IN PRAISE OF FOLLY
By Erasmus
Illustrated with many curious CUTS, Designed, Drawn, and Etched by Hans
Holbein,
WITH PORTRAIT,
LIFE OF ERASMUS,
AND HIS
Epistle addressed to Sir Thomas More.
LONDON: REEVES & TURNER, 196, STRAND, W.C.
1876.
THE LIFE OF ERASMUS.
ERASMUS, so deservedly famous for his admirable writings, the vast
extent of his learning, his great candour and moderation, and for being
one of the chief restorers of the Latin tongue on this side the Alps,
was born at Rotterdam, on the 28th of October, in the year 1467. The
anonymous author of his life commonly printed with his Colloquies (of
the London edition) is pleased to tell us that _de anno quo natus est
apud Batavos, non constat_. And if he himself wrote the life which we
find before the Elzevir edition, said to be _Erasmo autore_, he does not
particularly mention the year in which he was born, but places it _circa
annum 67 supra millesintum quadringentesimum_. Another Latin life, which
is prefixed to the above-mentioned London edition, fixes it in the year
1465; as does his epitaph at Basil. But as the inscription on his statue
at Rotterdam, the place of his nativity, may reasonably be supposed the
most authentic, we have followed that. His mother was the daughter of a
physician at Sevenbergen in Holland, with whom his father contracted an
acquaintance, and had correspondence with her on promise of marriage,
and was actually contracted to her. His father's name was Gerard; he
was the youngest of ten brothers, without one sister coming between; for
which reason his parents (according to the superstition of the times)
designed to consecrate him to the church. His brothers liked the notion,
because, as the church then governed all, they hoped, if he rose in
his profession, to have a sure friend to advance their interest; but
no importunities could prevail on Gerard to turn ecclesiastic Finding
himself continually pressed upon so disagreeable a subject, and not able
longer to bear it, he was forced to fly from his native country, leaving
a letter for his friends, in which he acquainted them with the reason of
his departure, and that he should never trouble them any more. Thus he
left her who was to be his wife big with child, and made the best of
his way to Rome. Being an admirable master of the pen, he made a very
genteel livelihood by transcribing most authors of note (for printing
was not in use). He for some time lived at large, but afterwards applied
close to study, made great progress in the Greek and Latin languages,
and in the civil law; for Rome at that time was full of learned men.
When his friends knew he was at Rome, they sent him word that the young
gentlewoman whom he had courted for a wife was dead; upon which, in a
melancholy fit, he took orders, and turned his thoughts wholly to the
study of divinity. He returned to his own country, and found to his
grief that he had been imposed upon; but it was too late to think of
marriage, so he dropped all farther pretensions to his mistress; nor
would she after this unlucky adventure be induced to marry.
The son took the name of Gerard after his father, which in German
signifies _amiable_, and (after the fashion of the learned men of that
age, who affected to give their names a Greek or Latin turn) his was
turned into Erasmus, which in Greek has the same signification. He was
chorister of the cathedral church of Utrecht till he was nine years
old; after which he was sent to Deventer to be instructed by the famous
Alexander Hegius, a Westphalian. Under so able a master he proved
an extraordinary proficient; and it is remarkable that he had such a
strength of memory as to be able to say all Terence and Horace by heart.
He was now arrived to the thirteenth year of his age, and had been
continually under the watchful eye of his mother, who died of the plague
then raging at Deventer. The contagion daily increasing, and having
swept away the family where he boarded, he was obliged to return home.
His father Gerard was so concerned at her death that he grew melancholy,
and died soon after: neither of his parents being much above forty when
they died.
Erasmus had three guardians assigned him, the chief of whom was Peter
Winkel, schoolmaster of Goude; and the fortune left him was amply
sufficient for his support, if his executors had faithfully discharged
their trust Although he was fit for the university, his guardians were
averse to sending him there, as they designed him for a monastic life,
and therefore removed him to Bois-le-duc, where, he says, he lost near
three years, living in a Franciscan convent The professor of humanity in
this convent, admiring his rising genius, daily importuned him to take
the habit, and be of their order. Erasmus had no great inclination for
the cloister; not that he had the least dislike to the severities of
a pious life, but he could not reconcile himself to the monastic
profession; he therefore urged his rawness of age, and desired farther
to consider better of the matter. The plague spreading in those parts,
and he having struggled a long time with a quartan ague, obliged him to
return home.
His guardians employed those about him to use all manner of arguments to
prevail on him to enter the order of monk; sometimes threatening, and at
other times making use of flattery and fair speeches. When Winkel, his
guardian, found him not to be moved from his resolution, he told
him that he threw up his guardianship from that moment Young Erasmus
replied, that he took him at his word, since he was old enough now to
look out for himself. When Winkel found that threats did not avail, he
employed his brother, who was the other guardian, to see what he could
effect by fair means. Thus he was surrounded by them and their agents
on all sides. By mere accident, Erasmus went to visit a religious house
belonging to the same order, in Emaus or Steyn, near Goude, where he met
with one Cornelius, who had been his companion at Deventer; and though
he had not himself taken the habit, he was perpetually preaching up the
advantages of a religious life, as the convenience of noble libraries,
the helps of learned conversation, retirement from the noise and folly
of the world, and the like. Thus at last he was induced to pitch upon
this convent. Upon his admission they fed him with great promises, to
engage him to take the holy cloth; and though he found almost everything
fall short of his expectation, yet his necessities, and the usage he was
threatened with if he abandoned their order, prevailed with him, after
his year of probation, to profess himself a member of their fraternity.
Not long after this, he had the honour to be known to Henry a Bergis,
bishop of Cambray, who having some hopes of obtaining a cardinal's hat,
wanted one perfectly master of Latin to solicit this affair for him; for
this purpose Erasmus was taken into the bishop's family, where he wore
the habit of his order. The bishop not succeeding in his expectation
at Rome, proved fickle and wavering in his affection; therefore Erasmus
prevailed with him to send him to Paris, to prosecute his studies in
that famous university, with the promise of an annual allowance,
which was never paid him. He was admitted into Montague College, but
indisposition obliged him to return to the bishop, by whom he was
honourably entertained. Finding his health restored, he made a journey
to Holland, intending to settle there, but was persuaded to go a second
time to Paris; where, having no patron to support him, himself says,
he rather made a shift to live, than could be said to study. He next
visited England, where he was received with great respect; and as
appears by several of his letters, he honoured it next to the place of
his nativity. In a letter to Andrelinus, inviting him to England, he
speaks highly of the beauty of the English ladies, and thus describes
their innocent freedom: "When you come into a gentleman's house you are
allowed the favour to salute them, and the same when you take leave." He
was particularly acquainted with Sir Thomas More, Colet, dean of Saint
Paul's, Grocinus, Linacer, Latimer, and many others of the most eminent
of that time; and passed some years at Gam-bridge. In his way for France
he had the misfortune to be stripped of everything; but he did not
revenge this injury by any unjust reflection on the country. Not meeting
with the preferment he expected, he made a voyage to Italy, at that time
little inferior to the Augustan age for learning. He took his doctor
of divinity degree in the university of Turin; stayed about a year
in Bologna; afterward went to Venice, and there published his book of
Adages from the press of the famous Aldus. He removed to Padua, and last
to Rome, where his fame had arrived long before him. Here he gained the
friendship of all the considerable persons of the city, nor could have
failed to have made his fortune, had he not been prevailed upon by the
great promises of his friends in England to return thither on Henry
VIIIth coming to the crown. He was taken into favour by Warham,
archbishop of Canterbury, who gave him the living of Aldington, in
Kent; but whether Erasmus was wanting in making his court to Wolsey,
or whether the cardinal viewed him with a jealous eye, because he was
a favourite of Warham, between whom and Wolsey there was perpetual
clashing, we know not; however, being disappointed, Erasmus went
to Flanders, and by the interest of Chancellor Sylvagius, was made
counsellor to Charles of Austria, afterward Charles V., emperor of
Germany. He resided several years at Basil; but on the mass being
abolished in that city by the Reformation, he retired to Friberg
in Alsace, where he lived seven years. Having been for a long time
afflicted with the gout, he left Friberg, and returned to Basil. Here
the gout soon left him, but he was seized by a dysentery, and after
labouring a whole month under that disorder, died on the 22nd of July,
1536, in the house of Jerome Frobenius, son of John, the famous printer.
He was honourably interred, and the city of Basil still pays the highest
respect to the memory of so great a man.
Erasmus was the most facetious man, and the greatest critic of his age.
He carried on a reformation in learning at the same time he advanced
that of religion; and promoted a purity of style as well as simplicity
of worship. This drew on him the hatred of the ecclesiastics, who were
no less bigotted to their barbarisms in language and philosophy, than
they were to their superstitious and gaudy ceremonies in religion; they
murdered him in their dull treatises, libelled him in their wretched
sermons, and in their last and most effectual efforts of malice, they
joined some of their own execrable stuff to his compositions: of which
he himself complains in a letter addressed to the divines of Louvain. He
exposed with great freedom the vices and corruptions of his own church,
yet never would be persuaded to leave her communion. The papal policy
would never have suffered Erasmus to have taken so unbridled a range
in the reproof and censure of her extravagancies, but under such
circumstances, when the public attack of Luther imposed on her a
prudential necessity of not disobliging her friends, that she might with
more united strength oppose the common enemy; and patiently bore what at
any other time she would have resented. Perhaps no man has obliged the
public with a greater number of useful volumes than our author; though
several have been attributed to him which he never wrote. His book of
Colloquies has passed through more editions than any of his others:
Moreri tells us a bookseller in Paris sold twenty thousand at one
impression.