CHAPTER VII

BASEL AND LOUVAIN--THE "INSTITUTIO PRINCIPIS CHRISTIANI"

1515-1518

Erasmus left England in early summer, 1514, on good terms with his

English friends but without making such connections as could have

served to keep him permanently in the country. He was bound to

have explanations ready for any emergency, but we need not trouble

ourselves to seek other reasons for his leaving England than that

he did not wish to stay. He had accumulated a considerable stock of

manuscripts and knew that he could get them into print better at

Basel than in London. If we may trust a letter[100] sent back to

Ammonius from the castle of Ham, in Picardy, of which Lord Mountjoy

was governor, he came near losing these precious papers through what

he always fancied to be the special malice of the English customs

officials; but happily they were safely restored to him.

[100] iii.¹, 137.

The short stay at Ham is memorable for a famous letter written

from there to Prior Servatius of the monastery at Steyn, where,

we remember, Erasmus had passed the few years of his monastic

experience. We gather from this letter that Servatius, a former

companion of his at Steyn, had written to offer him a residence there

where he might pass the remnant of his days in peace. Erasmus, in

respectful and serious language, reminds Servatius that he had never

really felt any calling to the life of seclusion, and goes over

the familiar ground of his bodily and mental unfitness for it, the

absurdity of supposing that a boy of seventeen could know himself

well enough to decide once for all so momentous and complicated a

question, and the compelling attraction of a free life devoted to

intercourse with the highest things. He shows that his life has

been, humanly speaking, a worthy one: he has cultivated virtue and

avoided vice; he has had a delicate body to take care of and knows

that Holland would be death to him. As to the conventual life itself,

Erasmus lets himself go in sweeping condemnation, yet preserving

still a certain dignity that is far more convincing than any

extravagant abuse.[101]

[101] iii.², 1528-A.

"You, perhaps, would think it the highest felicity to die among

the brethren. In fact not only you but almost everyone is

deceived and imposed upon by this notion that Christ and true

piety are to be found in certain places, in dress, in food, in

prescribed ceremonies. We fancy a man is ruined, if he put on

a black gown instead of a white one, if he change a cowl for a

hat, if he from time to time change his residence. But I dare

say the opposite, that great injury to Christian piety has come

from those so-called 'religious' acts, although they were,

perhaps, first introduced with a pious purpose. Gradually they

have increased and broken up into six thousand diversities. The

approval of the supreme pontiffs has been given to them, but in

many ways quite too easily and indulgently; for what is more

corrupt and impious than those loose religious practices? Why,

if you speak only of praiseworthy, even of the most praiseworthy

ones, I know not what image of Christ you will find in them

beyond certain chilling and Judaising ceremonies. By these

things they please themselves and condemn others,--although it

is the teaching of Christ that all the world is as one great

house, or as it were one monastery, and all men are its canons

and its brethren; that the sacrament of baptism is the supreme

act of religion and that we are to consider, not _where_ we

live, but _how_ we live."

He justifies his wandering life by the good character he has

everywhere maintained.

"If I am not approved by everyone--a thing I do not strive

for--surely I am in good standing with the chief men at Rome.

There was not a cardinal who did not receive me as a brother,

though I had no such ambition for myself, especially the

cardinal of St. George, the cardinal of Bologna, cardinal

Grimani, the cardinal of Fornovo [?], and he who is now supreme

pontiff, to say nothing of archdeacons and men of learning; and

this honour was paid, not to wealth, which I neither have nor

desire, nor to ambition, to which I was ever a stranger, but to

letters alone, which our countrymen laugh at, but the Italians

worship.

"In England there is not a bishop who is not glad to salute me,

who does not seek me as a table-companion, who does not wish

me as an inmate of his house. The king himself, just before my

departure from Italy, wrote me a most affectionate letter with

his own hand, and still speaks of me in the most honourable

and friendly fashion. As often as I pay my respects to him

he embraces me most affectionately and looks at me with such

friendly eyes that you can see that he thinks as well of me as

he speaks. The queen wished me to be her teacher; everyone knows

that, if I had chosen to spend even a few months at the royal

court, I might have heaped up as many benefices as you please,

but I subordinate everything to the opportunity of leisure for

study."

Then follows a very glowing account of the money he has received in

England from Warham, Mountjoy, and others.

"The two universities, Oxford and Cambridge, are vying with each

other to get possession of me; at Cambridge I taught for many

months Greek and sacred literature, and that for nothing as I

am determined always to do.[102] There are colleges there, in

which there is so much of true religion that you could not fail

to prefer them to any 'religious' life, if you should see them.

There is at London John Colet, dean of St. Paul's, a man who

combines the greatest learning with the most admirable piety,

a man of great influence with all men; he is so fond of me, as

everyone knows, that he lives not more intimately with anyone

than with me,--to say nothing of countless others, lest I weary

you at once with my boasting and my much speaking."

[102] If this means anything, it must mean without fees from

students, for, supposing Erasmus to have held the Lady Margaret

foundation, there was certainly a salary attached to his position.

As to his writings he calls the attention of Servatius to the

_Enchiridion_ as adapted to lead many to piety, the _Adagia_ as

useful to all kinds of learning, and the _Copia_ as serviceable to

preachers. The Praise of Folly he naturally and prudently leaves

unmentioned.

"During the last two years, besides much other work, I revised

the epistles of Jerome, marking with an obelus spurious and

interpolated passages. By a comparison of ancient Greek texts

I have emended the whole New Testament and have annotated

more than a thousand passages, not without profit for the

theologians. I have begun commentaries to the epistles of Paul

and shall complete them when I have disposed of the others.

For I have made up my mind to spend my life in sacred studies

and to this end I am devoting all my spare time. In this work

men of great repute say that I can do what others cannot; in

your kind of life I should simply accomplish nothing at all. I

am on intimate terms with many learned and serious men, both

here [England?] and in Italy and in France, but I have thus far

found no one who would advise me to return to you, or think it

the better course. Nay, more, even your predecessor, Nicholas

Wittenherus, always used to advise me rather to attach myself to

some bishop, adding that he knew both my nature and the ways of

his brethren."

Finally he goes into the old story of his monastic gown, "laid

aside in Italy lest I be killed, in England because it would not be

tolerated," and concludes by repeating his determination not to

return to a kind of life in which, now more than ever, there was no

place for him.[103] This letter shows us how Erasmus could paint his

English life when it was a question of raising his market price. The

same note of self-valuation is sounded in a letter to his old friend,

the abbot of St. Bertin in Flanders, written from London in 1513 or

1514. He is seriously considering returning to his own country and

would be glad to do so, if only the prince--presumably Charles of

Burgundy, the future emperor--would give him a fortune sufficient

for his modest leisure (_ociolum_). "Not that Britain displeases me

or that I am tired of my Mæcenases." He gets enough and could get

more, if he would go round about it ever so little,--we remember his

letters to Ammonius,--only times are bad; an island is an isolated

kind of place anyway, and wars are making England doubly an island.

Then comes one of his usual tirades against war in the abstract.

[103] It is quite possible that the famous Grunnius letter,

asking the papal dispensation from the monastic dress, was

despatched to Rome at the same time that this letter to Servatius

was written from the castle of Ham. The interesting manuscript

discoveries of Professor Vischer of Basel[A] have led the

learned finder to take a step beyond my suggestion of a strong

resemblance between the form of this letter and that of the later

Colloquies (see p. 5). He goes so far as to believe that both

the letter and the reply to it were a deliberate fabrication

of Erasmus after the whole matter of the dispensation had been

settled. Its object was, he thinks, to cover up the traces of a

previous negotiation with the papacy carried on through Ammonius

and intended to free Erasmus once for all from any danger of

being forced back again into the monastic life. Vischer's

documents give us indeed a very satisfactory explanation of some

of the mysterious allusions in the correspondence with Ammonius

in 1516 and 1517. They show us plainly that Ammonius, who is here

described by the pope as a papal "Collector," was not only the

mediator in Erasmus' behalf, but was the papal agent in granting

the dispensation issued in 1517. All this, however, does not make

it even reasonably clear that the Grunnius letters were a pure

fabrication. With all his shiftiness Erasmus would hardly have

gone as far as that. These letters still remain, as to their

date and precise interpretation, as mysterious as ever; and

their value as history is not increased. Vischer's view that the

especial occasion for Erasmus' anxiety about the dispensation was

the tumult roused by his New Testament is a reasonable one.

[A] Vischer, W., _Erasmiana_. Basel, 1876.

Gradually an almost conventional form of reference to England

develops itself in his writing. From a letter[104] written to

Cardinal Grimani in 1515, evidently after he had been in Basel and

returned to England again, we quote a specimen. He begins with an

apology for not accepting the invitation given by the cardinal

at their first and only meeting to return to him with a view to

remaining in Italy.

[104] iii.¹, 141-C.

"I will explain this to you very simply and, as befits a German,

frankly. At that time I had fully decided to go to England. I

was called thither by ancient ties of friendship, by the most

ample promises of powerful friends, by the devoted favour of

the most prosperous of kings. I had chosen this country as my

adopted fatherland; the resting-place of my declining years [he

was forty-one at the time]. I was invited, nay I was importuned

in repeated letters and was promised gold almost in mountains.

From all this I, hitherto a man of severe habits, a despiser of

wealth, conceived a picture in my mind of such a power of gold

as ten streams of Pactolus could hardly have washed down. And

I was afraid that if I should return to your Eminence I might

change my mind.

"For if you so weakened, so fired my mind at that first

interview, what would you not have done, if I had come into

closer and more permanent relations? For what heart of adamant

would not be moved by the gentle courtesy of your manner, your

honeyed speech, your curious learning, your counsel so friendly

and so sincere; especially by the evident good-will of so great

a prelate. I already felt my decision perceptibly weakening and

began even to repent of my plan and yet I was ashamed to seem so

inconstant a person. I felt my love for the City, which I had

hardly thrust aside, silently growing again, and in short, had I

not torn myself away from Rome at once, never should I have left

it. I snatched myself away, lest I should be blown back again

and rather flew to England than journeyed thither. [Flying we

have seen, was Erasmus' favourite method of travelling on paper.]

"Now, then, you will ask, have I repented of my decision?

Do I regret that I did not follow the advice of so loving

a counsellor? Lying is not my trade. The thing affects me

variously. I cannot help a longing for Rome as often as the

great multitude of attractions there crowds upon my thoughts."

Then he enumerates freedom, libraries, literary associations, and so

on.

"These things make it impossible that any fortune, however kind,

could banish this Roman longing from my heart. As to England,

though my fortune has not been so bad as to make me regret it,

yet, to tell the truth, it has not at all corresponded either to

my wishes or the promises of my friends."

He recounts the favours, actual and expected, of his English patrons,

especially of Warham, to whom he here pays one of his usual glowing

tributes: "So it came about that what I had abandoned at Rome from so

many distinguished cardinals, and so many famous bishops and learned

men, all this I seemed to have recovered in this one man." After all,

the picture grows a little brighter as he goes on. Now he is ready

for Rome again. True, things are looking up again in England,--he

wishes it to be quite clear that he is not being turned out of the

country, but he hears that under the patronage of the great Leo all

talent is streaming towards Rome. He tells what he has done and what

he proposes to do, puts in a good word for the persecuted Reuchlin,

and promises to be in Rome the coming winter (1515).

A letter of the same date to Raphael, the cardinal of St. George,

repeats the same impressions of England--vast promises, of which we

have no other documentary evidence, and disappointments, equally

without witness. On his own evidence we know of a sufficient

provision in England to supply all modest requirements of a scholar,

and we have a right to take him at his word that he wanted nothing

more.

From Ham, Erasmus made his way pretty directly to Basel, taking the

route by the Rhine valley. His travelling experiences are summed up

in the very amusing Colloquy called _Diversoria_, "The Inns," which

has been so effectively employed by Mr. Charles Reade in his "The

Cloister and the Hearth." The especial point of this dialogue is

the difference between the inns of France and of Germany. As to the

former, Erasmus takes those of Lyons as typical. Bertulphus begins

by saying that he cannot see why so many people want to stay two or

three days at Lyons--for his part, he always wants to get to his

journey's end as fast as he can. William replies:

"Why, I wonder how anyone can ever tear himself away from there."

BERT. "Why so?"

WILL. "Because it is a place from which the companions of

Ulysses could not be torn away; there are sirens there. One

could not be better treated in his own house than there in an

inn."

BERT. "What do they do?"

WILL. "At table there was always some woman present, who

enlivened the meal with her humour and her charms. Then you find

there the most agreeable manners. The first one to meet you is

the lady of the house, who salutes you, bids you be merry and

excuse the faults of what is set before you. Then follows the

daughter, an elegant person, so gay in speech and manner that

she would have cheered up Cato himself. They converse with you

not as with strange guests, but as with familiar friends."

BERT. "I recognise the refinement of the French."

WILL. "But, as these could not always be present on account of

domestic duties and the welcoming of other guests, there was

always at hand a maid-servant thoroughly posted in all kinds of

chaff; she alone could take up the jokes of everyone, and kept

things going until the daughter came back. The mother was quite

along in years."

BERT. "But how about the provision? for one can't fill one's

belly with stories."

WILL. "Really splendid. I can't understand how they can

entertain at so small a price. Then after dinner they amuse you

with merry tales, so that you cannot get tired. I thought I was

at home and not in a strange land."

BERT. "How about the chambers?"

WILL. "Always some girls about, laughing, frolicking, and

playing. They asked of their own accord if we had any soiled

linen, washed it, and brought it back resplendent. Need I say

more? We saw everywhere only girls and women, except in the

stables, and even there the maids were often bursting in.

When you go away, they embrace you and dismiss you with as

much affection as if you were all brothers or the nearest of

relatives."

BERT. "I dare say that suits the French well enough, but for

my part I like better the customs of the Germans as being more

suited to men."

WILL. "I have never happened to be in Germany, so, if you don't

mind, pray let us hear how they receive a guest."

BERT. "I cannot say whether it is the same everywhere, but I

will tell what I have seen. No one welcomes the newcomer, nor do

they seem to want guests; for that would seem to them mean and

low and unworthy the seriousness of a German. When you have been

calling a long time, someone sticks his head out of the little

window of the room where the stove is, like a tortoise out of

its shell. They live in these rooms almost until midsummer. You

have to ask him whether you may stay, and if he doesn't say 'no'

you know that you are to have a place. You ask where the stables

are and he shows you with a motion of his hand, and you may

take care of your horse as best you can. In the larger inns a

man shows you to the stables and points out a poor enough place

for your horse. The better places they keep for the late-comers,

especially for the nobility. If you complain, the first thing

you hear is, 'If you don't like it here, go to another inn.' In

the cities it is all you can do to get a little hay and you have

to pay for it about as much as for grain. When you have cared

for your horse you go over into the common room, riding-boots,

baggage, mud, and all."

WILL. "In France they show you a separate room where you can

change your dress, brush up, get warm, and even take a nap if

you please."

BERT. "There's nothing of the sort here. In the common furnace

you pull off your boots, put on your slippers, change your dress

if you will; your dripping clothes you hang by the stove and

betake yourself there to dry off. Water is ready if you wish

to wash your hands, but generally so nasty that you have to go

hunting about for more water to wash away that first ablution."

WILL. "It's a fine thing for men not to be spoiled by luxury!"

BERT. "If you arrive at four o'clock in the afternoon you'll not

get your supper before nine or ten."

WILL. "Why is that?"

BERT. "They get nothing ready until they see all their guests,

so that they may serve them all at one time."

WILL. "They are trying to cut it close."

BERT. "You're right, they are. Sometimes they will crowd into

that sweat-box eighty or ninety persons, footmen and horsemen,

merchants, sailors, carters, farmers, boys, women, sick and

well."

WILL. "Why, that's a regular monastery!"

BERT. "There is one combing his hair; another wiping off his

sweat, another pulling off his cowhides or his riding-boots;

another smells of garlic. In short there is a confusion of men

and tongues as once in the tower of Babel. But if they see a

foreigner of a certain dignity they all fix their eyes upon him,

staring at him as if he were some new kind of animal brought

from Africa; even after they have sat down at table they screw

their necks about and continue their gazing, even forgetting to

eat."

WILL. "At Rome, or Paris, or Venice, no one marvels at anything."

BERT. "Meanwhile it is a crime to ask for anything. When the

evening is far gone and there is no prospect of any further

arrivals, there appears an old servant, with white hair, a

shaven head, a crooked face, and dirty clothes."

WILL. "Such a fellow ought to be cupbearer to a Roman cardinal!"

BERT. "He casts his eyes about and counts the guests, and

the more he finds the more he heats up the stove, though the

weather be boiling hot. For in Germany it belongs to good

entertainment to set everyone to dripping with sweat, and if

anyone unaccustomed to this steaming opens a crack of a window

to save himself from suffocation, he hears at once: 'Shut it!

shut it!' and if you answer: 'I can't stand it!' you hear: 'Go

find another inn then!'"

William enlarges _ad nauseam_ on the dangers of this herding of men

together, but Bertulphus answers:

"They are tough people; they laugh at these things and take no

thought of them.... Now hear the rest of the story. This bearded

Ganymede comes back and spreads as many tables as are enough for

the guests--but, ye gods! not with linen of Miletus; one would

say with the canvas of old sails. To each table he assigns at

least eight guests. They who know the ways of the country drop

where they are put; for there is no distinction of rich and

poor, master or servant."

WILL. "This is that ancient equality which tyranny has now

driven from the world. I suppose that's the way Christ lived

with his disciples!"

BERT. "After all are seated, that crooked old Ganymede appears

again, and again counts his company. Then he gives each one a

wooden bowl, a spoon of the same metal, and a glass cup--some

time afterward some bread, which everyone eats up to pass the

time while the soup is cooking; and so they sit sometimes the

space of an hour."

WILL. "Does no guest meanwhile ask for food?"

BERT. "Not one who knows the ways of the country. At last they

bring on wine--good God! what a taste of smoke! The sophists

ought to drink it, it is so keen and sharp. If any guest, even

offering extra money, asks for another sort, they first put him

off, but look at him as if they would murder him. If you press

them they answer--'So many counts and marquises have put up here

and there was never a complaint of my wine; if you don't like

it, get you to another hostelry.' They think their own nobles

are the only men in the world and are always showing you their

coats of arms."

So the banquet moves on to its end, through alternate courses of

meat and soup, giving Erasmus abundant opportunity for gibes at his

despised Germans. Could any good thing come out of a land where

people washed their bed-linen once in six months? We may be tolerably

sure that these early impressions of Erasmus were not without their

effect upon his conception of the meaning of the Reformation. Indeed,

he was not the only one who was inclined to reject the whole movement

of Luther from the start, partly for the reason that it came from the

reputed coarse and drunken folk of Germany.

Erasmus remained in Basel only a few months. In March, 1515, he was

again in England. The visit at Basel was, however, of lasting import

to him in many ways. It made him familiar with the place which, more

than any other, was to be his home during his remaining life. He

found himself honourably treated, the climate suited him, good wine

could be procured without too great difficulty, and he was near a

group of scholars who were to be among his most efficient helpers

in all his future work. Foremost among these was John Froben, the

great printer and publisher, to whom we owe many of the very finest

products of the early sixteenth century press. Froben was a man of

the Aldus type, a scholar himself and with a talent for enlisting

scholars in his service. Two pictures, one from the brush of Holbein,

and one from the pen of Erasmus, have given us a clear impression

of this amiable but forceful personality. Erasmus wrote after his

death[105]:

[105] iii., 1053-E.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF FROBEN BY HOLBEIN. EPITAPH BY

ERASMUS--FACSIMILE OF HANDWRITING.

FROM KNIGHT'S "LIFE OF ERASMUS."]

"The loss of my own brother I bore with great equanimity; but

I cannot overcome my longing for Froben. I do not rebel at my

grief, reasonable as it is, but I am pained that it should be

so great and so lasting. As it was not merely affection which

bound me to him in life, so it is not merely that I miss him

now that he is gone. For I loved him more on account of the

liberal studies which he seemed given us by Providence to adorn

and to promote, than on account of his kindness to me and his

genial manners. Who would not love such a nature? He was to his

friend just a friend, so simple and so sincere that even if he

had wished to pretend or to conceal anything he could not do

it, so repugnant was it to his nature; so ready and eager to

help everyone that he was glad to be of service even to the

unworthy, so that he was a natural and welcome prey to thieves

and swindlers. He was as pleased to get back money from a thief

or from bad debtors as others are with unexpected fortune.

"He was of such incorruptible honour that never did anyone

deserve better the saying 'He is a man you could throw dice with

in the dark,' and, incapable of fraud himself, he could never

suspect it in others though he was often deceived. What the

disease of envy was he could no more comprehend than a man born

blind can understand colour. Even serious offences, he pardoned

before he asked who had committed them. He could never remember

an injury, nor forget even the smallest service. And here, in

my judgment, he was better than was fitting for the wise father

of a family. I used to warn him sometimes that he should treat

his sincere friends becomingly, but that while he used gentle

language towards impostors he should protect himself and not at

the same time get cheated and laughed at. He would smile gently,

but I told my tale to deaf ears. The frankness of his nature

was too much for all warnings. And as for me, what plots did he

not invent, what excuses did he not hunt up to force some gift

upon me? I never saw him happier than when he had succeeded

by artifice or persuasion in getting me to accept something.

Against the wiles of the man I had need of the utmost caution,

nor did I ever need my skill in rhetoric more than in thinking

up excuses to refuse without offending my friend; for I could

not bear to see him sad. [One feels that Erasmus' rhetoric was

running away with him a little at this point.] If by chance my

servants had bought cloth for my clothes, he would find it out

and pay the bill before I suspected it; and no entreaties of

mine could make him take payment for it. So it was if I wanted

to save him from loss; I had to make pretences and there was

such a bargaining; quite different from the usual course, where

one tries to get as much as possible and the other to give as

little as possible. I could never bring it to pass that he

should give me nothing; but that I made a most moderate use of

his kindness, all his household will bear me witness. Whatever

work I did for him I did for love of learning. Since he seemed

born to honour, to promote, and to embellish learning, and

spared no labour or care, thinking it reward enough if a good

author were put into the hands of the public in worthy form, how

could I prey upon a man like this?

"Sometimes when he showed to me and other friends the first

pages of some great author, how he was transported with joy!

how his face glowed! what triumphant words! You would say

that he had already taken in the profits of the whole work in

fullest measure and was expecting no other return. I am not

exalting Froben by decrying others; but it is notorious what

incorrect and inelegant editions some publishers have sent us

even from Venice and from Rome. From his office, within a few

years what volumes have gone forth, and in what noble form! And

he has always kept his house free from books of controversy,

by which others have gained great profit, lest the cause of

good literature and learning should be defiled by any personal

hostilities.... Surely it will be an act of gratitude for us all

to pray for the welfare of the departed, to celebrate his memory

by due praises, and to lend our favour to the house of Froben,

which is not to be closed by the death of its master, but will

ever strive to its utmost to carry forward what he has begun to

still greater and better things."

This charming companion picture to the account of the Aldine

establishment in Venice is probably in the main correct. It suggests

the relation between publisher and author, which we have already

tried without entire success to make clear. Apparently, on his own

statement, Erasmus was in a way an employee of Froben. The anxiety

which he betrays not to seem to take pay from the publisher, was

plainly the same feeling which made him reject with such scorn the

charge of Scaliger, that he had been in Aldus's employ. He was

not ashamed of his work, any more than a European physician of a

generation ago was ashamed of his; but he desired to have this work

viewed as a labour of love, and any reward--which, of course, he

could not entirely do without--was to be considered as a gift freely

offered, and to be accepted only under a kind of protest.

Besides Froben himself, we find Erasmus making friends with the

brothers Amerbach, sons of Froben's predecessor in the business.

Writing to Pope Leo X.,[106] to ask his acceptance of the dedication

to the works of Jerome, Erasmus enumerates his co-labourers in the

great undertaking:

[106] iii.¹, 154-C.

"The weightiest contribution was that of the brothers Amerbach,

at whose expense and by whose labours, in common with those

of Froben, the work was mainly carried through. The Amerbach

family was, as it were, pointed out by the fates, that Jerome

might live again through their exertions. The excellent father

had his three sons educated in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, for

this very purpose. Upon his death he commended the work to his

children as an inheritance, devoting to its accomplishment all

his resources. And these admirable youths entering upon the fair

field committed to them by an admirable father, are labouring

diligently therein, and have so divided the Jerome with me that

they are doing everything except the epistles."

It would appear, then, that Erasmus' share in the Froben Jerome

was the personal responsibility for the epistles, the writing of

a dedication which was, after all, not addressed to Pope Leo,

but to Archbishop Warham, and the use of his name as a general

recommendation of the whole. Perhaps also he exercised a general

supervision over the work of the others.

[Illustration: BONIFACE AMERBACH OF BASEL.

FROM "ERASMI OPERA," PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN, 1703.]

It was here also, probably, that Erasmus had his first personal

relations with John Reuchlin, a man after his own heart, but already

too much involved in active controversy with established powers to

make him altogether a safe investment for a prudent scholar who could

see something worth having on both sides of every question. Erasmus

speaks of him to Leo[107] as

[107] iii.¹, 154-B.

"that illustrious man, almost equally skilled in Latin, Greek,

and Hebrew, and so well versed in every sort of learning that he

can hold his own with the best. Wherefore all Germany looks up

to him and reveres him as the phenix and the chief glory of the

nation."

In the letters to Cardinals Grimani and Raphael, dated just a month

earlier than this to Leo, Erasmus speaks much more heartily of

Reuchlin. He has been expressing his determination to devote the

remainder of his days to what our fathers used to call "curious

learning," unless envy, "more fatal than any serpent," shall

prevent,[108]

[108] iii.¹, 144-B.

"as I have lately seen with the utmost regret in the case of

that great man John Reuchlin. For it was fitting and it was time

that this man of reverend years should enjoy his noble studies

and should be reaping the happiest harvest from the faithful

planting of his youthful labours. A man skilled in so many

tongues, and in so many kinds of learning, ought to have been

able, in this autumn of his days, to pour forth into all the

world the rich products of his genius. He ought to have been

spurred on by praise, called out by rewards, fired by others'

zeal. And I hear that men have arisen--I know not who they

are--who, unable of themselves to bring anything great to pass,

are seeking for reputation by the basest of methods. Immortal

God! what a tumult they have stirred up and on what frivolous

grounds! From a little book, a mere letter, which he neither

published nor wished to have published, such a storm has arisen!

Who would ever have known that he wrote this letter if those

fellows had not published it to the world?

"How much better it would have served the cause of peace,

supposing he had erred in any way,--as all men do err,--to

conceal this, or frankly interpret it, or surely to pardon it

out of consideration for the distinguished virtues of the man.

I am not saying this because I have found any errors in him;

that is for others to decide; but this I will say, that if

anyone after the same malicious fashion,--and as the Greeks say,

ἀποτόμως, should explore the books of St. Jerome, he would find

many a thing very widely differing from the views of our

theologians. To what end then was it that a man venerable

in years and in letters should for an affair of no moment, be

dragged into turmoils of this sort, in which he has now, I

believe, lost seven years. Would that he might have spent this

labour and this time in furthering the cause of honest study!

Instead of this, he, a man worthy of all reward, is involved in

vexing quarrels to the great grief and anger of all learned men,

and indeed of all Germany. And yet all have hopes that through

your assistance, so distinguished a man may be restored to

learning and to the world."

This appeal to Rome in behalf of Reuchlin was doubtless a piece of

pure friendly service on Erasmus' part. So far the cause of Reuchlin

was the cause of sound learning, pure and simple, and appealed

therefore powerfully to all Erasmus' sympathies. Later, when the

names of Reuchlin and Luther came to be joined together as of allies

in one great movement, then we shall find Erasmus hesitating and even

declaring himself wholly ignorant of the real questions in dispute.

Already, we notice, he carefully avoids the question whether Reuchlin

may have erred in any way--that was not his affair.

One other of Erasmus' early Basel acquaintances was Beatus Rhenanus,

of Schlettstadt, in Alsatia. Erasmus mentions him to Pope Leo as "a

young man of rare learning and the keenest critical scent."

Precisely what was accomplished at Basel during the eight months or

so of Erasmus' first visit we cannot say. It seems to have been a

period of beginnings. He writes to Ammonius in October:

"I was getting on finely here until they began to heat up their

stoves. Jerome is in progress. They have already begun on the

New Testament. I cannot stay on account of the intolerable

stench of the stoves, and I cannot leave on account of the work

that is begun and which cannot possibly be carried through

without me.... If my health permits, I shall stay here until

Christmas; if not, I shall either return to Brabant or go

straight to Rome."

Evidently, in spite of congenial work, carried on under the most

favourable conditions, the restless creature was already uneasy

and looking about him for chances, which he was quite sure not to

improve. If we could take him at his word a hot room was of more

account in his plans than the proper completion of his work. Happily

his deeds speak loudly in his own defence and we know by the results

that he must have been very busy during his first Basel days.

In March, 1515, the dates of his letters show him again in England,

for what purpose we do not know. His connection with Cambridge

was broken, his pension was secured, he was not, so far as we

know, seeking any further employment. Possibly he may have been

re-examining manuscripts for his New Testament. It is fairly certain

that he was on the continent again by the early summer.

If we follow, even with allowance for palpable errors, the dating of

Erasmus' letters we should have to conclude that he was in England

for a while in 1516, and again in 1517. Meanwhile he would have been

twice in Basel and have spent more or less time at Louvain, Brussels,

and elsewhere. Mr. Drummond accepts this result, but, even with

Erasmus' restless temper, it seems hardly possible that he could

have accomplished the work he did, with the continual interruptions

inevitable to such frequent and prolonged journeyings. On the other

hand we find it brought up as a charge against him by his critics

that he wasted his time in aimless wanderings. He defends himself

by declaring that he never undertook a journey without good and

sufficient reasons connected with the work of his life.

We shall probably be safe in thinking that Erasmus had a great

gift of settling promptly to work and putting other things out of

his mind while the spell of work was on him, the marvellous gift

of concentration which has made more reputations than the gift of

genius. Still, if we consider the peculiar demands of the work

of editing texts, the necessity of an apparatus of books, the

accumulation of material, all of which ought to be at hand for

correction and comparison, the disadvantages of frequent change

become more obvious and Erasmus' wanderings are so much the more

inexplicable.

His correspondence during these three years, from 1515 to 1518, is

full of references to the question of a permanent residence. To judge

from these one would suppose him to be firmly fixed in the notion of

a settlement for life. Now it is England, now Flanders, now Basel,

now Paris, with ever and anon the distant thought of Italy rising in

the background as a possibility. We should not be going far wrong if

we were to describe this period as that in which Erasmus was enjoying

to the full a newly acquired sense of power and value. Not until

after the appearance of his New Testament in 1516 could he feel that

he had demonstrated to the world at once the grasp of his scholarship

and the deep seriousness of his purpose. It was probably true then,

as it may not have been quite true when he was bidding on himself to

Servatius two years before, that any country in Europe would be glad

to have him, and almost on his own terms. He liked to feel himself

a citizen of the world and was tasting the joys of a universal

popularity, too great to last for ever.

Here and there we get glimpses of his way of life, which indicate

a very considerable degree of prosperity. A letter[109] written to

young Beatus and dated at Louvain in the autumn of 1518 gives a

detailed account of his journey thither from Basel.

[109] iii.¹, 371-C.

"I left Basel," he says, "in a languid and enervated condition,

like a man who has not yet got on good terms with out-of-doors,

so long had I been shut up in the house, and yet busied with

incessant work. [This refers to a long illness which had kept

him indoors through the summer.] The sail was not unpleasant,

only that towards noon the heat of the sun was rather

oppressive. We dined at Breisach,--the worst kind of a dinner.

The stench was enough to kill you and the flies worse than the

stench....

"Towards night we were turned out into a chilly town, whose name

I didn't care to know, nor if I knew it, should I care to speak

it. There I was just about killed."

Here follows a description, almost the same as that in the

_Diversoria_, of the horrors of a German inn, always with the unlucky

stove as the central figure.

"In the morning we were routed out of bed by the shouts of the

sailors and I went on board ship without supper and without

sleep. We reached Strassburg at about nine o'clock in the

forenoon and were pretty well entertained there, especially

as Schürer furnished the wine. A part of the fraternity was

on hand and soon they all came to welcome us.... Thence we

went on to Speier by horse and saw never a shadow of a soldier

though dreadful rumours were abroad. My English horse was just

about used up and scarcely got to Speier. That scoundrel of a

blacksmith had so abused him that both his ears were burned

with a hot iron. At Speier I took myself quietly out of the

inn and went to my friend Maternus near by. There the dean, a

man of learning and culture, entertained me for two days with

great kindness. We met there by chance Hermann Busch. Thence we

journeyed by carriage to Worms and Mainz. There happened into

the same carriage a certain Ulrich, a secretary of the emperor,

whose surname was Farnbul--as who should say, 'Fern-Hill.' He

paid me the greatest attention on the journey and at Mainz would

not suffer me to go to the common inn, but took me to the house

of a certain canon and saw me to the boat when I started off.

The weather was very agreeable and the voyage well enough only

that the sailors tried to make it longer than was necessary, and

the smell of the horses was unpleasant....

"At Boppard I was walking on the river-bank while they were

locking up a boat and someone who knew me gave my name to

the toll-collector. This man's name was Christopher and, I

believe, Cinicampius, or in the vulgar tongue, Eschenfeld. It

was marvellous how the fellow jumped for joy. He dragged me to

his house and there on a little table, among his toll-receipts,

lay the writings of Erasmus. He cries out that he is a blessed

man, calls his wife, his children, and all his friends. To

the clamorous boatmen he sends two jugs of wine and when they

burst out into new clamours he sends some more, and promises

that on their return he will remit the toll because they have

brought him so great a guest. From here I was escorted as far

as Coblenz by John Flaminius, head of a convent of women there,

a man of angelic purity, of sound and sober judgment, and of

unusual learning. At Coblenz Matthias, a chaplain of the bishop,

took me to his house,--a young man, but of settled ways, of

accurate Latin learning, and thoroughly trained in the law as

well. There we had a merry supper. At Bonn the canon [one of

his fellow-travellers] left us, in order to avoid the city of

Cologne, which I also desired to avoid. My servant had, however,

gone ahead thither with the horses; there was no safe person on

the boat whom I could send after him, and I had no confidence

in the sailors. On Sunday morning before six o'clock, in dismal

weather, I arrived at Cologne, went to an hotel, gave orders

to the servants to get a two-horse carriage, and called for

breakfast at ten. I went to mass, but no breakfast! Nothing was

done about the carriage. I tried to get a horse, for mine were

of no use,--no result. I saw what was up; they were trying to

keep me there. At once I ordered my horses to be got ready,

packed one portmanteau and gave over the other to the innkeeper;

then on my lame nag I hurried off to the Count of Neuenaar, a

ride of five hours. He was staying at Bedburium and I spent five

days with him so pleasantly and quietly that I got through a

good part of my revision there; for I had brought with me a part

of the New Testament."

From this point the real troubles of the journey began. Erasmus

had suffered from boils at Basel and his two days of riding from

Strassburg to Speier had aggravated them. Now he caught a heavy cold

by foolish exposure to wind and rain in an open carriage. "Some

Jupiter or evil genius robbed me, not of half my senses as Hesiod

says, but of the whole; for one half he had stolen when I ventured

into Cologne." The story is too long for our purpose and quite too

minute for our taste, though as a study in pathological history it

might interest a modern physician. The poor man's digestion was

completely upset; his boils troubled him so that he did not know

whether riding or driving was the worse. Finally, in the last stage,

he found a four-horse carriage going to Louvain, got a place in it,

and arrived there more dead than alive. Of course he was afraid of

the plague, and, indeed, the first physician summoned quietly told

the people of the house that he had the plague, promised to send a

poultice, but came near him no more. Others were called and gave

various opinions. A Jew doctor said he only wished he had as sound

a body. One did one thing and one another until finally, "disgusted

with doctors I commend myself to Christ the Great Physician." After

this sensible conclusion, he began to grow better, was soon taking

food, and at once began to work on his New Testament proofs. He had

warned his friends not to come to see him, but they came and sat with

him and so made the four weeks of his imprisonment pass quite happily.

This account of the journey from Basel to Louvain indicates with

tolerable distinctness that Erasmus commanded considerable resources.

He had more than one horse and at least one servant. The horses were

shipped on the boat whenever he travelled by water, and apparently

this was regarded as the safer way to travel. He speaks with especial

relief of meeting no soldiers on the land journey. Carriages he seems

to have hired; but he twice uses expressions which go to show that

such carriages were not exclusively for the use of the hirer. He says

that Ulrich Farnbul came by chance into the same carriage with him,

and again on the last stage he himself gets into a carriage going to

Louvain. It is too early to think of regular public conveyance, but

apparently a traveller did not object to sharing his carriage and

expense with another. Our interest is to observe that such travelling

must have implied a large outlay and must have gone far to account

for Erasmus' persistent complaints of poverty.

From Louvain Erasmus wrote back a semi-humorous little letter to his

friend, the learned toll-gatherer of Boppard[110]:

[110] iii.¹, 353-D.

"What could have been more unexpected than that I should find

at Boppard an Eschenfeld, a student of my works?--a publican

devoted to the Muses and to liberal learning! Christ made it

a reproach to the Pharisees that harlots and publicans should

go before them into the kingdom of heaven; tell me, is it not

equally shameful that priests and monks should be living for

luxury and the service of their bellies, while publicans are

embracing the cause of liberal learning? They are consecrating

themselves wholly to guzzling, while Eschenfeld divides himself

between the Kaiser and his studies! You showed plainly enough

what opinion you had formed of me; and I shall have done well,

if the sight of me has not rubbed off a little of it.

"But, alack! alack! that jolly red wine of yours mightily

tickled our boatman's wife, a full-breasted and bibulous female;

she wouldn't share a drop of it, though they kept calling for

some. She drank all she wanted and then what a row! She nearly

slew a maid-servant with a mighty ladle and we could hardly

stop the fight. Then when she got on board she went for her

husband, and came near throwing him into the Rhine. There you

see the power of your wine.

It is worth noticing that Erasmus represents his settlement at

Louvain as the result of a freak on the part of those evil fates of

which he liked to fancy himself the especial victim. To make his

climax more effective he pictures the joys of meeting his Louvain

friends:

"What dinners! what a welcome! what talks I was promising

myself! I had decided, if the autumn should be a pleasant one,

to go over to England and to accept what the king has so many

times offered me--but oh! deceitful hopes of mortal men--etc!"

He has an illness of a few weeks, during most of which time he is

steadily at work, and then he goes quietly back to his lodgings in

the University and we hear no more of England. We know of no renewed

offers from King Henry, nor indeed, so far, of any direct offers from

him whatever.

While Erasmus was at Basel, he was, so he tells us, invited by Duke

Ernest of Bavaria to come to his university at Ingolstadt. He speaks

of this in a letter to the bishop of Rochester, as one among the

numerous indications of the favour with which the first edition of

the New Testament had been received. He had so many offers that he

could not remember them. "Some bishop in Germany whose name I have

forgotten" wanted him for his university. He knows he is unworthy

of all these honours, but is pleased to find that all his pains

have earned the approval of good men. "Many are now reading the

sacred Scriptures who confess that they would never have read them

otherwise, and many persons everywhere are beginning to study Greek."

In a letter[111] to Ammonius from Brussels in 1516 Erasmus tells of

an offer of a bishopric in Sicily:

[111] iii.¹, 137-D. Leclerc's date, 1514, is probably incorrect.

"Do you want to laugh? When I got back to Brussels, I went to

call on my Mæcenas, the chancellor [Selvagius]. He turned to the

councillors who were standing about and said: 'This man doesn't

know yet what a great man he is." Then to me: 'The Prince is

trying to make you a bishop and had already given you a very

desirable see in Sicily. But then he discovered that this see

was on the list of those which are called "reserved," and has

written to the pope to get his approval for you.' When I heard

this, I could not help laughing; yet I am glad to know the good

feeling of the king towards me--or rather of the chancellor,

who, in this matter, is the king himself."

Somewhat less apocryphal than these stories is the report of an offer

from King Francis I. of France. It comes to us in a letter written by

the French scholar, William Budæus, to Erasmus while he was in the

Low Countries. Budæus says that William Parvus (Guillaume Petit),

an ecclesiastic who stood very near the king, had told him that one

day in the course of a conversation about literary men, the king had

expressed his determination[112]

[112] iii.¹, 169-A.

"to gather the choicest spirits into his kingdom by the most

ample rewards and to found in France a seminary, if I may so

call it, of scholars. Parvus had long been watching for such an

opportunity, being not merely a supporter of all learning, but

also a special admirer of yours, and said that in his opinion

Erasmus ought to be invited the very first one, and that this

could most properly be done by Budæus ... and finally, that the

king, moved by some noble impulse, was brought to the point of

saying that this offer should be made to you by me in his name:

that if you could be persuaded to come here to live and devote

yourself to literary work here as you are wont to do over there,

he would promise to give you a living worth a thousand francs

and more. Now you understand that my influence comes in only

so far as I assume the part of a mediator, not of a sponsor,

and simply pass on to you in good faith what I have heard from

Parvus."

Budæus then goes on to say that he has little to do with court

affairs, but that if Erasmus likes it, he may well promise himself a

fine position in Paris.

"Immortal gods! what an honour for you! what a splendid fortune

in the judgment of all learned men, to be summoned into a

distant land by the greatest and most illustrious of kings on

the sole recommendation of your learning!... As far as one can

guess, he desires to be the founder of a splendid institution,

so that in the future, quite otherwise than in the past, liberal

learning may seem to be a thing of profit."

Lest Erasmus should fancy this wish of the king to be "a whim, rather

than a carefully considered and settled judgment," he refers to the

very favourable opinion of Erasmus held by Stephen Poncher, bishop of

Paris, and quotes him as saying that the king had at heart the cause

of elegant learning and had conversed with him on the subject of

bringing together men eminent in scholarship.

"I said to him at the time, that you might be called into

France with an honourable provision and promised that I would

take it upon myself and bring it to pass. I said that you had

studied in Paris and knew France as well as the place of your

birth. I think he will be most favourable to you.... I expect

that William Cop, the king's physician, a man learned in both

tongues, a friend and well-wisher of yours, will write to you

about this and, others perhaps by the king's order; or even the

king himself."

Cop did write, in contrast with the intolerable verbosity of Budæus,

a very brief note, in which he says that the king, persuaded by

Parvus and others, had ordered him to write and sound Erasmus as to

the conditions under which he would be willing to come to Paris.

That seems to have been the whole story of Erasmus' "call" to

Paris: a report by one man of a conversation with others, moderate

expressions of good will on the part of the Parisian scholars, but

hardly a definite promise of anything. At best, the proposal was that

he should take a church living, and to this he was, more or less to

his credit, always disinclined. His reply to Budæus is interesting.

He says:

"I had hardly got myself well out of that very wordy letter,

which I guess will be as tedious to you in the reading as it was

to me in the writing, when another letter of yours came to me

in which you express the kind intentions of the Most Christian

King towards me. I will answer briefly, not to bore both you and

myself to death with verbosity and also because I have to write

to many others. The king's purpose is worthy of a prince and

even of such a prince as he. I approve it most highly.

"His splendid plans for me I owe chiefly to you, my friend,

who have pictured me, not as I am, but as you would wish me

to be;--and that at your own risk as much as mine. The same

subject was most eagerly pressed in the king's name by that most

illustrious advocate, the bishop of Paris, whom you describe in

your letter no less truly than graphically. It would be a long

story to compress into one letter all the pros and cons. I see

what your advice is, and I value it the more because it is given

by a man at once very cautious, and very friendly to me. For if

ever there is a place for the Greek proverb: 'The gifts of the

unfriendly are no gifts at all,' I think it is in matters of

advice. But while I confess that I am deeply indebted, not only

to you all, but especially to your most excellent and generous

king, I cannot make any definite answer until I have discussed

the plan with the Chancellor of Burgundy, who has gone on a

journey to Cambrai.... I will only say at present that France

was ever dear to me on many accounts [we remember his affection

for the Collége Montaigu, and his reference to that 'dunghill

of a Paris'] and is now attractive to me for no reason stronger

than that Budæus is there. Indeed there is no reason to make me

out a stranger as you do for, if we may believe the map-makers,

Holland too is a part of France."

Nor does Erasmus commit himself any more decidedly in the personal

letter which he sent at the same time to King Francis.[113] The

letter is filled with adulation, but expresses also the writer's

honest approval of the king's momentary policy of peace. The final

phrase, "to whom I wholly give and dedicate myself," must not be

construed as having any meaning whatever. The offer was neither

accepted nor repeated. We may well doubt whether in the year 1516

Erasmus would really have cared to attach himself to the French court

or to any other on any terms.

[113] iii., 185.

He mentions in several places, as a sign of the great favour shown

him by Francis I., the fact that he had received a most friendly

autograph letter from the king. Such a letter has indeed been found

among papers relating to Erasmus at Basel. How much it may have meant

the reader may judge for himself:

"Cher et bon amy. Nous avons donne charge a notre cher et bien

ame messire Claude Cantiuncula, present porteur, de vous dire

et declairer aucunes choses de par nous, desquelles vous prions

tres affectueusment le croyre, et y adjouster entiere foy, comme

feriez a notre propre personne. Cher et bon amy, notre Seigneur

vous ait en sa garde.

"Escript a Sainct Germain en Laye le 7me jour de juillet.

[In Erasmus' hand], "Je vous avertys que sy vous

"_Hec rex scripsit pro- voules venyr que vous seres le

pria manu._" byen venu

"FRANCOYS.

"ROBERTET."

It has been usual to explain his reluctance to attach himself

anywhere at this time, by certain obligations towards the young King

Charles I. of Spain, later the Emperor Charles V., arising from his

appointment to a counsellor's position in the royal household. That

some such office was given him in or about the year 1516 is quite

certain; but that he was ever asked for his advice may be doubted,

and his own complaints would indicate that he never received any

considerable emoluments from his office. A letter to the imperial

counsellor Carondiletus in 1524 throws light upon both the French

call and the imperial pension.[114]

[114] iii.¹, 794.

"To reply at once to your letter and that of the Lady Margaret,

I will say in few words that it is not merely smoke that the

French are showing. On the contrary, some time ago, when

Poncher, Bishop of Paris, was the French ambassador at Brussels,

before Charles was emperor, he offered me in his own name, over

and above the king's bounty, four hundred crowns besides all

expenses, promising me also that my leisure and my freedom of

movement should be undisturbed.... The reason why the king of

France called me so many times he explained by his messenger.

He had determined to establish at Paris a College of the Three

Languages, such as there is at Louvain, and he wanted me to be

the head of it. I excused myself, however, remembering how

much enmity and trouble I had borne there from some theologians

on the score of the Busleiden College. Yet my servant, when he

came back from France, reported on certain information that a

treasury order for a thousand pounds was ready and waiting for

me there.

"I have not so far been much of a burden on the treasury of my

prince, for my pension has only once been paid therefrom. It

has been procured by another process, without any expense to

the treasury. It costs me a great deal to live here, especially

on account of my frequent illnesses--though indeed I am in

other ways not at all a good manager with money. I have already

contracted a good many debts, so that, even if my health would

permit me to leave, perhaps my creditors would not. I should,

therefore, be very glad, if it can be done, to have the pension

for at least one year paid over to this messenger, to relieve my

immediate necessity. I send a letter of the emperor, making the

same request."

Again in 1525 he writes[115]:

[115] iii.¹, 874-F.

"By the first of September there will be due me eight hundred

gold florins, the payment, that is, of four years. I don't see

what good I am to get out of this delay unless perchance I am to

need money in the Elysian Fields."

And once more in 1527 to Laurinus[116]:

[116] iii.¹, 1009-F.

"I have written to your brother as you wished, but I see no hope

of the emperor's pension unless I return thither. For the matter

was once for all brought up in council and the reply was made me

in the name of the Lady Margaret that both the pension and other

things worthy of me were ready for me if I would come back. So

I do not think that your brother, eloquent and earnest patron

as he is, ought to be wearied with this affair. The emperor has

twice ordered the pension to be paid to me out of course, but he

is more easily obeyed when he orders a tax than when he commands

a payment."

We cannot for a moment believe that the holding of this honourary

title required any personal attendance at the royal court which

hindered Erasmus' freedom of motion when he desired to move. The

principal fruit of his appointment was the little treatise called

the _Institutio Principis Christiani_,[117] written, probably, in

acknowledgment of the honour and dedicated to the young prince. This

very amiable bit of advice is a companion-piece to the panegyric

upon the prince's father written about twelve years before. It is

unlike that early performance in being almost entirely free from

exaggerated personal adulation; it is like it in the freedom with

which it lays down for the guidance of the prince rules of conduct

similar to those which ought to govern the individual Christian man

in his dealings with the world of his fellow-men. Yet the principles

are not the mere commonplaces of morality. The prince ought to be a

good man in the Christian meaning of that term, but not merely good,

as any private man might be. Erasmus has at every point a reason

for the particular exercise of virtue he may be commending, and his

illustrations, drawn chiefly from the best rulers of antiquity, are

pertinent and show, of course, the widest and readiest command of the

ancient literatures. To estimate aright the significance and value

of Erasmus' declarations on public policy, we must remember that we

are dealing with a contemporary of Macchiavelli, whose _Principe_,

with its total indifference to the moral point of view, was already

written and undoubtedly in circulation in manuscript, though not

printed until 1532. Whether it was known to Erasmus we cannot say. If

it was, he could hardly have made a more complete reply to it than

this. Macchiavelli took the world as it was, especially that Italian

part of it which he knew best, and, assuming that the process of

state-building which he saw going on all about him was to continue

along similar lines, he simply laid down the principles of success in

that process. Erasmus, on the other hand, assuming that human society

was a moral organism, was not concerned chiefly with outward or

momentary success, but rather with the higher moral function of the

ruler. He believed that success founded upon morality would be higher

and more enduring than that which rested upon mere expediency. The

central point of view with Macchiavelli was the person of the prince;

Erasmus thought of the prince only as the servant of his people.

Both drew, or thought they drew, their inspiration from classic

tradition; but Macchiavelli sought for his illustrations at those

points of ancient history where his principles seemed to be worked

out into great and enduring political structures, while Erasmus drew

from the decay of precisely the same institutions his lesson of the

permanence of moral obligation and of that alone.

[117] iv., 593-612.

Perhaps the best and most pertinent example of his method of

treatment is found in the chapter on taxation. It will be evident

that the questions which were disturbing his mind have not yet ceased

to agitate the world. Substitute for "prince" the word "government,"

and it will appear that most of the financial problems of our present

day were burning questions in the days of Erasmus and Thomas More;

for in More's Utopia we have in the main the same moral elevation

applied to the same questions as in the _Institutio_. Erasmus

says[118]:

[118] iv., 593-594.

"The ancient writers tell us that many rebellions have arisen

from immoderate taxation. The good prince ought therefore to

see to it that the minds of his people should be as little

as possible disturbed by these matters. Let him if possible

govern without expense to them. The office of the prince is too

lofty to be used for money-making. The good prince has for his

own whatever his loving subjects have. There have been many

heathen who put nothing into their treasuries from serving

the state save glory alone; and some, like Fabius Maximus and

Antoninus Pius, despised even this. How much more, then, ought

the Christian prince to be satisfied with the consciousness

of rectitude, especially since he serves a Master who leaves

no good deed without ample reward. There are men who busy

themselves with nothing but finding out new devices for cheating

the people, and think they are best serving the prince by

making themselves the enemies of his subjects. Let him who

listens to them know that he is far from the true ideal of a

prince.

"The very best way to increase the revenue is to cut off

unnecessary expense, doing away with burdensome service,

avoiding wars and journeys that are like wars, checking the

greed of officials, and trying rather to govern well what the

prince has, than to get more. Otherwise, if he is to measure

his taxes by his greed or his ambition, what limit or end of

taxation will there be? For desire is infinite and is always

pressing and straining at what it has once begun until,

according to the old proverb, the overdrawn rope will break and

the exhausted patience of the people burst forth into rebellion,

whereby the most powerful empires have been ruined.

"But, if necessity demands that something shall be exacted

of the people, then it is the part of a good prince to do it

in such a way that the least burden may fall upon those who

have least. For it may be a good thing to summon the rich to

frugality, but to compel the poor to hunger and the gallows

is not merely inhuman, but dangerous as well.... Let him well

ponder this, that an expense once incurred at some emergency as

pertaining to the advantage of the prince or the nobility, can

never be abolished. When the emergency is past, not only ought

the burden to be taken from the people, but the outlay of that

former period ought, as far as possible, to be remedied and made

good. Let him who cares for his people beware of the corrupt

precedent. If he rejoices in the calamity of his own citizens

or gives no thought to it, he is as far as can be from being a

prince, no matter by what name he is called.

"It ought to be provided for that there be not too great

inequality of wealth;--not that I would have anyone deprived

of his goods by force, but that care should be taken lest the

wealth of the whole community be limited to a certain few. For

Plato would have his citizens neither too rich nor too poor,

because the poor man cannot be of profit to the state, and the

rich man, after his kind, does not want to profit it. Nor do

princes even gain wealth by exactions of this sort. If anyone

would prove this, let him consider how much less his ancestors

took from their subjects, how much more they gave, and yet how

much more of everything they had, because a great part of these

present taxes slips between the fingers of those who collect and

receive them, but only a very small part ever gets to the prince

himself.

"Then, whatever things are in common use by the mass of the

people, these a good prince will tax as lightly as possible, as

for example, corn, bread, beer, wine, clothing, and other things

without which human life cannot go on. But now these things are

especially burdened, and that in many different ways: first, by

the very heavy exactions of the contractors which the people

call assizes, then by duties which have also their contractors,

and finally by monopolies which bring little to the prince, but

crush the poor by higher prices.

"So then, as I have said, let the income of the prince be

increased by economy, according to the old proverb: 'Thrift is

a great revenue.' But if some duties cannot be avoided and the

interest of the people demands it, then let the burden fall upon

foreign and outlandish wares, which have to do rather with the

luxury and refinements of life than with necessity, and which

are used by the rich alone, as for example, fine linen, silks,

purple, perfumes, unguents, gems, and everything of that sort.

For this burden is felt only by those whose fortunes can bear

it and who by these payments are not reduced to want, but

perchance are rendered more frugal, so that by loss of money,

good morals are improved."

It would be going too far to say that these economic and financial

views of Erasmus are purely original; they are doubtless gathered

from his reading of the ancients, especially from Plato and

Aristotle; they are, however, addressed with perfect directness to

evils of his own time and they show us that his mind was working

upon matters of large public import, as well as upon his more purely

scholarly interests.

It would be impossible for Erasmus to go through any treatise on

public affairs without saying something about the wickedness and

folly of fighting, and so we find him concluding his _Institutio_

with a chapter on the undertaking of war. It is his familiar

argument, but especially follows the point that war should not be

undertaken until all other methods of composing differences shall

have failed. "If we were of this mind there would hardly ever be a

war anywhere." He shows very clearly how seldom the alleged cause

of war affects the people of a country. Such causes are usually the

private affair of princes.

"Because one prince offends another in some trifle, and that

a private matter, about relationship by marriage or some such

thing, what is this to the people as a whole? The good prince

measures all things by the advantage of the people, otherwise he

were not even a prince. The law is not the same towards men and

towards beasts.... But if some dissensions arise between princes

why not rather resort to arbiters? There are so many bishops,

so many abbots, scholars, serious magistrates, by whose judgment

such a matter might far more decently be composed than by so

much murder, pillage, and misfortune throughout the world."

Here is international arbitration, pure and simple, a doctrine not

appearing in the Utopia, and, so far as I know, not to be found in

any modern writer before Erasmus; a dream as yet in his time and long

to remain so, but, in the vast ebb and flow of human affairs, coming

ever nearer to some definite realisation.

Perhaps the most striking argument of Erasmus against war is the

utter hopelessness of it as a means of gaining the ultimate good of

the state.

"'But,' they say, 'what safety will there ever be, if no one

pursues his right?' By all means let right be pursued, if

this be of advantage to the state, but let not the right of

the prince be too costly to the people. And pray what safety

is there now, when everyone is pursuing his right to the very

death? We see wars arising from wars, war following upon war,

and no limit or end to the confusion. So it is clear enough that

by these means nothing is accomplished. Therefore other remedies

ought to be tried. Even between friends there would be no bond

unless they sometimes made concessions, one to the other. The

husband often pardons certain things to his wife, that harmony

between them may not be broken. What does war breed, but war?

while gentleness calls forth gentleness and equity invites

equity."

The closing paragraph has almost a ring of irony in view of the

future course of the young prince, for whose edification all this

wisdom was put forth.

"I doubt not, most illustrious Prince, that you are of the same

mind; for so you were born and so you have been taught by the

best and most sincere teachers. As for the rest, I pray that

_Christus optimus maximus_ may prosper your noble efforts. He

has given you an empire without bloodshed; his will is that

you preserve it ever free from blood. May it come to pass that

through your goodness and wisdom we may at last have a rest from

these mad wars. Peace will be made precious to us by the memory

of evils past and our gratitude to you will be doubled by the

misfortunes of other times."

All this to Charles of Burgundy, already Most Catholic King of Spain,

within a year to be elected Holy Roman Emperor, and destined for

the next generation to turn Europe into a battle-field for objects

in which no one of his numerous subject peoples had the remotest

interest! Evidently the man who could give only such counsel as this

was not likely to be sought as an intimate adviser of the prince. In

fact we have no reason to suppose that Erasmus' settlement at Louvain

had more than a nominal connection with his appointment as imperial

councillor. He was a councillor much in the sense of the modern

German "Geheimrath."

[Illustration: EMPEROR CHARLES V.

FROM AN ENGRAVING BY BARTEL BEHAM, 1531.]

Erasmus took up his residence at Louvain in 1516, not, so far as we

know, in the capacity of a regular teacher, though he occupied a room

in the university. There is the usual uncertainty as to his motives

and feelings about the change. Writing to Ammonius from Brussels in

the autumn of 1516,[119] he says, "I am most eager to hear how our

business is getting on." Such passages of mysterious meaning occur

in almost every letter to this fellow-scholar and indicate clearly

that Ammonius was continually working in Erasmus' interest. They are

now made somewhat clearer by the discoveries of W. Vischer at Basel.

The reference is probably to the negotiations with the papacy in

regard to the dispensations which bear date a few months later. It

is probable also that Ammonius was putting in a word as he could in

England to secure the regular payment of his friend's allowances. The

letter goes on:

[119] iii., 137 E-F.

"I am going to winter in Brussels. Whatever you may send to

Tunstall [the English ambassador at Brussels] will be handed

to me at once; I am in continual relations with him. I am not

disposed to go to Louvain. There I should have to be paying my

duty to the scholastics at my own cost. The young men would be

yelping at me all the time: 'correct this ode; or this epistle,'

one will be calling for this author, one for that. There is

no one there who can be either a help or an attraction to me.

Besides all this I should have to listen sometimes to the

snarlings of the pseudo-theologians, the most unpleasant kind

of men. Lately there has arisen one of these who has stirred up

almost a tumult against me, so that I am now holding the wolf by

the ears, able neither to kill him nor to get away. He flatters

me to my face and bites behind my back, promises me a friend and

offers me an enemy. Would that mighty Jove would smash up this

whole class of men and make them over again; for they contribute

nothing to make us better or wiser, but are always making

trouble with everyone."

But having had his grumble, Erasmus made up his mind to go. During

the next four years Louvain was more his home than any other place.

He left it, as we have seen, often and for months together, but it

seems to have suited him as well as he was willing to be suited

anywhere. His accounts of his relations with the place and the people

are as apparently inconsistent as his utterances on other subjects.

Within a short time after his settlement he writes to Tunstall:

"I find the theologians at Louvain men of high character and

culture, especially John Atensis, Chancellor of this University,

a man of incomparable learning and endowed with rare refinement.

There is here no less theological learning than at Paris, but it

is of a less sophistical and arrogant sort."

Again, in the autumn of 1518, he writes:

"The air thus far remains pure; there have been few cases of

illness, and those of disease imported from elsewhere."

As to the individual scholars, he found himself on the best of terms

with Martin Dorpius, the critic of his _Moria_, of whom he said in

1520, "on account of his distinguished talents for learning and

eloquence I could not hate him even when he was made use of against

me by evil managers." Dorpius continued to be his friend and admirer,

as appears from the letter to Beatus, in which he is described as one

of Erasmus' chief comforters during his tedious illness after the

Rhine journey.

During Erasmus' residence at Louvain occurred the foundation of

the College of the Three Languages by Jerome Busleiden, brother of

a former archbishop of Besançon, and himself a councillor of the

King of Spain. Erasmus writes in 1518 to a third brother, Ægidius,

referring to his attempts at making an epitaph for Jerome:

"How many attractions have we lost in this one man! I can

easily imagine your feelings at the loss of your brother, when

the whole chorus of good and learned men is breaking into one

lament. But why these empty regrets, why these useless tears? We

are all born to this fate."

He is not well satisfied with his epitaphs and evidently has some

fear that the bequest will not be carried out.

"As to founding the college, see that you are not led away from

that purpose. Believe me, this thing will not only contribute

more than I can say to every branch of learning but will also

add to the name of Busleiden, already so distinguished in many

ways, no little increase of honour and splendour."

These fears were not justified; the college was founded and the

advice of Erasmus was sought in the difficult matter of finding

suitable teachers to fill the new chairs. We have several of the

letters written by him in the discharge of this commission. One of

these, to John Lascaris, a native Greek scholar, is interesting in

several ways. It is one of the clearest illustrations of Erasmus'

power of direct statement when a matter of business was in hand. He

first states the terms of Busleiden's bequest to found a college

"in which shall be taught publicly and without expense

the three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, with the

sufficiently splendid salary of about seventy ducats, which may

be increased according to the value of the person. The Hebrew

and Latin teachers are on hand. Many are competing for the

Greek professorship, but it has always been my opinion that a

native Greek should be procured, so that the hearers may get

the correct pronunciation at once. All the trustees of this

undertaking agree with me and have commissioned me to invite,

in their behalf, whomever I should judge suitable for this

position. I therefore beg you, both by your wonted kindness

to me and your devotion to the cause of learning, if you know

anyone who you think would do honour to yourself and to me, to

send him hither as soon as you can. He will have money for the

journey, his salary, and his lodgings. He will have to do with

men of honour and refinement. He may have the same confidence in

my letter as if the affair were sealed with a hundred contracts.

Between good men a bargain may be as well made without bonds.

You select the proper man, and I will see to it that he shall

not regret coming."

The Hebrew teacher referred to was a Jew named Adrian, chosen, it

would appear, on the same principle of employing native teachers. It

must have required a steady nerve to recommend the appointment of a

Jew, even a converted one, at a time when the affair of Reuchlin,

turning on just this question of respect for Hebrew learning, had

barely ceased to agitate the world of scholars. Erasmus commends

Adrian to Ægidius Busleiden in a letter[120] of sound practical

sense. Fortune has just thrown him in their way;

[120] iii., 353-A.

"he is a Hebrew by birth but long since a Christian by religion,

a physician by profession, and so skilled in the whole Hebrew

literature that in my judgment there is no one at this day to be

compared with him. But if my opinion has not sufficient weight

with you, all whom I have known in Germany or in Italy who were

versed in that language, have borne the same testimony. He not

only knows the language perfectly, but is thoroughly acquainted

with the mysteries of the authors and has them all at his

fingers' ends.... Pray command me if there is anything in which

you think I can assist you."

The Latin professor mentioned was Conrad Goclenius, the man of all

others whom Erasmus selected some few years later, when he thought he

was going to die, as the confidant of his most intimate thoughts and

wishes.