THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND
1509-14
Third stay in England: 1509-14--No information about two years
of Erasmus's life: 1509 summer, till 1511 spring--Poverty--
Erasmus at Cambridge--Relations with Badius, the Paris
publisher--A mistake profitable to Johannes Froben at Basle--
Erasmus leaves England: 1514--_Julius Exclusus_--Epistle
against war
From the moment when Erasmus, back from Italy in the early summer of
1509, is hidden from view in the house of More, to write the _Praise of
Folly_, until nearly two years later when he comes to view again on the
road to Paris to have the book printed by Gilles Gourmont, every trace
of his life has been obliterated. Of the letters which during that
period he wrote and received, not a single one has been preserved.
Perhaps it was the happiest time of his life, for it was partly spent
with his tried patron, Mountjoy, and also in the house of More in that
noble and witty circle which to Erasmus appeared ideal. That house was
also frequented by the friend whom Erasmus had made during his former
sojourn in England, and whose mind was perhaps more congenial to him
than any other, Andrew Ammonius. It is not improbable that during these
months he was able to work without interruption at the studies to which
he was irresistibly attracted, without cares as to the immediate future,
and not yet burdened by excessive renown, which afterwards was to cause
him as much trouble and loss as joy.
That future was still uncertain. As soon as he no longer enjoys More's
hospitality, the difficulties and complaints recommence. Continual
poverty, uncertainty and dependence were extraordinarily galling to a
mind requiring above all things liberty. At Paris he charged Badius with
a new, revised edition of the _Adagia_, though the Aldine might still be
had there at a moderate price. The _Laus_, which had just appeared at
Gourmont's, was reprinted at Strassburg as early as 1511, with a
courteous letter by Jacob Wimpfeling to Erasmus, but evidently without
his being consulted in the matter. By that time he was back in England,
had been laid up in London with a bad attack of the sweating sickness,
and thence had gone to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he had resided
before. From Cambridge he writes to Colet, 24 August 1511, in a vein of
comical despair. The journey from London had been disastrous: a lame
horse, no victuals for the road, rain and thunder. 'But I am almost
pleased at this, I see the track of Christian poverty.' A chance to make
some money he does not see; he will be obliged to spend everything he
can wrest from his Maecenases--he, born under a wrathful Mercury.
This may sound somewhat gloomier than it was meant, but a few weeks
later he writes again: 'Oh, this begging; you laugh at me, I know. But I
hate myself for it and am fully determined, either to obtain some
fortune, which will relieve me from cringing, or to imitate Diogenes
altogether.' This refers to a dedication of a translation of Basilius's
Commentaries on Isaiah to John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester.
Colet, who had never known pecuniary cares himself, did not well
understand these sallies of Erasmus. He replies to them with delicate
irony and covert rebuke, which Erasmus, in his turn, pretends not to
understand. He was now 'in want in the midst of plenty', _simul et in
media copia et in summa inopia_. That is to say, he was engaged in
preparing for Badius's press the _De copia verborum ac rerum_, formerly
begun at Paris; it was dedicated to Colet. 'I ask you, who can be more
impudent or abject than I, who for such a long time already have been
openly begging in England?'
Writing to Ammonius he bitterly regrets having left Rome and Italy; how
prosperity had smiled upon him there! In the same way he would
afterwards lament that he had not permanently established himself in
England. If he had only embraced the opportunity! he thinks. Was not
Erasmus rather one of those people whom good fortune cannot help? He
remained in trouble and his tone grows more bitter. 'I am preparing some
bait against the 1st of January, though it is pretty sure to be in
vain,' he writes to Ammonius, referring to new translations of Lucian
and Plutarch.
At Cambridge Erasmus lectured on divinity and Greek, but it brought him
little success and still less profit. The long-wished-for prebend,
indeed, had at last been given him, in the form of the rectory of
Aldington, in Kent, to which Archbishop William Warham, his patron,
appointed him in 1512. Instead of residing he was allowed to draw a
pension of twenty pounds a year. The archbishop affirms explicitly that,
contrary to his custom, he had granted this favour to Erasmus, because
he, 'a light of learning in Latin and Greek literature, had, out of love
for England, disdained to live in Italy, France, or Germany, in order to
pass the rest of his life here, with his friends'. We see how nations
already begin to vie with each other for the honour of sheltering
Erasmus.
Relief from all cares the post did not bring. Intercourse and
correspondence with Colet was a little soured under the light veil of
jests and kindness by his constant need of money. Seeking new resources
by undertaking new labours, or preparing new editions of his old books,
remained a hard necessity for Erasmus. The great works upon which he had
set his heart, and to which he had given all his energies at Cambridge,
held out no promise of immediate profit. His serious theological labours
ranked above all others; and in these hard years, he devoted his best
strength to preparation for the great edition of Jerome's works and
emendation of the text of the New Testament, a task inspired, encouraged
and promoted by Colet.
For his living other books had to serve. He had a sufficient number now,
and the printers were eager enough about them, though the profit which
the author made by them was not large. After leaving Aldus at Venice,
Erasmus had returned to the publisher who had printed for him as early
as 1505--Josse Badius, of Brabant, who, at Paris, had established the
Ascensian Press (called after his native place, Assche) and who, a
scholar himself, rivalled Aldus in point of the accuracy of his editions
of the classics. At the time when Erasmus took the _Moria_ to Gourmont,
at Paris, he had charged Badius with a new edition, still to be revised,
of the _Adagia_. Why the _Moria_ was published by another, we cannot
tell; perhaps Badius did not like it at first. From the _Adagia_ he
promised himself the more profit, but that was a long work, the
alterations and preface of which he was still waiting for Erasmus to
send. He felt very sure of his ground, for everyone knew that he,
Badius, was preparing the new edition. Yet a rumour reached him that in
Germany the Aldine edition was being reprinted. So there was some hurry
to finish it, he wrote to Erasmus in May 1512.
Badius, meanwhile, had much more work of Erasmus in hand, or on
approval: the _Copia_, which, shortly afterwards, was published by him;
the _Moria_, of which, at the same time, a new edition, the fifth,
already had appeared; the dialogues by Lucian; the Euripides and Seneca
translations, which were to follow. He hoped to add Jerome's letters to
these. For the _Adagia_ they had agreed upon a copy-fee of fifteen
guilders; for Jerome's letters Badius was willing to give the same sum
and as much again for the rest of the consignment. 'Ah, you will say,
what a very small sum! I own that by no remuneration could your genius,
industry, knowledge and labour be requited, but the gods will requite
you and your own virtue will be the finest reward. You have already
deserved exceedingly well of Greek and Roman literature; you will in
this same way deserve well of sacred and divine, and you will help your
little Badius, who has a numerous family and no earnings besides his
daily trade.'
Erasmus must have smiled ruefully on receiving Badius's letter. But he
accepted the proposal readily. He promised to prepare everything for the
press and, on 5 January 1513, he finished, in London, the preface to the
revised _Adagia_, for which Badius was waiting. But then something
happened. An agent who acted as a mediator with authors for several
publishers in Germany and France, one Francis Berckman, of Cologne, took
the revised copy of the _Adagia_ with the preface entrusted to him by
Erasmus to hand over to Badius, not to Paris, but to Basle, to Johannes
Froben, who had just, without Erasmus's leave, reprinted the Venetian
edition! Erasmus pretended to be indignant at this mistake or perfidy,
but it is only too clear that he did not regret it. Six months later he
betook himself with bag and baggage to Basle, to enter with that same
Froben into those most cordial relations by which their names are
united. Beatus Rhenanus, afterwards, made no secret of the fact that a
connection with the house of Froben, then still called Amerbach and
Froben, had seemed attractive to Erasmus ever since he had heard of the
_Adagia_ being reprinted.
Without conclusive proofs of his complicity, we do not like to accuse
Erasmus of perfidy towards Badius, though his attitude is curious, to
say the least. But we do want to commemorate the dignified tone in which
Badius, who held strict notions, as those times went, about copyright,
replied, when Berckman afterwards had come to offer him a sort of
explanation of the case. He declares himself satisfied, though Erasmus
had, since that time, caused him losses in more ways, amongst others by
printing a new edition of the _Copia_ at Strassburg. 'If, however, it is
agreeable to your interests and honour, I shall suffer it, and that with
equanimity.' Their relations were not broken off. In all this we should
not lose sight of the fact that publishing at that time was yet a quite
new commercial phenomenon and that new commercial forms and relations of
trade are wont to be characterized by uncertainty, confusion and lack of
established business morals.
The stay at Cambridge gradually became irksome to Erasmus. 'For some
months already', he writes to Ammonius in November 1513, 'we have been
leading a true snail's life, staying at home and plodding. It is very
lonely here; most people have gone for fear of the plague, but even when
they are all here, it is lonely.' The cost of sustenance is unbearable
and he makes no money at all. If he does not succeed, that winter, in
making a nest for himself, he is resolved to fly away, he does not know
where. 'If to no other end, to die elsewhere.'
Added to the stress of circumstances, the plague, reappearing again and
again, and attacks of his kidney-trouble, there came the state of war,
which depressed and alarmed Erasmus. In the spring of 1513 the English
raid on France, long prepared, took place. In co-operation with
Maximilian's army the English had beaten the French near Guinegate and
compelled Therouanne to surrender, and afterwards Tournay. Meanwhile the
Scotch invaded England, to be decisively beaten near Flodden. Their
king, James IV, perished together with his natural son, Erasmus's pupil
and travelling companion in Italy, Alexander, Archbishop of Saint
Andrews.
Crowned with martial fame, Henry VIII returned in November to meet his
parliament. Erasmus did not share the universal joy and enthusiastic
admiration. 'We are circumscribed here by the plague, threatened by
robbers; we drink wine of the worst (because there is no import from
France), but, _io triumphe!_ we are the conquerors of the world!'
His deep aversion to the clamour of war, and all it represented,
stimulated Erasmus's satirical faculties. It is true that he flattered
the English national pride by an epigram on the rout of the French near
Guinegate, but soon he went deeper. He remembered how war had impeded
his movements in Italy; how the entry of the pope-conqueror, Julius II,
into Bologna had outraged his feelings. 'The high priest Julius wages
war, conquers, triumphs and truly plays the part of Julius (Caesar)' he
had written then. Pope Julius, he thought, had been the cause of all the
wars spreading more and more over Europe. Now the Pope had died in the
beginning of the year 1513.
And in the deepest secrecy, between his work on the New Testament and
Jerome, Erasmus took revenge on the martial Pope, for the misery of the
times, by writing the masterly satire, entitled _Julius exclusus_, in
which the Pope appears in all his glory before the gate of the Heavenly
Paradise to plead his cause and find himself excluded. The theme was not
new to him; for had he not made something similar in the witty Cain
fable, by which, at one time, he had cheered a dinner-party at Oxford?
But that was an innocent jest to which his pious fellow-guests had
listened with pleasure. To the satire about the defunct Pope many would,
no doubt, also gladly listen, but Erasmus had to be careful about it.
The folly of all the world might be ridiculed, but not the worldly
propensities of the recently deceased Pope. Therefore, though he helped
in circulating copies of the manuscript, Erasmus did his utmost, for the
rest of his life, to preserve its anonymity, and when it was universally
known and had appeared in print, and he was presumed to be the author,
he always cautiously denied the fact; although he was careful to use
such terms as to avoid a formal denial. The first edition of the
_Julius_ was published at Basle, not by Froben, Erasmus's ordinary
publisher, but by Cratander, probably in the year 1518.
Erasmus's need of protesting against warfare had not been satisfied by
writing the _Julius_. In March 1514, no longer at Cambridge, but in
London, he wrote a letter to his former patron, the Abbot of Saint
Bertin, Anthony of Bergen, in which he enlarges upon the folly of waging
war. Would that a Christian peace were concluded between Christian
princes! Perhaps the abbot might contribute to that consummation through
his influence with the youthful Charles V and especially with his
grandfather Maximilian. Erasmus states quite frankly that the war has
suddenly changed the spirit of England. He would like to return to his
native country if the prince would procure him the means to live there
in peace. It is a remarkable fact and of true Erasmian naivete that he
cannot help mixing up his personal interests with his sincere
indignation at the atrocities disgracing a man and a Christian. 'The war
has suddenly altered the spirit of this island. The cost of living rises
every day and generosity decreases. Through lack of wine I nearly
perished by gravel, contracted by taking bad stuff. We are confined in
this island, more than ever, so that even letters are not carried
abroad.'
This was the first of Erasmus's anti-war writings. He expanded it into
the adage _Dulce bellum inexpertis_, which was inserted into the
_Adagia_ edition of 1515, published by Froben and afterwards also
printed separately. Hereafter we shall follow up this line of Erasmus's
ideas as a whole.
Though the summer of 1514 was to bring peace between England and France,
Erasmus had now definitely made up his mind to leave England. He sent
his trunks to Antwerp, to his friend Peter Gilles and prepared to go to
the Netherlands, after a short visit to Mountjoy at the castle of Hammes
near Calais. Shortly before his departure from London he had a curious
interview with a papal diplomat, working in the cause of peace, Count
Canossa, at Ammonius's house on the Thames. Ammonius passed him off on
Erasmus as a merchant. After the meal the Italian sounded him as to a
possible return to Rome, where he might be the first in place instead of
living alone among a barbarous nation. Erasmus replied that he lived in
a land that contained the greatest number of excellent scholars, among
whom he would be content with the humblest place. This compliment was
his farewell to England, which had favoured him so. Some days later, in
the first half of July 1514, he was on the other side of the Channel. On
three more occasions he paid short visits to England, but he lived there
no more.
[Illustration: XIII. JOHANNES FROBEN, 1522-3
Reproduced by gracious permission of H.M. The Queen]
[Illustration: XIV. THE PRINTER'S EMBLEM OF JOHANNES FROBEN]