CHAPTER III.

I. ERASMUS COMES TO OXFORD (1498).

[Sidenote: The character of Erasmus.]

In the spring or summer of 1498, the foreign scholar--Erasmus of Rotterdam--arrived at Oxford, brought over to England by Lord Mountjoy from Paris.[181] Erasmus was an entire stranger in England; he did not know a word of English, but was at once most hospitably received into the College of St. Mary the Virgin, by the prior Richard Charnock. Colet had indeed, as already mentioned, heard Erasmus spoken of at Paris as a learned scholar,[182] but as yet no work of his had risen into note, nor was even his name generally known. He was scarcely turned thirty--just the age of Colet;[183] but in his wasted sallow cheeks and sunken eyes were but few traces left of the physical vigour of early manhood. In place of the glow of health and strength, were lines which told that midnight oil, bad lodging, and the harassing life of a poor student, driven about and ill-served as he had been, had already broken what must have been at best a frail constitution. But the worn scabbard told of the sharpness and temper of the steel within. His was a mind restless for mental work, now fighting through the obstacles of ill-health and poverty, in pursuit of its natural bent, as it had once had to fight its way out of monastic thraldom to secure the freedom of action which such a mind required.

[Sidenote: His object in coming to Oxford.]

Though well schooled and stored with learning, yet he had not come to Oxford to teach, or to make a name by display of intellectual power, but simply to add new branches of knowledge to those already acquired. Greek was now to be learned there--thanks to the efforts of Grocyn and Linacre--and Erasmus had come to Oxford bent upon adding a knowledge of Greek to his Latin lore. To belong to that little knot of men north of the Alps who already knew Greek--whose number yet might be counted on his fingers--this had now become his immediate object of ambition. What he meant to do with his tools when he had got them, probably was a question to be decided by circumstances rather than by any very definite plan of his own. To gain his living by taking pupils, and to live the life of a scholar at some continental university, was probably the future floating indistinctly before him.

[Sidenote: Erasmus is introduced to Colet.]

Prior Charnock seems to have at once appreciated Erasmus. He did all in his power to give him a warm welcome to the university.[184] He seems to have taken him at once to hear Colet lecture;[185] and he very soon informed Colet that his new guest turned out to be no ordinary man.[186] Upon this report Colet wrote to Erasmus a graceful and gentlemanly letter,[187] giving him a hearty welcome to England and to Oxford, and professing his readiness to serve him.

Erasmus replied, warmly accepting Colet’s friendship, but at the same time telling him plainly that he would find in him a man of slender or rather of no fortune, with no ambition, but warm and open-hearted, simple, liberal, honest, but timid, and of few words. Beyond this he must expect nothing. But if Colet could love such a man--if he thought such a man worthy of his friendship--he might then count him as his own.[188]

[Sidenote: Colet and Erasmus become warm friends.]

Colet _did_ think such a man worthy of his friendship, and from that moment Erasmus and he were the best of friends. The lord mayor’s son, born to wealth and all that wealth could command, whilst steeling his heart against the allurements of city and court life, eagerly received into his bosom-friendship the poor foreign scholar, whom fortune had used so hardly, whose orphaned youth had been embittered by the treachery of dishonest guardians, and who, robbed of his slender patrimony and cast adrift upon the world without resources, had hitherto scarcely been able to keep himself from want by giving lessons to private pupils. Whether he was likely to find in the foreign scholar the fulfilment of his yearnings after fellowship, it will be for further chapters of this history to disclose.

II. TABLE-TALK ON THE SACRIFICE OF CAIN AND ABEL (1498?).

[Sidenote: Table-talk at Oxford.]

It chanced that, after the delivery of a Latin sermon, the preacher--an accomplished divine--was a guest at the long table in one of the Oxford halls. Colet presided. The divine took the seat of honour to the left of Colet; Charnock, the hospitable prior, sat opposite; Erasmus next to the divine; and a lawyer opposite to him. Below them, on either side, a mixed and nameless group filled up the table. At first the tide of table-talk ebbed and flowed upon trivial subjects. The conversation turned at length upon the sacrifices of Cain and Abel--why the one was accepted and the other not.

[Sidenote: Colet’s views upon sacrifice.]

[Sidenote: The difference between Cain and Abel in the _men_, not in the offerings.]

Colet--if we may judge from the earnest way in which, in his exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, he had urged the uselessness of outward sacrifices, unless accompanied by that _living sacrifice_ of heart and mind which they were meant to typify--was not likely to advocate any view which should attribute the acceptance of the one offering and the rejection of the other, merely to any difference in the offerings themselves. He would be sure to place the difference in the _character of the men_. Colet seems on this occasion to have done so, and to have fancied he saw in the different occupations chosen by the two brothers evidence of the different spirit under which they acted. The exact course of the conversation we have no means of following. All we know is, that Colet took one side, and Erasmus and the divine the other, and that the chief bone of contention was the suggestion thrown out by Colet, that Cain had in the first instance offended the Almighty by his distrust in the Divine beneficence, and too great confidence in his own art and industry, and that this was proved by his having been the first to attempt to till the cursed ground; while Abel, with greater resignation, and resting content with what nature still spontaneously yielded, had chosen the gentle occupation of a shepherd.[189]

There may have been something fanciful in the view urged by Colet, but it is evident that it covered a truth which he could not give up, however hard and long his opponents might argue.

Erasmus was astonished at Colet’s earnestness and power. He seemed to him ‘like one inspired. In his voice, his eye, his whole countenance and mien, he seemed raised, as it were, out of himself.’[190]

[Sidenote: Erasmus makes up a story about Cain.]

Erasmus and the divine both felt themselves beaten; but it is not always easy for the vanquished to yield gracefully, and the discussion, growing warmer as it proceeded, might have risen even to intemperate heat, had not Erasmus dexterously wound it round to a happy conclusion by pretending to remember that he had once met with a curious story about Cain in an old wormeaten manuscript whose title-page time had destroyed. The disputants were all attention, and Erasmus, having thus tickled their curiosity, was induced to tell the story, after extracting a promise from the listeners that they would not treat it as a fable. He then drew upon his ready wit, and improvised the following story:--

‘This Cain was a man of art and industry, and withal greedy and covetous. He had often heard from his parents how, in the garden from which they had been driven, the corn grew as tall as alder-bushes unchoked by tares, thorns, or thistles. When he brooded over these things, and saw how meagre a crop the ground produced, after all his pains in tilling it, he was tempted to resort to treachery. He went to the angel who was the appointed guardian of paradise, and, plying him with crafty arts, tempted him with promises to give him secretly just a few grains from the luxuriant crops of Eden. He argued that so small a theft could not be noticed, and that if it were, the angel could but fall to the condition men were in. Why was his condition better than theirs? Men were driven out of the garden because they had eaten the apple. He, being set to guard the gate, could enjoy neither paradise nor heaven. He was not even free, as they were, to wander where he liked upon earth! Many good things were still left to men. With care and labour the world might be cultivated, and human misery so far lessened by discoveries and arts of all kinds, that at length men might not need to be envious even of Eden. It was true that they were infested by diseases, but human art would find the cure for these in time. Perhaps some day something might even be found which would make life immortal. When man by his industry had made the earth into one great garden, the angel would be shut out from it, as well as from heaven and Eden. Let him do what he could for men without harm to himself, and then men would do what they could for him in return. The worst man will carry the weakest cause, if he be but the best talker. A few grains were obtained by stealth, and carefully sown by Cain. These being sprung up, produced an increased number. The multiplied seed was again sown, and the process repeated time after time. Before many harvests had passed the produce of the stolen seed covered a wide tract of country. When what was taking place on earth became too conspicuous to be longer concealed from heaven, God was exceedingly wroth. “I see,” He said, “how this fellow delights in toil and sweat; I will heap it upon him to his fill.” He spoke, and sent a dense army of ants and locusts to blight Cain’s cornfields. He added to these hailstorms and hurricanes. He sent another angel to guard the gate of paradise, and imprisoned the one who had favoured man in a human body. Cain tried to appease God by burnt-offerings of fruits, but found that the smoke of his sacrifice would not rise towards heaven. Understanding from this that the anger of God was determined against him, _he despaired_!’[191]

Thus, with this clever impromptu fable did Erasmus gracefully contrive to throw the weight of his altered opinion into Colet’s scale, and at the same time to restore the whole party to wonted good-humour. Meanwhile what he had seen of Colet made a deep impression upon him. He himself declared that he never had enjoyed an after-dinner talk so much. It was, he said, wanting in nothing.[192]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The position of Colet and Erasmus at Oxford.]

This little glimpse given by Erasmus himself of his first experience of Oxford life is of value, not only as revealing his own early impressions of Colet and Oxford, but also as throwing some little light upon the position which Colet himself had taken in the University after a year’s labour at his post. That he should be chosen to preside at the long table on this occasion was a mark at least of honour and respect; while the way in which _he_ evidently gave the tone to the conversation, and became so thoroughly the central figure in the group, shows that this respect was true homage paid to character, and not to mere wealth and station. Then, again, the fact that Erasmus, a stranger, without purse or name, should have had assigned to him the second seat of honour, second only to the special guest of the day, was in itself a proof of the same hearty appreciation by Charnock and Colet of character, without regard to rank or station. Would it have been so everywhere? Had Erasmus been so treated at Paris?[193]

[Sidenote: Erasmus delighted with Colet and Charnock.]

No wonder that the letters of Erasmus, written during these his first months spent at Oxford, should bear witness to the delight with which he found himself received, all stranger as he was, into the midst of a group of warm-hearted friends, with whom, for the first time in his life, he found what it was to be at _home_. ‘I cannot tell you,’ he wrote to his friend Lord Mountjoy, ‘how delighted I am with your England. With two such friends as Colet and Charnock, I would not refuse to live even in Scythia!’[194]

III. CONVERSATION BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE SCHOOLMEN (1498 or 1499).

But although Erasmus had formed the closest friendship with Colet, and was learning more and more to understand and admire him, it was long before he was sufficiently one in heart and purpose to induce Colet to unburden to him his whole mind.

[Sidenote: Scholastic skill of Erasmus.]

He did so only by degrees. When he thought his friend really in earnest in any passing argument he would tell him fully what his own views were. But Colet hated the Schoolmen’s habit of arguing for argument’s sake, and felt that Erasmus was as yet not wholly weaned from it. It was a habit which had been fostered by the current practice of asserting wiredrawn distinctions and abstruse propositions for the mere display of logical skill; and Colet’s reverence for truth shrunk from this public vivisection of it merely to feed the pride of the dissector. It pained and disgusted him.

Erasmus had been educated at Paris in the ‘straitest sect’ of Scholastic theologians. He had there studied theology in the college of the Scotists, and been trained in that logical subtlety for which the school of Duns Scotus was distinguished.[195]

[Sidenote: Colet dislikes the Scotists.]

But he found Colet, instead of regarding the Scotists as wonderfully clever, declaring that ‘they seemed to him to be stupid and dull and anything but clever. For to cavil about different sentences and words, now to gnaw at this and now at that, and to dissect everything bit by bit, seemed to him to be the mark of a poor and barren mind.’[196]

But Colet had not quarrelled only with the logical method of the Schoolmen; he owed the scholastic philosophy itself a still deeper grudge.

[Sidenote: What the system of the Schoolmen was.]

The system of the Schoolmen professed to embrace the whole range of universal knowledge. It was not confined strictly to religion; it included, also, questions of philosophy and science. And these were settled by isolated texts from the Bible, or dicta of the earlier Schoolmen, and not by the investigation of facts. A theology so dogmatic and capricious could consistently admit of no progress. Every discovery of science or philosophy, contrary to the dicta of the Schoolmen, must be regarded as a crime. It was the logical result of an inherent vice in the system that Brunos and Galileos, in after ages, were tortured by successors of the Schoolmen into the denial of inconvenient truths.

[Sidenote: The scholastic system not adapted to an age of progress and discovery.]

This might do all very well in stagnant times, but in an age when the new art of printing was reviving ancient learning, and new worlds were turning up in hitherto untracked seas, men who, like Colet, entered into the spirit of the new era, soon found out that the _summæ theologiæ_ of the Schoolmen were no sum of theology at all; that their science and philosophy were grossly deficient; and that if Christianity must in truth stand or fall with scholastic dogmas, then the accession of new light would be likely to lead honest enquirers after truth to reject it, and to accept in its place the refined semi-pagan philosophy which had accompanied the revival of learning in Italy. Yet these were the alternatives which the Schoolmen, in common with the champions of dogmatic creeds in all ages, tried to force upon mankind. Their cry was, as that of their scholastic successors has been, and is, ‘_Our_ Christianity or _none_.’

[Sidenote: Colet’s faith in facts and free enquiry.]

[Sidenote: Colet rests on the person of Christ and the ‘Apostles’ Creed.’]

Colet had seen in Italy which of these two alternatives those who came within the influence of the new learning were inclined to take. But he had seen or heard, too, in Italy, of a third alternative. He had found a Christianity, not scholastic, not dogmatic, which did not seem to him to have anything to fear from free enquiry, for it was itself one of those facts which free enquiry had brought once more to light: the reproduction of its ancient records in their original languages was itself one of the results of the new learning. He had found in the New Testament a simple record of the facts of the life of Christ, and a few apostolic letters to the churches. It had brought him, not to an endless web of propositions to the acceptance of which he must school his mind, but to a _person_ whom to love, in whom to trust, and for whom to work. He would not rest even in the teaching of his beloved St. Paul. He had been taught by the Apostle to look up from him to the ‘wonderful majesty of Christ;’[197] and loyalty to Christ had become the ruling passion of his life.[198]

Having rejected the _summæ theologiæ_ of the Schoolmen, even before his faith had been shaken, by Grocyn’s discovery, in Dionysian speculations, his disappointment also in the latter would seem to have driven him back upon the Scriptures, upon the writings of St. Paul, above all upon Christ himself; until at last he had seemed to find in the simple facts of the Apostles’ Creed the true sum of Christian theology. Having entrenched his faith behind its simple bulwarks, he could look calmly out upon the world of philosophy and nature, with a mind free to accept truth wherever he might find it, without anxiety as to what the revival of ancient learning, or the discoveries of new-born science, might reveal, anxious chiefly to find out his own life’s work and duty, and right heartily to do it.

[Sidenote: Colet’s advice to theological students to keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed.]

And having escaped the trammels of scholastic theology himself, he could urge others also to do the same. When, therefore, young theological students came to him in despair, on the point of throwing up theological study altogether, because of the vexed questions in which they found it involved, and dreading lest in these days, when everything was called in question, they might be found unorthodox, he was wont, it seems, to tell them ‘to keep firmly to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed, and let divines, if they like, dispute about the rest.’[199]

But Erasmus as yet had far from attained the same standpoint.

[Sidenote: Erasmus came to England disgusted with theology.]

He was himself in the very position above described. His experience in the Scotist college in Paris had not been lost upon him. It was not only that its filthy chambers and diet of rotten eggs[200] had ruined his constitution for life. He had contracted within its walls a disgust of all theological study. He describes himself as, previously to his visit to England, ‘abhorring the study of theology;’ and gives, as his double reason for it, the fear lest he might run foul of settled opinions; and lest, if he did so, he should be branded with the name of ‘heretic.’[201]

[Sidenote: Erasmus still a Schoolman.]

Disgusted, however, as he was with theology, all his theological training had hitherto been scholastic in its character, and, apart from his disgust of theology in general, he does not seem as yet to have contracted any special disgust of scholastic theology in particular. He was still too much enamoured of the logic of the Schoolmen, and too often was found to take the Schoolmen’s side in his discussions with his friend.

[Sidenote: Erasmus praises Aquinas.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s reply.]

Colet and Erasmus[202] had been conversing one day upon the character of the Schoolmen. Colet had expressed his sweeping disapprobation of the whole class. Erasmus, whose knowledge of their works was, as he afterwards acknowledged, by no means deep, at length ventured, in renewing the conversation at another time, to except Thomas Aquinas from the common herd, as worthy of praise, alleging in his favour that he seemed to have studied both the Scriptures and ancient literature--which doubtless he had. Colet made no reply. And when Erasmus pursued the subject still further, Colet again passed it off, feigning inattention. But when Erasmus, in the course of further conversation, again expressed the same opinion in favour of Aquinas, and spoke more strongly even than before, Colet turned his full eye upon him in order to learn whether he really were speaking in earnest; and concluding that it was so--‘What,’ he said passionately, ‘do you extol to me such a man as Aquinas? If he had not been very arrogant indeed, he would not surely so rashly and proudly have taken upon himself to define _all_ things. And unless his spirit had been somewhat worldly, he would not surely have corrupted the whole teaching of Christ by mixing with it his profane philosophy.’[203]

Erasmus was taken aback, as he had been at the discussion at the public table. He had again been arguing without sufficient knowledge to justify his having any strong opinion at all. Which side he took on the question at issue was a matter almost of indifference to him. But he saw plainly that it was not so with Colet. His first allusion to Aquinas, Colet had resolutely shunned. When compelled to speak his opinion, his soul was moved to its depths, and had burst forth into this passionate reply. There must be something real and earnest at the bottom of Colet’s dislike for Aquinas, else he could not have spoken thus.

So Erasmus betakes himself to the more careful study of the great schoolman’s writings.

[Sidenote: Erasmus studies Aquinas.]

One may picture him taking down from the shelf the ‘Summa Theologiæ,’ and, as the first step toward the exploration of its contents, turning to the prologue. He reads:--

[Sidenote: The ‘Summa.’]

‘Seeing that the teacher of catholic truth should instruct not only those advanced in knowledge, but that it is a part of his duty to teach _beginners_ (according to the words of the Apostle to the Corinthians, “even as unto babes in Christ, I have fed you with milk and not with strong meat”), it is our purpose in this book to treat of those things which pertain to the Christian religion in a manner adapted to the instruction of beginners.

‘For we have considered that novices in this learning have been very much hindered in [the study of] works written by others; partly, indeed, on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles and arguments, and partly [for other reasons]. To avoid these and other difficulties we shall endeavour, relying on Divine assistance, to treat of those things which belong to sacred learning, so far as the subject will admit, with _brevity_ and clearness.’

[Sidenote: Scholastic ‘milk for babes.’]

What could be better or truer than this? Erasmus might almost have fancied that Colet himself had written these words, so fully do they seem to fall in with his views. But turning from the prologue, nothing surely could open the eyes of Erasmus more thoroughly to the real nature of scholastic theology than a further glance at the body of the treatise. For what was he to think of a system of theology a ‘_brief_’ compendium of which covered no fewer than 1150 folio pages, each containing 2000 words! And what was he to think of the wisdom of that Christian doctor who prescribed this ‘Summa’ as ‘_milk_’ specially adapted for the sustenance of theological ‘_babes_’! To be told first to digest forty-three propositions concerning the nature of God, each of which embraced several distinct articles separately discussed and concluded in the eighty-three folios devoted to this branch of the subject; then fifteen similar propositions regarding the nature of _angels_, embracing articles such as these:--

Whether an angel can be in more than one place at one and the same time?

Whether more angels than one can be in one and the same place at the same time?

Whether angels have local motion?

And whether, if they have, they pass through intermediate space?[204]

--then ten propositions regarding _the Creation_, consisting of an elaborate attempt to bring into harmony the work of the six days recorded in Genesis with mediæval notions of astronomy; then forty-five propositions respecting the nature of _man_ before and after the Fall, the physical condition of the human body in Paradise, the mode by which it was preserved immortal by eating of the tree of life, the place where man was created before he was placed in Paradise, &c.; and then, having mastered the above subtle propositions, stated ‘briefly and clearly’ in 216 of the aforesaid folio pages, to be told for his consolation and encouragement that he had now mastered _not quite one-fifth_ part of this ‘first book’ for beginners in theological study, and that these propositions, and more than five times as many, were to be regarded by him as the settled doctrine of the Catholic Church!--what student could fail either to be crushed under the dead weight of such a creed, or to rise up, and, like Samson, bursting its green withes, discard and disown it altogether?

[Sidenote: Erasmus goes over to Colet’s view.]

No marvel that Erasmus was obliged to confess that, in the process of further study of the works of Aquinas, his former high opinion had been modified.[205] He could understand now how it was that Colet could hardly control his indignation at the thought, how the simple facts of Christianity had been corrupted by the admixture of the subtle philosophy of this ‘best of the Schoolmen.’

And yet we may well be free to own that Colet’s not unnatural hatred of the scholastic philosophy had blinded him in some degree to the personal merits of the early Schoolmen. Deeper knowledge of the history of their times, and study of the personal character at least of some of them, might have enabled him not only to temper his hatred, but even to recognise that they occupied in their day a standpoint not widely different altogether even from his own.

[Sidenote: The merit of the early Schoolmen.]

For as earnestly as Colet himself was now seeking to bring the Christianity and advanced thought of _his_ age into harmony, the early Schoolmen had tried to do the same thing in _theirs_. The misfortune of the Schoolmen was, that they had inherited from St. Augustine, and the Pseudo-Dionysius, the vicious tendency to fill up blanks in theology by indulging in hypotheses, capable of receiving the sanction of ecclesiastical authority, and then to be treated as established, although altogether unverified by facts. They had also to harmonise the dogmatic theology so manufactured with a scientific system as dogmatic as itself. For while theologians had been indulging in hypotheses respecting ‘original sin,’ ‘absolute predestination,’ and ‘irresistible grace,’ natural philosophers had been indulging in similar hypotheses respecting the ‘crystalline spheres,’ ‘epicycloids,’ and ‘_primum mobile_.’[206] And seeing that the method by which the Schoolmen attempted to fuse these _two_ dogmatic systems into _one_, itself consisted of a still further indulgence in the same vicious mode of procedure, it was but natural that their attempt as a whole, however well meant, should leave ‘confusion worse confounded.’

[Sidenote: The demerits of their successors.]

Still it must not be forgotten that they did succeed by this vicious process in reconciling theology and science to the satisfaction of their own dogmatic age. This praise is, at least, their due. On the other hand, their successors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries could not put forward any such claims for themselves. _They_ did not succeed in harmonising the theology and the advanced thought of _their_ age. They strained every nerve to keep them hopelessly apart. They blindly held on to a worn-out system inherited from their far worthier predecessors, and spent their strength in denouncing, in no measured terms, the scientific spirit and inductive method of the ‘new learning.’

Hence there can be little doubt that Colet’s hatred of what in his day was in truth a huge and bewildering mass of dreary and lifeless subtlety, was a just and righteous hatred. And though it took some time for Erasmus thoroughly to accept it, he could in after years, when Colet was no more, endorse, from the bottom of his heart, Colet’s advice to young theological students: ‘_Keep to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed; and let divines, if they like, dispute about the rest_.’

IV. ERASMUS FALLS IN LOVE WITH THOMAS MORE (1498).

Amongst the broken gleams of light which fall, here and there only, upon the Oxford intercourse of Erasmus with Colet, there are one or two which reveal an already existing friendship with Thomas More, but unfortunately without disclosing how it had begun.

[Sidenote: Introduction of More to Erasmus.]

Erasmus, when passing through London on his way to Oxford, had probably been introduced by Lord Mountjoy to his brilliant young friend. It is even possible that there may be a foundation of fact in the story that they had met for the first time, unknown to each other, at the lord mayor’s table, or, as is more likely still, at the table of the _ex_-lord mayor, Sir Henry Colet. Erasmus, having perhaps been told Colet’s saying, that there was but one genius in England, and that his name was Thomas More, may have been set opposite to him at table without knowing who he was. More in his turn may have been told of the logical subtlety of the great scholar newly arrived from the Scotist college in Paris, without having been personally introduced to him. If this were so, the rest of the story may easily be true. They are said to have got into argument during dinner, Erasmus, in Scotist fashion, ‘defending the worser part,’ till finding in his young opponent ‘a readier wit than ever he had before met withal,’ he broke forth into the exclamation, ‘_Aut tu es Morus aut nullus_;’ to which the ready tongue of More retorted--so runs the story, ‘_Aut tu es Erasmus aut Diabolus_.’[207] Whether at the lord mayor’s table, or elsewhere, they _had_ become acquainted, and a correspondence had grown up between them, one letter of which, like a solitary waif, has been left stranded on the shore of the gulf which has swallowed the rest. It reads thus:--

_Erasmus Thomæ Moro suo, S.D._

‘I scarcely can get any letters, wherefore I have showered down curses on the head of this letter-carrier, by whose laziness or treachery I fancy it must be that I have been disappointed of the most eagerly expected letters of my dear More (Mori mei). For that you have failed on your part I neither want nor ought to suspect. Albeit, I expostulated with you most vehemently in my last letter. Nor am I afraid that you are at all offended by the liberty I took, for you are not ignorant of that Spartan method of fighting “usque ad cutem.” This, joking aside, I do entreat you, sweetest Thomas, that you will make amends with interest for the suffering occasioned me by the too long continued deprivation of yourself and your letters. I expect, in short, not a letter, but a huge bundle of letters, which would weigh down even an Egyptian porter,’

* * * * *

‘Vale jucundissime More.[208]

‘Oxoniæ: Natali Simonis et Judæ. 1499.’

[Sidenote: Friendship between More and Erasmus.]

Such being the friendship already existing between them, and beginning to show itself in the use of those endearing superlatives without which Erasmus, from the first to the last, never could write a letter to More, it is not surprising that, as winter came on, Erasmus should take the opportunity afforded by the approaching vacation for a visit to London. Accordingly we get one chance glimpse of him there, writing a letter to one of his friends, and expressing his delight with everything he had met with in England.

Staying as he most likely was with Mountjoy or with More, enjoying the warmth of their friendship, and feeling himself at home in London as he had done in Oxford, but never had done before anywhere else, it was natural that the foreign scholar should paint, in the warmest colours, this land of friends. Especially of Mountjoy, who had brought him to England, and who found him the means of living at Oxford, he would naturally speak in the highest terms. Such was the politeness, the goodnature, and affectionateness of his noble patron, that he would willingly follow him, he said, _ad inferos_, if need be.

[Sidenote: Erasmus delighted with England, and with Mountjoy, Colet, Grocyn, Linacre, and More.]

Nor was it only the warm-heartedness of his English friends which filled him with delight. His purpose in coming to Oxford he declared to be fully answered. He had come to England because he could not raise the means for a longer journey to Italy. To prosecute his studies in Italy had been for years an object of anxious yearning; but now, after a few months’ experience of Oxford life, he wrote to his friend, who was himself going to Italy, ‘that he had found in England so much polish and learning--not showy, shallow learning, but profound and exact, both in Latin and Greek--that now he would hardly care much about going to Italy at all, except for the sake of having been there.’ ‘When,’ he added, ‘I listen to my friend Colet it seems to me like listening to Plato himself. In Grocyn, who does not admire the wide range of his knowledge? What could be more searching, deep, and refined than the judgment of Linacre?’ And after this mention of Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, he adds: ‘Whenever did nature mould a character more gentle, endearing, and happy than Thomas More’s?’[209]

[Sidenote: Erasmus falls in love with More.]

So that while here, as elsewhere, Colet seems to take his place again as the chief of the little band of English friends, we learn from this letter that the picture would not have been complete without the figure of the fascinating youth with whom Erasmus, like the rest of them, had fallen in love.

The letter itself was written to Robert Fisher, from London ‘tumultuarie,’ 5th December, in 1498 or 1499.

V. DISCUSSION BETWEEN ERASMUS AND COLET ON ‘THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN,’ AND ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES (1499).

[Sidenote: Erasmus attributes the agony of Christ to fear of death.]

The greater part of 1499 was spent by Erasmus apparently at Oxford. On one occasion Colet and Erasmus were spending an afternoon together.[210] Their conversation fell upon the agony of Christ in the garden. They soon, as usual, found that they did not agree. Erasmus, following the common explanation of the Schoolmen, saw only in the agony suffered by the Saviour that natural fear of a cruel death to which in his human nature he submitted as one of the incidents of humanity. It seemed to him that in His character as truly _man_, left for the moment unaided by His divinity, the prospect of the anguish in store for Him might well wring from Him that cry of fearful and trembling human nature, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!’ while the further words, ‘not my will but Thine be done,’ proved, he thought, that He had not only felt, but conquered, this human fear and weakness. Erasmus further supported this view by adducing the commonly received scholastic distinction between what Christ felt as _man_ and what He felt as _God_, alleging that it was only as _man_ that He thus suffered.

[Sidenote: Colet objects to this view.]

[Sidenote: Christ was thinking of the Jews, not of Himself.]

Colet dissented altogether from his friend’s opinion. It might be the commonly received interpretation of recent divines, but in spite of that he declared his own entire disapproval of it. Nothing could, he thought, be more inconsistent with the exceeding love of Christ, than the supposition that, when it came to the point, He shrank in dread from that very death which He desired to die in His great love of men. It seemed utterly absurd, he said, to suppose that while so many martyrs have gone to torture and death patiently and even with joy--the sense of pain being lost in the abundance of their love--Christ, who was love itself, who came into the world for the very purpose of delivering guilty man by his own innocent death, should have shrunk either from the ignominy or from the bitterness of the cross. The sweat of great drops of blood, the exceeding sorrow even unto death, the touching entreaty to His Father that the cup might pass from Him--was all this to be attributed to the mere fear of death? Colet had rather set it down to anything but that. For it lies in the essence of love, he said, that it should cast out fear, turn sorrow into joy, think nothing of itself, sacrifice everything for others. It could not be that He who loved the human race more than anyone else should be inconstant and fearful in the prospect of death. In confirmation of this view he referred to St. Jerome, who alone of all the church fathers had, he thought, shown true insight into the real cause of Christ’s agony in the garden. St. Jerome had attributed the Saviour’s prayer, that the cup might pass from Him, not to the fear of death but to the sense felt by Him of the awful guilt of the Jews, who, by thus bringing about that death which He desired to die for the salvation of _all mankind_, seemed to be bringing down destruction and ruin on themselves--an anxiety and dread bitter enough, in Colet’s view, to wring from the Saviour the prayer that the cup might pass from Him, and the drops of bloody sweat in the garden, seeing that it afterwards did wring from Him, whilst perfecting his eternal sacrifice on the cross, that other prayer for the very ministers of his torture, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’ Such was the view expressed by Colet in reply to Erasmus, and in opposition to the view which he was aware was generally received by scholastic divines.

Whilst they were in the heat of the discussion it happened that Prior Charnock entered the room. Colet, with a delicacy of feeling which Erasmus afterwards appreciated, at once broke off the argument, simply remarking, as he took leave, that he did not doubt that were his friend, when alone, to reconsider the matter with care and accuracy, their difference of opinion would not last very long.

[Sidenote: Erasmus writes to Colet.]

When Erasmus found himself alone and at leisure in his chambers he at once followed Colet’s advice. He reconsidered Colet’s argument and his own. He consulted his books. By far the most of the authorities, both Fathers and Schoolmen, he found beyond dispute to be on his own side. And his reconsideration ended in his being the more convinced that he had himself been right and Colet wrong. Naturally finding it hard to yield when there was no occasion, and feeling sure that this time he had the best of the argument, he eagerly seized his pen, and with some parade, both of candour and learning, stated at great length what he thought might be said on both sides. After having written what, in type, would fill about fifty of these pages, he confidently wound up his long letter by saying that, so far as he could see, he had demonstrated his own opinion to be in accordance with that of the Schoolmen and most of the early Fathers, and, whilst not contrary to nature, clearly consistent with reason. But he knew, he said, to whom he was writing, and whether he had convinced _Colet_ he could not tell. For, he wrote in conclusion, ‘how rash it is in me, a mere tyro, to dare to encounter a commander--for one, _whom you call a rhetorician_, to venture upon theological ground, to enter an arena which is not mine! Still I have not shrunk from daring everything even with _you_, who are so skilled in all elegant and ancient lore, who have brought with you from Italy such stores of Greek and Latin, and who, on this very account, are not as yet appreciated as you ought to be by theologians. Wherefore, in discussing with you, I have chosen to use the old and free way of arguing; not only because I prefer it myself, but also because I knew your dislike to the modern and new-fangled method of disputation, which, keen and ready as it may seem to some, is in your view complicated, superstitious, spiritless, and plainly sophistical. And perhaps you are right.... Yet I would have you take care lest you should not be able to stand _alone_ against so many thousands. Let us not, contented with the plain homespun sense of Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, and others as ancient, grudge to these modern disputants their more elaborated doctrines.

‘And now I await your attack. I await your mighty war-trumpet. I await those “Coletian” arrows, surer even than the arrows of Hercules. In the meantime I will array the forces of my mind; I will concentrate my ranks; I will prepare my reserves of books, lest I should not be able to stand your first charge.

‘As to the rest, the matters which you have propounded from the Epistles of St. Paul, since they are such as it would be dangerous to dispute of, I had rather enter into them by word of mouth when we are together than by letter. _Vale!_’

The reply of Colet was short, and very characteristic of the man.

[Sidenote: Colet replies.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s love of truth.]

‘Your letter, most learned Erasmus, as it is very long, so also is it most eloquent and happy. It is a proof of a tenacious memory, and gives a faithful review of our discussion.... But it contains nothing to alter or detract from the opinions which I imbibed from St. Jerome. Not that I am perverse and obstinate with an uncandid pertinacity, but that (though I may be mistaken) I think I hold and defend the truth, or what is most like the truth.... I am unwilling, just now, to grapple with your letter as a whole; for I have neither leisure nor strength to do so at once, and without preparation. But I will attack the first part of it--your first line of battle as it were.... In the meantime do you patiently hear me, and let us both, if, when striking our flints together, any spark should fly out, eagerly catch at it. For we seek, not for victory in argument, but for _truth_, which perchance may be elicited by the clash of argument with argument, as sparks are by the clashing of steel against steel!’[211]

[Sidenote: Erasmus had followed the theory of the ‘manifold senses’ of Scripture.]

Erasmus, at the commencement of his long letter, feeling, perhaps, that after all there might be some truth in Colet’s view not embraced in his own, had fallen back upon the strange theory, already alluded to as held by scholastic divines, that the words of the Scriptures, because of their magic sacredness and absolute inspiration, might properly be interpreted in several distinct senses. ‘Nothing’ (he had said) ‘forbids our drawing various meanings out of the wonderful riches of the sacred text, so as to render the same passage in more than one way. I know that, according to Job, “the word of God is manifold.” I know that the manna did not taste alike to all. But if you so embrace _your_ opinion that you condemn and reject the received opinion, then I freely dissent from you.’

[Sidenote: Colet’s view.]

This was the first line of battle which Colet, in his letter, declared that he would at once attack. It was a notion of Scripture interpretation altogether foreign to his own. He yielded to none in his admiration of the wonderful fulness and richness of the Scriptures. He had made it the chief matter of his remark to the priest who had called on him during the winter vacation of 1496-7, and had written to the Abbot of Winchcombe an account of the priest’s visit in order to press the same point upon him. But from the method adopted in his expositions of St. Paul’s Epistles, and the first chapter of Genesis, it appears that he did not hold the theory of uniform verbal inspiration, which ignored the human element in Scripture, round which had grown this still stranger theory of the manifold senses, and upon which alone it could be at all logically held.

It is true that, in his abstract of the Dionysian writings, he had, upon Dionysian authority, accepted, in a modified form,[212] the doctrine of the ‘four senses’ of Scripture; and in his letters to Radulphus, whilst confining himself to the literal sense, he guarded himself against the denial of the same theory. But he had never sanctioned the gross abuse of the doctrine to which Erasmus had appealed, which asserted that even the _literal_ sense of the same passage might be interpreted to mean different things. It was one thing to hold that some passages must be allegorically understood and not literally, and that other passages have both a literal and an allegorical meaning (which Colet seems to have held), or even that _all_ passages have both a literal and an allegorical meaning (which Colet did not hold). It was quite another thing to hold that the words of the same passage might, in their _literal_ sense, mean several different things, and be used as _texts_ in support of statements not within the direct intention of their human writer.

[Sidenote: Aquinas on the ‘manifold senses.’]

Thomas Aquinas, in his ‘Summa,’ had indeed laid down a proposition, which practically amounted to this. For in discussing the doctrine of the ‘four senses’ of Scripture, he had not only stated that the spiritual sense of Scripture was threefold, viz. allegorical, moral, and anagogical, but also that the _literal sense was manifold_. He had laid down the doctrine, that ‘Inasmuch as the literal sense is that which _the author intends_, and _God_ is the author of Holy Scripture, who comprehends all things in His mind at one and the same time, it is not inconsistent, as Augustine says in his twelfth Confession, if even according to the literal sense in the one letter of the Holy Scriptures there are many senses.’[213]

It may, however, well be doubted whether Aquinas would have sanctioned altogether the absurd length to which this doctrine was carried by scholastic disputants.

[Sidenote: Colet on the ‘manifold senses.’]

Whether Colet, since Grocyn’s discovery, had or had not altogether repudiated the doctrine of ‘manifold senses,’ as one of the notions which he had once held on Dionysian authority, but which the authority of the _Pseudo_-Dionysius was not sufficient to establish, it is clear that in his reply to Erasmus he utterly repudiated the abuse of it to which Erasmus had appealed. ‘In the first place’ (he wrote), ‘I cannot agree with you when you state, along with many others, and as I think mistakenly, that the Holy Scriptures, at least _uno in aliquo genere_, are so prolific that they give birth to many senses. Not that I would not have them to be as prolific as possible--their overflowing fecundity and fulness I, more than others, admire--but that I consider their fecundity to consist in their giving birth not to many [senses], but to only one, and that the most true one.’

[Sidenote: Colet’s views on ‘Inspiration.’]

After remarking that whilst the lower forms of life produce the most numerous offspring, the highest forms of life tend towards _unity_ of offspring, he argues that the Holy Spirit gives birth in the Scripture, according to its own power, to one and the same simple truth. What if from the simple, divine, and truth-speaking words of the Scriptures of the Spirit of Truth, whether heard or read, many and various persons draw many and varying senses? He set that down, he said, not to the fecundity of the Scriptures, but to the sterility of men’s minds, and their incapacity of getting at the pure and simple truth. If they could but reach _that_, they would as completely agree as now they differ. He then remarked how mysterious the inspiration of the Scriptures was; how the Spirit seemed to him, by reason of its majesty, to have a peculiar method of its own, singularly absolute and free, blowing where it lists, making prophets of whom it will, yet so that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. He repeated, in conclusion, that he admired the fulness of the Scriptures, not because each word may be construed in several senses--that would be want of fulness--but because _quot sententiæ totidem sunt verba, et quot verba tot sententiæ_. Having said this, he was ready to descend into the arena, and to join battle with Erasmus on the matter in dispute, but he could not do so now; he was called away by other engagements, and must end his letter for the present.[214]

The letters which followed in which Colet further pursued the subject of the Agony in the Garden, have unfortunately been lost. But enough remains to give, by a passing glimpse, some idea of the pleasant colloquies and earnest converse, both by mouth and letter, in which the happy months of college intercourse glided swiftly by.

VI. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN COLET AND ERASMUS ON THE INTENTION OF ERASMUS TO LEAVE OXFORD (1499-1500).

[Sidenote: Erasmus at Court.]

The winter vacation of 1499-1500 had apparently dispersed for a while the circle of Oxford students. Erasmus having, it would seem, some friend at Court, had joined the Royal party, probably spending Christmas at Woodstock or some other hunting station. He was at first delighted with Court manners and field sports, and in a letter,[215] written about this time, he jocosely told a Parisian friend, that the Erasmus whom he once had known was now a hunter, and his manners polished up into those of an experienced courtier. He was greatly struck, he added, with the beauty and grace of the English ladies, and urged him to let nothing less than the gout hinder his coming to England.

[Sidenote: But soon tires of Court life.]

But while Court life might captivate at first, Erasmus had soon found out that its glitter was not gold. As the wolf in the fable lost his relish for the dainties and delicate fare of the house-dog when he saw the mark of the collar on his neck, so when Erasmus had seen how little of freedom and how much of bondage there was in the courtier’s life he had left it with disgust; choosing rather to return to Oxford to share the more congenial society of what students might be found there during these vacation weeks, than to remain longer with ‘be-chained courtiers.’[216] He was waiting only for time and tide to return to Paris. At present the weather was too rough for so bad a sailor; and, owing to political disquiet and danger, it was difficult to obtain the needful permission to leave the realm.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Erasmus proposes to leave Oxford.]

[Sidenote: Colet urges him to remain at Oxford.]

The fear that Erasmus was so soon to leave Oxford was one which troubled Colet’s vacation thoughts. To be left alone at Oxford again to fight his way single-handed was by no means a cheering prospect. But his saddest feeling was one not merely of sorrow at parting with his new friend--it was a feeling of disappointment. He had hoped for more than he had found in Erasmus. That he could have won over Erasmus all at once to his own views and plans he had never dreamed. The scholar had his own bent of mind, and of course his own plans. Such was his love of learning for its own sake, that he was bent on constant and persevering study; and his stay at Oxford he looked upon merely as one step in the ladder, valuable chiefly because it led to the next. But Colet longed for fellowship. In his friend he had sought, and in some measure found, fellow-feeling. But feeling and action to him were too closely linked to make that all he wanted. Fellow-feeling was to him but a half-hearted thing unless it ripened into fellow work; and he had hoped for this in Erasmus. He had purposely left Erasmus to find out his views and to discern his spirit by degrees. He had not tried to force him in anywise. He had shown his wisdom in this. But now that Erasmus talked of leaving Oxford, it was Colet’s duty to speak out. He could not let him go without one last appeal. He therefore wrote to him, telling him plainly of his disappointment. He urged him to remain at Oxford. He urged him, once for all, to come out boldly, as he himself had done, and to do his part in the great work of restoring that old and true theology of Christ, so long obscured by the subtle webs of the Schoolmen, in its pristine brightness and dignity. What could he do more noble than this? There was plenty of room for both of them. He himself was doing his best to expound the New Testament. Why should not Erasmus take some book of the Old Testament, say Genesis or Isaiah, and expound it, as he had done the Epistles of St. Paul? If he could not make up his mind to do this at once, Colet urged that, as a temporary alternative, he should lecture on some secular branch of study. Anything was better than that he should leave Oxford altogether.[217]

Erasmus received this letter soon after his return from his short experience of Court life. The tone of disappointment and almost reproof pervading it Erasmus felt was undeserved on his part, yet it evidently made a deep impression upon him. Looking back upon his intercourse with Colet at Oxford, he must have seen how much it had done to change his views, and felt how powerfully Colet’s influence had worked upon him. Yet he knew how far his views were from being matured like Colet’s, and how foolish it would be to begin publicly to teach before his own mind was fully made up. He knew that Colet had brought him over very much to his way of thinking, and he was ready to confess himself a disciple of Colet’s; but he must digest what he had learned, and make it thoroughly his own, before he could publicly teach it. Perhaps he might one day be able to join Colet in his work at Oxford; but he thought, and probably wisely, that the time had not yet come. This at least may be gathered from his reply to Colet’s letter. With some abridgment and unimportant omissions, it may be translated thus:--

_Erasmus to Colet._[218]

[Sidenote: Reply of Erasmus to Colet’s entreaties.]

... ‘In what you say of your dislike to the modern race of divines, who spend their lives in mere logical tricks and sophistical cavils, in very truth I entirely agree with you.

[Sidenote: Agrees with Colet in disliking the Scholastic System.]

‘Not that, valuing as I do all branches of study, I condemn the studies of these men _as such_, but that when they are pursued for themselves alone, unseasoned by more ancient and elegant literature, they seem to me to be calculated to make men sciolists and contentious; whether they can make men wise I leave to others. For they exhaust the mental powers by a dry and biting subtlety, without infusing any vigour or spirit into the mind. And, worst of all, theology, the queen of all science--so richly adorned by ancient eloquence--they strip of all her beauty by their incongruous, mean, and disgusting style. What was once so clear, thanks to the genius of the old divines, they clog with some subtlety or other, thus involving everything in obscurity while they try to explain it. It is thus we see that theology, which was once most venerable and full of majesty, now almost dumb, poor, and in rags.

‘In the meantime we are allured by a never-satiated appetite for strife. One dispute gives rise to another, and with wonderful gravity we fight about straws. Then, lest we should seem to have added nothing to the discoveries of the old divines, we audaciously lay down certain positive rules according to which God has performed his mysteries, when sometimes it might be better for us to believe that a thing _was_ done, leaving the question of _how_ it was done to the omnipotence of God. So, too, for the sake of showing our ingenuity, we sometimes discuss questions which pious ears can hardly bear to hear; as, for instance, when it is asked whether the Almighty could have taken upon Him the nature of the devil or of an ass.

‘Besides all this, in our times those men in general apply themselves to theology, the chief of all studies, who by reason of their obtuseness and lack of sense are hardly fit for any study at all. I say this not of learned and upright professors of theology, whom I highly respect and venerate, but of that sordid and haughty pack of divines who count all learning as worthless except their own.

[Sidenote: He honours Colet and his work.]

‘Wherefore, my dear Colet, in having joined battle with this redoubtable race of men for the restoration, in its pristine brightness and dignity, of that old and true theology which they have obscured by their subtleties, you have in very truth engaged in a work in many ways of the highest honour--a work of devotion to the cause of theology, and of the greatest advantage to all students, and especially the students of this flourishing University of Oxford. Still, to speak the truth, it is a work of great difficulty, and one sure to excite ill-will. Your learning and energy will, however, conquer every difficulty, and your magnanimity will easily overlook ill-will. There are not a few, even among divines themselves, both able and willing to second your honest endeavours. There is no one, indeed, who would not give you a hand, since there is not even a doctor in this celebrated University who has not given attentive audience to your public readings on the Epistles of St. Paul, now of three years’ standing. And which is the most praiseworthy in this, _their_ modesty in not being ashamed to learn from a young man without doctor’s degree, or _your_ remarkable learning, eloquence, and integrity of life, which they have thought worthy of such honour?

[Sidenote: Erasmus agrees with Colet but is not ready yet to join him in fellow-work.]

‘I do not wonder that _you_ should put your shoulder under so great, a burden, for you are able to bear it, but I do wonder greatly that you should call _me_, who am nothing of a man, into the fellowship of so glorious a work. For you exhort,--yes, you almost reproachfully urge me, that, by expounding either the ancient Moses[219] or the eloquent Isaiah, in the same way as you have expounded St. Paul, I should try, as you say, to kindle up the studies of this University, now chilled by these winter months. But I, who have learned to live in solitude, know well how imperfectly I am furnished for such a task; nor do I lay claim to sufficient learning to justify my undertaking it. Nor do I judge that I have strength of mind enough to enable me to sustain the ill-will of so many men stoutly maintaining their own ground. Matters of this kind require not a tyro, but a practised general. Nor can you rightly call me immodest in refusing to do what I should be far more immodest to attempt. You act, my dear Colet, in this matter as wisely as they who (as Plautus says) “demand water from a rock.” With what face can I teach what I myself have not learned? How shall I kindle the chilled warmth of others while I am altogether trembling and shivering myself?...

‘But you say you expected this of me, and now you complain that you were mistaken. You should rather blame yourself than me for this. For I have not deceived you. I have neither promised nor held out any prospect of any such thing. But you have deceived yourself in not believing me when I told you truly what I meant to do.

[Sidenote: Erasmus is returning to Paris.]

‘Nor indeed did I come here to teach poetry and rhetoric, for these ceased to be pleasant to me when they ceased to be necessary. I refuse the one task because it does not come up to my purpose, the other because it is beyond my strength. You unjustly blame me in the one case, my dear Colet, because I never intended to follow the profession of what are called secular studies. As to the other, you exhort me in vain, as I know myself to be too unfit for it. But even though I were most fit, still it must not be. For soon I must return to Paris.

‘In the meantime, whilst I am detained here, partly by the winter, and partly because departure from England is forbidden, owing to the flight of some duke,[220] I have betaken myself to this famous University that I might rather spend two or three months with men of your class than with those be-chained courtiers.

[Sidenote: But some day will join Colet in fellow-work.]

‘Be it, indeed, far from me to oppose your glorious and sacred labours. On the contrary, I will promise (since not fitted as yet to be a coadjutor) sedulously to encourage and further them. For the rest, whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and strength I will join you, and, by your side, and in theological teaching, I will zealously engage, if not in successful at least in earnest labour. In the meantime, nothing could be more delightful to me than that we should go on as we have begun, whether daily by word of mouth, or by letter, discussing the meaning of Holy Scripture.

‘Vale, mi Colete.

‘Oxford: at the College of the Canons of the Order of St. Augustine, commonly called the College of St. Mary.’[221]

VII. ERASMUS LEAVES OXFORD AND ENGLAND (1500).

Erasmus took leave of Colet, and left Oxford early in January, 1500.

[Sidenote: Erasmus at Lord Mountjoy’s.]

He proceeded to Greenwich, to the country seat of Lord and Lady Mountjoy; for his patron had, apparently, since his arrival in England, married a wife.[222]

While he was resting under this hospitable roof, Thomas More came down to pay him a farewell visit. He brought with him another young lawyer named Arnold--the son of Arnold the merchant, a man well known in London, and living in one of the houses built upon the arches of London Bridge.[223]

[Sidenote: More and Erasmus visit the Royal Nursery.]

More, whose love of fun never slept, persuaded Erasmus, by way of something to do, to take a walk with himself and his friend to a neighbouring village.

He took them to call at a house of rather imposing appearance. As they entered the hall, Erasmus was struck with the style of it; it rivalled even that of the mansion of his noble patron. It was in fact the Royal Nursery, where all the children of Henry VII., except Arthur the Prince of Wales, were living under the care of their tutor. In the middle of the group was Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), then a boy of nine years old. To his right stood the Princess Margaret, who afterwards was married to the King of Scotland. On the left was the Princess Maria, a mere child at play. The nurse held in her arms the Prince Edmund, a baby about ten months old.[224]

[Sidenote: They see the Prince Henry.]

[Sidenote: Erasmus writes verses upon England.]

More and Arnold at once accosted Prince Henry, and presented him with some verses, or other literary offering. Erasmus, having brought nothing of the kind with him, felt awkward, and could only promise to prove his courtesy to the Prince in the same way on some future occasion. They were invited to sit down to table, and during the meal the Prince sent a note to Erasmus to remind him of his promise. The result was that More received a merited scolding from Erasmus, for having led him blindfold into the trap; and Erasmus, after parting with More, had to devote three of the few remaining days of his stay in England to the composition of Latin verses in honour of England, Henry VII., and the Royal children.[225] He was in good humour with England. He had been treated with a kindness which he never could forget; and he was leaving England with a purse full of golden crowns, generously provided by his English friends to defray the expenses of his long-wished-for visit to Italy. Under these circumstances it was not surprising if his verses should be laudatory.[226]

[Sidenote: Leaves for Dover.]

By the 27th January,[227] he was off to Dover, to catch the boat for Boulogne.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The three friends are scattered.]

So the three friends were scattered. Each had evidently a separate path of his own. Their natures and natural gifts were, indeed, singularly different. They had been brought into contact for one short year, as it were by chance, and now again their spheres of life seemed likely to lie wide apart.

How could it be otherwise? Even Colet, who had longed that his friendship for Erasmus might ripen into the fellowship of fellow-work, could not hope against hope. The chances that his dream might yet be realised, seemed slight indeed. ‘Whenever I feel that I have the requisite firmness and strength, I will join you!’ So Erasmus had promised. But Colet might well doubtfully ask himself--‘When will that be?’