ENGLAND (1509-1514)--THE NEW TESTAMENT--THE "DE COPIA VERBORUM ET
RERUM"
The third visit of Erasmus to England was brought about, if we may
trust his own account of it, by very urgent requests on the part of
his English friends. He liked to speak of the "mountains of gold"
which had been promised him if he would only come thither, and it
was a delightful grievance for him to fancy that he had been torn
from his beloved Italy, where he had consistently complained of his
lot, and to which he looked back as the source of all his later
physical ills, only to suffer a new series of misfortunes in England.
The fact very likely was that, hearing of the change of government
in England, and having done what he went to Italy to do, he hoped
for some advantage from a move, and sounded his English friends
on the prospect. Our earliest clue is a letter from Mountjoy,[85]
to which, curiously enough, the date 1497 has been affixed in the
collection. Mountjoy speaks of receiving two letters from him, which
are, unfortunately, lost to us, and also of having written him
personally a congratulatory letter on the completion of his Adages,
which letter, together with the bearer, had been lost on the way.
It is evident, therefore, that so far as Mountjoy was concerned,
Erasmus had not, in any strict sense, been "invited" to come into
England. Evidently he had complained of his misfortunes in Italy, and
consulted with Mountjoy about a change:
[85] iii.¹, 7-E.
"Your letters gave me at once joy and pain. That you should, as
you ought, familiarly and as a friend, confide to your Mountjoy
your plans, your thoughts, your misfortunes and troubles, was a
joy indeed; but to learn that you, my dearest friend, to whom
above all I desire to be of service, were assailed by such
varied shafts of fortune, that was a grief."
Even before the king's death a letter[86] had been sent to Erasmus
by the Prince of Wales, but it contained nothing more than a formal
compliment upon the great clearness of his style, and a mild reproof
that he had had the bad tact to recall to him the recent loss of his
royal brother, the King of Castile. Next time, he hopes, he may write
of something more agreeable.
[86] iii.², 1840-E. The letter, 1839-E, from Henry as king, used
by Mr. Froude at this point to show how urgently Erasmus had been
invited to England, belongs probably many years afterwards.
But, if he was not "called" to England, certainly Erasmus had reason
to believe he would be welcome there. The accession of the young
king, whose generous disposition and taste for the refinements of
life were well known, seemed to open up a vista of promise for all
kinds of talent. Mountjoy writes[87]:
[87] iii.¹, 7-E.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF NEW TESTAMENT, 1519.]
"I have no fear, my dear Erasmus, but that when you hear that
our prince Henry _octavus_, or rather Octavius, has by the death
of his father succeeded to the kingdom, all gloom will at once
vanish from your mind. For what may you not promise yourself
from a prince whose extraordinary--nay, almost divine character
is well known to you; to whom especially you are not merely
known, but known familiarly--why, you have even received letters
from him written with his own hand--a thing which has happened
to few men. If you knew how like a hero he now appears, how
wisely he conducts himself, how he loves truth and justice, what
favour he is showing to men of letters, I dare swear, though you
have no wings, you would fly over to us in all haste to greet
this new and auspicious star.
"Oh! my dear Erasmus, if you could only see how wild with joy
everyone here is, how they are congratulating themselves on
having such a prince, how they pray for nothing more earnestly
than for his life, you could not help weeping for joy. The very
air is full of laughter, the earth dances, everything flows with
milk and honey and nectar. Avarice slinks away far from the
people; generosity scatters wealth with lavish hand. Our king is
eager, not for gold, not for gems and precious stones, but for
virtue, glory, and immortality. I will give you a taste:--the
other day he was wishing himself more learned--'nay,' I said,
'that is not what we wish for you, but rather that you may
welcome and encourage learned men.' 'Why should I not,' he
replied, 'for indeed without them I can scarce exist.' What
nobler word could have fallen from a prince's lips? But I am a
rash fellow to venture out upon the ocean in my slender bark;
let this task be reserved for you. I wanted to preface my letter
with these few words in praise of our divine prince, so that,
if any gloom remains in your heart, I might straightway banish
it, or, if it is all gone, that I might not only confirm the
hope you have formed, but more and more increase it....
"I could console you and bid you be of good cheer, did I not
believe that whatever you could dare to wish for, you have
already on your own account very reasonable hopes of attaining.
You shall think that the last day of your troubles has dawned.
You shall come to a prince who will say:--'here are riches; be
the chief of my poets.'"
The letter then briefly summarises the contents of the lost epistle
and continues:
"I will now go back to your work, which all are praising to the
skies. Above all the archbishop of Canterbury was so pleased
and delighted, that I could not get it out of his hands. 'But,'
you will say, 'so far nothing but praises.' The same archbishop
promises you a living if you will return and has given me five
pounds cash to be sent to you for the journey. I add as much
myself, not really as a gift, for this is not the kind of thing
to be called a gift, but only that you may hasten to us and no
longer torment us with longing for you.
"Finally, there remains only this bit of advice to give: don't
imagine that anything can be more grateful to me than your
letters or that I could be offended by anything from you. I am
exceedingly troubled that your health has become impaired in
Italy; you know I was never greatly in favour of your going
there. But when I see how much work you accomplished and how
much fame you have won there, by Jove! I am sorry I did not go
with you. For I think that such learning and such fame would
be well bought with hunger, poverty, and pain, nay, even with
death. Please find enclosed a draft for the money; look out for
your health and come to us as soon as you can."
Certainly a more than friendly letter. True, Mountjoy makes no
definite promises on his own account, but his glowing picture of
the great times coming for English letters was enough to fire the
ambition of a less credulous scholar than Erasmus. The definite
promise from Archbishop Warham of a church-living and the earnest of
a gift for travelling expenses were attractions not to be resisted.
Erasmus arrived in England in 1509, and remained there until the
early part of 1514. Of these nearly five years we have but little
satisfactory account. There is no indication that it was anyone's
affair to look after him in any way. We know that he lived chiefly
at Cambridge and London. He may even have made a short trip to the
Continent in the interval. He was evidently much concerned with money
matters, making continual complaints of poverty; but at the same time
he lived in apparent comfort, not to say a kind of luxury. What he
meant by poverty was the absence of a sufficient estate from which
to live as he would have liked to live. He certainly had money more
or less regularly from Mountjoy, and at some time during his English
residence he was also handsomely furnished with a regular income by
Warham. The peculiar thing about these English pensions was that they
were generally paid when due, and that was more than could be said
of any of the other benefits promised to Erasmus, either before or
afterward.
The arrangement with Warham was one quite in accord with the practice
of the day in such cases, but not altogether in harmony with some
of Erasmus' lofty pretensions about pecuniary burdens. When Warham
offered Erasmus the "living" of Aldington in Kent, it was rather a
severe test of the famous critic's sincerity in his utterances on
church morality. A more flagrant case of abuse of church funds, so
far as the principle was concerned, could hardly be imagined. Here
was a needy foreigner, who had, to be sure, the ordination of a
priest, but who from the moment of his ordaining had never done a
single clerical act, to be set over a congregation of English souls,
only that their contributions might go to support him in a life of
scholarly production. To be sure there were excuses enough in the
habits of the day, but it was precisely as a critic of such corrupt
practices that Erasmus was now before the world. Another palliation
may be found in the nature of the work which the scholar hoped to do
in the leisure thus acquired. He was laying great and far-reaching
plans for such an advancement of theological study as should bring
in a really new era of Christian faith and practice. Still all such
reasoning could not obscure the real fact that to accept such a
parish living meant to take money for which no proper equivalent was
given to those who furnished it. This was not Warham's money, but
only a trust in his hands for the benefit of the souls of Aldington.
[Illustration: WILLIAM WARHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
FROM A PAINTING BY HOLBEIN, IN THE LOUVRE GALLERY.]
Erasmus' own account[88] of the transaction represents himself as
very reluctant to take the benefice, and Warham as insisting upon
it so urgently that he finally could no longer resist. Fortunately
we have the original documents[89] in Warham's own words, and there
is no hint of any reluctance on Erasmus' part. The fact was, at all
events, that he took the living, did nothing by way of service, and
in a few months resigned it in exchange for an annual pension of
twenty pounds. Warham's account of the matter goes far beyond the
ordinary limits of a deed of record, and is in fact nothing less than
a frank apology for a practice which he did not himself approve. It
was far too common for a parish priest to resign a living with duties
in exchange for a substantial life-pension without duties, and Warham
declares his determination not to permit this sort of thing in the
diocese of Canterbury. He makes, however, an exception in Erasmus'
case, he says, for several reasons: First, he is
[88] Knight's Life of Erasmus, p. 155, note a.
[89] Knight, Appendix, xl., and Vischer's _Erasmiana_, 1876, pp.
8-15.
"moved by the countless good qualities of Erasmus, a man of
consummate ability in Latin and Greek literature, who adorns
our age with his learning and talent like a star, to draw back
a little from our general principle. And no one ought to think
it strange if in the case of so rare a man and one placed
beyond every hazard of genius, we thought we ought to change
somewhat of our previous custom. For when we had conferred on
him a benefice with the cure of souls, namely, the church of
Aldington, although he was extremely learned in theology,
as in every other branch of learning, still as he could not
preach the word of God to his parishioners in English or hold
any communication with them in their own tongue, of which he
is entirely ignorant; for this reason desiring to give up the
before-mentioned church, _he begged us to provide for him an
annual pension_ in the same. We thought that _to agree to his
suggestion_ would be profitable to the souls, and at the same
time he would be able the more freely to pursue those literary
studies to which _he is completely devoted_. We were also not
a little moved by his unusual affection toward the English,
for he had given up Italy, France, and Germany, where he might
have lived prosperously enough, and preferred to betake himself
hither, that he might pass the remnant of his life here among
friends, and that these in turn might enjoy the companionship of
so learned a man."
Here is the plain evidence of a serious document of record that
Erasmus not only took his pension gladly, but actually begged for
it, and it is quite in harmony with this that we afterwards find him
quarrelling with his successor about certain tithes which the latter
thought were to be deducted from the twenty pounds.
This document bears date the last day of July, 1512, so that Erasmus
was unquestionably well provided for from that day on. The date of
his first induction into the parish was March 22, 1511, and as he
thus had a right to the whole income of the place during a year and
a third, there is no reason why he should not have had a tidy sum to
his credit.
The letters of Erasmus during this English visit are few and give
but little insight into his way of life. The most interesting of them
are those written from Cambridge to another foreigner, an Italian,
Andreas Ammonius, who, like himself, had wandered to England to
seek his fortune, and had become a Latin secretary to the young
King Henry VIII. In addition to this function he appears later
as holding some papal commission in England. With this cheerful
and practical specimen of the gay Italian Humanism of the day our
scholar corresponded with great freedom. Ammonius was not troubled
by Erasmus' dread of place-holding, and was frankly enjoying the
sunshine of the court. He seems to have advised Erasmus to try his
fortune also in London. Erasmus replies:
"As for your serious advice that I should pay my court to
Fortune, I acknowledge the true and friendly counsel, and I
will try it, though my mind rebels against it most strongly and
predicts no good and happy outcome. If I had exposed myself to
the risks of Fortune I should have put myself under the laws
of a game, and, if I had got beaten, should be making the best
of it, knowing, as I do, that this is just Fortune's trick, to
set up some and restore others as she pleases. But I thought
I had provided myself against having anything to do with this
wanton mistress, since Mountjoy had brought me into harbour and
into a settled thing. Nor does the kindness of Fortune towards
others, no matter how unworthy, trouble me one particle, so help
me God! The success of you and the like of you brings me a real
and uncommon pleasure. Even if I were compelled to go into a
calculation of my merits, my present fortune would seem beyond
my deserts, for I measure myself by my own foot and not by your
praises."
Little inclined as Erasmus was to try his hand at court, it was not
for lack of theories as to how one might best get on there. He gives
Ammonius the benefit of them in this classic passage[90]:
[90] iii.¹, 122-B.
"Now then I, the sow, will proceed to teach Minerva; but, since
you forbid it, I will not philosophise too much. The first thing
is, give your forehead such a rubbing that you will never blush
at anything. Mix yourself in everybody's business. Elbow aside
everyone you can. Love no one and hate no one with your whole
heart, but measure all things by your own advantage. Let the
whole ordering of your life be turned to this one aim. Give
nothing without hope of a return; agree to all things with all
men. 'But,' you say, 'these are commonplaces.' Well, then, since
you insist upon it, I will give you a special piece of advice,
but in your ear, mind you. You know the jealousy of these
Britons; make use of it for your own good. Ride two horses at
once. Hire various suitors to keep at you. Threaten to leave
and begin to pack up. Show letters calling you away with great
promises; take yourself off somewhere, that absence may sharpen
their desire for you."
This is a very exact description of Erasmus' own tactics in the
Battus days, and continues to fit his action very well whenever he
was considering a change of residence.
In 1511 he writes to Ammonius:
"If you have any trustworthy news, I wish you would let me know
it. I want especially to hear whether Julius is really playing
Julius, and whether Christ keeps up his ancient custom of
specially trying with the storms of adverse fortune those whom
he desires to make specially his own."
Writing from Queen's College in August, 1511, he says:
"I am sending you some letters which I have written to Bombasius
[his learned friend, we remember, in Bologna]. As to myself
I have nothing new to write, save that the journey was most
uncomfortable and that my health is so far very dubious on
account of that over-exertion. I expect to make a somewhat
longer stay in this college, but as yet I have not given much of
myself to my hearers, desiring to look out for my health. The
beer in this place I don't like at all and the wine is far from
satisfactory. If you can order me a flagon of Greek wine, the
very best you can find, you will make your Erasmus happy, but
let it be very far from sweet. Don't worry about the money; I
will pay in advance if you like."
Ammonius sent the wine, not so much as Erasmus had expected, but
refused with some heat to hear of pay, and we have Erasmus' reply:
"You have given me a double pleasure, most amiable Ammonius,
by sending with your merry wine letters far merrier still, and
smacking exactly of your genius and disposition, and these in my
judgment are the sweetest that ever were. As to my mention of
pay which makes you so angry, indeed I was not ignorant of your
character, which is worthy of a kingly fortune. But I supposed
you were going to send me a great flagon, enough to last me
several months--yet even this is too large for a modest man to
receive without pay.... I marvel that you stick to your nest so
perpetually and never take a flight away. If you should ever be
pleased to visit this Academy you would be welcomed by many, by
me first of all. You bid me come back to you if I get too tired
here, but I can't see any attraction for me in London except the
companionship of two or three friends."
Ammonius accompanied the English army in the Flemish campaign of
1513, and Erasmus writes to him in camp, thanking him for the vivid
description of army life which he has sent home, and introducing him
to various friends of his own in the Low Countries.
"O happy man," he says, "if God permits you to return safely
to us! What merry tales your experience of these horrors
will supply you with for the rest of your life! But, my dear
Ammonius, I beseech you again and again, as I have cautioned
you in my recent letters, by the Muses and Graces, look out
that you do your fighting from a safe distance. Be as furious
as you like--with your pen,--and slay with it ten times ten
thousand men a day." As for himself, he says he is hanging on at
Cambridge, "looking about me every day for a convenient chance
to fly away. Only no opportunity offers. I am kept also by
the thirty nobles which I am expecting at Michaelmas. I am so
on fire with zeal to re-edit Jerome and to illustrate it with
commentaries, that I seem to be inspired by some god. I have now
nearly completed the revision and have collated many ancient
texts, and all this at great expense to myself."
[Illustration: QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
FROM KNIGHT'S "LIFE OF ERASMUS."]
At Cambridge, as elsewhere, Erasmus seems always to have been on the
eve of flight, working away at what interested him, but neglecting
everything else as far as possible.
"I wrote to you once and again in camp," he says to Ammonius,
"but meanwhile was in a no less serious warfare here with my
emendations of Seneca and Jerome than you with the Frenchmen.
Although I was not in camp, Durham has given me ten crowns
from the French plunder;--but I'll tell you all about this
when I see you, and meanwhile will be on the lookout for your
military letters.--Good-bye, best of friends. I don't need to
ask of you what you are always doing of your own accord, and
yet I do ask that if any chance offers you will help me along
with a word of recommendation. For these few months I have cast
anchor securely. If things go well, I will fancy that here is my
native land, which I have preferred to Rome and where old age
is coming upon me; if not I will break away, it doesn't much
matter whither, and will at all events die somewhere else. I
will call upon all the gods to bear witness to the confidence by
which _he whom you know_ has ruined me. If I had promised with
three words what he has repeated so often and in such sounding
phrases, I know that what I promised I would have performed.
May I be damned if I wouldn't rather die than let a man who was
dependent on me go destitute. I congratulate you, dear Ammonius,
that Fortune, not always so unjust as she is to me, is now, as I
hear, smiling upon you. Good-bye again."
"For months now," he writes, "I have been living the life of a
snail, shut up at home and brooding in silence over my studies.
There is a great deal of solitude here; many are away through
fear of the plague,--though even when everyone is here it is a
solitude. The expense is intolerable and there is not a farthing
of profit. Think of it! I swear by all that's sacred that in the
five months since I came here I have spent sixty nobles and have
only received one from some of my hearers and that with much
reluctance on my part. It is certain that during this winter I
shall leave no stone unturned and, as they say, shall weigh the
anchor of my safety. If things go well, I shall make myself a
nest somewhere; if not, I shall certainly fly away from here, I
know not whither; if nothing else I will at least die elsewhere."
Ammonius reports upon his progress in begging for Erasmus, and
Erasmus, quite in the tone of the old correspondence with Battus,
thanks him and urges him to further effort.
These dolorous letters bear date 1511, but cannot all belong in that
year, and month and day are often obviously incorrect. Dated early in
1512 we have a letter to the abbot of St. Bertin. After explaining
why he had not reported himself earlier, Erasmus goes on to say:
"If you care to hear how I am getting on: Erasmus is almost
completely transformed into an Englishman, with such
distinguished consideration am I treated by very many others,
but especially by my incomparable (_unicus_) Mæcenas, the
archbishop of Canterbury,--patron not of me alone, but of all
learned men, among whom I hold the lowest place, if indeed I
hold any place at all. Eternal God! how happy, how productive,
how ready is the talent of that man! What skill in unravelling
the most weighty matters of business! what uncommon learning!
what unheard-of graciousness towards all! what geniality in
company, so that,--a truly royal quality,--he sends no one
away from him sad. And besides all this: what great and ready
generosity! Finally, in such a conspicuous position of fortune
and rank, how absolutely free from haughtiness,--so that he
seems to be the only one who is ignorant of his own greatness.
In caring for his friends no one is more faithful or more
constant. In short he is indeed _Primas_, not in rank alone but
in all praiseworthy things. Since I have this man for a friend,
why should I not deem myself exceptionally fortunate, even if
there were nothing more?"
It is idle to attempt to determine which of these moods represents
the real state of mind of Erasmus at Cambridge. Probably he was at
his old tricks of making himself valued by threatening to leave an
unbearable situation, and at the same time making that situation
appear as delightful as possible to anyone outside who might
conceivably raise a bid for him in another quarter. He tells Ammonius
again how charming Italy was to him and what a prospect he had given
up there to come to England. He thinks he will come to London, and
begs Ammonius to find him a warm lodging not too far from St. Paul's.
He cannot go to Mountjoy's so long as "that Cerberus" is there.
Evidently he did not have the run of many hospitable homes in London.
As regards Erasmus' official position at Cambridge there is some
room for doubt. He appears in the lists of university officers as
the "Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity," but precisely what this
means is not clear. The Lady Margaret was the Countess of Richmond,
mother of King Henry VII., never queen herself, but claiming the
doubtful honour of blood-relationship to sixty or seventy persons of
royal lineage. This benevolent lady, influenced undoubtedly by the
advice of John Fisher, afterward Bishop of Rochester, had founded
in 1503 a readership in divinity at each of the great English
universities. The endowment had been intrusted to the abbey of
Westminster with instructions to pay over the salary to the holder.
The election to the office was to be biennial, and besides the
chancellor all doctors, bachelors, and inceptors in divinity were to
have the right to vote. The place was to be no sinecure. The reader
must read _libere_, _sollenniter_, and _aperte_. He was to have no
fees beyond his salary, and must read such works in divinity as the
chancellor with the "college of doctors" should judge necessary.
He must "read every accustomed day in each term, and in the long
vacation up to the eighth of September, but might cease in Lent, if
the chancellor should think fit, in order that during that season
he and his auditors might be occupied in preaching." Evidently it
was contemplated that the reader of the Lady Margaret should devote
himself wholly to this work. The salary was the very respectable
sum of sixty-five dollars a year, enough to provide a modest living
for a man of quiet habits. We are almost wholly without information
as to Erasmus' performance of the duties of this office. Everything
points toward the belief that in the sense described by the act of
foundation he never filled it at all. The only references he makes
are to his attempts to teach Greek, certainly not one of the
functions of the Lady Margaret Professor. It has often been assumed
that[91] Erasmus' complaints about his Cambridge life were caused
by a sense of failure in his work as a teacher. We are prepared to
believe from all his previous experience that he never cared to
succeed as a teacher, and, further, we may be tolerably sure that,
for this quite sufficient reason, he was not a very good teacher.
He held his readership, we may believe, for two terms of two years
each--if indeed he held it at all--and meanwhile tried to give Greek
lessons, but could get neither pupils nor pay. Mr. Mullinger says,
"Disappointed in his class-room, he took refuge in his study," as if
his literary work were a kind of last resort on the failure of his
true profession.
[91] For example, by Mr. Mullinger in his History of the
University of Cambridge, p. 50 & _ff._
[Illustration: JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.
FROM THE DRAWING BY HOLBEIN, IN WINDSOR CASTLE.]
The truth would seem to be just the opposite of this. What really
commanded the allegiance of all that was best and most effective
in Erasmus' makeup was his study and writing. His proper medium of
self-expression was his pen, and until he took his pen in hand he was
not his best self. If he was capable of any sincere utterance he was
sincere when he said to Ammonius that he felt himself moved by an
almost divine inspiration when he got going on his Jerome. A few more
glimpses at the working of his mind at Cambridge and we will pass
on to see what he accomplished there in the way of contributions to
learning.
Besides Ammonius his other most important correspondent during this
time was his old friend, John Colet, now definitely settled in
London as dean of St. Paul's and greatly absorbed in the work which
was to be his most lasting monument, the new school for boys. The
correspondence seems to have begun by a begging letter from Erasmus
in which he had gone beyond the limits of good taste, and to which
Colet had replied with some heat. It is not beyond our belief that
Erasmus may have given his letter a jocose form, and that Colet,
Englishman as he was, had not seen the joke. At all events, Erasmus
writes:
"You answer seriously a letter written in jest. Perhaps I ought
not to have joked with so great a patron, yet it pleased my
fancy just then to try a little 'Attic salt' on such a very dear
friend, being mindful rather of your gentle character than of
your high position. It will be the part of your friendliness
to make allowances for my awkwardness. You write that I am in
your debt whether I like it or not. Indeed, my dear Colet, it
is hard, as Seneca says, to be an unwilling debtor, but I know
no man to whom I would more willingly be in debt than to you.
You have always had such kind feelings towards me that, even
if no good offices had been added, still I should have been
greatly your debtor; but now you have added so many services and
kindnesses that if I did not acknowledge them I should be the
most ungrateful of men. As to your embarrassments I both believe
in them and grieve for them, but my own difficulties were so
much more pressing that I was compelled to take advantage of
yours. How unwilling I was to do this you may gather from the
fact that I was so long in asking what you had long since
promised. I don't wonder that you, occupied as you are with so
many affairs, should have forgotten your promise; but when we
were in your garden talking about the _Copia_,[92] I proposed
to dedicate some juvenile work to our youthful prince, and you
asked me to dedicate the new work to your new school. I answered
with a smile that your new school was a trifle poverty-stricken
and what I needed was someone who would pay cash down. Then you
smiled. Then, when I had told over many reasons for expense, you
said with some hesitation that you could not give me as much
as I needed, but would gladly give fifteen angels. When you
repeated this with an eager face, I asked if you thought that
was enough. You answered eagerly again that you would willingly
pay that. Then I said I would gladly take it. This reminder
will perhaps bring the matter to your memory. I might pile up
more arguments, if you had not faith in me of your own accord.
There are some, and friends, too,--for I have no dealings with
enemies and don't value their words one hair,--who say that
you are a little hard, and in giving money a trifle exacting.
They say that this does not come from meanness--so I understand
them--but because from the very gentleness of your nature you
cannot resist those who press and urge themselves upon you,
and are the less generous with your modest friends because you
cannot satisfy both.... If it would not burden you to send me
the remnant of what you promised, as my affairs are at present,
I will take it, not as a debt, but as a gift to be repaid when
I can do so. I was sorry to hear, at the end of your letter,
that you were so unusually burdened by business cares. I could
wish you were as far as possible removed from the cares of
this world, not for fear that the world's allurements can lay
hold upon you, but because I should like to see such genius,
eloquence, and learning as yours wholly devoted to Christ. If
you cannot escape, look out that you do not sink deeper and
deeper. It might be better to fail than to buy success at so
great a price, for the highest good is peace of mind. These
are the thorns that accompany riches.... I have finished the
collation of the New Testament and am going on to Jerome. When I
have finished him I will fly to you."
[92] _De duplici copia verborum et rerum._
Singular that in all Erasmus' complaints of his Cambridge life he
makes no reference to any failure on the part of the authorities
to pay him his due stipend. It seems clear either that he held no
position which carried a salary with it, or that his begging was for
"extras" beyond the modest needs of a celibate scholar. Some light is
thrown upon this point in a letter to Colet, dated October, 1513, but
quite as likely belonging, as Mr. Drummond suggests, in 1511.
"I am now wholly absorbed in the _Copia_, so that it seems like
a regular enigma to be in the midst of plenty [_copia_] and yet
in the depths of want. And would that I might bring both to a
conclusion at once; for I will quickly make an end of my _Copia_
if only the Muses will favour my studies more than Fortune has
up to the present time favoured my estate....
"In your offer of money I recognise your ancient good feeling
toward me and I thank you with all my heart. But there is
one phrase, though you use it in jest, that stings me to the
soul:--'if you would beg humbly.' Perhaps you mean, and very
properly, that to bear my lot with such impatience comes wholly
from human pride, for, indeed, a gentle and Christian spirit
makes the best of everything. Still more, however, I marvel how
you put together humility and shamelessness: for you say, 'if
you would beg humbly and make your demand shamelessly.' If,
according to common usage, you mean by humility the opposite of
arrogance, how are impudence and modesty to be put together? But
if by 'humbly' you mean 'servilely' and 'abjectly' you differ
very much from Seneca, my dear Colet, who thinks that nothing
comes higher than what is bought with prayers, and that he does
a far from friendly service who demands of his friend that lowly
word, 'I beg you.' Socrates once said, conversing with some
friends:--'I should have bought me a cloak to-day if I had had
the money,' and Seneca says:--'he gave too late who gave after
those words.' ...
"But now, I pray you, what could be more shameless than I,
who have been a public beggar all this time in England? From
the archbishop I have had so much that it would be more than
infamous to take any more, even if he should offer it. From N.
I have begged boldly enough, but as I asked without shame so
has he without shame repulsed me. Why now I seem too shameless
even to my dear Linacre, who, when he saw me going away from
London with barely six angels in my pocket, and knew how feeble
my health was, and that winter was coming on, yet eagerly warned
me to spare the archbishop, to spare Mountjoy! But I will rather
pull myself together and learn to bear my poverty bravely. Oh!
that was a friendly counsel! This is why I especially loathe my
fate, that it does not permit me to be a modest man. As long
as my strength would carry me, it was a pleasure to hide my
need--now I cannot do that unless I choose to neglect my life.
And still I am not yet so lost to shame that I ask all things
of everyone. From others I ask not, lest I get a refusal, but
from you with what face, pray, can I ask? Especially since you
yourself have none too much of this kind of goods. Yet, if it is
boldness you like, I will end my letter with the very boldest
clause I can. I cannot so put aside all shame as to beg of you
with no excuse,--but I am not so proud as to refuse a gift, if
such a friend as you should give it me willingly, especially in
the present state of my affairs."
[Illustration: CARDINAL XIMENES.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY O. E. WAGSTAFF, IN THE FLORENCE GALLERY.]
These selections from the English correspondence have made it clear
that Erasmus in England was precisely what he had always been, a
keen-sighted observer of men and things, a hater of all shams but
his own, a sturdy beggar, a jovial companion and correspondent when
he was in the mood, above all an independent liver and thinker,
dreading any routine that was not self-imposed, but capable of steady
and persistent work when he could put his time on congenial tasks.
Of these labours, to which he devoted himself in England, the new
edition of the Greek New Testament, or, as he preferred to call it,
the "New Instrument," held the first place in his interest. It was
not to be published until 1516, a year or more after he had left
England, and Erasmus says that he consulted manuscripts in Brabant
and Basel before printing; but it seems tolerably clear that a
considerable part of the preparatory work was done at Cambridge.
He writes to Colet,[93] as early as 1511: "I have finished the
collation of the New Testament," by which he must mean that he had
done all that he intended to do at it in England. In speaking of
the work at Basel he refers to the great haste with which it was
pushed, the object being, probably, on Froben's part, to get ahead
of a similar undertaking reported to be under way in Spain. This
latter work, to be known as the "Complutensian Polyglot," was going
on under the direction of Cardinal Ximenes at Alcalá (Complutum).
It was to include the whole Bible, and though the New Testament was
completed in 1514 it was held back to appear with the rest in 1520.
When Erasmus says[94] that he used "very many manuscripts in both
languages, and those not the readiest to hand, but the most ancient
and most correct," he is speaking after the standards of his day.
In fact, recent scholarship has shown that he not only used very
defective manuscripts of no great antiquity, but that he failed to
make adequate use of the best one at his disposal.[95]
[93] iii., 107-E. It really seems a little too much to place this
begging letter, as Mr. Drummond does, in 1512, after Erasmus had
received his pension from Warham.
[94] vi., _ad init._
[95] C. R. Gregory, _Prolegomena_ to Tischendorf's New Testament,
i., 207-210.
In spite of the fact, then, that the actual work of publication was
done at Basel, we may fairly count this great work as one of the
fruits of the English period. Rightly to estimate the value of this
service to the cause of a reasonable Christianity, we must consider
for a moment the conditions of biblical scholarship in the year
1511. That the ultimate appeal in matters of Christian faith lay
to the inspired word of the recognised canon of Scripture, no one
doubted for a moment. True, the governing powers of the Church had
insisted that alongside this source of truth there were two others
of equal importance, the tradition of the Church and the authority
of the Roman papacy; but Church and papacy had always been conceived
of as expressing their own judgment through their interpretation
of Scripture. Nothing which they could lay down could ever be in
contradiction to the true teaching of the canonical writings. A
modern mind would say, therefore, that nothing could have seemed
more important to these interpreting agents than to know precisely
what the writers whom they were interpreting had said and meant.
One would think that every effort would have been made from the
beginning to secure and maintain a version of the Scriptures in their
original form, of such unquestionable accuracy that all deviations of
interpretation could be anticipated and checked.
The immense prestige which the Roman government of the Church might
thus have secured to itself was deliberately thrown away. Not only
did the chief church authority do nothing itself to promote so
practical and so profitable an undertaking, but it systematically
checked the efforts of individuals and groups of scholars to
contribute toward this end. It rested all its own interpretation
upon a translation into Latin, the so-called _Vulgata_, which had
been made by Jerome in the years just before and just after 400, and
repeatedly declared by the Church to be the sole authorised version.
This translation was, so far as the New Testament was concerned,
a revision of earlier Latin versions carefully compared with the
Greek originals. The Old Testament was translated from the original
Hebrew with close reference to the Septuagint and the early Greek
commentators. The obvious motive of the Church in clinging to this
defective presentation of its own supreme authority was the motive of
uniformity. The longer the correction of errors could be postponed,
the more hope that no effective criticism of institutions resting,
perhaps, on errors would arise.
Of all tendencies in human society none was so greatly and so
justly dreaded by church authority as the tendency to criticism.
And by criticism we do not mean a carping opposition. We mean
only what the word properly denotes: inquiry into the exact facts
about any given subject. In proportion as the great structure
of ecclesiastical authority had grown more complicated, this
nervous dread of free inquiry had increased. Nor was the central
authority alone responsible for this state of mind. Every part
of the church organisation had done its share to fix this notion
of an unchanging uniformity upon the Christian world. The whole
philosophy of the Middle Ages, which prided itself, above all else,
upon being a Christian philosophy, had exhausted itself in giving a
pseudo-scientific form to the most unscientific view of truth the
world had ever seen.
The great service of Erasmus was, therefore, that he proposed to find
out as nearly as he could what the writers of the New Testament had
actually said. Of course his apparatus for this inquiry was still,
from the point of view of modern science, very defective. He had no
earlier scientific commentators to consult, with the single exception
of Laurentius Valla, the Italian humanist, who a few years before had
published annotations to the Greek text. His criteria of judgment had
to be evolved from his own sense of accuracy as he went along. All
that vast assistance to intelligent editing which in recent times has
come from the cultivation of the historic sense was wanting to him.
Nothing was farther from Erasmus' mind than any radical discussion of
Christian doctrines. He continually declares his fixed determination
to abide by the faith of the Church, and whatever adverse criticism
he had to make was against evil practices which always seemed to
him only perversions of the essential Christianity of apostolic
times. So we are not to look to his New Testament for startling
innovations. What gave offence to his enemies was the same quality
which gave value to the book,--namely, the single effort to put
things as they were. What the "men of darkness" who had come largely
to control the practical working of religious affairs least of all
desired was precise truth to facts. They were getting on comfortably
with a version of truth which suited them very well, and were not
inclined to see their precious ease invaded by any restless seeking
for ultimate accuracy. They felt, and quite truly, that any jarring
of the foundations might bring the whole structure of ceremonies and
usages in which they were thriving, about their ears. Erasmus might
protest as he would, but the instinct of self-preservation on the
part of those who were enjoying the high places of the Church was
rightly alarmed.
[Illustration: DEVICE OF THE HOUSE OF FROBEN.]
The other work on which Erasmus spent most of his time in England was
his share in a new edition of St. Jerome, which was being brought
out by the great printing house of Froben at Basel. It will be more
in order, perhaps, to speak of this when we have followed Erasmus
to the Continent and seen him established in the full career of an
editor and author which was to occupy the remainder of his life. It
may not be out of place here to quote his own description of the
principles which governed him in his editorial work. He was accused
of inaccuracy and undue haste in giving to the world the results of
unripe scholarship. He acknowledges the facts, but defends himself as
follows,[96] speaking at the moment of the epistles of Jerome:
[96] _Catalogus lucubrationum_, i.
"I gave such care to this work [the edition of 1524] that the
attentive reader may easily see that I did not undertake this
revision in vain. The control of ancient manuscripts was not
lacking, but these could not preclude the use of conjecture in
some places; but these conjectures I so modified in the notes
that they could not easily deceive anyone, but could only
stimulate in the reader a zeal for investigation. And I hope it
may come to pass that someone equipped with more correct texts
may restore also those points which have escaped me. To these
I will gladly render the praise due to their industry and they
will have no reason to find fault with my attempts; for while I
have been fortunate in restoring many points, in some I have
been compelled to follow the ancient proverb:--'not as we would,
but as we can.'
"For there are men of such a disposition that if they can add
anything to the efforts of their predecessors, they claim all
the praise for themselves and make a tremendous fuss if one
has even nodded at any point or not accomplished what one has
undertaken. I know not whether we ought to despise more the
rudeness of such persons or their ingratitude. No one stands in
their way, if they wish to produce something better. They say
that nothing ought to be published that is not perfect. Now,
whoever says that, simply says that nothing at all should be
published; nor was ever anything properly edited down to the
present day. I was editing these things for Batavians, for monks
and theologians, who were for the most part without classic
learning; for liberal study had not yet penetrated so far as
these.
"If one will just consider, he will see that I am entering
upon no unworthy or unfruitful field. Will not Italian critics
give the same indulgence to barbarians which they have been
compelled, willing or unwilling, to give to their own scholars,
to Filelfo, to Hermolaus, or to Valla, whenever during the
past sixty years they have aided the learning of the community
by their zeal in translating Greek authors or emending Latin
ones? Those who publish nothing avoid all blame, but earn no
praise;--nay, while they are barely avoiding the blame of men,
they fall into the worst kind of blame;--unless, indeed, he is
less blameworthy who gives to his famished friends nothing from
his splendid table, than he who freely and gladly gives what he
has and would be glad to give more sumptuous things if he had
them.... I confess myself greatly indebted to Beatus Rhenanus,
who has given us Tertullian emended at many points, though
it is incomplete and beside that is thick-sown with blunders.
He does no injury to his reputation who gives a service
proportioned to his day and opens the way to others to do more
finished work. Nor have I suffered from any more unjust critics
than those who publish nothing and do not even teach, as if they
begrudged any usefulness to the world, or as if whatever they
gave to the community were a loss to themselves. And if ever
they detect a human error, what snickerings, what abuse, what a
rumpus!"
[Illustration: DEVICE OF FROBEN.]
These are really admirable sentiments, worthy of a man of literary
courage and generosity. On the whole Erasmus lived up to them. He was
impatient of criticism and inclined to believe his critics actuated
by motives of personal dislike; but where he felt the friendly note
in criticism he was ready to accept it and to discuss the point
in the spirit of worthy rivalry. Much that he wrote was hasty and
incomplete, but _he wrote_, and he did indeed open the way for others
of less individual quality to follow his leading.
As a fruit of the English residence, we must briefly notice the
treatise, _de duplici copia verborum et rerum_,[97] written by
Erasmus, as he says, at the request of Colet, and dedicated to him in
a really beautiful and touching preface. The _Copia_ of Erasmus is a
text-book of rhetoric, intended for advanced Latin scholars who have
already mastered the principles of grammar and are well on the way
to the acquisition of a good style. Its value for our purpose is in
giving a clue to the principles of composition which were to govern
Erasmus in all his writing; and thus preparing us to interpret what
he says with the greater intelligence. No opinion as to his meaning
on any question can be worth much which is not based upon a clear
comprehension of his literary method. He was a literary artist and we
are here introduced to some of the most valuable secrets of his art.
They must never be forgotten when we try to find out what he really
means at a given moment.
[97] i., pp. 1-110.
The word _copia_ is a difficult one to translate. Its first meaning
of "abundance" is liable, as Erasmus begins by showing, to be
understood as mere verbosity.
"We see not a few mortals, who, striving to emulate this divine
virtue with more zeal than success, fall into a feeble and
disjointed loquacity, obscuring the subject and burdening the
wretched ears of their hearers with a vacant mass of words and
sentences crowded together beyond all possibility of enjoyment.
And writers who have tried to lay down the principles of this
art have gained no other result than to display their own
poverty while expounding abundance."
He proposes to give only certain directions, and to illustrate them
by formulas which may prove convenient to writers. _Copia_ includes
the ideas of richness and variety, but must avoid the errors of mere
quantity and change. Not all fulness contributes to completeness
of effect, and not all variation in style helps towards real
illustration of the thought. Here, as elsewhere, we find Erasmus
the true apostle of common-sense. After all, the purpose of rhetoric
is primarily to say something worth saying, and to say it in such a
way that it will commend itself to the reader. The purpose of these
directions will therefore be to show how the essential point may be
condensed into few words and yet nothing be left out, and how, on
the other hand, one may expand into _copia_ and yet have nothing in
superfluity.
The first rule of the _Copia verborum_ is
"that speech should be fitting [_apta_], good Latin, elegant
and pure [_pura_].... What clothing is to the body, style is to
the thought; for just as the beauty and dignity of the body are
heightened or diminished by dress and care, so is thought by
words. They are therefore greatly mistaken who think it makes
no difference in what words a given thought is expressed if
only it can be understood. So also there is the same principle
in changing the dress and in varying the speech. It is our
first care that our dress be neither mean, nor unsuited to our
figure, nor of a wrong pattern. It would be a pity if a figure
good in itself were to be spoiled by mean garments; it would be
ridiculous if a man were to appear in public in woman's dress,
and a disgrace if one were to be seen in a preposterous garb or
with his clothes turned back side before.
"And so, if anyone tries to put on an affectation of _copia_
before he has attained the purity of the Latin tongue, he is,
in my judgment, no less ridiculous than a poor beggar, who,
having not a single garment fit to wear, should thereupon change
one set of rags for another and come out into the market-place
to show off his beggary for wealth. And the oftener he should
do this, would he not seem so much the more foolish? I think
he would. And just as foolish are those who affect _copia_ and
yet cannot say in plain words what they want to say. As if they
were ashamed to appear to stammer a little, they make their
stammering only the more offensive in every possible way, as if
they were on a wager with themselves to talk as barbarously as
ever they can. I like to see a wealthy house furnished in great
variety, but I want it all to be elegant and not to be filled
up with articles of willow and fig-wood and vessels of Samian
crockery. At a splendid banquet I like to have many kinds of
food brought on, but who could bear it if anyone should serve a
hundred sorts of food not one of which was fit to eat?"
Having thus admirably laid down the rule of moderation and good
taste, Erasmus goes on to details. He shows what kinds of words
are to be avoided and to what extent. His comments on the use of
obscene words are interesting in view of the general practice of his
time and, indeed, upon occasion, of his own practice. Certain words
are obscene because they represent obscene things; others because
they are twisted from their harmless meanings. "What then is the
principle of obscenity?--nothing more nor less than the usage, not
of anybody and everybody, but of those whose speech is correct." Of
himself it must be said that in general he lived pretty well up to
his principles. Where he offends in this respect it is generally in a
kind of composition, as, for example, in many of the Colloquies, in
which he simply lets himself go, producing his effect by a freedom
which he carefully avoids in other forms of writing. He was, if one
may say so, artistically obscene.
In spite of his admiration for pure Latinity, he does not hesitate to
admit Greek words according to a rather dangerous canon. Greek words,
he says, may be used when they are more significant, or shorter, or
stronger, or more graceful, "for no Latin word can equal the grace of
a Greek word." In short,
"whenever any certain appropriateness [_commoditas_] invites us
we may properly interweave Greek with Latin, especially when
we are writing to learned men; but when we are not so invited
and deliberately weave a discourse that is half Latin and half
Greek, this may perhaps be pardoned in youths who are training
themselves to readiness in both languages, but for men this
kind of display is, in my judgment, far from becoming and is as
undignified as if one should write a book in prose and verse
mixed up together, as, in fact, has been done by some learned
men."
As to repetition, a trick of rhetoric often employed by Erasmus, he
disapproves it in theory, but admits that it may be done "when the
repetition helps the thought and when the weariness of it can be
avoided by a certain variety." Cicero repeats, but he says "things
similar, not the same things."
"I insist upon this the more earnestly because I have heard
preachers of considerable fame, especially in Italy, wasting
their time in affected synonyms of this sort, as, for example,
if one interpreting the word of the Psalmist, 'create in me a
clean heart, O God!' should say, 'create in me a clean heart, a
pure heart, a spotless heart, a stainless heart, a heart free
from baseness, a heart unspoiled by vice, a heart purified, a
heart made clean, a heart like snow,' and then should do the
same in other words, this kind of _copia_ is not far removed
from mere babble."
So he goes on, through the whole range of figures of speech, laying
down a general principle and illustrating it with a wealth of
classical learning that is simply overwhelming. It is rather dreary
reading, but is relieved every now and then by flashes of sense and
humour that must have commended the book to all fair-minded men. "No
word ought to seem to us harsh or obsolete which is to be found in
an approved author. On this point I differ far and wide from those
who shudder at every word as a barbarism which is not to be read in
Cicero."
When he has made his principles clear he proceeds to illustrate still
further by ringing all possible changes on a model sentence, _tuæ
literæ me magnopere delectarunt_, to the extent of a printed folio
page. The development of _semper dum vivam, tui meminero_, fills
two folio pages. The pupil who should carry out these illustrations
intelligently would be almost a master of Latin prose. The greater
part of the rest of the _copia verborum_ is filled with formulas
for the expression of a multitude of ideas most likely to occur in
the work of the classical pupil. This is pure hack-work, a mere
mechanical enumeration, but likely to be of great use to those for
whom it was intended. It would be an admirable thing if our own
high-school pupils could be made to commit great parts of the _de
copia verborum_ to memory.
The plan of the _Copia rerum_ is similar to that of the former part.
It is an elaborate analysis of the various ways in which discourse
may be enriched and amplified. Erasmus puts much less of himself into
this part, but at the close sums up the argument with his usual good
sense and judgment.
"He who likes the brevity of the Spartans will first of all
avoid prefaces and expressions of feeling in the manner of the
Athenians. He will state his case simply and concisely. He will
use arguments,--not all but at least the chief ones, and will
present these not in detail, but compactly, so that the argument
shall be almost in the very wording, if anyone cares to work it
out. Let him be content to make his point and be very sparing
with amplifications, similes, examples, etc., etc., unless these
be so essential that he may not omit them without offence. Let
him also abstain from all kinds of figures which make language
rich, splendid, telling, elaborate, or attractive. Let him not
treat the same subject in various forms, or so explain single
words by expressions of meaning, that much more is understood
than is heard and one thing may be gathered from another. On the
other hand he who seeks for _copia_ will desire to expand his
material pretty nearly according to the rules I have laid down.
"But let each beware, lest through affectation he be carried
over into the fault which lies nearest him. Let the lover of
brevity see to it that he does not merely use few words, but
that he says in the fewest words the very best thing he can....
For nothing is so conducive to brevity of style as aptness and
elegance of words, and if we add simplicity, it will be easy to
avoid obscurity, a vice which is very apt to follow a striving
after brevity. But here again we must look out that our speech
does not grow cold through lack of all warmth of feeling.
Therefore let the matter be so put before the eye that, of
itself, it may silently take a certain hold upon the mind. Let
all be sweetened with the Attic charm."
The _Copia_ proved its value by a great and rapid sale. It was first
printed in 1511, and went through nearly sixty editions in the
author's lifetime. Since then it has been repeatedly reprinted and
epitomised. Coming as it did so soon after the Praise of Folly, and
written as it was in the intervals of very serious occupation with
the New Testament and Jerome, it gave to the world a very striking
proof of Erasmus' immense versatility of talent and wide-reaching
intellectual interests. Taken together these works make it quite
clear that when Erasmus left England in 1514 he had commended
himself to every class of thinking men by some direct appeal to what
specially concerned it.
In all the biographies of Erasmus it seems to be tacitly assumed that
he was on intimate terms with Thomas More during this long residence
in England. In fact, however, contemporary evidence on this point
is almost entirely wanting. There is but one letter from Erasmus to
More in this period, and none whatever from More to him. If it be
said that there was no need of correspondence, since the friends
could meet at any time in London, the same is true of Colet and
Ammonius, from and to whom we have so many letters. When Erasmus
goes to London it is Ammonius who finds him a lodging; he it is who
sends him his wine and helps him to a horse. More was certainly
greatly occupied with public affairs at this time, but he found
leisure to write his Utopia, which was published in 1515, very soon
after Erasmus' departure from England. The real relations between
these men, who, in spite of similar tastes, were of quite different
character, seem to have been expressed rather in their later
correspondence than in any close intimacy at this time.
During this residence in England occurred doubtless the visits of
Erasmus to the shrine of the Virgin Mary at Walsingham and to that
of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, which are immortalised in the
very famous colloquy, _Peregrinatio religionis ergo_, the Religious
Pilgrimage.[98] Though published some years afterwards, there is
every reason to believe that this dialogue faithfully represents the
writer's state of mind in 1513-14. The essential part of it is the
skilful balancing between conformity to prescribed usage and an open
contempt for the whole paraphernalia of relics, miracles, votive
offerings, and lying tales, of which these and similar places were
the centres. Erasmus represents himself as a devout believer in the
Holy Virgin and in the holiness of saints; but as a total sceptic
regarding the whole machinery of their worship. His cautious language
and his protestations of charity for ignorance and human frailty
cannot in the least conceal his real disgust at these perversions of
an honest and honourable sentiment.
[98] i., 774-787.
In the visit to Canterbury, Erasmus represents himself as accompanied
by a high clerical dignitary of England, whose open expressions
of distrust and scandalised piety he endeavours to moderate. That
this person was Colet is made clear by a later reference. The fact
serves to connect Erasmus with the feeling, growing henceforth more
intense and finally culminating in the suppression of the English
monasteries, that a vast perversion of true religion had taken
place. It was only a question of time when the evil would become
intolerable. Erasmus doubtless contributed his share in the fostering
of this rebellious feeling; but he was far from being alone in his
opinions. The enlightenment of his generation was all pointing
the same way. All that was needed was a formulation into some
definite programme of action, and for this, of course, Erasmus was
conspicuously incompetent. The impulse was to come from a mixture of
motives, many of them as unworthy as those they sought to replace.
In his treatise on the True Way of Prayer, 1523, Erasmus sums up his
attitude on the question of relic-worship in a few words[99]:
[99] _Modus orandi Deum_, v., 1119-F.
"In England they expose to be kissed the shoe of St. Thomas,
once bishop of Canterbury, which is, perchance, the shoe of
some harlequin; and in any case what could be more foolish than
to worship the shoe of a man! I have myself seen them showing
the linen rags on which he is said to have wiped his nose.
When the shrine was opened the Abbot and the rest fell on their
knees in worship, raised their hands to heaven, and showed their
reverence by their actions. All this seemed to John Colet, who
was with me, an unworthy display; I thought it was a thing we
must put up with until an opportunity should come to reform it
without disturbance."
This is the key-note of the "Erasmian Reform," and we shall hear it
sounded many times again before the moment of action arrives.