the
windows. Meantime while I am looking about in vain for
some other device, the maid knocks at the door. I remove
the settle as quietly as possible, and ask what she wants.
She answers in a lively voice, that she has something to
bring in. I open the door, and to conceal my fears address
some playful remark to the girl. We now sate like two
victims waiting to be sacrificed. It was however arranged
between us, that we should remain talking leisurely and
soberly over the fire without any liquor, until we went to
bed in our shirts and hose, and watched and slept by turns.
Not long after, that respectable person comes in, with an
air of knowing nothing. I observe him carefully, and the
more I look at him, the more certain I am that I see a thief.
When at last he settled himself in bed with his apprentice,
we follow his example. We noticed nothing in the night ;
only when the Englishman woke, he found his sword, which
he had placed at his pillow, removed to the further corner
of the chamber. We two had one sword between us and a
gauntlet ; that was our whole panoply.

Long before daylight I was stirring, and opening windows
and doors. I called out that it was getting light, shouted,
and woke up the household. Seeing me so busy, that thief
addresses me in no sleepy voice " What are you about,"
said he, " 'tis scarce five o'clock." I shouted in reply that

Payment of the bill 253

the sky was clouded, and it would soon be broad daylight.
All this as near as possible to the windows. To cut the
matter short, a lantern is brought in : I run down to see
what is going on below stairs. Peering about in every
quarter, I found the thief s horses standing saddled, as they
must have stood the whole night, since, except the maid
who had just woke up, every one else was still abed.

At last our assassins rise ; and a circumstance which ap-
peared unfavourable turned out an occasion of safety. That
scoundrel had been only tempted by the belief that we had
a great deal of money, and one circumstance convinced him
that we had but httle. There was a slight want of silver to
satisfy the innkeeper for our supper and horses. I told them
therefore that either he must change a gold piece, or the
jobmaster advance five douzains* (for so much was required)
to be repaid by me at St. Denis. The landlady swore she
had no scales in the house, nor anyone to change the gold.
The thief said he would advance the money, provided T
handed him a gold piece in pledge ; and the landlady, who
was as impudent and stupid as she was dishonest, urged me
strongly to do as he wished. A long dispute followed. I
told her to open the door, that I might go myself to the
Prior of the Convent opposite and get the money changed.
She refused. The quarrel went on till daylight. At last
we were asked to bring out the money we wanted changed.
I brought out one coin after another. One was wanting in
weight ; another was said to be of base metal ; another not
solid enough, — all with the object of forcing us to show if
we had any reserve of gold. When I had solemnly sworn
that I had no other gold pieces but those, " Yes," said he,
" but tell your companion to bring out his ; I can see he is
a moneyed man." And so without rudeness he urged his
request. I swore, with the look and voice of a man speak-

* Duodenarios ; old French clouzains, equivalent to solidi or sous.

254 Weighing of coins

ing the truth and meaning what he said, that my companion
had nothing about him but a promissory note.

At last the scales are brought out, and the innkeeper him-
self makes his appearance. An hour and a half are spent in
weighing ; and every gold piece is found to want some
scruples. I observed at last, that there was cheating both
in the scales and in the weights, and by great good luck I
caught up the weight that was too heavy, without the land-
lord seeing me. Nothing was left but to use another weight,
and all at once the gold piece weighed down the balance.
Whichever side it was put into, the same result followed.
It happened to be an old coin, which still contained more
than the present standard, as the coinage is always being
reduced.

Our throats were now tolerably safe, and the only object
was to get some profit by cheating us. Then that thief,
being almost disappointed of his hope, whether because he
found we had little money, or because he had lost his
character with us, and saw me in rather a threatening mood,
the day too being now advanced, calls his familiar, the inn-
keeper, aside. Into what place do you suppose ? If you
please, into my lady's bedchamber, into which that scoundrel
had retired by himself. You see there is more mutual trust
and kindness between thieves than among all the world
beside. They change the piece between them, and keep
what they think proper for the supper and horses. I took
back the three and twenty deniers they brought me with
cheerfulness ; and then concealing my fears as well as my
simplicity would permit, " Come," I said, as the jobmaster
still stood doing nothing, " let us to horse What are you
about now ? Why are we not going ? Are not you ready
yet?" "No," said he, "not till you pay the whole amount."
" And how much do you want," said I. For besides the
crown, there were three douzains to be paid him. He
demands in the most shameless way some preposterous

Arrival at Parts on foot 255

amount. "Take us to Paris," said I, "as you have en-
gaged to do, and there we will settle our accounts." "What
are you likely," said he, "to give at Paris, when you dis-
pute the matter even here ?" The man was wise, and would
not let himself be drawn from his highway practice. On
my part, all this was put on ; nothing was less in my mind
than to trust myself again on the road with those ruffians.
After a little more sparring, as the man refused to stir, I
pretended we were going to the Church, instead of which
we crossed the river and took the road straight to Paris, not
feeUng quite secure from the robber's knife until St. Denis
received us in his walls.

I arrived at Paris on the 2nd of February, worn out by
the journey and exhausted in purse. The only business I had
to do was to claim my coat, and even this I did not find easy.
A pretty specimen of French sanctimoniousness ! Falke had
left directions, even in writing, that the garment should be
delivered to me on my return. Well, I went and demanded
it. Those religious men, as they would be thought, told
me the coat had been left in pledge, and would be restored
on payment of a franc* But when I came to enquire more
carefully into the matter, they gave it up, and the writing
with it, by which they convicted themselves of a manifest
imposition. I have now left me three crowns f of deficient
weight. I have taken up my quarters with Augustine, my
old friend. We live for literature, in a humble way, but
without envying your castle.

I have nothing to send to my Lady ; and am despatching
the young man who carries this, to England, on purpose to
try if I can squeeze anything from my Lord. But my mind
misgives me : I feel it is a shameless proceeding, and not at
all congenial to my character ; but necessity is a mighty
weapon, which forces us to try every expedient. If he sends

* Sifrancum darem \ Tres scutaii.

256 Plans for the future

a small sum, do you meantime extract something either
from the lady or from some other quarter, so that we may
make up thirty crowns.* It is not without good reason, my
dear Batt, that I am so set on this. I am convinced that it
is dangerous for my constitution to stay longer in this
country, lest, if anything should happen, which God avert,
I perish with all my small store of Letters. And if a
doctor's gown is offered me, I fear my spirit may fail me
before my life. Wherefore I entreat and adjure you, my
dear Batt, if there is any spark of your old afifection left, to
give your mind to the means of saving me. You perhaps
think, in your goodnatured easy way, that you have already
done your best for me. But I see myself, that, unless some
measures are taken, I am undone as I never was before,
since N. gives nothing, my lady promises from day to day,
the Bishop is not even friendly, the Abbot bids me be of
good cheer, and meantime not a soul comes forward to
assist me except poor N., whom I have so exhausted that
he has nothing more to give : and the plague interferes
with my earnings by the only means by which, as I told you,
I had any hope.f Various considerations meantime press
upon my mind. Where am I to fly, bare as I am ? What,
if the sickness overtakes me ? If nothing happens of this
kind, still what can I do in literature without an ample
supply of books ? What fortune have I a right to expect, if
I leave Paris ? Finally what is learning without authority,
— the privilege of being laughed at and called rhetorician
by such monsters as those we saw at St. Omer ? I write all
this, not to deafen you with my complaints, but to rouse you
up from slumber, so that we may soon bring to pass what

* Aureos.

f The source of profit affected by the plague may have been pupils' fees,
or the speedy sale of the forthcoming book, which, when this clause was ori-
ginally written, does not appear to have been published. See p. 246. The
second N. is probably Augustine.

Parcel of books for England 257

we have so long attempted in vain, and may return at last
to that happy intercourse which we always talk of.

Farewell, my dear James. I wrote an answer by the
courier that brought my baggage. If you still have by you
the letter I wrote to Mountjoy from Tournehem,* please de-
liver it to the lad who brings this. Give my greetings where
they are due. You need have no fear for the honesty of this
young man, if there is anything to be entrusted to him.

Augustine is giving public expositions of the Adages,!
with the fullest audiences. ; up to this time we have made a
fair beginning. If you think you can sell any copies at St.
Omer, take them out of the parcel. Farewell again.

Paris [1500]. J

We may well suspect that the details of the story, told in the above
letter some months after the journey, were partly imagined in order
to make a stirring narrative to excite the interest of the Lady of
Veer, and of others to whom the Epistle might be communicated.
But there is no reason to doubt the truth of the main incidents, to
which there is a reference in Epistle 113. See p. 235. And in a frag-
ment of a letter inserted in the book De conscribendis Epistolis,
C. i. 378 B, Erasmus refers to the loss of his money at Dover, as a
fortunate accident, which saved him, in the journey that followed,
from being a mark for spoliation and violence. See p. 277. On the
other hand, a suspicious mind may have imagined danger in circum-
stances which would have given no tremor to robuster nerves. See
Epistle 125 and the comment upon it, p. 267. The name of St. Jullien
appears to be fictitious. I cannot find that there is, or was, any place so
called between Clermont and Paris. To fix upon a probable locality for
the incident as narrated, we have to find on the road from Clermont, a
village, with a convent, and a bridge leading in the direction of St.
Denis, within a day's walk from Paris. If Pontoise was in the author's
mind, the word viculus may have been used to conceal its identity.

* Probably Epistle iii, which was to be carried on to England,
t Opus Adagiorum palam enarrat. See p. 260.
\ Lutetiae, anno m.cccc.xcix. Farrago. For date see pp. 245, 246.
VOL. I. S

258 Choice of retreat from plague

It may be observed, as bearing upon Erasmus's knowledge of
modern languages, that he is described as conversing frequently with
his English companion, who did not understand French. And yet
many years later, after a long residence in England, he had recourse
to a friend, with whom he communicated in Latin, to explain what he
wished to the father of his English servant. Epistle 269. It is pos-
sible that English was not the common language of Erasmus and his
fellow-traveller, who may have been acquainted with the dialect of
the Low Countries, or perhaps with Latin, then commonly used as a
spoken language.

In the summer or early autumn of 1500, Erasmus, in company with
Augustine Caminad, left Paris for Orleans. See p. 262. His reasons
for choosing this retreat, rather than rejoining his friend at Tournehem,
are partly explained in the following letter. Batt appears to have
been unable to invite him to stay at the Castle, but to have suggested
his lodging with a certain Peter, — probably " Peter Vaulz the philo-
sopher," Epistle 112, — to whose house, on account of some scandalous
imputation, he was unwilling to go. Sec pp. 183, 272. He writes in
evident ill-humour, and the letter was with some reason described
in the answer of his correspondent as written morosely, p. 263.

Epistle 123. Farrago, p. 282 ; Ep. ix. 31 ; C. 36 (36).
Erasmus to Batt.

This day we are about to start for Orleans. There is
always some evil genius at hand to interfere with our wishes.
My inclination would have led me to you, both because I
should have been nearer home, and because an opportunity
seemed to present itself for helping in some measure, or at
any rate encouraging, your studies. But there were many
considerations on the other side. I scarcely knew of any
suitable lodging, for as to staying with Peter, as you sug-
gested, I have no objection myself, but there is that scruple
you are aware of ; not that I fear either for my continence
or mv good name, but I should not like any suspicious

Willimn Herman at Veer 259

rumour to come round to our friend Peter. For vou know
how the vulgar herd, and especially the herd of courtiers,
dislike learned men, and are ready to attribute to us what
they practise themselves. Besides, I thought that perhaps
some persons might wonder at my running back to Tourne-
hem so often. And lastly, I was discouraged by your
coldness, remembering that your advice to take refuge with
you was given coldly and with some hesitation. I do not
even know whether you still care for learning : since you
have become subject to a new kind of love, in which
blandishments foster desire, and yet abundance does not, as
in other cases, destroy the appetite,* You know what I
mean. I am not unaware of your preference for William,
or of your devotion to his interests, and am so far from
being jealous, that I own myself indebted to you on that
account. But to abandon me, after laying the foundations
of my success, is like destroying the children you have
begotten and acknowledged as your own. My lady dis-
patched William on his journey with a handsome gratuity,
and sent me back empty, t when he was returning home,
and I was going away from my country, he hurrying to his
cups, I to my books. You will say that she is more than
rich enough to give to both. But you know the ways of
these great people, you know, above all, the gusts that sway
the female mind. But I hold my tongue ; at any rate, if I
am defrauded of my expectations, I am glad that my friend
William should profit by the transfer.

If, as I trust may be the case, my suspicions are false
and you are the same as you have always been, do persuade

* In quo blandimenta desiderium foveant, nee copia tamen, ut in ceteris,
fastidium adducat. Does Erasmus mean that his friend had a touch of
avarice ?

t Me vacuum remisit. Erasmus does not appear to have had any interview
with the lady since his first visit to Tournehem, when he was gratified by
his reception, but did not receive any considerable present. See pp. 185, 194.

S 2

26o A benefice desired

my lady to make good her promises, and, what is more, to
give me a benefice^ You may consider this as a present not
to me but to yourself, and may thus find a way of enjoying
a benefice without being a priest. I will tell you why I
have set my mind upon it. I am eager to leave France as
soon as possible, and long to live among my own people.
This I find will be more conducive both to my good
name and to my health. For now my countrymen at
home believe, that I choose to be abroad to enjoy greater
liberty, while the people here suspect, that I am not wanted
at home and live here as a sort of outcast. Lastly, if there
were no other, there is this most urgent reason, that I may
see you and my William pretty often. The book just printed
has no sale here now, because Augustine has ceased the
interpretation of it, and there is a general flight on account
of the plague. And yet, if it is not soon sold, I shall not
find a printer for my book on Letters, which I now have in
hand. Wherefore, dear Batt, do pray exert all your efforts,
all your powers, and all your ingenuity to get this done.

I have written with some care to the Lord Provost, and
sent him a copy of my Adages. I have also sent William's
Odes, and those trifling verses of mine that were printed
some time ago about the Birthplace of Jesus.* When I
hear Josse has returned, I will write to him and to the
Abbot, as I have found something suitable to say to both.

I sent a young man to England with some books to be
distributed, and wonder he had not reached you before the
Doctor left. When he returns from England, as he is quite
safe, and will doubtless follow us to Orleans, take care and
write by him in full about our business and our hopes. As
soon as I finish anything like a book, I shall forward it to
you ; if any accident should take me off", you will not let the

* Nugas meas olim excusas de Casa Natalitia. This poem appears to have
been printed at Paris in 1499. See pp. 22, 198, 209.

Poem against Delins 261

monuments of my genius perish. I shall take the title of
Doctor, if either Mountjoy or my lady send me anything ;
if not, I shall throw up all hope of that honour, and return
to you in any condition. I have long had enough of France.
Farewell.

Our health is not what we desire. My Augustine sends
his good wishes. I enclose a Poem against Delius ; an
impromptu piece, and not worth reading, unless once and
rapidly. You may treat it as a sort of unedo, * of which
one bite is more than enough. I send one copy of the
Adages for your Adolf; if I find he takes pleasure in
literature, I will present him hereafter with something as his
own.

I do wish, my dear Batt, that you knew Greek, both
because I find Latin literature incomplete without it, and
because it would make our intercourse more agreeable, if
we took delight in the same studies. You must put the
first elements of that language before your pupil. " Send
them," you will say. Well, they are sold here and cheaply ;
but I answer, that I have not a halfpenny. You will guess
the rest, what a slavery I undergo, and you know well my
impatience of slavery. However, this state of things must
soon end one way or other, — I trust, well.

I am glad that the person about whom we were anxious
on his daughter's account has been discharged. f Farewell
again, dearest Batt, and fare well indeed.

Paris [July or August, 1500].:}:

Erasmus was on the point of leaving Paris for Orleans on the day
when the above Epistle was written. It was accompanied by a copy
of the Adages for presentation to his correspondent's young pupil.

* A fruit mentioned by Pliny. Hist. Nat. xv. 5. 27-28. For Delius, apparently
a rival poet, see pp. 194, 202.

t A prisoner accused of heresy, apparently at St. Omer, see p. 265.
\ No date in Farrago. I.uteciae. m.d.cccc.xc.viii. Opus. Epist.

262 Departure from Paris

From this circumstance, and from the fact that the parcel of copies of
the same work which had been sent with Epistle 122, had not reached
Tournehem before the Doctor left, who had brought the last news
from Batt (see p. 260), we may conclude that Epistle 123 and
Erasmus's departure from Paris followed shortly after the publication
of the Adages. The volume was probably issued from the press soon
after the middle of June, 1500 (p. 242) ; but the author was naturally
unwilling to leave the city until, assisted by the public readings of
Augustine, he had seen the book fairly launched (p. 257). When
these " interpretations " were cut short by the increase of the plague,
which was driving all probable purchasers away (p. 260), Erasmus
thought it best to follow the example of his neighbours and seek a
healthier residence. The book de Literis, which he had in hand, and
for which he was hoping soon to find a printer (p. 260), was probably
the Antibarbariajis, which was a defence of Polite Literature. See
pp. 297, 298.

CHAPTER X.

Erasmus at Orleans^ ^^6' ^^ December^ 1500. Residence
with ^ames Tutor. The Abbot's brother, Dismas.
Epistles 124 to 133.

The latter half of the year 1500 was spent by Erasmus for the most part
at Orleans, where for some time he shared the lodging of Augustine
Caminad (who had left Paris with him), and afterwards removed to the
house of a young lawyer from the Low Countries named James Voecht
(see p. 270), who, having pupils under his charge, was distinguished by
the title of Tutor. In this house Erasmus remained as a guest, for three
months or more, until his return to Paris in December. See pp. 285, 298.
Epistle 124 has \n Farrago the heading, Epistola familiariter iocosa, to
which in Opus Epistolarum are added the words, et ironiis plena. The
early part of it has a bitter tone, Erasmus being angry with Batt for
resenting his last letter. William Herman appears to have made the ac-
quaintance of the Lady, probably during her stay at Veer, and to have
received some present from her, about which he had written to Batt.
This circumstance added to the ill humour of Erasmus, who for the
moment regretted that he had been the means of introducing a rival
to his patroness's good graces. Towards the end of the letter we find
a trace of the first commencement of one of his most popular works.
The " every day phrases used in accosting each other and at table "
(p. 266) appear to be the ground-work of the Colloquies.

Epistle 124. Farrago 277 ; Ep. ix. 28 ; C. 53 (60).

Erasmus to Batt.

I see my letter has made you angry, and you say it was
written morosely. I should have said jocosely ; or if there
was any bitterness, it was not directed against you, but
poured out before you by the most righteous sorrow. How-

264 A morose epistle

ever, I acknowledge my fault, — a double fault, — as I neither
had regard to my own wretched condition, nor to your
happy one. For it is not becoming for a man in the deepest
affliction to try to be facetious, still less to be captious or
ill-tempered, especially towards one who is in the full tide
of prosperity, and to whom he is in many ways indebted.
Besides I know it is the fashion at Court, that when you
have to do with persons whom dame Fortune has aban-
doned, and whom you have made your slaves by some little
favour, you not only refuse to listen to any upbraiding, but
scarcely tolerate even a timid supplication, and expect a
gush of gratitude, after felling the wretch with your blows.
But as in grievous sickness men lose their consciousness, so
in my distress of mind, when I was most afflicted, I failed to
remember what a poor creature I was. And indeed I used
to think Erasmus did not need to be under any restraint
with Batt. I have hitherto only loved you (why should I
not avow it ?) and not feared you ; for you know that perfect
love does not consist with fear. But that really blind love
has carried me too far ; I see my fault, and ^\dll accept the
hardest punishment, if I do not amend it. Henceforth I
will love my Batt as a friend, as a benefactor, as a man of
learning. I will reverence him as my teacher, as my king,
in whose power it is to make or to ruin me. I will submit
to be beaten if you find henceforth in any of my letters, — I
do not say an insolent or unruly word, — but one that is not
bland, supplicating, and suitable to a slave, that has the
gallows before his eyes. Furthermore I give you thanks as
my patron for recalling me to myself and reminding me of
my fortune.

I will now reply in order to your gracious letter, and beg
vou will be pleased to grant me a favourable hearing. In
the first place I give up altogether that habit of writing
morosely, and pray you to receive me again to some small
degree of favour. That the Provost is my hearty well-

William in favour at Veer 265

wisher, I recognize as no merit of my own ; but do homage
to your influence, which has recommended me to so great a
person. Your sending me William's letter is like sending
me word to choose a tree to hang myself upon. I under-
stand it is all over with me if he has taken my place. But
why should I bear so impatiently a misfortune which my
own folly has brought upon me ?

Pray do not suppose that my not writing to the Abbot is
due to laziness. I have not been able to think of any
subject to write about, and you know my slowness ; it is
wrong, but what can you do with an ass ? Besides I thought
that he would be still away in Brabant. I have written to
Antony,* that you may not think me altogether failing in
my duty, although no fit subject occurred to me ; for I know
how troublesome it is to write to one who has a great deal
of curiosity but not so much learning.

Upon the escape of the man whom they wanted to make
a heretic, I congratulate, first, his daughter, whose pious
tears grieved my soul, next, you, because your prayers in
the daughter's name have not been vain, and lastly the
man himself, if he has altered his mind. How much more
worthy of punishment was that wicked Dominican Suffragan,
the most corrupt, rapacious and arrogant of men. To spite
him, I took the man's part more earnestly with the Abbot.

You order me to buy some copies of Terence together
with William's Odes ; and I will serve you as a faithful
slave. Only you will pardon me if I do not run back to
Paris to buy them ! Besides, the messenger asserted that
you had given him a tin coin, which he had left at home,
while I have nothing to give, nor any person from whom I
can borrow, and I could obtain no money on my own credit
in a strange town. Nevertheless I will try, if my life is
prolonged, to send you what you want.

* Antony of Lutzenburg, chaplain of the Abbot of St. Bertin, to whom
several later Epistles are addressed. Epistles 131, 141, 145.

266 Literary work in hand

Your inviting me to the Castle, if the plague drives me
hence, has restored me to some hope of life. Most indulgent
Batt, why can I not fly to your knees, and humbly kiss your
feet ? I see you would have me saved, and not die of
famine. For what punishment is more bitter or more
infamous ? And yet, — you will pardon my timidity, — I am
still a little afraid that your anger has not burnt itself out.
When I am sure of that, I will leave mv sanctuarv.

When you tell me you are so pleased with William's
poem, I again feel myself knocked down, and know not
what Power to implore, either above or below, but you
alone, who are a sort of Providence to me. Caminad
humbly thanks you for deigning to mention him in your
honourable letter. As soon as he received your commands,
he swept out the whole stock to see what he could send
you. Believe me, he has nothing of which you have not a
copy, but some every-day phrases, which we use in accosting
each other and at table. These shall be sent, if you so
command, when they have been corrected and enlarged.
My work De Epistolis Conscribendis I intend to submit to
the file, and that too I will send, if you desire it.

So far in answer to your letter ; I will add a few words
besides. We had sent a young man with a load of books ;
but I infer that your letter was written before he reached
you. I then wrote by Adrian ; but woe is me that I wrote.
For I wrote (I am ashamed to say it) morosely ! I had not
yet received your letter. Pardon me, I beseech you ; so
may you ever live in that Court of yours, rich and happy !
Here we shall have, as we deserve, starvation enough.

I have begged, not without shame, three douzains of
Augustine, which I have given the courier and told him
where he can buy the books. I have written to the Abbot ;
but the letter will be thrown away unless you read it to
him ; do therefore be present. Farewell, my dearest and
sweetest Batt. I do not refuse the invitation you send me,

Series of letters to Batt 267

for if the plague follows us here, I would certainly rather
take refuge with you than anywhere.
[Orleans, August, 1500.]

The above epistle has no date in Farrago. The date, "Audomari,
M.CCCC.XCIX.," which is appended to it in Opus Epistolarum, appears
to be repeated by mistake from the short letter that follows in the
same book (Epistle 160). The circumstances of the writer at the
time, and the position of Epistle 124 in the correspondence after
Epistle 122 and 123, appear in the epistle itself, the " angry banter " of
which is alluded to in the first sentence of the following epistle.

Epistle 125 is principally interesting as throwing light upon the
character of the writer. Erasmus suspected without any valid reason,
that he was being cheated by Augustine of the value of the parcel of
books which had been sent to England (Epistles 122, 123) ; and being
convinced for the moment of the truth of his suspicion, his imagina-
tion supplied him with ample confirmatory evidence, while in the last
words of his letter he admits the possibility that he may be the victim
of a false alarm. It appears from the commencement of this letter,
that it was written eight weeks after the books were despatched. The
Adages were published soon after the middle of June. P. 242. We
may therefore date the epistle in the latter part of August, 1500.

Epistle 125. Farrago, p. 280 ; Ep. ix. 30 ; C. 64 (76).

Erasmus to Batt.

My best wishes to you, sweetest Batt. Our affairs are in
such a state, that tender endearments and angry banter are
alike both undesirable and impossible, I will describe my
position ; pray attend with your old kindness. The young
man whom we sent to you with a load of books, and who
promised to return in four wxeks, has now been missing for
eight. I am not unaware how many unexpected incidents
constantly arise on a journey, as illness, robbers, new affairs
to be attended to, in fact a thousand causes of delay.
Nevertheless I cannot help fearing that there is some great

268 Suspicion of Augustine

roguery at the bottom of it. In the first place, you know
Augustine's character and his old tricks. Then, I under-
stand the young man was much in debt where we were,
and neither verv wise nor safe, besides being closelv con-
cerned in Augustine's private plans.

Things have come out now, as they will do, after the feast,
as they say. I have often wondered to myself, what w^as
the meaning of that sudden overflow on Augustine's part,
that rapid metamorphosis, by which a man who was used to
lay his hands on other people's goods, became so lavish of
his ov\'n. For of late he has spent on me a little more than
he had received from me. A slight suspicion has sometimes
arisen in my mind, that I was being entrapped, so that when
once caught I might yield everything to the fowler. That
suspicion, if I am not much mistaken, will turn out true, and
that you may see it is so, just observe what has happened.

We retired to Orleans for fear of plague. After several
days there, one of the lads kept by Augustine had an illness,
whether contagious or not, we do not yet know ; for nothing
is more difficult than to catch that cuttle-fish, surrounded by
the darkness which it creates. But when the boy had been
for four days and more constantly vomiting, and suflfering
from diarrhoea, fearing my own health might be affected, I
explained to Augustine that it would be more convenient if
I went away for five or six days, — making more room in the
house, and saving myself from nausea, — and came back after
a while. Augustine at once took offence, although he tried
hard to conceal it. He said he would not persuade me one
way or the other, — I might do as I pleased, — he had no
opinion or advice to offer. The meaning of that was, that
he thought I had not at that time a single farthing, and could
do nothing without money, so that I must either remain
against my will, or fall into great difficulties. I joined com-
pany with a certain Master James Tutor of Antwerp, a Pro-
fessor of the Pontifical Law, a charming young man, very

Erasmus with Raines Tutor 269

desirous of our society, and a most zealous admirer and
upholder of our literary fame ; but upon such terms that I
might return to Augustine when his lad recovered. Upon
this Augustine was not only angry, but began to be jealous
of James, and to signify, partly by silence and partly by
those enigmatical phrases of his, that it would not be open
for me to return to him. Although I had become aware of
this, I waited to search the matter out more clearly. To
cut the matter short, I detected the spirit of an enemy, a
traitor and a thief, in one word, of that old Augustine whom
I have partly described to you. He intends, I suspect, to
receive the young man we sent to England behind my back
and to take whatever money or letters he may bring. Mean-
time something will be done ; either Augustine will himself
take to flight, or will certainly ruin us somehow. Believe
me, Batt, I expect nothing from him, but what might be
expected from a treacherous assassin. And I am sadly
afraid the man is already returned and the booty in the
hands of the plunderer. * * *

At any rate you may be sure of this, that Augustine, if he
can do it secretly, will contrive my ruin, and in the first
place will be in wait for this money. If therefore you wish
to save me, you will not go to sleep in this matter, nor spare
any labour or cost. For if I steer past this rock, I trust
that all will be safe. * * *

If the young man now returns to you from England, after
honestly doing his errand, still keep everything of mine,
upon the pretext I have already suggested, without leaving
a feather in trust. If he has left you sometime ago, and did
bring money with him, in which case it is pretty clear that
Augustine has been busy at his tricks, send someone at once
to England to find out the particulars.

Whatever you receive from the young man, send it on by
the St. Omer courier, and give him instructions not to go
to Augustine's lodging, but either to Dismas the Abbot's

270 Charm of Homer

brother, or to Master James Voecht* of Antwerp, with whom
I am living ; or, if there is occasion to do so, send Adrian.

Farewell, my best and dearest Batt. As there is so much
occasion to write, I wonder you did not do so by the bearer,
who accompanied the Governor's f son hither. Again fare-
well. My friend James sends bis greetings. Help me as
soon as possible out of this fright, if I am mistaken, or this
disaster if my suspicion is true.

Orleans [August, 1500],^

The suspicion which gave occasion to the preceding letter is shown
by a later letter to Batt to have been without foundation ; the delay in
the return of the messenger from England not being caused by any act
of Augustine. The books sent to England for sale were the subject
of enquiry some years later. Epistle 180.

The following letter, which refers to a copy of Homer which Erasmus
had borrowed of Augustine, supplies some indication of the limits of
Erasmus's knowledge of Greek at this time. The book, which appears
to have been in two parts (p. 271), may have been a printed copy, as
Homer was printed at Florence in 1488, in two folio volumes. Augus-
tine is still staying at Orleans, and Erasmus abstaining from visiting
him on account of the sickness in his house.

Epistle 126. Farrago, p. 84 ; Ep. iv. 33 ; C. 78 (87).
Eras7nus to Augustine.

To gratify your doctor, you want to rob me of the only
consolation of my weariness ; for I do not venture to speak
of it as a present. I am so enamoured of this author, that
even when I cannot understand him, I am refreshed and fed
by the very sight of his words. But as it would be wrong
for me to refuse you anything, however hard, especially in
your trouble, I send you one part of Homer, so that the

* M. Jacobum Voecht. Farrago. Jacobum Opus Epist.

\ Praetoris. \ Aureliae. anno m.cccc.xcix. Farrago.

Traffic with Augustine 271

doctor's importunity may be satisfied without depriving me
of all my comfort.

Our living with James does not prevent us from being
solitary ; and I therefore look forward impatiently to
returning to our former life. This I think may soon come
to pass, since I hear the lad is much better. Meantime I
entreat you that by exchange of letters we may keep up
some semblance of companionship.

I cannot induce you to send me the work of Epistles,*
though I am much interested in your doing so, and you are
somewhat interested too. As for James I will bind myself
to you at any risk, that I will not communicate a word to
him. I have accustomed him not to pay any attention to
what I do.

Farewell, dearest Augustine, and sustain our common
fortune with your usual energy. James sends his salutations.
His regard for you binds him the more to me. I expect the
work of Epistles, if not the whole, at least one or two
books, t so that we may be able at any rate to make a
beginning. And this work may, I think, be cleared off during
the interval, for I do not see how my other labours can be
finished without a great quantity of books. Take care of
yourself, my good friend, and farewell.

[Orleans, 1500.]!

The volume of Homer so recovered from Erasmus was sent to the
physician accompanied by a long rhetorical letter written in Augus-
tine's name by Erasmus, and printed, without date, among his corre-
spondence. Epistle 127. Farrago, p. loi; Ep. v. 8 ; C. 1854 (464).

Epistle 128, which is without date of month, was written near the
close of the year. Erasmus declines to undertake a winter journey
(p. 272), and anticipates that his Patroness will be liberal at Christmas
(p. 274). It appears from this Epistle (pp. 272, 273), that the Bishop

* Epistolarum opus. t Codicem unum aut alterum.

X No date in Farrago, m.cccc.xcix. Opus Epist.

272 Reasons for riot going to Artois

of Cambrai, whose service had been used by Erasmus as a reason for
leaving the Convent, somewhat resented the independence assumed by
his protege, who expected to receive continued assistance without
acknowledging any corresponding obligation. See Epistle 151.

Epistle 128. Farrago, p. 287 ; Ep. ix. 33 ; C. 62 (74).

Erasmus to J- arms Batt,

We are remaining here after all, and you with your old
kindness will join your assent to our change of plan, which
has not been made without due consideration. For to
begin, there was no money for the journey, except what I
might borrow. In the next place we had only just recovered
from illness ; and the winter journey was rather terrifying,
especially this year, in which I have travelled a great deal,
and with no good fortune. The plague too, as I hear, is now
almost at rest. And besides, there w^as that ill-natured
scandal, in case I went back to those quarters so often.*
Lastly, James, who in this respect resembles you in mind
as well as name, treats me with so much affection, that if
there were nothing else, I might be bound to the spot by
that tie. As to the Abbot, the way he invites me almost
frightens me from coming. If he loves us dearly, I know
not how he will interpret that fright ; but then, being of a
light heart, if he does love us, he will love us all the better
for being away. And if he is going to imitate his brother,
it is well to be as far ofiF as possible ! Of the levity, or shall I
say jealousy, of the latter,t I am ashamed to complain to you.
My small letters have been indeed unlucky, to have met
with such an Anti-Maecenas, as not only fails to cherish
them, but bears them a bitter grudge. John Standonk has,
you know, lately come back from Louvain with a poor little
master of Mechlin. The latter has been entrusted by that
right reverend prelate, to trace and smell out with all his

* See pp. 183, 258. t The Bishop of Cambrai.

Relations with the Bishop of Camhrai 273

sagacity the secrets of my life at Paris, and to send him in
writing all his discoveries ; and he has promised a handsome
reward to the informer. He was even shameless and silly
enough to add, that he wondered I had the face to stay
at Paris, when I had no longer his authority ! He is mad
indeed to have such thoughts in his head, and still more
crazy to communicate them to this needy pedant. I fancy
that his bile has been stirred, partly because he thinks
himself neglected, but principally because he supposes that
I complain of him to his brother or others, by whom he is
blamed on my account. But this conduct is so far from
discouraging me, that I should like all the more to perform
at Paris some astounding feat which would altogether take
his breath away.

I have told you the reasons why I have not come to you,
as I should otherwise have longed to do. I send you Lewis,
who has been my boy, with the intention that he should
enter the service of Josse, who I suppose has now returned.
If not, I beg you to recommend the lad to some one else,
or, as he would prefer, take him, if you can manage it,
yourself. He is so honest that there is nothing he may not
be trusted with, no small praise for a boy. Moreover, he
writes both rapidly and neatly, in French as well as Latin.
A fair scholar, industrious, most respectful, and of no bad
disposition, and you might yourself find him useful in tran-
scribing books. If therefore you can provide for him, you
will gratify me, and do a good turn to a lad who is now
much in need of help. If you have no room for him, see if
there is any vacancy at the Abbot's. If you keep this boy,
forward my money to me as soon as possible by the courier
of St. Omer, together with the parchment manuscript of
Aurelius Augustinus, and anything else you think will be of
use to me.

The course of circumstances has reconciled me with
Augustine. He acknowledges his debt, but says he has

VOL. I. T

274 Monntjoy's return for Dedication

nothing to give, which I am disposed to think true. I
already owe some crowns to James here, and want you
therefore to send me, not only all the money you have of
mine, but also any sum you can yourself spare for Erasmus.
How am I to be repaid, you will say. By the lady, I
answer ; she will surely not be so hard as to let Christmas
pass for nothing. There is no other way of saving me, dear
Batt ; I write this in all seriousness.

If you despair of providing for this boy, do not let him
stick there, but send him back at once with your letter, the
money and the book, and whatever else there may be ; you
cannot write or send by a safer hand. I approve of your
being cautious in your letters, but trust me you may send by
him what gossip you please ; and you will give him for his
journey ten or twelve douzains out of my money. Also,
whether he is kept with you or sent back, you will give him
that black coat of mine, which is in your hands, so that he
may have some reward from me for his service, unless the
coat has been disposed of already.

N. as you write, gives very sparingly,* which I
attribute to that stupid Galba. It was by his folly that
my money was lost in England. But as to that we will
hold our tongue for the present ; there will be an oppor-
tunity of paying him out some day. We shall never-
theless proceed in our studies by the road we have laid
out. I am sorry the Adages were sent out theref for
distribution, as they sell here more freely and at a higher

* N. ut scribis, perquam parce. One or more words are wanting. We
cannot doubt that the person named was Mountjoy, who in acknowledge-
ment of the dedication, had sent a smaller present than was expected. Galba
was the English courier, who was expected in March with Erasmus's parcel
(p. 233), and had probably now brought the ' money from England.' P 285.

t Istuc. To Tournehem, and so to England. P. 257. The consignment
for the Low Countries was sent later. See pp. 303, 304.

Erasmus and Faustus 275

price. My James here, who is verily another Batt, desires
to be commended to you ; he loves you so devotedly, that
you must run no risk of appearing to be surpassed in aflfec-
tion. Farewell, my dear Batt. I have written with the less
care, to avoid disturbing my health, which is still delicate.

Orleans [November, i5oo].f

In writing to Faustus (Epistle 129) Erasmus protests that he is
longing for more congenial conversation, his friend James Tutor
being chiefly versed in legal authors. For some indication of his own
literary work at this time, see p. 318.

Epistle 129. Farrago, p. 109 ; Ep. v. 23 ; C. 57 (71).
Erasmus to Faustus^ the Kings Poet.

My boy brought me a message from you that I was a
coward, because I had shifted my quarters on account of
some fear of plague. An insufferable reproach, if addressed
to a Swiss warrior, but hurled at a poet, fond of ease and
retirement, it misses its aim. Indeed in cases of this kind, I
hold that absence of fear is not so much a sign of courage as
of stupidity. When you have to do with an enemy that may
be driven back, resisted and conquered by fighting, in that
case he who lists may play the hero for me. What are you
to do against an evil which can neither be seen nor con-
quered ? There are things which may be escaped, but can-
not be overcome. * * *

Nevertheless I am already pressed to return, not only by
my Muses, who are wretchedly cold here in the company of
Accursius, Bartolus and Baldus, but also by a sharp and
severe frost, which comes very seasonably for extinguishing
the remains of the disease.

\ No date in Farrago. Aureliae An. M.cccc.xcix. Opus Epist,

T 2

276 Sale of the Adages

I know that it is needless for me to ask you to do what
you are constantly doing of your own accord, still I will ask
you to honour with your recommendation our Adages, that
abortive production of mine, with a view to its speedy sale.
This favour you will accord, not to the work itself, but to
our friendship. For I am not so conceited as not to see
what the book is. But when you want to get rid of in-
different goods, there is more need of a puffer, the less they
are worth ; and we shall be all the more obliged to you, if
you give your vote in accordance not with your judgment,
but with your good will I might urge, that you have not
left it open for yourself to do anything but praise my poor
volume, to which you have attributed every merit in a letter
which served as an introduction to it. Finally we undertake
that this rough-hewn and misshapen production shall be not
merely submitted to the file, but taken back to the workshop
and entirely remodelled, so as to come out at last in such a
form, that you may not repent of your testimony, nor the
subject of it be ashamed of your undeserved commendation.
In which remodelling we shall hope to have your help, not
only as a critic, but as a designer. Farewell.

Orleans, the morrow of the Feast of St. Elizabeth,
20 Nov. [1500].*

We have seen (p. 165), that Erasmus gave to Robert Fisher a copy
of his incomplete book de Conscrihendis Epistolis, and that in
November, 1498, Augustine possessed the only other copy of it. P. 178.
In the following May Erasmus had this work in hand with the intention
of finishing it. P. 195. But we find him again employed upon it in
December, 1500, and January, 1501. Pp. 285, 287, 305. His occupation
with it about this time is confirmed by a real or fictitious letter
introduced in it as a model of a mixta epistola, to which the date,
Aureliae, Nonis Decembribus, is attached. C. i. 379 C. In this mixed
epistle there are a great many clauses, which appear to be introduced
merely to vary the subject; but one passage has very much the air of

Postridie Natalis divae Elizabeth, Aureliae. Anno m.cccc.xcix. Farrago.

Treatise on Letter -writing 277

an extract from a letter of the author written not long before. In
this the writer, after referring to the French successes in Lombardy,
and the capture of the duke of Milan (April, 1500), gives the following
account of a recent visit to England, with an allusion to the story
told in Epistle 122.

De Conscribendis Epistolis (1522) ; C. i. 378A.

I turn now to your letter. You say you wonder how it
ever came into my head to go to England, I suppose
because my journey there ended so unluckily. * * * Until
my return everything went well ; but before we re-embarked,
all our little money suffered shipwreck on the coast. We
had a fair passage to Boulogne, t where the harbour-master
searched every corner of my purse, and cursed the Dover
official for stealing a march upon him. What a wicked
coast, you will say. Nay, a friendly and serviceable coast ;
for if we had not come back naked from Britain, it would
have been all over with us, seeing that in France we fell
among the daggers of thieves, from whom I was only saved
by my nakedness. For against this kind of enemies there is
no defensive armour like poverty. You now know, how a
project not badly conceived had the worst possible issue.
* * * *

Orleans, 5 Dec. [1500].

Erasmus was now preparing to leave Orleans, Augustine having
gone before him to Paris. Even Epistle 130, which is friendly in
intention, is not without some indication of the writer's ingrained dis-
like and suspicion of his correspondent. See pp. iii, 122. He is
impatient of his friend's profession of devotion, though he shows no
unwillingness to accept its fruits. In Epistle 133, written two days
after, he explains his real sentiments to Batt. See pp. 282, 283.

t Gessoriacum. The second search, more probably ascribed to an English
ofificial, suggests the conjecture, that Erasmus's Gessoriacum was Calais,
especially as in an Epistle to More, C. 287 B, he calls Boulogne, Bolonia.
But on the other hand Calais is elsewhere called Caletum, and Cakcium.
C. 330 c, 589 E. See p. 227.

278 Pauliis yEmiliiis

The following Epistle contains the last mention of Gaguin which
occurs in this correspondence. He died in the following May, and was
succeeded, in his post of historiographer to the king, by Paulus
-^milius, an Italian scholar lately settled in France, whose book
de Rebus Gestis Francorum was printed in two parts, 1516-1519,
and frequently reprinted {Nouv. Biogr. Univ.). Erasmus appears to
have already made his acquaintance, probably at Orleans, where he
had lately been. And in the Ciceronianus he commends his learning,
diligence and sanctity of life, as well as his fidelity as an historian.
C. i. loio E.

Epistle 130. Farrago, p. no; Ep. v. 24; C. 58 (72).

Erasmus io Augustine.

What you tell me about Faustus, Gaguin and -^milius is
bright and auspicious, but not new; and yet it is no less
agreeable ; for how can I fail to value the goodwill of such
men towards myself, as well as their emphatic testimony to
your merit? I was not so much delighted at that hyperbole
of Faustus, that where I was, there was the one sanctuary
of letters ! Unmeasured praise accords neither with my
modesty nor my mediocrity ; and moreover such figures of
speech are both insincere and invidious, and in fine are not
far removed from irony. So too, that sentence in your
letter, however charmingly written, does not charm me,
" Most honoured preceptor, as your devoted disciple I give
myself wholly to you, — command me as you will, — I have
QOthing of my own, but all I have is yours." I hold that
this kind of language should be kept quite apart from sincere
good-will. For where there is pure love, as I think is our
case, what is the use of such phrases ? And where the
affection is not sincere, they are apt to convey a suspicion
of ill-will. I shall therefore be glad, if you will banish
those graceful hyperbolae from your letters, and remember
that you are writing to a comrade and not to a tyrant.

Erasmus and Augustine 279

I am distressed to hear that even now the Fates do not
favourably respond to your wishes and your merits, but
rejoiced to think that they are somewhat relenting. Either
I am mistaken, or that fatal storm will be followed by sunshine.

I surmise from your letter, that Paulus ^milius is going
to move back hither ; but T would much rather he should
remain where he is, as I do not see why I should stay here
any longer. However you will take care to inform me of
your whole condition, and whether your fortune will bear
the burden of my living with you, since you would not have
me doubt your willingness, nor can I do so, after it has been
tested and made manifest by so many trials and proofs. If
therefore for any reason it is unseasonable or inconvenient
to take in a guest, you will let me know without any cere-
monv, and with the freedom which our intimacy demands ;
I shall not love you a whit the less. So help me Heaven,
T do not so much regard my own interest (though I do not
deny I have it also in view), as the opportunity of putting a
finishing touch to your learning, which, as you write, was
first shaped by my hand. A slight hope is held out to me
of going to Italy, and I feel some hankering after it ; but as
soon as I have heard from you, I will settle my plans.

Thank Nicolas Benserad for his salutations, and give him
mine in return. I am struggling with my Copia^ but I think
the Muses are not propitious. Without any good books
what can I do that is excellent ? And as it proceeds, the
work assumes larger proportions than it promised at the
outset. Still I toil on; for what else can I do? In fact I
work at this, to save me from the disgrace of doing nothing.
Take care of yourself, and keep up your love for me.

Orleans, the morrow of the Conception of the Virgin
Mother, 9 Dec. [1500].*

* Datum Aureliae postridie conceptionis uirginis matris, Anno m.cccc.xcix.
Farrago.

28o Dismas, the Abbofs brother

Epistle 131 and Epistle 132 are dated the same day, and the former,
being mentioned in the latter as if already written (p. 286), is placed
first. But as the latter (a long epistle) is dated antelucano, before
daybreak, there remains some difficulty about the precise dates. It
may be, that in the date of Epistle 131 we should read iv. (or iiii.)
Idus, instead of Hi. Idus, the loth instead of the nth of December.
The Postscript was evidently added after both letters were written.

The Abbot's young brother called Dismas (the name attributed to the
penitent thief of the Gospel) is not in the family pedigree of Bergen ;
but he may have been a son of the old age of the Abbot's father, who
did not die until 1494. This boy was now at Orleans with a tutor
named James Daniel. See p. 350. Antony of Lutzenburg was the
Abbot's chaplain.

Epistle 131. Farrago, p. 104 ; Ep. v. 18 ; C. 91 (99).
Erasmus to Antony of Lutzenburg.

I was going to write to the kind Abbot, but as I learned
quite lately by a letter of Batt, that he had not yet come
back from Brabant, I thought it better to put off writing till
I heard of his return. I send this to you, not because I
have anything new to say, but only to show by this atten-
tion my constant and lasting affection for you. * * *

We are moving back to Paris, being informed that the
plague has quite died out. While I have been here, the
Abbot's brother, Dismas, has been very attentive, and I for
my part have been much pleased by his visits. I assure you I
have never seen a sweeter, more modest or more intelligent
lad. He interests himself in letters, and loves to be with those,
from whom he may go wiser than he came. The boy seems
formed by nature for goodness, and well deserves the most
careful training, that a noble mind may not be debased.
But he lives in a boarding-house, where the food is bad and
the furniture dirty ; left neglected among a set of idle good-
for-nothings. You are not unaware how easily that age is
attracted to vice. One infected companion soon commu-

Dismas and J-ames Tutor 281

nicates his own malady; and he that touches pitch cannot
help being defiled. There is a person named James Tutor
living here, a man of great integrity and erudition, and a
professor of Pontifical Law, who receives in his house a few
young gentlemen, and keeps them not in boarding-house
fashion, but quite decently, for I have myself been living
for three months in his house. He loves Dismas as his
own son, and is loved by him as a parent. If therefore the
Abbot wishes to consult the boy's safety, as 1 am sure he
does, he will lose no time in withdrawing him from the
boarding-house ; and will place him with this gentleman.
He will be glad to meet with one to whom he can commu-
nicate his learning, and whom he will excite to honourable
effort ; while Dismas will have a friend with whom he will
live as with a parent, and in whose society he will hear
nothing but what is learned and of good report. * * *
You need not disturb yourself with any doubt about his
progress in French if he lives with one of our countrymen.
Dismas knows French well, and already speaks it fluently ;
and he will hear French spoken everywhere. Meantime he
will learn letters, he will learn virtue ; and if you persuade
the Abbot, as you very well can, to take this course, you
will bind the lad to you by a service that will endure for
ever. You will not rest therefore, until you have got it
done. Commend me heartily to Father Antony, your good
lord, and mine through you ; and excuse me to him for
writing nothing by the bearer. I will write from Paris
when I hear of his return. Farewell, my Antony, and do
not cease to love me. Salute the good steward of the
household, and all my well-wishers, in my name.

Orleans, 11 Dec. [1500].*

Postscript. Do not be surprised at my saying in the
beginning of this letter that I was not writing to the Abbot,

• Aureliae, iii. Idus Decembres. Anno m.d.i. Farrago. See p. 280.

282

Carriage of letters

when I have written after all. For that courier having failed
me, and this boy come unexpectedly from Batt, I have
changed my mind, in a great measure by his advice, having
learnt from his letter with what kindness the Abbot had
received mine. This I scarcely ventured to hope, for I
know how destitute my writings are of anything to recom-
mend them to the great. Farewell.

It appears from the opening clause of Epistle 135, that the letter to
the Abbot, promised in the above postscript, was delayed until Erasmus
was settled again in Paris ; to which he returned a few days after,
instead of remaining at Orleans (as he seems to have intended when
he wrote Epistle 132), until after Christmas. Pp. 285, 287.

Epistle 132. Farrago, p. 243 ; Ep. viii. 49 ; C. 59 (73).
Erasfiiiis to Batt.

An age seems to have passed, dearest Batt, since anything
has been received from you ; and for this reason alone I
hate that castle of yours, because there are so few people
passing to and fro between us ; Whereas if you were living
at Louvain or in Zeeland, we could relieve our longing by
a constant exchange of letters. I sent Lewis, formerly my
boy, to you with a letter ; and since he is not come back, I
suppose he has either stopped with you, or gone off some-
where else. But as I did not wish to commit myself to a
winter journey, both to spare my health, and to avoid
interrupting the work of composition in which I am wholly
occupied, and as the matter was especially urgent, I have
hired the present messenger. What I want, I will explain
in a few words.

Augustine has gone back to Paris, whether as a friend or
an enemy, it is not yet clearly made out, and it is not safe to
trust either looks or words. However I hope for the best,
for in this matter I had rather appear over-credulous than

Proposed studies 283

over-suspicious. It is not only most convenient, but it is
necessary for me to move back to Paris, both in order to
proceed in those Greek studies which I have begun, and to
finish the works I have in hand. There are also other
reasons, which I do not like trusting to paper. And with-
out some money I can neither sit still here, nor go away,
unless indeed after such serious quarrels and even bitter
contests you would have me return to Augustine as a humble
suppliant, thereby showing myself conquered and ready to
submit to be gulled by him after his own fashion. I have no
objection to take what he will give ; for from whom should
I more readily accept a service than from one who is under
such obligation to me, and who owes all that he is to what
I have done for him. But I have quite made up my mind to
remain here until you have sent me some little money, so
that, when I go back to Paris, I may be at liberty either to
accept Augustine's civility, if freely and sincerely offered,
or to defy him and take my own part, if he betrays himself
in an assumed and pretended goodwill.

However happily this may turn out, still a little money
must be scraped together from somewhere, with which I
may get clothes, buy the whole w^orks of Jerome (upon
whom I am preparing commentaries), as well as Plato, pro-
cure Greek books and hire the services of a Greek teacher.
How much all these things are necessary to my glory and
even to the security of my position, I think you are aware ;
at any rate I beg you to believe it when I affirm it of my
own knowledge. It is incredible, how my heart burns to
bring all my poor lucubrations to completion, and at the
same time to attain some moderate capacity in Greek. I
should then devote myself entirely to the study of Sacred
Literature, as for some time I have longed to do. I am
now, thank Heaven, in fair health, and hope to remain
so. Therefore every nerve must be strained this year, in
order that what we are forging may come to light, and

284 Dependence on Batfs friendship

also that by our treatment of Theological subjects, we may
drive our Zoili, of whom there are so many, to hang them-
selves, as they well deserve. I have threatened long, but
either my own want of energy or my health or some unpro-
pitious fatality has stood in the way. Now at last I must
rouse my courage and put forth all my strength, and I trust
with the aid of Heaven, if I am permitted to live three years,
to overwhelm the malignity of the most envious by the lustre
of merit.

But all my destinies are in your control, and you must
therefore help my exertions with equal zeal. How many
reasons you have for doing this ! The first auspices of our
better fortune proceeded from you.f The friendship which
has long united us has been so close, that no two mortals
could be more nearly drawn together, and the immortality
of your name is so bound up with the eternity of my
writings, that if we can by our genius vindicate our books
from destruction, the memory of your untarnished friendship
will never die. * * * There is one thing, the easiest of
all, which I am much interested in asking, and that is, that
you will not believe that the facts which I write plainly to
you about my concerns are logoda&dala^ cunningly invented
to serve my convenience. For if at times we have either
amused our leisure with jesting, or thrown off some fancv
to suit an occasion, those follies, my Batt, have their
season. J Such is now the condition of my affairs, that
there is not a moment to be facetious, and no excuse for
any falsehood. So may Heaven ordain that we grow old
together in happiness and in mutual love, and that some
memory of our sincere affection may live among posterity,
as I have not put a word in this letter that is at variance
with my thoughts. Pray then, dear Batt, do not take any of
the things I write to be insincere, when they are said by me

t See pp. 89, 90. See p._299

Parcel from England 285

in more bitter earnest than either of us would wish, lest I
should plainly recall that Planus of Horace,t and with my
leg really broken be laughed at by all, and helped up by
none. If I can only convince you on this point, I am sure
vou will take care of the rest.

If my Lady has sent anything, please entrust it to a safe
courier, or to Lewis, together with the money from England.
If no safer occurs, I think the bearer may be trusted ; he has
a wife and children at Orleans, and is employed by many
people to carry their letters. If nothing has been brought
from my Lady, or if you do not find a courier to your liking,
still deliver him the English money, to take me back to
Paris, where I intend to be after Christmas ; and no stone
can be more bare than I am now.

You will perhaps ask, what my James is doing. Every-
thing, my Batt, that you are used to do, as cheerfully and
heartily as you do it yourself. His fortune, not too great,
is so willingly shared with others, that no one has more
pleasure in receiving a benefit, than he has in bestowing
one. But there are many reasons that recall me to Paris,
and I should be ashamed to burden the resources of so
attached a friend, v/hose wealth is more in expectation than
in possession, what he has being sufficient in moderation for
himself, but scarcely enough for my entertainment ; although
I think it is an event to be marked with the whitest of pearls,
that I have here lighted on a friend, not most civil, as are so
many, but most certain, as are few or none. Believe me,
he is now as fond of you as of myself.

Send what there is in the parcel % about the Rules of Letter-
writing, for I am now completing that work ; also the manu-
script of St. Augustine on parchment, and a copy of the

t Nee semel irrisus triviis attoUere curat

Fracto crure planum. Horat. Epist. i. 17, 59.
X The parcel of books and clothes, expected in March (p. 233) was now
in Batt's custody. See pp. 273, 274, note.

286 Williatn Herman learning Greek

Prayer to the Virgin Mother, for mine has been carried off
by Augustine. I expect to hear what hope there is from my
Lady, — in what favour I stand with the Provost, — what the
Abbot thinks of us, now that he is come back from his un-
friendly brother, — whether the Adages are liked, — what
news there is from England ; in fact, as Cicero says, tto-vto.
Trepl irdvTOJV.

I have written by the present messenger to Antony,
having been urged to do so by Dismas, the Abbot's brother,
for the following reasons.! * * * Please therefore, if
the occasion arises, lend your influence, that the Abbot may
take him out of that household, and entrust him to James
Tutor. You will confer a blessing on the lad, and gratify
James ; and there is no doubt that the Abbot will be very
thankful to us all for moving in the matter. You will
therefore urge Antony, to whom I have written, to give
the Abbot warning. I have changed my mind and not
written to the Abbot himself, and do not intend to do so
until I have further information by letter from you. You
will go yourself to St. Omer to become better acquainted
with the whole position.

I send you a letter that I have received from our Wil-
liam ; it will make you laugh, it is so funny and techno-
logical. Pray observe in what a roundabout way he travels,
how he turns his course, first this way and then that, until
at last, as if he were aiming at something else, he comes to
the proposal, that I should send him some copies of the
Adages at my risk, of which he is to return me faithfully the
cost-price; a clever tradesman, knowing how to make his
profit with the money and at the risk of another person!
James has sent him a present of a Greek Grammar. I am
very desirous he should taste of that branch of learning ; it
will be for you to encourage him frequently in your letters.

t See Epistle 131.

Erasmus returns to Parts 287

He is naturally wanting in energy ; then that kind of life,
no companion in his studies, no rival, no one to admire, no
one to encourage, no honour, no rewards, what man might
not be made indifferent by such surroundings ?

The work on the Rules of Letter-writing is in hand, and
if it seems fit, shall be dedicated to your Prince Adolf. We
shall also try to finish the book on Copiousness.

The courier who brings this seems to me to be a safe
person : you may therefore trust him with what you please.
If you have already sent Lewis back, write to say what you
have forwarded by him. Greet your kind friend Peter and his
excellent wife in my name, and commend me to your Adolf.
Farewell, my best and dearest Batt.

Orleans, 11 Dec. [1500], before daybreak.*

Erasmus appears to have returned to Paris a few days after the date
of this letter, and accepted the hospitality of Augustine. Probably
his return was hastened by news from the latter, who was preparing
to make one of his commercial journeys to the Low Countries or to
Germany. Compare pp. 285, 290.

Before leaving Orleans, Erasmus addressed a letter to Peter Angle-
berm, physician (probably the same person to whom he had written
Epistle 127 in the name of Augustine), thanking him for a present of
aromatic wine, and promising that on his return to Paris, which was
to take place the next day, he would give some assistance to the
studies of the doctor's son. EpiSTLE 133. Farrago, p. 138 ; Ep. vi. 7 ;
C. 86 (93). This epistle is dated in Farrago, Aureliae Anno m.d.

* AureliK. III. Idus Decembres, antelucano. Anno m.cccc.xcik. Farrago.
As to this date see an observation in p. 280.

CHAPTER XL

Erasmus in Paris, December, 1500, io May, 1501.
Epistle to the Lady of Veer, Correspondence abont
Livry, February and March, 1 501 . Edition of Cicero s
Offices, April, 1501. Epistles 134 ^ 147.

At least a week before Christmas, 1500, Erasmus was again with
Augustine in Paris. His host was preparing for his journey; and the
following letter, entrusted to his care, was addressed to a wealthy
advocate, whom Erasmus hoped to interest in his revision, already
contemplated, of the Epistles of St. Jerome, which had been so long
a favourite object of study. See Epistle 29. In Henry Noorthon, men-
tioned in Epistle 134, we may probably recognise Erasmus's old
friend, Henry, the brother of Christian. See pp. 109, 115. Greverad's
place of residence does not appear. Possibly he was a neighbour of
Henry at Lubeck. In this letter the date of month and day is omitted
in Farrago, but is added before the Postscript in Opus Epistolarum.

Epistle 134. Farrago, p. 106 ; Ep. v. 19 ; C. 66 (78).

Erasmus to Gr ever ad. Advocate.

In venturing, honoured sir, to intrude upon a stranger
with an unexpected letter, I trust you will think it right, not
so much to find fault with my importunity as to recognise
that confidence which proceeds from goodwill. And yet
how can I call you a stranger, w^hose mind, character, and
disposition have been so often described to me by Henry
Noorthon (the most trustworthy of all men living), that it
seems as if I saw your likeness in a picture before me ?

The Epistles of Jerome 289

I have long ardently wished to illustrate with a com-
mentary the Epistles of St. Jerome, and in daring to
conceive so great a design, which no one has hitherto
attempted, my heart is inflamed and directed by some divine
power.* I am moved by the piety of that holy man, of all
Christians beyond controversy the most learned and most
eloquent ; whose writings, though they deserve to be read
and learned everywhere and by all, are read by few, admir&d
by fewer still, and understood by scarcely any. Good
Heavens ! shall the names of Scotus, Albertus, and writers
still less polished be shouted in all the schools, and that
singular champion, exponent and light of our religion, who
deserves to be the one person celebrated, — shall he be the
only one of whom nothing is said ? Many readers are
repelled by that abstruse erudition by which he should be
especially recommended, and there are few to admire one
whom very few understand. But if such an author be
illustrated by adequate commentaries, it may be expected
that the glory of Jerome will shine forth with a new light.

I am not unaware of the audacity of my project, — what a
task it will be, in the first place, to clear away the errors,
which during so many ages have become established in the
text, — and in the next place what a mass there is in his
works of antiquities, of Greek literature, of History, — and
then what a style, what a mastery of language, in which he
has not only left all Christian authors far behind him, but
seems to vie with Cicero himself. For my own part, I may
be led astray by my partiality for that holy man, but when I
compare the speech of Jerome with that of Cicero, I seem
to miss something in the prince of eloquence himself.

Whatever I can supply by nightly labour and constant
study, by moderate learning and a mind not altogether dull,
shall not be wanting in the service of Jerome. But as in a

* Nescio quis deus mihi pectus accendit agitque.
VOL. I. U

290 The Wizard of Me hun

great war, auxiliary forces are required, so in this important
work I see the need of some high guidance and inspiration ;
and whom I should choose as fittest to furnish me with that,
no one can tell better than you. You have always been, as
Henry has often told me, a warm and zealous lover of our
author, and this is the great pledge, by which a mutual
alliance and friendship between us is to be initiated. Come
then, excellent sir, reach me your hand, and exalt your mind
to take part in so noble an enterprise. The Saint will himself
be present and favour the champions of his writings, which
cost him so many vigils ; and our pious labour will not be
deprived of its reward. Farewell.*

You will learn more from my messenger, Augustine
Caminad, an honoured Professor in Paris of what are called
Humane Letters ; whom you will receive in your own
fashion, as he is most worthy of your regard.

Paris, 18 Dec. [1500].! .

Erasmus had been urged by Batt to write letters to the Lady of
Veer and his other patrons to propitiate their favour, and shortly after
his return to Paris he applied himself to this irksome task. He first
wrote a long Epistle to the Abbot of St. Bertin, in which, after some
fulsome compliments, of which I have translated a few lines, he tells
a long story, which presents a curious picture of some of the super-
stitions of the time, and of the view in which Erasmus was contented
to regard them. A wizard had had among his stock in trade a
fragment of the sacred host, which had been bought from a starving
mass-priest, and which after the detection of the crime was carried in
solemn procession through the streets of Orleans, followed by all the
clergy of the city, and deposited in the Church of the Holy Cross.
This epistle, which, with the passages here omitted, is of considerable
length, was apparently the same that Erasmus had begun before he
left Orleans. See Epistle 131, Postscript. It is evident from the
apology contained in the opening words, that no other letter had been

* Parisiis xv. Calendas lanuarias. Opus Epist. Not in Farrago.
\ Luteci^e. Anno m.cccc.xcix. Farrago. Sim. Opus Epist.

The faTfiily of Bergen 291

lately sent. On the other hand the reference to Orleans in p. 292
shows that this letter is rightly dated from Paris. The part omitted
near the beginning contains two Greek proverbs, quoted in the original
language, with an apology for their intrusion, the writer having lately
become a candidate (candidatus) of that tongue.

Epistle 135. Farrago, p. 297 ; Ep. x. i ; C. 79 (91).
Erasmus to the Abbot of St. Bcrtin.

Your incredible kindness, most reverend Father, holds me
obliged by such accumulated benefits, that, if I should sell
myself for the purpose, I could not pay the principal of what
I owe. I shall be glad nevertheless to express in some
measure the strivings of my gratitude by the compliment of
a letter, that you may not have occasion to think me a good-
for-nothing person, not caring to make any effort whatever
to redeem my debt. I have been a little delayed by the
fear of interrupting with my unseasonable trifles those grave
and holy occupations, in which, I w^ell know, your lordship
is constantly engaged both at home and abroad, in public
and in private.

But when I thought of that heroic frame, of that vigorous
health, equal to any labours, and of that noble mind worthy
of the body in which it dwells, and how by a strange in-
dulgence of nature that manifold burden of affairs, by a
fraction of which any other man would be overwhelmed,
scarcely weighs at all upon you, — the same quality which, as
something hereditary in your race, 1 formerly observed and
often admired in your brother, my Maecenas, when I was in
his household ; * * *

when, I say, I thought how with that fresh felicity of
mind and body you transact the most important business
more quietly than most other men enjoy their leisure, I did
not suppose there was much reason to fear that you would

u 2

292 Philemon

take offence at being unseasonably intruded on by this letter
of mine, especially when I heard from Batt how cheerfully
you had received my former letter.

It is true that I have nothing at present to write, if it
be not that I am constantly wrestling with that deity of
Rhamnus, and that I am nevertheless so minded that, if I
connot attain to Letters, I will die, with Philemon, on my
books. I will add that there is nothing I so much desire,
as that you will give me some handle, whereby I may use
what little wit and learning I have in doing some service to
your Lordship. But for this I will myself seek an opportu-
nity. Meantime, not to cut your reading short, I will tell
you a tragic story, new indeed, but so terrible, that Medea
or Thyestes or any of the ancient tragedies might seem
a comedy compared with it.

Last year at Mehun, a little town near Orleans, a wizard
on his death-bed ordered his wife to deliver his books of
magic and other instruments of that mystery to a citizen of
Orleans, who carried his legacy to that city, and is now
likely to suffer for having been party and privy to his
wickedness. * * *

I have written to your Chaplain, Antony, about Dismas.
If my counsel prevails, I am confident, that I shall be glad
of having so advised you, and you still more glad of having
taken my advice. Farewell.

Paris, 14 Jan. 1 500-1.*

A few days later Erasmus forced himself to compose a compli-
mentary Epistle to the Princess of Veer, first writing a few lines to
Nicolas of Burgundy, Provost of Utrecht, a kinsman of her late hus-
band, who appears to have been at this time with the lady in Zeeland.

* Parisijs postridie Id. Ian. anno m.d. Farrago. Sim. Opus Epist.

The Provost of Utrecht 293

Epistle 136. Farrago, p. 108 ; Ep. v. 20 ; C. 23 (24).
Erasmus to Nicolas of Burgundy^ Provost of Utrecht.

My love for you is so great, that measured by it even a
long letter would be short indeed ; but my occupations are
so pressing as to make a short letter long. The ancients
used to call a poet or an eloquent person a swan, an allegory
not without meaning. The one was spotless in plumage,
the other candid in heart ; both were sacred to Phoebus :
both delighted in limpid streams and well-watered meadows ;
both were given to song. But nowadays, and especially in
our climate, both seem to have become mute, and even the
approach of death does not make them vocal. The reason
is, as I think physiologists would tell us, that the swan does
not sing except under the breath of Favonius ; and can we
wonder at all swans being mute, when we have so many
gales from the North and East, and no Zephyrs at all. As
for me, that British Aquilo so took my voice away when he
took my money, that a wolf, catching sight of one first, could
not have done it more effectually. But Zephyrs breathe
only on the approach of spring. Wherefore if you, kind
Provost, will be the spring to my patroness, the lady of
Veer, and she breathe on me as Favonius, I will be to both
of you so tuneful a swan, that even posterity shall hear my
singing. I need not explain the riddle, as I write to an
(Edipus, not a Davus. Do you only, as you promised, be
as good to me as another Batt, and use your influence for
a while with my lady. Farewell.

Paris, 26 Jan. [1501].*

* Datum Luteciae vii. Calend. Februarias. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Farrago
Sim. Opics Epist.

294 The four Annas

From Epistle 137, addressed ' to the most illustrious Anne of Borssele,
Princess of Veer,' the exordium, and some extracts are here given.

Epistle 137. Farrago, p. 293 ; Ep. ix. 38 ; C. 83 (92)

Erasmus to the Lady of Veer.

Three Annas have been commended to posterity by ancient
literature ; one, called Perenna, who for her signal devotion
to her sister Dido was believed by antiquity to have been
received among the gods ; another, the wife of Elkanah, for
w^hom it is praise enough, that, by the divine blessing she gave
birth in her old age, to Samuel, not to be of service to herself,
but to be a devout priest of God, and an incorruptible judge
of his people ; the third, the parent of the Virgin mother,
the grandmother of Jesus, God and man, who requires no
further eulogy. The first has been consecrated by the
Roman Muses to immortality. The second has been
extolled in the Hebrew annals. The third is worshipped
by Christian piety, and has been celebrated by the eloquent
verse of Rodolphus Agricola, and Baptista Mantuanus.
May Heaven grant such virtue to my writings, that pos-
terity, not unacquainted with your pious, chaste, and
stainless heart, may number a fourth Anna with the other
three. So shall it be, if only our feeble genius be equal
to your merit. * * *

I may venture to confess, that I am the more attracted
to you, because I see that deity of Rhamnus, whom I have
always found most unkind to me, is not altogether well
disposed to you ; for a fellowship even in misfortunes is
often a means of knitting people together. But what
comparison can be drawn between us ? Your rank is
almost placed beyond the risks of Fortune, who yet some-
times gives you a pinch ; but against me she rages with a

To every genius his Mcecenas 295

constancy, which is the one quality not like herself, as if she
had entered into a sworn conspiracy against my letters.
As I trace these lines it comes into my mind (for to whom
should I disclose my sorrows, if not to the only person
both able and willing to heal them ?) it comes into my mind,
I say, that the sun rose this morning on the anniversary of
the day when my little capital, the sustenance of my studies,
was shipwrecked on the British shore ; ever since which
time I have been involved in a chain of misfortunes without
a single break to the present day. For as soon as that
British Charybdis had restored me naked to the continent,
first a cruel storm made our joarney a most distressing one,
and then the swords of robbers threatened to cut our
throats. Then came fever, and afterwards the plague,
which however did not touch me, but only drove me away.
Add to these, the domestic cares which one's life daily
produces in abundance.

But I am ashamed, so help me Heaven, that I, a man, in
some degree fortified by the protection of learning, and
armed with the precepts of philosophy, should lose my
courage, while you, whom Nature has made a woman, and
who have been born in the highest station and brought up
in the greatest luxury, have still something to suffer, and
bear it in no womanly spirit. I should remember too, that
however Fortune may thunder against me, there is no excuse
for my abandoning Letters or allowing my heart to fail, so
long as you shine before my eyes as a Cynosure of security.
Of Letters we cannot be deprived by Fortune, and those
little means which my leisure requires, your wealth, abun-
dant as your liberality, can easily supply. The poverty of
Maro and Flaccus was relieved by the unstinted generosity
of Maecenas ; the lucubrations of Pliny were encouraged
by the favour of Vespasian. * * * In short, not to
count the sands, as the Greeks say, every genius has found
his Maecenas ; and they seem to me to have made no con-

296 The Doctor s degree

temptible return to their patrons, whose memory their
books have consecrated to eternity. For my part I would
not, in my senses, change my foster-mother for any
Maecenas or any Caesar ; and as for the return I may make,
whatever my poor genius can do shall be exerted to the
utmost, that future ages may know that there existed at this
extremity of the world one lady, by whose beneficence Good
Letters, corrupted by the ignorance of the unskilful, ruined
by the default of princes, neglected by the indifference of
mankind, were encouraged to raise their head ; who found
the learning of Erasmus, — such as it was, — deserted by
those who had made noble promises, despoiled by a tyrant,
beset by all the chances of fortune, and would not suffer it
to die of want. Proceed as you have begun, regard my
Learning as a suppliant depending upon you, and imploring
your aid, not only in the name of our various fortunes, but
also for the love of true Theology, that excellent Queen,
whom the inspired Psalmist describes, according to the
interpretation of Jerome, as standing on the King's right
hand, not mean and ragged as she is now seen in the schools
of Sophists, but in vesture of gold, wrought about with
divers colours, to whose rescue from degradation my nightly
studies are devoted.

With this object in view, I have long felt the necessity of
two things ; to visit Italy, so that my little learning may
derive an authority from the celebrity of the place, and to
take the title of Doctor. The one is as absurd as the other.
For they do not change their minds, who cross the sea, as
Horace says, nor will the shadow of a name make me a whit
more learned. But it is no use acting a good play to be
hissed by all the audience ; and we must put on the lion's
skin, to force the conviction of our competence upon the
minds of those who judge a man by a title, and not by his
books, which indeed they do not understand. With such
monsters have I to contend, and the struggle requires

Vart'otis literary works 297

another Hercules. If therefore you will arm your Erasmus
to fight against these portents with equal authority as well
as equal courage, not we only, but literature itself will owe
its very being to you. But he must be armed with the
armour of Homer's Glaucus, not what he gave, but what he
received. The meaning of this riddle may be learned from
Batt's letter, to whom I have disclosed all my circumstances,
with an effrontery contrary to my habits and character, and
to that virgin modesty which is proper to Letters ; but as it
has been said. Necessity is a hard taskmaster.

I send you herewith another Amia^ a poem, or rather
some verses I made when quite a boy, which may show you
the ardent veneration, which from my youthful days I have
cherished for that Saint. I also send some invocations, with
which, as with magic charms, not the crescent Moon, but
she who bore the Sun of Righteousness, may be called down
from Heaven. * * *

I have for some time had in hand a work upon Epistles^
and also on the Varying of Discourse^ which is destined
to aid the studies of your son Adolf; and another on
Letters^ intended to be consecrated to yourself. If these
are completed later than I have wished, you will not find
fault with my backwardness, but with my ill-fortune, or if
you like, you will attribute it to the difficulty of the work.
For to publish bad books is mere madness, and to produce
good ones is the most difficult thing in the world. Farewell,
and regard our Muses as under your special protection.

Paris, 27 January 1 500-1.*

The poem sent with the above Epistle, Rythmus lanibicus in
laudem Annae aviae lesu Christi, is printed among the hymns, C. v.
1325 ; and two prose invocations to the Virgin, entitled Psean Virgini
Matri dicendus, compositus in gratiam, Dominx Veriensis, and

* Datum Luteciae. vi. Calend. Feb. Anno m. d. Farrago. Sim. Opus Epist.

298 The brothers of Nassau frorn Breda

Ohsecratio ad Virginem Mariam in rebus adversis, are printed C. v.
1227, 1234. The work De varianda Oratione was probably the
commencement of the Copia, and that De Literis the unfinished
Antibarbarians. See pp. 100, 262.

Epistle 138^ Farrago, p. 266; Ep. ix. 16; C. 23 (25) bears the
same date of the month as the last,t and is addressed by Erasmus to
Antony of Lutzenburg. After a strong profession of affection, it
repeats in other words what had been said in Epistle 131 about the
character of Dismas and the expediency of removing him to the house of
James Tutor, with whom the writer had himself been staying for three
months, and who had a parental regard for Dismas, having known him
before at Louvain. The inmates of his house were young gentlemen,
including two brothers from Breda, named De Nassauven, of high
character, whose affection for each other was extraordinary ; the
younger had already some ecclesiastical preferment at Breda. In
these brothers we may recognize Henry and William, sons of John of
Nassau, lord of Breda, the younger of whom was father of William
the Silent, and ancestor in the fourth generation of King William III.
The ages of these boys in January, 1500, was seventeen and fifteen
years.

Epistle 139 is an answer to a letter of Batt, received by the hands
of Lewis. In the Farrago and in the later collections it has the date,
Aureliae, Anno M.D., but it is evident from its contents, p. 299 (in
which the writer refers to his ' letters from Orleans ' and to his own
letter to the Lady), that it was written at Paris, and after Epistle 137.
The subject of epistolary fictions has been mentioned before. See
pp. 236, 284.

Epistle 139. Farrago, p. 237 ; Ep. viii. 48 (i) ; C. 86 (94).

Erasmus to Batt.

I am at a loss to understand why you suspect me of
playing the iogodsedalus in my letters to you, that is. of

t Luteciae, Sexto Calendas Februarias. Farrago. Lutetise sexto Calend.
Februarias. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo octavo. Opus Epist.

Fictitious Epistles 299

being uncandid and insincere. Pray, dearest Batt, fix this
once for all in your mind, that I hate hypocrisy more than
anything, and in any commerce with friends neither use
fiction myself nor am pleased with it in others. I did write
to you from England, to fetch me away by a make-believe
letter ; but that trick was aimed at the Englishman, not at
you, for you were not taken in by it. Again, as to the letter
which I afterwards sent about my intentions, may I die, if it
was not written sincerely ; and that of yours, which, as you
confessed to me, when I came back, had been concocted as
an answer to my supposed fiction, I took to be perfectly
genuine. And now it is plain that you suppose the letters
which I wrote from Orleans about my poverty are equally
fictitious, as otherwise you would not have sent Lewis back,
freighted with three nobles. If, when I so write, I am
thought to be playing the fool, I see no reason why I should
write to vou at all.

But I will say no more of this. As I do not doubt that
you do whatever you do with the kindest intentions, I
entreat you to employ your whole kind self for my advance-
ment. Depend upon it you will succeed, if you only make
up your mind it must be so. Send Lewis at once to my
lady, and if convenient go yourself to help our letter with
your advocacy. Stir up Adolf to implore his mother by all
the sacredness of his first prayers. But take care he does
not sue for any trifle ; for by the same means we might
obtain something really considerable.

If you are heartily interested in my fortune, this is what
you must do. You will make a fair excuse to my Lady,
that I cannot for very shame expose my own destitution
before her, but that I am now in the deepest poverty, this
flight to Orleans having been a great expense, as I had to
leave behind some sources of income ; that a Doctor's
degree cannot be so properly taken as in Italy ; that Italy
cannot be visited by so delicate a man without a considerable

300 Church preferment

sum of money, especially as my reputation, whatever it be
worth, as a man of learning, forbids my living in an altogether
mean fashion. You will point out how much more credit I
shall do her by my learning than the other divines whom she
maintains. They preach obscure sermons ; I write what
will live for ever ; they, with their ignorant rubbish, are
heard in one or two churches ; my books will be read in
every country in -the world ; such unlearned divines abound
everywhere, men like me are scarcely found in many
centuries, unless perhaps you are too scrupulous to tell a
few fibs for a friend. You will then point out, that she will
be none the poorer, if while so much of her wealth is shame-
fully thrown away, she devotes a few crowns to the restora-
tion of the works of St. Jerome and the revival of true
Theology. When you have expended your eloquence on
these subjects, and have enlarged on my character, my
aspirations, my attachment to her, and my natural reserve,
you will then add, that I have written to you, that I
could not do with less than two hundred francs, so that the
next year's pension would have to be paid in advance.
This, dear Batt, is no pretence, for I do not think it safe
to go to Italy with a sum of one hundred francs, and that
not entire, unless I am to put myself again into service ;
and before doing that, I would rather die. Then press her
to provide me on my return with some preferment, upon
which I may devote myself in quiet to literature. Of course
I am aware that there are many applicants for livings, but
you can say that I am the one person, whom if she com-
pares me with the rest, etc. etc. You know your old way
of lying profusely in praise of your Erasmus.

You will get your Adolf to write to the same effect, and
will dictate to him the most touching supplications ; and
will not forget to obtain a confirmation of the promise of a
hundred francs, in which perhaps the young lord may be
associated, so that if any chance should remove the mother,

Literary activity 301

which God forbid, I may receive the same support from the
son. Yon will add finally, that I have made the same com-
plaint in my letter that St. Jerome makes more than once,
that I am losing my eyesight by reading, and that it looks
as if I should, like that saint, begin to be dependent for my
studies upon my other senses ; upon which you may sug-
gest in the most sprightly terms, that she should send me
some sapphire, or other gem that has the power of strength-
ening the eyesight. What gems have that virtue I could
tell you, if I had Pliny here, but that you can fish out from
the Doctor.

All this, my dear James, does not seem to me too formid-
able, if you can only determine that it must be so ; and the
present moment appears to be precisely that time that should
be seized by the forelock, when so fair a handle presents itself.
You think perhaps that I am sufficiently provided for, if
I am not reduced to beggary. I on the other hand am
disposed to throw up my studies altogether, if I cannot
obtain that which literature requires ; and that is a life not
altogether sordid and miserable. And yet how near we
were to beggary, nay, how near we still are, without a sou
in our purse, I am ashamed to say. Only look round and see
what asses, with really no letters at all, are rolling in wealth,
and does it seem much, that Erasmus should not starve ?
Besides, what is to happen if illness comes on (and indeed I
have a fever that recurs almost every year), what, if other
disasters, that man's life is subject to, as you have yourself
experienced ?

I am surprised at your calling out about my sending
nothing ; as if I should hide it away if I had anything to
send, or as if I were going to sleep, so as to need some one
to keep me moving ! Believe me there is no standing still
here, scarcely any regard even for my health, while I am
helping my friends, composing for some, reading with
others, correcting for others ; while for myself I read,

302 Ambition of Erasmus

collect, emend, compose, and am busy with the very hardest
Greek. And then you, measuring our leisure by your own,
cry out, 'write me this book,' 'write me six hundred
letters,' as if we had a head of adamant ! I suppose all this
seems easy enough to you, who have never had any practice
in this school. Just try yourself what it is to write a book,
and then, if you are disposed to do so, find fault with my
slowness.

You put into your letter some remarks, which you think
facetious, but which I think insulting, or at any rate un-
seasonable. Pray, my dearest Batt, let us abstain from these
jests, which savour of Momus and not of wit ; or if we some-
times indulge in refined pleasantry, let us so use it as not on
either side to neglect business, until time permits ; and let no
shade be thrown over our affection by any unseasonable trifling.
For my part, my whole soul is bent on acquiring the most
perfect learning, and hence I have a supreme disregard for
learning of a trivial kind. For I have long been sensible of
the madness that prevails in the world. But my books will
not take wings all at once. I had rather wait long for a
solid reputation, than acquire, at an early age, one not likely
to last, — a thing which has happened to many an author.
Wherefore I pray you, let me dispose of this matter after
my own judgment. There shall be no want of industry or
courage on my part. Let it be your care, that I be not
altogether destitute of fortune. From great people you
should not ask for any paltry favour ; and for the sake of a
friend no attempt is discreditable. Trust me, if you handle
the matter cleverly, all will go well. If you really despair,
do not feed me with empty hope, but let me look round for
other prospects. All this, dear Batt, you will I hope take in
good part, and not think me hard, but only plainspoken. In
a serious matter I am obliged to speak seriously.

You have now to learn, what I want you to undertake
besides ; and that is to extort some present from the Abbot.

Books to be sent to Holland 303

You know the man's way of feeling, and must contrive some
modest and plausible reason for asking. Say I have a great
work in view, to restore the whole of Jerome, and for this
purpose I want a small supply of books, and also the assist-
ance of Greek scholars, towards which he may contribute
some help. In all this you will tell no lie, for I am indeed
preparing to do all I have said.

If you obtain a large sum from my lady, as I trust you
will, send Lewis at once to us. If she gives only ten or
twelve Crowns,* or nothing at all, Lewis need not come, but
whatever there is may be forwarded by John, unless the boy
offers himself for the journey. Lewis knows on w^hat day
John is to be in Zeeland.

About the coat, as to which you write too reproachfully,
do w^hat you think right.f Still, it seems absurd to me to
maintain the boy, and not to clothe him. I do not like to
go begging to my lady for such trifling matters, but, as I
said before, do as you please. If you do not receive from
the Lady as much as you want, still contrive that at least
some Crowns % may be forwarded with your money. A great
penury of books : leisure none : health infirm. Go and try
yourself to write books in such circumstances !

I see that it is not quite certain about John courier, so
that you had better settle for yourself whether you wish
Lewis to come here ; only do not send him with one noble
or two. Lose no time, my dear Batt.

Augustine's books you will send by Lewis to Veer to that
good friend of ours, Thomas ; but the boy may sell any he
can on the way. The remainder Thomas is to forward by
some trusty shipper to N. at Gouda, who is to distribute
some of them there, and send some on to Haarlem for
William to distribute ; and I will write by courier.

Farewell, best and and dearest Batt ; put your whole self

* scutatos. t See p. 307. J scutati.

304 Unwelcome letter from Batt

into this business, — I mean Batt the friend, and not Batt the
dawdler.

[Paris, January, 1501.]*

There can be little doubt, that Augustine's books, which were to be
sent to Zeeland and Holland, were copies of the Adages, which had
been forwarded by Augustine to Artois. See Epistles 163, 168.

Epistle 139 was to have been conveyed to Batt by Lewis on his
return to Tournehem, together with the several letters addressed
to friends and patrons (Epistles 136, 137, 138) which Erasmus had
been writing by Batt's suggestion. But before Lewis's departure,
another messenger arrived at Paris, bringing a fresh letter from Batt,
by which Erasmus was much annoyed. James Tutor, who had been
Erasmus's host at Orleans, was fortunately now with him as a visitor
at Paris, and able to assist in soothing his irritation.

Epistle 140. Farrago, p. 241 ; Ep. viii. 48 (2) ; C 46 (52).

Erasmus to Batt.

That droll has delivered me your second letter, which is
no less absurd and insulting than the former one. Unless I
am much mistaken, some evil genius, angry at finding friends
so attached to one another, is plotting to break off our
loving union. It shall certainly never happen by mv fault ;
pray see that it does not by yours. In the first place, what
was the use of Lewis running back hither, as if there were a
thousand nobles to send, and not merely eight francs ?f
Could not that little sum have been sent by some one else ?
And then, when you did send, why out of so small an
amount think it right to detain anything ? Were vou afraid

* Aurelias. Anno m.d. Farrago. Sim. Opus. Epist. See the observation
upon this date, p. 298.

t See p. 307. Eight francs of French money were then nearly worth three
nobles or one English pound, equal in purchasing power to about ^\2 of
modern money.

Gnathonisms for pair 071S 305

that if I was in cash, I should forget my duty ? Or were one
or two pieces to be reserved as a reason for sending another
embassy ? For as to your difficulty about the letter,* trust
me the whole business might have been completed just as
easily without this letter, if your courage had not failed.
Besides, you might have asked for this very letter by the
other messenger; and you will never understand what incon-
venience is caused by this running backwards and forwards.

There are three or four months out of the solid year that
the fever leaves me for study ; and therefore I must put
my heart into my work. I have been extending, or rather
recasting, the book on Letter-writing^ which I formerly
planned ; and I find I have set myself a heavy and laborious
task; and meantime this fellow comes in with vour lettersf full
of reproaches, and with even the small sum of money docked !
This so disturbed me, that I was on the point of throwing
away what I had in hand, and intending to send the lad back
without any letters, if James Tutor had not with a great deal
of persuasion induced me to change my purpose. But may
I die if I ever in my life wrote anything with so much
repugnance, as the nonsense, or rather Gnathonisms, which I
have written for the Lady, the Provost and the Abbot. I
dare say you will fall foul of my * moroseness.' You do not
understand that there is no severer fatigue than that of a
mind wearied with writing, nor consider that in this place I
ought to satisfy those whose favours I am actually enjoying.
A year has gone by since the money was promised, and
meantime your letters bring me nothing but empty hope.
" Do not despair, I will diligently attend to your interests,"
and such phrases, of which I am sick, have been dinned
over and over again into my ears. And now at last you
deplore the condition of my lady's fortune ! You seem to

* The letter which Batt had asked Erasmus to write to the Lady.
t Cum tuis epistolis. See the first paragraph.
VOL. I. X

3o6 A rival suitor to the Lady

me to be sick with another person's disease. She plays the
fool with her N. and you make a face. She has nothing
forsooth to give ! One thing I plainly see, — if she gives
nothing for these reasons, she will never give anything at
all ; for great people are never without such excuses as
those. How little will it matter, in the countless number of
expenses that are merely thrown away, if she gives me two
hundred francs ? She has means to keep those cowled
libertines and good for nothing scoundrels, — you know whom
I mean, — and not means to maintain the leisure of one who
can write books which even posterity may value, if I may
speak somewhat boastfully of myself. She has fallen, I fear,
into some straits. It is her own fault, as she has chosen to
associate with that insignificant coxcomb, rather than wath a
grave and serious companion suitable to her sex and age.
But what, I beseech you, does it matter to her fortune, if I
receive two hundred francs, which she would not remember
seven hours after they are given ?

The gist of the matter is this, to obtain the money, either
in cash, or so that I may receive it through a banker here at
Paris. You have now written her several letters about it,
all containing messages, hints, and suggestions. What can
be more useless ? You ought to have waited, if not for the
best, at any rate for some fair opportunity, and then having
set about the thing discreetly, you should have carried it
out in a resolute way. This is what even at this late hour
must be done. I am sure you will get the matter through,
if you attempt it courageously. You may be a little more
bold in the cause of a friend without compromising my
modesty. How much is to be told to N. you will determine
yourself. But before you go or send, let me have the re-
maining gold pieces by some safe messenger,* and if I may

* The remaining words of this sentence down to the word ' money ' are
from Farrago, p. 242, having been omitted in the later text.

A?igels and nobles 2>^7

ask it, to save me from want, four or five of yours, which you
will recover out of the lady's money. Only look how that
little sum has melted away. I received eight francs, for that
is what I got in exchange for the nobles ; and out of those
the boy has taken off two or not much less, not to mention
his board. You say you have two angels * left, and out of
these the messenger who brings them must be allowed
something.

That John, whom you sent to England, has run away, and
if I am not mistaken, has played the thief. Augustine is
gone to Orleans on horseback after him. I see, we shall
have everything upset here. Lewis will tell you the rest.
Farewell, my dear Batt, and take in good part what I have
written, not from excitement or panic, but most plainly, as to
the best of friends.

You will treat the boy Lewis, f not as you might that patch
Adrian, who could take no harm, but as one gifted with
superior intelligence, and likely to be of much use to you in
many ways. He will relieve your solitude, and you will
have a person to read to, to chat with about Letters, and
with whom, in fine, you may keep yourself in practice.
Therefore, about the coat, — though I do not contest the
matter, still, if you do give it him, it will be very acceptable
and not unfair. Farewell.

Paris, 27 Jan. [i50i].J

* Angelotos. Farrago. Angelatos. Opt(s. Epist. Two lines above, and
also in pp. 299, 304, the word nobiles is used in Farrago, for which the
later text substitutes angels {angelati). Both were English gold coins, and
the angels perhaps better known on the Continent. Three angels (or ' angel-
nobles ') were equal to two 'rose-nobles' {Fa;dera, ix. 115). Erasmus had
probably exchanged three nobles, which were worth eight francs or a little
more. See p. 304.

t See pp. 273, 303.

X Luteci^, sexto Calendas Februarias. Anno m.cccc.xcix. Farrago.

X 2

3o8 Comments on the last epistle

The above letter was published in the lifetime of the author, and it
may be presumed with his sanction. I translate the following obser-
vation from one of the most sympathetic of Erasmus's biographers.
''One blushes to find in the correspondence of Erasmus a letter so
bitter and insulting to the lady whom he calls his benefactress, giving
the lie in so revolting a manner to the adulations which preceded it,
and breathing the most greedy rapacity. It may be explained but
cannot be excused, by the irritability of his character." Durand de
Laur, Erasme, i. 65, 66. I will only remark upon the above, that
Erasmus had established in his own mind, respecting Dedications,
Panegyrics and similar writings a standard of truth as high and no
higher than that usually recognized. See Epistle 177. What offends
my sense of kindness and good breeding in the above letter, is not so
much the want of politeness to the Lady, as to whom a little plain
speaking to his friend in confidence was no doubt a great relief after
the professional ' gnathonisms ' of Epistle 137, but the want of con-
sideration for his correspondent, to whose devotion he was so deeply
indebted. Bayle, in his Dictionary, has drawn the character of Anna
Borsala from Epistle 137, without attending to what is said in this
more candid letter. It appears that she had a suitor, whose rank was
not equal to hers, probably Lewis, Viscount of Montfort, to whom she
was afterwards married. Pere Anselme, Hist. Geneal. vol. i. p. 255.

In Epistles 141 and 142 our attention is turned, from Erasmus's
literary ambitions and pecuniary exigencies, to an effort which was
being made to revive the old self-denying monastic spirit, in the age
which preceded the Reformation. It is a surprise to find Erasmus asso-
ciated in this movement with the strictest members of his own Order,
instead of being spied upon, as he anticipated, by Standonk and his
companion from Mechlin. He had been tempted to answer his patron's
distrust by some astounding feat (p. 273), but in conciliating Standonk
he had chosen a more prudent course. John Mauburn, a native of
Brussels, who had been in his boyhood, a few years before Erasmus, a
chorister at Utrecht, and was afterwards a member of the Augustinian
Abbey of Windesheim, renowned for the excellence of its discipline,
was author of the book entitled Rosetu7n Sptrituale, printed at Basel
in 149 1 and 1494, which is said to contain some quotations from the
Imitatio Christ i, there for the first time attributed to Kempis {Nouv.
Biogr. Univ.). Having become known as an advocate of monastic

'^ohn Mauhurn 309

obedience, he was encouraged by Standonk and others to undertake
the reformation of some of the French monasteries of his Order. He
was first invited to the Abbey of St. Severin, in the diocese of Sens,
where he was Prior in or about 1497 {Go,llia Christiana, vii. 103).
His attention was afterwards directed to the Abbey of Livry in the lie
de France, some ten miles from Paris (known at a later time as the
place of education of Mad. de Sevigne), which had fallen into decay,
and of which Nicolas de Hacqueville, first president of the Parliament
of Paris, was willing to become a second founder. For the purpose
of this reformation Hacqueville procured his own appointment, 10 Feb.
1500, as Abbot in cojumendam, an office which he not long after
resigned to make room for Mauburn, who by way of preparation for
the Abbacy had been nominated 23 Nov. 1500, Prior of Clichy, a
dependency of Livry. The new Abbot in the following year imported
from the monastery of St. Severin several young monks, who had
been educated at the College of Montaigu under the austere discipline
of Standonk. Mauburn did not long live to govern his restored
foundation, but died early in 1502. Gallia Christiana, vii. 835-838.

As an Augustinian friar, and a friend of Standonk, combining with
religious zeal a taste for literature, the name of Mauburn was doubt-
less well known to Erasmus, though they do not seem as yet to have
encountered in person. Epistle 141 is dated Pridie nonas Februarias,
without year ; but assuming the correctness of the facts above stated,
and having regard to the circumstances of Erasmus's life, we cannot
ascribe it to any other, year than 1501. For his engagements in the
early days of Feb. 1499 and 1500, see pp. 183, 231. It may be
observed that in his first letter he hesitates between the titles of Prior
and Abbot.

Epistle 141. Gallia Christiana, vol. vii. App. p. 281.

Erasmus to J^ohn Mauburn.

Dear friend and sweetest brother, for it is by these titles
that I am pleased to address you. having regard not to your
rank, but to my affection. 1 respect in you both your
ability and your stainless life, but your accomplishments and
our common studies lead me to embrace you with greater
pleasure. Those excite my admiration, these my love. I

3IO Printed poems of Erasmus

am not now writing to the Abbot, or the Prior, but chatting
famiHarly with a friend. It has been indeed a pleasure to me
to be called upon to write to you, and I feel sorry, I might
say angry, that my circumstances do not respond to my incli-
nation. I am just recovering from sickness, my health not
yet re-established, and as busy as I have ever been in my
life. If it were otherwise, I should overwhelm you with so
many long epistles, that you would soon have had enough,
even if you are as much a glutton of letters as myself, to
whom those of my familiars always seem short.

I have sent you both my own trifles, printed more than a
year ago, and William's poems,f in which you will find some
errors ; it so happened that, on each occasion of printing, I
was out of health and unable to correct the press; but you
will easily see where this is required.

Boschius the Carmelite has mentioned you in his letters to
me, and enquired where you were and what doing; I have
written about every thing. I should be glad if you were
nearer, and I more free ; I should then come or write to
you every day, and you would be to me another William, a
second half of my soul. For though there has been no
intercourse between us, I feel somehow drawn closely to
you. My natural character disposes me to friendships of
every kind, but the votaries of good letters have such a special
attraction for me, that I love even those that are my rivals.
In your case I may also take account of our common Order,
and our common habit, and of characters, if I guess right,
not altogether unlike, except that you are a braver and
better man. I am not surprised at your regretting your
banishment, but in so sacred a cause I exhort you to take
courage, and augur that your labours will produce a harvest
of infinite good. It was delightful to live in literary ease,
but as you have entered on the path of Hercules, you must

t See pp. ii8, 198.

Reforms ai Livry 311

assume the spirit of Hercules * * * But I am
called off from my writing. Farewell and remember me in
your prayers.

Paris, 4 February, [1501].

Another short letter shows Erasmus himself busy, with the President
de Hacqueville and his old Principal, Standonk, in the concerns of
Livry. He was so interested in the work of his friends, that he pro-
posed to commemorate their pious zeal by some literary monument.

Epistle 142 is without any date of time.

Epistle 142. Gallia Christiana, vol. vii. App. p. 281.

Erasmus to y-ohn Maiibiirn.

We received your letter, excellent Father, written some
time ago ; but before its arrival your Peter, the bearer of
this, had already called upon us, and brought us news of all
your doings. We have presented to the Lord President de
Hacqueville, in the presence of my lord of Emery, the
Consultation entrusted to us ; which they received with
much pleasure, together with the presents from your Chapter,
rejoicing much when I told them what had been done, and
was being done among you. * * * We have expected
and are still expecting your reverend Father in Christ, and
will take the greatest pains to see that no advice or exhorta-
tion shall be wanting on the part of your friends. You must
not be impatient at the slow progress of the whole affair, as
it is difficult to overcome long established abuses. But He
that has given by His grace to begin, will also give to finish.
Therefore, most worthy Prior, do not cease to exhort your
soldiers not to be cast down ; so shall God out of tribulation
bring advantage, Goliath shall not prevail against Israel, and
the Philistines shall be utterly routed. We humbly and
devoutly implore your prayers. Farewell, Father, with all
your flock. It cannot be expressed how those beginnings
of yours please me ; and I have a mind, when any leisure is

3 1 2 Hermony^mis of Sparta

given me, to celebrate your noble work by some literary
monument.

I am sending the emended impression of the Histories.
Pray remember me in your prayers. Farewell, excellent
father, and love your loving Erasmus.

Paris [1501].

The emended Histories forwarded to Livry were probably the new
edition of Gaguin's work, published at Paris in January, 1501. Some
passages in the part of the letter devoted to the business of Livry are
not easy of explanation, but it may be noted that there was a certain
right reverend Father, Charles de Hautbois, Archbishop of Tarsus,
Abbot designate of Livry in 1498, to whom Mauburn addressed a
letter from the convent (printed before those of Erasmus in Gallia
Christiana, vol. vii. App. p. 280), pointing out that the net income of
the Abbey was not worth a farthing, and begging the Archbishop to
retire in favour of the President.

The Abbot of St. Bertin appears to have enquired, perhaps through
his chaplain, Antony Lutzenburg, for the sequel of the story of the
Orleans sorcerer. In Epistle 143 Erasmus endeavours to interest the
Abbot in his Greek studies. The Greek teacher, whom he mentions,
was Georgius Hermonymus of Sparta, of whom he says in the Cata-
logue of Lucubrations, that he could not have taught, if he had wished
to do so, and did not care to teach, if he had been able ; adding that
he himself was compelled to be his own Greek master [Catal. Lucub.
C. i. Praef ; Jortin, ii. 419, 420). Bude employed the same preceptor,
and had the same experience.

Epistle 143. Farrago, p. 264 ; Ep. ix. 15 ; 63 (75).

Erasmus to Antony^ Abbot of St. Bertin.

Mv letters, kind Father, must recall to vour mind the ass
of -^sop ; for after having so often experienced vour good
nature, they have attained so much confidence that they
venture to come to your lordship in dishabille, whereas
before they shrank from doing so however carefullv attired.

Greek studies 3 1 3

I should be sorry, however, that you should attribute this
neglect to carelessness, and not rather to the literary labours
which always occupy me as far as my health admits, and
which worry me now without any regard to health at all.
For I have by a lucky chance got some Greek works, which
I am stealthily transcribing night and day. It may be asked
why I am so pleased with the example of Cato the Censor,
as to be learning Greek at my age. I answer, Reverend
Father, that if I had had this mind when a boy, or rather if
the times had been more favourable to me, I should have
been the happiest man in the world. As it is, I am deter-
mined that it is better to learn late than to be without the
knowledge which it is of the utmost importance to possess.
We had a taste of this learning a long time ago, but it was
only with the tip of the tongue, as they say ; and having
lately dipped deeper into it, we see, what we have often
read in the most weighty authors, that Latin erudition,
however ample, is crippled and imperfect without Greek.
We have in Latin at best some small streams and turbid
pools, while they have the clearest springs and rivers flowing
with gold. I see it is the merest madness to touch with the
little finger that principal part of theology, which treats of
the divine mysteries, withaut being furnished with the appa-
ratus of Greek, when those who have translated the sacred
books have in their scrupulous interpretation so rendered
the Greek phrases that not even that primary meaning which
our theologians call ' Hteral ' can be perceived by those
who are not Greek scholars. * * *

But what need is there of citine: some few and trifling
instances out of the multitude of important passages that
might be mentioned, when I have on my side the sacred
authority of the Pontifical council, whose decree is extant
in the Decretal Epistles, to the eff'ect that there should be
provided in the chief Academies (as they were then) persons
capable of teaching perfectly the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin

3 1 4 Projected edition of jf-erome

languages, inasmuch as they held that without this know-
ledge sacred literature could not be apprehended, still less
discussed. This most wholesome and holy law is now so
disregarded that we are satisfied with the merest rudiments
of Latin, being persuaded, I suppose, that all theology may
be got out of Scotus, as a sort of cornucopia. With this
kind of men I do not contend. Every one may please him-
self for me. Ducat Cascus Cascam.* For my own part, I
choose to follow the path to which St. Jerome, with the
noble band of so many ancient Fathers, invites us. I had
rather, so help me Heaven, lose my senses with them, than
be as wise as you please with the herd of neoteric divines !
Besides, I am going to attempt an arduous and so to say
Phaethontean feat, and that is to restore the books of
Jerome, and to illustrate them with a commentary. Having set
my mind on this, and seeing the necessity of completing my
Greek studies, I determined to employ for several months a
Greek teacher ; and a thorough Greek he is, always hungry,
and charging an exorbitant price for his lessons.

I have nothing to write about the sorceries, except what
I hear from James Tutor, that the man has been condemned
to perpetual imprisonment upon bread and water, the wife
to three months' imprisonment, and that the daughter is
sent to a convent, a happy lot if she adopts it willingly, if
not, a harder sentence than that of either of her parents ;
the books, sword, and other memorials of sorcery are to be
burnt. But I conjecture that there has been no punishment
by the civil tribunal, since the whole inquisition in cases of
sorcery proceeds from the ecclesiastical judge. James tells me
he could learn no other particulars from the official. Farewell.

[Paris, 1 6 March, I50i.]f

* Cascus Cascam ducit, similis similem delectat. Adagia, Chil, I., Cent. 2.,
Prov. 62.

•j- No date in Farrago. Aureliae. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo nona-
gesimonono. Opus Epist.

A complimentary letter 315

The contents of the above Epistle enable us to correct without diffi-
culty the date of place and year. As to the date of the day, it is
assumed to be the unceremonious letter, mentioned in Epistle 144,
which was probably sent with it to St. Omer. See the apology at its
commencement, and compare the exordium of Epistle 135.

Epistle 144. Farrago, p. 268 ; Ep. ix. 17 ; C. 25 (27).

Erasmus to Antony Lutzenhiirg,

Hitherto, my dearest Antony, I have loved you as the
kindest of men, and as one to whom I was infinitely obliged.
Now I take you to my heart as a man of learning as well,
having only just discovered this by your letter. Pray do
not think I am flattering you. I have been more than
commonly pleased with that simple and natural style of
yours, the words not far-fetched but sticking close to the
meaning, the sense sound and solid, nothing in the words
or ideas either extravagant, distorted or forced, nothing in
* fine either defective or redundant.

As to Dismas, — there is an ancient adage to be found in
Varro and Gellius, Bad counsel is the worst thing for the
counsellor. But I am confident that in this case the best of
counsel will bring joy to us all. You will excuse me with
the Abbot for writing to him so unceremoniously. Urge
Batt to be his very self: there will never be more occasion
for his friendship. Farewell, my dear Antony.
Paris, 16 March [1501].*

The praise of Antony's style may remind the reader of the compli-
ments addressed to Colet (p. 208).

* Lutecise. xvii. Calend. Apriles. Farrago. Anno millesimo quadringente-
simo nonagesimooctavo. add. Opus. Epist.

31 6 Sickness of Batt

The attentions paid to the Abbot and his chaplain were not entirely
thrown away. The following letter probably belongs to this time.

Epistle 14s. Farrago^ p. 268; Ep. ix. 18; C. 79 (89).
Erasmus to Antony Lntzenhiirg.

1 have received at the same time the Abbot's present, and
a small sum of money sent by Batt. If I return thanks
somewhat hurriedly at this time, do not suppose it is because
I am not pleased with the present, but I have some business
to attend to, and my health is much shaken. I hope how-
ever to express before long, how much I am obliged both
to you and to the Abbot for this appreciation of my merits,
which are none at all. Farewell. You will continue, dear
Antonv, to be like vourself.

[Paris, 1501].*

Erasmus did not think fit to publish any of Batt's letters. See p. 230.
Probably their Latinity was imperfect. It would be interesting to see
the letter, in answer to which Erasmus wrote the following affectionate
lines. It evidently expressed the misgivings of a devoted friend, anxious
not so much on his own account as on that of Erasmus. The lady of
Veer had, we may presume, married her lover. See pp. 306, 308.

Epistle 146. Farrago, p. 268 ; Ep. ix. 19 ; C. 25 (28).

Erasmus to Batt.

I do hope there is a mistake about your illness ; though I
am in some fear, such is the fate of mortals. There is no
reason, my dear soul, why you should torment yourself on
mv account. Our affection did not spring from motives of

* No date in Farrago. Anno millesimo quadringente.simonono. Opus
Epist.

Anna Borsala^ a very woman 317

interest, and will not disappear with their absence. And
that which chance brings us without any fault of our own,
must be patiently, or rather bravely, borne. If Heaven will
only grant me good health, I will fight my way through the
rest myself, but my health is now very tottering.

I cannot understand how it is that she, who once told me
she would not be a woman, is now more than a woman.
But necessity is a hard master ; we must therefore say
nothing, and bide our time.

1 had alwavs an uneasy feeling about the Lord Provost,*
but this will be seen by the event. I give up complaining
of my fortune, my dear Batt, now that I have given up
hope. I am only ashamed that the matter has become
known so widely, and given rise, I fancy, to a great deal of
jealousy. Do pray, my dear soul, get well, and look as soon
as you can to your own interests, for you see what tides
there are in these court aflfairs.

I have written some notes on Cicero's Offices, w^hich will
soon be published. I did intend to dedicate them to Adolf,
but see no occasion to do so. Tell Lewis from me, that I
shall be much obliged if he will copy for me carefully any
Epistles you have. Farewell, my best and dearest Batt.

Paris, 5 April, [1501].!

We infer from the above Epistle, that when it was written, Erasmus's
first edition of the de Officiis was in the press at Paris. Epistle 147,
which might seem to have been its Dedicatory Preface, is found printed
in the Basel edition of 1520, together with a later dedication to the
same friend, dated 20 Sept., 1519. Ep. xxviii. 17; C. 496 (457). The
earlier dedication, not being easily accessible, is reprinted in our
Appendix. After an exordium in which the writer declares that he
wishes to leave behind him an eternal monument of his friendship
with Tutor, he continues as follows.

* De D. P. See p. 328.

t T.uteci?e. Nonis Aorilibus. Farrago. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo
nonagesimooctavo. add. Opus Epist.

3i8 Edition of Cicero s Offices

Epistle 147. Cicero de Officiis, ed. 1520 ; Appendix ii.
Erasmus to J-aines Tutor.

Among things human either nothing is lasting, or Letters
are. Consequently in my late walks, which I used to take
after meals on account of the delicacy of my health, — as you
are aware, having been almost the only companion of my
strolls, — we read over those three really golden books of
Tully's Offices, I cannot say whether with more delight or
with more profit. And whereas Pliny the Younger declares
that they ought never to be out of the reader's hands, we have
reduced the size of the volume, so that it may be constantly
carried about as a Manual. Instead of the lengthy comments
of Peter Marsus, we have added a great number of short
annotations, and substituted fuller headings for the old titles
by which the work was cut up rather than divided. The
labour of correcting the text has also been considerable ;
and I can now assure the reader that no copy comes nearer
to the original than ours. * *

Paris, 28 April, [1501].*

If we assume that the first edition of the de Officiis by Erasmus had
Epistle 147 for a Preface, no copy of that edition appears to have sur-
vived. But two copies of a small 8vo edition without date or Preface,
entitled Officia Ciceronis solertissima cura Herasmi Roterdaini, are
preserved, one in the Library of Beatus Rhenanus at Schlettstadt and
the other at Wolfenbiittel. Peter Marsus was one of the learned
Italians of the old school, to whom Erasmus was afterwards introduced
at Rome. C. 788 D.

* Luteciae quarto Calendas Maias. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Cicero De Officiis,
1520. The year-date here, as often in the collections of letters, was evidently
added afterwards, when the epistle was printed in 1520. Erasmus's intimacy

with Tutor began about August, 1500. See p. 269.

CHAPTER XII.

journey to Holland^ and residetice in Artois, May, 1501,
to jf^uly, 1502. The Enchiridion Militis Christiani.
Death of Batt. Epistles 148 to 167.

We have seen by the last two letters, that Erasmus's health was
beginning to fail, as it usually did in Paris during the spring, at which
season some return of plague might generally be expected. When
the summer was near, and the mortality increasing, — Augustine,
at whose apartment he was living, being still absent, — Erasmus
resolved to depart without awaiting his return. He left Paris about
the beginning of May, and travelled first to Brussels, where he stayed
with the Bishop of Cambrai's Vicar-General, who had been his host
three years before. Before proceeding to Holland he had an interview
with the Bishop himself (p. 324) ; but it does not appear from the letters
whether his old patron w^as at Brussels when Erasmus was there. He
may possibly have gone to wait upon him at Bergen, which was easily
reached by boat from Antwerp, at which city he visited the family of
his friend James Tutor; and it was probably in this part of his
journey that he made the excursion to Veer mentioned more than
once in his letters (see Epistles 152, 153), though he was afterwards in
Zeeland for another reason. When at Veer, he found his patroness
living under surveillance in her own castle, upon suspicion of com-
plicity with the Provost of Utrecht, who had been arrested on some
political charge.

Erasmus spent several weeks in Holland, probably staying some
days at Stein, his last sojourn in that place, and extended his journey
as far as Haarlem for the purpose of seeing his old friend William
Herman, who was now stationed there. Returning to Dordrecht, which
he left on the 9th of June, he went by barge to Zierikzee in Zeeland
on account of the illness of his young servant, whose mother lived
there. Midsummer was now approaching, and Erasmus, becoming
alarmed about his own health, found it prudent at once to leave

320 Letter to Batt from Holland

Zeeland. His tour in the Low Countries being completed, and the
plague continuing at Paris, he determined to avail himself of the
hospitality of his friend Batt, who was still at Tournehem in charge of
his pupil, Prince Adolf of Burgundy.

Epistle 148, if rightly ascribed to this period, appears to have been
sent to Batt before Erasmus had proposed to join him. The bearer
was known to the lady of Veer, but not to Batt, and we may conjecture
that Erasmus wrote from the Low Countries. The last paragraph may
refer to some criticism of the Adages, or perhaps to a censure of his
studies by some theological critics. Compare Epistle 157, p. 336. There
is nothing to prove distinctly the time to which this epistle belongs, but
it is difficult to find a probable place for it elsewhere. The contents
show that Batt was separated from the lady, with whom or from whom
Erasmus had had some independent communication. This could not
be in 1499, the year-date added in Opus Epistolarum.

Epistle 148. Farrago, 247 ; Ep. viii. 52 ; C. 74 (82).
Erasmus to J^a^nes Batt.

Sweetest Batt, we shall be glad to hear that you and
yours are in good health. Although I think you are very
sensible of our love, yet I beg you again and again to be
assured that no one in all the world is so devoted to Batt
as I.

If you love me, or admire Good Letters, pray receive the
bearer in your own fashion, that is with the greatest kind-
ness and courtesy. He is very dear to me, and well versed
in Letters ; and, what is in these days by no means common,
he unites the greatest sobriety with much erudition. He is
a special favourite with the lady of Veer, who is charmed
with his genius and modesty. You will therefore be doing
something worthy of your own kind character, as well
very agreeable to us all, if you shew how much you value
our recommendation.

Letter to Augustine 321

As to our own condition I have nothing to write. There is
some hissing as usual from the Zoih you wot of ; but I hope
that we shall some time rise clear above these rocks. I
wish the best of health to you and the whole household.

[Summer, 1501].*

Erasmus's travels were probably ended about the close of June.
The following letter, sent to Paris soon after his arrival at Tournehem,
is dated from the Abbey of St. Bertin at St. Omer, being apparently
despatched in the course of a visit to that place, from which Tournehem
is about twelve miles distant.

Epistle 149. Farrago, 84 ; Ep. iv. 34 ; C. 38 (39).
Erasmus to Augustine Caminad.

You may judge of my disposition towards you by the
letter I left at Paris. After a journey of nearly two months,
we have just come to stay with our friend Batt. Frequent
rumours reach us of the devastations of the plague ; and if
you think it better to remove hither, you will find what I
wrote to be true. Pray do not suspect that my removal
from Paris was associated with any ill-feeling or trickery.
May I die if I ever quitted that place so unwillingly before ;
but I was terrified by the crowd of funerals. If you have
any suspicion on your mind on account of old quarrels, try
me, and you shall be so convinced of my love, that our old
intimacy will seem cold in comparison.

I have not been able in all my journey to learn anything
about your return, at which I was surprised as well as sorry;
but at last a person named Antony told me, he had had
speech with somebody, who said he had seen you at Lubeck
and delivered to you that compendium of Laurentius Valla's

* No date in Farrago. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo
nono. Opus Epist.

VOL. I. Y

322 Erasmus at Tournehem

Elegantix which I formerly made. But up to this day no
report either certain or uncertain has reached me of your
having got back to Paris. For this reason I write briefly
and hurriedly, not to risk any further pains. But if you
have returned, you must at any rate spin us a really long
letter about all your journey and whatever else has hap-
pened to you. I desire to be commended heartily to your
Rudolf for many reasons. My greetings to Nicolas and
your other apprentices, to whom I am under many obliga-
tions. Farewell. If you do fly hither, though I scarcely
venture to hope it, — I make no further promise in words,
but I w411 do all that a grateful and loving friend should do.
St. Bertin's Abbey, [July, 1501].*

Epistles 150, 151, and 152 were all written from Tournehem in the
evening of the same day (see pp. 324, 327) ; their bearing being a
servant of Antony, "the Great Bastard of Burgundy," the proprietor
of Tournehem Castle. See p. 175. The first is addressed to James
Antony of Middelburg, Vicar General of the Bishop of Cambrai, and
author of a Treatise on the Imperial authority, for which Erasmus,
some months later, wrote a commendatory epistle to accompany its
publication. Epistle 170. The Vicar, being learned in the Civil Law,
may have been able to answer some question of Erasmus connected
with his studies ; hence he is dignified in Epistle 150 with the title
of Preceptor. Having been the Vicar's guest during his stay at
Brussels, Erasmus had intended to take away with him a book, per-
haps the manuscript of his friend's treatise, which he may have offered
to revise. Being bent on regaining the favour of the Bishop, Erasmus
was anxious to secure the alliance of his Vicar.

Epistle 150. Farrago, p. 275 ; Ep. ix. 26 ; C. 48 (54).

Erasmus to ^ames^ Vicar of the Bishop of Cambrai.

Kind, learned, and distinguished Sir, having never had

occasion to do you any service, while you have almost

* Apud sanctum Bertinu. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Farrago. Sim. Opus Epist.

The Bishop of Cai?ibrai^s Vicar 3^3

overwhelmed your humble friend with your incredible
kindness and with the greatest benefits, I was delighted
to find any kind of opportunity at last presented me, if
not of returning your favours, at any rate of declaring, by
some httle attention, the bent and willingness of my mind.
Consequently I could not but be grievously distressed, when
my boy, after having received over and over again the most
distinct orders, left your honoured little book behind. We
were not aware of it, until we came to Antwerp. But I
implore you by your services to me, and by my anxiety
to show my gratitude, to send the volume to me by the
person who brings this letter, as it is my intention to stay
here some months. The messenger is one of the household
of the illustrious prince, Antony the Bastard, and is a young
man of tried honesty and diligence, and much attached to
me. You could not more safely give it into my own hands.
Only make him understand that it is an important matter,
and that there will be some risk if he does not take care
of it. I will contrive that it shall come back either with
me, or by some safe person.

I beseech you to follow your old practice with our most
reverend father and good patron, the bishop of Cambrai,
and either procure us a higher place in his regard, if his old
favour still survives, or bring us back into his good graces,
if we have lost them. I call God to witness, who sees most
intimately into the cavern of every human heart, that I love
him still as warmly as in those first months when he
embraced me with the kindness of a parent, and I both
admired and loved him beyond measure. So much the
more do I desire to spend all the pains I can upon your
book, as I clearly understand that the glory, or rather the
profit and usefulness of it, will belong in common to you,
my kind host, and to my patron, the author of my studies,
and so of my life itself.

Farewell, most distinguished preceptor, and regard your

Y 2

324 Interview with the Bishop

poor client, who is devoted to you with all his heart, with
your usual affection. I was not informed of the departure
of this messenger until nine o'clock in the evening, and he
is to start at cock-crow. I have to write three letters late at
night and after a heavy supper, and that to persons to whom
one cannot usually write even in the most careful way with-
out some trepidation. But you will attribute my boldness
to your own good-nature.

From Tournehem the 12th of July [1501].*

Epistle 151. Farrago, p. 277 ; Ep. ix. 27 ; C. 49 (56).

Erasmus to his patron Henry of Bergen^ Bishop of

Cambrai.

Much as Fortune has been my enemy, she has never
inflicted on my mind a more cruel wound, than when at our
late meeting your Fatherhood f appeared disposed to tax me
with ingratitude. For on the one hand, I value your appro-
bation more than that of many thousand others ; and on the
other hand, the fault of which I am suspected is the one
fault, which is especially repugnant, not only to my con-
firmed resolutions, but to my natural character. I have
borne your reproach, not as a blow from an enemy, but as
the chastening of a loving parent and physician, and it only
remains for me to adjure you, by your own forbearing and
tender heart, and by my sad fortunes, if I have been hitherto
in fault, — nay, because I have been in fault, — to forgive it
on the score of ignorance or awkwardness ; for of any ill-
feeling I am quite unconscious, though I acknowledge I
may have been in this matter and in many others wanting in
modesty and discretion.

* Ex Tournehen. Quarto Idus lulias. An. m.cccc.xcix. Farrago.
t Paternitas, Farrago. Sublimitas, Opus. Epist. See, as to the relations of
Erasmus with the Bishop of Cambrai, p. 126, 272 ; his late interview, p. 319.

Courting an old patron 325

I have always received your beneficence as became an
honest and grateful client. I have loved you with all my
heart, have respected and venerated you, have borne you in
my mind, and not been silent in your praise. In all my
prayers to this day I pray God, in whose power alone it lies,
to repay with interest all the benefits you have conferred
upon me. Beyond this I can do no more. If you cannot
be induced to believe what I have said as to the past, I
implore you to let me persuade you that I am of that mind
now, and shall be so until my poor life shall fail.

If you consider that in my present circumstances that
assistance is sufficient, which your liberality has formerly
bestowed upon me, I on my part shall think it most abun-
dant, inasmuch as I have done nothing to earn what you
have spontaneously and kindly given ; and I am not so
clownishly ungrateful as to look more to what my neces-
sity may demand, than to what your generosity, beyond all
my deserts, has showered upon me.

Lastly I would have you consider, that Erasmus was
first recommended to your protection, not as a person of
rank or birth or wealth, — these are things that men do not
bestow upon themselves, — but as one devoted to study.
The same mind still endures more ardently than ever, and
shall be dedicated and consecrated wholly to you. How
supremely happy shall I be, if I shall ever obtain an oppor-
tunity of proving the sincerity of my gratitude. If in such a
case I shrink from any effort, any labour or any watchings,
I shall willingly submit to bear that black mark which you
have been disposed to put against my name. Meantime I
pray you to be propitious to your Erasmus. If I fail in
obtaining this, still I shall not cease to love and venerate
my patron, though his favour be withdrawn ; and to those
sycophants who keep us apart, I shall wish such fortune as
thev deserve.

I spent more than a month with my people in Holland.

326 Erasmus at Veer

They thought it best that I should give another year to
study ; and reckon it a slur upon themselves, if I return
without having obtained in so many years any authority at
all. Farewell, most kind and distinguished Prelate.
From Tournehem, 12 July [1501].*

Epistle 152. Farrago, p. 274 ; Ep. ix. 25 ; C. 49 (55).
Erasmus to ^ohn, Canon of Brussels.

I beseech you, most candid John, to make my excuses to
my kind host and patron, the Vicar, for having, owing to
the forgetfulness of my boy, left his book behind. So help
me Heaven, nothing has happened to me for years which
has caused me so much distress.

If you have any news either of Augustine, or of Benserad,
or of the Bishop my patron, or lastly of Lewis, who has
been sent into your parts to fetch me back, I implore you
by our friendship to let me know by letter ; it will be not
the least welcome of the many good turns you have done
me. You have a safe messenger in one of the household of
Antony Bastard, and may trust him with whatever you like.
I found everything at Veer just as you foretold. I met the
lady accidentally in the street, and she held out her hand
with quite a friendly look. But being deterred by some
persons, — who, I think, were not ill-disposed, — I abstained
from conversation with her.

My boy was seized with fever at Dordrecht ; it was a
tertian fever, and made me so anxious that on his account 1
took ship for Zierikzee, where his mother lives. We con-
tinue well, but have no other cause for thanking fortune.
Batt is also well, and greets you heartily ; he loves every

* Ex Tournehe. Quarto Idus lulias, An, m.cccc.xcix, Farrago. Ex arce
Tornehensi (etc.). Opus. Epist.

Life in Holland 327

one whom Erasmus loves. Farewell, my kind John, and do
not cease to love your humble friend, or rather devoted
client, Erasmus.
From Tournehem in haste and late at night, 12 July [1501].*

A few days later an opportunity occurred of sending a parcel to
Paris (Epistle 154), and so getting a letter forwarded to James Tutor
at Orleans.

Epistle 153 Farrago, p. 272 ; Ep. ix. 23 ; C. 35 (35)
Erasmus to J^atnes Tutor.

I was preparing, most excellent Tutor, to remove to you
straight from Paris, — for where could I go with more plea-
sure ? and I had collected a few coins together, so as not to
be a burden on your fortunes. But when I heard there
were some symptoms of the disease in your parts, I was
forced to set sail in this direction. I visited your parents
at Antwerp, excellent people, as is natural, like yourself. I
was in Holland nearly two months, not settled, but, like the
dogs in Egypt, continually running about and drinking.
For my part, I would rather live among the Phasacians.

I went to see that sweet fellow, William, but when I
could not rouse him to study by any inducement, 1 left him
upon such terms that even now I have no wish to see him
again. It is certain I scolded him so roundly on your
account, that our parting was anything but friendly. If
Epicurus himself could visit the earth again and see that
sample of life, he would think himself a rigid Stoic. We
took ship at a great risk from Dordrecht on the day before

• Ex Tornehei tumultuantissime ad multam noctem. iiii. Idus lulias. Anno
M.cccc.xcix. Farrago. Ex area Tornehensi (etc.). Opus Epist. By a strange
error, Epistles 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 156, and 157 are in the Leyden
edition, all dated, Tornaco. Likewise Epistle in.

328 The Abbot's reception

Sacrament.* Staying at Zierikzee some days on my boy's
account, who had contracted a fever on the voyage, I was
on the point of falling ill myself, if I had not taken flight
from Zeeland (from Hell I might well call it) in the greatest
haste.

We paid our respects to the Bishop. He invents, as
usual, fresh excuses for not giving anything. The affairs of
the lady of Veer were in such a state that I could not speak
to her without great risk, nor come away without serious
suspicion. You know the charge against the Provost ; while
he is in prison, the lady is in ward in her own house. Being
therefore clear of any hopes from that quarter, — for it is a
wretched thing to remain in suspense for nothing, — I betook
myself straight to Batt, in whose company I find great
delight. I am reading Greek, but by myself, for Batt has
not time to spare, and is fonder of Latin. It is my intention
to rest at anchor here for a month or two. After that we
shall steer whichever way the winds are favourable. You
are waiting all this time to know with what kind courtesy
the Reverend Father treats us, now we are near him. I
have nothing to write, my dear Tutor, on this head. Euripus
has not so many tides as that man's mind. A little before
we came, he was so warm that he sent off that bustling
fellow, Lewis, to Holland to fetch us, and moreover be-
stowed two gold pieces for the expense of the journey. But
when I came myself, he was so cold, that it seemed almost
unnatural. I am resolved that I ought not to depend upon
these fluctuating admirers.

The Lady, when I happened to meet her in the street,
held out her hand and gave me such a kind look as betokened
plainly her old regard for me ; but I scarcely dare to hope,

* Pridie Sacramenti. On the eve of the Feast of Corpus Christi, which is
celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. This gives, for the year
1501, the 9th of June for the date of embarcation.

Visit to William Herman 329

such is the vigilance of the watchdogs, who are themselves
wolves too. So Erasmus now maintains himself, and is
clad in his own feathers.

To visit William, or rather to make a Greek of him, I
travelled to Haarlem with a great load of books, I cannot
say whether at a greater cost of money, or of labour and
risk. Nevertheless, all these pains and all this expense were
thrown away. By that journey I lost twelve crowns and
one friend ? The estimate I formed of his character makes
me think I deceived myself about him before. We shall
profit by our whipping, like boys, and be wise for the
future, — wise for ourselves and not for others. You have
now had, my dearest Tutor, all my news ; for I should
think it wrong if Tutor were kept in ignorance of anything
relating to Erasmus. * # *

I am thinking of visiting Italy this autumn, or rather
dreaming of it, for there is not a gleam of hope. I hear that
Jerome, the bishop of Besangon's brother, is determined to
go there, that he appreciates scholars, and has no bad
opinion of my ability. If, when I was with you,t I had had
my wits about me, I should certainly have crept somehow
into his acquaintance. Farewell.

[Tournehem, 17 July, 1501.]:!:

Nicolas Benserad was one of Aupfustine's assistants in his business.
The second paragraph of Epistle 154 gives the impression that tran-
scripts of Greek and Latin authors were being made under Erasmus's
direction. There is something of dignity, as well as ingenuity, in
the way in which Erasmus meets his correspondent's proposal for a

t istic. This would seem to mean Orleans ; I do not know of any other
evidence that Jerome Busleiden was there in 1500.

\ Luteciae. Anno m.cccc.xcviii. Farrago. Sim. Opus Epist. The true
date of place, day, and month is supplied by Epistles 154, 155, 156, and 157,
written, one on the same, and the other three on the following day ; the year-
date by Epistle 158, where the date is original, not a later addition. See p. 337.

33° Association with Benserad

closer association, but the dignity is somewhat impaired by the
willingness shown in the next clause to make use, not only of his
services, but of his purse.

Epistle 154. Farrago, p. 274; Ep. ix. 24 ; C. 39 (40).
Erasmus to Nicolas Benserad.

We are daily receiving most positive reports from various
sources that the plague is raging worse than ever at Paris,
and sparing nothing. Fearing therefore you might have
taken refuge somewhere else, I have thought it best not to
write at great length, or to send much work to you, lest in
case of your absence a good deal should be lost. But I will
now touch on the main points.

This messenger is the first by whom we have been able to
write. We send you Euripides and Isocrates ; others are
being prepared, which shall be presently sent. We will
attend to vour wishes as to the Defence of Milo, as soon as
we get the Oration and the necessary books.

If anything has arisen which you think I ought to know,
send me word ; and if Augustine is returned, you will give
him the letter which is enclosed with yours. And please
take good care of the trifles which I left in your charge.

With regard to our association, if you have thought out
any plan, you will find me most ready to listen to it. You
will understand, I suppose, what I mean. You will hardly
believe, my dear Nicolas, how much I should like it ; but
as I do not venture to hope, so I dare not advise. What
torments me is this, that your heart, so pure, so philosophi-
cal, is after all still almost unknown to me. I have always
both felt and spoken most favourably of your character, and
yet I know not how it has come to pass, whether by the
almost excessive reserve of both of us, or by the inter-
ference of others, that an intimate familiarity with Benserad

Enquiry for Greek books 331

is a thing I have never ventured to promise myself. And
as I am persistent in improving friendships, so I am diffident
in forming them.

If any fresh Greek has been brought to Paris, do charge
the messenger with a parcel, and me with an obligation.
And do not fear, Nicolas, that I shall fail to respond to
your services to me. Trust me, I shall not allow myself to
be tired, or to take any rest until I have done all I can to
discharge my whole debt. And when I speak of debt, I do
not mean only the coins I have borrowed of you, — that is
the least part of my obligation, — but much more your good-
ness to me, and those kind offices, the memory of which will
never fade from my mind. For the present, dear Benserad,
you will be content with this : as soon as I know for certain
that you are at Paris, I will take care that some evidence of
my studies shall come to your hands without delay.

Please take the trouble to send the letter addressed to
James Tutor by a safe messenger to Orleans. Farewell.

From the Castle of Tournehem [17 July, 1501].*

The last two letters had scarcely been despatched when a messenger
arrived from St. Omer. An opportunity was thus offered of sending
letters from Tournehem to that place, to be forwarded to Paris and
Orleans. Epistle 157.

Epistle 155. Farrago, p. 269; Ep. ix. 20; C. 51 (59).
Erasmus to Raines lutor.

I yesterday charged another messenger with a letter for
you, but think it safer, in case of accidents, to send you a
second by the bearer, not in the same words but to the like

* No date in Farrago. Ex area Tornensi. Anno millesimo quadringen-
tesimo nonagesimo octavo. Opus. Epist.

332 Friendship of ^a7nes Batt

effect. We wasted more than a month and a half in Holland
not without great expense ; I say wasted, because nothing
was ever more thrown away. Again the illness of my boy
detained me several days in Zeeland, not only much to my
annoyance, as I was in a hurry to come away, but also with
no little danger to my health. I never before found any
climate more disagreeable or more unsuitable to my consti-
tution.

Other matters, my sweet Tutor, have turned out much as
things generally have done with Erasmus. The prelate of
Cambrai is just like himself. The lady of Veer is oppressed
by misfortunes, and appears to need rather to be relieved
than to be burdened. I am now resting in Batt's embraces,
and among my books, but am not altogether without you,
for Tutor is often present in our conversation. Believe
me, if you believe anything at all, I hnd so much hypo-
crisy, so much perfidy in friendships, not only those of an
ordinary kind, but those that are called Pyladean, that I am
not inclined now to try any new ones. In Batt alone I have
experienced an attachment no less constant than sincere.
His friendship I do not owe to Fortune, as it is only virtue
that brought us together, and I am not afraid that Fortune
will deprive me of it. For why should he cease to love me
in my affliction, when his love began in my deepest affliction ?*
You, most learned James, as you are like him in name, also
reproduce his candour and singleness of heart. My feeling
about you both is such, that if your faith failed me, which
God forbid, I should have no faith in faith itself.

Our health, thank Heaven, is pretty good, and somewhat
stronger than when we were with you. We have almost
wholly deserted the Roman Muses for the Greek, and shall
not rest till we have attained a moderate proficiency. I
cannot tell you how much I wished to go back to your

* See pp 89, 90.

Visit to England proposed 333

household, as I thought I should be able, without putting
you to expense, to enjoy your society, which has a special
charm for me, and to put mine at your disposal. But I was
frightened away by the plague, which drove me from Paris
and has thrust me into exile here. For what is there ever
here to attract me, except Batt, whose society I have not
to myself, as he is forced to spend much of his time upon
his court service ? f

I commend Dismas to you ; for the whole family of
Bergen have set their hopes upon him. * * *

If there is any occasion, you will, as usual, do your utmost
to defend Erasmus's good name, and frighten that wolf away
with your loudest and bravest bark. I have hunted eagerly
for a Greek Grammar to buy and send you, but they are
sold out, both Constantine's and Urban's. Nicolas Ben-
serad will bear witness to this, whom you may believe
without putting him on his oath.

As to my future plans, — I sometimes think of going to
England again, to spend a month or two in theological
study with my friend Colet. For I fully recognize how
much advantage I might gain by so doing ; but I am still
afraid of those cliffs of evil fame, J where I made shipwreck
before. I have the same longing to visit Italy as I have al-
ways had, but, as Plautus says. It is not easy without wings to
fly.§ The plague keeps us away from France. In Holland the
climate agrees with me, but I have a distaste for those Epi-
curean meals. The men are a poor, uncultivated race ; study
is held in the most hearty contempt ; learning meets with
no encouragement and abundance of envy. And all my

t Aulicse servituti. Prince Antony of Burgundy appears to have been
living at Tournehem, where a princely household was maintained, in which
Batt may possibly have held some other ofifice beside that of governor to
the Prince's grandson. Seep. 175.

\ Infames scopuli. Horat. Carm. i. 3. 20.

§ Sine pennis volare baud facile est. Plaut. Foemili, iv. 2. 29.

334 Greek books to be bought

people appear to be silently insisting on my being backed
up by authority, and so armed as it were against the arro-
gance of unlearned men before I return. We are therefore
for the present undecided, and shall turn our course to
the point where favourable winds may invite. Farewell
with all your household. My greetings to the most excel-
lent and channing youths from Breda.

From the Castle of Tournehem [i8 July, isoij.f

Epistle 156. Ferrago, p. 270 ; Ep. ix. 21 ; C. 51 (58).
Erasyntis to Nicolas Benscrad.

I wrote yesterday, kind and learned Benserad, about every
thing, but as another messenger has presented himself, I
will sum up the matter again.

Having returned from Holland I am now living with
Batt, and occupied with letters, principally Greek. I sent
you Euripides and Isocrates, and should have sent more,
but I was afraid you might have been driven somewhere
else by the plague. If there is any fresh Greek to be
bought, I had rather pawn my coat than not get it; especially
if it is something Christian, as the Psalms in Greek or the
Gospels. Please take care of the goods I left in your
charge. I have also written to Augustine ; I am anxious to
know what news there is of him, for as yet I have heard
nothing.

I wish, my dear Benserad, our Muses could be associated
together ; but about this and other things you will write
fully. * * *

Farewell. Batt sends his hearty greetings to you.

From Tournehem, 18 July [1501].^

t No date in Farrago. Ex arce Tornehensi Anno millesimo quadrin-
gentesimo nonagesimonono. Opus Epist. See Epistle 156.

i Ex Tornehe. xv. Calendas Augusti. Farrago. Anno m.cccc.xcix.
Add. Opus Epist.

Letter to the Abbot's chaplain 335

Epistle 155 (probably accompanied by Epistle 156) was sent to
Antony Lutzenburg, the Chaplain of the Abbot of St. Bertin, with
the following letter.

Epistle 157. Farrago, p. 271 ; Ep. ix. 22 ; C. 50 (57).
Erasmus to Antony Lutzenburg.

As if it had not been enough to give you so much trouble
when we were with you, we are going to give you more now
we are away. This however, most amiable Antony, you
must set down not to our presumption but to your own
good nature. We have written to James Tutor, partly to
greet our old host with a sort of complimentary offering, and
partly to set spurs, as it were, to his intent, so that he may
strive with all his might and zeal and loyalty, to restore us
our boy so accomplished as to be capable of adding some
splendour to the family of Bergen, distinguished above all
others both by learning and by virtue, ^ou will take the
trouble to deliver the letter to the messenger Antony, and
direct him to take it with his usual care and honesty to
Orleans, as I hear he is to make that journey.

For the rest, my dear Antony, if we enjoy some degree
of health, it is a pleasure to acknowledge it. We are living a
happy and agreeable life, both because we enjoy the society
of Batt, and because we are heart and soul in Letters ;
a life of the gods, if we had only a few more books !
Owing this condition of mind to literature, should you not,
my dear Antony, think me most ungrateful, if I were out
of humour with my studies for not having brought me any
profit ? Let others be loaded with gold and carried to the
height of glory, while my Muses bring me nothing but vigils
and envy, still I shall never turn my back upon them, as
long as this mind endures and retains its contempt for fickle
fortune. I am not unaware, that I have pursued a kind of

33 6 >S^' J-crome a great example

study which some think strange, others endless, others un-
profitable, others even impious ; so they seem to the crowd
of those who are professors of learning. But I am all the
more encouraged, as I am sure of two facts, that the best
things have never found favour with the crowd, and that this
kind of study is most approved by the smallest number, but
the most learned. If Jerome was mad or unlearned, it is
good to share the folly of such a man ; it is good to be
numbered in his unlearned flock, rather than in those other
divine choirs. And even if we shall fail to reach the goal in
this our course, it will not be discreditable to have at any
rate striven to attain the very fairest objects. If men do
not approve this purpose of mine, God, I think, will both
approve and aid it ; and some time hence men will approve,
or at any rate posterity.

My not writing to the noble Prelate, your patron, is not
owing either to laziness or want of leisure. I had nothing to
write that was worthy of so great a man. * * * Therefore
on the present occasion you will do me the favour to act in
place of a letter to his lordship ; and also heartily commend
both me and Batt to that kindest of men, prior George.
You will in both our names salute the Doctor, and Canon
James Plumeo, honourable persons, to whose goodness we
both of us stand indebted. Farewell, excellent Antony.

From Tournehem, i8 July [1501].!

Not many days after the date of this letter an opportunity was
afforded to Erasmus of doing a slight service to the Abbot in the way
of his literary profession. The latter had been honoured with a letter
from the Cardinal John de' Medici, afterwards Pope Leo X., who
appears to have visited the Abbey some years before, perhaps when
engaged on a diplomatic mission. In order to compose a suitable

f Ex Tornehen. xv. Calend. August. Anno M.cccc.xcix. Farrago. Sim
Opus Epist.

Letter to Cardinal dc Medici 337

reply to so important and fastidious a correspondent, the Abbot called
in the assistance of Erasmus. The letter is dated from St. Omer, 30
July, 1 501,"^ the year-date, in this instance of a more formal document,
being apparently original. EPiSTLE 158. Farrago, p. 292 ; Ep. ix. 37;
C. go (98). The Abbot sends to the Cardinal, as a present, two
pieces of Music, the work of a composer bred in the household of
the Medici, and then the principal musician at St. Omer.

It was during Erasmus's visit to Tournehem in the summer or
autumn of 1501, that an incident occurred which gave occasion to the
composition of one of the most useful and widely read of his minor
works, the treatise called EnchiridioJi militis Christiani, the Christian
soldier's Dagger. The circumstances are narrated by Erasmus in his
letter to Botzhem, or Catalogue of Lucubrations, written in 1523; but
in estimating the time that had elapsed since the origin of the work,
Erasmus does now show his usual accuracy, an interval of twenty-
two years being loosely described as nearly thirty.

Catalogue of Lucubrations. C. i. Prcef. J-ortin^ ii. 428.

The Enchiridion militis Christiani was begun by me
nearly thirty years ago when staying in the castle of
Tournehem, to which we were driven by the plague that
depopulated Paris. The work arose out of the following
incident. A common friend of mine and of Batt was in
the castle, whose wife was a lady of singular piety. The
husband was no one's enemy so much as his own, a man
of dissolute life, but in other respects an agreeable com-
panion. He had no regard for any divines except me ; and
his wife, who was much concerned about her husband's
salvation, applied to me through Batt to set down some
notes in writing, for the purpose of calling him to some
sense of religion, without his perceiving that it was done at
the instance of his wife. For even with her it w^as a word

* Apud diuum Audomarum. iii. Calend. Augustas. Anno a Christo Nato
supra millesimum quingentesimoprimo. Farrago. Sim. Opus Epist.
VOL, I, Z

33 S The history of the Enchiridion

and a blow, in soldier fashion. I consented to the request,
and put down some observations suitable to the occasion.
These having met with the approval even of learned per-
sons, and especially of Joannes Vitrarius, a Franciscan friar of
great authority in those parts, I finished the work at leisure,
after the plague (then raging everywhere) had routed me
out of Paris and driven me to Louvain.

A further notice of the Enchiridion will be found in the next page.
Upon the termination of his visit to Tournehem, in the autumn of
1 50 1, Erasmus repaired to St. Omer, where he had an invitation from
Adrian, an old ally, who appears to have been, like Augustine Cami-
nad, a transcriber and seller of books. The Doctor (Medicus) of
Epistles 157 and 159 was probably Ghisbert, a physician of St. Omer,
elsewhere mentioned by Erasmus. Epistle 285, C. 125 A, 453 D. The
Warden (Gardianus), maybe assumed to have been the Head of a
Franciscan convent, as this title was specially used by that Order,
loannes Vitrarius, of whom an interesting description is given by
Erasmus in his Epistle to Jodocus Jonas, Ep. xv. 14, C. 451 (435), was
a member of this Order and Warden of his convent (C. 455 b) ; and
there can be little doubt that the Warden mentioned, in Epistles 159
and 161, was Vitrarius himself. In the following letter Erasmus speaks
of him with some suspicion, but this was before he knew him well.

Epistle 159. Farrago, p. 279. Ep. ix. 29 ; C. 54 (61).
Erasmus to Batt.

I need not bid you be glad, as I am sure you are already
glad enough to have shaken from your shoulders such a
troublesome burden as I have been to you. Adrian still
invites me to come to him. The Warden advises me, as far
as words go, to take up my quarters with the Abbot, if I can
be accommodated there. The Doctor on the other hand
advises me to go to Adrian. Both, I fancy, are doing what
dogs do, that do not like a partner in the kitchen. I am a
little doubtful about the Warden, whether he is going to

Last extant letter to Batt 339

be sincere throughout ; for I feel he is a little overbearing.
And while he was with you, he never said a word about
Adrian, whereas the matter ought rather to have been settled
through him. Whatever the issue may be, we shall bravely
accept it. Take care of your health, my dear Batt. Send
all my things as soon as you have the means of doing so,
and also all my Dialogues^ in case I should like to com-
plete them. Urge Lewis to copy all my Epistles. Farewell.

By the Doctor's advice I will not detain Lewis, lest I
should make your cowled friends grumble at me still more.

St. Omer [1501].*

Epistle 159 is the last extant letter of Erasmus to Batt, who was in
failing health, and whose circumstances were evidently not favorable to
his recovery. See p. 348. In the little Court, of which he was an official,
he appears to have had enemies, against whom, in the absence of
his patroness the Lady of Veer, he was unable to make head. His
brother, whom he had probably introduced into the service, was dis-
missed soon after this time. See Epistle 162. The lord of the Castle,
Antony, the Great Bastard of Burgundy, was a man of more than
eighty years, who after a life of military activity, had apparently
fallen under the influence of his father confessor, and of a knot of
monkish advisers, with whom Batt and Erasmus were no favorites.

The work which had so great a success under the title of Enchiri-
dion Militis Christiani [The Handy Weapon or The Manual, of a
Christian Soldier), appears to have been in its original form a
letter of some length addressed by Erasmus in the latter part of 1501,
to one of the gentlemen with whom he had lately associated at
Tournehem. The author in a later Epistle describes it as written for
himself only and for an unlettered friend (uni mihi et amiculo prorsus
ava\(j)a^i]Ta)), and repeats the remark of a satirical reader, who had
said that there was more holiness in the book than in its author.
Epistle to Volzius. Ep. xxiii. 7; C. 337; see 341. It was after
talking over the original essay with Vitrarius and other friends,

* No date in Farrago. Audomari, 1499. Optis. Epist.
Z 2

34^ Original for^n of the Enchiridion

that the author was induced to extend it into the longer treatise, to
which he gave the above striking title in allusion to the profession of
his correspondent, who belonged to the martial household of the
Bastard of Burgundy. The Manual, as printed two years later at
Antwerp (see p. 363), is preceded by a short Preface, inscribed amico
cuidam aulico, Epistle 160, which may pass for the exordium of the
original letter ; and has a conclusion which may also be attributed to
that letter, with its date of place and year written in words at length.

Epistle 160. Lucubratiimculge, etc. (i 503), fol. d. i ; C. v. i.
Erasmus to a Courtier Friend.

Dearest brother in the Lord, you have required of me
with no little earnestness, to prescribe for you in a small
compass a system of living, which may help you to attain
to a spirit worthy of Christ. You say, that you have long
been weary of the life of a Court, and are turning over, in
your mind, how you may fly from Egypt, its vices and its
pleasures, and with some Moses for a guide pursue with
success the path of Virtue. The regard which I have for
you leads me to rejoice all the more in your salutary
proposal, as I hope that He who has been pleased to put
it in your mind, will without our aid Himself bless and
further it. Nevertheless I am more than willing to gratify
a friend who makes so pious a request. Strive on your
part to show, that you have not asked our aid without a
purpose, and that my compliance with your wish has not
been fruitless. Or rather let us address our common prayers
to that loving spirit of Jesus, that He will suggest to the
writer wholesome advice, and also make it efficacious to the
reader.

The following words, taken from the last page of the Enchiri-
dion, as it was printed by the author in 1503, represent the conclu-
sion of the original epistle addressed from St. Omer to Tournehem, of

Person addressed in the Enchiridion 341

which the above sentences are the commencement. In the preceding
clause, Erasmus had spoken of his intended labours in the interpreta-
tion of the works of St. Paul, and of the pains that he had taken to
attain some knowledge not only of Latin, but also of Greek, with a
view to the illustration of the Sacred Scriptures.

Lucubratiimculae etc. (1503) ; C. v. 66 c.
* * *

Intermitting for a fev^ days these important occupations,
we have endeavoured for your sake to point out, as it
were with a finger, the shortest way to Christ. Meanwhile I
pray Jesus, the parent, as I hope, of this our purpose, that
he will deign to give his gracious blessing to your salutary
efforts, or rather that he will complete his own gift in your
conversion ; so that in Him you may quickly grow and
advance into the perfect man. Farewell, brother and friend,
always beloved, but now dearer than ever before.

At St. Omer, in the year from the birth of Christ, one
thousand five hundred and one.

The little book was neglected at first, but soon obtained a great
sale, and was frequently reprinted in various tongues. In 15 18 it was
republished by the Author at Louvain, with a dedicatory Epistle to
Paulus Volzius, Abbot of the Monastery of Haugshofen in Alsace,
dated 14 Aug. 15 18, which was afterwards transferred to the Opus
Epistolarum,^.^. xxiii. 7; C. 337 (329). By this Epistle, which has
a Protestant tendency, some of the admirers of the book were repelled.
The friend to whom it was originally dedicated appears to have been
then living, and to have continued in his old profession, but not to have
improved his fortune by it. C. 337 C. The name of this gentleman
does not appear in the original edition, nor as far as I know in any
later edition published distinctly under the author's sanction. But in
the edition of Schiirer of 15 15, he is called loannes Germanus ; and in
two German translations printed by Adam Peter of Langendorf in 1520,
and by Val. Curio in 1521, both at Basel, the same name appears.

342 The Baron of Courtenburne

As the name can scarcelv have been a secret at the time to any one
who cared to know it, it is probable that this was the real name of
the ' courtier friend.' It is singular that in Schuman's Leipj^ig edition
of 15 19, where the name of the friend is not given, the work is called
in the title page : Enchiridion Erasmi Roterodami germani de milite
christiano.

Among the noble families in the neighbourhood of St. Omer was
that of Calonne, the chiefs of which, for three generations at the end
of the fifteenth, and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, had the
Christian name of Florence. Their seigniorial residence was at the
castle of Courtenburne in the county of Guines ; and it is probable
that they had also a house in the town of St. Omer, of which Florence
de Calonne, lord of Courtenburne, is said to have been mayor in 1529
(P. Anselme, ii. 261, viii. 278 ; Ix. 319 ; De la Chenoye-Desbois, Diet,
de la Noblesse, vol. iv. p. 593).* In that town or at Tournehem
Erasmus appears to have made the acquaintance of the Baron of
Courtenburne, who in the winter of 1501 placed at his disposal some
rooms in his country house. Epistles 161 and 162 belong to the early
days of his visit there. Epistles 164 and 165 were written at a some-
what later time ; Erasmus's protege, Lewis (see pp. 284, 304, 307), was
then in Adrian's service, but employed in transcription for Erasmus
(pp. 343, 345). Edmund appears to have been attached to the Fran-
ciscan convent of which Vitrarius was head (see p. 338). The books
on St. Paul were required for a Commentary upon the Epistle to the
Romans, which Erasmus began at this time, but left unfinished owing
to his imperfect knowledge of Greek. See pp. 375, 376.

Epistle 161. Farrago, p. 249 ; Ep. ix. 2 ; C. 90 (96).

Erasmus to Edmund^ priest.

I have retired to this country house of the kind Prince
of Courtenburne, intending to be quietly occupied these

• It appears that the family still exists, being represented (in 1884) by Arthur
R. F. de Calonne, Marquis de Courtebonne, the barony of Courtenburne, or
Courtebonne, having been erected to a marquisate in 1671. Bachelin, Etat
present de la Noblesse Fraiicaise (1884), p. 603.

A cart-load of hooks 343

winter months in sacred literature. I wish that under the
Warden's leadership, I had been allowed to have you for a
companion. For the rest, it will be like your goodness to
encourage Adrian to supply me with a few books. I want
him to send Augustine and Ambrose on St. Paul ; and to
beg Origen for a time * from the people at St. Bertin, and
be bound for me to return it ; he shall not be disappointed.
Moreover, I very much wish, if it can be done, to have the
Homilies of Origen, which the Warden has, sent with the
rest. I should also be glad to welcome Lyranus and any
other writer upon St. Paul. A cart shall be sent on Satur-
day to carry every thing hither. Meantime you will take
care to get the books ready for that day. If Adrian or the
Warden will do us the honour of visiting us at any time, we
shall be glad to see either of them. Farewell, and pray
exert your diligence in the business I have mentioned.
From the Castle of Courtenburne [i5oi].t

Epistle 162. Farrago, p. 250 ; Ep. ix. 3 ; C. 89 (95).

Erasmus to Master Adrian^ his dear friend in Christ.

The bearer of this, Lewis, has been hitherto maintained
by James Batt at Tournehem Castle out of regard for me.
It has now been determined by those who at present bear
rule there, and who have turned out Batt's brother, and
tried to do the same to Batt himself, that Lewis should go.
I have therefore advised the lad to call first upon you. If
you take him into your household, you will do a thing that
will much gratify me, be of service to the youth, and an act
of charity ; while finally it will not be without use to your
own interests. For he is a tolerable scholar, an uncom-

* In tempore, qu. in tempus.

t Ex area Courtenburnensi. Anno m.d. Farrago. Sim. Opus Eptst.

344 William Herman and Servatius

monly skilful writer, of steady character and thoroughly
honest. All this you will readily find out, and I have no
Hesitation in taking upon myself to assert it. Farewell.

Thank you for the books you have lent me ; your kind-
ness will be recompensed by Him who is wont to repay in
full measure and with interest such offices of piety.

From the Castle of Courtenburne [1501] *

The following letter from Herman to Servatius recalls the anxieties
of monastic life in Holland. Servatius was. we may presume, still at
Stein, and Herman at Haarlem. A parcel of copies of Erasmus's
book had been sent to Gouda and Haarlem for sale or distribution in
the preceding February (Epistle 139, p. 303). It may be observed that
Erasmus's conventual brethren were under the impression that he
had returned to Paris, his absence from the Convent being excused
on the ground of his studies at the University. See the observations
at the beginning of Chapter XIV.

Epistle 163. C. 1873 (492).

William of Gouda to Servatius.

Arnold has been with us, and brought a kind message
from you. Whether you really sent it, or whether he in-
vented it to make himself more welcome to me, is a matter
within your knowledge, but I readily believe it came from
you, because it gives me pleasure to be remembered by a
dear friend. I have asked after you, and he gives the
desired answer. I am glad you are well, though I should
certainly be more glad to know it from your own telling. I
cannot but wonder that I do not receive a line from you.
Indeed, if I were not very good-natured, I should have fair
reason for upbraiding you. I have myself written over and

* No date in Farrago. Ex area Cortenburgen. m.d. Opus Epist.

Conventual anxieties 345

over again, if only the letters reach you; that one letter did
so, I know for certain.

About those books of Erasmus's Adages, what answer am
I to give to my devoted friend, when he reminds me of
them ? As you love me, my dear Servatius, I am already
afraid of the coming of the Paris courier, as I have no idea
how I shall satisfy our Erasmus, to whom I am certainly
much indebted, while, either owing to my own negligence
or to fortune, I can make no return. If therefore you bear
your William in mind, do give me some instruction whether
I am to speak or hold my tongue about the matter.

As to the affair you mention in your letter, what hope
remains? Sustain your courage, and reserve yourself for
more prosperous times. Fortune is fickle, and, as she reck-
lessly does harm, she sometimes heedlessly does good.
Perhaps the powers above will look with favour upon you
sooner than you hope.

Farewell, sweetest of comrades, and may your loves fare
well!* Last of all, do not let anything go by, which it is my
interest to know, or which you think will give me pleasure.

From my study late, Twelfth-night, 6 Jan. [1502].!

Epistle 164. Farrago, p. 246 ; Ep. viii. 51 ; C. 78 (88).

Erasmus to Lewis.

1 send you three prayers, one to Jesus the Virgin's Son,
and two to the Virgin Mother, which I wish you to copy as
carefully as you can. The first is a little confused, but you
cannot go wrong, if vou follow the lines of indication. I
want one copy of them all made as soon as possible, as the
person to whom I am going to give them is going to Paris

* Tui amores bene valeant.

f E bibliotheca mea ipso die Epiphaniae multa noctc C.

34^ Lewis in the service of Adrian

within four days or perhaps sooner. About the other copies
we will consult when you come to see us ; or if you have
leisure to make several, you can do so. Use the best paper
you can, divided by the neatest lines, with broader margins
than mine, and the lines somewhat wider apart. Write it
as nicely as you can, your care will be repaid.

About Francis's book, if you have not time enough, let
him know, so that he may get another transcriber ; for in
future you will have no lack of writing to do for me, if only
you have leisure enough.

If your people will let you, come over and have a talk
with me within tw^o or three days, as soon as you have made
one copy. Please bring my cap ; that of Adrian which I
have is safe and untouched ; for since I have returned here,
I have not used it. Then go to N. and find out what such a
linen kerchief as was lost at St. Bertin * would cost, so that he
may either have one bought for him, or, if he likes, have the
money to buy it. Go and ask the man which he prefers ;
or rather buy it yourself for him with his approval, so that he
may be quite satisfied. I will repay you when you come.
Commend me in every way to Adrian your kind master, and
to Edmund, whom I love as a brother. Farewell.

If there is any news by Antony from Paris, let me know.
When you have an opportunity, greet the Doctor in my
name ; also the Warden if he is returned.

[Courtenburne, 1502].!

Epistle 165. Farrago, p. 250. (Ep. ix. 4 ; C. 90(97).
Erasmus to Edmund^ as a brother beloved,

I desire to be informed by you, whether our Warden is

* capital linteu, quale periit, a D. Bertino \_qu. ad D. Bertinum]. Farrago.
t No dale in Farrago. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo-
nono. Opus Epist.

Eras7nus and Vitrarius 347

returned, or how soon he is expected to be there. Beg
Adrian in my name to be patient about his books. For I
intend to leave this place in a few days, but not before I
have returned his volumes with many thanks. I am strangely
pleased with myself for having undertaken this work ; for I
am confident that for the future I shall be glad to busy
myself with all my heart in sacred literature. My Francis
is returning home in about a week ; therefore Lewis will
do well if he will send any pages he has of Laurentius.
There will be no delay in payment. He may also let me
know if he has learned anything about the messenger. Also
what he has done about the kerchief that was lost. Bid him
send me back the original of my Prayers, if he has done
with it. I have been long expecting a visit from all of
you, but in vain. You must give my greetings to Adrian, a
good man, who has so many claims to my regard. Farewell
yourself, and as I hope our affection is mutual, let us aid
each other by mutual prayers.

From the Castle where I am staying, in haste. [1502] *

Early in 1502 Erasmus was at St. Omer, a guest of the Abbot of St.
Bertin, and on intimate terms with Joannes Vitrarius, the Franciscan
friar, whom, as we have already seen, he consulted about the composition
of the Enchiridion (p. 338). For this person Erasmus conceived the
highest esteem on account of his strict morality and liberal views of
religion, and has described his character and fortunes in a long letter,
written in 15 19 to Jodocus Jonas, in which he draws a parallel between
Vitrarius and another eminent preacher, Dean Colet. He there says
that he made his acquaintance at St. Omer, when he himself was
driven thither from Paris by the plague, which in this respect was
fortunate for him. Vitrarius, who was then about forty years of age,
at once took a great liking for Erasmus, a man, as he says, very
different from himself. The following extract has an autobiographical

* Ex arce in qua diuersor, raptim. Farrago, m.d. added in Opus Epist.

34^ Death ofyames Batt

interest. The conversation must be 'placed in February or March,
1502. Easter day in that year was the 27th of March.

Erasmus to yodociis ^onas. Ep. xv. 14, p. 700 f ;

C. 451 B.

I was then staying with Antony of Bergen, Abbot of
St. Bertin, at whose table dinner was not served until after
midday ; and as my stomach could not brook so long a fast
(it was then Lent) especially as I was very busy with my
studies, I used to stay my stomach before dinner with a
warm cup of broth, so that I might keep up till dinner-time.
When I consulted him whether this was permissible, having
first glanced at the lay companion, who was with him, from
some apprehension that he might be offended, " Yes indeed,"
said he, " you would sin if you omitted to do so, and for
want of a little food hindered your sacred studies, and
injured your delicate constitution."

Some time in the early part of the year 1502 Erasmus suffered a
severe blow by the death of James Batt. We have no contemporary
letter, or other evidence, to show distinctly the date of this event.
The first mention of it in any extant letter of Erasmus is in Epistle
167, dated 2 July [1502], in which he refers to his loss, not as a fresh
occurrence but as a matter already known to all his friends. In
Epistle 168 he expresses a suspicion (not a strange thought at that
time) of foul play on the part of Batt's enemies at the Castle. See
p. 339. The event is mentioned in this page, because the following
epistle affords some reason to think that it took place in March, 1502.

Epistle 166 is a letter, of which the approximate date is clear, but
not so the identity of the person to whom it is addressed. It was
evidently written from St. Omer a few days before Easter (March 27),
in the year 1502, as in that year, and in that year only, Erasmus was
staying at St. Omer in Lent. It is inscribed in Farrago, Erasmus
Roterodamus Petro Notho suo de Courtenburne, and in Opus Epis-
totarum, and later collections, Erasmus Petro Notho. We know

Peter Bastard 349

nothing elsewhere of Peter Bastard of Courtenburne, or of Peter
Bastard, but supposing the full inscription in Farrago to be the origi-
nal and right address, we should observe, that the words, Nothus de
Courtenburne, can only be understood as a substitute for a surname,*
and not as descriptive of residence or property. Pierre le Batard
may have been one of the Peters resident at Tournehem (p. 233), or a
person sent thither after the death of Batt, to look after the interests
of Erasmus and of the family of Batt, who was apparently a widower,
and who left at least one child, his son Cornelius. Epistle vii. 25 ;
C. 238 (244). In any case it is a probable conjecture, that Epistle
166 was sent to Tournehem to the person who was acting for Erasmus
after the death of Batt. It may be assumed that Batt died in pos-
session of some of the papers of Erasmus, who might think it worth
while to go himself to Tournehem to identify and secure his property.

Epistle 166. Farrago, p. 246. Ep. viii., 50 ; C. 79 (90).
Erasmus to his friend Peter Bastard of Courtenburne.

I am much bounden to you, most courteous Peter, and
thank you most heartily for the care you are taking of our
concerns. I should have been with you already, if the
Abbot of St. Bertin had not detained me when I was ready
and actually starting. Pray buy the Psalter if it is correct
and complete, and the character tolerable. I shall be with
you beyond doubt at Easter. I was about to send the
money, but as I write this, the boy is not quite certain
whether he is going to where you are. I must beg you
therefore make yourself easy about it. Farewell and
love us.

[St. Omer, March, I502].t

* This form of surname for a nobleman's illegitimate son was not un-
common. Antony Bastard of Burgundy is not a singular example.

t No date in Farrago. Anno millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesi-
monono. Oj>us. Episi.

350 Augustine at Orleans

Erasmus was still at St. Omer in the beginning of July, when he
must have been mortified to have to write to his friend Tutor to
transfer Dismas to his former preceptor, the Abbot being anxious that
he should speak French. The other lad, Antony, was, we may pre-
sume, Antony of Grimberg, the Abbot's nephew. See Ep. xiii. lo; C.
512(475)-

Epistle 167. Farrago, p. 109 ; Ep. v. 22 ; C. 27 (30).

Erasmus to J^ames Tutor.

The Abbot is minded, to keep Dismas and Antony
entirely out of reach of our language ; and in your cir-
cumstances you would not care to live without any of our
countrymen. He therefore, after consulting me and Antony
Lutzenburg, who is a hearty well-wisher of yours, orders
them to return to James Daniel's household. You, my dear
James, will act like yourself, and will take the trouble to see
that the lads are settled as well as possible in accordance with
the Abbot's decision, which you cannot mistake. Augustine
will, I trust, do the same. You will both of you gratify our
kind and distinguished Prelate.

As to my fate, I wrote to Augustine by the courier Corne-
lius. Since Batt died, who doubts but Erasmus is dead too ?
Moreover other things are in such a state, that they could
not be worse. In courage alone is all my remaining hope.
Farewell, with our friend Augustine, who I hear is to live
with vou.

St. Omer, 2 July [1502].*

It appears from Epistle 168, that Augustine Caminad, Erasmus's
old pupil, with whom he had been so long in intimate correspondence
as a dealer in books, was abandoning this trade, and applying himself
to Jurisprudence. This accounts for his going to live with Tutor, who
was a professor of the Canon Law. Epistle 167 is the last letter
belonging to the time of Erasmus's sojourn in Artois.

* Ex diui Audomari. postridie Calendas lulij. Farrago. Anno m.cccc.xcviii.
add. Opus Epist.

CHAPTER XIII.

Residence at Louvain^ 1502- 1504; Tratislations from
Libaniiis and Liician ; Panegyric of Duke Philip ;
Business at Antwerp; Visit to Hammes. Epistles
168 to 179.

The cessation of Erasmus's old relations with Augustine probably con-
curred with his fear of the plague in inducing him to give up the idea
of returning to Paris. See p. 10. Speaking of this period of his life in
a letter to Polydore Vergil, written apparently in December, 1520, he
says that the prevalence of plague, not only at Paris but also at
Cologne, drove him to take refuge at Louvain. C. 671 D. We may
perhaps infer that he had intended at this time to go to Cologne.
Some thought of a visit to Germany is implied in Epistle 168.

The death of Batt, and the close of the correspondence with Augus-
tine and James Tutor, bring us to the end of a series of letters
containing much personal and biographical matter ; and for several
years after this time the Epistles are less frequent. But the removal
of Erasmus to Louvain had the effect of bringing him into contact
with the scholars and theologians who formed the governing and
teaching body of the University which had been established in that
city in the preceding century. The first to take notice of him was
Adrian of Utrecht, then Dean of Louvain, and afterwards Pope
Adrian VL, to whom he appears to have been already known, at least
by reputation, as it was by his influence that the new-comer was
invited on his arrival to take part in the teaching of the University.
Adrian had been a pupil at the school of Deventer, but as he was
seven or eight years older than Erasmus, it is not probable that they
were schoolfellows, as some have supposed (Knight, Life of Erasmus,
p. 7; Jortin, Erasmus, i. 2). In a letter written in 1522 to Erasmus
by Adrian, after his election as Pope, he refers to the time they had
spent together in literary leisure at Louvain (Ep. xxiii. 3 ; C. 636 f).
The office proposed to Erasmus was probably a lecture on Rhetoric
(Latin Composition) or on Poetry. His refusal may be ascribed to his

352 jLoss of patrons and friends

wish to maintain his independence and to reserve his leisure for Greek
studies and literary work.

The return of Erasmus to the Low Countries appears to have led to
a renewal of intercourse with his old comrade William Herman, from
whom he had parted with some displeasure in the preceding year (see
p. 329). The earliest extant epistles of Erasmus from Louvain are
not dated, and we cannot fix the precise time of his arrival there.
But the following letter was apparently written in September or early
in October, 1502, after he had heard of the death of the Archbishop of
Besan^on, which occurred at Toledo, 13 August, 1502; and probably
before the death of the Bishop of Cambrai, which occurred at Cambrai,
7 October in the same year. We may guess from the opening words,
that he had already written from Louvain to Herman, or to the Convent.
Herman had taken his advice, and had been working at Greek, making
use of a volume of Fables in that language lent him by Erasmus. This
book appears to have been of service in preparing his Apologues^
which had been already published. I do not think that this first edition
is known. Herman's version of the Fables attributed to Avianus was
printed by Thierry Martens at Louvain in October, 15 13, and fre-
quently reprinted with the versions by Hadrian Barland and others, of
the fables attributed to ^Esop. Vander Haeghen, Bibliographie de
Barlandus, pp. 200, 204, 207. Of Augustine's parcel of copies of the
Adages we have read in Epistles 139, 163. See pp. 304, 345. The
lady of Veer's second marriage to Lewis, Viscount of Montfort, has
been mentioned, p. 308.

Epistle 168. Merula, p. 203. Ep. xxxi. 32 ; 0.1837(446).

Erasmus to William of Goiida.

We are still at Louvain, kept here, as we were cast here,
by the plague. This year Fortune has played fine havock
with us. Batt has been removed by death, or rather by
poison. The Bishop of Besangon has also died, of whom I
had great hopes. The lady of Veer has been snatched away
by a worse than servile marriage. My English lord is cut
off from me by the sea. Augustine is called away by his
legal studies. France, Britain and Germany are all at the
same time closed against me by the plague.

Herman s Apologues 353

I am pleased with everything at Louvain, only the living
is a little coarse, and the prices high ; and besides I have no
means at all of making money. A readership which was
offered by the authorities I refused. I am fully occupied
with Greek, and it is not altogether lost labour, for I have
advanced so far as to be able to write what I want in Greek
tolerably well without preparation. I hear your Apologues
have been published, and want you to send me some copies.
Also send me back the Greek Fables, as you do not need
them now ; for we are suffering here from a great scarcity
of Greek books. Augustine writes insultingly to me about
his Adages, while you do nothing but laugh.

If there is anything in your parts that I am concerned to
know, do write. I am surprised to have no letter from you,
for even if you hated me, you might still write to one who
is in a position to advance your fame, as I am much in
society here, and sometimes among the most learned.
Nevertheless, you are often on my lips, and not yet slipped
out of my heart, though I see your feelings are scarcely
those of a friend. But though I have no objection to vie
with you in love, I decline a contest in contempt or hatred,
especially wnth you, whom I have so much loved. Fare-
well, dearest William, and love us, if you can.

[Louvain, September, 1502].*

Epistle 169. Merula, p. 197. Ep. xxxi. 28; C. 1884 (505).

Erasmus to Father Nicolas Werner.

If I hear right, you seem to have taken offence at our
letter, perhaps because, although quite true, it was written
more freely than it ought to have been. This however

* No date in Merula.
VOL. I. 2 A

354 Readership offered at Louvain

your kindness should have ascribed either to my natural
distress, or to the freedom allowable in a letter, which may
always lay claim to the confidence of secrecy. For how
could I worthily resent the conduct of a man who gave
vent to such a story against me ? I am despised by some
among you, who being themselves quite stupid and un-
learned, think that all religion is included in a cowl and a
dull life. Nothing is easier than to despise what is strange
to you, and nothing is more silly. I had scarcely arrived at
Louvain, when without my either seeking or expecting it,
a public lectureship was offered me by the magistrates of
the town, and that by the spontaneous recommendation
of Master Adrian of Utrecht, the Dean of this place. I
declined the post for certain reasons, one of which is, that
I am at so short a distance from Dutch tongues, which know
how to injure, but have not learned to be of use to any one.
[Louvain 1502.]*

The Treatise of James Antony of Middelburg (Jacobus Anthonii,
so called in his own book), entitled De pr3ecellentia i^nperatoriae
potestatis (see p. 322), was printed by Martens at Antwerp, with the
date, I April, 1502. To this volume Erasmus contributed a commen-
datory epistle addressed to the author^ dated 13 Feb., 1502 (Anno
M.D.II. Idus Februarias). Epistle 170. De Praecellentia, etc. fol. a;
Ep.xi. 26 ; C. 92 (100). These year-dates we must interpret 1503, as
the year at Antwerp began at Easter (April 16, 1503) ; and the Bishop's
death, mentioned in Epistle 170, did not take place until October, 1502.

During his residence at Louvain Erasmus began a series of trans-
lations from Greek authors, which he continued at intervals for
several years, until his leisure was absorbed by more important
labours. This practice answered a double purpose. Beyond the
immediate object of pursuing his own studies, he provided himself
wdth a number of works of a convenient size for transcription, which
served as suitable offerings from a Greek scholar to his patrons and

* No date in Merula.

Composition of Panegyric 355

friends at a time when the study of the originals was not within the
ordinary reach of the learned. His first important translation appears to
have been from Libanius. See p. 356.

James Faber, an old pupil of the school of Deventer, published at
that town in 1503 a collection of poems of his old master, Alexander
Hegius, which he dedicated to Erasmus by a prefatory letter, dated
9 July, 1503; Epistle 171. In this long epistle, which Dr. Richter
has given in full in his Erasmus-Studien, p. 51-3, the writer cites a
passage from the Adages {Quid cani et balneo) relating to Rodolphus
Agricola and Hegius, as it stood in the first edition, and alludes to the
translation, which Erasmus was making from Libanius, and which
Faber expected to be presented to himself.

Philip, Archduke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy, son of the
Emperor Maximilian, being at this time absent in Spain on a visit to
Ferdinand and Isabella, the parents of his wife Joanna, and expected
to return to Brabant in the winter, Erasmus was invited to prepare a
Latin address to be presented to him upon his reception at Brussels.
In the following short letter Erasmus attributes his own employment
in this matter to Dr. James Maurits, whose name now appears for the
first time in this correspondence. His residence is not mentioned,
but w^e may conjecture that he was a person of influence residing at
Brussels. I have not ventured to alter the date of the letter, though
it may seem probable that it was written two months later, when
Erasmus was more nearly finishing the Panegyric, which appears how-
ever from Epistle 174 to have been a long time in hand. See p. 358.

Epistle 172. Merula, p. 208 ; Ep. xxxi. 38 ; C. 1853 (461).

Erasmus to Master J^ames Maurits, Licenciate of
both Laws.

I am almost worn out with the prolonged labour of
writing, for what is more laborious than writing, especially
for publication?* And at present I am as busy as I can be,
putting the crowning flourish to my Panegyric. This task

* prsesertim edenda.
2 A 2

356 Translation fr 07)1 Libanius

which you have assigned me, tiresome as it is, is utterly
useless. For what can be more tiresome than to write
against the grain, and what more useless than to write things
that impair one's power of writing well ? Nevertheless my
love for you has made me think the task neither tiresome
nor useless, having made up my mind to do everything you
desire, not only as a duty, but with all my heart. Farewell.
Louvain, 28 Sept. [1503].!

In the course of his studies at Louvain Erasmus had met with a copy
of some Greek Declamations, including one by Libanius, a sophist of
Antioch and friend of the Emperor Julian, the subject of which was
Menelaus demanding of the Trojans the restoration of Helen. These
had afforded materials for translation; and in November, 1503, Erasmus
presented the result with a dedicatory Epistle to Nicolas Ruistre,
Bishop of Arras, Chancellor of the University of Louvain and founder
of the College of Arras in that University. It does not appear that
these translations were printed at the time; but in July, 1519, they
were published by Thierry Martens at Louvain in a little book, entitled
Libanii aliquot declamatiunculae graecae, Eaedemque latinae. They
were probably made before Erasmus obtained a copy of Lucian's
works, which afterwards supplied more congenial matter for transla-
tion. See p. 369 The concluding sentences of the Dedicatory
Epistle, which are given below, have some literary and biographical
interest.

Epistle 173. Declamatiunculas, 1519 ; Ep. xxix. 16 ;

C. i. 547.

Erasmus to the Bishop of Arras.

* * * % *

The whole thing is of little importance, but I chose it for
a first experiment in this kind of labour, that I might not,
according to the Greek proverb, eV rw tti^w Tr]v KepafJiCav,

t Lovanij quarto Calendas Octobris. Merula.

The art of translating 357

learn the potter's craft by making a tun vase, but rather, —
Iv Kapl Tov KLuBwoVy — risk only a chattel of trifling value.
I have followed the old rule of Tullv, that a translator's
business is to weigh sentences and not to count words,
although as a novice in the art I have chosen rather to
be too scrupulous than too bold. How far I have succeeded
in my attempt, it is for others to judge. One thing I can
testify by the teaching of experience, that nothing is harder
than to turn good Greek into good Latin. If we find that
these preludes and first offerings of ours find favour with
you, then, backed by your judgment and authority, we shall
advance with courage to higher enterprises, and be em-
boldened to send, not a few flowers, but some fruits gathered
in from the fields of literature. Farewell, most Reverend
Prelate and Father, and deign to enroll me and my studies
under your protection.
Louvain, 17 Nov. 1503.*

Towards the end of November Erasmus was staying as a guest in
the house of Joannes Paludanus (Des Marais) the Orator of the Uni-
versity. Jerome Busleiden, whose acquaintance (mentioned in Epistle
174) was of some importance to Erasmus, was brother of Francis,
Archbishop of Besanfon, whose death in the Spanish expedition of
Duke Philip is alluded to in Epistle 168.

Epistle 174. Merula, p. 194 ; Ep. xxxi. 26 ; C. 1836 (445).

Erasmus to William of Goiida.

My hearty greetings to you, dearest William. I lately
translated some declamations, one of Libanius the Sophist,
and two of uncertain authorship, which I dedicated and

* Louanii Anno a Christo nato mdxv. Decimo quinto Calendas Decembres
Corrected in last sheet : lege Anno mdiii. Dcclama'iunculx..

35^ 'Jerome Biisleiden

presented to Doctor Nicolas Riiistre, Bishop of Arras and
Chancellor of this University. He was much pleased with
my gift, trifling as it was, invited me to dinner, and offered
his assistance in whatever matter he could gratify either me
or my friends. When he was leaving the place, he sent me
ten gold pieces by the Dean of Mechlin.

Before Christmas we are to address our Duke Philip with
a Panegyric on his journey to Spain and happy return, which
we should have got out of hand long ago, if we had not been
imperfectly informed about the matter.

I have made friends with Jerome Busleiden, Archdeacon
of Cambrai, the Bishop's brother, a man expert in both
tongues, — or rather he has made friends with me. He often
says, that my fortune would have been made, if that per-
sonage had returned alive. Certainly my whole hope had
been fixed upon him. I have given the Archdeacon your
Apologues with a letter in praise of vour genius and charac-
ter. For I do not cease to proclaim my William's merits
among my friends, although I have long seen that you are
content with a provincial reputation. For during the manv
years that I have passed in France, England, Artois, and
Brabant, you have never sent me any of your lucubrations,
to give me a fitting opportunity of commending your genius,
and do not even write me an epistle, to show to learned
friends. And yet in the matter of your Odes you saw the
sincerity of my heart. Although I am despised in Holland,
I am certainly not altogether disregarded here, either among
the noble, or the religious, or the learned. You will say
perhaps, fame enough and to spare, if there were only some-
thing more substantial. In this I difi"er from you entirely ;
although not infrequently fame leads to profit. In this
matter I have often, mv dear William, wondered at the plan
you have adopted, but I would not make myself disagreeable
to an inseparable friend by repeated expostulations. But I
guess, that perhaps you purposely avoid any close inter-

Florence of Egmond 359

course with me, that you may not be called upon to take
your share of the jealousy directed against me.

To dismiss this subject, my host Paludanus, the Orator of
this University, a man skilled in both the tongues, was
warmly expecting your arrival. I wonder you did not keep
your promise and come. The lord Provost of Utrecht, our
neighbour, speaks of you in all companies with much plea-
sure. I ask you, what trouble would it be for you to nurse
the friendship of such men by a few letters. Florence of
Egmond, having won the prize in every tournay, has brought
back so much credit from Spain, Savoy, France, and Ger-
many, as not only to obscure, but to extinguish the glory of
all the other noblemen. I shall bring his praises into my
Panegyric. You will be wise, if you write a letter to con-
gratulate him, or, as I should prefer, a poem. I will take
care he shall receive it, and that by me.

I celebrated the Bishop of Cambrai in three Latin epi-
taphs, and one Greek. They sent me only six florins, — to
make him like himself, even in death ! If you will take the
trouble to write a short letter to my host, you will gratify
both him and me, and perhaps benefit yourself ; he is of all
men living the most sincere admirer and helper of men of
letters. Farewell, most learned William.

Louvain, 27 Nov. [1503].*

Florence of Egmond, whose martial exploits interested Erasmus and
Herman, was a nobleman of Holland, and a country neighbour to the
townsmen of Gouda, his castle of Ysselstein being situated not far
from that place. He distinguished himself in 1516, when, as governor
of Friesland, he defeated his cousin, Charles of Egmond, Duke of
Guelderland, who had invaded the province under his charge. William
took Erasmus's hint, and dedicated an edition of his Apologues to the
baron of Ysselstein. The letter of dedication is reprinted in the
edition of Martens, 15 13, see p. 352. Erasmus was in correspondence

* Louanij quinto Calendis {sic) Decembris. Merula.

360 Robert Cassar, schoolmaster

with this nobleman in 151 7 about the education of his son Maximilian,
then under the charge of a tutor at Louvain. Epistle xii. 30 ; C. 501
(461). Two of the Latin epitaphs on the Bishop of Cambrai are
printed in C. i. 1222.

Epistle 175 is a short letter, which is not in any of the collections of
Erasmus's correspondence, but may serve as an example of the interest
which he took in schoolmasters and their work. It is found, without
date of time, on the back of the title of a small tract of ten pages, con-
taining the Concio de puero lesii, Expostulatio lesu cum homine
suapte sponte pereunte, and Epitapkium Scurulx temiilenti, — which
has no date or printer's name, but is printed in black letter, and evi-
dently comes from some press of North Germany or the Netherlands
of the early years of the sixteenth century. A copy is in the British
Museum, bound in an old binding with several other similar books, all
in black letter, and some printed at Deventer. The date of the epistle
is approximately shown by the place of writing, and the preparation
of Erasmus for the arrival of a Prince. To explain this, the words
principis aduentum have, in this copy, a contemporary manuscript
note, Philippi ex Hispania. But the tract in which the letter is pre-
served must have been printed after the foundation of Colet's School
for which the Concio was written, — probably about 15 13. We may
conjecture that Caesar or one of his friends who possessed a copy of
the letter, was employed to correct the proof of this little pamphlet.
Robert Caesar continued for some time to reside at Ghent, being a
correspondent of Erasmus six years later, C. 1586 (102), and frequently
mentioned in letters from and to Antonius Clava of Ghent (C. 1644 A.
1788 B. 1789 B.), probably the Anthony of Epistle 175. This trifling
Epistle in its original language, not being found in any of the printed
collections of Epistles, is added in the Appendix to this volume.

Epistle 175. Concio, etc., fol. i. dors. ; Appendix iii.

Erasmus to Robert CcBsar, schoolmaster.

Proceed, my Robert, in your noble work of preparing the
youth of Ghent for the reception of the best learning, and
do not let your mind be more moved by the clatter of the
envious than an elephant by a fly, but rather be encouraged

Publication of the Enchiridion 361

by their bark. It is a fine thing to have opponents that are
made uneasy by your resolution.

I am both surprised and sorry that you left us so suddenly ;
and this feeling was shared by my host, who is a great
admirer of men like you. I showed your pupils' writings to
our friends, but could scarcely persuade any one that they
came from boys. I was going to write to Anthony, but I
am busy night and day preparing for the Prince's arrival.
I am sending you some things soon, by which you will admit
your present to be compensated. Farewell, and love your
Erasmus as you are valued by him, and you are valued highly.

Louvain, [Dec. 1503].

The Enchiridion militis Chrisiiani, begun at Tournehem, or St.
Omer, in 1501 (pp. 337, 341), was completed by the author at his
leisure after his removal to Louvain. He appears to have sent it to
the printer Thierry Martens, of Antwerp (afterwards of Louvain), in
the winter of 1503. The imprint bears date the 15th of February,
1503, by which we should understand 1504, the year at Antwerp being
generally reckoned from Easter. See p. 354. The little volume, as it
also contains the Epistle de Virtute amplectenda (Epistle 87), the
Epistle to Colet (Epistle 106) with the Disputatiuncula de tsedio et
pavore Christi, and some precationes, is entitled, Erasmus, Lvcv-
brativncvlae aliquot. See pp. igi, 219.

At the beginning of the year 1504 Duke Philip had returned to
Brabant, and the Panegyric or Congratulatory Address was presented
by Erasmus himself to the Prince in the Ducal Palace at Brussels on
the 6th of January, 1504. The orator was rewarded with the gift of a
hundred florins. The next step was to print the Oration, while the
occasion was still fresh in the memory of all. The best press in the
Netherlands at this time was that of Thierry Martens, who had already
in hand another book of Erasmus. The latter accordingly resolved
to transfer his quarters to Antwerp, where he could direct the issue of
both publications. The Panegyric, was printed in a small quarto volume,
the pages of which are not numbered. The title is as follows : Aa
illustrissimU principe PhilippU Arciduce Austriae : duce Burgundix

362 Presentation and printing of Panegyric

etcetera, de triuphali ■^fectione Hispaniensi: deque foelici eiusdem in
patriam reditu gratulatorius panegyricus : 171 quo obiter no pauca de
laudibus ipsius ac maioru eius. Conscriptus ac eideni principi exhibitus
a Desyderio Erasmo Roterodamo Canonico Ordinis diui Aurelii
Augustini; and under the title is a cento of six Greek lines from
Homer, — Homerocenton. The back of the title-page is fully filled by
Epistle 176. The Panegyric follows in eighty-two closely-printed
pages. At the end of the Panegyric is Epistle 177, followed by a
Congratulatory Poem in hexameter verse, which occupies three pages
(C. iv. 553). Neither of the Epistles, nor the Book itself, has any date of
time, but the Oration is followed by the words : Dixi. Finitur Panegy-
ricus exhibitus illustrissimo principi Philippo in arce ducali Bruxellensi,
praesentibus magnificentissimo domino de Maigny etc. magno Cancel-
lario Burgundiae R. patre Epo Atrebatensi : Audientiario etcet. Anno
a Christo nato supra millesimum quingentesimoquarto in die epiphaniae.
Some of the biographers of Erasmus have imagined him reading or
reciting his Panegyric before the archduke, surrounded by an assembly
of courtiers and citizens in the great hall of the Palace of Brussels.
See Drummond, Erasmus^ i. 133, 134; Durand de Laur, Erasme,
i. 73; Feugere, Vie d' Erasme, p. 31. The popular audience is in
part suggested by the arguments of Epistle 177 (see p. 369), and by
some expressions in the work itself. C. iv. 508 D. But the Panegyric,
as we have it, would have taken several hours to read aloud ; and
although it is probable that it was considerably lengthened by the last
revision of the author, still if it had been only a quarter of the present
length, it would have been surely too much for the patience of the
young Archduke. The words cited above only tell us, that it was
exhibited or presented to the Prince in the presence of the Chancellor,
the Bishop, and others, in the Castle of Brussels on the Feast of the
Epiphany, 1504, where it may be observed that the year-date is given
according to the Imperial (and modern) usage, not that of Brabant,
which would have required the number 1503. See pp. 354, 361. In
a later edition it is added in the Title, that the Chancellor de
Maicrnv answered in the Prince's name. C. iv. 507. I do not find in
the Panegyric any mention of Florence of Egmond (p. 359) ; but
Erasmus contrives to introduce the name of William Herman, ap-
pealing to him as the historian of Holland (C. iv. 512 d), a title which
he had poorly earned by a narrative of the war waged between Holland
and Guelderland in his younger days. See p. 87. This little book was
printed at Amsterdam, in black letter without date.

Dedication of Panegyric 363

Epistle 176. Panegyricus (1504) ; Ep. xxix. 57 ;
C. iv. 555.

Eras?nus to Doctor Nicolas Ruistre, Bishop of Arras.

I have thought it right for many reasons, most dis-
tinguished Prelate, that the Panegyric which I lately
presented to Prince Philip on his return from Spain should
come into the hands of the public under your auspices ; first,
because you are the one person among us who sincerely
favour literature, and are wont to play the part of a
Maecenas, or rather of a parent, to all the learned ; in the
second place, if this my labour shall contribute to enhance
our Prince's glory, there is no one to whom his honour is
more dear than it is to you ; or if it shall have any influence
on his life, it has been your one perpetual study, by free and
wholesome counsels, to direct aright the minds of the dukes
of Burgundy, from PhiHp to Philip, from great-grandfather to
great-grandson ; and lastly, I should wish our congratulation
to be recommended to all good intellects by the same person
who first obtained for it the Prince's approbation. This was
testified, not only by his eyes and mien, but also by a most
generous present, the pledge of his good opinion ; and there
was nothing he did not offer, if I had been minded to attach
myself to his Court.

On the other hand, there are many reasons which urged
me to hide and suppress my Oration. On the one hand I
thought of the small measure of my powers, on the other I
observed how hard is it so to speak as to sustain the
majesty of the greatest princes, and how^ sore an offence
culpa deterere ingeni^ — to lower their dignity by default of
genius. For it is not by every pencil that the forms of
gods can be worthily represented. It should be added, that,

364 Praise or admonition f

unequal to the task in other respects, I was also hindered,
as you know, by want of time. It was not only late before
the matter was presented to my mind, but I knew nothing
of the facts of the Prince's journey, except what a man, by
no means curious about such thins^s and alwavs intent on his
books, might have learned by public rumour. Under such
circumstances I first got together in a great hurry a sort of
silva of phrases, and shaped a rude model of a future
Panegyric. At a later time when I had inquired into the
facts, and yet was not much better informed, some people
being careless and others purposely concealing them, and a
printed edition was demanded on all sides by the studious,
not liking to weave the whole web anew, I inserted some
additions in several places. Hence I fear the fingers of the
more skilful will detect the inequality in the piece and some
gaping seams here and there. A narrator has no really safe
guide but his own eyes ; whereas it has been my case not
even to hear of more than a few events, and those not clearly
ascertained, so that all this part will have to be skipped
over as it were on tip-toe. For it is a sort of sacrilege to
write of a prince without being certain of what one says.

Another difficulty was this, that the simplicity of my
character, to speak honestly, somewhat shrank from this
kind of writing, to which that sentence of Socrates seems
alone, or mainly, to apply, when he says that Rhetoric is one
of three parts of flattery. And yet this kind of ours is not so
much praise (atvecrt?) as admonition (TrapatVecri?). For there
is no such efficacious mode of making a prince better, as
that of setting before him, under the guise of praise, the
example of a good sovereign, provided you so attribute
virtues and deny vices, as to persuade him to the former
and deter him from the latter. For a physician does not
cure all his patients by the same treatment, but by that most
suitable for each. I might therefore defend myself by this
rule, if I had not had to do with a prince whom one might

Publication of Panegyric 365

praise without need of any fiction. In this one respect I am
fortunate ; but they will be still more fortunate, who shall
describe him in his later years. May the divine mercy in
answer to our prayers grant more and more prosperity to
his counsels. Farewell.
[Antwerp, 1504-]

The above dedication (without date in the original) was probably
written at Antwerp ; from whence Erasmus also addressed a long
letter to John Desmarais, added at the end of the work after it was
already in print. This letter contains an ingenious and elaborate
apology for the adulatory style inevitable in compositions of this kind,
the keynote of which is already sounded in the last paragraph of the
above Dedication. For the saying of Socrates there referred to, see
Plato, Gorgias, ed. Steph. i. 463 ; Transl. Jowett, ii. 333.

Epistle 177. Panegyricus, 1504; Ep. xxix. 56;
C. iv. 549.

Erasmus to Joannes Paludaniis^ Orator of the University

of Lonvain.

I understand from your letter, Paludanus, dear to the
Muses and to me, and indeed I guessed without it, knowing
you to be more jealous of my reputation than I am myself,
that you have been thirsting to hear what will be the fate
and what the genius of our Panegyric, now emerging into
light, and of which we are as it were watching the birth.
The first sheet, fresh and still wet from the press, had
scarcely begun to be shown and passed about as a novelty
from hand to hand, when Erasmus, who you know has
always been much delighted with that idea of Apelles
hiding behind his pictures, was standing with ears intent,
eager to catch from all around, not how many liked it
(since for the assurance of my own mind one man's judg-
ment is enough, provided it is like that of Velascus or your-
self), but what part might be disapproved. For the man

366 Design of Panegyrics

who praises, unless he is more than usually learned, is only
in the way ; while one who finds fault, even though his
learning is not great, either points out some blot that has
escaped the author, or rouses him to defend what is pro-
perly expressed ; and so either advances his learning or at
any rate excites his attention. Therefore so long as I have
my senses, I prefer one Momus to ten Polyhymnias. * *

Those persons who think Panegyrics are nothing but
flattery, appear not to know with what design this kind of
writing was invented by men of great sagacity, whose object
it was, that by having the image of virtue put before them,
bad princes might be made better, the good encouraged, the
ignorant instructed, the mistaken set right, the wavering
quickened, and even the abandoned brought to some sense
of shame. Is it to be supposed that such a philosopher as
Callisthenes, when he spoke in praise of Alexander, or that
Lysias and Isocrates, or Pliny and innumerable others, when
they were engaged in this kind of composition, had any
other aim but that of exhorting to virtue under pretext of
praise ? * * *

Does not the Apostle Paul sometimes employ this sort of
pious adulation, praising people in order to make them
better ? In what possible way could you with more impu-
nity or with more severity reprove the cruelty of a wicked
sovereign than by magnifying clemency in his person ? How
could you better reprove his rapacity, violence or lust, than
by lauding his benignity, moderation and chastity ?

But Augustine, it is argued, confesses as a fault, that he
had lied in reciting the praises of an Emperor. How far
this is aifected by the consideration, that that Saint carried
his hatred even of a lie to an excess of inflexibilitv, need not
be discussed here. Certainly Plato and the Stoics allowed
the use of a serviceable falsehood by a wise man. Do we
not sometimes rightly encourage boys to a love of virtue by
false praises ? Does not the best physician tell his patients

Veracity how far obligatory 367

that their symptoms or their looks are just as he would
wish, not because they are so, but in order to make them so?
It may be added, that a loyal subject may well fall under an
illusion in his admiration of his prince, and forget any
reserve in praising one whom he is bound to love without
reserve. And it is for the public advantage, that even when
a sovereign is not the best of men, those over whom he
rules should think the best of him. It is for them that the
Panegyric is written,t not for the Prince. For it is not
addressed to the one person of whom it is spoken, J but to
the many before whom it is spoken ;§ and a great deal must
have reference to their hearing of it. Lastly these orations
are also written for posterity, and for the world ; and in this
view it is of little importance, in whose person the example
of a good sovereign is put before the public, provided it is so
skilfully done, that the intelligent may see the effect was not
to deceive but to admonish. * * *

The defence I have made would, I think, be admitted to
be a fair one by wise judges, even if some Phalaris or Sarda-
napalus or Heliogabalus had been praised in this Panegyric.
But as the case stands, I should be sorry that any one should
suspect me of requiring to be excused by any of the argu-
ments I have alleged against the charge of adulation. I
have had occasion to depict a prince, who is still young, but
who, besides his unparalleled advantages of fortune, already
shows signs of great merits, and in whose future life every
virtue may be expected. I have certainly endeavoured so
to direct the plan and composition of the whole speech as to
make it plain to the learned and attentive, that flattery was
the last object I had in view. This vice, as no one can
testify so well as you, has always been so repugnant to me,
that I should neither be able to flatter any one if I would,
nor wish to do so if I could. I do not therefere at all fear

t scribitur. % de quo dicitur. § apud quos dicitur.

368 Time and materials deficient

that that imputation will stick to my character among those
who, like you, know Erasmus both within and without.

And as in dealing with the charge of adulation you are
able to be both the best witness and the best advocate of
my innocence, so as far as regards the impeachment of my
genius, no one knows better than you, under whose eye the
whole affair has been begun and ended, that three most
important things have been wanting, Trpdyixa, 7rd9o<; kol
Xpouo'?, matter, passion and time. The first of these requi-
sites is so important, that without it you have nothing
to begin upon ; for what could TuUy himself say, if
he was not instructed in his case ? The second is of
so much consequence that, according to Fabius, it makes
men eloquent without learning ; and you know how un-
willingly and reluctantly I sate down to write. The third is
of such a nature, that the most learned of men could not
produce any finished work, without many a day and many a
blot being spent in its correction. The prince had already
reached the frontier of the kingdom, before the idea came
into your mind ; and it would have been a cold welcome to
congratulate him on his return, when it was already a thing
of the past. Considering the pressure of time, there was no
want of industry on my part in making enquiries, but of the
answers I obtained some related to the arrangements of
banquets and trifles of that sort, others were too uncertain
to be committed to writing ; whereas if certain persons had
been as zealous for the glory of their prince, as they are for
their own interests, I saw the thing might be made brilliant
enough ; but that then the whole web would have to be
woven afresh. * * * *

How much more fortunate was Pliny, to say nothing of
his superiority in eloquence, not only because he had for his
subject such an emperor as Trajan, and that already grey,
already experienced in all the duties of civil and military
life, but much more because he had for the most part himself

Panegyric of Plmy 3^9

seen what he was expected to praise. For these reasons he
has ventured in one of his letters to call attention to the
figures, transitions and arrangement of his Panegyric. It is
for me rather to ask those who have lynxes' eyes, to shut
them on occasion.

I have dwelt somewhat largely upon these points in writing
to you, for to whom else should I write about them ? It is no
one's part, if it is not yours, to undertake my defence against
all censures. You are the one person who impelled me re-
luctantly to accept this task, and constantly spurred me on to
proceed with it ; by your authority and with your assistance
I laid it before the illustrious Prince ; and lastly it is you,
that have not rested until you persuaded me to publish it. I
may add that in the progress of the work you suggested,
among other things, one thing especially at which I gladly
caught, that I should do what in me lay by honourable
mention, to rescue from oblivion the memory of one whose
merits are beyond praise, that most distinguished prelate,
Francis Busleiden, Archbishop of Besancon.

I have added a poem of the same texture, that is, of an
impromptu kind, as you will readily see without my men-
tioning it.

Farewell, ornament of Letters ! Defend us bravely, as
you alone both can and ought to do.

Antwerp, from the Printing-office, [1504].*

We have no certain knowledge of Erasmus's movements at this
time ; but we may conjecture that, on the completion of his business
at Antwerp, he returned to the friendly hospitality of Paludanus. He
was now able to apply himself with fresh vigour to his Greek studies.
He had by this time become possessed of a copy of the works of
Lucian, an edition of which had been printed by Aldus in the course
of the previous year ; and his subsequent prose translations from the
Greek were all from this author. Compare p. 356. The first dialogue

* Antwerpise ex officina chalcographica. Panegyricus, 1504.
VOL. I. 2 B

370 Translations from Liician

chosen for this purpose was that entitled The Cock or The Dream.
This work appears to have been begun during the winter of 1503-4
(see below, and compare p. 356), possibly in some interval of leisure,
while waiting at Louvain for the return of the Prince, or at Antwerp
for his proofs. It was probably completed soon after the termination
of his business there.

In Epistle 168 Erasmus had lamented that his principal English
patron was cut off from him by the sea. Not many months after-
wards Lord Mountjoy received the appointment of Captain of the
Castle of Hammes, one of the outlying fortifications of the English
pale at Calais. See p. 231. The patent is dated 26 June, 18 Hen.
VII. (1503), but was made to take effect from the preceding 6th of
April. At the last-mentioned date we may suppose that the actual
appointment took place by a less formal order from the sovereign,
under which the new official had probably crossed the Channel to take
possession of his charge. After this time the young lord, if not resi-
dent at Hammes, was no doubt frequently there, and it was probable
that Erasmus should take advantage of one of these visits to pay his
respects to his English patron without crossing the Channel. Epistle
178, dated from the Castle of Hammes, 1503, affords some evidence
that he was there about this time. The year-date is perhaps no more
trustworthy than these after-added year-dates generally are ; but if
the visit took place before Easter (7 April), 1504, it needs no correc-
tion. It was probably on the occasion of this first visit to the little
fortress, that Erasmus composed an elegiac poem of four-and-twenty
verses in its honour, beginning thus : Me, quia sim non magna, cave
contempseris, hostis. C. i. 1219; Knight, -fi'r^i-wz^.r, App. v. These
verses are among the Epigranunata, printed by Bade at the end of
his edition of the Adages, Jan. 1507. See p. 414.

Erasmus, when at Hammes, availed himself of the facility of commu-
nication with England to return some civilities he had received from a
veteran English diplomatist. Dr. Christopher Ursewick (Almoner to
King Henry VII. and Dean of Windsor) and for many years one of
his most generous friends, by sending him a transcript of a Latin
version of Lucian's Dream, with a Dedicatory Epistle, in which
he speaks of his having entered the garden of the Greek Muses, which
blossoms even in winter, and plucked a bud which especially delighted
him. The following characterization of Lucian may serve to throw
some light, not only on Erasmus's own turn of mind, but also on that
of his correspondent.

Erasmus at Hammes 371

Epistle 178. Luciani opiiscula^ Paris, 1506 ; Ep. xxix. 5 ;

C. i. 243.

Erasmus to Dr. Christopher Urscwick.

Good Heavens ! with what humour, and with what quick-
ness does he deal his blow^s, turning everything to ridicule,
and letting nothing pass without a touch of mockery ! His
hardest strokes are aimed at the Philosophers, especially the
Pythagoreans and the Platonists, on account of their super-
natural assumptions, and at the Stoics for their intolerable
arrogance. The last are smitten hip and thigh, and with
every sort of weapon, and indeed not without good reason.
For what is more hateful or insufferable than Malice putting
on the mask of Virtue ? Hence he had the title of blas-
phemer from those who were touched on a tender part. He
uses no less liberty throughout his writings in deriding the
gods, whence the surname of Atheist was bestowed upon
him, an honourable distinction as coming from the impious
and superstitious. * * *

Farewell, best and kindest Christopher, and enlist Erasmus
among your humble clients, as one that in duty, love and
devotion will not yield to any.

From the Castle of Hammes, 1 503-4. f

The familiar correspondence of the year 1504, from which we might
have learned something more of this visit to Mountjoy, is entirely
wanting. Neither are we able to speak with certainty of his occupa-
tions during the remainder of the year. We are informed by Beatus
Rhenanus that he gave lectures at the University of Louvain, when

t The translation of Lucian's dialogue entitled Gallus sive Som?iium, was
included, with the Toxaris and other translations from the same author by
Erasmus and More, in a volume printed by Bade in 1506. See p. 422. The
dedication to Ursewick is there, but without date. In the editions printed by
Froben in 1517 and 1521, the date is, Ex arce Hammensi. An m.d.iii.

2 B 2

2)12 Work of Erasmus at Louvain

he was staying with Paludanus. See pp. 23, 28. But we know from
his own letters that he refused to undertake any public teaching during
the early part of his residence there (Epistles 168, 169), and there is
no hint in his later letter to William Herman (Epistle 174) that he had
changed his mind before he was occupied with the work of preparing
his Panegyric. It is probable, that after his return in 1504, he accepted
the invitation of the rulers of the University, and delivered a course of
lectures on Rhetoric or Poetry. The teaching mentioned by Beatus
cannot be attributed to his residence at Louvain in later years, when
he was known as a Theologian whose views were disapproved by the
leading members of the University. We learn moreover from Epistle
i82jthat Erasmus found time during this summer for a chace of in-
teresting manuscripts, which appears to have taken place in the library
of a monastery near Louvain. See pp. 380, 386. It was also during
his residence with Paludanus, according to his own testimony in the
Catalogue of Lucubrations, that Erasmus composed his translation in
Latin verse of the Hecuba of Euripides. See p. 393. He describes
it, as he describes his translations from Libanius and Lucian, as an
exercise in Greek ; but it was a more ambitious work, and was under-
taken at a later time, when the first difficulties of the new language
had been overcome. It was presented to Archbishop Warham in
January, 1506 (p. 393), and we may attribute its elaboration to the
comparative leisure of the latter part of his stay at Louvain in 1504.

A letter addressed to him by Reyner of Gouda, physicus, and dated
I Sept., was first published in the edition of Le Clerc, having been
copied, among other epistles mostly of a later date, into the MS.
Letter-book of Erasmus (now preserved in the Public Library of
Deventer), which was in the hands of the editor of that work. See our
Introduction. EPiSTLE 179, C. 1861 (474). This epistle, which refers
to a History of Holland in fifteen books composed by the writer, and
begs a letter in return, was probably written in 1504, while Erasmus
was still in the Low Countries, from which he was absent for several
years after. In a letter written from London to another corre-
spondent, in April, 1506 (Epistle 189), Erasmus sends his greeting to
Reyner, whom he describes as alterum literarum Hollandicarum decus,
William Herman being the other partner in this honour. Reyner, who
had the surname of Snoy, published, 18 May, 15 13, some juvenile poems
of Erasmus with the title, Herasmi Roterodami Silva Carminutn.
See p. 86.

CHAPTER XIV.

Erasmus at Paris, 1505. Renewed correspondence ivith
Colet. Valid s Notes on the Latin text of the New
Testanient ; Dedication to Christopher Fisher, jfosse
Bade, the printer. Epistles 180 to 183.

In the winter of 1504-5 we find Erasmus, after an absence of between
three and four years, returned for a time to Paris. We may conjecture
with great probability, that his movements were in some measure
influenced by events which had lately occurred at the monastery of
Stein. When in 1502 he chose Louvain as a residence, the Prior of
his convent was Nicolas Werner, from whose interference he felt,
after a long experience, tolerably secure. Upon the office being
vacated by Werner's death, which is said to have occurred early in
September, 1504 (Walvis, Beschrijving van Gouda, ii. 136), it was
conferred upon Erasmus's old comrade and correspondent, Servatius.
It is not improbable that the new Prior received upon his appointment
an admonition from the authorities of Sion or of Windesheim con-
cerning his duty to recall into residence a member of the Convent
whose absence was no longer justified by his studies at the University
of Paris, and that Erasmus before leaving Brabant had already received
a message which made him uneasy. In any case he might well
apprehend that, if he continued to reside in the Low Countries,
pressure would be put upon him, through the ecclesiastical authorities
of his country, either to return into residence, or to accept some
spiritual cure or permanent academic office, which would justify a
continued dispensation. In these circumstances he thought it best to
return for a time to his residence at Paris, while he continued with
the new Prior the same policy we have seen him practise with Werner,
keeping up a friendly correspondence, in which the motives and objects
of the life he had chosen might be placed in the most favorable light.
See Epistles 184, 188. What Erasmus says in Epistle 180 about his
reason for retreating to France is at least not inconsistent with the
considerations above suggested. See p. 375.

374 Colet^ Dean of St. Paul's

During part of this stay at Paris, if not throughout the whole of
it, Erasmus was the guest of an English resident, Dr. Christopher
Fisher, Protonotary Apostolic, and afterwards Bishop of Elphin in
Ireland (Knight, Life of Erasmus, p. 63), from whose house Epistle
180, and probably also Epistles 181, 182, and 183, were written.
Epistle 180 is addressed to Colet, to whom Erasmus appears to have
written not long before, but received no answer. See p. 377.

Colet had been lately appointed to the Deanery of St. Paul's, in
succession to Dr. Robert Sherburne, who, having been appointed
Bishop of St. David's, obtained the restitution of the temporalities of
that see, 12 April, 1505 {Fcedera, xiii. 115). His predecessor at St.
David's, John Morgan, otherwise Young, died before 24 May, 1504, at
which date his will, dated 25 April, 1504, was proved (Le Neve, Fasti,
i. 300). Colet received the degree of Doctor of Divinity at the
University of Oxford, as it is said, in 1504, but the official evidence
has been lost ; and the temporalities of the Prebend of Mora in St.
Paul's church, which had been held by Sherbourne as an appendage of
the Deanery, were restored in Colet's favour, 5 May, 1505 (Le Neve,
Fasti, ii. 411 ; Lupton, Life of Colet, p. 120). These dates bring us
as near as we can arrive by evidence to the date of Colet's appoint-
ment ; it is probable that the nomination and commencement of
residence took place in 1504, though the business was not completed
until the following spring. Epistle 180, which is later than the appoint-
ment, was written before the end of the winter of 1504-5 (see p. 378,
note), and apparently before Erasmus had turned his thoughts to the
work with which he was occupied early in March (Epistle 182).

Epistle 180. Farrago, p. 307 ; Ep. x. 8 ; C. 94 (102).

Erasmus to J-ohn Colet.

If either our mutual regard, most learned Colet, had grown
out of common reasons, or your character had seemed to
savour of anything common, I should be a little afraid
that our friendship might have failed, or at least have been
cooled, by so long a separation both in tinie and place, As

Retreat of Erasmus to France 375

it is, since you have been endeared to me by my admiration
of learning and love of piety, and I to you by some hope,
perhaps, that I possessed the same qualities, I do not think
I need fear what we commonly see happen, — that I have
ceased to be in your mind because I am out of your sight.
The fact that I have for several years received no letter
from Colet, I prefer to attribute to any other cause rather
than to your having forgotten your humble friend. But as I
have no right and no wish to find fault with your silence, so
all the more do I beg and entreat that you will in future
steal some moments of leisure from your studies and affairs
to greet me now and then with a letter.

I am surprised that none of your commentaries on Paul
and the Gospels have yet seen the light. I know your
modesty, but even that should be sometimes overcome in
consideration of the public interest. Upon the title of
Doctor and the honour of the Deanery, and some other dis-
tinctions, which I hear have been spontaneously conferred on
your merits, I do not so much congratulate you, who I well
know will demand nothing of them for yourself but labour,
as I do those for whom you are to bear them, or as I do the
honours themselves, which appear for once to be worthy of
that name, when they fall to one who deserves but does not
solicit them.

I cannot tell you, most excellent Colet, how intensely I
long to devote myself to sacred literature, and how disgusted
I am with every hindrance and delay. But the unkindness
of Fortune, who still regards me with her old disfavour, has
prevented me from extricating myself from these entangle-
ments. It has been with this idea that T have retreated to
France, in order in some measure to throw them off, if I
cannot untie them. I shall then address myself in freedom
and with my whole heart to divine studies, in which I mean
to spend the remainder of my life. Yet three years ago, I
did venture to write something on St. Paul's Epistle to the

376 Studies during three years

Romans, and finished with a single effort some four rolls,*
which I should have continued, if I had not been hindered,
my principal hindrance being my constant want of Greek.
Consequently for about three years I have been entirely
taken up with the study of that language, and I think I have
not altogether thrown my labour awav, I also began to
look at Hebrew, but frightened by the strangeness of the
idiom, and in consideration of my age and of the insufficiency
of the human mind to master a multitude of subjects, I
gave it up. I have perused a good part of the works of
Origen, under whose teaching I think I have made some
progress. He seems to disclose some original springs and
points out the principles of theological science.

I send you, as a small literary present, some lucubrations
of my own.f Among them is that discussion upon the
Agony of Christ, in which we were formerly engaged in
England, but so altered that you will scarcely recognise it.
Moreover your answer and my reply, were not to be found.
The Enchiridion was not composed for any display of
genius or eloquence, but only for the purpose of correcting
the common error of those who make religion consist of
ceremonies and an almost more than Jewish observance of
corporeal matters, while they are singularly careless of
things that belong to piety. I have endeavoured neverthe-
less to lay down a sort of Art of Piety, after the manner of
those who have composed systems of instruction in various
branches of knowledge.

All the other pieces I wrote almost against my will,
especially the Paean and Obsecratio^ a labour undertaken
upon Batt's request to gratify Ann, Princess of Veer. As

* Volumina. As to this work, see pp. 342, 343.

t Lucubratiunculas aliquot, see p. 361. With the volume so entitled, which
included the Enchiridion, and the Peean and Obsecratio (addressed to the
Virgin), Erasmus appears to have sent the Panegyric of the Archduke Philip.

T.ost copies of the Adages 377

to the Panegyric^ I so disliked it, that I do not remember
having done anything more reluctantly ; seeing, as I did,
that a subject of this sort could not be treated without
adulation. However I adopted a new contrivance of being
both very free in my flattery and very flattering in my
freedom.

If you want to have any of your own lucubrations printed,
you have only to send me the copy. I will attend to the
rest, and see that it is most accurately done.

I wrote not long ago, as I think you will recollect, about
the hundred copies of my Adages which were forwarded to
England at my cost not less than three years before.* Grocin
had written to me, that he would strictly and carefully
attend to their distribution according to my wishes, and I do
not doubt he has performed his promise, since no better or
honester man is bred in Britain. Will you therefore con-
descend to lend me your help in this matter, by stirring up
the attention and activity of those by whom you may find
the business ought to be completed ? For there can be no
doubt, that in so long an interval the books have been sold ;
and somebody must have got the money, which at the
present moment I need more than ever. For in some way
or other I must contrive to live entirely to myself for several
months, in order to get clear of the engagements I have
undertaken in profane literature, a thing I hoped to do this
winter, if I had not been disappointed in so many of my
expectations. Neither will a great price be required to
purchase this freedom, which is a matter of a few months.
I beseech you therefore to do what you can to help me in
my craving for sacred studies, and to rescue me from that
kind of literary work which has ceased to be agreeable to
me. I must not ask my lord Mountjoy, although if he came
forward to help me of his own good nature, he would not be

* See pp. 257, 274.

378 No literature without Greek

doing anything out of the way or inappropriate, as he has
always encouraged my studies in that way, and may find a
special reason in my Adages, undertaken by his suggestion
and inscribed to his name ; for I am ashamed of the first
edition, both because it is so full of typographical errors that
you might think it purposely misprinted, and because I was
induced by some advisers to hurry the work, which now
after the perusal of Greek authors begins to appear poor
and meagre ; and I have therefore determined by a new
edition to mend both my own and the printers' faults, and
at the same time to provide some profitable entertainment
for the studious.

But although in this interval I am engaged perhaps in a
humbler work, nevertheless while I pass my time in the
gardens of the Greek authors, I gather, as I go on, much
that will also be of use in sacred studies. For this one thing
I know by experience, that we cannot be anything in any
kind of literature without Greek. For it is one thing to
guess, and another to judge ; one thing to believe your own
eyes, another thing to believe other people's.

My letter has run on to an unexpected length. But my
loquacity arises from love and not from anything worse.
Farewell, most learned and excellent Colet. I should like
to know what has happened to our Sixtinus, and what your
devoted ally Prior Richard Charnock is about. To make
sure of what you may write or send coming to my hands,
you must order it to be delivered to your loving friend,
Christopher Fisher, a special upholder of all learned persons,
in whose household I am now staying.

Paris, 1504-5.*

* Luteciae, anno m.d.iiii. Farrago. The letter was probably written early
in 1505. Witness the expression hac hieme,'^. 377, and on the other hand
the absence of any mention of the book of Laurentius Valla. Epistles 182, 183.
This according to the old style of Paris would justify the date, m.d.iiii.

Peter Gillis expected at Paris 379

The following letter addressed to Peter Gillis (Petrus ^gidius),
the same who a few years later was the intimate friend and corre-
spondent both of Erasmus and of Thomas More, bears the printed
year-date 1503, but as it is dated from Paris, it may be safely attri-
buted to 1505. It appears to have been written shortly before Easter
(23 March), and it shows that Erasmus had lately been at Antwerp,

Epistle 181. Farrago, p. 81 ; Ep. iv. 27 ; C 94 (loi).
Erasmus to Peter Gillis.

I had made up my mind to write to you, my dear Peter,
but some interruptions have occurred to prevent it. The
Laurentius and some other collectanea of yours are safe, and
would have gone back to you, if it had not been that I did
not like your plan. For if you are to come here at Easter,
as you write, there is no reason why you should want the
books sent back ; if you are not to come, they shall then be
sent where you wish. There is no risk of anything being
lost, especially as I am looking after them.

When I was last at Antwerp, your father, on my coming to
him, wanted to say something important and serious, but I
was obliged to leave him. I suspected, however, that it was
about putting you in my charge. This I shall not myself
advise, for fear of appearing to desire it for my own profit,
neither shall I oppose it, as I am anxious to do you good,
and 1 see how much I can do, if you are with me a few
months. I only wish your father had made up his mmd,
before I left Antwerp.

Farewell, and wherever you can find them, get together
the minor works of Rodolphus Agricola, and bring them
with you. John of Gorcum sends his salutation to you.

Paris [February or March, 1505].*

* Lutetiae, anno m.d.iii. Farrago.

380 '^osse Bade the printer

It is rather surprising that in Epistle 180, with which Erasmus sent
to Colet some books he had lately printed, he makes no mention of
another work published shortly after, in which his correspondent
would have been especially interested. He had probably not yet
determined what he should do with it. In the preceding summer
he had discovered in a monastic library a volume of Notes on the
Latin text of the New Testament by the Italian scholar, Laurentius
Valla, which he had brought with him to Paris, and submitted to
the judgment of Christopher Fisher, who encouraged him to edit and
publish it. It was apparently during his stay in Paris in this year
that Erasmus was first brought into association with the learned
printer, Josse Bade, who became one of his most attached and useful
friends. Bade (Jodocus Badius Ascensius), a man three or four years
older than Erasmus, was a native of Asche in Brabant, who had
emigrated to France and been settled for a time as a teacher at
Lyons, where, in June, 1497, ^^ ^^<^ assisted in correcting for the
press an edition of Gaguin's History. He was now established as
a printer in Paris, and was entrusted by Erasmus with the printing
of Valla's Annotations. In offering this work as a contribution to
theological science the editor was aware that it was by no means likely
to be received with universal approbation. The Western Church had
for so many centuries accepted the text of the Vulgate as an authentic
document, and so many approved arguments and established doctrines
were founded upon that text, that the teachers of religion were
naturally unwilling to allow its accuracy to be questioned. It might
be further anticipated that the authority of a mere scholar without
theological training would be received with special jealousy by the
professed theologians. In a dedicatory Epistle addressed to Dr.
Christopher Fisher Erasmus anticipates these objections, and endea-
vours to refute them.

Epistle 182. Laiir. Vail. Adnot. 1505, Titul. dors.
Farrago, p. 51 I %• iv. 7 ; C. 96 (103).

Erasmus to Christopher Fisher, Protonotary Apostolic and
Doctor of Pontifical Law,

When I was hunting last summer in an old library, — for

Valla on the New Testament 381

no coverts afford more delightful sport, — some game of no
common sort fell unexpectedly into my nets. It was Lauren-
tius Valla's Notes on the New Testament. I was taken on
the spot with the desire to communicate my discovery to all
the studious, thinking it churlish to devour the contents ol
my bag without saying anything about it. I was somewhat
frightened, however, not only by the old prejudice against
Valla's name, but also by an objection specially applicable
to the present case. But as soon as you had perused the
book, you not only confirmed my opinion by your weighty
judgment, but began to advise and even urge me with re-
proaches not to be induced by the clamour of a few to
deprive the author of the glory which he deserved, and
many thousands of students of so great an advantage, affirm-
ing without doubt, that the work would be no less agreeable
than useful to healthy and candid minds, while the otheis
with their morbid ideas might be boldly disregarded. In
pursuance of your opinion we shall discourse in the present
Preface of the purpose and utility of the work, provided
that we may premise a few words in confutation of the
general prejudice against the name of Laurentius.f * * *

We must now come to the considerations that more pro-
perly belong to this subject. I imagine there will be some
persons, who as soon as they read the title of the work, and
before they know anything of its contents, will exclaim loudly
against it ; and that the most odious outcry will be raised
by those who will chiefly benefit by the publication, I mean
the theologians. They will call it an intolerable act of
temerity, that this grammarian, after harassing all other
branches of learning, cannot keep his captious pen even

t In this part of the epistle Valla's criticism of the scholarship of his time
is defended. Erasmus had treated the same subject several years before (see
Epistles 26, 27) ; and some (omitted) passages of the present epistle seem to
show that he had his earlier compositions still in his mind.

382 Textual Criticism

from sacred literature. And yet if Nicolas Lyranus is
listened to, while he plays the pedagogue to ancient Jerome,
and pulls to pieces many things that have been consecrated
by the consent of ages, and that out of the books of the
Jews, which though we may admit them to be the source of
our received edition, yet for ought I know may be inten-
tionally corrupted, what crime is it in Laurentius, if after
collating some ancient and correct Greek copies, he has noted
in the New Testament, which is derived from the Greek,
some passages which either differ from our version, or seem to
be inaptly rendered owing to a passing want of vigilance in
the translator, or are expressed more significantly in the
Greek ; or finally if it appears that something in our text is
corrupt ? They will say perhaps, that Valla being a gram-
marian has not the same privilege as Nicolas a theologian ?
I might answer, that Laurentius has been counted by some
great authorities as a philosopher and theologian. But after
all, when Lyranus discusses a form of expression, is he
acting as a theologian or as a grammarian ? Indeed all this
translating of Scripture belongs to the grammarian's part ;
and it is not absurd to suppose Jethro to be in some things
wiser than Moses. Neither do I think that Theology her-
self, the queen of all sciences, will hold it beneath her
dignity to be attended and waited upon by her handmaid,
Grammar ; which if it be inferior in rank to other sciences,
certainly performs a duty which is as necessary as that
of anv.

If they reply that Theology is too great to be confined by
the laws of Grammar, and that all this work of interpretation
depends upon the influence of the Holy Spirit, it is truly a
new dignity for divines, if they are the only people who are
privileged to speak incorrectly. But let them explain first,
what Jerome means when he writes to Desiderius : It is one
thing to be a prophet, and another to be an interpreter ; in
one case the Spirit foretells future events, in the other

Correction of the translation 383

sentences are understood and translated by erudition and
command of language. Again, what is the use of Jerome
laying down rules for the translation of the sacred writings,
if that faculty comes by inspiration ? Lastly, why is Paul
said to be more eloquent in Hebrew than in Greek ? And
if it was possible for the interpreters of the Old Testament
to make some mistakes, especially in matters not affecting
the faith, why may it not be the same with the New, of
which Jerome did not so much make a translation as emend
an old one, and that not strictly, leaving words, as he himself
testifies, some of which are those principally called in
question by Laurentius ? Again, shall we ascribe to the
Holy Spirit the errors which we ourselves make ? Suppose
the interpreters translated rightly, still what has been rightly
translated may be perverted. Jerome emended, but what
he emended is now again corrupted; unless it can be asserted
that there is now less presumption among the half-learned,
or more skill in languages, and not rather corruption made
easier than ever by printing, which propagates a single error
in a thousand copies at once.

But, say they, it is not right to make any change in the
Holy Scriptures, in which even the points have some
mysterious meaning. This only shows how wrong it is to
corrupt them, and how diligently what has been altered by
ignorance ought to be corrected by the learned, but always
with that caution and moderation which is due to all books,
and above all to the sacred volume.

Again, it is said that Laurentius had no right to take upon
himself an office which Jerome undertook at the bidding of
Pope Damasus. But their objects were not the same.
Jerome substituted a new edition for an old ; Laurentius
collects his observations in a private commentary, and does
not require you to change anything in your book, although
the very variety we find in our copies is sufficient evidence
that they are not free from errors. And as the fidelity of

384 Authority of the Greek text

the old books is to be tested by the Hebrew rolls, so the
truth of the new books requires to be measured by the
Greek text, according to the authority of Augustine, whose
words are cited in the Decreta (distinc. ix.). In reference
to which passage, I think no one is so cruel as not to pity,
or so grave as not to laugh at that silly gloss of some one
who dreamed that Jerome had asserted in his Epistle to
Desiderius, that the Latin copies are more correct than the
Greek, and the Greek than the Hebrew, — not seeing that
Jerome was confirming what he alleged by the suggestion of
a proposition plainly absurd, and that the preceding words
aliud est si have the same meaning as if he had said nisi
forte^ "unless perhaps." It would have been madness else
to translate one Testament from the Hebrew and to emend
the other from the Greek, if in both cases the Latin versions
were better. * * *

There is another thing I hear some say, that the old
interpreters, skilled in the three tongues, have already fully
unfolded the matter as far as is necessary. But, first, I had
rather see with my own eyes than with those of others ; and
in the next place, much as they have said, they have left
much to be said by posterity. Consider again, that to
understand even their explanations, some skill in languages
is required. And lastly when you find the old copies in
every language corrupted as they are, in what direction are
you to turn ? Consequently, most learned Christopher, what
you often say is as true as truth, that they have neither sense
nor shame, who presume to write upon the sacred books, or
indeed upon any of the books of the ancients, without being
tolerably furnished in both literatures, for it may well
happen that while they take the greatest pains to display
their learning, they become a laughing stock to those who
have any skill in languages, and all their turmoil is reduced
to nothing by the production of a Greek word. And if
there are any who have not the leisure to learn Greek

Various editions of Valla s work 385

thoroughly, they may still obtain no small help by the
studies of Valla, who has examined with remarkable sagacity
the whole New Testament, adding incidentially not a few
observations out of the Psalms, of which the edition in use
is derived from the Greek and not from the Hebrew. I
conclude that the studious will owe much to Laurentius,
and Laurentius will owe much to you, through whom he is
presented to the public, and by whose judgment and
patronage he will be more commended to good intellects,
and better protected against the malevolent. Farewell.
Paris, [March] 1505.

The above Epistle has no date in the original book, or in Farrago,
but is dated Lutetiae M.D.V. in Opus Epistolarum. It appears
to have been in the printer's hands before the 8th of March, 1505,
since it is followed, in the original edition of the Annotations, by
a short epistle of Josse Bade to Erasmus, dated Nonis martiis sub
annum MDV, expressing Bade's appreciation of the work, and his
hope that the author's hunting (venatio tua, see the opening words
of Epistle 182) will afford delight to all students of divine literature.
Epistle 183. Adnotationes Vallae, f. 2, dors.; C. 1522 (2).

The Annotations of Valla, — Laurentij Vallensis in Latinam Noiii
Testamenti interpretationein ex collatione Graecorum exeniplarimn
Adnotationes apprime vtiles, — were printed in a small folio volume of
forty-five folios, beside the two which contain the title, the dedicatory
preface (Epistle 182), and the short Epistle of Bade (Epistle 183).
At the end of the book are six lines added by the printer, recom-
mending the work, apologizing for errors of the press, especially in
the Greek accents, which the reader is asked to excuse ob poenuriam
characterum, and concluding with the words, Finitum est hoc opus
in aedibus Ascensianis ad idus aprilis. M.D.V. The title-page has the
press-mark and name of Jehan Petit. Valla's Adnotationes were
several times reprinted at Basel, and were re-edited by Jacobus
Revius, with the title, which he found ascribed to the book in the
author's letters, De Collatione Novi Testamenti, Amsterdam, 1630.
All the later editions appear to depend for their text upon that of
Erasmus, to whom Revius attributes the preservation of the work.
There appears to be no further trace of the manuscript. In Wetstein''s
VOL. \. 2 C

386 Erasmus invited to England

Prolegomena to the New Testament, Erasmus is said to have found it
in the Abbey of Pare by Louvain. Prolegomena, ed. 1764, p. 238 ; ed.
1 83 1, p. 125. The Bibliotheca Belgica Manuscripta of Antonius
Sanderus, Lille, 1641, contains in pt. ii. p. 162 seq. an account of the
MSS. then at Pare, including two of Laurentius Valla, but not that
of the Adnotationes, which, I fear, was never restored to the monastic
library, and was probably thought of no importance, after its contents
had been printed.

Epistle 182 is the last that we have of Erasmus during this visit to
Paris ; and we have no evidence how long after its date he remained
in that city. A new impression of the Adages was issued by John
Philippe in the year 1505 (Vander Haeghen, Bibliotheca Erasmiana,
p. 8) ; but there is no reason to suppose that Erasmus gave any
assistance to the printer. In this reprint the author's name appears
still in its old form (Desyderius Herasmus Roterdamus), which had
been disused by him before the previous year (pp. 38, 364) ; and he
says himself, in his letter to Polydore Vergil, 23 Dec. 1520 (Ep. xvii. 3;
C. 674 d), that no additions were made to the original book until he
was in Paris in 1506 on his way to Italy, when Bade was preparing a
new edition. See p. 414.

Upon the completion of his literary work in Paris, Erasmus seems
to have had no inclination to return to Brabant. A probable reason
for his preference of a foreign residence has been suggested at the com-
mencement of this chapter. He had sent through Colet an indirect
appeal for pecuniary aid to his old pupil. Lord Mountjoy (see pp. 377,
378) ; and it was probably in consequence of the hint so conveyed,
that he received, shortly after, an invitation from that nobleman to
visit him again in England. See pp. 388, 389.

CHAPTEK XV.

Second visit of Erasviiis to England^ April^ 1505, to May^
1506. Introduction to Archbishop War ham; Trans-
lation of the Hecuba of Euripides. Grace for degree
at Cambridge. Epistles 184 to 193.

Erasmus appears to have crossed the Channel on his second journey to
England in the spring of 1505, and found in London most of the English-
men for whose society he cared. Grocin and Linacre, as well as Colet,
were settled there. Thomas More, lately married to his young wife,
Jane Colt, was living in the street called Bucklersbury. Erasmus
remained for some months the guest of Lord Mountjoy, whose house
in London appears to have been near St. Paul's, on the west side of
Paul's Wharf Hill, opposite to Derby House (now the Heralds Col-
lege), upon the site afterwards occupied by Doctors Commons. (Stow,
London, ed. 1633, b. iii. pp. 408, 409; Three Chronicles, Camden
Soc. 1880, p. 143.) He was now a man of twenty-six years; and his
accomplishments and high character had caused him to be selected
by Henry VIL as the companion and Mentor of the young prince
Henry, now in his fifteenth year, who in 1502 had become heir to
the throne. See pp. 200, 424. A striking proof of the esteem in which
Mountjoy was held is found in the fact that, young as he was, he was
admitted, some little time before the end of this reign, to the Privy
Council, then a limited body composed principally of officials, like the
cabinets of modern times.* He was therefore in a position to introduce

* Polydore Vergil {Hist. p. 566) gives a list of Henry's original Council,
with a second list of those afterwards admitted, and a third list of the latest
additions ; and Lord Mountjoy is in the second list. Grafton copied the
names from Polydore without attending to these distinctions, and Dugdale
has consequently represented Mountjoy as a councillor of the first year, to the
surprise of those who found him completing his education at Paris twelve
years later.

2 C 2

388 Reasons for coining to England

Erasmus into the royal circle, and to recommend him to the distin-
guished ecclesiastics who were the most influential members of the
Government.

We have no extant letters of Erasmus between his dedicatory
epistle to Christopher Fisher (Epistle 182) and the following letter
to the Head of his Convent, written some months after his arrival
in England. He appears to have allowed as much time to pass as
he decently could, before writing to the Prior, his last letter having
been sent " long before" he left Paris. To secure it a more respectful
reception at Stein, Epistle 184 was dated from the Bishop's Palace
in London. The Bishop of London during the greater part of this
year was William Barnes, who succeeded Warham in that see in
1504, and died in October, 1505. Through Colet or Mountjoy, both
near neighbours, the Bishop or some members of his household may
have been personally known to Erasmus. The next Bishop, Dr. Fitz-
james, was no friend to the Dean.

Epistle 184. Merula, p. 204 ; Ep. xxxi. 33 ; C. 1870 (485).

Erasmus to Servatius.

I wrote to you long before leaving Paris, and I suppose
you have received that letter, though I somewhat fear it may
be lost, such is the carelessness of couriers. Therefore, if
there has been by accident any default, we must mend it by
taking pains to write often. It is a long business to explain
what object we have had in retiring to England, especially as
we were formerly despoiled of our money here, and some
hopes appeared just now to be held out, at home, which were
not to be scorned. But I beg vou to believe that I have not
come back to England without serious reasons, or without
the advice of prudent counsellors. The success of the
matter is in higher hands ; although the gain we have sought
is not an increase of fortune but of learning. I have now
been spending some months with my lord Mountjoy, who
made a great point of calling me back to England, not with-
out the general agreement of the learned of this country.

English men of learning 389

For there are in London five or six men who are accurate
scholars in both tongues, such as I think even Italy itself
does not at present possess. I do not set any value on
myself ; but it seems there is not one of these that does not
make much of my capacity and learning. And if it were in
any circumstances allowable to boast, I might at any rate be
pleased to have gained the approbation of those whose pre-
eminence in Letters the most envious and the most hostile
cannot deny. But for myself I think nothing settled, unless
I have the approval of Christ, on whose single vote all our
felicity depends. Farewell.

London, from the Bishop's Palace. [1505.]!

Erasmus protests in the above epistle, that his object in coming to
England was not an increase of fortune. But, in the Catalogue of
Lucubrations he says that he was tempted by the letters of friends
and their promise of mountains of gold ; and a similar statement is
made in the Compendium. See pp. 11, 393. We have no copies
of the letters of his English friends^ but we may conjecture that in
the previous correspondence Colet or Mountjoy had referred to the
probability of his obtaining some valuable preferment in this country.

Epistle 185 is printed by Merula with a date like the last, — Londini
ex sedibus Episcopaltbus, — without any mention of time ; and if this
date is accepted as authentic, we may conclude that it was sent from
London to Holland about the same time as Epistle 184, — probably
with it. There was no other time during any of Erasmus's visits to
England, when he was likely to date a letter from the Bishop's Palace.
On the other hand the greeting sent to Herman, and Erasmus's anxiety
that he should write to Mountjoy, might seem to point to the earlier
time when Erasmus and Mountjoy were at Paris, and Herman was living
at the monastery. Compare Epistle 51, p. 123, But the message may
have been intended to be forwarded to him, if still at Haarlem (p. 329),
by the next messenger from Stein, who might possibly be Francis him-
self; and there seems to be no sufficient reason for rejecting the date.

t Lodini ux aidibus episcopalibus. Murula.

390 Proposed book of Epistles

Erasmus appears to be collecting his epistles with a view to publication,
probably by means of the Press. Compare pp. 197, 198. Some collec-
tions appear to have been already circulated in manuscript. See pp. 3 1 7,
339) 455- It "^^y be that we owe it to this letter and the consequent
exertions of Francis, that the early Epistles afterwards printed by
Merula were preserved. The idea of publication was not pursued for
the present by the author ; and when he did in fact begin to print his
Epistles, he had more important recent letters to submit to the learned
world. See Introduction. We may assume that the Francis here
addressed was his old correspondent. Epistles 12, 13, 14, 39.

Epistle 185. Merula, p. 201 ; Ep. xxxi. 30 ; C. 1816 (435).
Erasmus to Francis.

You will do me a great favour, dearest friend, if you \^^ll
help in collecting, as far as possible, the letters which I have
written to various persons with more than usual care, — as I
have an idea of publishing one book of Epistles, — especially
those of which I sent many to Cornelius of Gouda, a great
many to my William, and some to Servatius. Scrape
together what you can and from wherever you can, but do
not send them except by the person I direct.

I do beseech you, my Francis, by our mutual love, and by
your happiness, for which I care no less than for my own,
that you will apply yourself with all your heart to Sacred
Literature. Pore over the old interpreters. Believe me
we shall come this way to God's blessing, or we shall never
come at all, although I do not doubt you are already doing
what I advise.

Farewell, and sometimes in your prayers commend me to
Christ. My greetings to William, to whom I do not write,
being very busy and my health uncertain. Get William, if
you can, to write carefully to my lord. He has such an
affection for men of learning that the sun never saw the like.

London, from the Bishop's Palace. [1505.]

Bishop Foxe of Winchester 391

Richard Foxe, Keeper of the Privy Seal, was a typical example of
the clerical statesman of his time, having been bishop in succession
of Exeter, Wells, and Durham, the two first of whose churches he
confessed that he had never seen (Ellis, Letters, ii. 5), and now
occupying the see of Winchester, the wealthiest in England. He had
apparently taken some notice of Erasmus in his former visit to this
country; and his love of learning was afterwards shown by his founda-
tion (in 15 16) of the college of Corpus Christi in Oxford, in which
especial provision was made for the study of Greek. To him Erasmus
presented a translation of Lucian's dialogue entitled Toxaris.

Epistle 186. Luciani Opuscula, Paris, 1506, tit. dors.
Ep. xxix. 3 ; C. i. 213.

Erasmus to Richard Foxe^ Bishop of Winchester.

The fashion of distributing presents on New Year's Day,
most reverend Prelate, has come down to us from remote
ages ; and is thought to be of happy omen both to the per-
sons to whom the presents go, and to those who receive
them in return. Accordingly, having looked to see what
sort of present I could choose for so great a patron and so
powerful a friend, and having found nothing in my store but
mere papers, I must fain send a paper present. What else
indeed could be more fittingly offered by a student to a
Bishop, who, already loaded with Fortune's favours, prefers
Virtue, and her ally, Good Literature, to sums beyond cal-
culation ; who accepts with indifference, I had almost said
reluctance, the gifts of Fortune, but well furnished as he is
with the treasures of the mind, still desires to be further
enriched with them.

With Terence's Parmeno in our mind, we may recommend
this little present of ours as having come all the way, not
from Ethiopia, but from Samosata, a city of the Comageni.*

* Fartneno. Ex Ethiopia est usque hsec. Thraso. Hie sunt tres minae!
Terent. Eunuchus, Act iii., So. ii. 18. Samosata, the birthplace of Lucian, was
in the province of Commagene (Kof^t nay ui'tj) in Syria.

392 Archbishop Warham

It is Liician's dialogue entitled Toxaris^ or Friendships which
within the last few days we have turned into Latin. * * *
This dialogue will be read with more pleasure as well as
profit by one who observes the appropriateness of its language
to the persons who take part in it. The speech of Mene-
sippus has a flavour entirely Greek ; it is smooth, lively and
witty. That of Toxaris breathes a Scythian spirit, simple,
rough, serious and stern. This difference of diction, a diverse
thread purposely followed throughout by Lucian, I have
endeavoured to reproduce.

I beg you auspiciously to accept this New Year's trifle
from your humble client, and to continue to love, advance and
assist Erasmus, as you have hitherto done.

London, i Jan. i5o6.t

It was during this visit to London that Erasmus was recommended
by William Grocin to the favour of Archbishop Warham, who after-
wards became his most generous friend and patron. William Warham,
Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England, was not at this
time the old man whose deeply furrowed features are familiar to us in
the pictures of Holbein, being only about sixteen years senior to
Erasmus, who was now in his fortieth year. The accomplishments by
which Warham had risen to the highest position in Church and State
were rather those of a lawyer than an ecclesiastic ; indeed it was not
until he was more than forty years of age that he entered into Holy
Orders. When in middle life he had begun to be employed by the
government in diplomatic duties, his rise was remarkably rapid. He
was made Master of the Rolls in 1494, Bishop of London, 1501,
Keeper of the Great Seal, 1502, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1503,
and Chancellor in the same year, passing his rival, Bishop Foxe, who
was two or three years his senior in age, and had been much longer
in the service of the Crown. His acquaintance with Erasmus appears
to have been made towards the end of January, 1506. When the
latter went to dinner at Lambeth in company with Grocin, he took
with him a translation in Latin verse of the Hecuba of Euripides, of

t Londini Calendis lanuarijs. mdvi. Luciaiii Op. 1506. The year was no
doubt added in printing; if written in January, it would h^ve been written, 1505.

Translation of Ruripides Hecuba 393

which work, and also of his first interview with the Archbishop, he
gives the following history in the Catalogue of Lucubrations written
in 1523, and revised in 1524. The tragedies of Euripides and of
Sophocles had been printed by Aldus in 1503 and 1502, both edited
by Marcus Musurus. The editio princeps of Aeschylus was somewhat
later. The work of translation has been mentioned, p. 372.

Catalogue of Lucubrations. C. i. Proef.; J-ortin ii. 418.

Some years before I went to Italy, when I was staying at
Louvain, I translated the Hecuba of Euripides for the sake
of an exercise in Greek, when there was no supply of teachers
of that tongue. This attempt was suggested by Philelphus,
who had translated the first scene, in a funeral oration, and
not, as I then thought, successfully.* I was induced to go
on with what I had begun by the encouragement of my
then host, John Desmarais. Orator of the University of Lou-
vain, and a man of the most exact judgment. At a later
time when, tempted by the letters of friends and by their
promise of mountains of gold, I had returned to England, —
finding a blank page in the volume, I added a preface and a
more than impromptu Iambic poem, and by the advice of
erudite friends, especially William Grocin, who had then the
highest reputation of the many learned men of Britain, I
presented the book to the Reverend Father, William, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Chancellor,
that is, supreme judge of that realm. It was on that occasion
that my fortunate acquaintance with him began. I was
received by him before dinner with few words, being myself
by no means a talkative or ceremonious person ; and again
after dinner, as he also was a man of unaffected manners, we
had a short conversation together, after which he dismissed
me with an honorary present, which he gave me when we

* As to the relation of Erasmus's work to that of l-*hilclphus, comi)are
p. 396, written at an earlier date.

394 Visit to Lmnbeth

were alone together, according to a custom he had, to avoid
putting the receiver to shame or creating a jealousy against
him. This took place at Lambeth ; and while we were re-
turning thence by boat, as is usual there, Grocin asked me
what present I had received. I said in jest, an immense
sum ! When he laughed, 1 asked him his reason, — whether
he thought the Prelate was not generous enough to give so
much, or not rich enough to afford it, or that my work was
not worthy of a munificent present. At last having revealed
• the amount of the gift, I asked him playfully why the Arch-
bishop had given so little, and when I pressed the question,
he answered that none of the reasons I had suggested was
right, but a suspicion had occurred to him, that perhaps I
had already dedicated the same work to some other person
elsewhere. Surprised at such a speech, I asked, how that
suspicion had come into his mind, and Grocin said with a
smile, but of the Sardonic kind, Because that is a way you
people have, meaning that such things are often done by
men of our profession. Not being used to such sarcasms,
the sting remained in my mind, and when I returned to
Paris on my way to Italy, I delivered the book to Bade to
be printed, adding to it the Iphigenia in Aulis, of which I
had made a more fluent and free translation during my stay
in England, and whereas I had offered only one to the
Prelate, I now dedicated both to him. In this way I took
my revenge for Grocin' s scoff. For at that time I had no
intention of going back to England, nor any thought of
visiting the Archbishop again. Such was my pride, when
my fortune was so low. This work, which has been revised
more than once, I have re-edited for the last time this vear.

The concluding sentence appears to refer to Froben's edition, pub-
lished in February, 1524. The Preface or dedication to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury (Epistle 187), which was printed with the two
translations at Paris in 1506, is dated Londini, 7iono Calendas

Prefaces to the translations of Euripides 395

Fehruarii (24 January). It may therefore be assumed to be the
prsefatio which Erasmus mentions as having been inserted in the
manuscript presented to Warham at Lambeth. And if, as we cannot
doubt, Erasmus's recollection was right about the Iphigenia having
been added afterwards, the line in which he speaks of " two tragedies "
was probably altered upon the work being printed in Paris. P. 414.
When in the Venice edition of 1507, a separate dedication was added
to the Iphigenia, the original dedication might well have been restored
entirely to the Hecuba. Compare Epistle 205. The following passage
would then have run as follows : I began therefore to turn into Latin
the Hecuba of EuripideS;, hoping etc. As the text stands, having first
explained to the Archbishop that his translations of profane authors
were undertaken as an exercise with a view to more important
theological studies, Erasmus continues as follows.

Epistle 187. Euripides, Paris, 1506 ; Ep. xxix. 24 ;

C. i. 1 1 29.

Erasmus to Archbishop Warham.

I began therefore to turn into Latin two of Euripides'
tragedies, the Hecuba and the Iphigenia in Aalis, hoping
some god would breathe favourably on so bold an enterprise.
When I found that the first sample was not disapproved
by men deeply skilled in both tongues (of whom, if one
may confess the truth without prejudice, England now
has several in every branch of learning, worthy of the
admiration of all Italy *), I completed the work, the Muses
being propitious, in a few months. What pains it cost me,
they only will experience, who shall descend into the same
arena. For the mere act of making good Latin out of good
Greek is one that requires no ordinary artist, a person not
only well provided with a copious and ready apparatus of

* In a later letter, addressed to Aldus, Erasmus speaks of the approval this
translation had received from Linacre, Grocin, William Latimer, and Cuthbert
Tunstall, all friends of the learned printer. See Epistle 204.

396 Translations from the Greek

both languages, but also most quick-sighted and watchful ;
insomuch that for many ages no such translator has obtained
the suffrages of all the learned. It is easy therefore to guess,
what a task it is to render verse by verse, especially when
the poetry translated is so various and unusual, and that
out of an author not only ancient and a Tragedian, but
wonderfully close, subtle and rapid, in whom there is nothing
superfluous, nothing that you can either take away or alter
without injury; and one moreover that frequently introduces
rhetorical passages and treats them so acutely, that he
constantly seems to be pleading a cause. Consider too the
Choruses, which bv some affectation are so obscure as rather
to require an QEdipus or the Delian god himself, than a mere
translator. When you add to this the corruption of the
manuscripts, the scarcity of copies, and the want of any
interpreter to fly to, I am the less surprised, that even in
this happy age no Italian has ventured to attempt this task
of translating Tragedy or Comedy ; whereas many have laid
hands on Homer (among whom even Politian himself was
not content with his work), some one else has attempted
Hesiod, and that not very happily, and another has attacked
Theocritus with still less success. Finally Francis Philelphus
translated the first scene of the Hecuba in a funeral oration
(as I found out after I had begun my version), but in such a
way that the experiment of so great a man put us in better
humour with our own. Therefore being not so much
deterred by so formidable examples or by the many
difficulties of the task, as allured by the more than honeyed
charm of language which even those who least like him
attribute to this poet, I have not feared to attempt a work
hitherto untried, hoping that, if I did not achieve a great
success, still candid readers would think my endeavour
worthy of some praise, and that the most unfavourable would
at least receive with indulgence so arduous a work at the
hands of a fresh interpreter. Such indulgence I may

Fidelity of iyiterp relation 397

especially claim, since I have deliberately added no little
burden to the other difficulties of my task by my scrupulous-
ness in endeavouring to reproduce the figures and as it were
the texture of a Greek poem, to render it verse for verse
and almost word for word, and to balance with the utmost
fidelity for Latin ears the force and weight of every sentence.
I need not decide, whether this has arisen from my not
altogether approving that freedom of translation which Tully
allows to others and has used himself, I might almost say to
excess, or whether as a fresh hand I chose to transgress on this
side, so as to appear too scrupulous rather than too licentious,
or in other words, to be seen now and then touching the
shore rather than swimming with my boat upset in midsea.
I preferred in fact to run the risk of the learned finding a
want of brilliancy and finish in my verse rather than a want
of fidelity ; and finally I had no wish to come forward as a
Paraphrast, and purvey myself that obscurity with which
many hide their ignorance, and, like the cuttle-fish, avoid
discovery by shrouding themselves in the darkness they
create. Therefore when my readers do not anywhere meet
with the grandiloquence of Latin Tragedy, the ampullas et
sesqiiipedalia verba of which Flaccus speaks, they must not
find fault with me, if in performing the duty of an interpreter
I have preferred to render the compressed soundness and
elegance of my author, rather than a tumidity which does
not belong to him, and which in other writers has no great
charm for me. * * *

If it is my good fortune to find my study approved by one
whom all approve, I shall neither regret the labour hitherto
spent, nor shall I shrink in future from a greater effort, in
order to forward the interests of Theology.

Farewell, and enlist Erasmus among those who are
devoted with all their hearts to your Fatherhood.

London, 24 Jan. [i5o6].t

t Londini Non. Cal Februarij. Euripides, Paris, 1506.

39'^ The Kiyig of Castile in Englayid

The first interview of Erasmus with Warham, as it is described in
the Catalogue of Lucubrations, was not altogether satisfactory. P. 394.
It is impossible to say, whether the suspicion attributed by Grocin
to the Archbishop was really in his mind. If so, it was probably soon
dispelled. Erasmus remained in England four months after this time,
but he has left no account of any later interview with his new patron,
whom we find three years later joining with Mountjoy in encouraging
him to return to England. Epistle 210. Meantime he had the satis-
faction of feeling, that by the gratuitous dedication of the Iphigenia,
he had vindicated his professional character.

About the date of the preceding dedication, an event occurred
which gave much occupation to the English Court for the next few-
weeks, and seriously interfered with the plans and hopes of Erasmus.
His own sovereign, the Archduke Philip^ now King of Castile in his
wife's right, had set sail from Flushing on the gth of January to visit Spain
with his Queen; but meeting with tempestuous weather in the Channel
they were compelled to land at Falmouth. King Henry would not
allow them to leave the country wdthout seeing them at his Court, and
Lord Mountjoy was despatched with the Earl of Arundel and Lord St.
Amand to escort the Queen of Castile to Windsor, w^here she arrived
on the I Gth of February, 1506, the King, her husband, having pre-
ceded her by some days. Before the Spanish sovereigns left England,
which was not until early in April, Henry had negotiated some
important treaties with his involuntary guests,^ upon whom Lord
Mountjoy appears to have been kept in attendance, a costly duty
which he probably owed to his having some acquaintance with other
languages beside his own. Epistle 189.

Epistle 188. Merula, p. 202 ; Ep. xxxi 31 ; C. 1870 (484).
Erasmus to Servatius.

I have already addressed several letters to you, to which
I am surprised that you have not returned a word in answer.

* Fcedera, xiii. 140; Pauli, Geschichte Engl. iii. 620. A contemporary
narrative of the royal visit has been printed partly in Austin, Order of the
Garter, ii. 254, and partly in Tighe, History of Windsor, i. 424.

Henry VII. and Erasmus 399

I am still in London, most welcome, as it seems, to the
greatest and most learned of the whole country. The King
of England has promised me a benefice ; but the Prince's
arrival has caused the matter to be put off. I am continually
turning the question over in my mind, how I can appropriate
what is left of my life (I know not how much it may be), all
to piety, all to Christ. I see * that a man's life, even if it
be a long life, is fleeting and transient, and that my own
constitution is delicate, its strength not a little impaired by
the toil of study, and somewhat by my misfortunes. I see,
that in learning there is no issue, and so it comes to pass,
that we seem to be beginning afresh every day. I have
therefore resolved to be content with my mediocrity, espe-
cially now that I have mastered a sufficiency of Greek, and
to apply myself to meditation and preparation for death. I
ought to have done so long ago, and been frugal of my
years, my most precious possession, when it was at its best.
But though frugality may be late in its influence, f what
remains must be the more thriftily used, the less and the
more worthless it is. Farewell.
London i April [1506].:}:

Epistle 189. Merula, p. 204 ; Ep. xxxi. 39 ; C. 1853(462).

Erasmus to J-ames Maurits.

If you are well, most loyal friend, we have reason to be
specially glad. We are ourselves fairly well, and shall
always bear you in mind as long as breath stirs these
limbs. § I hope it will come to pass that I shall see you

* Vide, read Video.

t Tametsi sero in fundo [</«. influat] parsimonia.

X Londini Calendis Aprilis. Merula.

§ Dum spiritus hos regit artus. Virgil. Aeneid, iv. 1 36.

400 Treatment of the Kiyig of Castile

this summer. We shall then be together and will unfold
the mysteries of darkness. For in Pluto's realm one must
think how to return, and everything must be warily done.
I am heartily grieved that our Prince chanced to come into
these parts, and that for many reasons. He is not yet re-
embarked, which is so much the worse for me. My Maecenas
is obliged by the king's command to wait upon him, and
that at his own cost ; and I meantime am emptying my
small purse. I have written more fully to our friend
William. Salute Doctor Reyner the physician, that second
glory of Dutch letters, and Master Henry the merriest of
men, and the rest of those that love me. To your amiable
wife and sweet children I wish all joy and felicity.
London, 2 April [1506].*

Dr. Reyner (Snoy) was a correspondent of Erasmus. See Epistle
lyg, p. 372. In the above letter Erasmus does not venture to speak
plainly of the Prince's treatment. In the later Adages, under the maxim
Sparta?n nactus es, hanc orna, he warns sovereigns against the danger
of leaving their own countries either for war or any other cause, and
alludes to Philip's unfortunate journey in the following terms.

Adagia, Chil. ii. 5, I ; C. ii. 553 D.

Leaving his subjects a second time he was carried by a
tempest to England, a country which at that time was not
on good terms with ours. What happened to him there,
what sufferings he underwent, what promises he made, upon
what conditions he was allowed to go, we have no wish to
commemorate. He yielded to necessity, I admit it and
pardon him. But what necessity was there to put himself
into that necessity ? He did not take warning by these mis-
fortunes and return home ; but pursued his journey to Spain,
where he met his end, a youth born for the highest purposes,
if he had not been jealous of his own felicity.

' Londini postridie Calendas Apriles. Morula.

Grace for degree at Cambridge 401

Among the learned persons, whose acquaintance was probably
made by Erasmus during this visit to England, was Dr. John Fisher,
Warham's Suffragan at Rochester, and Chancellor of the University of
Cambridge. We can scarcely be wrong in attributing to his influence
the facility offered to Erasmus for obtaining a degree, which is evi-
denced by the following entry in the Cambridge University records.
This document, here given in its original language, has no date but
that of the year ; but seeing that Erasmus left England about the
beginning of June, we must attribute it to one of the earlier months.

University of Cambridge^ Grace Book. V. 1505-6.

Knight, Life of Erasmus^ App. cxviii.

Searle, History of Queen s College^ Cambridge., p. 134.

Conceditur Des. Erasmo ut unicum vel si exigantur duo
responsa una cum duobus sermonibus ad clerum sermoneque
examinatorio et lectura publica in Epistolam ad Romanos
vel quaevis alia satisfaciant sibi ad mcipiendum in Theologia
sic quod prius admitatur Baccalaureus in eadem et intret
libros Sententiarum Bedellisque satisfaciat.

It will be seen that by this concession the candidate was to be
admitted to inception in Theology, subject to the following conditions :
that he should make one response, or two, if required, two sermons
ad clerum, an examinatory sermon, and a public reading on the
Epistle to the Romans, or some other similar reading; it was also
required that he should first be admitted Bachelor in the same faculty,
enter the Books of Sentences, and satisfy the Bedells. In this short
sentence there is crowded so much obscure technicality as even an
expert in the language of University documents could not explain in
few words. One phrase at least it is necessary to understand. To
begin (incipere) in Theology means to begin to read publicly or
teach, in other words to become a Doctor. Therefore under this
concession Erasmus was empowered, on the fulfilment of certain
conditions, to become a Doctor in Theology ; and one condition was
that he should be first admitted a Bachelor in the same Faculty.

This interpretation, which is perhaps sufficient for our immediate
purpose, gives rise to the following questions. Was Erasmus at this
VOL. I. 2D

402 Bachelor'' s degree where taken

time already a Bachelor in Theology of another University, or, we may
say more simply, of the University of Paris, in which case his con-
templated admission to that degree at Cambridge would be what is
called an admission ad eundem ? And did Erasmus make any, and
what use of the Cambridge grace ? In considering these questions
we may take it as proved by the Record of the University of Turin,
cited in Chapter xvi. that, when a degree was granted to him there,
4 Sept. 1506, he was already a Bachelor of Divinity, but not a Doctor.
We must therefore conclude that he did not make use of the Cam-
bridge grace to receive the latter degree in England. There remains
the question, whether he made use of it to obtain the degree of
Bachelor, in order to facilitate his proceeding, according to his long-
settled plan, to the higher degree in Italy. Upon this point I refer
the reader to what has been said respecting the probability of his
having attained that status at Paris in 1498. See pp. 157, 158.

Dr. John Caius, physician, antiquary, and second founder of
Gonville College, tells us that not long before his own residence at
Cambridge (which is believed to have begun in 1529), Erasmus was
there; that he lived at Cambridge (Cantabrigiae vixit) about 1506, at
which time King Henry VII. visited the University; that he delivered
lectures in Greek, and wrote a book on Letter-writing, which he pub-
lished there by means of Sibert, a Cambridge printer, and that he
obtained a Grace from the University to be made Bachelor of
Theology. He adds, that he was succeeded in his professorship by
Richard Croke, a pupil of Grocin, who was also Professor at Leip^g, "!-
and flourished about 1514. Caius, Hist. Acad. Cantab. (1574) p- 127.
We should gladly find in Dr. Caius's assertions some trace of a Cam-
bridge tradition, that Erasmus was there in or about 1506, and that
he became a graduate of the University. The suggestion of a Bachelor's
and not a Doctor's degree may be explained by thejact, that after the
publication of the Preface to the Opera Erasnii in 1540, if not before,
it was known that Erasmus received his Doctor's degree at Turin. See
pp. 28, 419, 422. The confusion of dates in Dr. Caius's narrative, —
the Grace for a Degree (1506), the Greek lectures (1511-13) and the
book on Letter-writing (published without his authority in 1521, see
p. 167), being all apparently attributed to the same period, — would
not perhaps much weaken the authority of a story depending on
tradition. But, after all, the Doctor does not explicitly assert that
Erasmus made use of the Grace ; and we may well suspect that his
belief; respecting Erasmus's presence at Cambridge about 1506 and

Move's translations from Lncian 403

Bachelor's degree, was founded upon an imperfect recollection of the
entry in the Grace book, rather than upon any independent tradition.
It is true that in that year king Henry VII. (a pilgrim on his way to
Walsingham) visited Cambridge, where with the Knights of the Garter,
who accompanied him, he kept the Feast of St. George (23 April) in
the half-finished chapel of King's College. Ashmole, Order of the
Garter, p. 558. The Chancellor's oration on the king's reception has
been preserved. Lewis, Life of Bishop Fisher, App. viii. But there is
no evidence that Erasmus was then at Cambridge. His host, Lord
Mountjoy, was not yet a Knight of the Garter. And if he visited the
University to take advantage of the Grace, he would probably choose
a time more convenient for that purpose.

While he remained in London in the absence of the Court and of his
courtly friends, Erasmus, found consolation in the society of Thomas
More, who was encouraged by his companion's example to make some
translations from Lucian. Among these were the dialogues entitled
Cynicus, Necyomantia and Phitopseudes, the Latin versions of which
he inscribed to Dr. Thomas Ruthall, the king's secretary. The
dedicatory epistle is without date, but may be attributed to the spring
or early summer of 1506. It has been included in the Epistolary of
Erasmus, and erroneously ascribed to his authorship, C. 1862 (475). It
is here retained on account of the light which it throws on the mental
attitude of the two friends at this period. The candour and honesty
of the opinions expressed in it are characteristic of More, while the
freedom with which established errors are exploded might well excuse
its attribution to Erasmus. The prefatory observations of the trans-
lator contain an apology for his author. The Cynic, he tells us, which
praises the self-denying life of that sect, as a protest against the
luxury and self-indulgence of mankind, has been in part adopted by
St. Chrysostom in one of his Homilies, where Christian simplicity
and the narrow way that leads to life are commended. The other
two pieces are described and defended in the passage quoted below.

Epistle 190. Luciani Opuscula, Paris, 1506; C. 1862(475).

Thomas More to Dr. Thomas Riitliall.
* « * *

The Necyomantia, the name of which is not so happy as
its matter, attacks in the wittiest fashion the impositions of

2 D 2

4^4 Belief in immortality

conjurors, the empty fictions of poets, and the uncertain
sparring of philosophers on every possible subject. There
remains the Philopseudes, a dialogue as profitable as it is
witty, which exposes and ridicules with Socratic irony
the common appetite for lying ; wherein it does not much
disturb me to find that the author was not sure of his own
immortality ; sharing in this respect the error of Demo-
critus, Lucretius, Pliny, and many others. Why indeed
should I care for the opinion of a Pagan upon matters
which are among the chief mysteries of the Christian faith ?
The dialogue at any rate teaches us, on the one hand, not to
put faith in the illusions of magic, and on the other, to keep
our minds clear of the superstition which creeps in under
the guise of religion. We shall lead a happier life, when we
are less terrified by those dismal and superstitious lies, which
are often repeated with so much confidence and authority,
that even St. Augustine himself, a man of the highest intel-
ligence, with the deepest hatred of a lie, was induced by
some impostor to narrate, as a true event which had hap-
pened in his own time, that story about the two Spurini, one
dying and the other returning to life, which, with only a
change of name, had been ridiculed by Lucian in this very
dialogue so many years before. No wonder then, if ruder
minds are affected by the fictions of those who think they
have done a lasting service to Christ, when they have in-
vented a fable about some Saint, or a tragic description of
Hell, which either melts an old woman to tears, or makes
her blood run cold. There is scarcely any life of a Martyr
or Virgin, in which some falsehood of this kind has not been
inserted ; an act of piety no doubt, considering the risk that
Truth would be insufficient, unless propped up by lies !
Thus they have not scrupled to stain with fiction that Reli-
gion, which was founded by Truth herself, and ought to
consist of naked truth. They have failed to see, that such
fables are so far from aiding religion, that nothing can be

Lying stories of Samfs 405

more injurious to it. It is obvious, as Augustine himself has
observed, that where there is any scent of a lie, the autho-
rity of truth is immediately weakened and destroyed.
Hence, a suspicion has more than once occurred to me, that
such stories have been largely invented by crafty knaves
and heretics, partly for the purpose of amusing themselves
with the credulity of persons more simple than wise, and
partly to diminish the authority of the true Christian his-
tories by associating them with fictitious fables, the feigned
incidents being often so near to those contained in Holy
Scripture, that the allusion cannot be mistaken. Therefore
while the histories commended to us by divinely inspired
Scripture ought to be accepted with undoubting faith, the
others, tested by the doctrine of Christ, as by the rule of
Critolaus, should either be received with caution or rejected,
if we would avoid both empty confidence and superstitious
fear.

But whither am I proceeding ? My epistle is already
almost as long as a book, and all the while not a single word
has been said in your praise, to which any other man might
have given his whole attention, seeing that without any
suspicion of flattery, an abundant material would have been
supplied either by your eminent learning and judicious
management of affairs, as shown in so many arduous and
successful embassies, or by your singular probity and wisdom,
without a full knowledge and experience of which the most
prudent of princes would never have chosen you for his
Secretary. * * *

[London, ^5o6.]t

The reference in the above letter to the wisdom shown by Henry VII.
in the selection of his ministers, and the good terms upon which the
writer stood with the King's Secretary, may suggest the question,
w'hether there is any sufficient evidence for the commonly received

t No date in Liiciani Opuscula, 1506.

4o6 More a perfect advocate

story of Thomas More being himself in disgrace after the Parliament of
1504. The description of him in the following Epistle rather suggests
that he was already practising with success as a barrister.

In friendly rivalry with More, Erasmus translated the Tyrannicida
of Lucian, and then composed a Declamation in answer to it. This
work he dedicated to Richard Whitford, who had formerly accom-
panied Lord Mountjoy to Paris, and who appears to have been after-
wards,— perhaps at this time, — one of the chaplains of Bishop Foxe of
Winchester. When Epistle 191 was written, Erasmus appears to have
been in the society of More, who was not likely at this season of the
year to be far from London. I infer that the rus, from which the
letter is dated, was suburban. The Declamations both of More and
Erasmus were printed a few months later by Bade at Paris, together
with their translations from Lucian. See pp. 414, 422.

Epistle 191. Luciani Opuscula (1506) f. 30 ; Ep. xxix. 7 ;

C. i. 265.

Erasmus to Richard Whitford.

For several years, dearest Richard, I have been entirely
occupied with Greek literature ; but lately, in order to
resume my intimacy with Latin, I have begun to declaim
in that language. In so doing I have yielded to the influ-
ence of Thomas More, whose eloquence, as you know, is
such, that he could persuade even an enemy to do whatever
he pleased, while my own affection for the man is so great,
that if he bade me dance a hornpipe, I should do at once
just as he bade me. He is writing on the same subject, and
in such a way as to thresh out and sift every part of it. For
I do not think, unless the vehemence of my love leads me
astray, that Nature ever formed a mind more present, ready,
sharpsighted and subtle, or in a word more absolutely fur-
nished with every kind of faculty than his. Add to this a
power of expression equal to his intellect, a singular cheer-
fulness of character and an abundance of wit, but only of the
candid sort ; and you miss nothing that should be found in a

Practise of declamation 407

perfect advocate. I have therefore not undertaken this task
with any idea of either surpassing or matching such an artist,
but only to break a lance as it were in this tournay of wits
with the sweetest of all my friends, with whom I am always
pleased to join in any employment grave or gay. I have
done this all the more willingly, because I very much wish
this sort of exercise to be introduced into our schools, where
it would be of the greatest utility. For in the want of this
practice I find the reason why at this time, while there are
many eloquent writers, there are so few scholars, who do not
appear almost mute, whenever an orator is required, whereas
if, in pursuance both of the authority of Cicero and Fabius
and of the examples of the ancients, we were diligently
practised from boyhood in such exercises, there would not,
surely, be such poverty of speech, such pitiable hesitation,
such shameful stammering, as we witness even in those who
publicly profess the art of Oratory.

You will read my declamation with the thought that it has
been the amusement of a very few days, not a serious com-
position. I advise you also to compare it with More's, and
so determine whether there is any difference of style between
those, whom you used to declare to be so much alike in
genius, character, tastes and studies, that no twin brothers
could be found more closely resembling one another. I am
sure you love them both alike, and are in turn equally dear
to both. Farewell, most charming Richard.

In the country, the 1st of May, 1506.*

Assisted by his wealthy English patrons, Erasmus had, we may
presume, fairly replenished his purse ; and he now took up again
his old purpose of visiting Italy. But not being satisfied that his own
resources were sufficient without further assistance, he undertook to
superintend the education of two youths, sons of Dr. Baptist Boerio,
King Henry's Genoese physician, whom their father was sending with

* Ruri ad Calendas Maias, mdvi. Liiciani Opicscula (150b).

4o8 Preparations for journey to Italy

an English preceptor, Master Clifton,"^ to complete their education at
Bologna. He appears to have left England about the beginning of
June, 1506. Just before his departure he sent one of his customary
presents, — a translation of the dialogue of Lucian entitled Timon or
The Misanthrope, — to the king's secretary, Dr. Ruthall, with the
following short dedicatory letter.

Epistle 192, Liiciani Opuscula, Paris, 1506; Ep. xxix. 6;

C. i. 255.

Erasmus to Dr. Thomas Riithall.

Look, most courteous Ruthall, what audacity is supplied
me by the singular facility of your character and manners.
Knowing as I do, that among the magnates of the Court you
hold a chief place both in favour, in dignity and in erudition,
nevertheless I am not afraid of sending to your Excellency my
trifling productions, still in the rough and scarcely corrected
from the first draft. But what am I to do ? The shipman
is already in a hurry, and crying out that winds and tides
wait on no man. In order therefore to leave something of
myself with a person w^ho has made so much of me, I send
what has chanced to be in hand, — a Misanthrope forsooth, to
the most philanthropic of men. There is no dialogue of
Lucian more profitable, or more agreeable to read. It was
translated some time ago by another hand, but so done as if
the translator wished to demonstrate that he knew neither
Greek nor Latin ; and one might not unreasonably suspect
him of being suborned by those who bear a grudge against
the author.

You will I trust put a good construction on our boldness,

" This name, which is Clyfton in Farrago (see p. 411), has been misread
Clyston, and so repeated in all the later collections and biographies. I owe
this correction, with many other valuable suggestions, to Mr. P. S. Allen.

Translations from Lucian 409

and reckon Erasmus among those who are most attached to
you. Farewell.

London [May or June, 1506].*

About the same time Erasmus despatched to Louvain a translation
of another of Lucian's dialogues, entitled De Mercede Conductis,
with the following dedicatory letter to his friend the Orator of the
University there.

Epistle 193. Luciani Opuscula, Paris, 1506 ; Ep. xxix. 8 ;

C. i. 297.

Erasmus to Joannes Paludaniis.

That you may understand, most courteous Paludanus, that
your Erasmus, while he takes flight over lands and seas, con-
stantly carries with him the remembrance of you, I send in
evidence, Lucian's dialogue entitled Uepl twv iirl /jbcaOa> a-wovrwv
(of Hired Attendants), which I have turned into Latin before
going ofif to Italy, and just on the point of departure. You
will be amused to see in it, as in a mirror, all the discomforts
of a court life, which you used often to describe to me from
experience, having yourself suffered shipwreck and been cast
ashore, and only just restored to that life of liberty and
letters.

I do this with a special purpose, — to challenge you to
venture on something similar yourself, as you have now had
a long practice in Greek literature. I may well say, to
venture, for in my opinion there is no more venturesome
act, than to try to make good Latin out of good Greek.
Farewell, and as I love you well, return my love.

[London, May or June, 1506.] f

* No date in the Paris or Venice editions (1506, 15 16). Londini, Anno
M.D. iiii. Luciani Dialogic Ed. Basil. (1517, 1521.)

t No date in Luciani Opuscula (1506), nor in the later editions.

CHAPTER XVI.

Journey to Italy ; Paris, Turin, Florence, Bologna ; June,
1506, to November, 1507. Doctor s Degree. Publica-
tion of Translations from Euripides and Liician.
Correspondence with Aldus. Epistles 194 — 206.

Erasmus left England about the beginning of June, 1506. He had a
long and disagreeable passage to the Continent, having been obliged,
in deference to the arrangements of his travelling companions, to take
ship in the port of London, instead of crossing by Dover as he had
hitherto done. The three following letters were probably sent to
London by the same courier. The first is addressed to Linacre, whose
professional skill appears to have been useful to Erasmus,

Epistle 194. Farrago, p. 305 ; Ep. x. 6 ; C. 100 (105).
Erasmus to Thomas Linacre.

We have arrived at Paris, in other respects without
damage, but I caught a troublesome sickness by gathering
of cold during our four days at sea, which even now gives
me a severe pain in the front of my head. The glands
under the ears are swollen on both sides ; with throbbing in
the temples, and singing in both ears. And all the time I
have no Linacre at my side to exert his skill in relieving me.
So much the Italian alliance has cost us at present. For
nothing in my life was ever so firmly resolved, as never to
commit myself to winds and waves, where there was any
road by land.

We have come to life again in France ; for there has been
a persistant and general report in this country, that Erasmus
had departed to the shades. I guess that the rumour arose

Erasmus again in Paris 41 1

by mistake, out of the death of that Frenchman Miles, as he,
like myself, had come from France and had been taken into
Lord Mountjoy's house, where a few days after he was seized
with plague and died. I am not affected at all by the omen ;
and, thanks to this mistake, have a foretaste in life of what
will be said of me after I am dead !

France appears so charming to me on my return, that it is
doubtful whether my mind is more fascinated by England,
which has bred me so many and such noble friends, or by
France which is most agreeable to me on account of old
acquaintance, of the freedom it affords, and lastly because of
a sort of special favour and popularity that I enjoy here, I
am therefore conscious of a double pleasure, being equally
delighted in seeing my French friends again, and in calling
to mind my British intimacies, especially as these will I hope
shortly be renewed.

You could not help laughing, if you knew how greedily
my poor Greek is expecting the present I promised him in
return for his reeds from Cyprus, how often he mentions the
Bcjpov, how often he complains of its not being sent. It is
really amusing to disappoint such a gaping crow. The stupid
fellow does not observe that I wrote to him, nefjixpo) hoipov
Tt a^Lov crov (I shall send a present worthy of you), that is,
something of no value.

I hope that the duty I have undertaken as to the education
of Baptist's sons will turn out well. I see the boys are
intelligent, modest and tractable, and their knowledge is
already beyond their years. No one could be more good-
natured, loving and attentive than their tutor, Clifton.*
Farewell, most learned and kind preceptor. Write to me
often, if only a few lines.

Paris [12 June], 1506.!

* Clyfton illo eorum curatore. Farrago. Clystone illo, etc. Opus. Epist.
Sim. Opera (1540). See p. 408, note.

t Lutetise. anno m.d.vi. Farrago. See next epistle for the date of month.

412 Friends left in London

Epistle 195. Farrago, p. 318 ; Ep. x. 21 ; C. 99 (104).
Erasmus to Co let.

Leaving England and returning to France, I can hardly
tell you, with what a mixture of feelings I am affected. It is
not easy to decide, whether I am more happy in seeing again
the friends I formerly left in France, or more sad in leaving
those I have lately gained in England. For this I can truly
affirm, that there is no entire country which has bred me so
many friends, so sincere, so learned, so devoted, so brilliant,
so distinguished by every kind of virtue, as the single city
of London ; every one of whom has so vied in loving and
assisting me, that I know not whom I should prefer to another,
and am bound to return an equal affection to them all. The
parting from those cannot but be painful to me. But again
memory brings me comfort ; by constantly thinking of them
I seem to make them present, and I hope it will soon come
to pass, that I shall meet them again, not to part until sepa-
rated by death. To bring this speedily and happily into
effect, I am confident — such is your love and partiality for
me — that you will exert yourself with my other friends.

It is impossible to say how pleased I am with the disposi-
tion of Baptist's children. No boys could be more modest,
more tractable or more industrious in their studies. I trust
therefore that they will answer to their father's intentions
and my pains, and some day or other bring great credit to
Britain. Farewell.

Paris, the morrow of the Sacrament (12 June), 1506.*

* Parisijs. postridie sacramenti. Anno, m.d.vi. Farrago. The morrow of
the Sacrament is the day after the festival of Corpus Christi, which fell in
1506 on the nth of June. See p. 328. In Le Clerc's edition the date given
is 19 June, 1506.

SL Antonyms School 413

Epistle 196 is addressed to Roger Wentford, the Master of St.
Antony's School in London, with whom Erasmus had probably become
acquainted through More. The school attached to St. Antony's
Hospital in Threadneedle Street, at which More himself is said to
have been educated, had the highest reputation of any school in
London. The Hospital was suppressed in the reign of Edward VL
and the School fell to decay. Stow, London, ed. 1633, p. igo.
Wentford continued for many years an intimate and useful friend of
Erasmus. The latter part of the Epistle describes the journey, and
the mixed feelings with which the writer had returned to France.
See Epistles 194, 195.

Epistle 196. Farrago, p. 233 ; Ep. viii. 42 ; C. 100 (106).

Erasmus to Roger Wentford^ Master of St. Antony s

School.

Among the many most agreeable friends with whom Britain
has made me acquainted, you, my dear Roger, are one of
the first to come to my mind. Your love has been so con-
stant, your society so delightful, your services so useful, that
to whatever quarter of the world my fates may lead me, I
shall carry with me the most agreeable recollection of my
Roger. I wish your fortune had allowed you to accompany
us to Italy. You would then be in entire possession of your
Erasmus, whom you have already in many ways made most
thoroughly your own. * * *

Paris, June 12, [i5o6].f

It had probably been arranged with the friends of his travelling
companions, that the party should spend several weeks in Paris before
proceeding on their journey. During this period Erasmus placed in
the hands of the printer, Bade, the translations which he had lately
made from Euripides and Lucian. These were printed in the same
form and type, in two small folio volumes. The volume of Euripides, the
main contents of which were at once delivered to the printer (see p. 394),

t Parisijs, postridic Sacrament. Anno m.d.vii. Farrago.

414 Translations of Euripides printed

was finished 13 Sept. 1506, soon after Erasmus left Paris. It is entitled
Euripidis Hecuba et Iphigenia latinae factae Erasmo interprete ; and
contains; i. The dedicatory Preface to Archbp. Warham (Epistle 187) ;
2. Carmen iamhicum Trimetrmn (in twenty-five lines) also addressed
to the Archbishop; 3. Argumentum Hecubae ; 4. The Hecuba in
Latin; 5. Argumentum Iphigenise in Aulide ; 6. A short preface to
the Iphigenia, with the heading Erasmus lectori ; 7. The Iphigenia
in Latin ; 8. Geruasii Drocensis Epigramma (see p. 435) ; 9. The Ode
in Praise of England, here entitled Prosopopoeia Britanniae, at the
end of which are the words Panegyrici finis, and the Colophon,
Ex officina Ascensiana ad Idus Septemb. MDVI. Beatus Rhenanus,
then a student at Paris, possessed a copy in the same year. (Knod,
Bibliothek des Rhenanus, p. 68). The Lucian was not ready till the
end of the year, the publication being deferred in order to give the
author time to send some more of his own translations for insertion,
and to induce Thomas More to contribute to the work. A descrip-
tion of its contents may therefore be better inserted in a future page,
see p. 422. Bade was busy at the same time upon a new edition of
the Adages, to which the author contributed a small instalment of the
matter provided for the more enlarged work which he still had in view.
Bade's edition, the printing of which was completed 24 Dec. 1506, has
a supplement dated 8 Jan. 1507, entitled Epigram77iata, which includes,
with other works already published, the poem on Old Age written during
the journey to Italy (see p. 416), here entitled De fuga vitae humane,
which was also printed in the volume of Translations from Lucian (see
p. 422), and at Venice in December in the new edition of the Euripides,
p. 436.

Before leaving Paris, or possibly from Orleans on his way south,
Erasmus despatched to Rene d'llliers, Bishop of Chartres, a translation
of the Alexander or Pseudomantis of Lucian. The Bishop appears to
have been already acquainted with some of his correspondent's works ;
and it is characteristic of the comparative freedom of opinion before
the alarm of the Reformation, that Erasmus ventures to suggest to a
dignitary of the Church, with whom he was not on intimate terms,
that some of Lucian's satire was applicable to existing ecclesiastical
abuses. The accident to the Cathedral of Chartres, mentioned at the
end of the dedicatory Epistle, took place on St. Ann's day (26 July),
1506. (Roulliard, Histoire de Chartres, p. 150 b.) The Bishop, whose
love of books is commemorated by the historian of his church, died a
few months after this dedication.

The bishop of Chartres 415

Epistle 197. Luciani Opuscula (1506) ; Ep. xxix.4 ; C. i. 229.
Erasmus to Rene, Bishop of Chartres.

Having learned from various sources, most Reverend
Father, how favorably a person of your exquisite taste has
thought and spoken of my poor talent and trifling com-
positions, and being bound for Italy, but prevented by
engagements with fellow-travellers from waiting upon you
in person, I have found another way of calling your
Erasmus to your mind, and have sent you Lucian's Pseudo-
mantis, a wicked scoundrel, but more serviceable than any
one else in detecting and exposing the impostures of a class
of people not unknown to you, who even in these times are
wont to delude the vulgar with magic miracles, and feigned
religion, or with pretended pardons and conjuries of that
sort. I hope therefore that you will read him, not only
with some profit, but also with the greatest pleasure, since I
understand that, while, — not to speak of the nobility of your
birth, the splendour of your fortune, or the authority of
your office, — you are perfectly skilled in serious and solemn
studies, nevertheless you do not altogether recoil from these
more elegant Muses, but are pleased to mingle such de-
lightful and profitable entertainments with your arduous
business. Whichever you may choose, whether the black
salt, — sal nigrum ~ which they attribute to Momus, or the
bright salt, — sal candidum, — which they ascribe to Mercury,
may all be found in the greatest abundance in Lucian.

I cannot tell you how grieved I am to hear, that your
noble and renowned temple of Chartres has been set on fire
by lightning. Farewell, till our return from Italy.

Paris, [August, 1506.]*

* No date in original edition. Lutetian Anno m.d.v. Luciani Diaiogi. Basil.
1517 and 1521.

4i6 yourney to Italy

Leaving Paris probably early in August, the party made a stay of a
few days at Orleans, where Erasmus was the guest of Nicolas Beraud
(Beraldus), with whom he renewed his acquaintance in 151 7, and who
was in after years his correspondent, Epist. i. 14, C. 183 E. They
proceeded on their journey by way of Lyons, where they appear to
have stayed at an inn, which left a favorable impression on the mind
of Erasmus, who in one of his Colloquies contrasts the friendly
reception of the French landlady and her family with the treatment
of their guests by German innkeepers. Colloguia, s. tit. Diversoria.
C. i. 715). After leaving Lyons, they passed through Savoy into
Piedmont.* His Alpine journey was associated in the memory of
Erasmus with a poem on the approach of Age, which he composed
at the age of forty, as a farewell to youth and the vigour of early
manhood. Of this work he gives the following account in his often
cited Letter to Botzhem, or Catalogue of Lucubrations.

Catalogiis Lucubrationiun (1523). C. i. Pr(Bf. Jortin, ii. 417.

My poem on Old Age, addressed to William Cop, was
written in the Alps on my first journey to Italy. A hateful
quarrel had arisen between the pursuivant of the King of
England, who accompanied us for our protection all the way
to Bologna, and the tutor of the youths, whom I was taking
to Italy, under a bargain in which I was entangled as in a
noose. I did not go as their pedagogue, for I had declined
the charge of their conduct, nor as a teacher, but as super-
intendent of their studies, for which I was to point out the
road ; a fatal arrangement, that no form of misery might be
wantmg to my life ; for I never passed a more uncomfortable
year. Between these two persons the contest had become
so warm that after furious abuse, they drew their swords on
one another. Up to this time I was angry with only one of
them ; but when after such a storm I saw them converted
all at once into friends by drinking a bottle of wine together,

* Glim enim e Lutetia per Lugdunum petens Italiam, bonam illius
(Sabaudise) partem vidi. Erasmus Petro Morneyo. Epist. xxv. 16; C. 1394.

Doctor's degree at Turin 417

I hated them both alike. For as I look upon those persons
as madmen, who put themselves in such a passion without
some very grievous offence, so I consider them to be not
worth trusting, who so suddenly become friends after a
deadly quarrel. So it came to pass, that in order to beguile
the tediousness of the ride, while I abstained from talking
with the disputants, I got this poem done, noting it down on
paper from time to time upon the saddle, in order not to
lose any part of it, as new ideas are apt to drive out the old.
When we came to the inn, I wrote out from my notes what
had thus taken birth. So you have an equestrian, or perhaps
I should say an Alpestrian poem, which nevertheless the
learned say is not altogether unhappy, in whatever circum-
stances it was born.

Upon the first production of this poem, Erasmus seems to have
regarded it with the same satisfaction as he expresses at a later time
in the lines above quoted. He soon after sent a copy of it to
Paris, to be inserted in two of the volumes which w^ere about
to issue from the press of Bade. See pp. 414, 422. The publica-
tion was repeated in the Aldine edition of the translations from
Euripides, printed in December of the same year (p. 436), and in
other collections of his minor works. It may be read in C. iv. 755.

The first place on the other side of the Alps where the party halted
for any time, was Turin, where they stayed long enough for Erasmus
to take "the degree of Doctor of Theology. The diploma, which is
dated Friday, the 4th of September, 1506, shows that the candidate
was already a Bachelor in the same Faculty, but does not reveal at
what University he had obtained that degree. See pp. 158, 402. It
has been twice printed from Erasmus's own copy preserved at Basel.
Familiares Epistolse Erasmi ad Amerbachium, Basileae, 1779;
Vischer, Erasmiana, Basel, 1876, p. 7. His fellow traveller, Clifton,
is said by Rhenanus to have also taken a degree at this time at Turin.
Pp. 28, 411.

From Turin the party proceeded to Bologna. The correspondence

of Erasmus does not enable us to follow his movements on the

journey ; but by means of one of his Colloquies we trace him to the

Certosa of Pavia, where he was struck, not so much by the beauty as

VOL. I. 2 E

41 8 Bologna and Florence

by the costliness of the work, a magnificent temple being provided for
the convenience, or rather inconvenience, of a few poor monks, who
were supposed by their Rule to live in solitude, and whose church
was already infested by sightseers. Colloqida: Convivium religiosurn.
C. i. 685 A. The travellers had not been long at Bologna before that
city was threatened with siege by a French army. They thought it
best, therefore, to retire for the present, and crossing the Apennines,
took refuge at Florence. The following Epistles, despatched in haste
to the Netherlands, afford little information about the important
events of which Erasmus was a spectator.

Epistle 198. Merula, p. 207 ; Ep. xxxi. 36 ; C. 1858 (468).
Erasmus to Master J-ohn Obrecht.

It is a pleasure to me to find you thinking and speaking of
us in such a friendly way. This was reported to me by
Master William, the preceptor of the Great Treasurer's
children, a man much attached to you, who is now living
at Bologna, and with whom I am most intimate. I have
lately accepted the degree of Doctor in Theology, contrary
to my own sentiment and by the compulsion of friends, who
thought this title would confer on me some authority. I
shall see you again, I hope, next summer, when we can
compare notes together about everything. You will greet
for me our common friends, to whom I wish every blessing.
If you have any fancy for our trifles, many of my lucubrations
have been lately printed at Paris in Bade's press. Farewell.

[Florence, 4 Nov. 1506].*

Epistle 199. Merula, p. 209 ; Ep. xxxi. 40 ; C. 1854 (463).

Erasmus to Master J^ames Maurits^ Licenciate of
both Laws.

Your Erasmus is alive and well, thank Heaven, and does
not forget you, wherever he may be. He begs you to

'" No date in Merula See the ne.xt Epistle.

Return to Bologna 419

forward the inclosed note as soon as possible to Master
John Obrecht. Please do not refuse to undertake this small
trouble for me. There is much news here in Italy that is
worth writing ; but the messenger is already starting. Greet
the most erudite Master Reyner the physician for me, also
Henry, and all other friends. Fare well and happily with all
your household.

Florence, 4 Nov. [1506].*

Epistle 200. Merula, p. 206 ; Ep. xxxi. 35 ; C. 1871 (486).
Erasmus to Servatius.

We have come to Italy for many reasons, although we
find it disturbed by the turmoil of war, insomuch that, as the
Pope with the French army was preparing to besiege
Bologna, we have been obliged to take refuge at Florence.
But certain intelligence having now come, that Bentivoglio
with his three sons has fled and been caught by the French,
we are returning to Bologna, hoping to find things settled.
For the Pope with his Cardinals is to winter there.

I have received a Doctor's degree in Theology, and that
altogether against my own judgment, and overcome by the
solicitation of friends. I shall see you, I hope, next summer.
Farewell.

[Florence, Nov. i5o6].f

It may be observed that Erasmus, in informing his friends of his
degree, takes no pains to point out at what University it was obtained.
He appears to have returned to Bologna, after its surrender to Pope
Julius, but before the conqueror made his triumphal entry, of which
Erasmus was a spectator. (Spectabam, ut ingenue dicam, non sine
tacito gemitu. Apologia adv. Stunicam, C. ix. 360.) The Sunday
following Martinmas (Nov. 11) was November the 15th, and the
following letter is dated the next day.

* Florentise pridie nonas Novembres. Merula.
t No date in Merula.

2 E 2

420 Pope Julius II. at Bologna

Epistle 201. Merula, p. 207 ; Ep. xxxi. 37 ; C. 1871 (487).
Erasmus to Servatius.

Though we wrote lately from Florence, still as letters are
often lost in so long a journey, I will write again to-day. We
have come to Italy, principally for the sake of Greek ; but
in these parts, while wars are hot, studies are chilled, which
will make us anxious to fly back all the sooner. We have
taken a Doctor's degree in Theology, not at all by our own
choice, but compelled by others.

Bentivoglio has left Bologna. The French had besieged
the town, but were repulsed by the citizens with the loss of
a few men. On St. Martin's day, Pope Julius entered
Bologna, and the next Sunday celebrated mass in the
Cathedral. The Emperor's arrival is expected, and an
expedition is being prepared against the Venetians, unless
they cede the places claimed by the Pope. Meantime the
University keeps holiday. Farewell.

Bologna, 16 Nov. [1506].*

Erasmus while at Florence had made some further translations from
some of the shorter dialogues of Lucian, which he sent to Paris to be
included in the volume which Bade was printing. Pp. 421, 422.
These were dedicated to Jerome Busleiden. Meantime the news
arrived that Philip, King of Castile, had died in Spain, His death
occurred at Burgos, 25 Sept. 1506.

Epistle 202. Luciani Opuscula, Paris, 1506, fo. xlviii ;
Ep. xxix. 9 ; C. i. 31 1.

Erasmus to Jerome Busleiden^ Provost of Aire ^ Royal

Councillor .

A report has prevailed here for some time, too sad to be

* Bononiae, decimo sexto calendis \sic\ Decembris. Merula.

Death of Philips king of Castile 421

readily believed, but so persistent that it cannot be treated
as baseless, that our Prince Philip is no longer among the
living. * *

When I lauded him as a youth in my Panegyric, such as
it was, good Heavens, how many more Panegyrics, and those
how full of history, did I promise myself ? Now things are
changed all at once, and I set myself in sorrow to write his
epitaph. How vain is it for us insignificant persons to put
any trust in our fortunes, when Death at his will snatches
away even those in the prolongation of whose life all men
are so much concerned ? But why, my Jerome, should I
embitter your grief by indulging my own ? What is left is
to pray that Heaven may grant to the children their father's
fortune, but united with the longevity of the late Emperor
Frederic ; to you also your brother's success as their adviser,
with a life more prolonged than your brother's. To this
letter, — that it may not come to so great and so learned a
friend unaccompanied by some small literary present, — I
have added some Dialogues of Lucian, which I turned into
Latin during the few days when we took refuge at Florence
for fear of the siege, occupying myself in this manner that I
might not be without any occupation at all. For in Italy
at present studies are singularly chilled, while wars are
warm. Pope Julius fights, conquers, triumphs, and in fact
plays the part of Julius to perfection.

Farewell, and commend Erasmus over and over again to
the most Reverend Father, Nicolas Ruistre, Bishop of Arras.

Bologna, 17 November, 1506.*

The new translations from Lucian sent by Erasmus to Bade (with
a copy of Epistle 202^ and of the poem de Senectute, p. 416), and
some other work of the same kind already received from More,
completed the volume in the hands of Bade (see p. 414), the piece-

* No date in L7iciani Opusc. 1506. Bononias, xv. Cal. Decemb. mdvi.
Luciani Opusc. Basil. 152 1.

42 2 Translations from Liician

meal and gradual composition of which is very apparent in the original
edition. It is entitled, Luciani compluria opuscula ab Erasmo Rotero-
damo et Thovia Moro Traducta, and is composed of three distinct
parts. The first part consists of fifty-three numbered folios, contain-
ing I. (f. i to xxix) four dialogues, Toxaris, Alexander, Gallus and
Ttmon, preceded, severally, by Epistles i86, 197, 178, 192 ; 2. (f. xxx to
xlix b) a translation of Lucian's Declamation entitled Tyrannictda, a
Declamatio Liicianicas resp07idens, preceded by Epistle 191 ; and the
dialogue De mercede conductis^ preceded by Epistle 193 ; 3. (xlix b.
to li) E Luciano dialogi breviores ; 4. (li to liij b) the Poem Ad
Gulielmum Copum de Senectute siibrepente. This poem ends near
the bottom of the page. The word reXo'i follows, and then, by way of
colophon, a short advertisement (with the heading Ascensius lectori
S.) recommending to the studious the dialogues of Lucian, as
translated by Erasmus, viro literatissimo et nuper Sacrae theologiae
laurea decor ato (the first public announcement of his degree), and
his poem on old age, with the promise of more from the same work-
shop, and concluding with the words Vale ex officina ascensiana. Sub
Calend. Novemb. MDVI. The second part, probably the last printed,
beginning with a second f. xlviij, and going on to f. Ixi, contains Epistle
202, and some more short dialogues, concluding at the bottom of f. Ixi
dors, with the words, reXo?. Ex officina ascensiana. The third part,
which has no pagination, consists of More's contribution (of which
some account has been given in p. 403), preceded by Epistle 190, and
concludes with the following Colophon : Finis. Ascensius Moro suo
S.D. (six complimentary elegiac couplets). Ex officina Ascensiana ad
Idus Nouemb. MDVI. It appears from this that the printing of the
third part was finished on the 15th of November, a fortnight after that
of the first, and before the date of Epistle 202, with which the second
part commences. The absence of pagination of the third part is thus
explained. The date when the second part was finished and the book
was ready for issue, does not appear.

One incident which occurred during Erasmus's sojourn at Bologna,
— apparently soon after his second arrival there, while Pope Julius
was still in that city, — made a striking change in his personal appear-
ance during the remainder of his life. He had hitherto worn the
habit of an Augustinian monk, varied a little according to the custom
of the country in which he was staying ; but the inconvenience and
danger to which he was exposed owing to some ignorant people

Disuse of monastic dress 423

having mistaken his costume for that used by the physicians employed
to attend the victims of the plague, served as a plausible reason for
assuming the less conspicuous dress of an ordinary priest. For this
change he is said to have obtained a dispensation from the Pope.
The story is told by Erasmus himself in the Epistle to Grunnius (see
C. 1828, 1829), and also by Beatus Rhenanus (see p. 29); but it has
been regarded by some of the biographers as an improbable fiction
(Drummond, Life of Erasmus, i. 168; Pattison, Encycl. Brit. art.
Erasmus). But without excessive credulity we may suppose the story
founded upon some actual occurrence ; that Erasmus upon his removal
to Italy did in fact give up the monastic habit, cannot be doubted.
Among the circumstances said to have accompanied the change, we
might naturally seek for some evidence of the alleged Indulgence
obtained from Pope Julius ; and this Beatus thought he had found in
a confirmation of the old privilege by Leo X. But the Bull of the
latter Pope does not in fact contain any reference to a preceding
Indulgence. See p. 29, and note there.

About the same date as Epistle 202, Erasmus sent a letter to Henry,
Prince of Wales, — whom he had before addressed as a child (Epistle
94), and to whom we may assume that he had become better known
during his second visit to England, — condoling with him on the death
of the King of Castile. An answer was sent by the Prince in the
following January (Epistle 203). Of this correspondence Erasmus
gives the following account in a letter written to Joannes Cochleius
in 1529, in reply to some questions as to the authorship of King
Henry's book against Luther, which Erasmus maintained to be sub-
stantially of the King's own composition. The statement that the
letter of Erasmus was sent from Venice may be assumed to be a
mistake, arising from carelessness in referring to a transaction which
took place twenty-three years before. The description which he gives
of the letter leaves no doubt that it was of the same time as the letter
to Busleiden, which referred to the news of Philip's death in similar
words ; and we do not find elsewhere any hint of Erasmus being in
Venice until about a year later.

Erasmus to Joannes Cochleius. Opus Epist. 1529, p. 972 ;
Ep. xxiii. 15 ; C. 1183 b.

As far as regards the King's power of expression, I send

424 Epistle to Henry Prince of Wales

you a sample which may enable you to guess how much
may have been acquired in so many years. For the whole
of the enclosed letter he wrote when a youth with his own
hand. When I was staying at Venice, I sent a letter to
him deploring the death of King Philip, my own sovereign.
I have kept no copy of it, but it began nearly in the follow-
ing words : ''A report has arrived here too sad to be readily
believed, but so persistent that it cannot appear altogether
baseless, that Prince Philip has departed this life." The
boy at once recognised a certain elegance in the construc-
tion, and you will see that he has begun his own letter with
a similar phrase. I knew the hand, but, to speak candidly,
suspected a little at the time that he had had some help
from others in the ideas and expressions. In a conversation
I afterwards had with William Lord Mountjoy, he tried by
various arguments to dispel that suspicion, and when he
found he could not do so he gave up the point and let it
pass, until he was sufficiently instructed in the case. On
another occasion, when we were talking alone together, he
brought out a number of the Prince's letters, some to other
people and some to himself, and among them one which
answered to mine. In these there were manifest signs of
comment, addition, suppression, correction, and alteration.
You might recognise the first drafting of a letter, and you
might make out the second and third, and sometimes even
the fourth correction ; but whatever was revised or added
was in the same handwriting. I had then no further ground
for hesitation, and overcome by the facts, I laid aside all
suspicion. Neither do I doubt, my dear Cochleius, but that
you would do the same, if you knew this King's happy genius.
Basle, I April, 1529..

Of the practice adopted in Epistle 203, of putting a motto at
the head of a letter, some examples may be found in the Paston
Letters.

Epistle from Prince Henry 425

Epistle 203. Opus Epist. 1529, p. 973 ; Ep. xxiii. 16 ;
C. 1840 (451).

Prince Henry to Erasmus.

Jesus is my Hope.

I am much struck by your letter, most eloquent Erasmus,
which is too elegant to appear composed on a sudden, and
so lucid and simple that it cannot be supposed to be pre-
meditated by so dextrous an intellect. For it somehow
happens, that those writings which are elaborated by inge-
nious minds and produced with more than usual care, bring
with them also a greater share of studied difficulty, for while
we aim at a more refined eloquence, we lose, without being
aware of it, that open and clear manner of expression. But
your epistle, charming as it is in its grace, is no less trans-
parent in its perspicuity, so that you seem to have carried
every point. But why do I set myself to praise your elo-
quence, whose skill is well known through the whole world ?
There is nothing I can compose in your praise which is
worthy of that consummate erudition. I therefore pass over
your praises, about which I think it better to be silent than
to speak insufficiently.

The news of the death of the King of Castile, my much
lamented brother, I had received with regret long before I
read of it in your letter. Would that it had come much
later or had been less true ! For never since the death of
my most dear mother, has a less welcome message come to
me. And to speak the truth, I was not so ready to attend
to your letter as its singular elegance demanded, because it
appeared to reopen a wound which time had begun to heal.
But those events that are determined by Heaven, must be
so received by mortals. Meantime pray proceed, and sig-
nify to us by letter any news you have, but let your news be

426 Erasmus and the Boeri

of a pleasanter kind ; and may God bring to a good event
whatever may happen worth telling. Farewell.
Richmond, 17 Jan. [1507].*

Erasmus does not appear to have acted upon the invitation, con-
veyed in the above letter, to become a correspondent of the young
Prince, although he is said to have been gratified by receiving a letter
from him. According to a story told by Pace he carried the letter for
some time about his person in order to show it to his friends. Paceus
de Fructii Doctrine, cited by Jortin, Erasmus, ii. 351- This is
probably a reminiscence of the meeting of Pace and Erasmus at
Ferrara in 1508 (see p. 451). If Erasmus had at once accepted the
Prince's suggestion, and the latter had been tempted to further efforts,
he might have received his correspondent with more interest upon his
return to England.

Upon the reassembling of the University at Bologna in the winter of
1506, Erasmus entered upon his duties as superintendent of the studies
of the young Boeri. He was probably provided with accommodation
in the apartment occupied by them and their English tutor ; and as he
was not expected either to give them lessons or to accompany them
in their leisure hours, the arrangement afforded him leisure for his
studies. Nevertheless he says in the Catalogue of Lucubrations, that
he never spent a year more unpleasantly. Dr. Baptist was not happy
in the choice of a preceptor, nor the latter in the charge he had under-
taken. We have seen that Clifton had already lost the good opinion of
Erasmus before they crossed the Alps. P. 4 16. He also failed to gain the
respect of his younger companions. Whatever his demerits, we may
feel some pity, when we think of the position of an English tutor
placed at an Italian University in charge of Italian pupils impatient
of his control, and living in the same house with a recognised director
of their studies, who was not friendly to him, and whose conversation
was of a satirical turn. Erasmus appears to have engaged himself
with Dr. Baptist for a year; and his letters from Florence show
that he considered he should be free in the summer. He remained,
however, from November, 1506, to December, 1507, at Bologna. The
correspondence which he had during this time with Dr. Baptist about
the prolongation of his services was not satisfactory. Beatus Rhena-
nus reports that he terminated his engagement proffer pa trzs morosi-

* Ex Richemundia decimoseptimo die lanuarij. Opiis Epist.

Later recollections 427

tatem; and a letter of Erasmus written to the two younger Boeri,
13 January, 1531, contains the following reminiscences.

Erasmus to the brothers Boeri. Ep. xxvi. 57 ; C. 1350 c.

The friendship which I had with your father of blessed
memory was overcast by a little cloud. Ours, as you know,
was never broken. I therefore hope that you have not
altogether forgotten Erasmus, once a strong man, when he
wrestled with the Beetle, and now become a gladiator in his
old age, having to fight continually with so many monsters.

Another letter of Erasmus written in April, 1531, in reply to an
answer received from Bernard Boerio, the younger of the brothers,
contains a further allusion to his association with Clifton.

Erasmus to Bernard Boerio. Ep. xxv. 19 ; C. 1397 ef.

When you say that the name of Erasmus has been like a
garland to you, and has inspired everybody with a great idea
of your erudition, I wish it was as true as it is lovingly
written. We owe it to him whom you designate with the
name of Beetle, not only that I left you earlier, but also
that the sweetness of our intercourse was tempered with a
large dose of aloes, so that, had not my honesty kept me to
my duty, may I die if I could have been induced by a huge
sum to tolerate the monster for a single month. I often
wondered that so prudent a man as your father was so ill-
advised as to entrust his dearest pledges to one who was
scarcely fit to have charge of pigs, and who indeed from the
weakness of his mind required a guardian himself.

During his sojourn at Bologna, Erasmus became known to all the
learned persons then resident in the University. (Epistle 206, p. 434.)
His chief ally was Paul Bombasio, Professor of both the learned
tongues, of whom Erasmus says in the Adages that he never had a
more attached friend or more delightful companion. C. ii. 221 B.
They corresponded in later years, when Bombasio had gone to seek

428 Residence at Bologna

his fortune at Rome, and having become secretary to Cardinal Pucci,
was most anxious to be useful to Erasmus in the suit he then had at
the Papal Court. C. 351, 352. Another acquaintance formed at
Bologna (C. 788 a) was with Scipio Carteromachus (or Fortiguerra),
with whom he became more intimate two years later at Rome. See
pp. 453, 454. Among the literary work undertaken during this period
was the revisal of his early composition, entitled Antiharhari. See
p. 100. There can be little doubt that he was also in some measure
occupied with the preparation of the enlarged edition of the Adages,
which was printed at the Aldine Press in the course of the following
year (see pp. 23, 28), although in his first communications with Aldus
no allusion is made to this work, and he does not appear to have con-
templated at that time any long visit to Venice.

For Epistle 204, and the other letters addressed to Aldus and
Franciscus Asulanus, the reader is indebted to M. Pierre de Nolhac,
who printed them in his charming work entitled Erasme en Italie (Paris,
1888), from the autograph manuscripts preserved in the Library of the
Vatican. It might be suspected that in the opening sentences of
Epistle 204, Erasmus was addressing himself to what he believed to
be a weakness of his correspondent, as it seems to have been gene-
rally thought that Aldus's business was a profitable one.^ But the
year 1506 had been an unfortunate year for Venice and the printer,
his business being interrupted by war. No book appears to have
been printed by him in that year, nor any in 1507 except the little
book of translations from Euripides printed for Erasmus. A. F. Didot,
Aide Manuce, pp. 283-293.

Epistle 204. Nolhac, Erasme en Italie, p. 97.
Erasmus Roterodamus to Aldus Maniitius Romanus.

There is a wish, most learned Manutius, which has many
times occurred to my mind. As not only by your skill and the
unrivalled beauty of your typography, but also by intelligence
and learning of no common order, you have thrown a vast

* See what is said in pp. 438, 440, where Erasmus contrasts it in that respect
with the trade of Froben. The same belief is implied in the Colloquy,
Opulentia sordida, which is evidently descriptive of the housekeeping of
Aldus, or Asulanus. See p. 448.

First Letter to Aldus 429

light upon the literature of Greece and Rome, I should be
glad if those merits had brought you in return an adequate
profit. For as to fame, there is no doubt that to the furthest
posterity the name of Aldus Manutius will fly from mouth to
mouth among all that are initiated in the religion of letters.
Your memory then, as your character now, will deserve not
only admiration but love, because you devote yourself to
the restoration and publication of good authors, with the
greatest solicitude, but, as I hear, with no proportionate
gain. Like Hercules you are employed in labours of the
noblest kind, which are of more advantage to others than to
yourself. I am told that you are editing Plato in Greek, a
book expected with the greatest interest by the learned
world. I should like to know what authors you have
printed on the subject of Medicine. I want you to give us
Paulus Aegineta. I wonder what has so long prevented
you from publishing the New Testament,* a work, which if
I guess aright, will be exceedingly welcome even to the
great majority of our class, I mean the class of theologians.
I send you two tragedies, which I have translated boldly
enough, but whether with corresponding success you will
judge for yourself. Thomas Linacre, William Grocin,
William Latimer, and Cuthbert Tunstall, friends of yours as
well as mine, approved them highly. You know these men
to be too learned to be mistaken in their judgment, and too
honest to be tempted to flatter, unless indeed they are a
little blinded by their partiality for me. Those Italians also
to whom I have shown my attempt, do not condemn it.
Bade has printed the plays, and, as I hear from him, has no
reason to regret it, for he has already succeeded in selling
all his impressions. But my reputation has been somewhat
compromised, the pages being full of misprints. He off"ers

* It appears that Aldus had more than once declared his intention of
printing the Bible. Sqq Annales des Aides, p. 516, cited by M. de Nolhac
Arasme en Italie, p. 98.

43° Translations from Euripides

himself to print a new edition to correct the former one, but
I am afraid, to use the phrase of Sophocles, that he will
mend one mischief with another. I should think my lucu-
brations secure of immortality, if they came out printed in
your type, especially that minute type which is the most
elegant of all. In that case the volume will be very small,
and the matter may be carried out at a trifling cost. If you
find it convenient to undertake the business, I propose to
supply the corrected copy sent by bearer without any charge,
except that you will be so good as to send me a few volumes
for presentation to friends.

I should not be afraid of undertaking the work at my own
expense and risk, were it not that I shall have to leave Italy
in a few months. For the same reason I am anxious to get
the thing done as soon as possible. It is scarcely a ten
days' business. If you insist on my taking a hundred or
two hundred copies for myself, although Mercury (as patron
of commerce) is not apt to be very propitious to me, and it
will be inconvenient to have a parcel to carry, still I will
not refuse to take them, provided you fix a favorable price.

Farewell, most learned Aldus, and pray rank Erasmus
among those who heartily wish you well. You will do me
a favour by letting me know whether you have in your
warehouse any authors not in common use ; as those learned
Englishmen have charged me to make the inquiry. If on
the whole you are not inclined to print the Tragedies,
please return the copy to the bearer, to be brought back
to me.

Bologna, 28 Oct. [1507].*

A favourable answer having been received to the above letter,
Erasmus proceeded to give further directions about the intended
publication (Epistle 206). Among other things he determined to

* Bononiae. V. Cal. Nouembr. The autograph original is in the Vatican
(Reg. Vat. 2023, f. 163), endorsed by Aldus: Erasmus Roterodamus, Ex
Bononia V. Kal. Nouembr, 1507- Nolhac, Erasme en lialie, p. 97.

New dedication of the Iphigenia 431

substitute for the short preface to the Iphigenia in Aulis (addressed
to the Reader), which was in the Paris edition, a second dedicatory-
Epistle to Archbishop Warham. See pp. 414, 435. It may be noted that
at the time of Erasmus's tentative estimate of the Greek Tragedians
in Epistle 205, the works of Sophocles and Euripides had lately been
made accessible to the learned by the editions supervised by Marcus
Musurus and printed by Aldus in 1502 and 1503. iEschylus was not
printed until 15 18. The reader may also be reminded that the original
Hecuba of Euripides was produced B.C. 425, while the Iphigenia in
Aulis is regarded as a work left unfinished at the author's death
nineteen years later.

Epistle 205. Euripidis Hecuba, etc., Venice, 1507 ;
Ep. xxix. 25 ; C. i. 1153.

Erasmus to William^ Archbishop of Canterbury.

When I began to deal with this Tragedy, most reverend
Prelate, I seemed at once to perceive a change in the taste
of the language and in the character of the poetry. For if I
am not mistaken, it has a little more brilliancy and the
diction is more free. In this respect it might seem like
Sophocles ; but again in the closeness of the arguments and
in a sort of declamatory power of persuading and dissuading,
it rather recalls Euripides as its parent. However, it is not
for me to pronounce to which poet it is to be ascribed,
neither do I think it important to decide. Nevertheless we
have thought fit to relax somewhat of our old scrupulousness,
that we might not in this respect be out of harmony with our
subject. The translation of the Iphigenia is therefore more
free and more dififuse, without, however, departing from
fidelity of interpretation. In one point we have ventured in
both plays to act on our own judgment, inasmuch as in the
choruses we have a little qualified the immoderate variety
and licence of the verse, having hopes that the learned will
pardon this deviation, considering the straits in which we
found ourselves, and that neither Flaccus nor Seneca has

432 Chorus of the Greek Tragedy

rivalled in diversity of metres or in liberty of feet the Greek
lyric or tragic poets ; whom, however, they were not translating
but only imitating. Indeed, if my more serious studies per-
mitted me to translate other tragedies, I should not only
persevere in this boldness, but should not fear to change
both the style and matter of the choruses, and should prefer
either to treat some common subject or to digress into some
agreeable episode, rather than to spend my pains upon tune-
ful nonsense, to use the phrase of Horace.* For in no other
instance does antiquity appear to me to have played the fool
so much as in this sort of choruses, in which eloquence was
debased by an excessive affectation of novelty, and in aiming
at verbal miracles all grasp of reaUty was lost. Farewell,
decus meum.

[Bologna, November, 1507.]!

The answer of Aldus to Epistle 204 appears to have included an
invitation to Venice, and also a suggestion that Erasmus should add
to his w^ork an excursus upon the metres used in the Plays. We also
find that the little book was intended to include an epistle to Aldus
(see pp. 434, 435), which is not found in the published volume, and
must therefore have been suppressed upon a later revision. I am
inclined to think that it was replaced by a short note addressed Ad
lectorem. De carminum generibus, which is followed by some blank
pages, immediately preceding the translation of the Hecuba. It is
interesting to observe that the corrections suggested by Erasmus in
the passages cited from the Aldine edition of Euripides (p. 433) have
found favour with later editors.

Epistle 206. Nolhac, Erasme en Italic, p. 100.

Erasmus to Aldus Maniitius.

The mere prospect of seeing so renowned a city, the
interest of our business, and above all the sense I have of
your friendliness and sincerity, all invite me to fly to Venice,

* Nugaeque canorae. Herat. De Arte Poet. 322.
t No date in original, or in any later edition.

Greek Text of the Plays 433

if only the season were spring, or a vernal autumn. But as
it is, I am terrified by the climate, which is both strange to
me, and just now extremely disagreeable ; especially as
within the last few days this air of Bologna has affected my
health, which is usually delicate.

There will perhaps be some passages, about which you
will not agree with me, and on this account especially I
did wish to be with you. In several places I am myself in
doubt, and in a few I suspect the text to be faulty. So in
Hecuba^ fol. B. 4, right page, for ov fjujv ye TreWrj, I read
ovK 7]v ye. At the bottom ovto<; crv ixaLuy I think is better
given to Agamemnon than to Hecuba. In Aulis, fol. Zz. 4,
left page, ra^delcra rolai ^LkrdToi<i^ I read ra^OicrTa. So in
several other places I have ventured to differ from the text.
On these points I should be very glad to have a talk with
you as a person whose opinion I should value, if it were not
for the state of my health. But if you meet with a manifest
blunder (for I am human), I give you leave to correct it at
your own discretion, and perform the duty of the friend you
say you are. If it appears doubtful, so that it might be
maintained, and I may be supposed, not to have made an
unconscious mistake, but to have adopted a different view,
then you will leave it as it is, — or alter it, if you please, for
what is there I would not venture to entrust to Aldus ?

As to the verses, it does not appear to be important.
For, in the first place, except in one or two instances, I
have not used in the choruses the same metres as Euripides.
For, considering that in many choruses there are almost as
many metres as lines, and having regard to the liberty the
Greeks used in varying feet, — when I saw too that neither
Flaccus in his Odes, nor Seneca in his Tragedies, had
imitated such variety or liberty, — I thought it would be
foolish for me with my limited means to attempt it. I con-
tented myself therefore with fewer varieties. Again, if we
undertook to set down the names of the metres we have

2 F

434 Metres used in the Translations

used in the choruses (and each metre has several names), to
describe their composition and the laws and license of their
feet, we should have to do the same throughout the play ;
for the rest does not all consist of iambic trimeters, the
metre beino^ occasionallv varied ; and as it does not seem
congruous to add so large an appendix to so small a volume,
I think it will be neater to send the w^ork out without
addition. At present also I have not the authorities required
for such a work ; I prefer therefore to let the subject alone
rather than to treat it unskilfullv. And indeed the time is not
sufficient for any additions. I have many reasons for wishing
the thing finished quickly, so that I may have this keepsake
to give my learned friends on New Year's day, and I have
some acquaintance with every one here who either knows or
professes Literature. After Christmas I am going to Rome,
where it will be an object with me to make use of a little
present of this kind either to renew old friendships or to
make fresh acquaintances. I send you my Epistle* to your-
self with very few alterations. As to your own inscription,
I leave the whole matter to your judgment.f The testimony
of Aldus will be gratifying to me ; and if there is any one
else, whom you are likely to oblige by inviting his good
word, use your discretion. As soon as the thing is com-
pleted, I want twenty or thirty priced copies to be sent me
directly. J The money shall be paid to the person who
delivers the books, or on your order ; or if you prefer that
it should be prepaid, that shall be done.

* Ex isto iam [read Episiolani] ad te ineam initio. See next page (third
line), and observation in p. 432.

t A recommendation of the work by Aldus is printed on the back of the title.

+ Codices estitnatos. M. de Nolhac thinks that codices aesfimafi were some-
thing in the nature of "large paper copies." It might be thought here, that
Erasmus was merely guarding against the idea that he was ordering any
number of copies to be sent him gratuitously ; but the expression occurs
in another passage, where something like the suggested interpretation seems
to be required. See p. 440, first line.

Printing of Euripides by Aldus 435

Farewell, most learned and no less obliging Aldus, and
place Erasmus among your most hearty friends and admirers.
If there is anything in my Epistle to you * which you wish to
be altered, do what you think best at your own discretion.
You will omit the epigram which is put at the end of the
Tragedies. It was the composition of a young Frenchman,
then in my service, whom I jestingly made believe that his
poem was intended for the press, and I gave it into Bade's
hands on my departure, in the presence of the lad, in order
to keep up that expectation. I wonder what induced the
man to print it, as I warned him that I was only making
fun of the boy.f I have altered the Preface to the Iphi-
genia^ you will therefore do away with the old, and substi-
tute the new ; % if my Epistle appears too long, I have
underlined the words which had better be omitted.

I have no doubt you will find a fresh crop of errors made
by those who correct the types. But that is a matter to
which I need not call your attention.

Write soon to inform me whether you have received my
letter ; for the bankers are not always to be depended on ;
and let me know on what day the work is to be finished.
Farewell, and order your Erasmus as you please.

[Bologna, November, I507.]§

The volume appears to have been completed in good time, as the
imprint bears date in the month of December, 1507. It contained,

* Si quid est in epistola ad te mea. See page 434.

t These Unes (omitted in the Venice edition) have preserved the name of
one of Erasmus's pupil servants. They commence as follows :
Geruasii Omenii Drocensis
Ad lectorem Epigramma.
Lector, adest tragici mellita Euripidis ante hac
Non nisi Cecropiis Musa locuta uiris. # *
X Epistle 205.

§ The original autograph of this letter is in the Vatican. Reg. Vat. 2023
f. 162. It is without date, but is endorsed Ex Bononia Erasmus, 1507.
Nolhac, Eras me, p. loo.

2 F 2

43^ Er asm Its resolves to jo-q to Venice

beside the two plays of Euripides, the poem of Erasmus in praise of
Henry VII. and his children, and the Ode de Senectutis Incommodis
addressed to Cop, already printed, with two different titles, in two
separate publications, by Bade. See pp. 414, 422.

When Erasmus wrote Epistle 206, he was proposing to proceed to
Rome after Christmas, and appears to have had no intention of even
seeing Venice. But the alliance formed with the great Venetian
printer naturally led to his assistance being obtained in the produc-
tion of the enlarged edition of the Adages, which Erasmus had long
had in view. Unfortunately the letter in which the printing of this
work was proposed to Aldus has not been found. It would have been
interesting to know the terms agreed upon between author and book-
seller in this more important transaction. With such a work before
him, Erasmus could no longer hesitate in accepting Aldus's invitation.
It was absolutely necessary that he should be present himself at the
production of a book, a great part of which was still to be written.

CHAPTER XVII.

Continued residence in Italy. Venice^ Padua, Ferrara,
Siena, Rome, Naples, 1508-9. Revision of the Adages.
Italian friends. Alexander Stewart, Bishop of St.
Andrew's. Death of Henry VII. Journey to Eng-
land, June and y^uly, 1509. Epistles 207-211.

Erasmus arrived in Venice towards the end of the year 1507. He was
lodged by Aldus in the house of his father-in-law, Andrea d'Asola,
who was then employed in the printing-office of Aldus, having
been his predecessor in the business, as he was afterwards his
successor. It appears from letters addressed to Aldus in 1507 and
1508, that he was then living in the house of Messer Andrea da
Asola at San Paterniano, near the Rialto Bridge. Nolhac, Les Corre-
spondants cf Aide, pp. 64, 65. During the sojourn of Erasmus in
Venice, which lasted altogether about ten months, his correspondence
fails us. It is probable that in the stress of business his epistles were
few; not one private letter has been found. In a passage inserted in
a later edition of the Adages, he gives a most interesting description
of his work there, comparing the exploits of Aldus with the later labours
of Froben, with whom Erasmus was then in alliance, and dwelling upon
the ' candour ' and liberality of scholars and possessors of libraries, to
which the work of the great Italian printer owed so much.

Adagia (1526), p. 354; Chil. 11. Cent. i. Prov. i ; C. ii. 405.

Who was there among the learned, that did not uphold
the efforts of Aldus ? Who was there that did not suggest
something to relieve his labours ? How often were ancient
manuscripts sent him from Hungary or Poland, to be pub-
lished with due care to the world, — not without some per-
sonal present in token of esteem. What Aldus attempted

438 Revision of the Adages

in Italy (for he is now dead, though the trade is still carried
on under the recommendation of an honoured name), John
Froben is now attempting on this side of the Alps, with no
less zeal than Aldus, and with considerable success, though,
it must be owned, without equal profit. If you ask how this
happens, I think one of the chief reasons is this, that there
is not the same liberality of mind among us as among the
Italians, so far as regards the concerns of literature. I am
able to speak from very sure experience. When I, a Hol-
lander, was publishing in Italy my work on Proverbs, all
the learned who were within reach, came forward to supply
me with the authors, not yet printed, that they thought
likely to be of use to me. Aldus had nothing in his trea-
sures which he did not place at my service. The like was
done by John Lascaris, by Baptista Egnatius, by Marcus
Musurus, by Brother Urbano. I was assisted by some
whom I knew neither personally nor by name. I brought
nothing with me to Venice but the confused and indigested
material of a future work, and that compiled only from
authors already published. With great temerity on my part
we began together, I to write and x\ldus to print. The
whole affair was finished in about nine months, and in the
meantime, I had an attack of gravel to deal with, a mischief
I had not known before. It may readily be conceived how^
large a proportion of the utility of my work would have
been missing, if the learned had not supplied me with
manuscripts. Among these were the works of Plato in
Greek, Plutarch's Lives^ his Moralia, the printing of which
was begun about the time my book was ended, the Deipno-
sophistx of Athenaeus, Aphthonius, Hermogenes with com-
mentaries, Aristotle's Rhetoric with the scholia of Gregory
Nazianzen, all Aristides with scholia, the commentaries on
Hesiod and Theocritus, Eustathius upon the whole of
Homer, Pausanias, Pindar with some accurate commen-
taries, the collection of Proverbs w^ith the title of Plutarch,

Borrowing of books 439

and another with that of Apostolius. The last was lent
us by Jerome Aleander. There were other materials of
smaller importance, which I have either forgotten, or need
not mention. And of all these none had yet been printed.
I will tell you a story on the other hand of the liberality of
a Cisalpine friend, who was among my chief acquaintance,
and indeed is so still, as it is my maxim to know my friends'
characters, and not to take them amiss. When I was pre-
paring my third edition,* I had happened to see that he had
a Suidas, in which the Proverbs were marked in the margin.
It was a huge book, and there were a great many pages to
turn over. As I wanted, therefore, to economize this labour,
I asked him to lend me the volume, if only for a few hours,
while a boy marked the notes upon the margin of my own
copy. I made the request more than once, and he always
refused. When I had tried every kind of entreaty without
effect, I asked him whether he intended himself to bring
out a book on Proverbs, as I should be happy to resign the
work to one who was likely to deal with it more successfully.
He protested he had no such intention. Well then, said I,
what is your motive ? At last, with the air of a culprit on
the rack, he confessed his objection, that those things by
which the learned had hitherto secured the admiration of
the people, were now being made common property. Hence
those tears ! There are old manuscripts hidden in the col-
leges and monasteries of Grermany, France and England,
which, with few exceptions, their possessors are so far from
volunteering to communicate, that, when asked, they either
hide them, or refuse, or sell the use of them at an extra-

* Cum adornarem editionem Venetam. So Adagia, Basel, 1528, p. 355.
I venture to read tertiam. We can scarcely doubt that it was not the
Venetian, but the first Basel edition revised by the author, to which a
Cisalpine friend was asked to contribute. In the preface to that edition,
dated from London, 5 Jan. 15 13-14, Erasmus uses the same expression in
describing his revision : qui jam turn hanc tertiam editionem adornarem.

44^ Two famous Printers

vagant charge, ten times the value of priced copies.* The
result is that, after being so finelv kept, they are either
eaten away by moths or mould, or stolen by thieves. The
Nobility too are so far from aiding literature by their libe-
rality, that they think no money more completely thrown
away, than what is spent for such a purpose, and nothing
quite satisfies them, which does not produce some return.
If the princes on this side of the Alps were as liberal in the
pursuit of honorable studies as the Italians, Froben's Ser-
pents might be well nigh as prosperous as the Dolphin of
Aldus. The latter with his deliberate rapidity, — lente festi-
nans^ — bred for himself no less gold than reputation, both
well deserved. Froben, while he holds his staff always up-
right, with nothing in view but the public advantage, while
he never departs from the simplicity of the dove, and dis-
plays the serpent's wisdom more in his emblem than in his
acts, is richer in fame than in fortune.

The reader need not be reminded that the press-mark of Aldus
is an anchor with a dolphin, while that of Froben is an upright
staff, — upheld by two hands and entwined with two serpents, — on the
top of which a dove is perched.

Four learned persons, to whom Erasmus was under obligation
during his work upon the Adages, are mentioned in the above extract.
Two of these were Greek refugees. John, or Janus, Lascaris (the latter
name used by himself, Hodius de Grxcis Illustribus, p. 247), a man some
twenty years senior to Erasmus, had come as a young man to Italy,
and had been employed by Lorenzo de' Medici to collect manuscripts
in the East. He was afterwards invited by Charles VIII. to France,
where he was able to give some help to Bude in his Greek. C. 245 F.
When he made the acquaintance of Erasmus at Venice, he had filled
for some years the position of Ambassador from the French King,
Louis XII., to the most Serene Republic. Erasmus speaks in another
place of his hospitable table, to which he was himself often invited, if
his pressing occupations had permitted such an indulgence. C. ix.
1 137 C. See p. 447- Marcus Musurus, of whom Beatus Rhenanus has
given a eulogy, which is no doubt an echo of the conversation of his
* Decuplo sestimatorum codicum. See note, p. 434.

Friends of Erasinus at Venice 441

friend (see p. 31), was a native of Crete, some four years younger
than Erasmus. He had edited for Aldus, as early as 1498, the editio
princeps of Aristophanes, and was for some years (1503 — 1509) Pro-
fessor of Greek at the University of Padua. He was then compelled
by war to transfer his lectures to Venice. Invited in 15 16 to Rome by
Leo X. he was made Archbishop of Monovasia (C. 1601 F.); and died at
Rome in the autumn of 1517 (C. 274 f). Another of the learned men,
to whom Erasmus was obliged at this time, was Baptista Egnatius, a
Venetian by origin, and many years Professor of Rhetoric at Venice.
He was afterwards a correspondent of Erasmus, who describes him in
1525, as long known to him by intimate companionship, a man of
sound learning, honest, sincere, and a true friend to his friend.
C. 896 C. In the fourth scholar, to whom Erasmus acknowledges his
obliofation under the name of Brother Urbano, we meet with an inter-
esting personality, which in some measure recalls the Artesian friar,
Vitrarius (p. 338). Urbano Bolzano of Belluna was a learned Fran-
ciscan, who retained the humble manners of his Order, travelling
always on foot, both in his pilgrimage to the East and on his journeys
in Italy. Chosen by Lorenzo de' Medici to assist in the education of
his son, John, afterwards Pope Leo X., he was the author of the first
Greek grammar written in Latin, that of Constantine Lascaris, published
at Milan in 1476, being in Greek. Urbano appears to have taught
that language at Venice. He refused at a later period all dignities
offered him by Pope Leo ; the only office he ever accepted being that
of Warden of his Convent, which he soon resigned. Tiraboschi,
Storia della Litteratiira Italiana, vol. vi. p. 1606.

Among the other friends with whom Erasmus was associated at
Venice, not the least important was Jerome Aleander, then a man of
eight-and-twenty years, and an accomplished scholar in Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew. According to Beatus Rhenanus (see p. 30) Erasmus
during the early part of his stay shared Aleander's chamber in the
house of Asulanus ; and, when the younger scholar left Venice about
Easter, 1508, to teach Greek at Paris, Erasmus wrote to recommend
him to his friends there. C. 544 C. D. He afterwards rose to a high
position in the Church, — Archbishop, Cardinal, Papal Nuncio, — and
was one of those who during the Lutheran controversy disapproved of
the attitude of Erasmus. Many years after their intercourse at Venice,
when Aleander was already Papal Nuncio, the two men found
themselves at the same inn, ' the Savage Man,' at Louvain, where
according to the Epistle to Marcus Laurinus, written by Erasmus

442 Jerome Aleander

i" 1523 in order to dissociate himself from the Lutherans^ they spent
some hours agreeably together, their evening talk, not so much of theology
as of literature, being prolonged till midnight. This was apparently in
October, 1521, when Erasmus was preparing for his journey to Upper
Germany, in which he was nearly having the Nuncio for a companion.
C. 669 D, 750 C D. The distrustful mind of Erasmus exaggerated
throughout the hostility of Aleander, whom before the meeting at
Louvain he had suspected of inviting him to dinner at Cologne in
order to poison him ; and to whose instigation he afterwards attributed
the attacks made upon him by Doletus and Julius Caesar Scaliger,
with which Aleander had nothing to do. C. 142 1 E, 15 14 A, 1755 B.
See p. 448. The name of Scaliger was unknown to Erasmus, who was
informed by Rabelais, in a letter dated 30 Nov. 1532, that his assailant
was a physician resident at Agen in Guienne. See the Fourth Appendix
to this volume, pp. 472, 473.

The work of rewriting the Adages and printing them in their new
form was completed in September, 1508. The author then addressed
a new Prefatory Epistle to Lord Mountjoy. In the following translation
will be found those clauses which have a personal interest.

Epistle 207. Adagia, ed. 1508 ; C. ii. Pr^f.

Erasmus to William^ Lord Mountjox.

Some time ago at Paris I put together a small collection
of Proverbs, composed in a few days with no great care, and
without even a moderate supply of Greek volumes, to serve
as a sort of common-place book for your especial use ;
because I had seen that you took a peculiar pleasure in this
kind of reading. The work was published by some persons
v^^hose intentions were good, but their zeal in my service
excessive and unfortunate ; the impression being so full of
faults that you might suppose it done on purpose. Never-
theless this book, composed and printed as I have described,
was, whether for its own sake or for yours, received with
unexpected favour. It was thought to have furnished so
much help to the candidates of polite literature, that they
acknowledged themselves no little indebted to your lordship,

Dedication of Adages to Moiintjoy 443

and also in some degree to my industry. With the view
therefore at the same time of correcting the errors of the old
edition, which were not mine, and of putting all students
under a further obligation to us both, and especially of aiding
those studies which are daily more and more gaining ground
among your countrymen in England, I have put the same
work again on the anvil, and being provided with an almost
complete apparatus of Greek books, have collected from
various authors more than three chiliads and two centuries
of Adages; for why should we not number these, as we do
other treasures ? I had some intention of appending a
collection of remarkable metaphors, graceful allusions and
poetical allegories, * * * and to add with

especial care the allegories of Sacred Literature from the
ancient Theologians. But when I saw the almost infinite
magnitude of the task, I changed my mind. * * *

I do not altogether regret the present work, as it has
in some degree renewed the memory of boyish studies
almost forgotten. So far, it seemed, I might be allowed to
travel ; but to devote a great part of my life to a business
that is not mine, I thought unbecoming to myself and likely
to expose me to censure. The Theological allegories, being
proper to my profession, I propose to treat, when I have the
Greek volumes required for the purpose ; and I shall do this
the more readily, as I see that for many centuries this
important subject has been neglected, while Theologians are
spending their entire pains upon subtle questions, which
might be discussed without blame, if they did not exclude
everything else. The other part of the subject I am the
more willing to drop, as I understand that it has been
already taken in hand by Richard Pace, a young man so
accomplished in both literatures as to be able by his genius
alone to thiow a lustre upon all Britain, and of that purity
and modestv of character, as to be worthy of the favour of
men like you. With such a capable successor, we may

444 Richard Pace

escape further pains not only with no loss, but with some
gain to students, and at the same time the credit of the
whole work will be due to Britain. * * *

If w^e have succeeded in bringing to light some things not
commonly known, of which I think you will find not a few
in this volume, w^e impart them willingly and without
boasting ; if on the other hand we have made some mistakes,
we shall no less willingly be corrected, being equally pre-
pared to teach candidly what we know^, and to learn in-
genuouslv what we do not. * * *

It is my hope, that my vigils will be best approved by the
candid reader, if you accept them with your usual kindness,
as the one Maecenas of my studies. For by what other
word can I either more briefly express your singular dis-
position towards me, or more fully sum up your praises ?
You are indeed alone worthy of that fine sentence of
Apuleius, — of the learned most noble, of the noble most
learned, and of both the best. I ought to add, most
modest of all. * * * As the simplicity of mv

own character shrinks from every sort of flattery, and your
singular modesty is intolerant even of the most modest
praises, we will pass from them to the treatment of Adages,
which according to the precept of philosophers we shall
inaugurate with a Definition. Read and Farewell, or rather
meanwhile be as much with me as you can.

[Venice, September, i5o8.]t

In the last words of the dedication the author invites his friend to
be as much in his company as possible ; I presume, by devoting all his
leisure to reading his book. We shall presently see something more
of Richard Pace, of whom Erasmus speaks in such flattering terms.
See pp. 451, 452. His book, which Froben printed in 15 17, entitled
De Fructii doctrine, disappointed Erasmus. C. 1675^, 1676E, 1681C.

The Aldine edition of the Adages has the following title : Erasnii
Roterodami Adagiorum chi Hades tres ac centurisefere totidetii. Below
these words, on the title-page, is a preface with the heading, Aldus

\ No date in original.

Last days of Erasmus at Venice 445

Studiosis. S. A double Index follows, (i) of Proverbs, alphabetically-
arranged^ and (2) of subjects discussed ; some verses by Germanus
Brixius being inserted between the two parts ; then Epistle 207. The
body of the book contains the three Chiliads, consisting each of ten
centuries of Proverbs. Then follow In quartam Chiliadem centuria
prima and centuria seciinda, containing two hundred and sixty more
proverbs. At the bottom of the last page is the date : Venetiis in
aedibus Aldi. Mense Sept. M.D.VIII. A copy of the new book was
sent to Lord Mountjoy, with a private letter from the author, which has
not been preserved, but appears to have been written in a melancholy
tone. See Epistle 210, p. 458.

After the pressing work of the Adages was ended, Erasmus was
induced to stay a few weeks longer with Aldus, whom he assisted in
the editing of some of the other books which he had in hand. Among
these were editions of Plautus and Terence, about which Andrea
d'Asola wrote to consult Erasmus after Aldus's death. Catal. Lucub.
C. i. Praef.; Jortin, Erasjnus, ii. 423; C. 1666F. In a later Epistle Erasmus
mentions his receipt of twenty crowns for correcting the confused
verses found in the copies of the former author. C. 807 E. He was also
engaged upon the text of Seneca's Tragedies ; but his notes on this
work he retained, and afterwards communicated to Bade, who used
them in an edition in which they were mixed with those of others.
Cat. Lucub. ubi supra. Senecx Tragedias restitutse per D. Erasmum.
Parisiis, Badius Ascensius, 15 14.

During the whole of his residence at Venice Erasmus appears to
have been an inmate of the household of Andrea d'Asola, and to have
been occupied mainly in work connected with the Aldine press. When
many years later his literary opponents were seeking any weapon with
which they might wound their antagonist, they affected to remind him
of the time when he had been so long in the service of Aldus, whom
they represented as his employer, and also as his teacher. The last
contribution of Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi, to this controversy,
printed at Paris in April, 1531, contained some observations on the
Moria of Erasmus, in which the critic, among other things, found fault
with a playful allusion of the author to the number of Grammars edited
by Aldus. In the scarcity of Epistles belonging to this part of
Erasmus's life, we may cite the passage from his answer to the
Prince's book (written in the same year, 1531), where in dealing with
this criticism he furnishes some reminiscences of his life at Venice.

446 Erasmus' s relation to Aldus

Apologia ad xxiv lihros Alberti Pit. (1531).
C. ix. 1 136, 1 137.

Our author expatiates in praise of Aldus, whom, he says,
I ungratefully blame and ridicule. The onlv words in the
Moria about Aldus are these : " My Aldus has given us more
than five grammars of his own." Cruel ridicule indeed !
Aldus told me himself that he had written his grammar nine
times over. But where does he find the ingratitude ? " With-
out his hospitality," he says, "you would never have been so
fine a fellow as you are, for you cannot deny, that while
serving in his printing-office at Venice, you made much pro-
gress in both tongues." So Pius. I know not whether he
thinks that I learnt Greek and Latin from Aldus ; certainly
Aldus, if he were alive, would be amused to hear it. I will
add nothing about Aldus's learning ; I loved him when he
lived, and will not wound him, now he is dead. But this I
can truly say, that when I came to Italy, I knew more Greek
and Latin than I do now. I had brought with me from
England a mass of materials for the Adages, mth a parcel of
books, principally Greek, in which I had made my notes. I
was ambitious, I admit, that the book should issue from that
celebrated Press ; and Aldus received the proposal with
avidity. I lived about eight months in the house of Asula-
nus ; and the work was written and printed in a few months.
Meantime where was the leisure for learning Greek and
Latin ? We were so busy, that we had hardly time, as they
say, to scratch our ears. Aldus often declared that he
wondered how I could write such a quantity off-hand, in the
midst of so much noise and bustle. I corrected the last
proofs of my work myself, but only in case I wished to make
anv alteration ; for errors of the press there was a paid cor-
rector, named Serafino. Aldus read it after me, and when I
asked him why he took this trouble, ' I am studying,' he
said, ' all the time.' I was obliged to Aldus for furnishing

Erasmus at the table of Asiilaniis 447

me with manuscript copies of books, and not to him alone,
but also to John Lascaris, Marcus Musurus, Baptista Egna-
tius, and Urbanus Regius, f Do you call an author a servant
of the printing-office, because he is present at the production
of his own work ? I was not bound in any other way to
Aldus, and his office was rather serving me. But it is said,
that I used his table. I did so indeed, because I had no
choice, being intent on finishing the work as soon as pos-
sible. But the table and whole house was really Andrea
d'Asola's, Aldus being himself a workman there. That
table, however, cost me an attack of stone, a malady I had
not known before ; and if I had not been tied by my anxiety
to finish the work, I was often invited by John Lascaris to
share his house and table. Indeed I had money enough of
my own, to live two years at Venice, without anything I
might receive from my own country. When I found my
health endangered by the unaccustomed diet, I asked Aldus
whether Asulanus would allow me to prepare my food in my
chamber, and when he said I might do so, I ceased to use
the table. And all this time it is said that Aldus was my
master, when he was not even my host. AX. Rome I would
not submit to enter the service of Cardinals, though their
manners were so agreeable that you could not hope to have
more easy companions. And yet without knowing it, I had
had Aldus for my master ! I do not know, whether he
looked on me as a servant ; at any rate he yielded his place
at table to me ; he admitted that he had learned a great
deal from me ; and he tried, after the work was ended, to
keep me for the winter, wishing to have some practice in
Rhetoric. * * * For myself, I am not indebted to Italy
for any letters that I have. I wish I owed her more ; there
were those there, from whom I might have learned, as there

t It appears that we ought to read Frater Urbanus or Urbanus Bolzanus.
See p. 441. Urbanus Regius was a German correspondent of Erasmus.

448 Opulcntia Sordid a

were also in England, in France, in Germany ; but in Italy
I had no leisure.

In speaking of Italy in the last sentence, — especially in the last
words, — the writer might seem to be thinking of Venice, as the whole
passage is concerned with his residence there ; and his estimate of his
literary obligation might then be accepted without reserve. But he
elsewhere broadly denies his acquisition of languages in Italy. C. x.
1755, 1756. With respect to Greek, compare Epistle 201, and p. 450.

About the time of Erasmus's controversy with the Prince of Carpi,
the challenge issued by the Ciceronianiis (published in 1528) was
taken up in no generous spirit by Julius Caesar Scaliger, who in his
first Oration against Erasmus, published in 1531, repeats the story of
his subservient position in the printing-office of Aldus. In his second
Oration^ dated in 1535, he gives a description of Erasmus's life at
Venice, for which he quotes the authority of Aldus himself, whom he
had once met at Mantua. According to this story, Erasmus was well able
to do more work in a day than any other person in two, but his labours
were not so profitable to Aldus as they might have been, because he
made up for his diligence by drinking freely, at his supper, of his host's
expensive Malmsey, or " Monembatic " wine, while his other assistants
Avere prolonging their labours till late in the evening. We know from
his correspondence, that a certain amount of wine formed part of
his ordinary diet (see p. 165); and that he was not indifferent as to
its quality. See Epistles 220, 222. In a frugal household such a
guest may have somewhat tried the liberality of his entertainer; and
it is not inconceivable, that Aldus may, possibly in jest, have recalled
his father-in-law's embarrassment at the rapid consumption of his
choicest wine. The circulation, on the authority of Aldus or of Asu-
lanus, of some such story as this, if it in any way came to the ears
of Erasmus, may have provoked him to write and publish the satirical
description of Italian housekeeping contained in the short Colloquy
entitled Opiilentia Sordida ; the locality of which is not mentioned,
but the identity of the master of the household, Antronius, and of
his son-in-law, Orthrogonus, in whose room Gilbertus, who tells the
story, was accustomed to pass his time when he was waiting hungry
for his dinner, are beyond question. But before the end of this un-
o-enerous retrospect the author himself suggests, that the voracious
habits common in the North are rather acquired than natural, and

Short residence at Padua 449

that a more sparing diet would be better both for mind and body. C. i.
862-866. It may be added that Erasmus appears to have been mistaken
in supposing that Aldus and his father-in-law were wealthy men.

In October or November, 1508, Erasmus left Venice for Padua,
where he was invited to give lessons in Rhetoric to Alexander Stewart,
Archbishop elect of St. Andrews, a natural son of King James IV. of
Scotland, who was pursuing his studies at that place. See p. 30. This
young prelate, about eighteen years of age, after being associated in
an embassy to the Court of Paris with the earl of Arran, had lately
arrived in Italy. Erasmus found Padua an agreeable residence, and
became very intimate with Marcus Musurus, to whom he was
already under obligations. See pp. 438, 440, 441. Another of his friends
was Raphael Reggio, the elderly Professor of Rhetoric, whose
zeal for the new Learning has been recorded by Erasmus in an
epistle written in 1525, which also contains a eulogy of Musurus,
and an anecdote of Erasmus's life at Padua, which, though trivial,
may serve to show the terms upon which he was living with his Greek
friends.

Erasmus to ^odocus Gaverus. Ep. xxiii. 5 ; C. 788 b.

« » »

At Padua I met with Raphael Reggio, a very old man,
but his age was fresh and green. He was then, I think, not
less than seventy, and yet no winter weather was so cold as
to prevent his going at seven o'clock in the morning to
attend the Greek lecture of Musurus, who scarcely let four
days pass in the whole year without reading. Some of the
lads could not bear the severity of the season, but neither
shame nor winter kept that old man from the lecture room.
Musurus died before old age, after he had been made an
archbishop by the favour of Pope Leo, — a Greek by birth,
being of Crete, but marvellously skilled in the Latin tongue,
an accomplishment attained by scarcely any Greek, except
Theodore Gaza, and John Lascaris, who is still living.
Musurus was besides a student, and not a mere student, of
the whole range of philosophy, a man born for the highest

2 G

450 Intercoitrse with Greeks

position, if he had been permitted to Kve, One day, when I
went to supper at his house, his father, a Uttle old man who
knew no language but Greek, was present, and while the
basin was being handed from one to the other, as is done to
prevent unnecessary delay, I took the father's hand and
said in Greek, o^/xets Suo yepovre^ ; the old fellow was wonder-
fully delighted, while he washed his hands with me, though
at that time I was scarcely older than Musurus. Musurus
then embraced a learned youth named Zacharias, saying, koL
rjixels Svo veoL.

According to Epistle 201 Erasmus came to Italy " for the sake of
Greek"; and when we bear in mind that in the sixteenth century Greek,
as well as Latin, was much more studied as a spoken language than
it has lately been, we can scarcely doubt that during his stay in Italy he
derived some advantage from opportunities, never enjoyed before, of
familiar intercourse with accomplished Greeks. Compare pp. 447, 448.

Among the attractions which detained Erasmus at Padua was the
agreeable society of a young Frenchman named Germain Brice (Ger-
manus Brixius), who had first become known to him at Venice, where
Brice had been staying in order to avail himself of the Greek instruc-
tion of Lascaris. He remained for many years one of Erasmus's corres-
pondents. C. 194 B. But the threat of approaching war made it expedient
for foreign students to withdraw from this part of Italy. The friends
of the young Archbishop had chosen for his winter retreat the city of
Siena, a healthy locality far removed from the seat of war ; and
thither Erasmus prepared to accompany him. When Epistles 208
and 209 were written, he had probably been several weeks in Padua.
It is not clear what was the commentariolus oi which he was expecting
a transcript from Francis, probably Francis d'Asola, the son of Andrew.
M. de Nolhac suggests that it was the result of his labours upon the
Tragedies of Seneca. See p. 445.

Epistle 208. Nolhac, Erasme en ItaUe, p. 105.

Erasmus to Aldus Manutiiis.

Germain has kept me here with his enchantments in spite
of my being packed up and ready for the journey. You

Unwilling farewell to Padua 45 1

must urge Francis to make haste in transcribing my small
Commentary. For I shall try whether I cannot use it as a
present to oblige somebody, and get some booty out of it,
so as not to have been doing nothing these months.

Andrew has counted to me all the crowns,* knowing what
he was about ; but I do not doubt he will do his duty in the
matter. Farewell, most learned and most kind Aldus.

Padua, the morrow of the Conception, 9 Dec. [i5o8].f

Epistle 209. Nolhac, Erasme en Italic, p. 106.
Erasmus to Aldus.

A curse on these wars which prevent our enjoying a part
of Italy which pleases me more and more every day. Bid
Francis forward my Commentary, for within two days we
are all going away. Farewell, most friendly Aldus. I will
explain in person to Bombasio what you wanted me to write,
and also your zeal in his service. Farewell.

[Padua, December, 1508.] J

These trifling Epistles are all that we have to represent the
correspondence of Erasmus during the years 1508 and 1509. Before
the middle of December, 1508, we may suppose the travellers on
their way to Siena. Halting for a few days at Ferrara, they were
welcomed by Erasmus's English friend, Richard Pace (p. 443), who was
residing there on a diplomatic mission. One of the learned residents
whom Erasmus met at Pace's house, Celio Calcagnini, in a corres-
pondence which took place some fifteen years later, answered Eras-

* Omnes scutatos. It seems to be a question of payment by number or by
weight. Andrew was probably Andrea d'Asola.

f Patauij. Postridie Conceptionis. Autograph. Reg. Vat. 2023. f. 164.
Endorsed : Mense Decembr. 1508. Da Padua. Erasmus.

\ Autograph, not signed or dated. Reg. Vat. 2023. f. 164. Endorsed :
Erasmus.

2 G 2

452 J^oiirney by Ferrara to Sie7ia

mus's inquiries after several of the persons he had seen at Ferrara,
and recalling the conversation which had taken place among them,
reminded him, how in answer to an inquiry about the meaning of the
Latin phrase, intus canere, he had referred to his own Adages, and
had fetched out of his valise a copy of the book lately printed at
Venice. C. 882 C. Before leaving Ferrara Erasmus entrusted to the
custody of Pace the manuscript of his Antibarbari, in part lately
revised, of the loss of which there is frequent mention in later Epistles.
C. 105 E ; C. X. 1692 C ; Cat. Lucuhrat. Jortin, ii. 439. See p. 100.

After seeing, in passing, his friend Bombasio at Bologna (Epistle
209), Erasmus proceeded with the young Archbishop to Siena, where
we may conjecture that they arrived before the end of the year. He
had still nearly six months before him in Italy, part of wnich was
spent at Rome or in more distant travel. The first two months
were passed at Siena, recruiting his own health and assisting in the
studies of his pupil. With a view to the latter he wrote some
rhetorical exercises, one of which, entitled Declamatio de Morte, was
found by the author among his papers and published several years
later. C. iv. 617. In his comment upon the Adage, Spartam nactus es,
hanc orna, Erasmus, insisting on the duty of Sovereigns to devote all
their energies to the welfare of their own countries, points his lesson,
not only by the example of his own sovereign, archduke Philip (see
p. 400), but also by the story of the defeat and death of James IV. of
Scotland in his invasion of England, where the young Archbishop of
St. Andrew's lost his life with his father at Flodden. He then pro-
ceeds to give an interesting picture of his former pupil, who was tall
and handsome in person, and seems to have been no less remarkable
for his intellectual capacity."^ His studies included not only those
assisted by Erasmus, Greek and Latin, — in which latter language he
was taught not only to read and write, but to declaim on a given
subject, exercising his tongue as well as his pen (see Epistle 191), but
also the Canon Law, for which he had another teacher. During meals
his chaplain read a passage from St. Jerome or St. Ambrose, interrupted
occasionally by the Archbishop in order to discuss the meaning of the
author with one or other of the two doctors who sat at table with him.
The interval of rest and conversation that followed was not too much
prolonged. In the afternoon he found time for music and singing,

* Deum immortalem ! quam velox, quam felix, quam ad quidvis sequax
ingenium, quam multa simul complecti poterat ! Adagia, C. ii. 554 b.

The Archbishop of St. Andrew^ s 453

and devoted any leisure he could command to the study of History, in
which he took great delight. We may conclude from this description,
that the Archbishop's household was not a small one, and Erasmus
mentions, among his merits, the extraordinary prudence and good
temper with which he composed any disturbance that might arise
among his servants. The preceptor and pupil were evidently on inti-
mate terms; and the latter, with all his precocity, was not without a
boyish love of fun, as Erasmus in another place tells a story of the
Archbishop having amused himself by taking him in with an imitation
of his handwriting on the margin of a book. C. 1078 B. A younger
bastard son of James IV., scarcely ten years of age, was with his
brother during some part of his stay at Siena. (Erasmus to Hector
Boece, Cat. Lucuhrat. C. i. Praef. * * * * * * 3,) The Archbishop
was a reputed son of the King by Marion Boyd, daughter of Archibald
Boyd of Bonshaw, and his age at the time of his association with Erasmus
(nearly twenty years, according to the description in the Adages,
above cited) seems to show that the king's intimacy with this lady
began at an earlier time than his biographers have supposed {Diet. Nat.
Biog. xxix. 146, 152). The younger brother was not improbably James
Stewart, afterwards earl of Moray, a son of the King by Janet Kennedy,
who was the reigning favourite towards the close of the century.

At Siena in Carnival time the party witnessed a singular bull-fight
in the Piazza del Campo, which was the usual amusement of that
season, and in which the bull was confronted, not by a swordsman on
foot or a mounted lancer, but by great wooden machines in the shape
of various beasts moved by men inclosed within them. C. ix. 516 c.
Shrove Tuesday, 1509, was the 20th of February.

It was probably during the Carnival week, that Erasmus took leave
of the Archbishop for a short time, when he made his first journey to
Rome, which he would scarcely accomplish in less than four days.
Among the many learned persons whose acquaintance he had still to
make, he found there one friend already known to him at Bologna,
Scipio Carteromachus, whom he describes as a man universally learned
without any ostentation. Carteromachus was useful in introducing
him to some persons of note. C. x. 1750 F. "He used," Erasmus
says, " to slip unexpected into my room, where we beguiled some
hours of the afternoon with literary talk. And not my table only was
frequently shared with him, but we sometimes slept in the same bed."
The streets of Rome at midnight were probably not very safe for the
solitary home-goer. M. de Nolhac has pointed out that Carteromachus

454 Fi'iends a7id patrons at Rome

himself left Rome early in Lent in the suite of Cardinal Alidosi, legate
at Bologna, who arrived in that city on the 7th of March. Erasme en
Italie, p. 64. We must therefore place these days of intimate com-
panionship between the 20th of February and the end of the month.
And it appears from a letter of Carteromachus to a Roman corre-
spondent, Angelo Colocci, dated at Bologna on the 28th March, that
he had already written to Colocci " in favour of Erasmus, author of
the Proverbs." Nolhac, Les Correspondants d'Alde Manuce, p. 48.
One of the first persons whom Erasmus would naturally seek to know
at Rome was Tommaso Inghirami, the librarian of the Vatican, whom
he mentions as an intimate friend, under the name of Phaedrus.
See p. 32. He gained this name from having acted the part of
Phaedra in Seneca's tragedy of Hippolytus in the Court before the
palace of Raphael Riario, Cardinal of St. George and nephew of
Pope Julius ; a fact, says Erasmus, which I heard from the Cardinal
himself. C. 788 E. Inghirami's portrait by Raphael Sanzio is in the
Pitti Gallery. The great painter was already in Rome, and Erasmus's
taste for Art may have been gratified by a visit to his studio. Riario,
whose palace, designed by Bramante, is now known as the Cancelleria,
became one of his powerful protectors, with whom he corresponded in
after years. Upon his request made by order of the Pope, Erasmus
wrote an oration against declaring war on the Venetians, a matter
then debated in the Papal Conclave, and another oration in favour
of the war. The latter, he tells us, prevailed, although he had taken
more pains with the former. Catal. Lucubrat. C. i. Praef. Jortin, ii. 441.
The reader may smile at the orator taking his own rhetoric seriously ;
but his ardour for peace made him hope that his genuine arguments
would be fairly considered. Erasmus was also presented to the Cardinal
John de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., to whom he had written some
years before in the name of the Abbot of St. Bertin (Epistle 158), and
was graciously received by him at his house, as Erasmus reminds him
in a letter written to him as Pope, 28 April 15 15. C. 149 C.

We have no means of ascertaining the duration of Erasmus's first
visit to Rome. We have seen, that at its commencement he was
there during the last week of February. He was also in Rome on
Good Friday (April 6). C. i. 993 A. But it is probable that he had in
the meantime returned to his pupil at Siena, especially as the time
allotted for the sojourn of the latter in Italy was drawing to a close.
Among the friends that he had made at Rome was Jacobus Piso, the
representative of Lewis, King of Hungary, at the Papal Court, who

Return to Rome with the Archbishop 455

after Erasmus's return to Siena, sent him a manuscript volume of his
Epistles, which Piso had bought at a bookseller's shop, and which
Erasmus committed to the fiames."^ We can scarcely doubt, that we
here meet with one of those transcribed collections of early Epistles,
of which we have read, pp. 197, 317, 390. Having now more im-
portant correspondents, Erasmus did not wish any longer to encourage
the circulation of these collections.

Before his return to Scotland the Archbishop naturally desired, him-
self, to see Rome ; and he also resolved to extend his journey to some
places of interest further south. See p. 32. Erasmus accompanied
him to Rome ; and it was probably during this second visit, that he
was present on Good Friday at the Sermon preached at the Vatican
before Pope Julius II., the eloquence of which had the pagan character
described in the Ciceronianus. C. i. 993 A. We have no particulars
of the Neapolitan tour, beyond those reported by Beatus (p. 32), who
does not even say expressly, whether Erasmus took part in it. But a
reference in one of his Epistles to the Neapolitan libraries (musea,
C. 1627 e) and a picturesque allusion in another to the tunnelled road
between Naples and Cumae (C. 230 D) may serve to show this journey to
be probable. When he took his last leave of his pupil, the Archbishop
presented him with a small collection of rings as a keepsake. One of
these had a gem set in it, engraved with a bust with long hair, form-
ing the top of a square pedestal. An Italian antiquary told Erasmus
that it represented the God, Terminus, upon which he had the words,
Concedo nulli Terminus, engraved upon it, taking it as a reminder of
the inevitable termination of life. C. x. 1758, 1759. This became his
ordinary signet, and with it his will is expressed to be sealed.

Erasmus appears to have been in Rome on the 30th of April (see
p. 458) ; and the Archbishop probably left Italy in May. He travelled
home by Germany and Flanders. His countrymen in another genera-
tion had forgotten his Roman pilgrimage, but remembered his asso-
ciation with a celebrated man. Bishop John Lesley, who wrote his
Chronicle for Mary, Queen of Scots, a niece of the Archbishop,
mentions his return, in 1509, out of Germany, where, as the Bishop
thought, he had been " at the Skules with Erasmus Roterodamus, that
cunning clarke." Lesley, Chronicle (Bannatyne Club, 1830), p. 80.

* This incident is mentioned in the Epistle to Beatus, dated 27 May,
1520, which was printed as a Preface to the Episfolse. ad diversos, published
at Basel, August, 1521. Ep. i. i; C 5536. See Introduction, p. xxii.

45 6 Last days at Rome

It is of some interest to observe that there are two letters written by
the Archbishop to the King, and a third to Patrick Painter (the
King's Secretary), formerly his preceptor, copied in the letter-book
of the latter, now in the King's Library in the British Museum.
They are written in Latin, and dated from Padua, one on the 22nd
of October and two on the 26th of March, without year. It has been
assumed that they belong to 151 1-2. They are principally occupied
with the business of the See and the Archbishop's patronage. The
letter to Painter is written with care, and may recall the teaching
of Erasmus. It is probable that the dates of place were added by
the transcriber, and the two later letters written at Siena in 1509. I
observe that, in speaking of a letter sent from Padua, the writer uses
the words ex Patauio, not hinc.

After parting with the Archbishop, Erasmus finished his sojourn
at Rome. Italy, according to a letter written in 15 19, had had three
attractions for him, the Sacred places (first mentioned of course), the
Libraries^ and the society of learned men. C. 370 C. He had fairly
completed his programme. He had made the acquaintance of the
most eminent scholars of the country, and his own position as a man
of letters had been established and recognised. He had published
his enlarged Adages, by the completion of which his rank in literature
w^as permanently assured ; and he was now free to apply himself to
the important theological works which he was ambitious of editing.
It was open to him to use his great reputation as a scholar for the
purpose of pushing his fortune at the Papal Court, where he appears
to have been given to understand that the office of a Penitentiary''^
was open to him, a profitable place and a stepping-stone to higher
dignities. P. 32. But if there was one motive by which Erasmus was
consistently influenced throughout his life, it was his anxiety to avoid
any position by which his liberty would be curtailed. Office or even
residence in Rome necessarily involved a sacrifice of independence ;
and the character of the reigning Pontiff was especially repugnant to
him. If he was hesitating as to the acceptance of Roman preferment,
the news which arrived from England in May, 1509, made him less in-
clined to yield to the temptation. King Henry VII. died on the 22nd
of April, and this event was probably known in Rome in the second

* The office of Greater Penitentiary was one of the highest dignities in
the Curia, and had been held by Julius before his election to the Papacy.

Accession of King Henry VIII. 457

week of May. The hopes which Erasmus had formerly conceived of
advancement in England were much encouraged, now that his princely
correspondent had become king, and his friend Mountjoy appeared
likely to exercise considerable influence at Court. The latter had ad-
dressed two letters to Erasmus shortly before, but was so much occu-
pied during the first month of the new reign, that it was not till the
last week in May that he found time to write again. In this Epistle a
new era is announced in terms which at the time were scarcely felt to
be extravagant.

Epistle 210. Farrago, p. 49 ; Ep. iv. 6 ; C. 7 (10).

William^ lord Mountjoy to Erasmus.

I have no fear, my Erasmus, but when you heard that our
prince, now Henry the Eighth, whom we may well call our
Octavius, had succeeded to his father's throne, all your
melancholy left you at once. For what may you not promise
yourself from a prince, with whose extraordinary and almost
divine character you are well acquainted, and to whom you
are not only known but intimate, having received from him
(as few others have) a letter traced with his own fingers ?
But when you know what a hero he now shows himself, how
wisely he behaves, what a lover he is of justice and goodness,
what affection he bears to the learned, I will venture to
swear that you will need no wings to make you fly to behold
this new and auspicious star. Oh, my Erasmus, if you could
see how all the world here is rejoicing in the possession of
so great a prince, how his life is all their desire, you could
not contain your tears for joy. The heavens laugh, the earth
exults, all things are full of milk, of honey and of nectar !
Avarice is expelled the country. Liberality scatters wealth
with bounteous hand. Our king does not desire gold or
gems or precious metals, but virtue, glory, immortality. I
will give you an example. The other day he wished he was
more learned. I said, that is not what we expect of your
Grace, but that you will foster and encourage learned men.

458 Letters from Erasmus to Mountjoy

Yea surely, said he, for indeed without them we should
scarcely exist at all. What more splendid saying could fall
from the lips of a prince ? But how rash am I to launch my
little boat upon the ocean. This is a province reserved for
you. But I was tempted to begin my letter with these few
words in praise of our divine Prince in order to drive out of
your mind any sadness that may still rest in it, or if your
sadness be expelled, then not only to confirm but to raise
higher and higher whatever hope you have conceived.

I now come to your letters, dated, one the * * * and
the other the 30th of April from Rome.f The first gave me
both pleasure and sorrow ; pleasure, because you disclosed
in a friendly and familiar way your plans and thoughts, your
cares and mischances to your Mountjoy ; sorrow to find my
best of friends so sore hit by the manifold darts of Fortune.
I would bid you be of good cheer, if I did not think that
without my bidding you are already hopeful, if you have any
hope in you. Make up your mind that the last day of your
wretchedness has dawned. You will come to a Prince, who
will say,

Accept our wealth and be our greatest sage.|

So much in answer to your first letter. But there is one
point upon which I cannot leave you in error. You say you
owe me much, whereas it is I who am so indebted to you
for giving me immortality by your writings, that I can only
declare myself bankrupt.

In your second letter you express your regret at having

t Quarum unas tertio, alteras uero pridie Cal. Maias Romge ad me dederas.
Farrago, p. 50. I assume that some words have dropped out between tertio
and alteras, such as Cal. Octobres Venetiis. The first letter was apparently
written when Erasmus's fortunes were low, before joining the Archbishop,
probably from Venice, announcing the despatch of a copy of the Adages; the
second after he had heard of Mountjoy's lost letter, acknowledging the receipt
of the Adages. See pp. 445 ,459. The copy of this Epistle in the Deventer
Manuscript does not supply the missing words.

I Accipe divitias et vatum maximus esto.

Reception of the Adages 459

lost by the same mishap both a letter of mine, and also the
messenger who was your friend. I wish the last loss was no
worse than the first ; for that cannot be repaired. In my
letter I scarcely wrote anything, except that I had received
your work of the Adages, your work I say, and therefore, as
all the learned are agreed, equally full of learning and
eloquence, and if my partiality does not deceive me, an
absolutely perfect book, worthy in fact of all your labours
and exertions ; with which you might well have purchased
the patronage, not of so small a man as myself, whom you
knew to be already yours, but of some important person.
But now that you have thought mine the most auspicious
name to appear in the dedication of so noble a work, I thank
you heartily ; for how can I return such a favour, when, as I
said before, you have made me eternal. I could wish how-
ever that you had been more moderate in your treatment of
me. You load me, rather than laud me, with so many
praises, that I cannot acknowledge the smallest part of them.
For who that knows me will patiently hear me called " most
literate," when I have no pretention to have even a taste for
letters ? I might well be angry with you, but I would fain
earn the character of modestv, which vou also attribute to
me, that your veracity may not be impeached on all points.
I also wrote, that I had been hindered from answering some
letters of yours until that day by many occupations and by
other special causes which I dared not commit to writing, but
that my good will and love for you were never thereby
altered or diminished, but had grown more in your absence
than I could have supposed.

That is what I said in the letter of w^hich you regret the loss.
To return to your book, it is extolled to the skies by every
one, but above all it is so approved and admired by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, that I cannot tear it out of his
hands. Nothing, you will say, as yet but praise. Well, the
Archbishop promises you a benefice, if you return, and has

460 hivitatioji to England

given me five Pounds to be sent you for your travelling
expenses to England, to which I have added a like amount,
not as a present, for we reserve that name for something
else, but in order that you may lose no time in coming to us,
and not keep us too long on the rack of expectation. One
thing more I have to say to you at once, that you must not
suppose that anything is more welcome to me than your
letters, or that I can possibly take offence at any thing you
say. I am sorry to hear that you have become an invalid
in Italy. You know I never advised your going to that
country ; but when I find you have gained so much there
both of letters and of fame, I am reallv sorrv I have not
been with you. For I think such a mass of learning and
of glory were well purchased, not merely by hunger, poverty,
and sickness, but even by death itself. You will find the
bill for the monev inclosed herewith. Therefore take care
of your health, and come to us as soon as you can.
The Palace of Greenwich, 27 May [1509].*

Dr. Jortin observes upon this rhetorical Epistle, that this lord writes
Latin better than some famous doctors ; but there is good reason to
believe (see Epistle 277; C. 104 b), that Mountjoy in writing it,
made use of the sersice of an Italian scholar, Andreas Ammonius, of
whom more will be seen in this correspondence. In the Deventer
Manuscript (see our Introduction, p. xxvi.), the Epistle was at first
copied as one of Ammonius, the name of Mountjoy being substituted
by a correction, probably made by Erasmus. The latter complains in
several of his epistles of the difficulty of getting even a short note
from Mountjoy, who appears to have felt some shyness in writing
Latin to his old preceptor.

Erasmus lost no time in acting upon the invitation so conveyed.
A letter written to him by James Piso (Epistle 211) shows that he
had left the city several days before the end of June. He must there-
fore have prepared to start immediately upon the receipt of Lord
Mountjoy's letter, which was probably not unexpected. Forwarded
with official dispatches, it probably reached Rome by the middle of June.

* Ex praetorio Grenuuici. vi. Cal. lunias. Farrago.

Visit to the Palazzo di Venezta 461

Before leaving the City, Erasmus felt bound to wait on the learned
Cardinal Domenico Grimani, who had expressed a wish to see him.
The circumstances of this visit, so characteristic of the place, remained
in his memory, and are described in a letter written at Freiburg more
than twenty years afterwards. Grimani, as Cardinal of St. Mark,
occupied the well-known Palazzo di Venezia, built by Paul II., when
Cardinal of that title.

Epistolae Floridae. (i53i),p. 104. Ep. xxvi.34; C. 1374, 1375.

Erasfnus to Augustinus Eugiibinus.

When I was at Rome, after I had been invited to visit
him by Cardinal Grimani, and that, if I am not mistaken,
through Peter Bembo,* and the invitation had been more
than once repeated, — so much did I dislike paying court to
the great, — at last I went to his palace rather from shame
than inclination. There was no creature to be seen either
in the court or in the vestibule. It was afternoon. I gave
my horse to my servant, and mounting the stairs by myself,
went into the first reception-room. I saw no one. I went
on to the second and third. Just the same. I found no
door closed, and marvelled at the solitude around me.
Coming to the last room, I found one person, keeping watch
at an open door. He had the tonsure, and was, I believe,
a Greek physician. I asked him, how the Cardinal was
engaged. He said, he was within, talking with several gentle-
men. I made no reply, and he asked what I wanted. " To
pay my respects to him," said I, "if it had been convenient,
but as he is not at leisure, I will call again." As I turned to
go, I lingered at a window to look at the view ; and the Greek
came to me again, to inquire whether I wished any message

* M. de Nolhac {Erasine en Italic, p. 69) has pointed out that the author's
hesitating allusion to Peter Bembo is probably an error, as there is no
indication elsewhere of his being in Rome at this time ; and Erasmus in a
somewhat earlier letter speaks of his knowing the genius of Bembo by report
and by his writings. C- 896 c.

462 Cardhial Grim an i

to be taken to the Cardinal. "There is no need," said I,
" to interrupt his conversation, but I will come back shortly."
At last he asked my name, which I gave him. As soon as
he heard it, he went hastily in without my noticing it, and
coming out directly, bade me not to go. Without further
delay I was fetched in, and the Cardinal received me not as
a Cardinal, and such a Cardinal, might receive a person of
humble rank, but as he might a colleague. A chair being
placed for me, we talked together for more than two hours,
and all that time I was not allowed to remove my hat, a
marvellous act of courtesy from a man of such rank. In the
midst of much learned discourse about literary studies, in
which he sufficiently showed that he already intended what
I now hear he has done about his library,* he began to advise
me not to leave Rome, the nursing-mother of intellects. He
invited me to share his house and all his fortunes, adding
that the climate of Rome being damp and warm would agree
with my constitution, especially that part of the city where
he had his palace, which had been built by one of the Popes,
who had chosen it as the most healthy situation that could
be found. After much talk on one side and the other, he
sent for his nephew, already an Archbishop, and a young
man of noble character. As I oflfered to rise, he stopped
me, saying that a disciple should stand before his master.
At last he showed his library, rich in many tongues. If I
had happened to become acquainted with this personage
earlier, I should never have left the city, where I found
more favour than I deserved. But I had already made up
my mind to go, and things had gone so far that it was scarcely
open for me to stay. When I told him I had been sent for
by the King of England, he ceased to press me. Still he
begged me over and over again, not to suspect that his pro-
mises did not come from his heart, or to judge his character

* The library of Cardinal Grimani was presented to the Convent of S.
Antonio in Castello at Venice, where the recipient of the letter was a monk.

parries Piso, the Hungarian Envoy 463

by the ordinary manners of a court. It was with difficulty
that I had leave to depart, but when he found that I wished
to go, he consented not to detain me longer, stipulating with
his last words, that I should pay him one more visit before
leaving Rome. Unfortunately I did not go, fearing that I
might be overcome by his eloquence and change my mind.
I never made a more unlucky choice. But what can you
do, when driven by destiny ? * * *

[Freiburg, 27 March, 1531.]

The writer of Epistle 211, James Piso, is described in a later letter
addressed to Beatus Rhenanus, as being at this time the envoy of his
sovereign at the Papal Court. See pp. 454, 455. In the Index of letters
in Opus Epistolaru?n, 1529, he is described as prseceptor Ludovici
quondam Vngarias Regis. The first part of the Epistle is occupied
with compliments, and apologies for not having already answered
a letter which the writer had received from Erasmus. It seems
therefore that the departure of the latter from Rome had taken place
several days before the date of this Epistle.

Epistle 211. Farrago, p. 310; Ep. x. 12 ; C. loi (108).

jf-ames Piso to Erasmus.

» * *

You will, I hope, make no difficulty in pardoning this
delay. I have been so engaged that for a great many days
I have not been my own master. Our friends Muschoronus
and Thomas, with whom I live on intimate terms as far as
my leisure allows, will bear me witness of this. Your friend
Christopher I have only met in passing since your depar-
ture. You know my character. In friends I hold that
nothing is to be compared with sincerity, still less anything
preferred. What is his disposition towards you, you know
better than I ; I think however he is true and constant. Of
myself I would have you persuaded, that there is no one to
whom I should yield in affection for you. I wish I had the
occasion to show it by substantial proof. It is certain that

464 Christopher Fisher at Rome

no fortune will ever so alter my mind as to make it other-
wise than everywhere and wholly yours. Make therefore
always a free use of your Piso. I shall not disappoint your
opinion of me.

I am much pleased to hear that you have an offer from
England. My wit is too slow for me to be able to advise
you. Non sus Minervam. I would have you weigh your
position with caution. It is a pleasant thing to be rich, but
a much pleasanter thing to be free. If fortune offers both at
once, seize them with both hands. Nothing is too good for
that mind of yours distinguished by every virtue, or for the
Greek and Latin Letters, in which you excel enough to make
us all jealous, and w^hich themselves owe so much to you,
that they cannot allow their patron to remain long in
obscurity. Let others say as they will : I frankly confess
that your lucubrations have had the eflfect of rousing me
from torpor. Farewell, most learned and dearest Erasmus.
I am well myself.

I am expecting to receive from you the epitaphs on that
tipsy buffoon. Pray do not fail me. You will obtain others
on the same subject from your learned friends, and will send
them to me.

Rome, 30 June, 1509.*

The Christopher named in the above letter was probably Christopher
Fisher, an old friend of Erasmus (see p. 374), who was at this time
Clerk of the Sacred College, and w^as employed in the following year
to convey to England the Golden Rose sent to Henry VIII. by the
Pope. Brewer, Abstracts, r. H. VIII., vol. i. Nos. 982, 983.

When Epistle 211 was despatched to England, probably through
some diplomatic friend, Erasmus was already far on his way to the
same destination. He made the journey for security with a large
party of travellers, bound for the Low Countries or for England. We
read of him incidentally in a letter written from Bologna by his
friend Bombasio to Aldus.

* Roma pridie Cal. luHas. m.d.ix. Farrago, p. 311.

Journey to England 465

Nolhac, Les Correspondants d'Aide^ p. 84.

Pan Ins Bombasius to Aldus Manutius.
% % %

Our Erasmus paid me a visit three days ago on his journey
from Rome, but could not be induced to stay more than one
night with me. He is hurrying off to his Britain, having
been summoned, as he tells me, by his Maecenas upon no
mean terms. He was much inclined to turn off in your
direction and pay you a visit ; for he said he had written
some things which he would 'like to have printed under your
care. But he presently changed his mind, and said he would
transact the business by letter, rather than leave his travel-
ling companions and add to the expense of the journey. I
parted from him with regret, as one whom I shall never
meet again, but am consoled by the hope of seeing Cartero-
machus, who is soon to be w4th us, and will in some degree
fill the void left bv Erasmus. * *

This letter is itself without date, and therefore leaves the dates of
Erasmus's journey to England, which on account of their connection
with the history of the Encomium Morix are not altogether without
interest, as uncertain as before. We infer that the party, with which
Erasmus travelled, had crossed the Apennines between Florence and
Bologna, and were proposing to go from Bologna to Milan or Bergamo.
The narrative of Beatus (see p. 32) enables us to follow Erasmus
across the Alps by the old Via Mala to Coire, from which place he
travelled by Constance and the Black Forest to Strasburg, and thence
down the Rhine to Holland. Before crossing the Channel he visited
his friends at Antwerp and Louvain, meeting at the latier place Adolf
of Veer, the son of his old patroness. See Epistle 265, C. 122 E. It
is probable that he arrived in London about the middle of July, 1509.

2 H

Appendices 467

APPENDIX I. Seep. 169.

This Dedication (Epistle 74), which does not appear in any of the
collections of Epistles, is taken from the first edition of the Libellus
de conscribendis epistolis, printed at Cambridge in 1521, a rare book,
of which there is a copy in the British Museum. See pages 169, 170 ;
and as to a fictitious epistle to Peter Paludanus, which is borrowed
from this, see p. 170, note. The passage near the end, where the word
studium is repeated, probably contains some error, but is correctly
copied. For the second studium we might at least read studia.

D. Erasmus Roberto Fischer 0 S.P.D.

Vicisti tu quidem, Roberta : Habes toties efflagitatam a
nobis epistolarum scribendarum rationem. At vide interim,
dum tuae morem gero voluntati, quantis calumniis me ipse
obiecerim. Quid enim Critici dicent, immo quid non
dicent, ubi viderint ausum me tractare rem a tam multis tam
eruditis scriptoribus scite diligenterque tractatam. Vin tu,
inquient, Penelopes telam retexere ? Quid enim tu videas
quod illi non viderint? Post tantos autores aut eadem aut
deteriora scribas necesse est : quorum alterum supervacuum
studiosis, alterum etiam perniciosum. Istis, quum plurima
possim, hoc unum duntaxat respondeo, mihi liberum fuisse
amicissimo homini gratificari, istis aeque liberum esse quas
non probant non attingere. Quanquam id unum tibi uni
polliceor, me neque alienis inhaesurum vestigiis, et aptiora
certe, si non eruditiora, conscripturum : non quominus
ceterorum studium probem, qui scissa, quod aiunt, glacie
aliorum studium excitarunt, sed quia nemo sit omnium, in
quo non multa desiderem. Id quam ob rem, alias fortasse.
Nunc quantum ipsi doctrina, usu, imitatione consequi potui-
mus, quam brevissime trademus. Vale.

4^8 Appendices

APPENDIX II. See pp. 317, 318.

The Latin text of Epistle 147 is taken from Officia Ciceronis recog-
nita per Erasmuni, Basileae, 1520. I am indebted to Mr. C. Bernoulli,
the learned librarian of the University of Bale, for the transcript from
which this dedication is printed. The true year-date appears to be 1 50 1 .

Erasmus Roterodamus Ornatissimo viro^ M. lacoho
Tutori hiris utriiisqtie prudentissimo
S. D.

Plerique liicubrationes suas primatibus inscribunt, partim
ut ab his honestissimarum vigiliarum praemium ferant, partim
quo ipsis contra novitatis invidiam magni nominis autoritas
suffragetur. Ego vero, candidissime doctissimeque Tutor,
non lucubrationes sed cessationes meas, etiam si neutiquam
otiosas, nostrae necessitudini malui consecrare, quam cum
augurarer fore perpetuam, — propterea quod banc non vulgares
illas amandi causae stuppeis funibus, sed honestissimorum
studiorum societas et virtus ipsa immortalis adamantinis vin-
culis nodoque quod aiunt, Herculano colligasset, — consenta-
neum esse ratus sum, ut eiusdem eternum aliquod extaret
monumentum. In rebus autem humanis aut nihil omnino
durabile, aut profecto literae sunt. In proximis igitur
meis inambulationibus, quibus ob valetudinis imbecillitatem
a cibo crebrius [me] uti soHtum scis (nam unus fere correpta-
bas), tres illos M. Tullii de Officiis libellos vere aureos reli-
gimus, incertum maiorene voluptate an fructu. Quos quo-
niam Plinius Secundus negat unquam de manibus deponi
oportere, voluminis magnitudinem quoad Ucuit, contraximus,
quo semper in manibus enchiridii vice gestari, et quod scrip-
sit idem, ad verbum edisci possint. Pro Petri Marsi com-
mentis, utinam exquisitis potius quam immanibus, crebras
annotatiunculas ascripsimus, quae velut asterisci quidam
commode ad omnem caliginem alluceant. Praeterea titulos

Appendices 469

illos, quibus nescio quis opus illud intersecuit magis quam
distinxit, partim ut otiosos sustulimus, partem ut alienos alio
traiecimus, mutavimus omnes, atque uberiores argumentu-
lorum instar reposuimus. Neque minimus in castigando sudor.
Mendas offendimus, ut in opere tarn trito, plurimas, dum
notariorum inter scribendum hie compositionem perturbat,
ille pro voce quae forte fugerat, finitimam reponit, non illas
quidem portentosas, sed tamen in tanto autore non ferendas.
Eas omnes, partim conferendis exemplaribus, in quibus incre-
dibile quanta dissensio, partim Tulliani characteris sagaci
coniectura, correximus, ut hoc certe possim lectori spondere,
nullum his exemplar propius ad archetypum accedere. Qua-
propter te hortor, mi charissime lacobe, ut hunc pugiuncu-
lum semper in manibus gestites, brevem quidem ilium, sed
non Vulcaniis armis aut Homericus Achilles aut ^neas
Vergilianus munitior. Nam et fortius est cum vitiis, quam
cum viris congredi, et ut rectissime scripsitille, o'nkov [Liyia-rov
ia-TLv 7] 'peTY) jSpoTols, quod homines nullis armis melius armen-
tur quam virtute. Et quanquam a iurisperitorum latissimis
campis opimam frugem demetis, tamen hie agellus licet
angustus, si diligenter excolueris, omnia unus suppeditabit.
Hinc efficacis succi herbas legas licebit, quibus per media
monstra ad vellus aureum penetres. Neque alibi reperies
Homericam illam herbam quam Moly nominant, repertu diffi-
cillimam, contra omnia Circes veneficia praesentissimam anti-
dotum. Hinc vel laureum surculum, qui consilia tua bene
fortunet, vel aureum ramum decerpere poteris, quo tutus
etiam Inferos adeas. Hie fons ille divinus honestatis in qua-
tuor rivulos se dividit, qui potus non solum vocalem, ut
Aonius ille, verum etiam immortalem faciat, cuius undis si
subinde mentis artus tinxeris, velut Achilles alter ad omnia
fortunae tela impenetrabilis evades. Bene vale. Luteciae,
quarto Calendas Maias. Anno m.cccc.xcviii.*

* As to the year-date, see note, p. 318.

470 Appendices

APPENDIX III.

The following is the Latin text of Epistle 175, which has not been
included in any of the collections of Epistles. It is found printed,
without date, on the back of the title of an early copy of the Concio
de puero lesu etc. See p. 360, where it is attributed to December,
1503; but the incident of Robert Caesar, the schoolmaster of Ghent,
suddenly leaving a convivial party at Louvain is repeated in Epistle
vii. 26, c. 238 (238), which appears to belong to April, 15 18.

D. Erasmus Roberto Csesari S.D.P.

Perge, mi Roberte, in institute omnium meo quidem
iudicio pulcherrimo superisque gratissimo, ut iuventutis
Gandavorum puro latinae linguae sermone pares ad optimas
disciplinas percipiendas : lividorumque blatamenta non magis
animum tuum permoveant quam culex elephantum : immo
magis magisque accendant oblatrationibus suis. Bellum est,
esse quos tua virtute male uras. Illud et miror et doleo,
quod ita repente nos reliqueris. Doluit maiorem in modum
et hospes mens, unicus admirator tui similium. Ostendi
nostris tuorum alumnorum scripturas ; at vix ulli persuadeo
eas a pueris esse profectas. Scripturus eram Antonio, sed
noctes diesque paro quasdam in Principis adventum. Mittam
ad te brevi qui bus ipse fateberis tuum munus abunde fuisse
compensatum. Bene vale, mi Roberte iucundissime, et
tuum Erasmum sic ama ut ab eo diligeris, diligeris autem
plurimum. Ex Lovanio.

Appendices ^"ji

APPENDIX IV.

EPISTLE OF RABELAIS TO ERASMUS. ScC p. 442.

The following epistle is the Ninety-second in the book entitled
Clarorum Virorum Epistolae centum ineditae, ex museo Johannis
Brant, Amstelodami, MDCCIL, p. 280; where it has the following
heading : Franciscus Rabelsesus Bernardo Salignaco S.P. a Jesu
Christo Servatore. It purports to be signed by Rabelais, and there
is no reason to doubt its authorship, while its whole purport shows
that the person for whom it was intended was Erasmus. This is
placed beyond any doubt by the reference to the pamphlet directed
against him by Scaliger, and by him attributed to Jerome Aleander.
See p. 442, and the references there given. Hilarius Berthulphus,
from whom Rabelais had his information, was a useful friend and
correspondent of Erasmus (C. 937A, 943B), but appears according to
the information received by the last (C. 1456c), to have left Lyons
more than a month before the date assigned to Rabelais' letter.
Bernard de Salignac appears to be unknown in the history of
Rabelais (as he is in that of Erasmus and of Literature), and could
not have been addressed in the terms of this epistle, as a Defender of
Letters, and unconquered Champion of Truth. It is probable, that he
was simply a scholarly French gentleman travelling through Lyons to
Germany, to whom Rabelais' Letter and the Bishop of Rodez's copy
of Josephus were consigned, to be carried to Freiburg, where Erasmus
was living at this time, — possibly accompanied by a message from
Rabelais written, with the above address, in Latin. It is curious,
that we should know from one of his Epistles, C. 1420, that Erasmus
had been trying to obtain a copy of Josephus for the use of Froben,
and had written, Nov. 19, 1531, to a learned French Prelate, Jean
de Pins, Bishop of Rieux, to borrow a copy, which he believed to
exist in the Bishop's library. The civil offer of the Bishop of Rodez
to send this book to Erasmus was probably an indirect answer to the
application made to the other bishop.

The Preface of J. Brandt, dated at Amsterdam, July 6, 1702,
contains the following sentence : Literas Francisci Rabelesii et
A. Riveti mecum communicarunt Johannes Clericus et eruditissimus
Scherpezelius. We may conjecture that the Epistle of Rabelais had

472 Appendices

been communicated to Le Clerc, who was then preparing his edition
of the works of Erasmus, and that he, or the sub-editor of this part of
his work, failed to understand why it was put into his hands, and
accordingly handed it over to Brandt. The Clarorum virorum
Epistolse ■wa.s republished at Amsterdam in 1715 under a new title:
Epistolae celiberrimorum virorum ex scriniis Literariis Jani
Brantii. The book is the same (not reprinted), except the title and
prefatory sheet.

\_Franciscus Rabelaesiis D. Erasmo S.D.]

Georgius ab Arminiaco, Rutenensis Episcopus Clarissimus
niiper ad me misit ^Xaviov lo)cnj(f)ov 'laropCav 'lovSai'/o^v nepl
aXcjcrecos, rogavitque pro veteri nostra amicitia ut, si quando
hominem d^Loina-Tov nactus essem qui istuc proficisceretur,
earn tibi prima quaque occasione rendendam curarem.
Lubens itaque ansam banc arripui et occasionem tibi, Pater
mi Humanissime, grato aliquo officio indicandi quo te
animo, qua te pietate, colerem. Patrem te dixi, matrem
etiam dicerem, si per indulgentiam mihi id tuam liceret.
Quod enim utero gerentibus usui venire quotidie experimur,
ut quos nunquam viderunt faetus alant ab aerisque ambientis
incommodis tueantur, avro tovto crvy erraOe^, qui me tibi de
facie ignotum, nomine etiam ignobilem sic educasti, sic cas-
tissimis divinae tuse doctrinas uberibus usque aluisti, ut quid-
quid sum et valeo, tibi id unum acceptum ni feram, hominum
omnium qui sunt aut aliis erunt in annis ingratissimus sim.
Salve itaque etiam atque etiam, Pater amantissime, pater
decusque patriae, litterarum assertor aXe^t/c;x/<:o9, veritatis
propugnator invictissime.

Nuper rescivi ex Hilario Berthulpho, quo hie utor familia-
rissime, te nescio quid moliri adversus calumnias Hieronvmi
Aleandri, quem suspicaris sub persona factitii cujusdam
Scaligeri adversus te scripsisse. Non patior te diutius animi
pendere atque bac tua suspicione falli. Nam Scaliger ipse

Appendices 473

Veronensis est ex ilia Scaligerorum exsiilum familia, exsul et
ipse. Nunc vero medicum agit apiid Agennates : vir mihi
bene notus, ou /aa tov At' evhoKLiMacrOei^i' ecm roivvv Ata^oX.09
iKeLvo<s, o)<; crvveXovTi (jiduai, to. [xep larpLKa ovk aveTnaTrjixcov,
TO, aXXx Se TTOLVTr} TrduTcos ddeo<; a)<s ovk aXXo? TraJnoT ovo€C<s.
Ejus librum nondum videre contigit, nee hue tot iam mensi-
bus delatum est exemplar ullum, atque adeo suppressum
puto ab iis qui Lutetiae bene tibi volunt. Vale, kol evTvx^v
StareXet.

Lugduni, pridie Cal. Decemb. 1532.

Tuus quatenus suus,

Franciscus Rabel^sus,
Medicus.

Since the above note was put in type, Mr. Charles Whibley has
called attention to this Epistle of Rabelais to Erasmus in the Preface
to his edition of Urquhart's translation of the Gargantua.

I am inclined to suspect, that the year-date should be 1531.
Scaliger's first Oration against Erasmus is dated, 15 March, 1531.
Rabelais is said to have come from Montpellier to Lyons in that year,
Erasmus was seeking a Greek Josephus in November, 153 1. C. 1420 C.
Hilarius Bertulphus left Lyons before the 31st of October, 1532. C.
1456 c.

I should add that there is no evidence that this interesting Epistle
ever reached the hands of Erasmus. The correspondents had a
common friend in Germain Brice.

2 I

474 Appendices

APPENDIX V.

NOTE ON THE BIRTH-YEAR OF ERASMUS.

See p. 14.

The shortest discussion of this not very important question would have
occupied too much space in our commentary, and even here we shall confine
ourselves to a slight indication of the evidence on the subject.

Dr. Arthur Richter, in an appendix to his Erasvius-Stiidioi, has carefully
collated the passages relating to Erasmus's age, both from his own writings
and from the statements of his friends ; but the latter may be disregarded,
as none of them appear to be based upon any independent authority. x\nd
no such authority has been found elsewhere, except (so far as it goes) the
date of his ordination as priest, which is said to have taken place on the 25th
or 27th of April, 1492. (See p. 85.) Assuming him to have reached the
canonical age of twenty-four, he must have been born before the corresponding
day of April, 1468.

Out of the works of Erasmus himself some four-and-twenty passages are
cited by Dr. Richter as bearing upon the date of his birth (besides six more
in which his age is more vaguely indicated). To these we may add a passage
from the Catalogue of Lucubrations, and the estimate of his age at the com-
mencement of the Compendium Vitx (which has been hitherto overlooked,
seep. 5), if we assume this document to be authentic; while on the other
hand, if we reject the Co77ipendium (see our Introduction), we shall have to
exclude, — as derived from that authority, — two of Dr. Richter's citations.
Another of these ought clearly to be struck out, — the so-called Epistle to
Peter Cursius, dated 9 January, 1535, in which Erasmus is made to describe
himself as "a man of seventy, but not without teeth or nails," this writing
being certainly not an epistle of Erasmus, but a caricature of his epistolary
style by some Roman humourist. Ep. xxx. 68; C. 1496(1276). See C. x. 1756 f.
The genuine Respo7isio ad Petri Cursii defensionem is another matter. See
No. 26, p. 475.

In estimating the evidence before us, it should be borne in mind, that it is
highly improbable that a child of retentive memory, brought up among his
kindred, and with a full knowledge of his birthday, should grow up in
ignorance of his own age ; and that Erasmus is accustomed to express him-
self upon this subject with the confidence that is usual with persons whose
childhood has been passed in such circumstances ; although upon this point
it may be noted, that his friend Beatus Rhenanus, who knew Erasmus's birth-
day, was not sure of his age. Preface to Opera Origi/iis. See pp. 23, 25.

It should also be observed, that Erasmus shows in his correspondence an
extremely accurate memory for such dates, and a lively interest in the ages of
his friends and others. The ages of Dean Colet and of Sir Thomas More are

Appendices 475

both recorded by him. As to the former he is still our chief or only authority;
and as to the latter his statement is confirmed by the last corrected version
of the year of his birth. See Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries,
vol. xvi. p. 321.

The chief passages relating to this subject are extracted in Dr. Richter's
pamphlet ; or they may be found by the following references, which are
numbered in chronological order. The date of each document is given, and
the birthyear inferred is added in a parenthesis.

The inferences, which I have drawn from the several passages, do not
always agree with those of Dr. Richter, the received date of the Epistles not
being always correct, but the general result is not substantially different.

1. Carjnen de senectntis incommodis, August, 1506. C. iv. 756A . (1466;

2. Preface to Methodus, prefixed to the first edition of the New

Testament, published March, 1516 . , (1466 or 1467)

3. Epistle to Urbanus Regius, 24 Feb. 1516. C. 1552F. . (1467)

4. Epistle to Bude, 15 Feb. 1516-7. C. 178B. . . (1466)

5. Epistle to Capito, 26 Feb. 1516-7. C. i86f . . (1466)

6. Apologia ad Fabrutn, 5 Aug. 15 17. C. x. 20 . . (1466)

7. Epistle to Stromer, 24 Aug. 1517. C. 260B. . . (1466)

8. Epistle to John Eck, 15 ISIay, 1518. C. 399, 400 . (1466 or 1467)

9. Preface to Afethodus, 2nd Edition, 1518. C. v. 79 . . (1466)

10. Epistle to Ambrose Leo, 15 Oct. 15 18. C. 507, 508 (Qu. see next p. 1466)

11. Epistle to Rhenanus, early in October, 15 18. C. 375E. (1467 or earlier)

12. Epistle to Horn, 17 April, 1519. C. 429A. . . (1466)

13. Same Epistle, upon the building of Deventer Biidge. C. 429A. (1466)

14. Epistle to Jodocus Jonas, 13 June, 1519. C 456BC. (1466 or 1469)

15. Compendium Viiec, 2 March, 1524. See p. 5. C. i. Praef. . (1466)

16. Ibid. p. II . . . . . . (1466)

17. Ibid. p. 12 . , . ■ . . (1466)

18. Epistle to Stromer, 10 Dec. 1524. C. 833F. . (1465 or 1466)

19. Catalogue of Lucubrations, 20 Jan. 1524-5. C. Praef. Jortin, ii.

423 . . . . . (After 1465)

20. Epistle to Jodocus Gaverus, i Mar. 1524-5. C. 787D. . (1466)

21. The same Epistle. C. 789A. .... (1466)

22. Epistle to Bude, 25 August, 1525. C. 885c. . (About 1465)

23. Epistle to Nicolaus Hispanus, 29 April, 1526. C 932c. (About 1466)

24. Epistle to Baptista Egnatius, 6 May, 1526. C. 935E. (About 1466)

25. Epistle to Gratianus Hispanus, 15 March, 1528-9. C. 1067 b.

Compare C 787E. .... (1465)

26. Responsio ad Petri Cursii defejisionem. C. x. 1750E . (1466 or 1467)
It will be seen, that of the twenty-six passages above numbered, thirteen

point distinctly to the year 1466 as that of Erasmus's birth, and four others

476 Appendices

to a period including the same year with the one preceding or following it.
Upon one of these (No. 26) some observations have been made in p. 93.
Two other passages (Nos. 23 and 24) point to a date about the year 1466;
one (No. 22) to about 1465; No. 19 to 1466 or any later year; and No. 11 to
1467 or any earlier year. No. 14 relates to the age of Colet, who is there
said by Erasmus to have been two or three months younger than himself,
and who according to the same authority in Epistle 108 (p. 221), had been
already towards the end of 1499, when that Epistle was written, three years
at Oxford. In the further statement in No. 14, that Colet's age was then
about thirty, there is some confusion between the time of the commencement
of Colet's lectures at Oxford (the principal subject of the sentence) and the
commencement of his acquaintance with Erasmus. One construction would
place Erasmus's birth in 1466, and that of Colet about the end of the same
year, or the beginning of the next ; the other would place Erasmus's birth in
1469.

Two of the other authorities appear to indicate more distinctly other years,
one (No. 25) the year 1465, another (No. 3) 1467. These two statements,
contradictory to the general testimony and to each other, may perhaps be
safely regarded as the result of inadvertence.

The one remaining epistle (No. 10), in which an alternative may seem to
be expressly offered, is more important, as it may be thought to show the
existence of an uncertainty in Erasmus's own mind, which, if established,
would weaken the whole of his evidence on the subject. But it may be
suggested that the passage admits of another interpretation, which brings it
in accordance with the prevailing evidence. The letter being written 15
October, 15 18, twelve days before the w-riter's birthday, the words are these :
Nam ipse tiimc annum quinquagesimum secundum aut ad summum tertium ago.
If we bear in mind the Roman epistolary style, in which the writer is accus-
tomed to place himself at the time when the letter would be read, this sen-
tence may be translated as follows : I am now in my fifty-second year, or at
most (when you read this) in my fifty-third. If this construction is accepted,
this passage must be added to the other authorities in favour of 1466.

With respect to the sentence at the commencement of the Autobiography
(No. 15), in which the writer computes his years as alm/t fifty-seven (see p. 5)
it may be remarked that this estimate agrees with the year-date generally
found elsewhere, and implied without any expression of doubt in two other
passages in the same document. Nos. 16, 17. If Erasmus wrote the Com-
pendium (see Introduction, p. 46), the insertion of the word circiter may be
regarded merely as an example of that excessive accuracy which borders on
uncertainty. His age on the day he wrote was, according to our estimate, a
little more than fifty-seven years.

INDEX.

Note. — The Roman mivierah refer to the Introduction, the numerals in
pare?itheses, as (25) (31), to the Register of Epistles.

E. = Erasmus, n = note

Adages, first edition (Paris, 1500),

28, 224, 232, 236, 245
proposed dedication to Adolf

of Burgundy, 232
dedication to Lord Mountjoy,

243, 274
interpreted by Augustine, 257
parcel sent to England for sale,

257, 274, 377
parcel sent to Holland, 303, 345,

353> 274
edition of Jean Philippe (1505),

386 ■
of Bade (1506), 414
Aldine edition (1508), 23, 28,

3o> 438. 442, 445
second dedication to Mount-
joy, 442
first Basel reprint (15 13), 33 n
Tubingen reprint (1514) 33 «
Adages cited, 13, 222, 244, 247, 314

Adolf of Burgundy, son of the Lady
of Veer, 175, 191, 287
proposed dedication to, 195, 232
epistles of E. to, 191, 193, (12)

Adrian, bookseller of St. Omer, 338,
epistle to him, 343

Adrian, a courier between Paris and
Artois, 195, 197, 307

Adrian, Provost of Utrecht, after-
wards Pope Adrian VL,
35i> 354, 361

Adventures in journey from Artois
to Paris (1500), 247-255

Advertisement of books by 'inter-
pretation,' 121, 257, 260

^gidius, Petrus. See Gillis

^milius, Paulus, his French His-
tory, 278

^^neas Silvius (Pope Pius IL),
Epistles of, XX, Ixxxi

Afinius, Henricus, correspondence
with him, (25) n, (31) n

Age, poem by E. {de Se7iectute), 414,
416, 417, 422, 436

Agricola, Rodolphus, seen by E. at
Deventer (1480), 17, 18,
20, 23, 26 n

imported Greek into Germany,
23

his Opuscula, 379

Alberto Pio. See Carpi

Aldington, co. Kent, E. rector of, t^-J)

Aldus Manutius of Venice, his deal-
ings with E., 30, 430, 445-

condition of his trade in 1506,

428, 438_
situation of his printing office,

436
Aldus and Froben compared,

440
epistles of E. to him, 428, 432,

450, 451
Aleander, Jerome, his relations with
E., 30, 441, 442

2 K

478

Epistles of Erasmus

Alexander Stuart, Archbishop of St.
Andrews. See St. Andrews

Allegorical interpretation of Scrip-
ture, 75

Alpine Journey of E. (1506), 416

Amerbach (John), printer, 34

his sons, Bruno and Boniface,
called by Beatus, Bruno '"
and Basil, 34. And see
Register of Epistles (34)

Ammonius, Andreas, correspond-
ence of E. with, xxiv; and
see Register of Epistles,
(10H13), (i5)-(25)
Andrelinus, Faustus, professor at
Paris, 28, 106
friend and champion of E.

150, 194
his contempt of theologians, 192
recommends the Adages, 242
epistles of, 80, 174, 191, 192,

242
epistles to, 191, 192, 203

Angleberm, Peter, physician of
Orleans, epistle to, 287

Anna, mother of the Virgin Mary,
poem in her honour, 297

Anna Borsala or Borssele. See Veer

An7ius Domini, commencement of,
Ixvii-lxx

Antibarbari, early work of E., 84,
85, 87, 100, 262, 298
plan of this work, 100, loi
criticised by Gaguin, 106
MS. left with Pace, 452

Antony, the ' Great Bastard of Bur-
gundy,' 175, 323

Antony of Grimberg, 350

Antony, James. See Middelburg

Antony Lutzenburg. See Lutzen-
burg

Apologues, translated from the
Greek by Herman, 352,
358

Arras, Bp. of. See Ruistre

Arras, College of, at Louvain, 358

Asulanus, Andreas, father-in-law of
Aldus, 30, 437, 445, 447

Audarium Epistolarum, xxx
Preface to, Ixxv, Ixxvi

Augustine Caminad, pupil and friend

of E., Ill, 121, 177, 279
E.'s antipathy to him, in, 121,

122, 267, 277, 282
superintends the printing of the

Adages, 242
advertises the book, 257
accompanies E. to Orleans,

258
his interest in E.'s MS. works,

177, 178, 271
becomes a student of law, 350
his episde to his physician,

271
epistles to, 270, 278, 321

Augustine, St., manuscript of, be-
longing to E., 273, 285

Augustinian Order, E. a member
of, 9, 41
costume of the order, 29, 422
rule as to property of members,
54
Aureus or scutatus, a French coin,
256

Authority assumed by a student of
Theology, 121, 124
to be acquired by University
degree, 326, 334. See De-
gree

Autographs, old Dutch collections
of, xci

Avianus, Apologues of, 352, 353

Bachelor of Theology. See Degree

Backer, Jerome (1649), had auto-
graph MSS. of Erasmus, 2

* For John, in p. 34, should be read, Bruno.

Index

479

Bade, Josse, the printer, 380

publishes (1505) the Annota-
tions of Valla, 380
(1506) Translations from Euri-
pides and Lucian, 413,
414
his episde to E. (1505), 385.
And see Register of Epistles
(34)
Baptista Mantuanus, his poetry, 144
Barnes, William, Bp. of London, 388
Bastard of Courtenburne, Peter, 349

Batt, James, his early history, 90
first acquaintance with E, 27,

89, 90
town-clerk of Bergen-ap-Zoom,

27, 175
first extant letter of E. to, 91
correspondence with E. its

character, 176
epistle in his name to Mount-
joy, 228
his sickness(i499), 196; (1501),

316
his death (1502), 348, 350
epistles to, 91, 177, 188, 193,
196, 199, 232, 234, 246,
258, 263, 267, 272, 282,
298, 304, 316, 320, 338
Baudius, Dominicus, his epistle to
Merula, 16

Bavo, a Belgian Saint, 60
poem m praise of, 61

Bayle's Dictionary, article on E. 15

Beatus Rhenanus, his particulars of

E.'s life, 22-37
a student at Paris (1503-7), 24
early purchaser of Erasmus's

Euripides (1506), 414

Benserad, Nicolas, assistant of
Augustine, 322, 329
epistles to, 330, 334

Bentivoglio leaves Bologna, 420

Beraldus (Beraud), Nicolas, a corre-
spondent of E. 416

Bernard, St. his Epistles, Ixxxi

Berckman (alias Pircman), Francis,
bookseller, 13, 34

Bergen-op-Zooin, E. at, 10, 92, 93,

lOI

Markiezenhof, Ixxii, 93

scene of dialogue in the Anti-

barbari^ 100
return of E. to, li, 109, 319

Bergen, family of, 92

Bergen, Antony, Abbot of St. Ber-
lin, 27, 92, 348, 349
epistles addressed to him, 291,
312, (11), (13;, (33)
Bergen, Henry, Bishop of Cambrai,
patron of E. 10, 26, 27,
89, 92, 160
resided at Bergen and Brussels,

93
discontent of E. with him, 118,

160
ambassador to England (1498),

161, 163, 164
his later relations with E. 126,

272, 319. 325
visited by E. (150 1), 319, 324
epistles of E. to him, 119, 126,

324
his death, 352, 354
his epitaphs in Latin and Greek

by E. 359, 360
Bernard, St., his epistles, 51, 83
Bertin, St., Abbey of, at St. Omer,

27, 335. 348
Biography of E. date and place of

birth, 5, 13, 23, 25
early life (1466-1482), 6-9, 14-

20, 23-26, 40-42
monastic life (1482- 1492), 42-92
residence with the Bishop of

Cambrai (1492-1494), 92-

103
at College of Montaigu (1494,

1495X 104-109
return to Holland (1495, ^496),

109
residence in Paris, with oc-
casion absences (1496-

1499), 109-199

2 K 2

480

Epistles of Erasmus

Biography of E. — continued.

first visit to England (1499,

1500), 200-227
Paris, Orleans, and Paris (1500,

1501), 228-318
Artois (1501-1502), 319-350
Louvain (1502- 1504), 351-372
short stay at Paris (1504-1505),

373-386
anxious to devote himself to

theology (1505), 375
second visit to England (1505,

1506), 387-409
journey to Italy (1506), 410-

417
Florence, Bologna, and Venice

(1506-1508), 418-448
Padua, Siena, Rome (1508,

1509)5 449-464
journey to England (1509), 465

Birth of E. locality and circum-
stances, 16, 24, 25
Birthday of E. 5, 13
Birth-year of E. 5, 13, 14, 474

Boece, Hector (Scottish historian),
student at Montaigu, 105,
correspondent of E. 141

Boerio, Dr. Baptista, physician to
Henry VH., 28, 31, 407

his sons under charge of E.
411, 412, 426

later recollections of E. 427

Bois-le-duc, school, 8, 18

Bologna, visit of E. to (1506), 11,

23, 28, 418
his change of dress there, 1 1 «,

29, 423
threatened siege by French

(1506), 418
surrender to Pope JuHus n.,4T9
University closed (1506), 420

reopened, 426
Bombasio, Paolo, 23, 28

intimate with E. at Bologna, 427
Secretary to Card. Pucci at

Rome, 428
correspondent of Aldus, 465

of E. in 151 7, (33)

Books, the most delightful of friends,
240, 241

Borssele, family of, 175

Wolfard, lord of Veer, earl of

Buchan in Scotland, 175
his daughter, Ann, lady of Veer,

176

Boschius, Arnold, 124, 161
epistles to him, 160, 161

Boutzbach, John, his recollections
of Hegius, 17

Britannise. de laudibus Ode, 11, 202,

245
Brussels, E, at (1498), 165

Augustinian Abbey at Koude-

berg, 165

Buchan in Scotland, earldom of,
175 jwte.

Burgundy, Antony, bastard of, 175,

323
his son Philip and grandson

Adolf, 175, 320
Nicolas of. Provost of Utrecht,

292, 3i9> 359
epistle to, 293

Busleiden, Francis, Archbishop of
Besangon, a patron of E.

352, 371
his death (1502), 352, 358
Jerome, brother of Francis,

358, 360
epistle to him (1506), 420
Giles, third brother, correspon-
dent of E. (30), (31)

Caesar, Robert, schoolmaster, epistle
to him, 360, 470

Csesarius, John, correspondence with
E. ^^^ Register of Epistles,

(35)
Cain and Abel, discussion about,

215
new story of, 216 — 8

Caius, Dr. John, on E.'s degree, 402

Calcagnini, Celio, 451

Index

481

Calendar. See Year

Cambrai, bishops of, non-resident,

93
Henry, bishop of. See Bergen.

Cambrai, Thomas of, 145

Cambridge University, E. had grace
for degree there, 401
E. a professor there, 28, (11)
Lord jNIountjoy's connection

with, 165
convent of nuns at, 115 n

Caminad. See Augustine

Campanus, his Epistles, 197, 198

Canale, Paolo, of Venice, friend of
E., 30

Cantelius, alias Cornelius, 43

Canter, James, edited the Cento of
Proba, 77
epistle to, 78

Capito. See Fabricius

Caraffa, Peter, epistle to, (16)

Carpi, Prince of, Alberto Pio, his
controversy with E. 445, 446

Carteromachus, Scipio, with E. at
Padua, 31
at Bologna, 428
at Rome, 453
expected at Bologna, 465

Casa tiatalitia pueri lesu, poem of
E. 22, 209, 260

Catalogue of Lucubrations, xxxix,
12, 20, 128, 227, 337, 393,
416

Ceratinus (van Hoorn), Jacobus,
Greek Professor at Lou-
vain, 13

Chalcondyles, Laonicus, his descrip-
tion of English manners,
204 n

Character of E. drawn by himself,

12
Charles V., Duke of Burgundy and

Emperor, crowned at Aix,

E. one of his council, 1 1, 35

Chartres, accident to Cathedral, 415
Rene d'llliers, Bishop of, 414
Pseudomantis of Lucian,
inscribed to him, 415

Charnock, Richard, Prior of St.
Mary's College, Oxford,
205
E. under obligations to him,
214, 230

Childhood of E. 6-9, 16-20

Chorus of Greek Tragedy, Jiugse,
canorse, 432

Christian (Noorthon ?) of Lubeck,
pupil of E. no, 288
epistles to, no, in, 114, 132,
153. 166

Cicero de Officiis, edited by E 317,

318
dedicated by E. to James Tutor

(1501), 3i7> 468
Classical authors for young readers,
140

Clement VI L Pope, xc

Chfton, preceptor of the young Boeri
(1506), 408, 411, 416
took a degree at Turin (1506),

28, 4i7_
unfortunate in his companions
at Bologna, 426

Cold Hill (Koudeberg) at Brussels,
163

Colet, John, at Paris, 205

at Oxford (1499)^ 205

his dinner party at Oxford, 215

dispute on Agony in the Gar-
den, 219

his influence on the opinions
of E. 224

E.'s wish to return to him,

333
appointed Dean of St. Pauls,

374
correspondence with E. 205,
206, 219, 220, 374, 412,
(11), (12), (14, (21)

Collationary Brothers. See Common
Life

482

Epistles of Erasmus

Colloquies oiYj. first commencement

of, 263, 266, 339
Convivhan Religiosum (notice

of Pavia), 418
Ichthyophagia (description of

Montaigu College), 108
Opulejitia sordida (Venetian

house-keeping), 448

Cologne, proposed stay there, (1502),

351

Commefare, a word borrowed from
Terence, 241

Common Life, Brethren of, their
work in schools, 8, 16, 18

Compendium Vitse Eras mi, 5-13
commentary on, 1-4, 13-19
its history, i, 2, 4
authenticity, xlvii-li 2, 3

Conus, loannes. See Kiihn

Constantine's Greek Grammar, 333

Cop, William, Swiss doctor at Paris,
attended E. in sickness
(1495), 107, (1500), 235
Poem on Old Age, addressed
to him (1506), 416

Copia, a work on rhetoric, proposed

(i499)> 195
in hand (1500), 279, 287, 298
See Register of Epistles, (12),

(14), (20)

Cornelius, author of the Mariad, 76,

77
Cornelius, schoolfellow of E. at

Deventer, monk at Stein,

9> 43
Cornelius Aurelius Lopsen. See Cor-
nelius Girardus

Cornelius Aurotinus. See Cornelius
Girardus

Cornelius Crocus, author of a glos-
sary, 57

Cornelius Girardus of Gouda, iden-
tified with Cornelius Au-
relius Lopsen, 56, 57
uncle of William Herman, 59
his literary work, 57, 59, 63, 65

Cornelius Girardus of Gouda — con-
tinued.

encouraged by E. to pubUsh, 83
visits Paris (1498), 159, 168
his correspondence with E. 58-

75, 84, 98, 168
with Herman, 98

Cornelius, author of Mariad, 76
epistle to, 76

Costume, monastic, abandoned by
E. II, 29', 422

Councillor of the Court of Brabant,
E. appointed, 11, 35

Courtenburne, Castle of, 342

Florence de Calonne, lord of,

342
Peter, Bastard of, 349

Cremensis, Franciscus, 162
Cumae, Sybil's cave there, visited by
Erasmus, 32

Cursius, Peter, response to his
defence, xxxviii
fictitious epistle to, xxxviii, xlv

Daniel, James, of Orleans, 280, 350

Dates of Epistles of E. Ixiii-lxxii

Dating of Letters requested by
Herman, Ixv, 97
practice of E. Ixiii-lxvii

Death of E. xxxvi

Declamation, practice of, 406

recommended by E. 407, 452

Dedications by E. See Register of
Epistles
early Prefaces and Dedications,
xxvii Ji.

Degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of
Theology, 140, 141, 401,
417.
proposed degree at Cambridge,

401, 402
E. a Doctor of the University
of Turin, 24, 28, 417

Delius, a writer at Paris (1499),
194, 203
poem by E. against, 261

Index

483

Desiderius, name of, 38
Desmarais, John. See Paludanus

Deventer, school, 7, 16, 17
E. there till 1480, 18
bridge built (1482), 18
siege of (1510), 17
library, 76

MS. letter bcDok of E. preserved
there, xxvi, 372

Dismas of Bergen, brother of the
Bishop of Cambrai, 280,
286, 292, 298, 315, 350

Dispensation of E. by Leo. X. 14,
i5> 29, 39
object of obtaining, Ixi

Disputatiunciila de tsudio Christie
219, 361

Doctor's degree, in prospect, 118,

236, 296, 299
its use and value, 296
conferred on E. at Turin, 24,

28, 402, 417, 420

Dordrecht, E. at (1498), 162,
(1501), 326

Dorpius, controversy with E. xxviii,

12
epistles of and to. See Register

of Epistles {36)
Douzain, a French coin, 180, 253,

254, 274
Dover, loss of money at (1500), 11,

227, 274, 277

Dress. See Costume.

Ebrardus Ulricus, of Neuburg, 7 «,

157, 158
Eden, Mr., resident at Paris, 137

Edmund, priest, of St. Omer, 342
epistles to, 342, 346

Edward, Arnold, a friend of More

and of E. 201, 235
Egmond, Florence, of Ysselstein,

359
epistle to, 359

Egnatius, Baptista, Professor at
Venice, 441

Elegantise. of Valla, E.'s Paraphrase
of, 86, 87
publication of Paraphrase, 57
manuscript of, 178, 182, 232,
235» 347
Elizabeth, a nun, epistle to, 83

Emmaus, convent of. See Stein
Enchiridion of St. Augustine, 233
Enchiridion Mi Hi is Christiani,
history of the work, 337,

340, 361
description of it by E. 376

Engelbert Schut of Leiden, 62, 72

England, first visit of E. to (i499)>
10, II, 28, 200-227
eulogium of, 225
visit proposed (1501), 333
second visit (1505), Z2,^ 387-

409
return to (1509), 460, 465
Bishop of Cambrai's embassy
to, 165
English boarding-house at Paris, 27,

115
E. an inmate of, 115
the tutor of, pupil of E. 115,
116, 130
his quarrel with E. 1 54
departure of E. from, 131, 135

English church-vestment, 163, 164
friends of E. 24, 33, 115
ladies, their manners, 203, 204
description of Chalcon-
dyles misconstrued, 204 n
language, litde known to E.

258
men of learning (1505), 389
money, 304, 307
princes (1499), 201, 202

Epigrams of E. 22

Epimenides, his prolonged sleep,

142
Epistle to Gaguin, first printed

work of E. xviii, xxvii, 107

484

Epistles of Erasmus

Epistle to Grunnius, its history, Ix-
Ixii

Epistle, fictitious, to Peter Palu-
danus, i66 n

Epistle rewritten for publication, 246

Epistles, genuine, and epistles in
name, lix-lxii
great writers of, xx, Ixxx, Ixxxi
long, coveted by E. 310

Epistles of E. circulated by tran-
scription, xxi, xxii, XXX,
Ixxv, 26, 139

in Batt's hands with those of
Herman, 197, 317, 339

to be collected by Francis,

390
to be copied by Lewis, 317,

339

successive authorised publica-
tions, xxvii-xxxvii

selections edited by Gillis,
xxviii-xxx, Ixxiii-lxxv

collections edited by Beatus,
xxx-xxxvii, Ixxvii, Ixxix

unauthorised publications,
xxxiii

posthumous publications,
xxxvii-xliv

later collections, xlv-lix

Epistola de Co?tte??iJ)tu Mundi, 88
Epistolae. ad diversos (Preface), Ixxvii
^/zV/<?/«fl//^z/^/(Preface),lxxiii,lxxiv
Epistolse, Floridx (Preface), Ixxxv

Epistolse, sane quam elegantes (Pre-
face), Ixxiv
Epistolariwi^ Opus (Preface), Ixxxvii

Epistolary style how acquired by E.
xix, XX

Eptstolis, de conscribendis libellus.
See Letter-writing

Eppendorf, Henr}^, his quarrel with
E. 4, 18

Erasmus, his names, 37-39
his physique, 24
his life. See Biography

Euripides, transcript of, 330, 334
text corrected by E. 433
plays translated by E. 30, 372,

392, 395
dedicated to Warham, 392-

.398> 414
printed by Bade, 414
reprinted by Aldus, 428-436

Evangelista, epistle to, 149

Faber (lacobus), edited the Poems
of Hegius, 355
his epistle to E. 355

Faber (lacobus, Stapulensis), 12.
And see Register of
Epistles, (36)

Face and figure of E. 36

Falke, John, friend of E. in Paris,
182, 186

Farrago Epistolarum, xxx, xxxi

Faustus. See AndreUnus

Ferrara, E. at, 100

Fever, quartan, E. subject to, 107,
120, 125
attended by Cop (1495), i°7
See St. Genevieve

Fever, nightly (i498)> i59

Fictions, epistolary, xxxvii, xl, Ix,
226, 236, 246, 284, 299

Fish diet, E.'s aversion to, 12, 108

Fisher, Dr. Christopher, at Paris

(i5o5)> 374
Clerk of the Sacred College at

Rome (1509), 464
epistle to, 380

Fisher, John, Bp. of Rochester, 165,
401
correspondence with E. See
Register of Epistles, (36)

Fisher, Robert, a pupil of E. 115
cousin of Bishop Fisher, 165
his relations with the English

boarding-house, 115, 145
leaves Paris (1498), 165, 166
his death (15 12), 225
epistles to him, 145, 165, 225

Index

485

Fisher, Robert — contifiued.
dedication to him, 165
in Latin, App. 467

Fortiguerra. See Carteromachus

Foxe, Richard, Bp. of Winchester,

Dedication to him, 391
Franc, French coin, 255
Francis, bookseller. See Berckman

Francis, physician, at Tournehem,
1S2

Francis Theodorik, early corres-
pondent of E. 52, 53, 94,
102, 390
collector of his epistles, xxiii,
390
French language spoken by E. 252
letter to the lady of Yeer, 236

Friends of E. mentioned by Beatus,
24

Froben, John, and his son Jerome,

printers, 13, 24, 33
their imitation of the Aldine

Adagia, 2,7^ fi
revised edition (15 14), 439
edition of the works of St.

Jerome. See Jerome
correspondence with John.

See Register of Epistles,

(36)

Gaguin, Robert, professor at Paris,

28, 106
his published Epistles, xxvii,

106
criticism oi Antibarbari^ loi
his History of France, with

Epistle of E. 107
poem inscribed to him, 22
his library useful to E. 154,

237
his death, 278
correspondence with E. 106,

io7> 154, 155. 237, 238
Galba, an English courier, 231, 233,

274 «

Garlandia, loannes de, read in
schools, 7«, 17

Gaverus, Jodocus, epistle to, 449

Geldenhauer, Gerard. See Novio-
magus

Genevieve, St. monastery and church

at Paris, 104
her intercession in the great

inundation of 1497, 125
in that of 1236, 125
her aid in sickness of E. (1495),

108, 120, 126, 234
votive poem of E. 108

Gerard, father of E, 6, 7, 14

Germain, Jean, the " Courtier
Friend " of Etichiridion,
340, 341
later epistle to him, (30) n

German language, not readily spoken
by E. 151, 153

German scholars of the fifteenth
century, 66

Ghisbert, physician of St. Omer, 338

Gillis, Peter, early epistle of E. to

him, 379
later correspondence. See

Epistles of E. Ixxiy, Ixxv

Gnathonisms for patrons, 305
Goclen, Conrad, confidant of E.

xlv, I, 4, 5> 24
epistle to, with Life of E. xlvii-

xlix, I, 5

Gorcum, John of, 379

Gouda, early home of E. 16

Greek books, transcribed by or for

E. 313, 330
bought for hnn, 331, 334

Greek grammars, 286, t,^,^,

Greek language, first taught in Ger-
many by Rodolphus Agri-
cola, 23
studied by E. at Oxford (1499),
224

486

Epistles cf Erasmus

Greek language — continued.

at Paris and Orleans (i 500-1),

232, 233, 236, 270, 283,

302, 313. 314
at Tournehem (1501), 334
at Louvain (i 502-1 504), 353,

372
in Italy (i 506-1 508), 420, 450

Greeks, learned, in Italy, 31, 440,

441
Greverad, advocate, epistle to, 288

Grey, Thomas, pupil of E. 115

mistaken identification of, 115 n
his description as a youth, 137
later circumstances of his life,

115 «
his sisters, nuns at Cambridge,

115 «
epistles to, 137, 139, 140, 141-

And see Register, (36)

Grillard, Professor, at Paris, 144

Grimani, Dominic, Cardinal, 32
visit of E. to him (1509), 461

Grimberg, Antony of, 350

Grocin, William, " preceptor " of E.
225

Grunnius Corocotta, porcellus, Ix

Grunnius, Eambertus, autobiogra-
phical epistle to, Ix-lxiii
cited, 3, 9, 15, 18, 26;/, 29;?,
30 «, 42, 43, 88

Grunnins, an imaginary person, Ixii

Guarino of Verona, 17, 25

Guelderland, at war with Holland,
87, 362

Habits and appearance of E. 36
Hacqueville, Nicolas, President of
Parliament, Paris, 309,
311
Hammes Castle, Lord Mountjoy
captain (1503), 231, 355
E.'s first visit to, 370
his verses upon, 370

Hautbois, Charles, Archbishop of
Tarsus, 312

Health of E. 11, 36. See Fever

Hebrew, study begun by E. 376

Hegius, Alexander, schoolmaster at
Deventer (1465-1498), 7,
16, 17, 23

Hemsdonk, convent, 56

Henry, brother of Christian, 115
leaves Paris (1498), 151, 166
epistle to Christian, 132

Henry, Duke of York (1499), 201,
202
Prince of Wales, correspondent
of Erasmus, 423, 425

Henry, a married man in Paris, 194

Herasmus, name of, 37

Heresy, prosecution for at St. Omer
(1500), 265

Herman, William, of Gouda, 43

his Sylva Odaruni, 15, 26, 11 8,

260
visited by Erasmus at Haarlem,

329

his Apologues, 352, 353, 358
his History of Holland, 362
his correspondence, 80, 94-
100, 103, 121, 170, 174,

i9o> 344> 352, 357
his letters collected with those

of E. XX, 197, 390
mostly lost, xx

Hermonymus, Georgius, of Sparta,
312, 314

Hertogenbosch. See Bois-le-duc

Hervagius, John, successor of
Froben, Ixxxv
Introduction addressed to him,
Ixxv-xci

Heyen, Bertha van, funeral oration
on, xix

Plieronymus. See Jerome.

Hieronymus Balbus, poet, 66, 68

Index

487

Holland, disturbances during re-
gency of Maximilian, 86,
87, 99
its climate agreed with E. 160
frequently visited by E. li. 10,
109, 145, 160, 186, 189,
190

Holonius, sold E.'s Colloquia, Ixxxviii

Homer borrowed by E. from Au-
gustine, 270

Hoorn, James van. See Ceratinus

Horace, E.'s familiarity with, 36

Hutton, Ulric, his quarrel with E, 4

Ichthyophagia, describes Montaigu
College, 108

Illegitimate birth of E. Ixi, 6, 14, 15

Inghirami, Thomas, librarian of the
Vatican, 32, 454
called Phsedra, 32
or Phaedrus, 454

Inns, French and German, con-
trasted by E. 416

Interpretation, a mode of advertising
books, 121, 257, 260

Iphigenia iti Aulis of Euripides,
translated by E. 395, 414
dedicated to Warham, 395

Isocrates, transcript of, 330, 334

Italy, early wish of E. to go thither,

43> 93
later schemes, 160, 190, 195,

225, 236
E. there, 11, 23, 28, 416-465

in the South, 32, 455
journey from, to Holland (1509),

32, 463-465

James Tutor. See Tutor

Jerome, St. his influence on E. xix,

87, 336
compared by E. with Cicero,

Jerome, St. — contimied.

E. preparing to edit(i5oo-i5oi),

283, 288, 303, 314
his Epistles transcribed by E.

75
his works printed at Basel

(1516), 34
edited in part by E. 35
dedicated by him to Warham,

(17)
the " Captive Woman " of
Deuteronomy interpreted
by him, 76

John, an Augustinian monk, 59, 63,
67,83

John, Canon of Brussels, epistles to
169, 326

John, Preceptor to Duke Philip, 103

Jonas, Jodocus, epistle to, 338, 348

Jortin's Life of E. Ivii, w n

Journey of E. from Paris to Tourne-
hem (1499), 183

from Tournehem to Paris

(1500X 231
to Holland (1501), 319
to Italy (i5o6'>, 410, 416
to England (1509), 460, 465

Julius II. Pope, his alleged dispen-
sation to Erasmus, 29,

423
triumph at Bologna, 419, 421

Jullien, Saint, a village near Paris,
adventure at, 247, 249,

257
name probably fictitious, 257

Kan, Dr. J. B. on the authenticity
of " Compendium," 2, 3

Kissing, fashion in England, 203,

204
Koudeberg, a locality in Brussels,

163

Kiihn, John, assisted in editing
Jerome, 34

488

Epistles of Erasmus

Lang, Rodolf, his son in charge of
E. 146, 151, 166, 178

Languages, modern, known to E.

151. 236, 252, 258
Lascaris, Janus, his history, 440,

449
Latin authors studied by E. 64

Latin Grammar, taught without
book, 17

Laurentius Vallensis. See Valla

Le Clerc, John, his edition of E.'s
works, liv-lvi
cited as C. passim

Lent, season unfavourable to E. 12,
121, 124, 234, 348

Leo, Gerardus, printer, 79

Letter-books of E. xxiv, xxvi. See
Deventer MS.

Letters. See Epistles

Letter-writing, Treatise on (1497-8)

129, 165
cited XX, Ixix, 237, 277
dedicated to Rob. Fisher

(1498), 165, 467
letter about it to Mountjoy,

129
MS. in hands of Augustine,

178
E. at work upon it (i499)> i95>

(i5oo-i5oi),266, 276, 285,

287, 297, 305,
pirated edition, Ixxxviii
Levinus, or Livinus, servant of E.

13
Lewis, young servant of E. sent to

Batt, 273, 282, 303, 307
sent to Holland by the Abbot

of St. Ouen, 325
placed with Adrian at St. Omer,

343> 347

epistle to, 345

transcriptions by. See Tran-
scription
Libanius, the Sophist, his Declama-
tion translated by E. 356

Life of Erasmus. See Compendium

Linacre, Thomas, 225, 410
epistles to, 410, (37)

Livinus. See Levinus

Livry, Monastery of, 309, 312

Localities associated with E. Ixxii,

Ixxiii
London edition of Epistles of E. lii

its editor, liv. See Vlacq

cited as Ep. passim

Lopsen, monastery of, 56

name assumed by Cornelius, 56,
57. See Cornelius

Louvain, short stay of E. there
(1498), 162
residence there (1502-3), 10,

351-361
return m 1504, 371, 372
lectureship at University, 23,

28,354,372
later resiaence there begun in

i5i7> (22), (26), (28), (32),

notes
Lubeck, pupils of E. from that town,

no, 115, 146
a gentleman of, epistle to, 151

Lucian, appreciated by E. 356, 371
printed by Aldus (1503), 369
translations by E. (1504-6), 370,

39 15 403, 406, 408, 409

415, 420, (12)
published at Paris (1506), 422

Lucubrations, Catalogue of, 12

Luciibrationes Erasmi (1516), 219

Lucubratiiinculai aliquot {1^04), 191,
219, 361

Ludolf, qu. name substituted for

Adolf, 193
Luther, Martin, Henry VIH.'s book

against, 423, 424

Lutheran movement, its relation to
Erasmus, vii, 12

Lutzenburg, Antony, chaplain to
Abbot of St. Bertin, epistles
to, 280, 298, 315, 316,
335, and see Register of
Epistles, (29)

Index

489

Lying, E.'s aversion to, 12, 18
Lyons, reception at inn there, 416

Macrobius, book borrowed from
Gaguin, 237
cited in Adages, 237

Manuscript, books circulated in, xvii,
xviii, 88. See Transcrip-
tion
books written by E. 130, 155,

156
ornamented by E. 54, 322

Manuscript of St. Augustine's Efi-
chiridion, 233

Manuscript volume of Epistles. See
Deventer Manuscript

Manuscripts of E. Ivii, 2

Margaret, mother of E. 6, 7, 14

Mariad, poem so entitled, 77

Marsus, Peter, a Roman scholar,
318, 468

Martens, Thierry, printer, 361

printed Lucubratiunculx ( 1 503),

361
Enchiridion (1503), 340, 361
Panegyric (1504), 362

Martin, physician, epistle to, 161

Mary, hymns to the Virgin, 297,
298

Mauburn, John, monastic reformer,
308, 311
Abbot of Livry, 309

Maurits, James, a correspondent of

E. 355> 399, 4i8
Mayor, John, Scottish historian,

105
Medici, Cardinal John, afterwards

Leo X. 336
Epistle to, 337

Mdhun, the sorcerer of, 290, 292

Memoirs of E. published upon his
death, xxxviii-lii

Merula, Paul, Editor of Life and
Epistles of E. xlv, i, 2
Epistles first printed by, xxiii

40
his edition of Ennius, 3

Monastic profession, 9, 41
life praised by E. 88

convenient for study, 49, 81
dress disused, 11, 29, 422, 423

Money, French and English, 255,

256, 304* 307
of E. taken at Dover, 227, 274,
277

Montaigu, College, Paris, residence
of E. (1494-5), 10, 27, 104-
109
its situation, 104
austere life there, 108
denounced by Rabelais, 108

Montfort, Lewis, viscount, second
husband of Ann, lady of
Veer, 306, 308, 352

More, Thomas, becomes known to
E. 200

date of his birth, 212

qu. in disgrace during reign
of Henry VII, 405, 406

practising as a barrister (1506),
406

eulogised by E. 406

not superstitiously veracious, 18

epistle to Ruthall, 403

epistle to, 212 ; and see Regis-
ter of Epistles (37)

Mountjoy, William Blount, lord,

115, 129, 167
pupil of E. at Paris (1496),

10, 27, 115
returns to England (1497), 127
his first marriage (1497), 127,

128
his fourth wife (1521), 128 «.
his first public employment,

129
his second visit to Paris (1498

1499), Ixxi, 167
Erasmus living with him (1499),

194

490

Epistles of Erasmus

Mountjoy, William Blount, lord —
continued.

invites E. to England (1499),

96, 198
Adagia dedicated to him

. (1500), 242
again in 1508, 442
captain of the Castle of

Hammes, 231, 355
High Steward of Cambridge

University, 165
E. dissatisfied with his liber-
ality, 274
epistle from him, 457
epistles to him, 129, 167, 213,

243, 442 ; and see Register

of Epistles (37)
epistles possibly addressed to

him, 238, 241

Music, sent from Artois as a pre-
sent to Cardinal Medici,
337

Musurus, Marcus, of Crete, 31, 438,
440, 441, 449
archbishop of Monovasia, 441

Names borne by Erasmus, 37-39

Naples, E. at, 32, 455

Nassau, brothers, from Breda, 298

Natalis, a Franciscan divine, 195,
197, 198

New Testament. See Testament

New Year's present, 434

Nicasius of Cambrai, epistle to, 150

Nicolas, provost of Utrecht, 298,

31 7> 328, 359
Niger, Franciscus, an author, 129
Noble, an English coin, its value,

304, 307
Nolhac, M. Pierre, his " Erasmus

in Italy," 423
Letters to Aldus, printed by

him, 428, 432, 450, 451,

465

Noorthon. See Christian and
Henry

Noviomagus, Gerardus, proposed
biographer of E. 12 And
see Register of Epistles, 38

Obrecht, John, a correspondent of

E. 418, 419
Obsecratio ad Virginem, 376

Opulentia Sordida, Colloquy, its
subject, 448

Opus Epistolarum^ xxxiv, xxxv,
xxxvii

Oratio funebris de Berta de Heyen
(1487), 87

Oratio de Pace contra factiosos
(i486), 87

Oration, a model, sent to Cornelius,
60, 61

Ordination of E. 85

Origen, his works read by E. 376
edited by E. (1536) with
Preface of Beatus, 23

Orleans, residence of E. (1500),
258-287
visit to (1506), 416

Ormond, Thomas Butler, earl of,
stepfather of Mountjoy,
115, 127

Ormond, Lore, countess of, mother
of Mountjoy, 127

Oxford, stay of E. at (1499), 205-

225
duration of it, 224

Pace, Richard, known to E. 443
their meeting at Ferrara, 100,

426, 451
his book de Friictu Doctrinoe,

444
epistles to and from ; see
Register (27), (32), {zz)

Padua, E. at (1508), 11, 449

Index

491

Paduan professors, 449

Pcean Virgini dicendus, 376

Painting, skill of E. in, 54

Palazzo di Venezia, at Rome, 461
visit of E. to, 461-463

Paludanus, Petrus, 170^2

Paludanus (Desmarais), loannes, of
Louvain, E. his guest, 357

Preface of Panegyric addressed
to him, 365

Dedication of Lucian, 409

Panegyric of Archduke Philip, 35S,

361
presented to the Prince by E.

(Jan. 1504), 361
dedicated to Bp. of Arras, 363
printed at Antwerp, 365

Pare Abbey, near Louvain, MS.
borrowed from, 380, 386

Parentage of E. 14

Pans, great inundation there (1497),

125, 126
University, E. a student there

(1494), ID, 27, 104
Bachelor of Theology, 141
police of the city, 179
E. driven away by plague

(1500), 262, 268
returns (Dec. 1500), 287
leaves again (May, 1501), 319
returns for a few months

. (1504-5). 373-386
a visitor there (1506), 410-414

Patrons, principal, of E. 24

Paul's School in London, 77

Paulas ^f'^milius. See /Emilius

Pavia, church of Certosa, 417, 418

Pavius, Michael, 145

Pelican, in Rue St. Jacques, Paris

Perotus, 129

Peter, Bastard of Courtenburne, 348
epistle to, 349

Peter, brother of E. 9, 15, 16

epistle to, 42

Peter de Vaulz at Tournehem, 183,

^li2>, 258, 287
Peter. See Winckel
Phsedrus. See Inghirami

Philelplus, Marius, on letter-writing,

129
Philemon, 292

Philip, duke of Burgundy, 102

epistle of E. to his preceptor,
103

his visit to France and Spain,
(1502-3), 355

Panegyric addressed to him by
E. 361 ; and see Paneg\'ric

King of Castile, his visit to Eng-
land (April, 1506), 398

his death, 420, 425

Philippe, John, of Paris, printed
Adagia, first edition (1500),
245

Pio, Alberto. See Carpi

Picquard, a theologian, 195

Pircman, Francis. See Berckman

Piso, James, Hungarian Envoy at
Rome, Ixxviii, 463

Pius IL Pope. See MnediS Silvius

Places associated with E. Ixxii, Ixxiii

Plague at Paris (1500), 10, 262, 268

Plato, Erasmus buying his works,
283

Plautus, edition of Aldus, corrected
by E. 30, 445

Pliny the younger, his Panegyric of
Trajan, 368

Plumeo, Canon James, at St. Ouen,
'"'6

Poems of E. early, 17, 21, 22, 86,

118
collection printed (1499), 21,

22, 198, 260
Poetry, E.'s criticism of his own, ^

147-149, 210, 211

Polydorus Vergilius. See Vergilius
Pontoise, adventure of E. at, 257

492

Epistles of Erasmus

Prefaces to Epistles, translated,
Ixxiii-xciii

Printing, came into use in childhood
of E. xvi
his first printed works, xviii,
xix, xxvii, 107, 198

Proba, cento of lines from Virgil,

77, 79
class book at St. Paul's School,

Profession of E. as monk, 18

Professorship at Cambridge, 23, 28
at Louvain, 23, 28, 354, 372

Prose works of E. early, 86-88
Prosopopceia Brita7int8e,x\x, 11, 202,

245> 436
Psalm, Third, Paraphrased, 13

Publication of books in manuscript,
xvi, xvii, xxii, 86, 232. See
Transcription

Pupils of E. 109, 123, 151
Augustine, iii
Christian, 109, iii, 114
Henry, brother of Christian, 115
Robert Fisher, 115
Lord Mountjoy, 115
Thomas Grey, 115
the tutor of English boarding

house, 116
the son of Rodolf Lang of

Lubeck,
others not named, 155, 178

Quarrel of E. with the Tutor at
Paris, 133-136
with Dr. Clifton, 416, 426

Quarrels, literary, of E. 12

Quintilian, a copy borrowed by E.
238

Rabelais, his description of Montaigu

College, 108, 109
student of Erasmus's works, 109
wrote to Erasmus about Scali-

ger (1532), 442, 471
his epistle in Latin, 472

Raphael the Painter, 454

Ratio Studii. See Register of Epistles,

(10) n
Reggio, Raphael, Professor at Padua,

449
Reich, Dr. Max, his work on E.

Iviii, lix

Renaissance of hterature and art,

67 _
Revision of epistles by E. lix, Ix

Reyner Snoy, editor of Herasini
Silva Carminum, 85, 86,
372

author of a History of Holland,
372, 400

epistle to E. 372

Reuchlin, a transcriber of books,
xvi

collections of his correspond-
ence, Iviii

epistles by and to him. See
Register, (38)

Rhetoric, E. a teacher of, at Paris.
See Pupils
refuses to teach at Oxford,

222

Richter, Arthur, his Erasmus-
Studien, Iviii, Ixix

Rogerii, a surname of E. 39

Rogerus, surname of Servatius,
189

Rombold, a teacher of E. 8, 18

Rome, visited by E. (1509) 11, 32,

453-464
his chief friends there, 32, 454,
461, 463

Rose, golden, sent by the Pope to
Philip, archduke of Bur-
gundy, 162, 163
to Henry VHI. 464

Roterodamus, name of, 38, 39

Rotterdam, birthplace of E. 16, 25,

43,
of Peter his brother, 15, 16
of Servatius, 16, 43

Index

493

Ruistre, Nicholas, Bp. of Arras,

358
epistles to him by E. 358,

365
Ruthall, Dr. Thomas, Secretary to
Henry VII. epistle of
More to, 403
epistles of E. to, 408, (14), (19)

St. Andrews, Alex. Stewart, Archbp.
of, pupil of E. 23, 30, 449,

452
his parting with E. 455
killed at Flodden, 452

St. George, Raphael, Cardinal of,
II

St. Omer, Abbey of St. Bertin. See

Bertin, St.
Franciscan Convent, 338, 347
E. there '1500), 256, (1501),

338, (1502), 347, 350

Sanderburg, Veer, inscriptions at,
175

Sapidus, Joannes, Antiba7-bari dedi-
cated to, 100

Sasboud, epistle to, 54

Sauvage, John, Chancellor of Bur-
gundy, II, 36

Savoy, journey of E. through,
416

Say, Sir AVilliam, father-in-law of
Mountjoy, 200

Scaliger, Jul. Csesar, 15, 442, 448,
471

Scholars, German and Italian, fif-
teenth century, 66, 67

Schools of E. at Gouda, Deventer,
and Bois-le-duc, 7, 16,
18
punishments excessive, 19
interest of E. in schools and
schoolmasters, 360

Scotistic theology, 27, 144

Scottish Peerage, addition to, 175

Scriverius, Peter (1607, 161 5), had
MSS. of Erasmus, 2
his Erasmi Vita, li, Hi
his edition of Epistles, lii,
xciii

Scutatus or aureus, French coin,

249' 255, 256
De Senectute, Poem by E. 416
Sermons preached by E. at Paris

(1494-5). 104
Servatius, Rogerus Roterodamus,

44, 46
epistles to, 44-51, 190, 344,

388, 419, 420
Prior of Stein, 373

autobiographical epistle of E.
to, xxxviii-xliv, 30 n

Severin St., Abbey of, 308
Sevigne, Mad. de, educated at Livry,

309
Siena, E. at, 23, 452, 453

Silva Carminum Iferasmi, 22, 198,
260

Sinthen (Sintheim, Zinthius), teacher
at Deventer, 7, 16, 25

Sion, Augustinian monastery of, 8

Sixtinus, loannes, a Frisian lawyer,
at Oxford (1499), 209
epistles of, 209, (12), (18), (27)
epistles to, 210, 215, (29)

Skelton, John, instructor of Prince
Henry (1499), 202

Slee, Rev. J. C. van, x, 17, 56

Snoy, Reyner, editor of E.'s Juvenile
Poems. See Reyner

Socrates, his opinion of Rhetoric,

364
Sorcer)', story of. See Wizard

Standonk, John, a University re-
former, 105, 308

relations of Erasmus with, 272,
308

adviser of Mauburn at Livry,
308, 311

2 L

494

Epistles of Erasmus

Stanley, James, Bishop of Ely (1506),
116, 117
at Paris in 1496, 117

Stein, Augustinian monastery at,

41
E. entered there, 9, 18, 26, 41,

43
date of his departure, 85, 92

change of prior, 373

Stewart, Alexander, Archbishop of
St. Andrews. See St. An-
drews

Stewart, James, earl of Moray,

455
Study, rules for, no. And see Ratio

Studii

Suffolk, Edmund, earl of, 222

a fugitive (1499) 223 n

Sulpitius, 129, 197
Suspicion, a weakness of E. 257, 267,
338, 442

Terence, familiar to E. as boy,

23, 36
transcribed by E. 156
edition of Aldus corrected by

E. 30, 445
written and printed as prose,

65
study recommended, 156

Terminus, seal of Erasmus with
figure of, 455

Testament, New, edited by E. and
dedicated to Leo X, 35
his Paraphrases, a later work, 36
sources of, 36

Thaleius, Guilhelmus, Ratio Studii
dedicated to him, (10) «

Theobald, uncle of Erasmus, 161

Theodorik. See Francis Theodorik

Theology, relation of E. to, 9, 10,
27, 220, 223
study of, at Montaigu (1495)
106

Theology — conti?med.

at English boarding - house,

118
lectures at the Sorbonne (1498),

156
his plans (1500), 283, 284

Thucydides, translated by Valla, 96,

97. 98
early French and English
Translations, 96

Tournehem Castle, residence of
Antony of Burgundy, and
the lady of Veer, 175
E. invited to, 176, 181
first visit of E. (1499), 183-187
later visit (1500), 228

Transcription, circulation of books
by, xvi-xviii, 86, 88, 177
Erasmus engaged in, 76, 77,

130. 156
his father a transcriber, xvii, 6
works of E. transcribed by

Augustine, 177, 266
by Herman, 121, 123
by Batt, 232, 235, 266
by Lewis, 339, 345> 347
Trebizond, George of, his Treatise

on Rhetoric, 98, 238

Turin University, E. a Doctor there,
24, 28

Tutor, James, takes pupils at Orleans,

263
receives E. as a guest, 263
Cicero de Officiis dedicated to

him, 317
epistles to him, 318, 327, 331,

350

Urbano, Brother, a learned Fran-

cisan, 441
Urban's Greek Grammar, 333
Ursewick, Dr. Christopher, Almoner

to H. VIL 355, 356
Utopia, first called Nu squama, (20) «
Utrecht Cathedral, E. a chorister

there, 16, 25

Index

495

Utrecht, David of Burgundy, bishop
of, 8s

Utrecht, Nicolas of Burgundy, Pro-
vost of, 293, 317, 328,
359

Valla Laurentius, Poggio's epigram

on him, 69, 71
his Elegantix, 67, 72
epitomised by E. See Elegantice.
his translation of Thucydides,

96, 97
his Dialectic, 172
his Annotations on the New

Testament, 380, seq
MS. of his work, 380, 385

Vallis Hierony7Jiiana^ convent, 56

Vaulg or Vaulz, Peter, 233

Veer in Zeeland, Wolfard Borssele,
its lord, 175
his family and connections, 175,

176
Anne Borssele, lady of, 27, 175,
176
receives E. at Tournehem,

185
her character, ib.
epistle to, 294
her second marriage, 308, 317,

352
a prisoner at Veer, 328
visited by E. 319

Vegetius, de Re Mi/itari, 144

Venice, arrival of E. at, 437

residence at, 11, 30, 437-449
Cardinal of. See Grimani

Veracity, obligation of, 18, 366, 367

Vergilius, Polydorus, his Proverbi-
ormn Libellus, earlier than
the Adages, 242
editions of this book, ib.

Vestment, a present from England
to the Bishop of Cambrai,
166

Virgil, cento of Hues from, 77. See
Proba

Virtute, de Ampledenda, Epistle to
Adolf of Veer, 191

Vischer, Professor, his Erasmiana,

30 71

Vita Erasmi. See Compendium
Viterbo, Giles, Cardinal of, 32
Vitrarius, loannes. Warden of Fran-
ciscan convent, St. Omer,
338> 346, 347
Vlacq, Adrian, probable editor of
Epistolse, Erasmi (London,
1642), liv

Warbeck, Perkin, 161

Warden of Franciscan Convent at
St. Omer, a friend of E.
338. See Vitrarius

Warham, William, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 11, 392
his liberality to E. 33
Jerome dedicated to him, 35,

(17)
Translations from Euripides
dedicated to him, 393, 395,

431
from Lucian, (12)
epistles to him, 395, 431, (12),

(i3),.(i7)
from him to E. and More,
(12), (18), (20), (24), (29),
(31)
Wentford, Roger, Master of St.
Antony's School, London,
friend of E. 413

Werckman, Otho, possessor of MS.
Cotnpendium Vitce, 2
dedication to him, xcii

Werner, Nicolas, Prior of Stein, 94
epistles to, 117, 125, 159, 163,
353
Whitford, Richard, Fellow of Queen's
College, Cambridge, chap-
lain to Mountjoy, 165
chaplain to Bishop Fox, 406
epistle to, 406

496

Epistles of Erasmus

Winckel, Peter, of Gouda, school-
master, 8, 1 6
guardian of E. 40, 41
epistle to, 41
Windesheim, important Augustinian
Abbey, 308

Wine, E. no abstainer, 160, 448
Wizard of Mehun, story of, 290, 292,

314
Worms, Diet of, 35

Year, various commencements of,
Ixviii-lxx, 354, 361

Year — continued.

usage at Paris not uniform, 118
nor at Antwerp, 362

Year-date, rarely original in early
letters of E. Ixv-lxvii, 337
interpretation of, Ixvii-lxxi

Zeeland. E. in (1501), 328

Zieriksee, E. at (1501), 319, 326,
^28

Zinthius. See Sinthen

Printed by J. B. Nichols <k So.is, Parliameiit Mansions, Victoria Street, S.W.

bindin:^

NOV 15134(1

8511

A5E56

1901

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Erasmus, Desiderius

The epistles of Erasmus

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Full text of "The epistles of Erasmus, from his earliest letters to his fifty-first year, arranged in order of time : English translations from the early correspondence, with a commentary confirming the chronological arrangement, and supplying further biographical matter"

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