I. SECOND VISIT OF ERASMUS TO ENGLAND (1505-6).
[Sidenote: Erasmus again is More’s guest.]
Towards the close of 1505, Erasmus arrived in England, to renew his
intimacy with his English friends.[310] He had not this time to visit
Oxford in order to meet them. Colet, Grocyn, Linacre, More, and his friend
Lilly, all were ready to receive him with open arms in London. He seems,
for a time at least, to have been More’s guest.[311]
Since Erasmus had last seen him, the youth had matured into the man. He
had passed through much discipline and mental struggle. But his grey eye
sparkled still with native wit, and a hasty glance round his rooms was
enough to assure his old friend that his tastes were what they used to
be--that in heart and mind, in spite of all that had befallen him, he was
the same high-toned and happy-hearted soul he always had been.
[Sidenote: More’s wife.]
More’s young and gentle wife, fresh from the retirement of her father’s
country home, was too uncultured to attract much notice from the learned
foreigner; but he tells us More had purposely chosen a wife whom he could
mould to his own liking for a life companion. Both were young, and she was
apt to learn. Whilst, therefore, he himself found time to devote to his
favourite Greek books and his lyre, he was imparting by degrees to her his
own fondness for literature and music.[312]
[Sidenote: More’s epigrams.]
Erasmus found him writing Latin epigrams and verses, in which the pent-up
bitter thoughts of the past year or two were making their escape. Some
were on priests and monks--sharp biting satires on their evil side, and by
no means showing abject faith in monkhood.[313]
Nor was he courting back again the favour of offended royalty by melodious
and repentant whinings. Rather his pen gave vent to the chafed and untamed
spirit of the man who knew he had done his duty, and was unjustly
suffering for it. His unrelenting hatred of the king’s avarice and tyranny
may be read in the very headings of his epigrams.[314]
[Sidenote: Translations from Lucian.]
[Sidenote: Fascination of Erasmus for More.]
Erasmus joined More in his studies.[315] He was translating into Latin
some of Lucian’s Dialogues and his ‘Declamatio pro Tyrannicidâ.’ At More’s
suggestion they both wrote a full answer to Lucian’s arguments in favour
of tyrannicide, imitating Lucian’s style as nearly as possible; and
Erasmus, in sending a copy of these essays to a friend, spoke of More in
terms which show how fully he had again yielded to the fascination and
endearing charms of his character. As he had once spoken of the youth, so
now he spoke of the man. Never, he thought, had nature united so fully in
one mind so many of the qualities of genius--the keenest insight, the
readiest wit, the most convincing eloquence, the most engaging manners--he
possessed, he said, every quality required to make a perfect
advocate.[316]
Such a man, with fair play and opportunity, was sure to rise into
distinction. But as yet he must bide his time, waiting for the day when he
could pursue his proper calling at the bar without risk of incurring royal
displeasure.
II. ERASMUS AGAIN LEAVES ENGLAND FOR ITALY (1506).
Erasmus seems to have spent some months during the spring of 1506 with his
English friends, busying himself, as already mentioned, in translating in
More’s company portions of Lucian’s works, and, so far as his letters show
at first sight, not very eagerly pursuing those sacred studies at which he
had told Colet that he longed to labour.
[Sidenote: Erasmus longs to visit Italy, but wants funds.]
Nor was there really anything inconsistent in this. The truth was that, in
order to complete his knowledge of Greek, without which he had declared he
could do nothing thoroughly, he had yet to undertake that journey to Italy
which had been the dream of his early manhood, and the realisation of
which six years ago had only been prevented by his unlucky accident at
Dover. This journey to Italy lay between him and the great work of his
life, and still the adage of Plautus remained inexorable, ‘Sine pennis
volare haud facile est.’
It was therefore that he was translating Lucian. It was therefore that he
dedicated one dialogue to one friend, another to another.[317] It was
therefore that he paid court to this patron of learning and that. It was
not that he was importunate and servilely fond of begging, but that, by
hook or by crook, the necessary means must be found to carry out his
project.
It was thus that we find Grocyn rowing with him to Lambeth to introduce
him to Archbishop Warham, and the two joking together as they rowed back
to town, upon the small pecuniary result of their visit.[318]
[Sidenote: Erasmus leaves for Italy, with two pupils.]
Funds, it appeared, did not come in as quickly as might have been wished,
but at length the matter was arranged. Erasmus was to proceed to Italy,
taking under his wing two English youths, sons of Dr. Baptista, chief
physician to Henry VII. A young Scotch nobleman, the Archbishop of St.
Andrew’s, was also to be placed under the scholar’s care.[319] By this
arrangement Erasmus was, as it were, to work his passage; which he
thankfully agreed to do, and set out accordingly. With what feelings he
left England, and with what longings to return, may be best gathered from
the few lines he wrote to Colet from Paris, after having recovered from
the effects of the journey, including a rough toss of four days across the
Straits:--
_Erasmus to Colet._
‘Paris: June 19, 1506.
[Sidenote: Letter to Colet from Paris.]
‘When, after leaving England, I arrived once more in France, it is
hard to say how mingled were my feelings. I cannot easily tell you
which preponderated, my joy in visiting again the friends I had before
left in France, or my sadness in leaving those whom I had recently
found in England. For this I can say truly, that there is no whole
country which has found me friends so numerous, so sincere, learned,
obliging, so noble and accomplished in every way, as the one City of
London has done. Each has so vied with others in affection and good
offices, that I cannot tell whom to prefer. I am obliged to love all
of them alike. The absence of these must needs be painful; but I take
heart again in the recollection of the past, keeping them as
continually in mind as if they were present, and hoping that it may so
turn out that I may shortly return to them, never again to leave them
till death shall part us. I trust to you, with my other friends, to do
your best for the sake of your love and interest for me to bring this
about as soon and as propitiously as you can.
‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am with the disposition of the sons
of Baptista: nothing could be more modest or tractable; nor could they
be more diligent in their studies. I trust that this arrangement for
them may answer their father’s hopes and my desires, and that they may
hereafter confer great honour upon England. Farewell.’[320]
[Sidenote: Letter to Linacre.]
To Linacre, too, Erasmus wrote in similar terms. He alluded to the
unpleasant consequences to his health of his four days’ experience of the
winds and waves, and wished, he said, that Linacre’s medical skill were at
hand to still his throbbing temples. He expressed, as he had done to
Colet, the hope that he soon might be able to return to England, and that
the task he had undertaken with regard to his two pupils, might turn out
well; and he ended his letter by urging his friend to write to him often.
Let it be in few words, if he liked, but he must write.[321]
III. ERASMUS VISITS ITALY AND RETURNS TO ENGLAND (1507-10).
At length Erasmus really was on his way to Italy, trudging along on
horseback, day after day, through the dirt of continental roads,
accompanied by the two sons of Dr. Baptista, their tutor, and a royal
courier, commissioned to escort them as far as Bologna.
[Sidenote: Erasmus on his way to Italy.]
[Sidenote: German inns.]
It is not easy to realise the toil of such a journey to a jaded delicate
scholar, already complaining of the infirmities of age, though as yet not
forty. Strange places, too, for a fastidious student were the roadside
inns of Germany, of which Erasmus has left so vivid a picture, and into
which he turned his weary head each successive night, after grooming his
own horse in the stable. One room serves for all comers, and in this one
room, heated like a stove, some eighty or ninety guests have already
stowed themselves--boots, baggage, dirt and all. Their wet clothes hang on
the stove iron to dry, while they wait for their supper. There are footmen
and horsemen, merchants, sailors, waggoners, husbandmen, children, and
women--sound and sick--combing their heads, wiping their brows, cleaning
their boots, stinking of garlic, and making as great a confusion of
tongues as there was at the building of Babel! At length, in the midst of
the din and stifling closeness of this heated room, supper is spread--a
coarse and ill-cooked meal--which our scholar scarcely dares to touch, and
yet is obliged to sit out to the end for courtesy’s sake. And when past
midnight Erasmus is shown to his bedchamber, he finds it to be rightly
named--there is nothing in it but a _bed_; and the last and hardest task
of the day is now to find between its rough unwashed sheets some chance
hours of repose.
[Sidenote: Journey over the Alps.]
So, almost in his own words,[322] did Erasmus fare on his way to Italy.
Nor did comforts increase as Germany was left behind. For as the party
crossed the Alps, the courier quarrelled with the tutor, and they even
came to blows. After this, Erasmus was too angry with both to enjoy the
company of either, and so rode apart, composing verses on those
infirmities of age which he felt so rapidly encroaching upon his own frail
constitution.[323] At length the Italian frontier was reached, and
Erasmus, as Luther did three or four years after,[324] began the painful
task of realising what that Italy was about which he had so long and so
ardently dreamed.
[Sidenote: Erasmus in Italy.]
[Sidenote: Erasmus returns to England.]
It is not needful here to trace Erasmus through all his Italian
experience. It presents a catalogue of disappointments and discomforts
upon which we need not dwell. How his arrangement with the sons of
Baptista, having lasted a year, came to an end, and with it the most
unpleasant year of his life;[325] how he took his doctor’s degree at
Turin; how he removed to Bologna to find the city besieged by Roman
armies,[326] headed by Pope Julius himself; how he visited Florence[327]
and Rome;[328] how he went to Venice to superintend a new edition of the
‘Adagia;’ how he was flattered, and how many honours he was promised, and
how many of these promises he found to be, as injuries ought to be,
written on sand;--these and other particulars of his Italian experience
may be left to the biographer of Erasmus. In 1509, on the accession of
Henry VIII. to the English throne, the friends of Erasmus sent him a
pressing invitation to return to England,[329] which he gladly accepted.
For our present purpose it were better, therefore, to see him safely on
his horse again, toiling back on the same packhorse roads, lodging at the
same roadside inns, and meeting the same kind of people as before, but his
face now, after three or four years’ absence, set towards England, where
there are hearts he can trust, whether he can or cannot those in Rome, and
where once again, safely housed with More, he can write and talk to Colet
as he pleases, and forget in the pleasures of the present the toils and
disappointments of the past.[330]
[Sidenote: ‘_Praise of Folly._’]
For what most concerns the history of the Oxford Reformers is this--that
it was to beguile these journeys that Erasmus conceived the idea of his
‘Praise of Folly,’ a satire upon the follies of the times which had grown
up within him at these wayside inns, as he met in them men of all classes
and modes of life, and the keen edge of which was whetted by his recent
visit to Italy and Rome.[331] What most concerns the subject of these
pages is the mental result of the Italian journey, and it was not long
before it was known in almost every wayside inn in Europe.
IV. MORE RETURNS TO PUBLIC LIFE ON THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. (1509-10).
But little can be known of what happened to Colet and More during the
absence of Erasmus in Italy.
That Colet was devoted to the work of his Deanery may well be imagined.
[Sidenote: More thinks of fleeing from England.]
As to More; during the remaining years of Henry VII.’s reign, he was
living in continual fear--thinking of flying the realm[332]--going so far
as to pay a visit to the universities of Louvain and Paris,[333] as though
to make up his mind where to flee to, if flight became needful.[334]
[Sidenote: Empson and Dudley.]
[Sidenote: Henry VII.’s exactions.]
[Sidenote: Henry VII. dies.]
Nor were these fears imaginary. More was not alone in his dread of the
King. Daily the royal avarice was growing more unbounded. Cardinal
Morton’s celebrated fork--the two-pronged dilemma with which benevolences
were extracted from the rich by the clever prelate--had been bad enough.
The legal plunder of Empson and Dudley was worse. It filled every one with
terror. ‘These two ravening wolves,’ writes Hall, who lived near enough to
the time to feel some of the exasperation he described, ‘had such a guard
of false perjured persons appertaining to them, which were by their
commandment empannelled on every quest, that the King was sure to win
whoever lost. Learned men in the law, when they were required of their
advice, would say, “to agree is the best counsel I can give you.” By this
undue means, these covetous persons filled the King’s coffers and enriched
themselves. At this unreasonable and extortionate doing noblemen grudged,
mean men kicked, poor men lamented, preachers openly at Paul’s Cross and
other places exclaimed, rebuked, and detested, but yet they would never
amend.’[335] Then came the general pardon, the result, it was said, of the
remorse of the dying King, and soon after the news of his death.
[Sidenote: Accession of Henry VIII.]
Henry VIII. was proclaimed King, 23rd April, 1509. The same day Empson and
Dudley were sent to the Tower, and on the 17th of August, in the following
year, they were both beheaded.
More was personally known to the new King, and presented to him on his
accession a richly illuminated vellum book, containing verses of
congratulation.[336] These verses have been disparaged as too adulatory in
their tone. And no doubt they were so; but More had written them evidently
with a far more honest loyalty than Erasmus was able to command when he
wrote a welcome to Philip of Spain on his return to the Netherlands. More
honestly did rejoice, and with good reason, on the accession of Henry
VIII. to the throne. It not only assured him of his own personal safety;
it was in measure like the rise of his own little party into power.
[Sidenote: The Oxford Reformers in favour with the King; but no mere
courtiers.]
Not that More and Colet and Linacre were suddenly transformed into
courtiers, but that Henry himself, having been educated to some extent in
the new learning, would be likely at least to keep its enemies in check
and give it fair play. There had been some sort of connection and sympathy
between Prince Henry in his youth and More and his friends; witness More’s
freedom in visiting the royal nursery. Linacre had been the tutor of
Henry’s elder brother, and was made royal physician on Henry’s
accession.[337] From the tone of More’s congratulatory verses it may be
inferred that he and his friends had not concealed from the Prince their
love of freedom and their hatred of his father’s tyranny. For these
verses, however flattering in their tone, were plain and outspoken upon
this point as words well could be. With the _suaviter in modo_ was united,
in no small proportion, the _fortiter in re_. It would be the King’s own
fault if, knowing, as he must have done, More’s recent history, he should
fancy that these words were idle words, or that he could make the man,
whose first public act was one of resistance to the unjust exactions of
his father, into a pliant tool of his own! If he should ever try to make
More into a courtier, he would do so at least with his royal eyes open.
[Sidenote: More made under-sheriff of London.]
How fully Henry VIII. on his part sided with the people against the
counsellors of his father was not only shown by the execution of Dudley,
but also by the appointment, almost immediately after, of Thomas More to
the office of under-sheriff in the City, the very office which Dudley
himself had held at the time when, as speaker of the House of Commons, he
had been a witness of More’s bold conduct--an office which he and his
successor had very possibly used more to the King’s profit than to the
ends of impartial justice.
The young lawyer who had dared to incur royal displeasure by speaking out
in Parliament in defence of the pockets of his fellow-citizens, had
naturally become a popular man in the City. And his appointment to this
judicial office was, therefore, a popular appointment.
[Sidenote: More’s tested high principle.]
The spirit in which More entered upon its responsible duties still more
endeared him to the people. Some years after, by refusing a pension
offered him by Henry VIII., he proved himself more anxious to retain the
just confidence of his fellow-citizens, in the impartiality of his
decisions in matters between them and the King, than to secure his own
emolument or his Sovereign’s patronage.[338] The spirit too in which he
_re_entered upon his own private practice as a lawyer was illustrated both
by his constant habit of doing all he could to get his clients to come to
a friendly agreement before going to law, and also by his absolute refusal
to undertake any cause which he did not conscientiously consider to be a
rightful one.[339] It is not surprising that a man of this tested high
principle should rapidly rise upon the tide of merited prosperity. Under
the circumstances in which More was now placed, his practice at the bar
became rapidly extensive.[340] Everything went well with him. Once more he
was drinking the wine of life.
[Sidenote: More’s domestic happiness.]
There was probably no brighter home--brighter in present enjoyment, or
more brilliant in future prospects--than that home in Bucklersbury, into
which Erasmus, jaded by the journey, entered on his arrival from Italy. He
must have found More and his gentle wife rejoicing in their infant son,
and the merry voices of three little daughters echoing the joy of the
house.[341]
V. ERASMUS WRITES THE ‘PRAISE OF FOLLY’ WHILE RESTING AT MORE’S HOUSE
(1510 OR 1511).
For some days Erasmus was chained indoors by an attack of a painful
disease to which he had for long been subject. His books had not yet
arrived, and he was too ill to admit of close application of any kind.
[Sidenote: The ‘Praise of Folly,’ written in More’s house.]
To beguile his time, he took pen and paper, and began to write down at his
leisure the satirical reflections on men and things which, as already
mentioned, had grown up within him during his recent travels, and served
to beguile the tedium of his journey from Italy to England. It was not
done with any grave design, or any view of publication; but he knew his
friend More was fond of a joke, and he wanted something to do, to take his
attention from the weariness of the pain which he was suffering. So he
worked away at his manuscript. One day when More came home from business,
bringing a friend or two with him, Erasmus brought it out for their
amusement. The fun would be so much the greater, he thought, when shared
by several together. He had fancied Folly putting on her cap and bells,
mounting her rostrum, and delivering an address to her votaries on the
affairs of mankind. These few select friends having heard what he had
already written, were so delighted with it that they insisted on its being
completed. In about a week the whole was finished.[342] This is the simple
history of the ‘Praise of Folly.’
It was a satire upon follies of all kinds. The bookworm was smiled at for
his lantern jaws and sickly look; the sportsman for his love of butchery;
the superstitious were sneered at for attributing strange virtues to
images and shrines, for worshipping another Hercules under the name of St.
George, for going on pilgrimage when their proper duty was at home. The
wickedness of fictitious pardons and the sale of indulgences,[343] the
folly of prayers to the Virgin in shipwreck or distress, received each a
passing censure.
[Sidenote: Grammarians and schools.]
Grammarians were singled out of the regiment of fools as the most servile
votaries of folly. They were described as ‘A race of men the most
miserable, who grow old in penury and filth in their schools--_schools_,
did I say? _prisons! dungeons!_ I should have said--among their boys,
deafened with din, poisoned by a fœtid atmosphere, but, thanks to their
folly, perfectly self-satisfied, so long as they can bawl and shout to
their terrified boys, and box, and beat, and flog them, and so indulge in
all kinds of ways their cruel disposition.’[344]
[Sidenote: The scholastic system.]
After criticising with less severity poets and authors, rhetoricians and
lawyers, Folly proceeded to re-echo the censure of Colet upon the dogmatic
system of the Schoolmen.
[Sidenote: Scholastic science.]
She ridiculed the logical subtlety which spent itself on splitting hairs
and disputing about nothing, and to which the modern followers of the
Schoolmen were so painfully addicted. She ridiculed, too, the prevalent
dogmatic philosophy and science, which having been embraced by the
Schoolmen, and sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority, had become a part
of the scholastic system. ‘With what ease do they dream and prate of the
creation of innumerable worlds, measuring sun, moon, stars, and earth as
though by a thumb and thread; rendering a reason for thunder, wind,
eclipses, and other inexplicable things; never hesitating in the least,
just as though they had been admitted into the secrets of creation, or as
though they had come down to us from the council of the Gods--_with whom,
and whose conjectures, Nature is mightily amused_!’[345]
[Sidenote: Scholastic theology.]
[Sidenote: Foolish questions.]
From dogmatic science Folly turned at once to dogmatic theology, and
proceeded to comment in her severest fashion on a class whom, she
observes, it might have been safest to pass over in silence--divines.[346]
‘Their pride and irritability are such (she said) that they will come down
upon me with their six hundred conclusions, and compel me to recant; and,
if I refuse, declare me a heretic forthwith.... They explain to their own
satisfaction the most hidden mysteries: how the universe was constructed
and arranged--through what channels the stain of original sin descends to
posterity--how the miraculous birth of Christ was effected--how in the
Eucharistic wafer the accidents can exist without a substance, and so
forth. And they think themselves equal to the solution of such questions
as these:--Whether ... God could have taken upon himself the nature of a
woman, a devil, an ass, a gourd, or a stone? And how in that case a gourd
could have preached, worked miracles, and been nailed to the cross? _What_
Peter would have consecrated if he had consecrated the Eucharist at the
moment that the body of Christ was hanging on the Cross? Whether at that
moment Christ could have been called a man? Whether we shall eat and drink
after the resurrection?’[347] In a later edition[348] Folly is made to say
further:--‘These Schoolmen possess such learning and subtlety that I fancy
even the Apostles themselves would need another Spirit, if they had to
engage with this new race of divines about questions of this kind. Paul
was able “to keep the faith,” but when he said, “Faith is the substance of
things hoped for,” he defined it very loosely. He was full of _charity_,
but he treated of it and defined it very illogically in the thirteenth
chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians.... The Apostles knew the
mother of Jesus, but which of them demonstrated so philosophically as our
divines do in what way she was preserved from the taint of original sin?
Peter received the keys, and received them from Him who would not have
committed them to one unworthy to receive them, but I know not whether
_he_ understood (certainly he never touched upon the subtlety!) in what
way the _key of knowledge_ can be held by a man who _has no knowledge_.
They often baptized people, but they never taught what is the formal, what
the material, what the efficient, and what the ultimate cause of baptism;
they say nothing of its delible and indelible character. They worshipped
indeed, but _in spirit_, following no other authority than the gospel
saying, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth.” But it hardly seems to have been revealed to them,
that in one and the same act of worship the picture of Christ drawn with
charcoal on a wall was to be adored, as well as Christ _himself_....
Again, the Apostles spoke of “grace,” but they never distinguished between
“gratiam gratis datam,” and “gratiam gratificantem.” They preached
charity, but did not distinguish between charity “infused” and “acquired,”
nor did they explain whether it was an accident or a substance, created or
_un_created. They abhorred “_sin_,” but I am a fool if they could define
scientifically _what we call sin_, unless indeed they were inspired by the
spirit of the Scotists!’[349]
[Sidenote: There are some who hate the scholastic method.]
After pursuing the subject further, Folly suggests that an army of them
should be sent against the Turks, not in the hope that the Turks might be
converted by them so much as that Christendom would be relieved by their
absence, and then she is made quietly to say:[350]--‘You may think all
this is said in joke, but seriously, there are some, even amongst divines
themselves, versed in better learning, who are disgusted at these (as they
think) frivolous subtleties of divines. There are some who execrate, as a
kind of sacrilege, and consider as the greatest impiety, these attempts to
dispute with unhallowed lips and profane arguments about things so holy
that they should rather be adored than explained, to define them with so
much presumption, and to pollute the majesty of Divine theology with cold,
yea and sordid, words and thoughts. But, in spite of these, with the
greatest self-complacency divines go on spending night and day over their
foolish studies, so that they never have any leisure left for the perusal
of the gospels, or the epistles of St. Paul.’[351]
Finally, Folly exclaims, ‘Are they not the most happy of men whilst they
are treating of these things? whilst describing everything in the infernal
regions as exactly as though they had lived there for years? whilst
creating new spheres at pleasure, one, the largest and most beautiful,
being finally added, that, forsooth, happy spirits might have room enough
to take a walk, to spread their feasts, or to play at ball?’[352]
With this allusion to the ‘empyrean’ heavens of the Schoolmen, the satire
of Folly upon their dogmatic theology reaches its climax. And in the notes
added by Lystrius to a later edition, it was thus further explained in
terms which aptly illustrate the relation of theology and science in the
scholastic system:--
[Sidenote: Dogmatic theology and dogmatic science.]
‘The ancients believed ... in seven spheres--one to each planet--and to
these they added the one sphere of the fixed stars. Next, seeing that
these eight spheres had two motions, and learning from Aristotle that only
one of these motions affected all the spheres, they were compelled to
regard the other motion as _violent_. A superior sphere could not,
however, be moved in its violent motion by an inferior one. So outside all
they were obliged to place a ninth sphere, which they called “primum
mobile.” To these, in the next place, _divines added a tenth_, which they
called the “empyrean sphere,” as though the saints could not be happy
unless they had a heaven of their own!’[353]
And that the ridicule and satire of Erasmus were aimed at the dogmatism of
both science and theology is further pointed out in a previous note, where
the presumption of ‘neoteric divines’ in attempting to account for
everything, however mysterious, is compared to the way in which
‘astronomers, not being able to find out the cause of the various motions
of the heavens, constructed eccentrics and epicycles on the spheres.’[354]
Thus were the scholastic divines censured for just those faults to which
the eyes of Erasmus had been opened ten years before by his conversation
with Colet at Oxford, and words of more bitter satire could hardly have
been used than those now chosen.
[Sidenote: On Monks.]
_Monks_ came in for at least as rough a handling. There is perhaps no more
severe and powerful passage anywhere in the whole book than that in which
Folly is made to draw a picture of their appearance on the Judgment Day,
finding themselves with the goats on the left hand of the Judge, pleading
hard their rigorous observance of the rules and ceremonies of their
respective orders, but interrupted by the solemn question from the Judge,
‘Whence this race of new Jews? I know only of one law which is really
mine; but of that I hear nothing at all. When on earth, without mystery or
parable, I openly promised my Father’s inheritance, not to cowls, matins,
or fastings, but to the practice of faith and charity. I know you not, ye
who know nothing but your own works. Let those who wish to be thought more
holy than I am inhabit their newly-discovered heavens; and let those who
prefer their own traditions to my precepts, order new ones to be built for
them.’ When they shall hear this (continues Folly), ‘and see sailors and
waggoners preferred to themselves, how do you think they will look upon
each other?’[355]
[Sidenote: On kings, &c.]
Kings, princes, and courtiers next pass under review, and here again may
be traced that firm attitude of resistance to royal tyranny which has
already been marked in the conduct of More. If More in his congratulatory
verses took the opportunity of publicly asserting his love of freedom and
hatred of tyranny in the ears of the new King, his own personal friend, as
he mounted the throne, so Erasmus also, although come back to England full
of hope that in Henry VIII. he might find a patron, not only of learning
in general but of himself in particular, took this opportunity of putting
into the mouth of Folly a similar assertion of the sacred rights of the
people and the duties of a king:--
[Sidenote: Duties of princes.]
[Sidenote: Their practice.]
‘It is the duty (she suggests) of a true prince to seek the public and not
his own private advantage. From the laws, of which he is both the author
and executive magistrate, he must not himself deviate by a finger’s
breadth. He is responsible for the integrity of his officials and
magistrates.... But (continues Folly) by my aid princes cast such cares as
these to the winds, and care only for their own pleasure.... They think
they fill their position well if they hunt with diligence, if they keep
good horses, if they can make gain to themselves by the sale of offices
and places, if they can daily devise new means of undermining the wealth
of citizens, and raking it into their own exchequer, disguising the
iniquity of such proceedings by some specious pretence and show of
legality.’[356]
If the memory of Henry VII. was fresh in the minds of More and Erasmus, so
also his courtiers and tools, of whom Empson and Dudley were the
recognised types, were not forgotten. The cringing, servile, abject, and
luxurious habits of courtiers were fair game for Folly.
From this cutting review of kings, princes, and courtiers, the satire,
taking a still bolder flight, at length swooped down to fix its talons in
the very flesh of the Pope himself.
[Sidenote: On the Pope.]
The Oxford friends had some personal knowledge of Rome and her pontiffs.
When Colet was in Italy, the notoriously wicked Alexander VI. was Pope,
and what Colet thought of him has been mentioned. While Erasmus was in
Italy Julius II. was Pope. He had succeeded to the Papal chair in 1503.
[Sidenote: Pope Julius II.]
Julius II., in the words of Ranke, ‘devoted himself to the gratification
of that innate love of war and conquest which was indeed the ruling
passion of his life.... It was the ambition of Julius II. to extend the
dominions of the Church. He must therefore be regarded as the founder of
the Papal States.’[357] Erasmus, during his recent visit, had himself been
driven from Bologna when it was besieged by the Roman army, led by Julius
in person. He had written from Italy that ‘literature was giving place to
war, that Pope Julius was warring, conquering, triumphing, and openly
acting the Cæsar.’[358] Mark how aptly and boldly he now hit off his
character in strict accordance with the verdict of history, when in the
course of his satire he came to speak of popes. Folly drily observes
that--
[Sidenote: On the folly of war.]
‘Although in the gospel Peter is said to have declared, “_Lo, we have left
all, and followed thee_,” yet these Popes speak of “_St. Peter’s
patrimony_” as consisting of lands, towns, tributes, customs, lordships;
for which, when their zeal for Christ is stirred, they fight with fire and
sword at the expense of much Christian blood, thinking that in so doing
they are Apostolical defenders of Christ’s spouse, the Church, from her
enemies. As though indeed there were any enemies of the Church more
pernicious than impious Popes!... Further, as the Christian Church was
founded in blood, and confirmed by blood, and advanced by blood, now in
like manner, as though Christ were _dead_ and could no longer defend his
own, they take to the sword. And although war be a thing so savage that it
becomes wild beasts rather than men, so frantic that the poets feigned it
to be the work of the Furies, so pestilent that it blights at once all
morality, so unjust that it can be best waged by the worst of ruffians, so
impious that it has nothing in common with Christ, yet to the neglect of
everything else they devote themselves to war alone.’[359]
[Sidenote: Pope Julius II. and his fondness for war.]
And this bold satire upon the warlike passions of the Pope was made still
more direct and personal by what followed. To quote Ranke once
more:--‘_Old as Julius now was_, worn by the many vicissitudes of good and
evil fortune, and most of all by the consequences of intemperance and
licentious excess, in the extremity of age he still retained an
indomitable spirit. It was from the tumults of a general war that he hoped
to gain his objects. He desired to be the lord and master of the game of
the world. In furtherance of his grand aim he engaged in the boldest
operations, risking all to obtain all.’[360] Compare with this picture of
the old age of the warlike Pope the following words put by Erasmus into
the mouth of Folly, and printed and read all over Europe in the lifetime
of Julius himself!
‘Thus you may see even decrepid old men display all the vigour of youth,
sparing no cost, shrinking from no toil, stopped by nothing, if only they
can turn law, religion, peace, and all human affairs upside down.’[361]
In conclusion, Folly, after pushing her satire in other directions, was
made to apologise for the bold flight she had taken. If anything she had
said seemed to be spoken with too much loquacity or petulance, she begged
that it might be remembered that it was spoken by _Folly_. But let it be
remembered, also, she added, that
A fool oft speaks a seasonable truth.
She then made her bow, and descended the steps of her rostrum, bidding her
most illustrious votaries farewell--_valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite_!
[Sidenote: Editions of the ‘Praise of Folly.’]
Such was the ‘Praise of Folly,’ the manuscript of which was snatched from
Erasmus by More or one of his friends, and ultimately sent over to Paris
to be printed there, probably in the summer of 1511, and to pass within a
few months through no less than seven editions.[362]
[Sidenote: Erasmus settled at Cambridge.]
Meanwhile, after recruiting his shattered health under More’s roof,
spending a few months with Lord Mountjoy[363] and Warham,[364] and paying
a flying visit to Paris, it would seem that Erasmus, aided and encouraged
by his friends, betook himself to Cambridge to pursue his studies, hoping
to be able to eke out his income by giving lessons in the Greek language
to such pupils as might be found amongst the University students willing
to learn,--the chance fees of students being supplemented by the promise
of a small stipend from the University.[365]
It seems to have been taken for granted that the ‘new learning’ was now to
make rapid progress, having Henry VIII. for its royal patron, and Erasmus
for its professor of Greek at Cambridge.