Chapter III: Part 3

This victory left Handel master of the field for some years, and the academy prospered. During this period he brought out about fifteen of his best operas. But the genius of discord must always have a seat in the temple of harmony, and a dispute between the German manager and the Italian soprano, Senesino, renewed former quarrels, broke up the academy, materially damaged the fortune of the great composer, and was the cause of infinite vexation to him during much of his future life.

Dr. Arbuthnot, always a staunch friend of Handel, now became his champion, and his ridicule had more weight with the sensible portion of the public than the futile arguments, if they deserve the name, advanced by the noble supporters of Senesino. But fashion and prejudice were, as usual, too strong for reason: a rival opera-house was opened in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and after having composed several new operas, comprising some of his best, and having sacrificed nearly the whole of his property and injured his health, in a spirited attempt to support the cause of the lyric stage against the presumption of singers, and the folly of their abettors, Handel was at last compelled to terminate his ineffectual labours, and stop his ruinous expenses, by abandoning the contest and the Italian opera together.

The sacred musical drama, or oratorio, was ultimately destined to repair his all but ruined fortune, and to establish his fame beyond the reach of cavil, and for ever. Esther, the words of which it is said were the joint production of Pope and Arbuthnot, was composed for the Duke of Chandos in 1720. In 1732 it was performed ten nights at the Haymarket, or King’s Theatre. Deborah was produced in 1733, and in the same year Athalia was brought out at Oxford. These three oratorios were performed at Covent Garden, in the Lent of 1734. Acis and Galatea, and Alexander’s Feast, were brought out in 1735; Israel in Egypt, in 1738; L’Allegro ed il Penseroso, in 1739. Saul was produced at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1740. But up to this period his oratorios failed to reimburse him for the expenses incurred; and even the Messiah, that sublime and matchless work, was, as Dr. Burney, Sir John Hawkins, and Handel’s first biographer, Mr. Mainwaring, all agree in stating, not only ill attended, but ill received, when first given to the public, in the capital of the empire, in 1741.

Such miscarriages, and a severe fit of illness, the supposed consequence of them, determined him to try his oratorios in the sister kingdom, where he hoped to be out of the reach of prejudice, envy, and hostility. Dublin was at that time noted for the gaiety and splendour of its court, and the opulence and spirit of its principal inhabitants. Handel, therefore, judged wisely in appealing to such a people. Pope in his Dunciad alludes to this part of his history, introducing a poor phantom as representative of the Italian opera, who thus instructs Dullness:—

But soon, ah soon, rebellion will commence,
If Music meanly borrows aid from sense:
Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands:
To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove’s own thunders follow Mars’s drums.
Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more.—
She heard—and drove him to th’ Hibernian shore.

“On his arrival in Dublin,” we are told by Dr. Burney, in his Commemoration of Handel, “he, with equal judgment and humanity, began by performing the Messiah for the benefit of the city prison. This act of generosity and benevolence met with universal approbation, as well as his music, which was admirably performed.” He remained in Ireland about nine months, where his finances began to mend, an earnest, as it were, of the more favourable reception which he experienced on returning to London in 1742. He then recommenced his oratorios at Covent Garden; Sampson was the first performed. And now fortune seemed to wait on all his undertakings; and he took the tide at the flood. His last oratorio became most popular, and the Messiah was now received with universal admiration and applause. Dr. Burney remarks, “From that time to the present, this great work has been heard in all parts of the kingdom with increasing reverence and delight; it has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan,” and, he might have added, healed the sick. Influenced by the most disinterested motives of humanity, Handel resolved to perform his Messiah annually for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital, and, under his own direction and that of his successors, it added to the funds of that charity alone the sum of £10,300. How much it has produced to other benevolent institutions, it is impossible to calculate; the amount must be enormous.

He continued his oratorios till almost the moment of his death, and derived considerable pecuniary advantage from them, though a considerable portion of the nobility persevered in their opposition to him. George II., however, was his steady patron, and constantly attended his performances, when they were abandoned by most of his court.

In the close of life, Handel had the misfortune to lose his sight, from an attack of gutta serena, in 1751. This evil for a time plunged him into deep despondency; but when the event was no longer doubtful, an earnest and sincere sense of religion enabled him to bear his affliction with fortitude, and he not only continued to perform, but even to compose. For this purpose, he employed as his amanuensis Mr. John Christian Smith, a good musician, who furnished materials for a life of his employer and friend, and succeeded him in the management of the oratorios. “To see him, however,” Dr. Burney feelingly observes, “led to the organ after this calamity, at upwards of seventy years of age, and then conducted towards the audience to make his accustomed obeisance, was a sight so truly afflicting to persons of sensibility, as greatly diminished their pleasure in hearing him perform.”

His last appearance in public was on the 6th of April, 1759. He died that day week, on Good-Friday, thus realizing a hope which he expressed a very few days before his decease, when aware that his last hours were approaching. He was buried in Westminster Abbey; the Dean, Dr. Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, assisted by all the officers of the choir, performed the ceremony. A fine monument, executed by Roubiliac, is placed in Poet’s Corner, above the spot where his mortal remains are deposited; but a still more honourable tribute to his memory was paid in the year 1784, by the performances which took place under the roof which covers his dust. A century having then elapsed from the time of his birth, it was proposed that a Commemoration of Handel should take place. The management of it was intrusted to the directors of the ancient concert, and eight of the most distinguished members of the musical profession. The King, George III., zealously patronised the undertaking, and nearly all the upper classes of the kingdom seconded the royal views. A vocal and instrumental band of 525 persons was collected from all parts, for the purpose of performing in a manner never before even imagined, the choicest works of the master. The great aisle in Westminster Abbey was fitted up for the occasion, with boxes for the Royal Family, the Directors, the Bench of Bishops, and the Dean and Prebendaries of the Church; galleries were erected on each side, and a grand orchestra was built over the great west door, extending from within a few feet of the ground, to nearly half-way up the great window. There were four morning performances in the church: the tickets of admission were one guinea each; and the gross receipts (including an evening concert at the Pantheon) amounted to £12,736. The disbursements rather exceeded £6,000, and the profits were given to the Society for Decayed Musicians and the Westminster Hospital; £6,000 to the former, and £1,000 to the latter. Such was the success of this great enterprise, that similar performances, increasing each year in magnitude, took place annually till the period of the French Revolution, when the state of public affairs did not encourage their longer continuance.

As a composer, Handel was great in all styles—from the familiar and airy to the grand and sublime. His instinctive taste for melody, and the high value he set on it, are obvious in all his works; but he felt no less strongly the charms of harmony, in fulness and richness of which he far surpassed even the greatest musicians who preceded him. And had he been able to employ the variety of instruments now in use, some of which have been invented since his death, and to command that orchestral talent, which probably has had some share in stimulating the inventive faculty of modern composers, it is reasonable to suppose that the field of his conceptions would have expanded with the means at his command. Unrivalled in sublimity, he might then have anticipated the variety and brilliance of later masters.

Generally speaking, Handel set his words with deep feeling and strong sense. Now and then he certainly betrayed a wish to imitate by sounds what sounds are incapable of imitating; and occasionally attempted to express the meaning of an isolated word, without due reference to the context. And sometimes, though not often, his want of a complete knowledge of our language led him into errors of accentuation. But these defects, though great in little men, dwindle almost to nothing in this “giant of the art:” and every competent judge, who contemplates the grandeur, beauty, science, variety, and number of Handel’s productions, will feel for him that admiration which Haydn, and still more Mozart, was proud to avow, and be ready to exclaim in the words of Beethoven, “Handel is the unequalled master of all masters! Go, turn to him, and learn, with such scanty means, how to produce such effects!”

_Engraved by H. Meyer._

PASCAL.

_From the original Picture by Philippe de Champagne,
in the possession of M. Lenoir at Paris._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

PASCAL.

Blaise Pascal was born June 19, 1623, at Clermont, the capital of Auvergne, where his father, Stephen Pascal, held a high legal office. On the death of his wife in 1626, Stephen resigned his professional engagements, that he might devote himself entirely to the education of his family, which consisted only of Blaise, and of two daughters. With this view he removed to Paris.

The elder Pascal was a man of great moral worth, and of a highly cultivated mind. He was known as an active member of a small society of philosophers, to which the Academie Royale des Sciences, established in 1666, owed its origin. Though himself an ardent mathematician, he was in no haste to initiate his son in his own favourite pursuits; but having a notion, not very uncommon, that the cultivation of the exact sciences is unfriendly to a taste for general literature, he began with the study of languages; and notwithstanding many plain indications of the natural bent of his son’s genius, he forbad him to meddle, even in thought, with the mathematics. Nature was too strong for parental authority. The boy having extracted from his father some hints as to the subject matter of geometry, went to work by himself, drawing circles and lines, or, as he called them in his ignorance of the received nomenclature, rounds and bars, and investigating and proving the properties of his various figures, till, without help of a book or oral instruction of any kind, he had advanced as far as the thirty-second proposition of the first book of Euclid. He had perceived that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right ones, and was searching for a satisfactory proof, when his father surprised him in his forbidden speculations. The figures drawn on the walls of his bed-chamber told the tale, and a few questions proved that his head had been employed as well as his fingers. He was at this time twelve years old. All attempts at restriction were now abandoned. A copy of Euclid’s Elements was put into his hands by his father himself, and Blaise became a confirmed geometrician. At sixteen he composed a treatise on the Conic Sections, which had sufficient merit to induce Descartes obstinately to attribute the authorship to the elder Pascal or Desargues.

Such was his progress in a study which was admitted only as the amusement of his idle hours. His labours under his father’s direction were given to the ancient classics.

Some years after this, the elder Pascal had occasion to employ his son in making calculations for him. To facilitate his labour, Blaise Pascal, then in his nineteenth year, invented his famous arithmetical machine, which is said to have fully answered its purpose. He sent this machine with a letter to Christina, the celebrated Queen of Sweden. The possibility of rendering such inventions generally useful has been stoutly disputed since the days of Pascal. This question will soon perhaps be set at rest, if it may not be considered as already answered, by the scientific labours of an accomplished mathematician of our own time and country.

It should be remarked that Pascal, whilst he regarded geometry as affording the highest exercise of the powers of the human mind, held in very low estimation the importance of its practical results. Hence his speculations were irregularly turned to various unconnected subjects, as his curiosity might happen to be excited by them. The late creation of a sound system of experimental philosophy by Galileo had roused an irresistible spirit of inquiry, which was every day exhibiting new marvels; but time was wanted to develope the valuable fruits of its discoveries, which have since connected the most abstruse speculations of the philosopher with the affairs of common life.

There is no doubt that his studious hours produced much that has been lost to the world; but many proofs remain of his persevering activity in the course which he had chosen. Amongst them may be mentioned his Arithmetical Triangle, with the treatises arising out of it, and his investigations of certain problems relating to the curve called by mathematicians the Cycloid, to which he turned his mind, towards the close of his life, to divert his thoughts in a season of severe suffering. For the solution of these problems, according to the fashion of the times, he publicly offered a prize, for which La Loubère and our own countryman Wallis contended. It was adjudged that neither had fulfilled the proposed conditions; and Pascal published his own solutions, which raised the admiration of the scientific world. The Arithmetical Triangle owed its existence to questions proposed to him by a friend respecting the calculation of probabilities in games of chance. Under this name is denoted a peculiar arrangement of numbers in certain proportions, from which the answers to various questions of chances, the involution of binomials, and other algebraical problems, may be readily obtained. This invention led him to inquire further into the theory of chances; and he may be considered as one of the founders of that branch of analysis, which has grown into such importance in the hands of La Place.

His fame as a man of science does not rest solely on his labours in geometry. As an experimentalist he has earned no vulgar celebrity. He was a young man when the interesting discoveries in pneumatics were working a grand revolution in natural philosophy. The experiments of Torricelli had proved, what his great master Galileo had conjectured, the weight and pressure of the air, and had given a rude shock to the old doctrine of the schools that “Nature abhors a vacuum;” but many still clung fondly to the old way, and when pressed with the fact that fluids rise in an exhausted tube to a certain height, and will rise no higher, though with a vacuum above them, still asserted that the fluids rose because Nature abhors a vacuum, but qualified their assertion with an admission that she had some moderation in her abhorrence. Having satisfied himself by his own experiments of the truth of Torricelli’s theory, Pascal with his usual sagacity devised the means of satisfying all who were capable of being convinced. He reasoned that if, according to the new theory, founded on the experiments made with mercury, the weight and general pressure of the air forced up the mercury in the tube, the height of the mercury would be in proportion to the height of the column of incumbent air; in other words, that the mercury would be lower at the top of a mountain than at the bottom of it: on the other hand, that if the old answer were the right one, no difference would appear from the change of situation. Accordingly, he directed the experiment to be made on the Puy de Dôme, a lofty mountain in Auvergne, and the height of the barometer at the top and bottom of the mountain being taken at the same moment, a difference of more than three inches was observed. This set the question at rest for ever. The particular notice which we have taken of this celebrated experiment, made in his twenty-fifth year, may be justified by the importance attached to it by no mean authority. Sir W. Herschell observes, in his Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, page 230, that “it tended perhaps more powerfully than any thing which had previously been done in science to confirm in the minds of men that disposition to experimental verification which had scarcely yet taken full and secure root.”

Whatever may be the value of the fruits of Pascal’s genius, it should be remembered that they were all produced within the space of a life which did not number forty years, and that he was so miserably the victim of disease that from the time of boyhood he never passed a day without pain.

His health had probably been impaired by his earlier exertions; but the intense mental labour expended on the arithmetical machine appears to have completely undermined his constitution, and to have laid the foundation of those acute bodily sufferings which cruelly afflicted him during the remainder of his life. His friends, with the hope of checking the evil, sought to withdraw him from his studies, and tempted him into various modes of relaxation. But the remedy was applied too late. The death of his father in 1651, and the retirement of his unmarried sister from the world to join the devout recluses of Port Royal-des-Champs, released him from all restraint. He sadly abused this liberty, until the frightful aggravation of his complaints obliged him to abandon altogether his scientific pursuits, and reluctantly to follow the advice of his physicians, to mix more freely in general society. He obtained some relief from medicine and change of habits; but, in 1654, an accident both made his recovery hopeless, and destroyed the relish which he had begun to feel for social life. He was in his carriage on the Pont de Neuilly, at a part of the bridge which was unprotected by a parapet, when two of the horses became unruly, and plunged into the Seine. The traces broke, and Pascal was thus saved from instant death. He considered that he had received a providential warning of the uncertainty of life, and retired finally from the world, to make more earnest preparation for eternity. This accident gave the last shock to his already shattered nerves, and to a certain extent disordered his imagination. The image of his late danger was continually before him, and at times he fancied himself on the brink of a precipice. The evil probably was increased by the rigid seclusion to which from this time he condemned himself, and by the austerities which he inflicted on his exhausted frame. His powerful intellect survived the wreck of his constitution, and he gave ample proof to the last that its vigour was unimpaired.

In his religious opinions he agreed with the Jansenists, and, without being formally enrolled in their society, was on terms of intimate friendship with those pious and learned members of the sect, who had established themselves in the wilds of Port Royal. His advocacy of their cause at a critical time was so important to his fame and to literature, that a few words may be allowed on the circumstances which occasioned it.

The Jansenists, though they earnestly deprecated the name of heretics, and were most fiercely opposed to the Huguenots and other Protestants, did in fact nearly approach in many points the reformed churches, and departed widely from the fashionable standard of orthodoxy in their own communion. They were in the first instance brought into collision with their great enemies the Jesuits by the opinions which they held on the subjects of grace and free-will. As the controversy proceeded, the points of difference between the contending parties became more marked and more numerous. The rigid system of morals taught and observed by the Jansenists, and the superior regard which they paid to personal holiness in comparison with ceremonial worship, appeared in advantageous contrast with the lax morality and formal religion of the Jesuits. Hence, though there was much that was repulsive in their discipline, and latterly, not a little that was exceptionable in their conduct, they could reckon in their ranks many of the most enlightened as well as the most pious Christians in France. It was natural that Pascal, who was early impressed with the deepest reverence for religion, should be attracted to a party which seemed at least to be in earnest, whilst others were asleep; and it is more a matter of regret than of surprise, that latterly, in his state of physical weakness and nervous excitement, he should have been partially warped from his sobriety by intercourse with men, whose Christian zeal was in too many instances disfigured by a visionary and enthusiastic spirit. The Papal Court at first dealt with them tenderly; for it was in truth no easy matter to condemn their founder Jansenius, without condemning its own great doctor the celebrated Augustin. But the vivacious doctors of the Sorbonne, on the publication of a letter by the Jansenist Arnauld, took fire, and by their eagerness kindled a flame that well nigh consumed their own church.

Whilst they were in deliberation on the misdoings of Arnauld, Pascal put forth under the name of Louis de Montalte the first of that series of letters to “a friend in the country”—à un provincial par un de ses amis—which, when afterwards collected, received by an absurd misnomer, the title of the Provincial Letters of Pascal. In these letters, after having exhibited in a light irresistibly ludicrous, the disputes of the Sorbonne, he proceeds with the same weapon of ridicule, all powerful in his hand, to hold forth to derision and contempt the profligate casuistry of the Jesuits. For much of his matter he was undoubtedly indebted to his Jansenist friends, and it is commonly said that he was taught by them to reproach unfairly the whole body of Jesuits, with the faults of some obscure writers of their order. These writers, however, were at least well known to the Jesuits, their writings had gone through numerous editions with approbation, and had infused some portion of their spirit into more modern and popular tracts. Moreover, the Society of Jesuits, constituted as it was, had ready means of relieving itself from the discredit of such infamous publications; yet amongst the many works, which by their help found a place in the index of prohibited books, Pascal might have looked in vain for the works of their own Escobar. However this may be, it is universally acknowledged, that the credit of the Jesuits sunk under the blow, that these letters are a splendid monument of the genius of Pascal, and that as a literary work they have placed him in the very first rank among the French classics.

It seems that he had formed a design, even in the height of his scientific ardour, of executing some great work for the benefit of religion. This design took a more definite shape after his retirement, and he communicated orally to his friends the sketch of a comprehensive work on the Evidences of Christianity, which his early death, together with his increasing bodily infirmities, prevented him from completing. Nothing was left but unconnected fragments, containing for the most part his thoughts on subjects apparently relating to his great design, hastily written on small scraps of paper, without order or arrangement of any kind. They were published in 1670, with some omissions, by his friends of Port Royal, and were afterwards given to the world entire, under the title of the Thoughts of Pascal. Many of the thoughts are such as we should expect from a man who with a mind distinguished for its originality, with an intimate knowledge of scripture, and lively piety, had meditated much and earnestly on the subject of religion. In a book so published, it is of course easy enough to find matter for censure and minute criticism; but most Christian writers have been content to bear testimony to its beauties and to borrow largely from its rich and varied stores. Among the editors of the Thoughts of Pascal are found Condorcet and Voltaire, who enriched their editions with a commentary. With what sort of spirit they entered on their work may be guessed from Voltaire’s well known advice to his brother philosopher. “Never be weary, my friend, of repeating that the brain of Pascal was turned after his accident on the Pont de Neuilly.” Condorcet was not the man to be weary in such an employment; but here he had to deal with stubborn facts. The brain of Pascal produced after the accident not only the Thoughts, but also the Provincial Letters, and the various treatises on the Cycloid, the last of which was written not long before his death.

He died August 19th, 1662, aged thirty-nine years and two months.

By those who knew him personally he is said to have been modest and reserved in his manners, but withal, ready to enliven conversation with that novelty of remark and variety of information which might be expected from his well stored and original mind. That spirit of raillery which should belong to the author of the Provincial Letters, showed itself also occasionally in his talk, but always with a cautious desire not to give needless pain or offence.

He seemed to have constantly before his eyes the privations and sufferings to which a large portion of the human race is exposed, and to receive almost with trembling, those indulgences which were denied to others. Thus, when curtailing his own comforts that he might perform more largely the duties of charity, he seemed only to be disencumbering himself of that which he could not safely retain.

As a philosopher, it is the great glory of Pascal, that he is numbered with that splendid phalanx, which in the seventeenth century, following the path opened by Galileo, assisted to overthrow the tyranny of the schools, and to break down the fences which for ages had obstructed the progress of real knowledge; men who were indeed benefactors to science, and who have also left behind them for general use an encouraging proof that the most inveterate prejudices, the most obstinate attachment to established errors, and hostility to improvement may be overcome by resolute perseverance, and a bold reliance on the final victory of truth. No one, however, will coldly measure the honour due to this extraordinary man by his actual contributions to the cause of science or literature. The genius of the child anticipated manhood: his more matured intellect could only show promises of surpassing glory when it escaped from the weak frame in which it was lodged.

For further information the reader is referred to the discourse on the life and works of Pascal, which first appeared in the complete edition of his works in 1779, and has since been published separately at Paris; to the Biographie Universelle; and to the life of Pascal, written by his sister, Madame Perier, which is prefixed to her edition of his Thoughts.

ERASMUS.

Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam on the 28th of October, 1467. The irregular lives of his parents are related by him in a letter to the secretary of Pope Julius II. It is sufficient to state here, that this great genius and restorer of letters was not born in wedlock. His unsophisticated name, as well as that of his father, was Gerard. This word in the Dutch language means _amiable_. According to the affectation of the period, he translated it into the Latin term, Desiderius, and superadded the Greek synonyme of Erasmus. Late in a life of vicissitude and turmoil, he found leisure from greater evils to lament that he had been so neglectful of grammatical accuracy as to call himself Erasmus, and not Erasmius.

In a passage of the life written by himself, he says that “in his early years he made but little progress in those unpleasant studies to which he was not born;” and this gave his countrymen a notion that as a boy he was slow of understanding. Hereon Bayle observes that those unpleasant studies cannot mean learning in general, for which of all men he was born; but that the expression might apply to music, as he was a chorister in the cathedral church of Utrecht. He was afterwards sent to one of the best schools in the Netherlands, where his talents at once shone forth, and were duly appreciated. His master was so well satisfied with his progress, and so thoroughly convinced of his great abilities, as to have foretold what the event confirmed, that he would prove the envy and wonder of all Germany.

_Engraved by E. Scriven._

ERASMUS.

_From the original Picture by G. Penn,
in his Majesty’s Collection at Windsor._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

At the age of fourteen Erasmus was removed from the school at Deventer in consequence of the plague, of which his mother died, and his father did not long survive her. With a view to possess themselves of his patrimony, his guardians sent him to three several convents in succession. At length, unable longer to sustain the conflict, he reluctantly entered among the regular canons at Stein, near Tergou, in 1486. Much condescension to his peculiar humour was shown in dispensing with established laws and customary ceremonies; but he was principally led to make his profession by the arts of his guardians and the dilapidation of his fortune. He describes monasteries, and his own in particular, as destitute of learning and sound religion. “They are places of impiety,” he says in his piece ‘De Contemptu Mundi,’ “where every thing is done to which a depraved inclination can lead, under the mask of religion; it is hardly possible for any one to keep himself pure and unspotted.” Julius Scaliger and his other enemies assert that he himself was deeply tainted by these impurities; but both himself and his friends deny the charge.

He escaped from the cloister in consequence of the accuracy with which he could speak and write Latin. This rare accomplishment introduced him to the Bishop of Cambray, with whom he lived till 1490. He then took pupils, among whom was the Lord Mountjoy, with several other noble Englishmen. He says of himself, that “he lived rather than studied” at Paris, where he had no books, and often wanted the common comforts of life. Bad lodgings and bad diet permanently impaired his constitution, which had been a very strong one. The plague drove him from the capital before he could profit as he wished by the instructions of the university in theology.

Some time after he left Paris, Erasmus came over to England, and resided in Oxford, where he contracted friendship with all of any note in literature. In a letter from London to a friend in Italy, he says, “What is it, you will say, which captivates you so much in England? It is that I have found a pleasant and salubrious air; I have met with humanity, politeness, and learning; learning not trite and superficial, but deep and accurate; true old Greek and Latin learning; and withal so much of it, that but for mere curiosity, I have no occasion to visit Italy. When Colet discourses, I seem to hear Plato himself. In Grocyn, I admire an universal compass of learning. Linacre’s acuteness, depth, and accuracy are not to be exceeded; nor did nature ever form any thing more elegant, exquisite, and accomplished than More.”

On leaving England, Erasmus had a fever at Orleans, which recurred every Lent for five years together. He tells us that Saint Genevieve interceded for his recovery; but not without the help of a good physician. At this time he was applying diligently to the study of Greek. He says, that if he could but get some money, he would first buy Greek books, and then clothes. His mode of acquiring the language was by making translations from Lucian, Plutarch, and other authors. Many of these translations appear in his works, and answered a double purpose; for while they familiarized him with the languages, the sentiments and the philosophy of the originals, they also furnished him with happy trains of thought and expression, when he dedicated his editions of the Fathers, or his own treatises, to his patrons.

We cannot follow him through his incessant journeys and change of places during the first years of the sixteenth century. His fame was spread over Europe, and his visits were solicited by popes, crowned heads, prelates, and nobles; but much as the great coveted his society, they suffered him to remain extremely poor. We learn from his ‘Enchiridion Militis Christiani,’ published in 1503, that he had discovered many errors in the Roman church, long before Luther appeared. His reception at Rome was most flattering: his company was courted both by the learned and by persons of the first rank and quality. After his visit to Italy, he returned to England, which he preferred to all other countries. On his arrival he took up his abode with his friend More, and within the space of a week wrote his ‘Encomium Moriæ,’ the Praise of Folly, for their mutual amusement. The general design is to show that there are fools in all stations; and more particularly to expose the court of Rome, with no great forbearance towards the Pope himself. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Chancellor of the University, and Head of Queen’s College, invited him to Cambridge, where he lived in the Lodge, was made Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity, and afterwards Greek Professor. But notwithstanding these academical honours and offices, he was still so poor as to apply with importunity to Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s, for fifteen angels as the price of a dedication. “Erasmus’s Walk” in the grounds of Queen’s College still attests the honour conferred on the university by the temporary residence of this great reviver of classical learning.

On his return to the Low Countries, he was nominated by Charles of Austria to a vacant bishopric in Sicily; but the right of presentation happened to belong to the Pope. Erasmus laughed heartily at the prospect of this incongruous preferment; and said that as the Sicilians were merry fellows, they might possibly have liked such a bishop.

In the year 1516 he printed his edition, the first put forth in Greek, of the New Testament. We learn from his letters, that there was one college in Cambridge which would not suffer this work to be brought within its walls: but the public voice spoke a different language; for it went through three editions in less than twelve years. From 1516 to 1526 he was employed in publishing the works of Saint Jerome. Luther blamed him for his partiality to this father. He says, “I prefer Augustine to Jerome, as much as Erasmus prefers Jerome to Augustine.” As far as this was a controversy of taste and criticism, the restorer of letters was likely to have the better of the argument against the apostle of the Reformation.

The times were now become tempestuous. Erasmus was of a placid temper, and of a timid character. He endeavoured to reconcile the conflicting parties in the church; but with that infelicity commonly attendant on mediators, he drew on himself the anger of both. Churchmen complained that his censures of the monks, of their grimaces and superstitions, had paved the way for Luther. On the other hand, Erasmus offended the Lutherans, by protesting against identifying the cause of literature with that of the Reformation. He took every opportunity of declaring his adherence to the see of Rome. The monks, with whom he waged continual war, would have been better pleased had he openly gone over to the enemy: his caustic remarks would have galled them less proceeding from a Lutheran than from a Catholic. But his motives for continuing in the communion of the established church, are clearly indicated in the following passage: “Wherein could I have assisted Luther, if I had declared myself for him and shared his danger? Instead of one man, two would have perished. I cannot conceive what he means by writing with such a spirit: one thing I know too well, that he has brought great odium on the lovers of literature. He has given many wholesome doctrines and good counsels: but I wish he had not defeated the effect of them by his intolerable faults. But even if he had written in the most unexceptionable manner, I had no inclination to die for the sake of truth. Every man has not the courage necessary to make a martyr: I am afraid that, if I were put to the trial, I should imitate St. Peter.”

In 1522 he published the works of Saint Hilary. About the same time he published his Colloquies. In this work, among the strokes of satire, he laughed at indulgences, auricular confession, and eating fish on fast-days. The faculty of theology at Paris passed the following censure on the book: “The fasts and abstinences of the church are slighted, the suffrages of the holy virgin and of the saints are derided, virginity is set below matrimony, Christians are discouraged from becoming monks, and grammatical is preferred to theological erudition.” Pope Paul III. had little better to propose to the cardinals and prelates commissioned to consider about the reform of the church, than that young persons should not be permitted to read Erasmus’s Colloquies. Colineus took a hint from this prohibition: he reprinted them in 1527, and sold off an impression of twenty-four thousand.

In 1524 a rumour was spread abroad that Erasmus was going to write against Luther, which produced the following characteristic letter from the Great Reformer: “Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus. I shall not complain of you for having behaved yourself as a man alienated from us, for the sake of keeping fair with the Papists; nor was I much offended that in your printed books, to gain their favour or soften their fury, you censured us with too much acrimony. We saw that the Lord had not conferred on you the discernment, courage, and resolution to join with us in freely and openly opposing these monsters; therefore we did not expect from you what greatly surpasseth your strength and capacity. We have borne with your weakness, and honoured that portion of the gift of God which is in you.... I never wished that deserting your own province you should come over to our camp. You might indeed have favoured us not a little by your wit and eloquence: but as you have not the courage requisite, it is safer for you to serve the Lord in your own way. Only we feared that our adversaries should entice you to write against us, in which case necessity would have constrained us to oppose you to your face. I am concerned that the resentment of so many eminent persons of your party has been excited against you: this must have given you great uneasiness; for virtue like yours, mere human virtue, cannot raise a man above being affected by such trials. Our cause is in no peril, although even Erasmus should attack it with all his might: so far are we from dreading the keenest strokes of his wit. On the other hand, my dear Erasmus, if you duly reflect on your own weakness, you will abstain from those sharp, spiteful figures of rhetoric, and treat of subjects better suited to your powers.” Erasmus’s answer is not found in the collection of his letters; but he must have been touched to the quick.

In 1527 he published two dialogues: the first, on ‘The pronunciation of the Greek and Latin Languages;’ full of learning and curious research: the second, entitled ‘Ciceronianus.’ In this lively piece he ridicules those Italian pedants who banished every word or phrase unauthorized by Cicero. His satire, however, is not directed against Cicero’s style, but against the servility of mere imitation. In a subsequent preface to a new edition of the Tusculan Questions, he almost canonizes Cicero, both for his matter and expression. Julius Scaliger had launched more than one philippic against him for his treatment of the Ciceronians; but he considered this preface as a kind of penance for former blasphemies, and admitted it as an atonement to the shade of the great Roman. Erasmus had at this time fixed his residence at Bâsle. He was advancing in years, and complained in his letters of poverty and sickness. Pope Paul III., notwithstanding his Colloquies, professed high regard for him, and his friends thought that he was likely to obtain high preferment. Of this matter Erasmus writes thus: “The Pope had resolved to add some learned men to the college of Cardinals, and I was named to be one. But to my promotion it was objected, that my state of health would unfit me for that function, and that my income was not sufficient.”

In the summer of 1536 his state of exhaustion became alarming. His last letter is dated June 20, and subscribed thus: “Erasmus Rot. ægra manu.” He died July 12, in the 59th year of his age, and was buried in the cathedral of Bâsle. His friend Beatus Rhenanus describes his person and manners. He was low of stature, but not remarkably short, well-shaped, of a fair complexion, grey eyes, a cheerful countenance, a low voice, and an agreeable utterance. His memory was tenacious. He was a pleasant companion, a constant friend, generous and charitable. Erasmus had one peculiarity, humorously noticed by himself; namely, that he could not endure even the smell of fish. On this he observed, that though a good Catholic in other respects, he had a most heterodox and Lutheran stomach.

With many great and good qualities, Erasmus had obvious failings. Bayle has censured his irritability when attacked by adversaries; his editor, Le Clerc, condemns his lukewarmness and timidity in the business of the Reformation. Jortin defends him with zeal, and extenuates what he cannot defend. “Erasmus was fighting for his honour and his life; being accused of nothing less than heterodoxy, impiety, and blasphemy, by men whose forehead was a rock, and whose tongue was a razor. To be misrepresented as a pedant and a dunce is no great matter; for time and truth put folly to flight: to be accused of heresy by bigots, priests, politicians, and infidels, is a serious affair; as they know too well who have had the misfortune to feel the effects of it.” Dr. Jortin here speaks with bitter fellow-feeling for Erasmus, as he himself had been similarly attacked by the high church party of his day. He goes on to give his opinion, that even for his lukewarmness in promoting the Reformation, much may be said, and with truth. “Erasmus was not entirely free from the prejudices of education. He had some indistinct and confused notions about the authority of the Catholic Church, which made it not lawful to depart from her, corrupted as he believed her to be. He was also much shocked by the violent measures and personal quarrels of the Reformers. Though, as Protestants, we are more obliged to Luther, Melancthon, and others, than to him, yet we and all the nations in Europe are infinitely indebted to Erasmus for spending a long and laborious life in opposing ignorance and superstition, and in promoting literature and true piety.” To us his character appears to be strongly illustrated by his own declaration, “Had Luther written truly every thing that he wrote, his seditious liberty would nevertheless have much displeased me. I would rather even err in some matters, than contend for the truth with the world in such a tumult.” A zealous advocate of peace at all times, it is but just to believe that he sincerely dreaded the contests sure to rise from open schism in the church. And it was no unpardonable frailty, if this feeling were nourished by a temperament, which confessedly was not desirous of the palm of martyrdom.

It is impossible to give the contents of works occupying ten volumes in folio. They have been printed under the inspection of the learned Mr. Le Clerc. The biography of Erasmus is to be found at large in Bayle’s Dictionary, and the copious lives of Knight and Jortin.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

TITIAN.

_From the Picture of Titian & Aretin painted by Titian,
in his Majesty’s Collection at Windsor._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

TITIAN.

On looking back to the commencement of the sixteenth century, by far the most brilliant epoch of modern art, we cannot but marvel at the splendour and variety of talent concentrated within the brief space of half a century, or less. Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, Titian, all fellow-labourers, with many others inferior to these mighty masters, yet whose works are prized by kings and nobles as their most precious treasures—by what strange prodigality of natural gifts, or happy combination of circumstances was so rare an assemblage of genius produced in so short a time? The most obvious explanation is to be found in the princely patronage then afforded to the arts by princes and churchmen. By this none profited more largely or more justly than the great painter, whose life it is our task to relate.

Tiziano Vecelli was born of an honourable family at Capo del Cadore, a small town on the confines of Friuli, in 1480. He soon manifested the bent of his genius, and at the age of ten was consigned to the care of an uncle residing in Venice, who placed him under the tuition of Giovanni Bellini, then in the zenith of his fame. The style of Bellini though forcible is dry and hard, and little credit has been given to him for his pupil’s success. It is probable, however, that Titian imbibed in his school those habits of accurate imitation, which enabled him afterwards to unite boldness and truth, and to indulge in the most daring execution, without degenerating into mannerism. The elements of his future style he found first indicated by Lionardo da Vinci, and more developed in the works of Giorgione, who adopted the principles of Lionardo, but with increased power, amenity, and splendour. As soon as Titian became acquainted with this master’s paintings, he gave his whole attention to the study of them; and with such success, that the portrait of a noble Venetian named Barbarigo, which he painted at the age of eighteen, was mistaken for the work of Giorgione. From that time, during some years, these masters held an equal place in public esteem; but in 1507 a circumstance occurred which turned the balance in favour of Titian. They were engaged conjointly in the decoration of a public building, called the Fondaco de Tedeschi. Through some mistake that part of the work which Titian had executed, was understood by a party of connoisseurs to have been painted by Giorgione, whom they overwhelmed with congratulations on his extraordinary improvement. It may be told to his credit, that though he manifested some weakness in discontinuing his intercourse with Titian, he never spoke of him without amply acknowledging his merits.

Anxious to gain improvement from every possible source, Titian is said to have drawn the rudiments of his fine style of landscape painting from some German artists who came to Venice about the time of this rupture. He engaged them to reside in his house, and studied their mode of practice until he had mastered their principles. His talents were now exercised on several important works, and it is evident, from the picture of the Angel and Tobias, that he had already acquired an extraordinary breadth and grandeur of style. The Triumph of Faith, a singular composition, manifesting great powers of invention, amid much quaintness of character and costume, is known by a wood engraving published in 1508. A fresco of the Judgment of Solomon, for the Hall of Justice at Vicenza, was his next performance. After this he executed several subjects in the church of St. Anthony, at Padua, taken from the miracles attributed to that saint.

These avocations had withdrawn him from Venice. On his return, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, he was employed to finish a large picture left imperfect by Bellini, or, according to some authorities, by Giorgione, in the great Council Hall of Venice, representing the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa on his knees before Pope Alexander III. at the entrance of St. Mark’s. The Senate were so well satisfied with his performance, that they appointed him to the office called La Senseria; the conditions of which were, that it should be held by the best painter in the city, with a salary of three hundred scudi, he engaging to paint the portrait of each Doge on his election, at the price of eight scudi. These portraits were hung in one of the public apartments of St. Mark. At the close of 1514 Titian was invited to Ferrara by the Duke Alphonso. For him he executed several splendid works; among them, portraits of the Duke, and of his wife, and that celebrated picture of Bacchus and Ariadne, now in our own National Gallery.

The first works executed by Titian after his return to Venice, prove that he had already accomplished that union of grand design with brilliant colouring, which was designated by Tintoret as the highest perfection of painting. His immense picture of the Assumption, formerly in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa, and now in the Academy of Venice, exhibits, in the opinion of some first-rate judges, various excellences, such as have never been combined in any single performance, but by Titian himself[5]. The Virgin, whose figure relieves dark on the irradiated back-ground, seems to ascend amid a flood of glory. She is surrounded and sustained by angels of ineffable beauty, and the disciples below are personifications of apostolic grandeur. It will scarcely be credited that the Monks, for whom this picture was painted, objected to it on account of its apparent reality; but the voice of public admiration soon made them sensible of its merits, and they refused a large sum offered for it by the Imperial Ambassador. Such a report of this work was made to Leo X. by Cardinal Bembo, that Titian received an invitation to Rome from the Pontiff, with the offer of honourable appointments. A similar proposal from Francis I. of France, whose portrait he painted in 1515, he had already declined; but he yielded to the temptation of visiting Rome, being not less anxious to see the great works of contemporary genius, than the wonders of ancient art. He did not, however, carry his purpose into effect at this time, but remained at Venice; and thus secured to her the possession of those noble works, which, when they were produced, formed the brightest ornament of her power, and even now, when her other glories are set, confer upon her an imperishable distinction.

Footnote 5:

The writer has been informed by Canova that this was his own opinion,
and that of Sir Thomas Lawrence.