CHAPTER V

RESIDENCE IN ITALY--THE "PRAISE OF FOLLY"

1506-1509

We have already noted Erasmus' often-expressed desire to visit Italy. It is the alleged motive of his begging correspondence with the Marchioness Anna in and about the year 1500. At that time he professes to have little interest in Italy for its own sake, but to be yielding to a popular delusion that a doctor's degree was absolutely indispensable to a scholarly reputation and that an Italian doctorate was worth more than any other. In England he is quite satisfied that he has done just as well for his Greek and his scholarly advancement in general as if he had gone to Italy; yet the idea of the Italian journey seems never to have left him. It is an interesting inquiry precisely what the real attraction of Italy to Erasmus was.

One can easily draw a fancy picture of what ought to have attracted him. Italy had naturally for the scholar of the Renaissance a double interest, first as the seat of ancient Roman culture, and again as the source and spring of that modern revival in which he himself formed a part. It might well appeal to the instinct of the antiquarian and the sight-seer, eager to bring visibly before himself the remains of ancient splendour, the living and vivid reminders of a mighty past. He might hope to live again in the charmed atmosphere of Virgil and Horace, to sit amid the scenes already familiar to him in the glowing pages of Cicero, and to bring into his mind some more adequate understanding of the vast achievements he had read of in the pregnant story of Livy or of Julius Cæsar.

The appeal of Italy, in short, to the historical imagination is, one would say, perhaps the most powerful that has ever come to a scholar's mind from that land of enchantment. It was a time, too, when men's thoughts and activities were turning eagerly to all that side of the new classical study. For a century and a half, ever since the days of Petrarch and Rienzi, the treasures of ancient art, Greek as well as Roman, had been brought to light, gathered into great collections, and made to do their part in the education of Europe. The limits of the Eternal City had been turned into one great treasure-house of precious reminders of former and presages of a future greatness. The visitor to Rome or to Florence might study from the originals the choicest forms in which the art of the ancient world had expressed itself.

It is hard to fancy that Erasmus, in his thoughts of Italy, can have failed to be drawn by the anticipation of living thus bodily in the presence of the human world from which he drew his literary inspiration and toward which all his serious thought went back as to its natural source. Yet the fact is that neither in the anticipation nor in the reality of his Italian journey do we find such reference to these things as would warrant us in thinking that they formed any essential part of his ideas about Italy. That sense of an overwhelming grandeur, a something indescribably greater than all that had come since, which has fallen upon so many an Italian traveller, seems to have been entirely absent in his case. When Goethe entered Italy, it was with bated breath and reverent awe at the stupendous remains of a civilisation whose influence was even then potent in the lives of men. So far as Erasmus has left us any witness of himself his mind was occupied solely with the immediate profit of the moment: his doctor's degree, his new publisher, the petty comforts and discomforts of daily life.

Still more curious is his attitude towards that other aspect of Italy which might have been expected to impress him even more. As a man of the Renaissance one might have looked to find Erasmus, even before his departure, in correspondence with some of the lights of the later Italian Humanism; yet, so far as we know, he went over the Alps a stranger, except for the slight reputation of his own writings, and chiefly of the Adages. The enormous activity of all those great producers in every field of art, who have made the turning-point of the fifteenth to the sixteenth century one of the great epochs in human history, seems simply to have escaped his notice. We do not hear of it as attracting him from the North; when he is in the midst of it, it finds no echo in his correspondence, and when he leaves it, there is nothing in his later writing to show that it had greatly affected him. With the really greatest men of the land he seems not to have come into any intimate personal relation, and he certainly avoided here, as he had always done elsewhere, any complication with political or social movements of any sort.

Our information in regard to the Italian journey and residence is curiously meagre. In the great collection of Erasmus' letters, there are but a half-dozen in the three years from 1506 to 1509. M. Nolhac[67] has published four others written by Erasmus to Aldus, his printer, but these latter are occupied almost wholly with unimportant business details. Four of the former group are written from Paris just after the party had left England and give us only some scattered hints as to Erasmus' departure for Italy.

[67] P. de Nolhac, _Érasme en Italie, Étude sur un épisode de la Renaissance, avec douze lettres inédites d'Érasme_, 1888.

The long-sought opportunity came to him in a form which he had once vowed he would never accept, namely, through an engagement as private tutor to the two sons of Battista Boerio, the Genoese physician of King Henry VII. Beatus takes some pains to tell us that Erasmus was not to teach these youths, but it is not quite clear what else his function was. They had an attendant (_curator_) named Clyston, whom Erasmus describes in one of these early letters as the most pleasant, lovable, and faithful fellow in the world. The lads, too, were, he says, most modest, teachable, and studious. He has great hopes that they will fulfil the expectations of their father and reward his own pains. The voyage across the Channel was a dreadful one, lasting four days, so that a report spread in Paris that they were lost, and Erasmus appeared among his friends, he says, like one risen from the dead. The result was that he was taken with an illness, which he describes so exactly as to leave no doubt that he had a good clear case of the mumps.

From Paris the journey was by way of Lyons and the western Alps. We have a brief account of it in that singular hodge-podge, the catalogue of his writings, made by Erasmus eighteen years afterward and sent to John Botzheim of Constance. The story of the journey there given is only incidental to the account of a little poetical dissertation[68] on the approach of old age which he wrote on the way and sent back to Paris to his medical friend, William Cop. Erasmus was only about forty years old, but he felt himself getting on in life and declares here his determination to give up the charms of pure literature and devote the rest of his days to Christ alone. Most serious men of the Renaissance from Petrarch and Boccaccio down had had their moments of self-reproach for their over-devotion to the heathen Muses and perhaps Erasmus' feeling on this point was as sincere as that of his colleagues. Surely his life up to this time had not been so frivolously classical as to cause him any deserved regrets. He represents this poem as written to relieve his mind from the unpleasantness of his companions, especially the distinguished Clyston, who was now already as dreadful a being as a few weeks before he had been charming. While Clyston was alternately brawling and drinking with an English man-at-arms whom the king had specially deputed for their protection, Erasmus was, he says, devoting himself to poetical reflection and composition. Another reference to this journey is probably found in the well-known colloquy "_Diversoria_," in which one of the speakers describes the charms of the French inns, their cleanliness, their good wines and cookery, and the great efforts of the landladies and their fair attendants to make things pleasant for the traveller. All this is then made the more effective by a counter-description of the swinish customs of the inns in Germany.[69] Again we have an illustration of Erasmus' æsthetic indifference. It is not a sufficient answer to say that joy in outward nature is a purely recent emotion. The whole art of the Renaissance is the witness that men had long since escaped from this form of mediæval bondage and were quite able to understand that they were living in a good world, made for their delight and not wholly under the dominion of Satan. A journey on horseback across the Alps! and, so far as we know, this prince of learned men, who could discourse so eloquently upon every human feeling, had not one emotion beyond a desire to get across as soon as possible and a lively sense of the comforts and discomforts of his inns.

[68] _Carmen equestre vel potius Alpestre_, iv., 755.

[69] See page 226.

If a doctor's degree was one of Erasmus' objects in coming to Italy, he certainly lost no time in fulfilling it. The degree was conferred on him at Turin September 4, 1506.[70] Erasmus took especial pains to state in at least four letters that he took this degree to please his friends, not himself; but made no objection to its immediate use in his publications. From Turin he went on to Bologna where he proposed to settle for his own studies, as well as for those of his young pupils. The country was in a distressing state of confusion and that of a kind especially offensive to Erasmus. War was bad enough at the best, but a papal war was a scandal to the name of Christianity, and a fighting pope was to him a monster of iniquity. He held his pen quietly enough at the time, but the impression of this pope, Julius II., leading a campaign for the recovery of Bologna from the French never quite left him. It served him for a text whenever he felt free to speak his mind on the subject of war or on the decline of virtue in the church. A turn in affairs gave Bologna to Julius II. and furnished to Erasmus the opportunity of seeing the triumphal entry of the pope into his city. He simply reports the event to Servatius, his old comrade at Steyn, without mentioning that he had witnessed it, and only long afterward casually refers to his presence, in the course of a formal defence against the charge of abusing the papacy.

[70] See the diploma in W. Vischer, _Erasmiana_, Basel, 1876.

"In the passage ... I compare the triumphal entries (_triumphos_) which, in my presence, Julius II. made first at Bologna and afterwards at Rome, with the majesty of the apostles who converted the world by divine truth and who so abounded in miracles that the sick were healed by their very shadow, and I give the preference to this apostolic splendour; yet I say nothing abusive against those [other] triumphs, although to speak frankly I gazed upon them not without a silent groan."

Two little notes to Servatius at this time are quite in the usual tone of Erasmian discontent. He says that his principal object in coming to Italy was to study Greek but "_jam frigent studia, fervent bella_" "studies are cold, but wars are hot,"--he will endeavour to fly back again very soon and hopes to see his friend the following summer. While wars are planning study takes a holiday. He makes an identical promise to another friend and was probably quite sincere in fancying that Italy, like every other place he had tried, was a failure. Evidently he was in trouble about his pupils. Writing to one of them twenty-five years afterward[71] he says:

[71] iii.², 1397.

"it was the fault of that fellow, whom you nickname the '_scarabeus_,' not only that I had to leave you sooner than I had intended, but that the pleasure of our companionship was so embittered that if I had not been kept by a sense of duty, I could not have endured that monster for a month. I have often wondered that your cautious father could have been so thoughtless as to intrust his most precious treasures to a man who was scarce fit to keep swine, nay, who was of such feeble mind that he rather needed a keeper himself."

The whole affair is almost an echo of the trouble with the "old man" at Paris and would be too trifling for notice were it not almost the only incident in connection with Erasmus' residence of more than a year at Bologna which has come down to us. Of course the climate was bad and especially unsuited to his requirements.

The summer of 1507 found Erasmus still at Bologna. It was an exceptionally hot season--so he says--and the plague broke out with violence. It is apropos of this plague and an incident which he relates in connection with it, that we come once more to the famous letter, mentioned early in our narrative,[72] in which Erasmus begs to be released from the obligation of wearing the monastic dress. The letter is addressed to Lambertus Grunnius, a papal secretary at Rome, and contains, by way of introduction, that long series of details about the compulsory entrance into the monastery of a youth called Florentius, which has been generally accepted as a truthful narrative of the writer's own experience. We have already followed the indications of this letter with some care down to the point where Erasmus was safely invested with the monastic garb and had made up his mind to make the best of it. At this point, with one of those jumps so common in his style, he comes to the time of his Italian visit and continues:

[72] See Introduction.

"Some time afterward it happened that he went into a far country for the purpose of study. There, according to the French custom, he wore a linen scarf above his gown, supposing that this was not unusual in that country.[73] But from this he twice was in danger of his life, for the physicians there who serve during a plague, wear a white linen scarf on their left shoulder, so that it hangs down in front and behind, and in this way they are easily recognised and avoided by the passers-by. Yet, unless they go about by unfrequented ways they would be stoned by those who meet them, for such is the horror of death among those people, that they go wild at the very odour of incense because it is burned at funerals. At one time when Florentius was going to visit a learned friend, two blackguards fell upon him with murderous cries and drawn swords and would have killed him, if a lady fortunately passing had not explained to them that this was the dress of a churchman and not of a doctor. Still they ceased not to rage and did not sheathe their swords until he had pounded on the door of a house near by and so got in.

[73] In another place he says that he changed his dress in Italy to conform to the custom of the country, iii., 1527.

"At another time he was going to visit certain countrymen of his when a mob with sticks and stones suddenly got together and urged each other on with furious shouts of 'Kill the dog! Kill the dog!' Meanwhile a priest came up who only laughed and said in Latin in a low voice: 'Asses! Asses!' They kept on with their tumult, but as a young man of elegant appearance and wearing a purple cloak came out of a house, Florentius ran to him as to an altar of safety, for he was totally ignorant of the vulgar tongue and was only wondering what they wanted of him. 'One thing is certain,' said the young man: 'if you don't lay off this scarf, you'll some day get stoned; I have warned you, and now look out for yourself.' So, without laying aside his scarf, he concealed it under his upper garment."

Such is the cock-and-bull story with which Erasmus, we know not how many years later, amused the excellent Grunnius as a preface to his petition for a papal dispensation from the duty of wearing the monastic dress. It is too silly even for Mr. Drummond, who very properly says that it is quite too much to believe either that Erasmus would be in a plague-stricken city when he could get out of it, or that any Italian could be so blind as not to know a monk from a doctor! Certainly Erasmus would never wait to be pounded in the street before finding out what dress he might safely wear. The reply of Grunnius shows how the whole matter looked at Rome.

"MY DEAREST ERASMUS: I never undertook any commission more gladly than the one you have intrusted to me and scarcely ever succeeded in one more to my own mind. For I was moved not so much by my friendship for you, strong as that is, as by the undeserved misfortune of Florentius. Your letter I read from beginning to end to the pope in the presence of several cardinals and men of the highest standing. The most holy father was extremely delighted with your style and you would hardly believe how hot he was against those man-stealers; for greatly as he favours true piety, by so much the more does he hate those who are filling the world with wretched or wicked monks to the great injury of the Christian faith. 'Christ,' he says, 'loves piety of the heart, not workhouses for slaves.' He has ordered your permit to be made out at once and _gratis_ too.... Farewell, and give Florentius, whom I regard as I do yourself, an affectionate greeting from me."

However much of truth or of fiction there may have been in this famous letter, we may be tolerably sure that Erasmus thought of it very much as he would of his Colloquies, as a piece of literary work with a purpose at the bottom of it. At the time he sent it, perhaps 1514, his views were well known to the papal circle, and the abuse of monks was far from unwelcome to the "enlightened" views of a monarchy as worldly as any in all Europe. Doubtless Erasmus knew his Rome well enough before he ventured to send such a fulmination as this into the midst of it.

Of his other occupations at Bologna we know little. He does not appear to have been a regular student at the famous university, but rather to have worked by himself and to have got what help he could from a Greek teacher named Bombasius, with whom he had later some correspondence.[74]

[74] Beatus Rhenanus, in his brief summary of Erasmus' life, says: "With the exception of the rudiments, he may truly be said to have been self-taught. For the journey into Italy ... was undertaken for the sake of visiting that famous land, not to take advantage of the professors there. At Bologna he heard no one of the public lecturers, but, satisfied with the friendship of Paulus Bombasius ... he devoted himself to his studies at home."

"I never passed a more disagreeable year," he said long afterward; but we have learned the formula by this time and could hardly expect any other opinion from him of a year in which he had reached the goal of his desires, was free from all burdens except the oversight of two excellent pupils, was at one of the principal seats of learning, in as good health as usual and working away at several pieces of composition which he had undertaken of his own free choice. It is as certain that this was a profitable year to Erasmus as it is that he profited by those early monastic years of which he affected later to have only the gloomiest recollections.

If any proof of this were wanting it would be found in the earliest acquaintance of Erasmus with the famous Venetian printer and publisher, Aldus Manutius, which begins at the close of the year at Bologna and was to continue for many years to the great pleasure and profit of both parties. Erasmus' first request to Aldus, introduced by plentiful compliments upon his work, is that he will undertake to reprint the translation of two tragedies of Euripides which had already been published by Badius at Paris. That unlucky publisher, it seems, had offered to make a second and better edition, but Erasmus confides to Aldus his dread that Badius would only patch up old errors with new ones, and says[75]:

[75] Nolhac, _Érasme en Italie_, Ep. i.

"I should feel that my productions were on the way to immortality if they should see the light by the aid of your types, especially those small ones, the most tasteful of all. Let it be so done that the volume shall be very small and let the thing be put through with very slight expense. If it shall seem good to you to undertake the business, I will furnish _gratis_ the corrected manuscript which I am sending by this messenger and will only ask for a few copies to give to my friends."

He urges Aldus to haste because he may have to leave Italy very soon.

Everything thus points to an entire absence of plan in Erasmus' mind. His only fixed intention was to go to Rome at Christmas, as he informs Aldus in his next letter. The great publisher had evidently agreed to print the tragedies and had made certain suggestions in regard to readings, which indicate at once how much more than a mere printer or publisher he was. Erasmus replies with his own views on the passages in question and with very warm words of admiration for Aldus. He wants these plays, he says, as New Year gifts to his learned friends at Bologna, and these include "all who either know or profess the classic literature." At Rome, also, he will want to have some little work to recall him to his former acquaintances and to make new ones; so he begs Aldus for a short introductory note, which he will leave entirely to his discretion. It is an interesting comment on Erasmus' relation to the Italian scholars that he should have needed a publisher's introduction to commend him to them. Will Aldus be so good as to send him twenty or thirty copies _de luxe_ (_codices estimatos_) for which he will pay in advance, c.o.d. or in any way Aldus may direct? A singular reference in this letter is worth noting for the light it sheds upon--I know not exactly what aspect of Erasmus' character. He says:

"Leave out the epigram at the end of the tragedies. It was written by a certain young Frenchman, at that time a servant of mine, whom I had led to believe, by way of a joke, that these verses ought to be printed, and I had given them to Badius at my departure in the youth's presence to make him keep on hoping. But I wonder whatever put it into Badius' head to print them, for I told the man that I was only playing a joke on the lad."

In both these letters there is shown a studied disrespect for Badius and an evident effort to gain the good will of Aldus, to whom Erasmus speaks as to a superior person. "No doubt you will find many errors, but in this matter I do not even ask you to be cautious."

This friendly beginning with Aldus had its immediate consequence for Erasmus. He gave up his intention--if he had ever had it--of going to Rome at Christmas, 1507, and we next find him in the early part of 1508 at Venice. He had thrown up the care of the young Boerios, for reasons, perhaps, connected with his dislike of their attendant, but certainly without any break with the lads themselves.

The specific purpose of Erasmus in going to Venice was to prepare a new edition of his Adages, the first edition of which we noted as made at Paris in 1500. Eight years of continuous occupation with classic literature, and especially the progress he had meanwhile made in the study of Greek, had given him an immensely increased acquaintance with the kind of material he wished to use for this collection. How far he had prepared the way by correspondence we do not know; but it would seem that he went at the work at once and kept on with it very steadily for about nine months. The peculiar nature of the Adages, a mere collection of disconnected paragraphs without any natural order or arrangement of any sort, made it possible for Erasmus to work in a fashion very different from his usual one. It was simply a question of getting the thing along bit by bit, and so we find him sending in a daily instalment of "copy" and taking away a daily batch of proof. The first typographical corrections were made by a paid proof-reader, then the author corrected, and finally Aldus himself read the proof, not so much, as he once said in reply to a question of Erasmus, to ensure correctness as for his own instruction.

We gain from many scattered indications a picture, on the whole very attractive, of this new activity.[76] It was Erasmus' first experience as a fellow-worker with anyone, and it had its uncomfortable aspects of course, or he would not have been Erasmus. His critics, notably Scaliger, would have it afterward, on the authority of Aldus himself, that Erasmus was little more than a paid assistant in the printing-office, and one is at a loss to know why so honourable an occupation should have seemed an occasion for reviling him or worth his own while to deny. The obvious refutation lies in the great amount of work required by the Adages themselves. He must have been busy enough to refute other charges of Scaliger as to his laziness. Whatever else he may have been, he was not lazy then nor at any other time of his life. As to still another accusation we may perhaps have our doubts. Scaliger says: "While you were doing the work of half a man, reading [proof?] in Aldus' office, you were a three-bodied Geryon for drinking."

[76] See the adage _Festina lente_, ii., 405, B-D.

The view of Erasmus at Venice which is reflected in Scaliger's tirade may have come from the undoubted familiarity of Erasmus' relation with Aldus and his family. Probably the most vivid conception of such an early printing-office may be gained to-day by a visit to the great house of Plantin at Antwerp, now happily preserved by the piety of the municipality and kept as nearly as possible in the condition it was in at the time of its great activity but little later than that of the house of Aldus. It is an ample burgher residence, with spacious living-rooms and every indication of a generous family life; but under the same roof and in close connection with the living apartments are also the rooms devoted to business. The working force was in an intimate sense the "family" of the publisher, and from the earliest moment of his arrival Erasmus seems to have formed one in the Aldine corps. The principal account of this Venetian life is, unfortunately to be found in the colloquy, "The Rich Miser," one of the most scurrilous of all Erasmus' writings. The person here exposed to the biting sting of his humour is Andreas d'Asola, the father-in-law of Aldus Manutius. He seems to have been the economic head of the Aldine household and, in some form, a partner in the business, as were also his two sons, Federigo and Francesco. Erasmus was received into this family on the same terms, apparently, as other workers. The household consisted of thirty-three persons. Beatus represents this arrangement as a kindness to Erasmus, to save him from going to a hotel and, at all events, he remained a fellow-member of this clan as long as he stayed in Venice. There was certainly no compulsion upon him to do so unless he pleased, and common courtesy ought to have prevented him from holding up to the ridicule of the world a family and a people to whom, as he elsewhere freely acknowledges, he owed every kind of assistance in his work and every personal attention. The principal speaker in the _Opulentia sordida_ is one Gilbertus, who presents himself to his friend Jacobus in such lean and pitiful guise that the friend inquires whether he has been serving a term in the galleys. "No," he replies, "I have been at Synodium, boarding with Antronius." The weather had been for three months continually cold, so that he was nearly frozen to death; for the only firewood they had had was green stumps which Antronius rooted up by night out of the common land. In summer it was worse on account of vermin, but Antronius never minded that, he was brought up to it; and besides he was always off trading in everything that would bring him in a penny of profit. Even on the funerals that went out of his house he made his gain, and these were two or three at least in the most healthful year; for he played such tricks with his wine that some were always dying of the stone. Yet he weakened his wine by throwing in a bucketful of water every day, and adulterated the meal of which his bread was made by mixing chalk with it. The son-in-law Orthrogonus, who stands for Aldus himself, comes in for his share of abuse for aiding and abetting in this villany. Frequently Antronius would come home pretending to be very ill and without appetite, and then the whole family would have to starve on grey peas with a little oil on them. Finally, however, dinner would be served, but such a dinner! First a soup of water with lumps of old cheese soaked in it, then a piece of fortnight-old tripe covered up with a batter of eggs to cheat the eye, but not enough to deceive the sense of smell, and, to close, some of the same stale cheese. The luckless boarder saved his life by having a quarter of a boiled chicken served up with each meal, but even this was a poor wretched fowl and he was stinted in his meagre ration. Even his own private fresh eggs were stolen by the women and rotten ones given him instead, and his own cask of good wine was broached by the same thieves and drunk up without remonstrance from the host.

The worst of it was that when they found out that the poor Northerner was trying to keep soul and body together by buying extra things, they set a doctor upon him to persuade him not to be such a glutton. The doctor was a very good-natured fellow and finally compromised on a supper of an egg and a glass of wine, admitting that he allowed himself this indulgence, and, as Erasmus testifies, kept himself fat and hearty on such a diet. The dialogue concludes with good Erasmian hedging; for the grumbler confesses that if the food had been of good quality he would have got on very well with the quantity, and, after all, eating was largely a matter of habit and he, being used to a different method, simply could not do with this. The final fling at poor Andreas is to say that his sons, for whom he was doing all this scraping and pinching, would make up for their scanty fare at home by throwing their money away in riotous living outside.

Make what allowance we may for the humorous exaggeration of this tirade, it cannot give us any but the lowest notion of its author's fineness of feeling. The bit of truth contained in it was probably that to Erasmus the usual manner of living of the well-to-do Italians seemed meanly insufficient, while to the Italians his natural demands seemed those of a glutton and a wine-bibber. Very likely his friends, in the kindness of their hearts, called in a physician to persuade him to consider his health by living more as they did. It is simply the ever-repeated struggle of the Northerner, accustomed to much animal food and to strong drink, to understand the frugal ways of the South. Our interest in the whole incident is to notice that here Erasmus contracted the disease which to his great bodily distress, but also, it must be admitted, often to his great moral comfort, he was to carry about with him to his death. He writes from Basel in 1523 to Francesco d'Asola, one of the youths to whom he gives such a villainous character in his _Opulentia sordida_: "I have not forgotten our former intimacy, nor would my gravel let me do so if I would, for I first got it there and every time it comes it reminds me of Venice." His own explanation of this attack is the badness of his fare, especially the wine, which, he says, caused two or three deaths from stone every year in the Aldine family; but we may be permitted a doubt whether it was not rather due to his own imprudence and his refusal to adapt himself to the simple manners of the country.[77]

[77] It seems quite clear that Erasmus was a victim to what is now known as the "uric acid or gouty diathesis," a condition much more likely to be produced by high living and heavy drinking than by any such experience as he describes in the _Opulentia sordida_.

The Aldine printing establishment was a kind of literary club-house for the finer spirits of the Republic, and Erasmus was here introduced to them all. All were interested in his work and helped him with manuscripts and suggestions; to such a degree, indeed, that this was one of the counts in Scaliger's indictment against him. Such aid may, however, easily be explained by the peculiar nature of the Adages. Every available source, written, printed, or oral, was properly laid under contribution for a work which was essentially a compilation.

Of these men, none was of the first rank as a scholar; they were the fair representatives of that humanistic generation which had come into the great inheritance of culture prepared for it by two previous generations. The early original impulse with its extravagant individualism had settled down into a calmer, wider, and more polished method of thought and work. Culture had made its way into all departments of life and proved its right to exist by useful service. Of the Venetian scholars we need mention but few. Two Greeks, Marcus Musurus and Johannes Lascaris, were famous, the one as a Greek teacher, the other as the literary purveyor of Lorenzo the Magnificent and, at the time of Erasmus, as ambassador of King Louis of France to the Republic. Girolamo Aleander, then a man of twenty-eight, was preparing himself to teach Greek at Paris and, in fact, went thither in 1508 with letters of introduction from Erasmus. The two were to meet on another field when Aleander as legate of Leo X. at the court of Charles V. was to be the chief agent in the papal policy against Luther and was to reproach Erasmus in bitter terms for his half-way policy towards the Reformation. Erasmus believed that he was the author of the attacks of Scaliger, of whom he knew nothing, and says in this connection that they were co-frequenters at Aldus's and that he knew him as well as he knew himself.

Everything goes to show that the nine months of the Venetian visit were months of eager work, relieved by intercourse with men of genuine culture and of unbroken friendliness. That Erasmus should have dwelt more upon the petty inconveniences of his life than upon these weightier things is quite in character. The real monument of his Venetian days is the great second edition of the Adages, in substantially their final form.

From Venice Erasmus moved in the early autumn to Padua, the university city of the Venetian territory. His immediate business there was to take charge of a pupil, the young illegitimate son of King James IV. of Scotland. This amiable youth, Alexander by name, was already, at eighteen, burdened with the title of Archbishop of Saint Andrews. He had come to Italy to study, and was commended to Erasmus by his father to receive instruction in rhetoric. Erasmus once uses him as an illustration of near-sightedness: "he could see nothing without touching his nose to the book." Yet he was a most clever fellow with his hand. Writing in 1528 to his Nuremberg friend Pirkheimer about certain alleged manuscript forgeries, Erasmus tells a pretty tale of Alexander, which shows a very pleasant relation between them:

"he once showed me a printed book which I knew for certain I had never read; but in the numerous marginal notes I recognised my own handwriting. I asked him where he had got the book. 'I acknowledge the writing,' I said, 'but the book I have never read nor had in my possession.' 'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'you read it once, but you have forgotten it; otherwise where did this writing come from?' Finally, with a laugh, he confessed the trick."

Marcus Musurus, his acquaintance at Venice, was here at Padua the best friend and helper of Erasmus. He was in full activity as professor of Greek, and though we have no record of any regular instruction to the visitor, it is certain that Erasmus applied to him for many details of his own work and held him always in grateful memory. Indeed his short residence of but a few weeks at Padua seems to have been an exception to the rule of tediousness. He refers to Padua afterwards as the seat of a more serious scholarship than was to be found at other Italian university towns. The formation of the League of Cambrai between King Louis XII. of France, Pope Julius II., the Emperor Maximilian, and the King of Spain against the republic of Venice broke up the quiet circle of Paduan scholars. Troops of the allies began to make their appearance in Venetian territory and Erasmus, reluctantly he says, was forced to move southward. He travelled in the suite of the boy-archbishop, stopping first at Ferrara, where he met a choice circle of resident scholars, among whom was the young Englishman, Richard Pace. It was at Pace's house that he was presented to the Ferrarese Humanists. A very pretty little story is recalled by one of them, Cœlius Calcagninus, who in writing to Erasmus in 1525 reminds him of their meeting in Ferrara, and gives him a brief account of the other scholars whom he had met there.

"We were talking," he writes, "of Aspendius the harp-player, and the question came up as to the meaning of _intus canere_ and _extra canere_, when you suddenly drew forth from your pouch a copy of your Adages, just printed at Venice. From that moment I began to admire the genius and learning of Erasmus, and scarce ever have I heard mention of his name without recalling that conversation almost with reverence. My witness is Richard Pace, that man most learned himself and by nature made to be the promoter of the studies of the most learned men."

Only a few days were spent at Ferrara and still less time at Bologna. The party reached Siena at the very end of 1508 or the beginning of 1509, and there settled definitely for the work of the young archbishop. We have a very engaging picture of Erasmus as a teacher of rhetoric in his comments upon the Adage, "Thou wast born at Sparta; do honour to it."[78] He represents his pupil as a model of all the virtues and gives us again an insight into his method of teaching. It is always the same which he had himself employed in learning, the method of persistent practice in repeating and writing the language itself. A style was to be formed only by becoming absolutely familiar with the classic model.

[78] ii., 554.

Yet the life at Siena, serene and charming as it may have been for the pupil, was, if we may judge by his expressions in other connections, more or less a bore to the master. He liked to think of himself as an authority on the art of teaching, but he seems always to have regarded teaching as being, for himself, an interruption to the higher interests of his life. After a few weeks he was restless again, and begged permission of his pupil to go on alone to Rome.

It is easy for a modern to picture the charm which the Eternal City with its countless memorials of the ancient world must have exercised upon a man whose life was devoted to the study of that world, who spoke and wrote its language, and who drew from it almost the whole material of his intellectual occupation. None of the biographers of Erasmus has been quite able to resist the temptation to tell what he must have thought and felt in this august presence; but candour compels us to say that his own witness on this point is as meagre as can well be imagined. Only one or two scattered expressions give us any reason to think that his impressions of Rome were at all of the kind they ought in all reason to have been. It was the pontificate of Julius II., a man indeed chiefly devoted to the political interests of his great place, but also an eager patron of art and learning, doing his part in the attempt, never quite successful, to make Rome a real centre of culture. What was true of the pope was true also of that group of great prelates who formed around him a court more splendid and not less worldly than that of any purely temporal ruler. Say what one may and, in all truth, must say of the corruption and scandal of the Roman institution, it was a life of immense activity and, for a thinking man, one of great interest. Rome was alive with building; painting and sculptural decoration were being carried to a height unheard of in human history. The ancient monuments were, it is true, fast disappearing to make room and to furnish material for new construction, but enough was left to give the interested traveller abundant suggestion of what had been. That Erasmus saw and, after his fashion, noted these things is certain; but he felt no impulse to dwell upon them or to speak of them to others. His life during this first[79] visit at Rome was more completely that of the literary traveller and sight-seer than it had ever been anywhere. There is no pretence that he busied himself with study or with composition. So far as he had any aim it seems to have been to make acquaintance with men of his own kind and their patrons,--nor is there the slightest room for suspicion that in making these connections he had in view any ulterior advantage to himself. His best introduction was the book of Adages, by this time widely known and everywhere justly welcomed as a monument of vast learning, immense industry, and an originality of thought not less noteworthy.

[79] There seems to be no sufficient reason to accept, as Drummond does, a previous trip of Erasmus to Rome during his residence at Bologna.

Perhaps the most intimate companion of these Roman days was Scipio Carteromachos, a Tuscan scholar, with whom Erasmus had made acquaintance at Bologna, and for whom he expresses unusual regard. "He was a man," he writes, "of curious and accurate learning, but so averse to display that unless you called him out you would swear that he was quite ignorant of letters." They had met again at Padua, and now lived for awhile at Rome apparently in the greatest intimacy, sharing the same bed at times, though this it would seem was not an unusual proof of friendship with Erasmus. Through Carteromachos he was introduced to many others, scholars of the same type and frequenters of the papal court. The result was that he found himself brought into relation with the most distinguished Roman circle. He makes the most of this fact afterward in defending himself from the charge of unfaithfulness to the papal cause, and there would seem to be no room for doubt that he was at least a well tolerated guest of the men who were giving the tone to the ruling society of the capital. He claims intimate acquaintance with Tommaso Inghirami, the most popular preacher of the city, the type of religious orator who gave scandal to the more serious by garnishing his oratory rather with classic allusion and quotation than with proofs and texts of the Bible. In his treatise on a false purity of style called _Ciceronianus_, Erasmus gives us a choice specimen of this kind of preaching.[80]

[80] i., 993, 994.

He says that he was urged by his learned friends at Rome to attend the discourse of a famous pulpit orator whose name he would rather have understood than expressed. The subject was the death of Christ. Pope Julius II. himself was present, a most unusual honour, and with him a great crowd of cardinals, bishops, and visiting scholars. The opening and closing parts of the discourse, longer than the real sermon itself, were occupied with praises of Julius, whom the orator called

"'Jupiter Optimus Maximus, brandishing in his all-powerful right hand the three-forked fatal thunderbolt and by his nod alone doing what he will.' Everything that had happened in recent years, in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Africa, Greece, he declared had been done by the will of that man alone. All this was said at Rome, by a Roman, in the tongue of Rome, and with the Roman accent. But what had all this to do with Julius, the high-priest of the Christian religion, the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter and Paul?--or with the cardinals and bishops, the vicegerents of the other Apostles? As to the topic he had undertaken to treat, nothing could be more solemn, more real, more wonderful, more lofty, or more suited to kindle emotion. Who, though he were endowed with but a very common kind of eloquence, could not with such an argument have drawn tears from men of stone? The plan of the discourse was this:--first to depict the death of Christ as sad and then by a change of style to describe it as glorious and triumphant--in order, of course, that he might give us a specimen of Cicero's δεινώσεως, by which he was able to carry away the emotions of his hearers at will.

"HYPOLOGUS:--Well, did he succeed?

"BULEPHORUS:--For my part, when he was working his hardest upon those melancholy feelings which the rhetoricians call πάθη, to tell the truth I was more inclined to laugh. I did not see a person in that whole concourse one whit the sadder, when he was piling up with the whole force of his eloquence the unmerited sufferings of the innocent Christ. Nor, on the other hand, did I see anyone the more cheerful when he was wholly occupied with showing forth His death to us as triumphant, praiseworthy, and glorious....

"Not to make more words about it, this Roman talked in such a very Roman fashion that I heard nothing about the death of Christ. And yet, because he was so eagerly striving after a Ciceronian diction, he seemed to the Ciceronians to have spoken marvellously. Of his subject he said hardly a word; he seemed neither to understand it nor to care for it. Nor did he say anything to the point nor rouse any emotion. The only reason for praising him was that he spoke like a Roman and recalled a something of Cicero. If such a discourse had been delivered by a schoolboy to his mates it might have been praised as an evidence of a certain talent; but on such a day, before such an audience, and on such a topic, I pray you, what sense was there in it?"

Among the cardinals two are especially mentioned as friendly to our traveller, Raffaelle Riario, nephew of Julius II., and the Venetian Grimani. If we may trust Erasmus' allusions, he was in the way of frequently going in and out at the houses of great men, but his character as a man of letters, whom it was their pride and pleasure to favour, seems to have been strictly maintained. In the great throng of followers of a princely establishment, one wandering scholar more or less made no great matter, and it would not do, from the words "hospitality" and "familiarity" to argue any very close personal intimacy.

What strikes one most forcibly is the almost total absence of anything like discussion on public affairs. The only topic on which Erasmus thinks it worth while to make any report is classical studies, and on this he gives us only brief detail. There is no indication that this visit to Rome had any decisive influence upon Erasmus' attitude towards the Church. That was already determined. Nothing could be more distinct than his declarations in the Enchiridion and now, quite recently, in the Adages. Rome could hardly fail to furnish him with new suggestions and illustrations, but it was as far from forcing him into any new attitude of opposition as it was from so influencing Luther on his visit a year later. Both saw many things which startled and shocked them, but Erasmus had already reached the limit of his critical development and Luther had hardly as yet begun to formulate his criticism of the Roman institution.

The only exception to the rule of exclusion from public affairs is found in the invitation of Cardinal Riario to write a dissertation on the subject of the proposed war against Venice. It was a most ticklish commission, and Erasmus' solution of it was more than Erasmian. He wrote two treatises, one for the war and the other against it, that those who were to pay their money might have their choice. He put more heart into the second, he says, but the advice of the first was followed. Both these treatises were lost, he tells us, by the treachery of some person. There was an unfounded rumour that the grim old soldier-pope, finding Erasmus' sentiments against war very little to his taste, sent for the author and warned him in future to let politics alone; but it is highly improbable that if Erasmus had had an interview with the pope, even under so untoward circumstances, he would have failed to make some mention of it.

Yet it would be far from true that Erasmus lived in Rome with his eyes shut. Numerous little allusions to Roman and Italian traits in his later writings show that he was here, as everywhere, very much of a human being, keenly alive to what was going on about him and mindful of its use on future occasions.

The young archbishop was soon recalled to Scotland, and four years afterward he met his death, fighting bravely by his father's side on the fatal field of Flodden. Before leaving Italy he desired to see Rome, and in his company Erasmus, who had meanwhile returned to Siena, went back again as learned guide and companion. They seem to have gone southward as far as Naples, but to have made only a flying visit even in Rome. Erasmus remained there after his pupil had left, and it is during this final visit that the question of a permanent residence begins to be discussed.

As to the possibility or probability that Erasmus would definitely settle at Rome, there is room for difference of opinion. If one may judge from his own allusions there was no country, in which he made any considerable stay, which did not at one time or another occur to him as a possible residence for his declining years, and on this general principle, why not Rome as well as another place? Our study of his character up to this point, however, should lead us at once to understand that, of all places in the world, Rome was least suited to his peculiar genius. Although he was quite capable of defending both sides of any argument, he could not be happy where he must either do this all the time or else commit himself without reserve to the dominant tone of a society which would eventually absorb him completely. Furthermore, the almost inevitable condition of a Roman residence was the holding of an ecclesiastical office and this, no matter how high it might be--the higher in fact the worse--was as far as possible from the line of Erasmus' ambition. Beatus says he was offered the very high function of papal penitentiary, with a hint that this might be a stepping-stone to higher dignities. When we consider the kind of official places filled by many of the Italian humanists, such an offer does not seem improbable. Less clear is one's feeling about a proposition made by the Venetian Cardinal Grimani that Erasmus should attach himself to his personal following and, presumably, continue to live the life of an independent scholar. Erasmus' account of his interview with the cardinal is worth while for us because of its many details. It was written in 1531, after the death of Grimani, and is given in a letter[81] apropos of a reference to the cardinal's services to the cause of letters, especially in maintaining so large and valuable a library.

[81] iii.², 1375 A-D.

"When I was at Rome I was invited once and again by him, through Pietro Bembo, if I am not mistaken, to an interview with him, and though I was at that time very averse to seeking the company of great men, I at last went to his palace more from shame than from desire. Neither in the courtyard nor in the vestibule did the shadow of a human being appear. It was the afternoon hour. I gave my horse to my man and went up alone, found no one in the first hall, nor in the second, and still on to the third, finding not a door closed and wondering at the solitude. Only in the last did I find one man, a Greek physician I believe, with shaven head, guarding the open door. I inquired what the cardinal was doing. He replied that he was within talking with some gentlemen, and as I said no more he asked what I wished. 'To make my compliments to him,' I said, 'if convenient, but as he is not at leisure, I will call again.' Then, as I was about to go and was looking out of the window, the Greek returned to me and waited to see if I had any message for the cardinal. 'There is no occasion to interrupt his conference,' I said; 'I will come again soon.' Finally he asked my name and I gave it to him. When he heard it he rushed in before I knew it and soon coming out said I was not to go away and I was summoned at once. As I came in the cardinal received me not as a cardinal and such a cardinal might receive a man of the lowest condition, but as a colleague. A chair was set for me and we talked more than two hours, during which he did not permit me to take off my hat. For a man at the very height of fortune his graciousness was marvellous. Among the many things he said about study, showing that he had then in mind what I learn he has since done about his library, he began to urge me not to leave Rome, the nurse of genius. He invited me to share his palace and the enjoyment of all his fortunes, adding that the warm and moist climate of Rome would suit my health, and especially that part of the city where he had his dwelling, a palace built by a former pope who had chosen the site as being the most healthful in the city. After we had had considerable discussion he sent for his nephew, who had just been made archbishop, a youth of an almost divine disposition. As I started to rise he forbade me, saying:--'It is becoming for the pupil to stand before the master.' At length he showed me his library of books in many tongues.

"If I had known this man earlier I should never have left a city which I found favourable to me beyond my deserts. But I had already arranged to go and matters had gone so far that I could hardly have remained honourably. When I said that I had been summoned by the king of England, he ceased to urge me, but begged me over and over again not to suspect him of not meaning what he had said nor to judge him according to the usual manners of courtiers. With difficulty I got away from the conference; but when he was unwilling to detain me longer, he laid it upon me with his last words that I should see him again on the subject before I left the city. I did not return, unhappy man that I was, lest I should be overcome by his kindness and change my mind. But what can one do against the fates!"

This interview was held at the last moment of Erasmus' stay in Rome, before his departure for England. His account makes it clear that he had not known Grimani before, so that we cannot reckon him among Erasmus' Roman patrons. Nor can we give too much weight to the promises of employment. From the connection in which Erasmus introduces the story it seems quite probable that the cardinal had some idea of making use of him in connection with his library; but the great scholar had no fancy for being anybody's librarian. His laments that he had not listened to Grimani's proposition may safely be treated as conventional.

From Rome Erasmus journeyed rapidly by way of Bologna, through Lombardy, over the Splügen Pass to Chur, Constance, and Strassburg, where he took ship on the Rhine for Holland. We hear of him at Louvain and Antwerp and then in England early in July, 1509. What was the fruit of his nearly three years in Italy? He had perfected himself in Greek, as far at least as he needed to go for the purposes he had most at heart. He was Doctor Erasmus, and needed no longer to feel himself overshadowed by the superior display of some inferior talent. He had given to the world in his Adages a great and serious work, which was welcomed with the greatest approval by those most competent to judge. He had seen for himself something of the life of that people which had done most to bring pure learning to honour. Finally he had made personal connections within the world of scholars, which were likely to be of great future service to him.

It would be most interesting if we could perceive with any distinctness the direct effect of this experience upon Erasmus' literary production, but such effect cannot be traced in any instructive way. There are of course references to Italy to be found henceforth in many of his writings, but it would be too much to say that the Italian visit was in any way epoch-making for his literary character. Literature was not a thing of nationalities; it was cosmopolitan, and the scholar was as much, or as little, at home in one place as in another. The genius of Erasmus ripened slowly and naturally, following the lines of its early choice and moving on without noteworthy interruption to its highest achievement.

Still, few biographers have failed to fancy a connection of cause and effect between the Italian impressions of Erasmus and the famous satire, in which almost at once on his arrival in England he gave free rein to his criticism of church and society. Certainly his illustrations in the Praise of Folly point often to abuses which he might have seen and felt in Italy. His direct attacks upon popes and cardinals can hardly fail to have gained an added point from his observation at first hand. What is not clear is that such stimulus to his reforming zeal was anything more than incidental.

In all the earlier writing of Erasmus we have noted especially the quality of the moral preacher. Whatever he touched took on inevitably the tone of exhortation. And this same quality continues to appear in all his work, whenever the subject rises, even ever so little, above the level of mere grammatical detail. One ought to have this prevailing seriousness of purpose especially in mind in coming to such a piece of work as the Praise of Folly.[82] Of all Erasmus' writing, none was and is more widely known than this. It is called a satire and was intended to make men laugh. Erasmus had to apologise for it, as he did for most things he wrote, and in the introductory epistle to his dear More he apologises in advance for allowing himself so lively a diversion. There can be no doubt that the men of his day were vastly amused by it. It had for them the charm that always belongs to literary references to familiar types and figures, especially if these references are couched in colloquial phrase. Erasmus was tolerably sure of his audience, and could count upon applause from every class for the amusement it got out of his criticism of all other classes of men. Yet it is a little difficult for one of us to raise more than an honest smile at this elaborate fooling. After all, one feels the sermon underneath, and pays his tribute to the author, not primarily as a humourist, but as a man of sense who lightens his style a little, to be sure, yet remains all through plainly conscious of his mission. If one seeks an analogy, one may say, perhaps, that the Praise of Folly is about as funny as an average copy of Punch.

[82] iv., 405-503.

Erasmus' account of the origin of the Μωρία is as trifling as in the case of most of his works. He tells More that he thought it out during his journey from Italy to England in 1509, and he put it into form at More's house in London soon after. The title, Μωρίας ἐγκώμιον, he explains as a pun on More's name, the humour of it being that More was "as far from the thing as his name was near it." The book is written under the form of an oration, a _declamatio_ the author calls it, delivered by Folly in person to an imaginary audience made up of all classes and conditions of men. Folly is a female, and this is quite in harmony with most of Erasmus' references to the sex. She wears cap and bells as her academic garb and brings to the lecture-room her attendant spirits, Self-love, Flattery, Oblivion, Laziness, Pleasure, Madness, Wantonness, Intemperance, and Sleep. Folly is the offspring of Wealth and Youth, born in the Fortunate Isles, where all things grow without toil, and nursed by the jovial nymphs, Drunkenness and Ignorance.

The oration begins by Folly commending herself as indispensable to the well-being of men. Their very existence is owing to her, for no man would put his head into the halter of marriage if he thought it over carefully beforehand as a wise man would; and no woman would marry if she carefully considered the sorrows of childbirth. Marriage therefore is owing wholly to Madness, the companion of Folly. But no woman, having once experienced the pains of child-bearing, would ever submit herself to them again but for another of Folly's ministers, Oblivion, who comes in thus to save the race. From this first example we can see how Erasmus plays with the meaning of the word "folly." It is quite impossible to define it by any one term which would cover his numerous variations, but we may see plainly from the start that it is very far from being what we mean, in plain modern English, by the word "foolishness." It comes nearer to the meaning we find in Shakespeare of "innocent" or "thoughtless." "Folly" is the opposite of studied calculation for a mere material end. It is the impulse by which men perform their noblest actions. It is imagination, idealism, sacrifice of self for others. Nowhere does Erasmus lay down any such general definition as this, but his examples show that some such meaning was in his mind, and the Folly whom he allows to praise herself is therefore really a very praiseworthy person. She hates the materialism of the Philistine--the cool, calculating merchant-spirit which would reduce life to a thing of dollars and cents--and she finds her illustrations of what is noble pretty nearly where an optimistic philosopher of modern times would find them.

The happiest times of life, says Folly, are youth and old age, and this for no reason but that they are the times most completely under the rule of folly, and least controlled by wisdom. It is the child's freedom from wisdom that makes it so charming to us; we hate a precocious child. So women owe their charm, and hence their power, to their "folly," _i. e._, to their obedience to impulse. "But if, perchance, a woman wants to be thought wise, she only succeeds in being doubly a fool, as if one should train a cow for the prize-ring, a thing wholly against nature." A woman will be a woman, no matter what mask she wear, and she ought to be proud of her folly and make the most of it.

In dealing with Friendship, Folly first reminds her hearers that every man has his faults and plenty of them, and that everyone is all too keen in spying out the faults of others and forgetting his own. But now there could be no such thing as friendship "were it not for that which the Greeks so beautifully call εὐήθεια, and which may be translated 'folly' or 'good nature.'" Here Erasmus himself makes "_stultitia_" the equivalent of "_morum facilitas_." And not the relation of friends merely, but of husband and wife, ruler and ruled, scholar and tutor, all human relations, in short, are made tolerable by this rule of human kindness. And as the blindness of love to others makes human life bearable, so Self-love, one of Folly's intimates, is the indispensable aid to happiness, since if a man were continually ashamed of himself, of his person, his country, he would never rise to any worthy action. Courage is the very inspiration of Folly, and the proof is the stupid bungling of great thinkers when they try to do things. Socrates could not make a political speech, and showed his wisdom by declaring that a wise man ought to keep out of public business. Plato's famous saying: "happy the state that is ruled by a philosopher, or whose ruler is given to philosophy," is false, for history shows that there were never more unfortunate states than those so governed. Theorisers, in short, have ruined what they undertook to manage, but states have been saved by such divine folly as that of Quintus Curtius, who, possessed by some demon of vainglory, sacrificed himself to the infernal gods. Wise men would condemn such acts, but the pens of eloquent men have glorified them. Strange as it may seem, even the virtue of prudence is owing to folly,

"for the wise man goes to the books of the ancients and gets out of them nothing but wordy discussions, while the fool, grappling with the world in hand-to-hand conflict, learns, if I mistake not, the true prudence." "Modesty and fear are the two great obstacles to the understanding of affairs; but Folly, being hindered by neither of these, blushes at nothing and attempts everything."

The wise man thinks of reason only and leaves all the passions to Folly, but when this kind of thing has its perfect work, as among the Stoics, then you have left

"not so much a man as a new kind of god that never yet existed anywhere and never will; or rather, to say it plainly, a marble image of a man, dull and almost devoid of human sensibility; a man who measures everything by the line, never makes any mistakes himself, but has the eye of a lynx for the least failings of others. That's the kind of a beast your truly wise man is!"

But who has any use for such a creature? Who would have him for a ruler, a general, a husband, a friend?

"Who would not prefer one taken out of the very midst of the crowd of fools, who being a fool himself would know how to command and obey fools, who would be agreeable to his kind, namely, the great majority of men, pleasant to his wife, merry with his friends, a lively table-companion, a good-tempered comrade, in short a man '_qui nihil humani a se alienum putet_'--'who holds nothing human foreign to himself.'"

This comes as near a definition of his "_stultus_" as any hinted at by Erasmus. In this sense the book might have been called "the praise of human nature," for "wisdom" is treated systematically as meaning something contrary to natural human instinct. Such over-wise wisdom embitters life, but folly makes it sweet and precious.

"Now, I think, you see what would happen if men were wise all the time. Faith! we should have need of another clay and another Prometheus for a potter. But I, Folly, sometimes by ignorance, sometimes by thoughtlessness, sometimes by forgetfulness of evils or the hope of good, and scattering the sweetest pleasures, so comfort men in the greatest misfortunes that they are not glad to die even when the measure of the Fates is fulfilled and life has actually left them. The less reason they have to cling to life the more they rejoice in living, so far are they from being wearied with its burden."

Real misery is to be out of harmony with Nature--shall we call man miserable because he cannot fly like the birds, nor walk on all fours like beasts? "We might as well call a war-horse unhappy because he doesn't know grammar and cannot eat pie." So Erasmus goes on, in extravagant praise, to glorify Nature as contrasted with Art. That life alone is happy which comes near to Nature, as that of bees and birds; the nearer these natural creatures are brought to the life of man, the more they degenerate. Of all men the happiest are those we call "_moriones_," "_stultos_," "_fatuos_," "_bliteos_"; they have no fears, no ambitions, neither envy nor love. They are always merry; everyone likes them and pets them; the very beasts recognise in them a kind of sacred being. Princes cannot live without them, and value their plain-speaking more than the flatteries of their counsellors.

How much pleasure comes in this world from hobbies! One man delights in hunting, with all its absurd ceremonies; another has a rage for building; others are chasing after new inventions, hunting for a fifth essence. Others take to gaming and go to ruin with it, but Folly is not quite clear whether to claim these as her children or not. She has no doubt, however, about those who show their folly by superstitious observances in religion, and here, it will be observed, Erasmus' definition of folly gradually shifts. From this point on it begins to slide over into a meaning something more nearly like what we should be inclined to give it. Folly herself cannot be consistent when she comes to religious fraud. Self-deception is a very useful and pleasant thing, but no gentleness of judgment is due to those

"who hug the silly though pleasant persuasion that if they see a wooden or painted Polyphemus-Christopher, they will not die that day; or who salute a statue of St. Barbara with a fixed formula of words if they get home safe from a battle; or, if they call upon Saint Erasmus on certain days with candles and prayers, fancy that they will soon get rich. Now they have invented a George-Hercules, like a new Hippolytus, and come precious near worshipping the very horse of him, decked out with breastplates and ornaments." "But what shall I say of those who flatter themselves so sweetly with counterfeit pardons for their crimes, who have measured off the duration of Purgatory without an error as if by a water-clock, into ages, years, months, and days like the multiplication-table?... Now suppose me some tradesman, or soldier, or judge, who by paying out a penny from all his stealings, thinks the whole slough of his life is cleaned out at once--all his perjuries, lusts, drunkennesses, all his quarrels, murders, cheats, treacheries, falsehoods, bought off by a bargain and bought off in such a way that he may now begin over again with a new circle of crimes!... And isn't it much the same thing when the several countries claim for themselves each its special saint with his special function and his special forms of worship?--as, for example, this one is good for the toothache, that one helps women in travail, another restores stolen property; this one shines upon shipwreck and that one takes care of the flocks and so on--for it would be too long a story to go through the whole list. There are some that are good for more things than one and of these especially the virgin mother of God, to whom the mass of men now pay more honour than to the Son."

And yet after all, the things men get from the saints are only the appurtenances of Folly.

The world is full of fools, yet the priests are glad to get them all for their own profit.

"But if some hateful wise man were to arise and say what is true:--'to live well is the way to die well; you will best get rid of your sins by adding to your money hatred of vice, tears, vigils, prayers and fasting, and a better life; the saint will help you if you imitate his life'--I say if a wise man were to come prating such stuff as this, how much happiness he would destroy and what trouble he would bring upon mortals!"

There is no class of fools to whom Erasmus pays his respects with heartier good will than to those whom he calls "grammarians." Folly claims these for her choicest sons. Nothing could be more wretched than their profession were it not for their foolish self-esteem and the skill with which they make others have as good an opinion of them as themselves. The pettiness of their aims, the nastiness of their schoolrooms, the tumult of their pupils, are all concealed by the friendly aid of Folly, who makes them believe themselves "rulers of a kingdom as great as that of Phalaris or Dionysius."

"What a joy if they find out who was the mother of Anchises or discover some little word unknown to the vulgar, for instance, '_bubsequa_' (a cowherd), '_bovinator_' (a brawler), '_manticulator_' (a cut-purse), or dig up somewhere a piece of an old rock, cut with worn-out letters--by Jove! what bragging, what triumphs, what glorification! as if they had conquered Africa or taken Babylon."

The grammarians enjoy nothing so much as rubbing each other's back--unless it be roundly abusing each other.

The quibblings of the philosophers are among Folly's choicest products, and from these she runs on naturally to Erasmus' especial black beasts, the scholastic theologians. Quite in the spirit of the _Epistolæ obscurorum virorum_, but more decently, he enumerates the problems which, so Folly says, chiefly interest them,--

"whether there was any instant of time in the divine generation? whether there was more than one 'filiation' in Christ? is it a possible proposition that the Father could hate the Son? Could God have taken the form of a woman, a devil, an ass, a squash, or a stone? How the squash would have preached, done miracles, hung upon the cross? What would Peter have consecrated if he had celebrated the Eucharist while Christ was still hanging on the cross? etc."

Not the eyes of Lynceus, which could see through a stone wall, could penetrate the refinements of these people. And these difficulties are all increased by the multitude of the schools,

"so that one might sooner get out of a labyrinth than out of the windings of Realists, Nominalists, Thomists, Albertists, Occamists, Scotists. And these not all by any means, only the chief of them. In them all there is so much learning, so much refinement, that I should say the very apostles themselves would have to be of another spirit if they were compelled to discuss these matters with this new race of theologians. Paul knew something about faith; but when he says 'faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,' that is far from being a definition fit for a _Magister_; and though he knew well enough about charity, his definition and division of it in the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians was by no means good dialectics." "The apostles knew the mother of Jesus, but which of them has shown as philosophically as our theologians have done, how she was preserved from the sin of Adam? Peter received the keys, and from one who would not have given them to an unworthy keeper, but I doubt whether he ever reached the subtilty of knowing how one who has no knowledge can hold the keys of knowledge." "The apostles worshipped, but in spirit, following simply that apostolic rule:--'God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth'; but it does not appear that it was revealed to them that an image drawn with a crayon on the wall was to be worshipped, provided only it have two fingers held upright, hair flowing, and three rays in the halo about its head. For who can understand these things unless he has ground out six and thirty years in the study of physics and the superhuman notions of Aristotle and the Scotists?

"Meanwhile the actual words of the apostles are utterly neglected. While they keep up their fooleries in the schools, they fancy that, like Atlas in the poets, they are holding up the tottering Church with their syllogistic pillars, and what joy they take in moulding and remoulding Scripture according to their will as if it were made of wax; yet their own conclusions, if a few schoolmen have subscribed to them, they think more weighty than the laws of Solon or the decretals of popes, and like censors of the world, if anything does not square to the line with their conclusions implicit and explicit, they declare as by an oracle 'this proposition is scandalous; this is lacking in reverence; this smacks of heresy; this hasn't the right sound.' So that, by this time, neither Baptism, nor Gospel, nor Paul, nor Peter, nor St. Jerome, nor Augustine--nay, not even the most Aristotelian Thomas himself, can make a man a Christian unless the reckoning of these bachelors be added."

The same method of direct denunciation, with no special reference to the main thesis of Folly, is pursued in the case of the monks, or "religious," both titles false, Erasmus says, for the greater part of them are as far as possible from religion, and there is no kind of men whom you are more apt to meet in all places. They pride themselves upon their ignorance, carry the psalm-books they cannot read into the churches, and bray out their words as if they could thereby please the ear of God. Some of them crowd the taverns, waggons, and ships, showing off their poverty and filth and howling for alms. Yet the merry knaves try to pass themselves off as living the life of the apostles.

"What a joke it is that they do all things by rule, as it were by a kind of sacred mathematics; as, for instance, how many knots their shoes must be tied with, of what colour everything must be, what variety in their garb, of what material, how many straws' breadth to their girdle, of what form and of how many bushels' capacity their cowl, how many fingers broad their hair, and how many hours they may sleep. Now who cannot see what an unequal equality this is, when there is such a variety of persons and tastes? and yet with all this nonsense, they not only make light of others, but come to despise one another, and these men who profess apostolic charity make a terrible row at a dress girded in another fashion or at a colour a little darker in shade. Some of them are so very 'religious' that they wear no outer garment but one of hair-cloth, with soft linen underneath; others on the contrary wear linen without and woollen within. Others again would as soon touch poison as money, but meanwhile make free with wine and women. They are all trying not to agree in their manner of life; none of them to follow the example of Christ, but all to be different one from the other....

"The greater part of them have such faith in their ceremonies and human traditions that they think one heaven is not reward enough for such great doings, never that the time will come when Christ shall set all this aside and claim his rule of charity. One will show his belly stuffed with every sort of fish; another will pour out a hundred bushels of psalms; another will count up myriads of fasts and make up for them all again by almost bursting himself at a single dinner. Another will bring forward such a heap of ceremonies that seven ships would hardly hold them; another will boast that for sixty years he has never touched a penny except with double gloves on his hands; another wears a cowl so greasy and filthy that no sailor would think it decent. Another will boast that for eleven lusters he has led the life of a sponge, always fixed to the same spot; another will display his voice hoarse with much chanting; another a drowsiness contracted from solitary living; another a tongue palsied by long silence. But Christ will interrupt their endless bragging and will demand:--'whence this new kind of Judaism? One law and that my own I recognise, and that is the only thing I hear nothing about. In that day I promised openly and using no twisted parables, the inheritance of my Father, not to cowls and prayers and fastings, but to deeds of love.' And yet no one dares reproach those people, who belong, as it were, to another commonwealth--and especially the Begging Friars, because they know everybody's secrets through what they call 'confessions.'"

Erasmus more than hints that the friars had ways enough of playing fast and loose with the secrets confided to them, and, running together his assaults upon the schoolmen and the monks, shows up the scholastic preaching of the friars by some excellent specimens.

"I myself have heard one distinguished fool--I beg his pardon, a scholar I would say--who, in a famous sermon on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, in order to show his uncommon learning and please the ears of the theologians, took a quite new method, namely from the letters, syllables, and discourse itself and then from the agreement of nouns and verbs, of adjective and substantive, to the great admiration of some, but causing others to grumble in the words of Horace: 'what is all this rot about?'

"At last he got the thing down so fine, that he showed as plainly as any mathematician could chalk it out, that the mystery of the whole Trinity is expressed in the rudiments of grammar. This most highly theological person sweat away for eight months over that speech, so that the whole sight of his eyes ran into his wits and he is now as blind as a mole; but the creature cares naught for his eyesight and thinks his glory very cheaply bought.

"Then I have heard another, an octogenarian and such a theologian that you would think Scotus had been born again in him. He set out to explain the mystery of the name of Jesus and showed with marvellous subtilty that in those letters lay concealed whatever could be predicated of him. For a word that is inflected with but three cases is evidently the image of the divine Trinity. Then because the first case, _Jesus_, ends in _s_, the second, _Jesum_, in _m_, the third, _Jesu_, in _u_, beneath this fact there lies an unspeakable mystery, the three letters indicating, of course, that he is the beginning, middle, and end. Still there remained a mystery more obscure than all this, according to the principles of mathematics: he so divided the word Jesus into two equal parts that the third letter was left alone in the middle; then he showed that this was called by the Hebrews _syn_ and that _syn_ in the language, I believe, of the Scots [_Scotorum_], means _sin_, and hence it was plainly demonstrated that Jesus was he who should take away the sin of the world."

The assault on the friars ends with some amusing criticism of their manner of public speaking, which they seem to have acquired by misapplying and exaggerating the good principles of rhetoric they have somehow picked up here and there.

As to secular princes and courtiers, Folly borrows from the oration of "her friend Erasmus" to Duke Philip, and adds little to the commonplaces of criticism upon their wild and reckless living and their disregard of the good of their subjects. She carries her argument along from secular to clerical princes and finally reaches the pope, to whom she pays her respects in this monumental passage:

"Those supreme pontiffs, who stand in the place of Christ, if they should try to imitate his life, that is his poverty, his toil, his teaching, his cross, and his scorn of this world, or if they should think of the meaning of 'pope,' that is 'father,' or even of 'most holy,' what position in the world could be more dreadful? Who would buy it with all his resources, or, when he had bought it, would defend it by sword and poison and every violence? What joys they would lose, if once wisdom should get hold of them! Wisdom, say I? nay, even a grain of that salt Christ tells us of. What wealth, what honours, riches, conquests, dispensations, taxes, indulgences, horses, mules, guards, pleasures, they would lose!... and in their place they would have vigils, prayers, fasts, tears, sermons, study, groans and a thousand other painful toils of the same sort.

"And we ought not to forget that such a mass of scribes, copyists, notaries, advocates, promoters, secretaries, mule-drivers, grooms, money-changers, procurers, and gayer persons yet I might mention, did I not respect your ears,--that this whole swarm which now burdens--I beg your pardon--honours the Roman See, would be driven to starvation. This would be an inhuman and an abominable deed, but still more execrable would it be that those chief princes of the Church and true lights of the world should be reduced to scrip and staff. As it is now, if there is any work to be done, it is left to Peter and Paul, who have plenty of leisure for it; but if there is anything of show or of pleasure, they keep that for themselves. And so it happens that, through my assistance, there is scarce any class of men who live more jovially and less burdened with care. They think they are fulfilling the rule of Christ if they play the part of bishops with mystical and almost theatrical decorations, ceremonies, titles of benediction, of reverence, of sanctity, with blessings and cursings. Doing miracles is quite antiquated and out of date; to teach the people is hard work; to interpret the holy scripture is a matter for the schools; praying is tedious; shedding tears is a wretched business fit for women; to be poor is base; to be conquered is dishonourable and unworthy of him who will scarce allow the greatest of kings to kiss his blessed feet; to die is unbecoming and to be lifted on a cross is infamous."

The end of the Μωρία is an attempt on Folly's part to support her case by references to authority, and especially, of course, to the classics and to Scripture. It is laboured, and neither very ingenious nor very amusing. The joke-machine goes a little hard at this stage of its progress--yet the solid seriousness of the author's purpose is as clear here as anywhere. In his references to Scripture he cannot resist the temptation to give a parting fling at the foolish interpretations which it was the most important work of his life to correct. For instance, he makes Folly say:

"I was myself but lately present at a theological discussion--for I often go to such meetings--when someone asked what authority there was in Holy Writ for burning heretics instead of convincing them by argument. A certain hard old man, a theologian by the very look of him, answered with great scorn, that the apostle Paul had laid down this law when he said '_hereticum hominem post unam et alteram correptionem devita_'--'avoid an heretic after one or two attempts to convince him.' And when he had yelled out these same words over and over again and some were wondering what had struck the man, he finally explained '_de vita tollendum hereticum_'--'the heretic must be put out of life.' Some burst out laughing, but there were not wanting some to whom this commentary seemed perfectly theological."

An opportunity for Erasmus to express his usual detestation of war is furnished by his references to the papal warfare, which seemed to him the most unjustifiable of all forms of military action. Indeed one may fairly say that in this year, 1509, Erasmus had clearly in mind and had already given expression to the views which were to form the ground-work of the Reformation. This was the year before Luther's journey to Rome, and Erasmus himself was just fresh from the impressions of an Italian residence. The worldly lives of clergymen, from pope to friar, the burden of monastic vows, the ignorance of theologians and their scholastic backers, the wickedness of indulgences, the follies and superstitions of saint-worship, the cruel weight of ceremonies which had no support in any worthy authority--all these things were as boldly pointed out by Erasmus in 1509 as ever they were to be shown by any reformer of a later day. The Praise of Folly carried his proclamation into a thousand hands that would never have touched the more sober, but not more serious, criticism of less broadly human critics.

Naturally the Praise of Folly called forth a certain criticism from individuals belonging to some of the classes attacked. To this criticism Erasmus replied only by renewed and more bitter comment in the same spirit. Quite different, however, was the admonition he received from his excellent friend, Martin Dorpius of Louvain, and different to correspond was the spirit of his reply.[83] He addresses Dorpius throughout as a sincere man and scholar, whose view had been obscured by the misunderstandings of others; in fact, when you came to the bottom of it, of one man, by whom is doubtless meant the unhappy scapegoat, Nicholas Egmund. Dorpius had disapproved the _Moria_ chiefly on account of what seemed to him its flippant tone and the tendency it must have to excite hostility against really good and valuable things. Erasmus defends himself on the ground that the flippancy is only apparent, a mere lightness of touch to commend the serious purpose underneath. He had been bitterly abused, but he abuses no man; on the contrary, he has taken great pains to avoid any personal attack or even an attack upon any class of men as such.

[83] _Epistola apologetica ad Martinum Dorpium Theologum_, ix., 1.

"I had in view no other object in the _Moria_ than I have had in other works, but used only a different method." He mentions specially the _Enchiridion_, the _Institutio Principis_, and the Panegyric on Philip of Burgundy, serious works enough in all conscience. He gives the familiar story of the composition and first publication of the book. He had just returned from Italy, ill and worn out by the journey. He was at More's house and began to play with the idea of the _Moria_, not with any intention of publication, but just to while away the time.[84] He showed his friends what he had written, only that he might enjoy his laugh the better in company. They liked it, and not only urged him to finish it, but sent it over to Paris, and there it was printed, but from corrupt and even mutilated copy. How displeasing it was Dorpius may judge from the fact that within a few months it was reprinted seven times in different places. "If you think this was a foolish performance on my part, I shall not deny it."

[84] He says elsewhere that More was the cause (_auctor_) of his writing the book. iii.¹, 474-D.

Yet it has been approved by the most famous theologians, men of the highest character and learning, "who have never been more friendly with me than since its publication, and who like it far better than I do." He would give their names and titles were it not that this might expose them to the abuse of

"those three theologians or rather, when you come to that, of _that one_." "If I should paint him in his true colours no one could wonder that the _Moria_ is displeasing to such a man; nay, I should be sorry if it did not displease such people, though it does not suit me either. Yet it comes the nearer to pleasing me because it does not suit such characters as that."

If Dorpius could only look into his soul he would see how many things Erasmus has _not_ touched upon, lest he give offence, and lest he say anything indecent or seditious.

Our analysis of the _Moria_ is well sustained by Erasmus' attempt here to show that by _stultitia_ he does not mean mere human foolishness. "There is no danger that any person will here imagine that Christ and the apostles were really fools." They only had a certain element of weakness common to all humanity, and which, compared with the eternal wisdom, may well seem not altogether wise. The tone of the whole defence is admirably calm, and shows a sincere regard for Dorpius, though, like certain islanders, he does need to have a joke explained now and then.

Erasmus did not exaggerate the immense and immediate popularity of the _Moria_. Our bibliography enumerates forty-three editions in the author's lifetime, and it has been translated and reprinted since then an infinite number of times. Holbein amused himself by decorating the margin of his copy with these rude but clever wood-cuts which have come to be the permanent types of the various orders of Erasmian fools.