Chapter VII: Basel and Louvain--The "institutio Principis Christiani" (1)

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.

"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.

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."