CHAPTER XXI

CONCLUSION

Conclusion--Erasmus and the spirit of the sixteenth century--His weak points--A thorough idealist and yet a moderate mind--The enlightener of a century--He anticipates tendencies of two centuries later--His influence affects both Protestantism and Catholic reform--The Erasmian spirit in the Netherlands

Looking back on the life of Erasmus the question still arises: why has he remained so great? For ostensibly his endeavours ended in failure. He withdraws in alarm from that tremendous struggle which he rightly calls a tragedy; the sixteenth century, bold and vehement, thunders past him, disdaining his ideal of moderation and tolerance. Latin literary erudition, which to him was the epitome of all true culture, has gone out as such. Erasmus, so far as regards the greater part of his writings, is among the great ones who are no longer read. He has become a name. But why does that name still sound so clear and articulate? Why does he keep regarding us, as if he still knew a little more than he has ever been willing to utter?

What has he been to his age, and what was he to be for later generations? Has he been rightly called a precursor of the modern spirit?

Regarded as a child of the sixteenth century, he does seem to differ from the general tenor of his times. Among those vehemently passionate, drastically energetic and violent natures of the great ones of his day, Erasmus stands as the man of too few prejudices, with a little too much delicacy of taste, with a deficiency, though not, indeed, in every department, of that _stultitia_ which he had praised as a necessary constituent of life. Erasmus is the man who is too sensible and moderate for the heroic.

What a surprising difference there is between the _accent_ of Erasmus and that of Luther, Calvin, and Saint Teresa! What a difference, also, between his accent, that is, the accent of humanism, and that of Albrecht Dürer, of Michelangelo, or of Shakespeare.

Erasmus seems, at times, the man who was not strong enough for his age. In that robust sixteenth century it seems as if the oaken strength of Luther was necessary, the steely edge of Calvin, the white heat of Loyola; not the velvet softness of Erasmus. Not only were their force and their fervour necessary, but also their depth, their unsparing, undaunted consistency, sincerity and outspokenness.

They cannot bear that smile which makes Luther speak of the guileful being looking out of Erasmus's features. His piety is too even for them, too limp. Loyola has testified that the reading of the _Enchiridion militis Christiani_ relaxed his fervour and made his devotion grow cold. He saw that warrior of Christ differently, in the glowing colours of the Spanish-Christian, medieval ideal of chivalry.

Erasmus had never passed through those depths of self-reprobation and that consciousness of sin which Luther had traversed with toil; he saw no devil to fight with, and tears were not familiar to him. Was he altogether unaware of the deepest mystery? Or did it rest in him too deep for utterance?

Let us not suppose too quickly that we are more nearly allied to Luther or Loyola because their figures appeal to us more. If at present our admiration goes out again to the ardently pious, and to spiritual extremes, it is partly because our unstable time requires strong stimuli. To appreciate Erasmus we should begin by giving up our admiration of the extravagant, and for many this requires a certain effort at present. It is extremely easy to break the staff over Erasmus. His faults lie on the surface, and though he wished to hide many things, he never hid his weaknesses.

He was too much concerned about what people thought, and he could not hold his tongue. His mind was _too_ rich and facile, always suggesting a superfluity of arguments, cases, examples, quotations. He could never let things slide. All his life he grudged himself leisure to rest and collect himself, to see how unimportant after all was the commotion round about him, if only he went his own way courageously. Rest and independence he desired most ardently of all things; there was no more restless and dependent creature. Judge him as one of a too delicate constitution who ventures out in a storm. His will-power was great enough. He worked night and day, amidst the most violent bodily suffering, with a great ideal steadfastly before him, never satisfied with his own achievements. He was not self-sufficient.

* * * * *

As an intellectual type Erasmus was one of a rather small group: the absolute idealists who, at the same time, are thoroughly moderate. They can not bear the world's imperfections; they feel constrained to oppose. But extremes are uncongenial to them; they shrink back from action, because they know it pulls down as much as it erects, and so they withdraw themselves, and keep calling that everything should be different; but when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with tradition and conservatism. Here too is a fragment of Erasmus's life-tragedy: he was the man who saw the new and coming things more clearly than anyone else--who must needs quarrel with the old and yet could not accept the new. He tried to remain in the fold of the old Church, after having damaged it seriously, and renounced the Reformation, and to a certain extent even Humanism, after having furthered both with all his strength.

[Illustration: XXV. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 65]

* * * * *

Our final opinion about Erasmus has been concerned with negative qualities, so far. What was his positive importance?

Two facts make it difficult for the modern mind to understand Erasmus's positive importance: first that his influence was extensive rather than intensive, and therefore less historically discernible at definite points, and second, that his influence has ceased. He has done his work and will speak to the world no more. Like Saint Jerome, his revered model, and Voltaire, with whom he has been occasionally compared, 'he has his reward'. But like them he has been the enlightener of an age from whom a broad stream of culture emanated.

[Illustration: XXVI. ERASMUS DICTATING TO HIS SECRETARY, 1530]

As historic investigation of the French Revolution is becoming more and more aware that the true history of France during that period should be looked for in those groups which as 'Centre' or 'Marais' seemed for a long time but a drove of supernumeraries, and understands that it should occasionally protect its eyes a little from the lightning flashes of the Gironde and Mountain thunderstorm; so the history of the Reformation period should pay attention--and it has done so for a long time--to the broad central sphere permeated by the Erasmian spirit. One of his opponents said: 'Luther has drawn a large part of the Church to himself, Zwingli and Oecolampadius also some part, but Erasmus the largest'. Erasmus's public was numerous and of high culture. He was the only one of the Humanists who really wrote for all the world, that is to say, for all educated people. He accustomed a whole world to another and more fluent mode of expression: he shifted the interest, he influenced by his perfect clarity of exposition, even through the medium of Latin, the style of the vernacular languages, apart from the numberless translations of his works. For his contemporaries Erasmus put on many new stops, one might say, of the great organ of human expression, as Rousseau was to do two centuries later.

He might well think with some complacency of the influence he had exerted on the world. 'From all parts of the world'--he writes towards the close of his life--'I am daily thanked by many, because they have been kindled by my works, whatever may be their merit, into zeal for a good disposition and sacred literature; and they who have never seen Erasmus, yet know and love him from his books.' He was glad that his translations from the Greek had become superfluous; he had everywhere led many to take up Greek and Holy Scripture, 'which otherwise they would never have read'. He had been an introducer and an initiator. He might leave the stage after having said his say.

His word signified something beyond a classical sense and biblical disposition. It was at the same time the first enunciation of the creed of education and perfectibility, of warm social feeling and of faith in human nature, of peaceful kindliness and toleration. 'Christ dwells everywhere; piety is practised under every garment, if only a kindly disposition is not wanting.'

In all these ideas and convictions Erasmus really heralds a later age. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries those thoughts remained an undercurrent: in the eighteenth Erasmus's message of deliverance bore fruit. In this respect he has most certainly been a precursor and preparer of the modern mind: of Rousseau, Herder, Pestalozzi and of the English and American thinkers. It is only part of the modern mind which is represented by all this. To a number of its developments Erasmus was wholly a stranger, to the evolution of natural science, of the newer philosophy, of political economy. But in so far as people still believe in the ideal that moral education and general tolerance may make humanity happier, humanity owes much to Erasmus.

* * * * *

This does not imply that Erasmus's mind did not directly and fruitfully influence his own times. Although Catholics regarded him in the heat of the struggle as the corrupter of the Church, and Protestants as the betrayer of the Gospel, yet his word of moderation and kindliness did not pass by unheard or unheeded on either side. Eventually neither camp finally rejected Erasmus. Rome did not brand him as an arch-heretic, but only warned the faithful to read him with caution. Protestant history has been studious to reckon him as one of the Reformers. Both obeyed in this the pronouncement of a public opinion which was above parties and which continued to admire and revere Erasmus.

To the reconstruction of the Catholic Church and the erection of the evangelical churches not only the names of Luther and Loyola are linked. The moderate, the intellectual, the conciliating have also had their share of the work; figures like Melanchthon here, Sadolet there, both nearly allied to Erasmus and sympathetically disposed towards him. The frequently repeated attempts to arrive at some compromise in the great religious conflict, though they might be doomed to end in failure, emanated from the Erasmian spirit.

Nowhere did that spirit take root so easily as in the country that gave Erasmus birth. A curious detail shows us that it was not the exclusive privilege of either great party. Of his two most favoured pupils of later years, both Netherlanders, whom as the actors of the colloquy _Astragalismus_ (_The Game of Knucklebones_), he has immortalized together, the one, Quirin Talesius, died for his attachment to the Spanish cause and the Catholic faith: he was hanged in 1572 by the citizens of Haarlem, where he was a burgomaster. The other, Charles Utenhove, was sedulous on the side of the revolt and the Reformed religion. At Ghent, in concert with the Prince of Orange, he turned against the narrow-minded Protestant terrorism of the zealots.

A Dutch historian recently tried to trace back the opposition of the Dutch against the king of Spain to the influence of Erasmus's political thought in his arraignment of bad princes--wrongly as I think. Erasmus's political diatribes were far too academic and too general for that. The desire of resistance and revolt arose from quite other causes. The 'Gueux' were not Erasmus's progeny. But there is much that is Erasmian in the spirit of their great leader, William of Orange, whose vision ranged so widely beyond the limitations of religious hatred. Thoroughly permeated by the Erasmian spirit, too, was that class of municipal magistrates who were soon to take the lead and to set the fashion in the established Republic. History is wont, as always with an aristocracy, to take their faults very seriously. After all, perhaps no other aristocracy, unless it be that of Venice, has ruled a state so long, so well and with so little violence. If in the seventeenth century the institutions of Holland, in the eyes of foreigners, were the admired models of prosperity, charity and social discipline, and patterns of gentleness and wisdom, however defective they may seem to us--then the honour of all this is due to the municipal aristocracy. If in the Dutch patriciate of that time those aspirations lived and were translated into action, it was Erasmus's spirit of social responsibility which inspired them. The history of Holland is far less bloody and cruel than that of any of the surrounding countries. Not for naught did Erasmus praise as truly Dutch those qualities which we might also call truly Erasmian: gentleness, kindliness, moderation, a generally diffused moderate erudition. Not romantic virtues, if you like; but are they the less salutary?

One more instance. In the Republic of the Seven Provinces the atrocious executions of witches and wizards ceased more than a century before they did in all other countries. This was not owing to the merit of the Reformed pastors. They shared the popular belief which demanded persecution. It was the magistrates whose enlightenment even as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century no longer tolerated these things. Again, we are entitled to say, though Erasmus was not one of those who combated this practice: the spirit which breathes from this is that of Erasmus.

Cultured humanity has cause to hold Erasmus's memory in esteem, if for no other reason than that he was the fervently sincere preacher of that general kindliness which the world still so urgently needs.

SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS OF ERASMUS

_This selection from the vast correspondence of Erasmus is intended to exhibit him at a few points in his strenuous and rather comfortless life, always overworked, often ill, and perpetually hurried--many of his letters have the postscript 'In haste' or 'I had no time to read this over'--but holding always tenaciously to his aim of steering a middle course; in religion between the corruption and fossilization of the old and the uncompromising violence of the new: in learning between neo-paganism on the one hand and the indolent refusal, under the pretext of piety, to apply critical methods to sacred texts on the other. The first letter has been included because it may provide a clue to his later reluctance to trust his feelings when self-committal to any cause seemed to be required of him, a reluctance not unnaturally interpreted by his enemies as an arrogant refusal to 'yield to any'._

_The notes have been compiled from P. S. and H. M. Allen's_ Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, _Oxford, 1906-47, by the kind permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and references are to the numbers of the letters in that edition_.

I. TO SERVATIUS ROGER[21]

[Steyn, _c._ 1487]

To his friend Servatius, greetings:

... You say there is something which you take very hard, which torments you wretchedly, which in short makes life a misery to you. Your looks and your carriage betray this, even if you were silent. Where is your wonted and beloved cheerful countenance gone, your former beauty, your lively glance? Whence come these sorrowful downcast eyes, whence this perpetual silence, so unlike you, whence the look of a sick man in your expression? Assuredly as the poet says, 'the sick body betrays the torments of the lurking soul, likewise its joys: it is to the mind that the face owes its looks, well or ill'.[22]

It is certain then, my Servatius, that there is something which troubles you, which is destroying your former good health. But what am I to do now? Must I comfort you or scold you? Why do you hide your pain from me as if we did not know each other by this time? You are so deep that you do not believe your closest friend, or trust even the most trustworthy; or do you not know that the hidden fire burns stronger?... And for the rest, my Servatius, what is it makes you draw in and hide yourself like a snail? I suspect what the matter is: you have not yet convinced yourself that I love you very much. So I entreat you by the things sweetest to you in life, by our great love, if you have any care for your safety, if you want me to live unharmed, not to be at such pains to hide your feelings, but whatever it is, entrust it to my safe ears. I will assist you in whatever way I can with help or counsel. But if I cannot provide either, still it will be sweet to rejoice with you, to weep with you, to live and die with you. Farewell, my Servatius, and look after your health.

II. TO NICHOLAS WERNER[23]

Paris, 13 September [1496]

To the religious Father Nicholas Werner, greetings:

... If you are all well there, things are as I wish and hope; I myself am very well, the gods be thanked. I have now made clear by my actions--if it was not clear to anyone before this--how much theology is coming to mean to me. A somewhat arrogant claim; but it ill becomes Erasmus to hide anything from his most loving Father. Lately I had fallen in with certain Englishmen, of noble birth, and all of them wealthy. Very recently I was approached by a young priest,[24] very rich, who said he had refused a bishopric offered him, as he knew that he was not well educated; nevertheless he is to be recalled by the King to take a bishopric within a year, although, apart from any bishopric even, he has a yearly income of more than 2000 _scudi_. As soon as he heard of my learning he proceeded in unbelievably affectionate fashion to devote himself to me, to frequent and revere me--he lived for a while in my house. He offered 100 _scudi_, if I would teach him for a year; he offered a benefice in a few months' time; he offered to lend me 300 _scudi_, if I should need them to procure the office, until I could pay them back out of the benefice. By this service I could have laid all the English in this city under an obligation to me--they are all of the first families--and through them all England, had I so wished. But I cared nothing for the splendid income and the far more splendid prospects; I cared nothing for their entreaties and the tears which accompanied them. I am telling the truth, exaggerating not at all; the English realize that the money of all England means nothing to me. This refusal, which I still maintain, was not made without due consideration; not for any reward will I let myself be drawn away from theological studies. I did not come here to teach or to pile up gold, but to learn. Indeed I shall seek a Doctorate in Theology, if the gods so will it.

The Bishop of Cambrai is marvellously fond of me: he makes liberal promises; the remittances are not so liberal, to tell the truth. I wish you good health, excellent Father. I beg and entreat you to commend me in your prayers to God: I shall do likewise for you. From my library in Paris.

III. TO ROBERT FISHER[25]

London, 5 December [1499]

To Robert Fisher, Englishman, abiding in Italy, greetings:

... I hesitated not a little to write to you, beloved Robert, not that I feared lest so great a sunderance in time and place had worn away anything of your affection towards me, but because you are in a country where even the house-walls are more learned and more eloquent than are our men here, so that what is here reckoned polished, fine and delectable cannot there appear anything but crude, mean and insipid. Wherefore your England assuredly expects you to return not merely very learned in the law but also equally eloquent in both the Greek and the Latin tongues. You would have seen me also there long since, had not my friend Mountjoy carried me off to his country when I was already packed for the journey into Italy. Whither indeed shall I not follow a youth so polite, so kindly, so lovable? I swear I would follow him even into Hades. You indeed had most handsomely commended him and, in a word, precisely delineated him; but believe me, he every day surpasses both your commendation and my opinion of him.

But you ask how England pleases me. If you have any confidence in me, dear Robert, I would have you believe me when I say that I have never yet liked anything so well. I have found here a climate as delightful as it is wholesome; and moreover so much humane learning, not of the outworn, commonplace sort, but the profound, accurate, ancient Greek and Latin learning, that I now scarcely miss Italy, but for the sight of it. When I listen to my friend Colet, I seem to hear Plato himself. Who would not marvel at the perfection of encyclopaedic learning in Grocyn?[26] What could be keener or nobler or nicer than Linacre's[27] judgement? What has Nature ever fashioned gentler or sweeter or happier than the character of Thomas More? But why should I catalogue the rest? It is marvellous how thick upon the ground the harvest of ancient literature is here everywhere flowering forth: all the more should you hasten your return hither. Your friend's affection and remembrance of you is so strong that he speaks of none so often or so gladly. Farewell. Written in haste in London on the 5th of December.

IV. TO JAMES BATT[28]

Orléans [_c._ 12 December] 1500

... If you care sincerely what becomes of your Erasmus, do you act thus: plead my shyness before my Lady[29] in pleasant phrases, as if I had not been able to bring myself to reveal my poverty to her in person. But you must write that I am now in a state of extreme poverty, owing to the great expense of this flight to Orléans, as I had to leave people from whom I was making some money. Tell her that Italy is by far the most suitable place in which to take the Degree of Doctor, and that it is impossible for a fastidious man to go to Italy without a large sum of money; particularly because I am not even at liberty to live meanly, on account of my reputation, such as it is, for learning. You will explain how much greater fame I am likely to bring my Lady by my learning than are the other theologians maintained by her. They compose commonplace harangues: I write works destined to live for ever. Their ignorant triflings are heard by one or two persons in church: my books will be read by Latins, Greeks, by every race all over the world. Tell her that this kind of unlearned theologian is to be found in hordes everywhere, whereas a man like myself is hardly to be found once in many centuries; unless indeed you are so superstitious that you scruple to employ a few harmless lies to help a friend. Then you must point out that she will not be a whit the poorer if, with a few gold pieces, she helps to restore the corrupt text of St. Jerome and the true Theology, when so much of her wealth is being shamelessly dissipated. After dilating on this with your customary ingenuity and writing at length on my character, my expectations, my affection for my Lady and my shyness, you must then add that I have written to say that I need 200 francs in all, and request her to grant me next year's payment now; I am not inventing this, my dear Batt; to go to Italy with 100 francs, no, less than 100 francs, seems to me a hazardous enterprise, unless I want to enslave myself to someone once more; may I die before I do this. Then how little difference it will make to her whether she gives me the money this year or next, and how much it means to me! Next urge her to look out for a benefice for me, so that on my return I may have some place where I can pursue learning in peace. Do not stop at this, but devise on your own the most convenient method of indicating to her that she should promise me, before all the other candidates, at least a reasonable, if not a splendid, benefice which I can change as soon as a better one appears. I am well aware that there are many candidates for benefices; but you must say that I am the one man, whom, compared with the rest, etc., etc. You know your old way of lying profusely about Erasmus.... You will add at the end that I have made the same complaint in my letter which Jerome makes more than once in his letters, that study is tearing my eyes out, that things look as if I shall have to follow his example and begin to study with my ears and tongue only; and persuade her, in the most amusing words at your command, to send me some sapphire or other gem wherewith to fortify my eyesight. I would have told you myself which gems have this virtue, but I have not Pliny at hand; get the information out of your doctor.... Let me tell you what else I want you to attempt still further--to extract a grant from the Abbot. You know him--invent some modest and persuasive argument for making this request. Tell him that I have a great design in hand--to constitute in its entirety the text of Jerome, which has been corrupted, mutilated, and thrown into disorder through the ignorance of the theologians (I have detected many false and spurious pieces among his writings), and to restore the Greek.[30] I shall reveal [in him] an ingenuity and a knowledge of antiquities which no one, I venture to claim, has yet realized. Explain that for this undertaking many books are needed, also Greek works, so that I may receive a grant. Here you will not be lying, Batt; I am wholly engaged on this work. Farewell, my best and dearest Batt, and put all of Batt into this business. I mean Batt the friend, not Batt the slowcoach.

V. TO ANTONY OF BERGEN[31]

[Paris?] [16 March? 1501]

To the most illustrious prelate Antony, Abbot of St. Bertin, greetings:

... I have accidentally happened upon some Greek books, and am busy day and night secretly copying them out. I shall be asked why I am so delighted with Cato the Censor's example that I want to turn Greek at my age. Indeed, most excellent Father, if in my boyhood I had been of this mind, or rather if time had not been wanting, I should be the happiest of men. As things are, I think it better to learn, even if a little late, than not to know things which it is of the first importance to have at one's command. I have already tasted of Greek literature in the past, but merely (as the saying goes) sipped at it; however, having lately gone a little deeper into it, I perceive--as one has often read in the best authorities--that Latin learning, rich as it is, is defective and incomplete without Greek; for we have but a few small streams and muddy puddles, while they have pure springs and rivers rolling gold. I see that it is utter madness even to touch the branch of theology which deals chiefly with the mysteries unless one is also provided with the equipment of Greek, as the translators of the Scriptures, owing to their conscientious scruples, render Greek forms in such a fashion that not even the primary sense (what our theologians call the _literal_ sense) can be understood by persons ignorant of Greek. Who could understand the sentence in the Psalm [Ps. 50.4 (51.3)] _Et peccatum meum contra me est semper_,[32] unless he has read the Greek? This runs as follows: [Greek: kai hê hamartia mou enôpion mou esti diapantos]. At this point some theologian will spin a long story of how the flesh is perpetually in conflict with the spirit, having been misled by the double meaning of the preposition, that is, _contra_, when the word [Greek: enôpion] refers not to _conflict_ but to _position_, as if you were to say _opposite_, i.e., _in sight_: so that the Prophet's meaning was that his fault was so hateful to him that the memory of it never left him, but floated always before his mind as if it were present. Further in a passage elsewhere [Ps. 91 (92. 14)], _Bene patientes erunt ut annuncient_, everyone will be misled by the deceptive form, unless he has learned from the Greek that, just as according to Latin usage we say _bene facere_ of those who _do good to_ someone, so the Greeks call [Greek: eupathountas] (_bene patientes_) those who _suffer good to be done them_. So that the sense is, 'They will be well treated and will be helped by my benefactions, so that they will make mention of my beneficence towards them'. But why do I pick out a few trifling examples from so many important ones, when I have on my side the venerable authority of the papal Curia? There is a Curial Decree[33] still extant in the Decretals, ordaining that persons should be appointed in the chief academies (as they were then) capable of giving accurate instruction in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin literature, since, as they believed, the Scriptures could not be understood, far less discussed, without this knowledge. This most sound and most holy decree we so far neglect that we are perfectly satisfied with the most elementary knowledge of the Latin language, being apparently convinced that everything can be extracted from Duns Scotus, as it were from a cornucopia.

For myself I do not fight with men of this sort; each man to his taste, as far as I am concerned; let the old man marry the old woman. It is my delight to set foot on the path into which Jerome and the splendid host of so many ancients summon me; so help me God, I would sooner be mad with them than as sane as you like with the mob of modern theologians. Besides I am attempting an arduous and, so to say, Phaethontean task--to do my best to restore the works of Jerome, which have been partly corrupted by those half-learned persons, and are partly--owing to the lack of knowledge of antiquities and of Greek literature--forgotten or mangled or mutilated or at least full of mistakes and monstrosities; not merely to restore them but to elucidate them with commentaries, so that each reader will acknowledge to himself that the great Jerome, considered by the ecclesiastical world as the most perfect in both branches of learning, the sacred and the profane, can indeed be read by all, but can only be understood by the most learned. As I am working hard on this design and see that I must in the first place acquire Greek, I have decided to study for some months under a Greek teacher,[34] a real Greek, no, twice a Greek, always hungry,[35] who charges an immoderate fee for his lessons. Farewell.

VI. TO WILLIAM WARHAM[36]

London, 24 January [1506]

To the Reverend Father in Christ, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of England, many greetings from Erasmus of Rotterdam, Canon of the Order of St. Augustine:

... Having made up my mind, most illustrious prelate, to translate the Greek authors and by so doing to revive or, if you will, promote as far as I could theological studies--and God immortal, how miserably they have been corrupted by sophistical nonsensicalities!--I did not wish to give the impression that I was attempting forthwith to learn the potter's art on a winejar[37] (as the Greek adage goes) and rushing in with unwashen feet, as they say, on so vast an undertaking; so I decided to begin by testing how far I had profited by my studies in both languages, and that in a material difficult indeed, but not sacred; so that the difficulty of the undertaking might be useful for practice and at the same time if I made any mistakes these mistakes should involve only the risk of my talent and leave the Holy Scriptures undamaged. And so I endeavoured to render in Latin two tragedies of Euripides, the _Hecuba_ and the _Iphigeneia in Aulis_, in the hope that perchance some god might favour so bold a venture with fair breezes. Then, seeing that a specimen of the work begun found favour with persons excellently well versed in both tongues (assuredly England by now possesses several of these, if I may acknowledge the truth without envy, men deserving of the admiration even of all Italy in any branch of learning), I brought the work to a finish, with the good help of the Muses, within a few short months. At what a cost in exertion, those will best feel who enter the same lists.

Why so? Because the mere task of putting real Greek into real Latin is such that it requires an extraordinary artist, and not only a man with a rich store of scholarship in both languages at his fingertips, but one exceedingly alert and observant; so that for several centuries now none has appeared whose efforts in this field were unanimously approved by scholars. It is surely easy then to conjecture what a heavy task it has proved to render verse in verse, particularly verse so varied and unfamiliar, and to do this from a writer not merely so remote in time, and withal a tragedian, but also marvellously concise, taut and unadorned, in whom there is nothing otiose, nothing which it would not be a crime to alter or remove; and besides, one who treats rhetorical topics so frequently and so acutely that he appears to be everywhere declaiming. Add to all this the choruses, which through I know not what striving after effect are so obscure that they need not so much a translator as an Oedipus or priest of Apollo to interpret them. In addition there is the corrupt state of the manuscripts, the dearth of copies, the absence of any translators to whom one can have recourse. So I am not so much surprised that even in this most prolific age none of the Italians has ventured to attempt the task of translating any tragedy or comedy, whereas many have set their hand to Homer (among these even Politian[38] failed to satisfy himself); one man[39] has essayed Hesiod, and that without much success; another[40] has attempted Theocritus, but with even far more unfortunate results: and finally Francesco Filelfo has translated the first scene of the Hecuba in one of his funeral orations.[41] (I first learned this after I had begun my version), but in such a way that, great as he is, his work gave me courage enough to proceed, overprecise as I am in other respects.

Then for me the lure of this poet's more than honeyed eloquence, which even his enemies allow him, proved stronger than the deterrent of these great examples and the many difficulties of the work, so that I have been bold to attack a task never before attempted, in the hope that, even if I failed, my honest readers would consider even this poor effort of mine not altogether unpraiseworthy, and the more grudging would at least be lenient to an inexperienced translator of a work so difficult: in particular because I have deliberately added no light burden to my other difficulties through my conscientiousness as a translator, in attempting so far as possible to reproduce the shape and as it were contours of the Greek verse, by striving to render line for line and almost word for word, and everywhere seeking with the utmost fidelity to convey to Latin ears the force and value of the sentence: whether it be that I do not altogether approve of the freedom in translation which Cicero allows others and practised himself (I would almost say to an immoderate degree), or that as an inexperienced translator I preferred to err on the side of seeming over-scrupulous rather than over-free--hesitating on the sandy shore instead of wrecking my ship and swimming in the midst of the billows; and I preferred to run the risk of letting scholars complain of lack of brilliance and poetic beauty in my work rather than of lack of fidelity to the original. Finally I did not want to set myself up as a paraphraser, thus securing myself that retreat which many use to cloak their ignorance, wrapping themselves like the cuttle-fish in darkness of their own making to avoid detection. Now, if readers do not find here the grandiloquence of Latin tragedy, 'the bombast and the words half a yard long,' as Horace calls it, they must not blame me if in performing my function of translator I have preferred to reproduce the concise simplicity and elegance of my original, and not the bombast to which he is a stranger, and which I do not greatly admire at any time.

Furthermore, I am encouraged to hope with all certainty that these labours of mine will be most excellently protected against the calumnies of the unjust, as their publication will be most welcome to the honest and just, if you, most excellent Father, have voted them your approval. For me it was not difficult to select you from the great host of illustrious and distinguished men to be the recipient of this product of my vigils, as the one man I have observed to be--aside from the brilliance of your fortune--so endowed, adorned and showered with learning, eloquence, good sense, piety, modesty, integrity, and lastly with an extraordinary liberality towards those who cultivate good letters, that the word Primate suits none better than yourself, who hold the first place not solely by reason of your official dignity, but far more because of all your virtues, while at the same time you are the principal ornament of the Court and the sole head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. If I have the fortune to win for this my work the commendation of a man so highly commended I shall assuredly not repent of the exertions I have so far expended, and will be forward to promote theological studies with even more zeal for the future.

Farewell, and enrol Erasmus in the number of those who are wholeheartedly devoted to Your Fathership.

[Illustration: XXVII. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 53

On the reverse his device and motto]

[Illustration: XXVIII. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF ABOUT 57]

VII. TO ALDUS MANUTIUS[42]

Bologna, 28 October [1507]

To Aldus Manutius of Rome, many greetings:

... I have often wished, most learned Manutius, that the light you have cast on Greek and Latin literature, not by your printing alone and your splendid types, but by your brilliance and your uncommon learning, could have been matched by the profit you in your turn drew from them. So far as _fame_ is concerned, the name of Aldus Manutius will without doubt be on the lips of all devotees of sacred literature unto all posterity; and your memory will be--as your fame now is--not merely illustrious but loved and cherished as well, because you are engaged, as I hear, in reviving and disseminating the good authors--with extreme diligence but not at a commensurate profit--undergoing truly Herculean labours, labours splendid indeed and destined to bring you immortal glory, but meanwhile more profitable to others than to yourself. I hear that you are printing Plato[43] in Greek types; very many scholars eagerly await the book. I should like to know what medical authors you have printed; I wish you would give us Paul of Aegina.[44] I wonder what has prevented you from publishing the New Testament[45] long since--a work which would delight even the common people (if I conjecture aright) but particularly my own class, the theologians.

I send you two tragedies[46] which I have been bold enough to translate, whether with success you yourself shall judge. Thomas Linacre, William Grocyn, William Latimer, Cuthbert Tunstall, friends of yours as well as of mine, thought highly of them; you know yourself that they are too learned to be deceived in their judgement, and too sincere to want to flatter a friend--unless their affection for me has somewhat blinded them; the Italians to whom I have so far shown my attempt do not condemn it. It has been printed by Badius, successfully as far as he is concerned, so he writes, for he has now sold all the copies to his satisfaction. But my reputation has not been enhanced thereby, so full is it all of mistakes, and in fact he offers his services to repair the first edition by printing a second. But I am afraid of his mending ill with ill, as the Sophoclean saying goes. I should consider my labours to have been immortalized if they could come out printed in your types, particularly the smaller types, the most beautiful of all. This will result in the volume being very small and the business being concluded at little expense. If you think it convenient to undertake the affair, I will supply you with a corrected copy, which I send by the bearer, _gratis_, except that you may wish to send me a few volumes as gifts for my friends.

I should not have hesitated to attempt the publication at my own risk and expense, were it not that I have to leave Italy within a few months: so I should much like to have the business concluded as soon as possible; in fact it is hardly ten days' work. If you insist on my taking a hundred or two hundred volumes, though the god of gain does not usually favour me and it will be most inconvenient to transport the package, I shall not refuse, if only you fix a horse as the price. Farewell, most learned Aldus, and reckon Erasmus as one of your well-wishers.

If you have any rare authors in your press, I shall be obliged if you will indicate this--my learned British friends have asked me to search for them. If you decide not to print the _Tragedies_, will you return the copy to the bearer to bring back to me?

VIII. TO THOMAS MORE[47]

[Paris?] 9 June [1511]

To his friend Thomas More, greetings:

... In days gone by, on my journey back from Italy into England, in order not to waste all the time that must needs be spent on horseback in dull and unlettered gossiping, I preferred at times either to turn over in my mind some topic of our common studies or to give myself over to the pleasing recollection of the friends, as learned as they are beloved, whom I had left behind me in England. You were among the very first of these to spring to mind, my dear More; indeed I used to enjoy the memory of you in absence even as I was wont to delight in your present company, than which I swear I never in my life met anything sweeter. Therefore, since I thought that I must at all hazards do _something_, and that time seemed ill suited to serious meditation, I determined to amuse myself with the _Praise of Folly_. You will ask what goddess put this into my mind. In the first place it was your family name of More, which comes as near to the word _moria_ [folly] as you yourself are far from the reality--everyone agrees that you are far removed from it. Next I suspected that you above all would approve this _jeu d'esprit_ of mine, in that you yourself do greatly delight in jests of this kind, that is, jests learned (if I mistake not) and at no time insipid, and altogether like to play in some sort the Democritus[48] in the life of society. Although you indeed, owing to your incredibly sweet and easy-going character, are both able and glad to be all things to all men, even as your singularly penetrating intellect causes you to dissent widely from the opinions of the herd. So you will not only gladly accept this little declamation as a memento of your comrade, but will also take it under your protection, inasmuch as it is dedicated to you and is now no longer mine but yours.

And indeed there will perhaps be no lack of brawlers to represent that trifles are more frivolous than becomes a theologian, or more mordant than suits with Christian modesty, and they will be crying out that I am reviving the Old Comedy or Lucian and assailing everything with biting satire. But I would have those who are offended by the levity and sportiveness of my theme reflect that it was not I that began this, but that the same was practised by great writers in former times; seeing that so many centuries ago Homer made his trifle _The Battle of Frogs and Mice_, Virgil his _Gnat_ and _Dish of Herbs_ and Ovid his _Nut_; seeing that Busiris was praised by Polycrates and his critic Isocrates, Injustice by Glaucon, Thersites and the Quartan Fever by Favorinus, Baldness by Synesius, the Fly and the Art of Being a Parasite by Lucian; and that Seneca devised the Apotheosis of the Emperor Claudius, Plutarch the Dialogue of Gryllus and Ulysses, Lucian and Apuleius the Ass, and someone unknown the Testament of Grunnius Corocotta the Piglet, mentioned even by St. Jerome.

So, if they will, let my detractors imagine that I have played an occasional game of draughts for a pastime or, if they prefer, taken a ride on a hobby-horse. How unfair it is truly, when we grant every calling in life its amusements, not to allow the profession of learning any amusement at all, particularly if triflings bring serious thoughts in their train and frivolous matters are so treated that a reader not altogether devoid of perception wins more profit from these than from the glittering and portentous arguments of certain persons--as when for instance one man eulogizes rhetoric or philosophy in a painfully stitched-together oration, another rehearses the praises of some prince, another urges us to begin a war with the Turks, another foretells the future, and another proposes a new method of splitting hairs. Just as there is nothing so trifling as to treat serious matters triflingly, so there is nothing so delightful as to treat trifling matters in such fashion that it appears that you have been doing anything but trifle. As to me, the judgement is in other hands--and yet, unless I am altogether misled by self-love, I have sung the praise of Folly and that not altogether foolishly.

And now to reply to the charge of mordacity. It has ever been the privilege of wits to satirize the life of society with impunity, provided that licence does not degenerate into frenzy. Wherefore the more do I marvel at the fastidiousness of men's ears in these times, who by now can scarce endure anything but solemn appellations. Further, we see some men so perversely religious that they will suffer the most hideous revilings against Christ sooner than let prince or pope be sullied by the lightest jest, particularly if this concerns monetary gain. But if a man censures men's lives without reproving anyone at all by name, pray do you think this man a satirist, and not rather a teacher and admonisher? Else on how many counts do I censure myself? Moreover he who leaves no class of men unmentioned is clearly foe to no man but to all vices. Therefore anyone who rises up and cries out that he is insulted will be revealing a bad conscience, or at all events fear. St. Jerome wrote satire in this kind far more free and biting, not always abstaining from the mention of names, whereas I myself, apart from not mentioning anyone by name, have moreover so tempered my pen that the sagacious reader will easily understand that my aim has been to give pleasure, not pain; for I have at no point followed Juvenal's example in 'stirring up the murky bilge of crime', and I have sought to survey the laughable, not the disgusting. If there is anyone whom even this cannot appease, at least let him remember that it is a fine thing to be reviled by Folly; in bringing her upon the stage I had to suit the words to the character. But why need I say all this to you, an advocate so remarkable that you can defend excellently even causes far from excellent? Farewell, most eloquent More, and be diligent in defending your _moria_.

IX. TO JOHN COLET[49]

Cambridge, 29 October [1511]

To his friend Colet, greetings:

... Something came into my mind which I know will make you laugh. In the presence of several Masters [of Arts] I was putting forward a view on the Assistant Teacher, when one of them, a man of some repute, smiled and said: 'Who could bear to spend his life in that school among boys, when he could live anywhere in any way he liked?' I answered mildly that it seemed to me a very honourable task to train young people in manners and literature, that Christ himself did not despise the young, that no age had a better right to help, and that from no quarter was a richer return to be expected, seeing that young people were the harvest-field and raw material of the nation. I added that all truly religious people felt that they could not better serve God in any other duty than the bringing of children to Christ. He wrinkled his nose and said with a scornful gesture: 'If any man wishes to serve Christ altogether, let him go into a monastery and enter a religious order.' I answered that St. Paul said that true religion consisted in the offices of charity--charity consisting in doing our best to help our neighbours. This he rejected as an ignorant remark. 'Look,' said he, 'we have forsaken everything: in this is perfection.' 'That man has not forsaken everything,' said I, 'who, when he could help very many by his labours, refuses to undertake a duty because it is regarded as humble.' And with that, to prevent a quarrel arising, I let the man go. There you have the dialogue. You see the Scotist philosophy! Once again, farewell.

X. TO SERVATIUS ROGER

Hammes Castle [near Calais],

8 July 1514

To the Reverend Father Servatius, many greetings:

... Most humane father, your letter has at last reached me, after passing through many hands, when I had already left England, and it has afforded me unbelievable delight, as it still breathes your old affection for me. However, I shall answer briefly, as I am writing just after the journey, and shall reply in particular on those matters which are, as you write, strictly to the point. Men's thoughts are so varied, 'to each his own bird-song', that it is impossible to satisfy everyone. My own feelings are that I want to follow what is best to do, God is my witness. Those feelings which I had in my youth have been corrected partly by age, partly by experience of the world. I have never intended to change my mode of life or my habit--not that I liked them, but to avoid scandal. You are aware that I was not so much led as driven to this mode of life by the obstinate determination of my guardians and the wrongful urgings of others, and that afterwards, when I realized that this kind of life was quite unsuited to me (for not all things suit all men), I was held back by Cornelius of Woerden's reproaches and by a certain boyish sense of shame. I was never able to endure fasting, through some peculiarity of my constitution. Once roused from sleep I could never fall asleep again for several hours. I was so drawn towards literature, which is not practised in the monastery, that I do not doubt that if I had chanced on some free mode of life I could have been numbered not merely among the happy but even among the good.

So, when I realized that I was by no means fit for this mode of life, that I had taken it up under compulsion and not of my own free will, nevertheless, as public opinion in these days regards it as a crime to break away from a mode of life once taken up, I had resolved to endure with fortitude this part of my unhappiness also--you know that I am in many things unfortunate. But I have always regarded this one thing as harder than all the rest, that I had been forced into a mode of life for which I was totally unfit both in body and in mind: in mind, because I abhorred ritual and loved liberty; in body, because even had I been perfectly satisfied with the life, my constitution could not endure such labours. One may object that I had a year of probation, as it is called, and that I was of ripe age. Ridiculous! As if anyone could expect a boy of sixteen, particularly one with a literary training, to know himself (an achievement even for an old man), or to have succeeded in learning in a single year what many do not yet understand in their grey hairs. Though I myself never liked the life, still less after I had tried it, but was trapped in the way I have mentioned; although I confess that the truly good man will live a good life in any calling. And I do not deny that I was prone to grievous vices, but not of so utterly corrupt a nature that I could not have come to some good, had I found a kindly guide, a true Christian, not one given to Jewish scruples.

Meanwhile I looked about to find in what kind of life I could be least bad, and I believe indeed that I have attained this. I have spent my life meantime among sober men, in literary studies, which have kept me off many vices. I have been able to associate with true followers of Christ, whose conversation has made me a better man. I do not now boast of my books, which you at Steyn perhaps despise.

But many confess that they have become not merely more knowledgeable, but even better men through reading them. Passion for money has never affected me. I am quite untouched by the thirst for fame. I have never been a slave to pleasures, although I was formerly inclined to them. Over-indulgence and drunkenness I have ever loathed and avoided. But whenever I thought of returning to your society, I remembered the jealousy of many, the contempt of all, the conversations how dull, how foolish, how un-Christlike, the feasts how unclerical! In short the whole way of life, from which if you remove the ritual, I do not see what remains that one could desire. Lastly I remembered my frail constitution, now weakened by age, disease and hard work, as a result of which I should fail to satisfy you and kill myself. For several years now I have been subject to the stone, a severe and deadly illness, and for several years I have drunk nothing but wine, and not all kinds of wine at that, owing to my disease; I cannot endure all kinds of food nor indeed all climates. The illness is very liable to recur and demands a very careful regimen; and I know the climate in Holland and your style of living, not to mention your ways. So, had I come back to you, all I would have achieved would have been to bring trouble on you and death on myself.

But perhaps you think it a great part of happiness to die amid one's fellow-brethren? This belief deceives and imposes not on you alone but on nearly everyone. We make Christian piety depend on place, dress, style of living and on certain little rituals. We think a man lost who changes his white dress for black, or his cowl for a cap, or occasionally moves from place to place. I should dare to say that Christian piety has suffered great damage from these so-called religious practices, although it may be that their first introduction was due to pious zeal. They then gradually increased and divided into thousands of distinctions; this was helped by a papal authority which was too lax and easy-going in many cases. What more defiled or more impious than these lax rituals? And if you turn to those that are commended, no, to the most highly commended, apart from some dreary Jewish rituals, I know not what image of Christ one finds in them. It is these on which they preen themselves, these by which they judge and condemn others. How much more in conformity with the spirit of Christ to consider the whole Christian world one home and as it were one monastery, to regard all men as one's fellow-monks and fellow-brethren, to hold the sacrament of Baptism as the supreme rite, and not to consider where one lives but how well one lives! You want me to settle on a permanent abode, a course which my very age also suggests. But the travellings of Solon, Pythagoras and Plato are praised; and the Apostles, too, were wanderers, in particular Paul. St. Jerome also was a monk now in Rome, now in Syria, now in Antioch, now here, now there, and even in his old age pursued literary studies.

But I am not to be compared with St. Jerome--I agree; yet I have never moved unless forced by the plague or for reasons of study or health, and wherever I have lived (I shall say this of myself, arrogantly perhaps, but truthfully) I have been commended by the most highly commended and praised by the most praised. There is no land, neither Spain nor Italy nor Germany nor France nor England nor Scotland, which does not summon me to partake of its hospitality. And if I am not liked by all (which is not my aim), at all events I am liked in the highest places of all. At Rome there was no cardinal who did not welcome me like a brother; in particular the Cardinal of St. George,[50] the Cardinal of Bologna,[51] Cardinal Grimani, the Cardinal of Nantes,[52] and the present Pope,[53] not to mention bishops, archdeacons and men of learning. And this honour was not a tribute to wealth, which even now I neither possess nor desire; nor to ambition, a failing to which I have ever been a stranger; but solely to learning, which our countrymen ridicule, while the Italians worship it. In England there is no bishop who is not glad to be greeted by me, who does not desire my company, who does not want me in his home. The King himself, a little before his father's death, when I was in Italy, wrote a most affectionate letter to me with his own hand, and now too speaks often of me in the most honourable and affectionate terms; and whenever I greet him he welcomes me most courteously and looks at me in a most friendly fashion, making it plain that his feelings for me are as friendly as his speeches. And he has often commissioned his Almoner[54] to find a benefice for me. The Queen sought to take me as her tutor. Everyone knows that, if I were prepared to live even a few months at Court, he would heap on me as many benefices as I cared for; but I put my leisure and my learned labours before everything. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England and Chancellor of the Realm, a good and learned man, could not treat me with more affection were I his father or brother. And that you may understand that he is sincere in this, he gave me a living of nearly 100 nobles, which afterwards at my wish he changed into a pension of 100 crowns on my resignation; in addition he has given me more than 400 nobles during the last few years, although I never asked for anything. He gave me 150 nobles in one day. I received more than 100 nobles from other bishops in freely offered gifts. Mountjoy, a baron of the realm, formerly my pupil, gives me annually a pension of 100 crowns. The King and the Bishop of Lincoln, who has great influence through the King, make many splendid promises. There are two universities in England, Oxford and Cambridge, and both of them want me; at Cambridge I taught Greek and sacred literature for several months, for nothing, and have resolved always to do this. There are colleges here so religious, and of such modesty in living, that you would spurn any other religious life, could you see them. In London there is John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who has combined great learning with a marvellous piety, a man greatly respected by all. He is so fond of me, as all know, that he prefers my company above all others'; I do not mention many others, lest I doubly vex you with my loquacity as well as my boasting.

Now to say something of my works--I think you have read the _Enchiridion_,[55] through which not a few confess themselves inspired to the study of piety; I make no claim for myself, but give thanks to Christ for any good which has come to pass through me by His giving. I do not know whether you have seen the _Adagia_,[56] printed by Aldus. It is not a theological work, but most useful for every branch of learning; at least it cost me countless labours and sleepless nights. I have published a work _De rerum verborumque copia_,[57] dedicated to my friend Colet, very useful for those who desire to speak in public; but all these are despised by those who despise all good learning. During the last two years, apart from much else, I have emended the _Letters_ of St. Jerome, obelizing what was false and spurious and explaining the obscure passages with notes. I have corrected the whole of the New Testament from collations of the Greek and ancient manuscripts, and have annotated more than a thousand passages, not without some benefit to theologians. I have begun commentaries on the _Epistles_ of St. Paul, which I shall complete when I have published these. For I have resolved to live and die in the study of the Scriptures. I make these my work and my leisure. Men of consequence say that I can do what others cannot in this field; in your mode of life I shall be able to do nothing. Although I have been intimate with so many grave and learned men, here and in Italy and France, I have not yet found anyone who advised me to return to you or thought this the better course. Nay, even Nicholas Werner of blessed memory, your predecessor, would always dissuade me from this, advising me to attach myself rather to some bishop; he would add that he knew my mind and his little brothers' ways: those were the words he used, in the vernacular. In the life I live now I see what I should avoid, but do not see what would be a better course.

It now remains to satisfy you on the question of my dress. I have always up to now worn the canon's dress, and when I was at Louvain I obtained permission from the Bishop of Utrecht to wear a linen scapular instead of a complete linen garment, and a black capuce instead of a black cloak, after the Parisian custom. But on my journey to Italy, seeing the monks all along the way wearing a black garment with a scapular, I there took to wearing black, with a scapular, to avoid giving offence by any unusual dress. Afterwards the plague broke out at Bologna, and there those who nurse the sick of the plague customarily wear a white linen cloth depending from the shoulder--these avoid contact with people. Consequently when one day I went to call on a learned friend some rascals drew their swords and were preparing to set about me, and would have done so, had not a certain matron warned them that I was an ecclesiastic. Again the next day, when I was on my way to visit the Treasurer's sons, they rushed at me with bludgeons from all directions and attacked me with horrible cries. So on the advice of good men I concealed my scapular, and obtained a dispensation from Pope Julius II allowing me to wear the religious dress or not, as seemed good, provided that I wore clerical garb; and in this document he condoned any previous offences in the matter. In Italy I continued to wear clerical garb, lest the change cause offence to anyone. On my return to England I decided to wear my usual dress, and I invited to my lodging a friend of excellent repute for his learning and mode of life and showed him the dress I had decided to wear; I asked him whether this was suitable in England. He approved, so I appeared in public in this dress. I was at once warned by other friends that this dress could not be tolerated in England, that I had better conceal it. I did so; and as it cannot be concealed without causing scandal if it is eventually discovered, I stored it away in a box, and up to now have taken advantage of the Papal dispensation received formerly. Ecclesiastical law excommunicates anyone who casts off the religious habit so as to move more freely in secular society. I put it off under compulsion in Italy, to escape being killed; and likewise under compulsion in England, because it was not tolerated there, although myself I should much prefer to have worn it. To adopt it again now would cause more scandal than did the change itself.

There you have an account of my whole life, there you have my plans. I should like to change even this present mode of life, if I see a better. But I do not see what I am to do in Holland. I know that the climate and way of living will not agree with me; I shall have everyone looking at me. I shall return a white-haired old man, having gone away as a youth--I shall return a valetudinarian; I shall be exposed to the contempt of the lowest, used as I am to the respect of the highest. I shall exchange my studies for drinking-parties. As to your promising me your help in finding me a place where I can live with an excellent income, as you write, I cannot conjecture what this can be, unless perhaps you intend to place me among some community of nuns, to serve women--I who have never been willing to serve kings nor archbishops. I want no pay; I have no desire for riches, if only I have money enough to provide for my health and my literary leisure, to enable me to live without burdening anyone. I wish we could discuss these things together face to face; it cannot be done in a letter conveniently or safely. Your letter, although it was sent by most reliable persons, went so far astray that if I had not accidentally come to this castle I should never have seen it; and many people had looked at it before I received it. So do not mention anything secret unless you know for certain where I am and have a very trustworthy messenger. I am now on my way to Germany, that is, Basle, to have my works published, and this winter I shall perhaps be in Rome. On my return journey I shall see to it that we meet and talk somewhere. But now the summer is nearly over and it is a long journey. Farewell, once my sweetest comrade, now my esteemed father.

XI. TO WOLFGANG FABRICIUS CAPITO[58]

Antwerp, 26 February 1516/17

To the distinguished theologian Wolfgang Fabricius Capito of Hagenau, skilled in the three languages, greetings:

... Now that I see that the mightiest princes of the earth, King Francis of France, Charles the Catholic King, King Henry of England and the Emperor Maximilian have drastically cut down all warlike preparations and concluded a firm and, I hope, unbreakable treaty of peace, I feel entitled to hope with confidence that not only the moral virtues and Christian piety but also the true learning, purified of corruption, and the fine disciplines will revive and blossom forth; particularly as this aim is being prosecuted with equal zeal in different parts of the world, in Rome by Pope Leo, in Spain by the Cardinal of Toledo,[59] in England by King Henry VIII, himself no mean scholar, here by King Charles, a young man admirably gifted, in France by King Francis, a man as it were born for this task, who besides offers splendid rewards to attract and entice men distinguished for virtue and learning from all parts, in Germany by many excellent princes and bishops and above all by the Emperor Maximilian, who, wearied in his old age of all these wars, has resolved to find rest in the arts of peace: a resolve at once more becoming to himself at his age and more fortunate for Christendom. It is to these men's piety then that we owe it that all over the world, as if on a given signal, splendid talents are stirring and awakening and conspiring together to revive the best learning. For what else is this but a conspiracy, when all these great scholars from different lands share out the work among themselves and set about this noble task, not merely with enthusiasm but with a fair measure of success, so that we have an almost certain prospect of seeing all disciplines emerge once more into the light of day in a far purer and more genuine form? In the first place polite letters, for long reduced almost to extinction, are being taken up and cultivated by the Scots, the Danes and the Irish. As for medicine, how many champions has she found! Nicholas Leonicenus[60] in Rome, Ambrose Leo of Nola[61] at Venice, William Cop[62] and John Ruell[63] in France, and Thomas Linacre in England. Roman law is being revived in Paris by William Budaeus[64] and in Germany by Ulrich Zasius,[65] mathematics at Basle by Henry Glareanus.[66]

In theology there was more to do, for up till now its professors have almost always been men with an ingrained loathing for good learning, men who conceal their ignorance the more successfully as they do this on what they call a religious pretext, so that the ignorant herd is persuaded by them to believe it a violation of religion if anyone proceeds to attack their barbarism; for they prefer to wail for help to the uneducated mob and incite it to stone-throwing if they see any danger of their ignorance on any point coming to light. But I am confident that here, too, all will go well as soon as the knowledge of the three languages [Greek, Latin and Hebrew] becomes accepted publicly in the schools, as it has begun to be.... The humblest share in this work has fallen on me, as is fitting; I know not whether I have contributed anything of value; at all events I have infuriated those who do not want the world to come to its senses, so that it seems as if my poor efforts also have not been ineffective: although I have not undertaken the work in the belief that, I could teach anything magnificent, but I wanted to open a road for others, destined to attempt greater things, that they might with greater ease ascend the shining heights without running into so many rough and quaggy places. Yet this humble diligence of mine is not disdained by the honest and learned, and none complain of it but a few so stupid that they are hissed off the stage by even ordinary persons of any intelligence. Here not long ago someone complained tearfully before the people, in a sermon of course, that it was all over with the Scriptures and the theologians who had hitherto upheld the Christian faith on their shoulders, now that men had arisen to emend the Holy Gospel and the very words of Our Lord: just as if I was rebuking Matthew or Luke instead of those whose ignorance or negligence had corrupted what they wrote correctly. In England one or two persons complain loudly that it is a shameful thing that _I_ should dare to teach a great man like St. Jerome: as if I had changed what St. Jerome wrote, instead of restoring it!

Yet those who snarl out suchlike dirges, which any laundryman with a little sense would scoff at, think themselves great theologians ... Not that I want the kind of theology which is customary in the schools nowadays consigned to oblivion; I wish it to be rendered more trustworthy and more correct by the accession of the old, true learning. It will not weaken the authority of the Scriptures or theologians if certain passages hitherto considered corrupt are henceforth read in an emended form, or if passages are more correctly understood on which up till now the mass of theologians have entertained delusions: no, it will give greater weight to their authority, the more genuine their understanding of the Scriptures. I have sustained the shock of the first meeting, which Terence calls the sharpest.... One doubt still troubles me; I fear that under cover of the rebirth of ancient learning paganism may seek to rear its head, as even among Christians there are those who acknowledge Christ in name only, but in their hearts are Gentiles; or that with the renascence of Hebrew studies Judaism may seek to use this opportunity of revival; and there can be nothing more contrary or more hostile to the teaching of Christ than this plague. This is the nature of human affairs--nothing good has ever so flourished but some evil has attempted to use it as a pretext for insinuating itself. I could wish that those dreary quibblings could be either done away with or at least cease to be the sole activity of theologians, and that the simplicity and purity of Christ could penetrate deeply into the minds of men; and this I think can best be brought to pass if with the help provided by the three languages we exercise our minds in the actual sources. But I pray that we may avoid this evil without falling into another perhaps graver error. Recently several pamphlets have been published reeking of unadulterated Judaism.

XII. TO THOMAS MORE

Louvain, 5 March 1518

To his friend More, greeting:

... First of all I ask you to entrust to the bearer, my servant John, any letters of mine or yours which you consider fit for publication with the alteration of some passages; I am simply compelled to publish my letters whether I like it or not. Send off the lad so that he returns here as quickly as possible. If you discover that Urswick is ill-disposed towards me perhaps he should not be troubled; otherwise, help me in the matter of a horse--I shall need one just now when I am about to go to Basle or Venice, chiefly for the purpose of bringing out the New Testament.[67] Such is my fate, dear More. I shall enact this part of my play also. Afterwards, I almost feel inclined to sing 'for myself and the Muses'; my age and my health, which grows daily worse, almost require this. Over here scoundrels in disguise are so all-powerful, and no one here makes money but innkeepers, advocates, and begging friars. It is unendurable when many speak ill and none do good.

At Basle they make the elegant preface added by Budaeus the excuse for the delay over your Utopia. They have now received it and have started on the work. Then Froben's father-in-law Lachner died. But Froben's press will be sweating over our studies none the less. I have not yet had a chance of seeing Linacre's _Therapeutice_,[68] through some conspiracy of the Parisians against me. Inquire courteously of Lupset on the Appendix[69] to my _Copia_ and send it.

The Pope and the princes are up to some new tricks on the pretext of the savagery of the war against the Turks. Wretched Turks! May we Christians not be too cruel! Even wives are affected. All married men between the ages of twenty-six and fifty will be compelled to take up arms. Meanwhile the Pope forbids the wives of men absent at the war to indulge in pleasure at home; they are to eschew elegant apparel, must not wear silk, gold or any jewellery, must not touch rouge or drink wine, and must fast every other day, that God may favour their husbands engaged in this cruel war. If there are men tied at home by necessary business, their wives must none the less observe the same rules as they would have had to observe if their husbands had gone to the war. They are to sleep in the same room but in different beds; and not a kiss is to be given meanwhile until this terrible war reaches a successful conclusion under Christ's favour. I know that these enactments will irritate wives who do not sufficiently ponder the importance of the business; though I know that your wife, sensible as she is, and obedient in regard to a matter of Christian observance, will even be glad to obey.

I send Pace's pamphlet, the _Conclusions on Papal Indulgences_,[70] and the _Proposal for Undertaking a War against the Turks_,[71] as I suspect that they have not yet reached England. They write from Cologne that some pamphlet about an argument between Julius and Peter at the gates of Paradise[72] has now been printed; they do not add the author's name. The German presses will not cease from their mad pranks until their rashness is restrained by some law; this does me much harm, who am endeavouring to help the world....

I beg you to let my servant sleep one or two nights with yours, to prevent his chancing on an infected house, and to afford him anything he may need, although I have supplied him with travelling money myself. I have at last seen the _Utopia_ at Paris printed, but with many misprints. It is now in the press at Basle; I had threatened to break with them unless they took more trouble with that business than with mine. Farewell, most sincere of friends.

XIII. TO BEATUS RHENANUS[73]

Louvain [_c._ 15 October] 1518

To his friend Rhenanus, greetings:

... Let me describe to you, my dear Beatus, the whole tragi-comedy of my journey. I was still weak and listless, as you know, when I left Basle, not having come to terms with the climate, after skulking at home so long, and occupied in uninterrupted labors at that. The river voyage was not unpleasant, but that around midday the heat of the sun was somewhat trying. We had a meal at Breisach, the most unpleasant meal I have ever had. The smell of food nearly finished me, and then the flies, worse than the smell. We sat at table doing nothing for more than half an hour, waiting for them to produce their banquet, if you please. In the end nothing fit to eat was served; filthy porridge with lumps in it and salt fish reheated not for the first time, enough to make one sick. I did not call on Gallinarius. The man who brought word that he was suffering from a slight fever also told me a pretty story; that Minorite theologian with whom I had disputed about _heceitas_[74] had taken it on himself to pawn the church chalices. Scotist ingenuity! Just before nightfall we were put out at a dull village; I did not feel like discovering its name, and if I knew I should not care to tell you it. I nearly perished there. We had supper in a small room like a sweating-chamber, more than sixty of us, I should say, an indiscriminate collection of rapscallions, and this went on till nearly ten o'clock; oh, the stench, and the noise, particularly after they had become intoxicated! Yet we had to remain sitting to suit their clocks.

In the morning while it was still quite dark we were driven from bed by the shouting of the sailors. I went on board without having either supped or slept. We reached Strasbourg before lunch, at about nine o'clock; there we had a more comfortable reception, particularly as Schürer produced some wine. Some of the Society[75] were there, and afterwards they all came to greet me, Gerbel outdoing all the rest in politeness. Gebwiler and Rudolfingen did not want me to pay, no new thing with them. Thence we proceeded on horseback as far as Speyer; we saw no sign of soldiers anywhere, although there had been alarming rumours. The English horse completely collapsed and hardly got to Speyer; that criminal smith had handled him so badly that he ought to have both his ears branded with red-hot iron. At Speyer I slipped away from the inn and took myself to my neighbour Maternus. There Decanus, a learned and cultivated man, entertained me courteously and agreeably for two days. Here I accidentally found Hermann Busch.

From Speyer I travelled by carriage to Worms, and from there again to Mainz. There was an Imperial secretary, Ulrich Varnbüler,[76] travelling by chance in the same carriage. He devoted himself to me with incredible assiduity over the whole journey, and at Mainz would not allow me to go into the inn but took me to the house of a canon; on my departure he accompanied me to the boat. The voyage was not unpleasant as the weather was fine, excepting that the crew took care to make it somewhat long; in addition to this the stench of the horses incommoded me. For the first day John Langenfeld, who formerly taught at Louvain, and a lawyer friend of his came with me as a mark of politeness. There was also a Westphalian, John, a canon at St. Victor's outside Mainz, a most agreeable and entertaining man.

After arriving at Boppard, as I was taking a walk along the bank while a boat was being procured, someone recognized me and betrayed me to the customs officer, 'That is the man.' The customs officer's name is, if I mistake not, Christopher Cinicampius, in the common speech Eschenfelder. You would not believe how the man jumped for joy. He dragged me into his house. Books by Erasmus were lying on a small table amongst the customs agreements. He exclaimed at his good fortune and called in his wife and children and all his friends. Meanwhile he sent out to the sailors who were calling for me two tankards of wine, and another two when they called out again, promising that when he came back he would remit the toll to the man who had brought him a man like myself. From Boppard John Flaminius, chaplain to the nuns there, a man of angelic purity, of sane and sober judgement and no common learning, accompanied me as far as Coblenz. At Coblenz Matthias, Chancellor to the Bishop, swept us off to his house--he is a young man but of staid manners, and has an accurate knowledge of Latin, besides being a skilled lawyer. There we supped merrily.

At Bonn the canon left us, to avoid Cologne: I wanted to avoid Cologne myself, but the servant had preceded me thither with the horses, and there was no reliable person in the boat whom I could have charged with the business of calling back my servant; I did not trust the sailors. So we docked at Cologne before six o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, the weather being by now pestilential. I went into an inn and gave orders to the ostlers to hire me a carriage and pair, ordering a meal to be made ready by ten o'clock. I attended Divine Service, the lunch was delayed. I had no luck with the carriage and pair. I tried to hire a horse; my own were useless. Everything failed. I realized what was up; they were trying to make me stop there. I immediately ordered my horses to be harnessed, and one bag to be loaded; the other bag I entrusted to the innkeeper, and on my lame horse rode quickly to the Count of Neuenahr's[77]--a five-hour journey. He was staying at Bedburg.

With the Count I stayed five days very pleasantly, in such peace and quiet that while staying with him I completed a good part of the revision--I had taken that part of the New Testament with me. Would that you knew him, my dear Beatus! He is a young man but of rare good sense, more than you would find in an old man; he speaks little, but as Homer says of Menelaus, he speaks 'in clear tones,' and intelligently too; he is learned without pretentiousness in more than one branch of study, wholly sincere and a good friend. By now I was strong and lusty, and well pleased with myself, and was hoping to be in a good state when I visited the Bishop of Liége and to return hale and hearty to my friends in Brabant. What dinner-parties, what felicitations, what discussions I promised myself! But ah, deceptive human hopes! ah, the sudden and unexpected vicissitudes of human affairs! From these high dreams of happiness I was hurled to the depths of misfortune.

I had hired a carriage and pair for the next day. My companion, not wanting to say goodbye before night, announced that he would see me in the morning before my departure. That night a wild hurricane sprang up, which had passed before the next morning. Nevertheless I rose after midnight, to make some notes for the Count: when it was already seven o'clock and the Count did not emerge, I asked for him to be waked. He came, and in his customary shy and modest way asked me whether I meant to leave in such bad weather, saying he was afraid for me. At that point, my dear Beatus, some god or bad angel deprived me, not of the half of my senses, as Hesiod says, but of the whole: for he had deprived me of half my senses when I risked going to Cologne. I wish that either my friend had warned me more sharply or that I had paid more attention to his most affectionate remonstrances! I was seized by the power of fate: what else am I to say? I climbed into an uncovered carriage, the wind blowing 'strong as when in the high mountains it shivers the trembling holm-oaks.' It was a south wind and blowing like the very pest. I thought I was well protected by my wrappings, but it went through everything with its violence. Towards nightfall a light rain came on, more noxious than the wind that preceded it: I arrived at Aachen exhausted from the shaking of the carriage, which was so trying to me on the stone-paved road that I should have preferred sitting on my horse, lame as he was. Here I was carried off from the inn by a canon, to whom the Count had recommended me, to Suderman's house. There several canons were holding their usual drinking-party. My appetite had been sharpened by a very light lunch; but at the time they had nothing by them but carp, and cold carp at that. I ate to repletion. The drinking went on well into the night. I excused myself and went to bed, as I had had very little sleep the night before.

On the following day I was taken to the Vice-Provost's house; it was his turn to offer hospitality. As there was no fish there apart from eel (this was certainly the fault of the storm, as he is a magnificent host otherwise) I lunched off a fish dried in the open air, which the Germans call _Stockfisch_, from the rod used to beat it--it is a fish which I enjoy at other times: but I discovered that part of this one had not been properly cured. After lunch, as the weather was appalling, I took myself off to the inn and ordered a fire to be lit. The canon whom I mentioned, a most cultured man, stayed talking with me for about an hour and a half. Meanwhile I began to feel very uncomfortable inside; as this continued, I sent him away and went to the privy. As this gave my stomach no relief I inserted my finger into my mouth, and the uncured fish came up, but that was all. I lay down afterwards, not so much sleeping as resting, without any pain in my head or body; then, having struck a bargain with the coachman over the bags, I received an invitation to the evening compotation. I excused myself, without success. I knew that my stomach would not stand anything but a few sups of warmed liquor.... On this occasion there was a magnificent spread, but it was wasted on me. After comforting my stomach with a sup of wine, I went home; I was sleeping at Suderman's house. As soon as I went out of doors my empty body shivered fearfully in the night air.

On the morning of the next day, after taking a little warmed ale and a few morsels of bread, I mounted my horse, who was lame and ailing, which made riding more uncomfortable. By now I was in such a state that I would have been better keeping warm in bed than mounted on horseback. But that district is the most countrified, roughest, barren and unattractive imaginable, the inhabitants are so idle; so that I preferred to run away. The danger of brigands--it was very great in those parts--or at least my fear of them, was driven out of my mind by the discomfort of my illness.... After covering four miles on this ride I reached Maastricht. There after a drink to soothe my stomach I remounted and came to Tongres, about three miles away. This last ride was by far the most painful to me. The awkward gait of the horse gave me excruciating pains in the kidneys. It would have been easier to walk, but I was afraid of sweating, and there was a danger of the night catching us still out in the country. So I reached Tongres with my whole body in a state of unbelievable agony. By now, owing to lack of food and the exertion in addition, all my muscles had given way, so that I could not stand or walk steadily. I concealed the severity of my illness by my tongue--that was still working. Here I took a sup of ale to soothe my stomach and retired to bed.

In the morning I ordered them to hire a carriage. I decided to go on horseback, on account of the paving stones, until we reached an unpaved road. I mounted the bigger horse, thinking that he would go better on the paving and be more sure-footed. I had hardly mounted when I felt my eyes clouding over as I met the cold air, and asked for a cloak. But soon after this I fainted; I could be roused by a touch. Then my servant John and the others standing by let me come to myself naturally, still sitting on the horse. After coming to myself I got into the carriage.... By now we were approaching the town of St. Trond. I mounted once more, not to appear an invalid, riding in a carriage. Once again the evening air made me feel sick, but I did not faint. I offered the coachman double the fare if he would take me the next day as far as Tirlemont, a town six miles from Tongres. He accepted the terms. Here a guest whom I knew told me how ill the Bishop of Liége had taken my leaving for Basle without calling on him. After soothing my stomach with a drink I went to bed, and had a very bad night.... Here by chance I found a coach going to Louvain, six miles away, and threw myself into it. I made the journey in incredible and almost unendurable discomfort; however we reached Louvain by seven o'clock on that day.

I had no intention of going to my own room, whether because I had a suspicion that all would be cold there, or that I did not want to run the risk of interfering with the amenities of the College in any way, if I started a rumour of the plague. I went to Theodoric the printer's.... During the night a large ulcer broke without my feeling it, and the pain had died down. The next day I called a surgeon. He applied poultices. A third ulcer had appeared on my back, caused by a servant at Tongres when he was anointing me with oil of roses for the pain in the kidneys and rubbed one of my ribs too hard with a horny finger.... The surgeon on his way out told Theodoric and his servant secretly that it was the plague; he would send poultices, but would not come to see me himself.... When the surgeon failed to return after a day or two, I asked Theodoric the reason. He made some excuse. But I, suspecting what the matter was, said 'What, does he think it is the plague?' 'Precisely,' said he, 'he insists that you have three plague-sores.' I laughed, and did not allow myself even to imagine that I had the plague. After some days the surgeon's father came, examined me, and assured me that it was the true plague. Even so, I could not be convinced. I secretly sent for another doctor who had a great reputation. He examined me, and being something of a clown said, 'I should not be afraid to sleep with you--and make love to you too, if you were a woman....' [Still another doctor is summoned but does not return as promised, sending his servant instead.] I dismissed the man and losing my temper with the doctors, commended myself to Christ as my doctor.

My appetite came back within three days.... I then immediately returned to my studies and completed what was still wanting to my New Testament.... I had given orders as soon as I arrived that no one was to visit me unless summoned by name, lest I should frighten anyone or suffer inconvenience from anyone's assiduity; but Dorp forced his way in first of all, then Ath. Mark Laurin and Paschasius Berselius, who came every day, did much to make me well with their delightful company.

My dear Beatus, who would have believed that this meagre delicate body of mine, weakened now by age also, could have succeeded, after all the troubles of travel and all my studious exertions, in standing up to all these physical ills as well? You know how ill I was not long ago at Basle, more than once. I was beginning to suspect that that year would be fatal to me: illness followed illness, always more severe. But, at the very time when this illness was at its height, I felt no torturing desire to live and no trepidation at the fear of death. My whole hope was in Christ alone, and I prayed only that he would give me what he judged most salutary for me. In my youth long ago, as I remember, I would shiver at the very name of death. This at least I have achieved as I have grown older, that I do not greatly fear death, and I do not measure man's happiness by number of days. I have passed my fiftieth year; as so few out of so many reach this age, I cannot rightly complain that I have not lived long enough. And then, if this has any relevance, I have by now already prepared a monument to bear witness to posterity that I have lived. And perhaps if, as the poets tell, jealousy falls silent after death, fame will shine out the more brightly: although it ill becomes a Christian heart to be moved by human glory; may I have the glory of pleasing Christ! Farewell, my dearest Beatus. The rest you will learn from my letter to Capito.

XIV. TO MARTIN LUTHER

Louvain, 30 May 1519

Best greetings, most beloved brother in Christ. Your letter was most welcome to me, displaying a shrewd wit and breathing a Christian spirit.

I could never find words to express what commotions your books have brought about here. They cannot even now eradicate from their minds the most false suspicion that your works were composed with my aid, and that I am the standard-bearer of this party, as they call it. They thought that they had found a handle wherewith to crush good learning--which they mortally detest as threatening to dim the majesty of theology, a thing they value far above Christ--and at the same time to crush me, whom they consider as having some influence on the revival of studies. The whole affair was conducted with such clamourings, wild talk, trickery, detraction and cunning that, had I not been present and witnessed, nay, _felt_ all this, I should never have taken any man's word for it that theologians could act so madly. You would have thought it some mortal plague. And yet the poison of this evil beginning with a few has spread so far abroad that a great part of this University was running mad with the infection of this not uncommon disease.

I declared that you were quite unknown to me, that I had not yet read your books, and accordingly neither approved nor disapproved of anything in them. I only warned them not to clamour before the populace in so hateful a manner without having yet read your books: this matter was _their_ concern, whose judgement should carry the greatest weight. Further I begged them to consider also whether it were expedient to traduce before a mixed multitude views which were more properly refuted in books or discussed between educated persons, particularly as the author's way of life was extolled by one and all. I failed miserably; up to this day they continue to rave in their insinuating, nay, slanderous disputations. How often have we agreed to make peace! How often have they stirred up new commotions from some rashly conceived shred of suspicion! And these men think themselves theologians! Theologians are not liked in Court circles here; this too they put down to me. The bishops all favour me greatly. These men put no trust in books, their hope of victory is based on cunning alone. I disdain them, relying on my knowledge that I am in the right. They are becoming a little milder towards yourself. They fear my pen, because of their bad conscience; and I would indeed paint them in their true colours, as they deserve, did not Christ's teaching and example summon me elsewhere. Wild beasts can be tamed by kindness, which makes these men wild.

There are persons in England, and they in the highest positions, who think very well of your writings. Here, too, there are people, among them the Bishop of Liége, who favour your followers. As for me, I keep myself as far as possible neutral, the better to assist the new flowering of good learning; and it seems to me that more can be done by unassuming courteousness than by violence. It was thus that Christ brought the world under His sway, and thus that Paul made away with the Jewish Law, by interpreting all things allegorically. It is wiser to cry out against those who abuse the Popes' authority than against the Popes themselves: and I think that we should act in the same way with the Kings. As for the schools, we should not so much reject them as recall them to more reasonable studies. Where things are too generally accepted to be suddenly eradicated from men's minds, we must argue with repeated and efficacious proofs and not make positive assertions. The poisonous contentions of certain persons are better ignored than refuted. We must everywhere take care never to speak or act arrogantly or in a party spirit: this I believe is pleasing to the spirit of Christ. Meanwhile we must preserve our minds from being seduced by anger, hatred or ambition; these feelings are apt to lie in wait for us in the midst of our strivings after piety.

I am not advising you to do this, but only to continue doing what you are doing. I have looked into your Commentaries on the Psalms;[78] I am delighted with them, and hope that they will do much good. At Antwerp we have the Prior of the Monastery,[79] a Christian without spot, who loves you exceedingly, an old pupil of yours as he says. He is almost alone of them all in preaching Christ: the others preach human trivialities or their own gain.

I have written to Melanchthon. The Lord Jesus impart you His spirit each day more bountifully, to His own glory and the good of all. I had not your letter at hand when writing this.

XV. TO ULRICH HUTTEN[80]

Antwerp, 23 July 1519

To the illustrious knight Ulrich Hutten, greetings:

... As to your demand for a complete portrait, as it were, of More, would that I could execute it with a perfection to match the intensity of your desire! It will be a pleasure, for me as well, to dwell for a space on the contemplation of by far the sweetest friend of all. But in the first place, it is not given to every man to explore all More's gifts. And then I wonder whether he will tolerate being depicted by an indifferent artist; for I think it no less a task to portray More than it would be to portray Alexander the Great or Achilles, and they were no more deserving of immortality than he is. Such a subject requires in short the pencil of an Apelles; but I fear that I am more like Horace's gladiators[81] than Apelles. Nevertheless, I shall try to sketch you an image rather than a full portrait of the whole man, so far as my observation or recollection from long association with him in his home has made this possible. If ever you meet him on some embassy you will then for the first time understand how unskilled an artist you have chosen for this commission; and I am downright afraid of your accusing me of jealousy or blindness, that out of so many excellences so few have been perceived by my poor sight or recorded by my jealousy.

But to begin with that side of More of which you know nothing, in height and stature he is not tall, nor again noticeably short, but there is such symmetry in all his limbs as leaves nothing to be desired here. He has a fair skin, his complexion glowing rather than pale, though far from ruddy, but for a very faint rosiness shining through. His hair is of a darkish blond, or if you will, a lightish brown, his beard scanty, his eyes bluish grey, with flecks here and there: this usually denotes a happy nature and is also thought attractive by the English, whereas we are more taken by dark eyes. It is said that no