Chapter 10

THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND

1509-14

Third stay in England: 1509-14--No information about two years of Erasmus's life: 1509 summer, till 1511 spring--Poverty-- Erasmus at Cambridge--Relations with Badius, the Paris publisher--A mistake profitable to Johannes Froben at Basle-- Erasmus leaves England: 1514--_Julius Exclusus_--Epistle against war

From the moment when Erasmus, back from Italy in the early summer of 1509, is hidden from view in the house of More, to write the _Praise of Folly_, until nearly two years later when he comes to view again on the road to Paris to have the book printed by Gilles Gourmont, every trace of his life has been obliterated. Of the letters which during that period he wrote and received, not a single one has been preserved. Perhaps it was the happiest time of his life, for it was partly spent with his tried patron, Mountjoy, and also in the house of More in that noble and witty circle which to Erasmus appeared ideal. That house was also frequented by the friend whom Erasmus had made during his former sojourn in England, and whose mind was perhaps more congenial to him than any other, Andrew Ammonius. It is not improbable that during these months he was able to work without interruption at the studies to which he was irresistibly attracted, without cares as to the immediate future, and not yet burdened by excessive renown, which afterwards was to cause him as much trouble and loss as joy.

That future was still uncertain. As soon as he no longer enjoys More's hospitality, the difficulties and complaints recommence. Continual poverty, uncertainty and dependence were extraordinarily galling to a mind requiring above all things liberty. At Paris he charged Badius with a new, revised edition of the _Adagia_, though the Aldine might still be had there at a moderate price. The _Laus_, which had just appeared at Gourmont's, was reprinted at Strassburg as early as 1511, with a courteous letter by Jacob Wimpfeling to Erasmus, but evidently without his being consulted in the matter. By that time he was back in England, had been laid up in London with a bad attack of the sweating sickness, and thence had gone to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he had resided before. From Cambridge he writes to Colet, 24 August 1511, in a vein of comical despair. The journey from London had been disastrous: a lame horse, no victuals for the road, rain and thunder. 'But I am almost pleased at this, I see the track of Christian poverty.' A chance to make some money he does not see; he will be obliged to spend everything he can wrest from his Maecenases--he, born under a wrathful Mercury.

This may sound somewhat gloomier than it was meant, but a few weeks later he writes again: 'Oh, this begging; you laugh at me, I know. But I hate myself for it and am fully determined, either to obtain some fortune, which will relieve me from cringing, or to imitate Diogenes altogether.' This refers to a dedication of a translation of Basilius's Commentaries on Isaiah to John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester.

Colet, who had never known pecuniary cares himself, did not well understand these sallies of Erasmus. He replies to them with delicate irony and covert rebuke, which Erasmus, in his turn, pretends not to understand. He was now 'in want in the midst of plenty', _simul et in media copia et in summa inopia_. That is to say, he was engaged in preparing for Badius's press the _De copia verborum ac rerum_, formerly begun at Paris; it was dedicated to Colet. 'I ask you, who can be more impudent or abject than I, who for such a long time already have been openly begging in England?'

Writing to Ammonius he bitterly regrets having left Rome and Italy; how prosperity had smiled upon him there! In the same way he would afterwards lament that he had not permanently established himself in England. If he had only embraced the opportunity! he thinks. Was not Erasmus rather one of those people whom good fortune cannot help? He remained in trouble and his tone grows more bitter. 'I am preparing some bait against the 1st of January, though it is pretty sure to be in vain,' he writes to Ammonius, referring to new translations of Lucian and Plutarch.

At Cambridge Erasmus lectured on divinity and Greek, but it brought him little success and still less profit. The long-wished-for prebend, indeed, had at last been given him, in the form of the rectory of Aldington, in Kent, to which Archbishop William Warham, his patron, appointed him in 1512. Instead of residing he was allowed to draw a pension of twenty pounds a year. The archbishop affirms explicitly that, contrary to his custom, he had granted this favour to Erasmus, because he, 'a light of learning in Latin and Greek literature, had, out of love for England, disdained to live in Italy, France, or Germany, in order to pass the rest of his life here, with his friends'. We see how nations already begin to vie with each other for the honour of sheltering Erasmus.

Relief from all cares the post did not bring. Intercourse and correspondence with Colet was a little soured under the light veil of jests and kindness by his constant need of money. Seeking new resources by undertaking new labours, or preparing new editions of his old books, remained a hard necessity for Erasmus. The great works upon which he had set his heart, and to which he had given all his energies at Cambridge, held out no promise of immediate profit. His serious theological labours ranked above all others; and in these hard years, he devoted his best strength to preparation for the great edition of Jerome's works and emendation of the text of the New Testament, a task inspired, encouraged and promoted by Colet.

For his living other books had to serve. He had a sufficient number now, and the printers were eager enough about them, though the profit which the author made by them was not large. After leaving Aldus at Venice, Erasmus had returned to the publisher who had printed for him as early as 1505--Josse Badius, of Brabant, who, at Paris, had established the Ascensian Press (called after his native place, Assche) and who, a scholar himself, rivalled Aldus in point of the accuracy of his editions of the classics. At the time when Erasmus took the _Moria_ to Gourmont, at Paris, he had charged Badius with a new edition, still to be revised, of the _Adagia_. Why the _Moria_ was published by another, we cannot tell; perhaps Badius did not like it at first. From the _Adagia_ he promised himself the more profit, but that was a long work, the alterations and preface of which he was still waiting for Erasmus to send. He felt very sure of his ground, for everyone knew that he, Badius, was preparing the new edition. Yet a rumour reached him that in Germany the Aldine edition was being reprinted. So there was some hurry to finish it, he wrote to Erasmus in May 1512.

Badius, meanwhile, had much more work of Erasmus in hand, or on approval: the _Copia_, which, shortly afterwards, was published by him; the _Moria_, of which, at the same time, a new edition, the fifth, already had appeared; the dialogues by Lucian; the Euripides and Seneca translations, which were to follow. He hoped to add Jerome's letters to these. For the _Adagia_ they had agreed upon a copy-fee of fifteen guilders; for Jerome's letters Badius was willing to give the same sum and as much again for the rest of the consignment. 'Ah, you will say, what a very small sum! I own that by no remuneration could your genius, industry, knowledge and labour be requited, but the gods will requite you and your own virtue will be the finest reward. You have already deserved exceedingly well of Greek and Roman literature; you will in this same way deserve well of sacred and divine, and you will help your little Badius, who has a numerous family and no earnings besides his daily trade.'

Erasmus must have smiled ruefully on receiving Badius's letter. But he accepted the proposal readily. He promised to prepare everything for the press and, on 5 January 1513, he finished, in London, the preface to the revised _Adagia_, for which Badius was waiting. But then something happened. An agent who acted as a mediator with authors for several publishers in Germany and France, one Francis Berckman, of Cologne, took the revised copy of the _Adagia_ with the preface entrusted to him by Erasmus to hand over to Badius, not to Paris, but to Basle, to Johannes Froben, who had just, without Erasmus's leave, reprinted the Venetian edition! Erasmus pretended to be indignant at this mistake or perfidy, but it is only too clear that he did not regret it. Six months later he betook himself with bag and baggage to Basle, to enter with that same Froben into those most cordial relations by which their names are united. Beatus Rhenanus, afterwards, made no secret of the fact that a connection with the house of Froben, then still called Amerbach and Froben, had seemed attractive to Erasmus ever since he had heard of the _Adagia_ being reprinted.

Without conclusive proofs of his complicity, we do not like to accuse Erasmus of perfidy towards Badius, though his attitude is curious, to say the least. But we do want to commemorate the dignified tone in which Badius, who held strict notions, as those times went, about copyright, replied, when Berckman afterwards had come to offer him a sort of explanation of the case. He declares himself satisfied, though Erasmus had, since that time, caused him losses in more ways, amongst others by printing a new edition of the _Copia_ at Strassburg. 'If, however, it is agreeable to your interests and honour, I shall suffer it, and that with equanimity.' Their relations were not broken off. In all this we should not lose sight of the fact that publishing at that time was yet a quite new commercial phenomenon and that new commercial forms and relations of trade are wont to be characterized by uncertainty, confusion and lack of established business morals.

The stay at Cambridge gradually became irksome to Erasmus. 'For some months already', he writes to Ammonius in November 1513, 'we have been leading a true snail's life, staying at home and plodding. It is very lonely here; most people have gone for fear of the plague, but even when they are all here, it is lonely.' The cost of sustenance is unbearable and he makes no money at all. If he does not succeed, that winter, in making a nest for himself, he is resolved to fly away, he does not know where. 'If to no other end, to die elsewhere.'

Added to the stress of circumstances, the plague, reappearing again and again, and attacks of his kidney-trouble, there came the state of war, which depressed and alarmed Erasmus. In the spring of 1513 the English raid on France, long prepared, took place. In co-operation with Maximilian's army the English had beaten the French near Guinegate and compelled Therouanne to surrender, and afterwards Tournay. Meanwhile the Scotch invaded England, to be decisively beaten near Flodden. Their king, James IV, perished together with his natural son, Erasmus's pupil and travelling companion in Italy, Alexander, Archbishop of Saint Andrews.

Crowned with martial fame, Henry VIII returned in November to meet his parliament. Erasmus did not share the universal joy and enthusiastic admiration. 'We are circumscribed here by the plague, threatened by robbers; we drink wine of the worst (because there is no import from France), but, _io triumphe!_ we are the conquerors of the world!'

His deep aversion to the clamour of war, and all it represented, stimulated Erasmus's satirical faculties. It is true that he flattered the English national pride by an epigram on the rout of the French near Guinegate, but soon he went deeper. He remembered how war had impeded his movements in Italy; how the entry of the pope-conqueror, Julius II, into Bologna had outraged his feelings. 'The high priest Julius wages war, conquers, triumphs and truly plays the part of Julius (Caesar)' he had written then. Pope Julius, he thought, had been the cause of all the wars spreading more and more over Europe. Now the Pope had died in the beginning of the year 1513.

And in the deepest secrecy, between his work on the New Testament and Jerome, Erasmus took revenge on the martial Pope, for the misery of the times, by writing the masterly satire, entitled _Julius exclusus_, in which the Pope appears in all his glory before the gate of the Heavenly Paradise to plead his cause and find himself excluded. The theme was not new to him; for had he not made something similar in the witty Cain fable, by which, at one time, he had cheered a dinner-party at Oxford? But that was an innocent jest to which his pious fellow-guests had listened with pleasure. To the satire about the defunct Pope many would, no doubt, also gladly listen, but Erasmus had to be careful about it. The folly of all the world might be ridiculed, but not the worldly propensities of the recently deceased Pope. Therefore, though he helped in circulating copies of the manuscript, Erasmus did his utmost, for the rest of his life, to preserve its anonymity, and when it was universally known and had appeared in print, and he was presumed to be the author, he always cautiously denied the fact; although he was careful to use such terms as to avoid a formal denial. The first edition of the _Julius_ was published at Basle, not by Froben, Erasmus's ordinary publisher, but by Cratander, probably in the year 1518.

Erasmus's need of protesting against warfare had not been satisfied by writing the _Julius_. In March 1514, no longer at Cambridge, but in London, he wrote a letter to his former patron, the Abbot of Saint Bertin, Anthony of Bergen, in which he enlarges upon the folly of waging war. Would that a Christian peace were concluded between Christian princes! Perhaps the abbot might contribute to that consummation through his influence with the youthful Charles V and especially with his grandfather Maximilian. Erasmus states quite frankly that the war has suddenly changed the spirit of England. He would like to return to his native country if the prince would procure him the means to live there in peace. It is a remarkable fact and of true Erasmian naïveté that he cannot help mixing up his personal interests with his sincere indignation at the atrocities disgracing a man and a Christian. 'The war has suddenly altered the spirit of this island. The cost of living rises every day and generosity decreases. Through lack of wine I nearly perished by gravel, contracted by taking bad stuff. We are confined in this island, more than ever, so that even letters are not carried abroad.'

This was the first of Erasmus's anti-war writings. He expanded it into the adage _Dulce bellum inexpertis_, which was inserted into the _Adagia_ edition of 1515, published by Froben and afterwards also printed separately. Hereafter we shall follow up this line of Erasmus's ideas as a whole.

Though the summer of 1514 was to bring peace between England and France, Erasmus had now definitely made up his mind to leave England. He sent his trunks to Antwerp, to his friend Peter Gilles and prepared to go to the Netherlands, after a short visit to Mountjoy at the castle of Hammes near Calais. Shortly before his departure from London he had a curious interview with a papal diplomat, working in the cause of peace, Count Canossa, at Ammonius's house on the Thames. Ammonius passed him off on Erasmus as a merchant. After the meal the Italian sounded him as to a possible return to Rome, where he might be the first in place instead of living alone among a barbarous nation. Erasmus replied that he lived in a land that contained the greatest number of excellent scholars, among whom he would be content with the humblest place. This compliment was his farewell to England, which had favoured him so. Some days later, in the first half of July 1514, he was on the other side of the Channel. On three more occasions he paid short visits to England, but he lived there no more.