with younger students was his total ignorance of English; with the more advanced, his novel notions of the duties of a theologian added to his hatred and contempt of the schoolmen. The grammar of Theodorus had no greater attractions for Cambridge undergraduates than the grammar of Chrysoloras; 1512 passed without any visible improvement; 1513 was not more promising. "As for profit," he says in a letter to Colet, "I see no chance of it. What can I take from those who have nothing to give?" "I have not been here five months," he says in another letter to Ammonius, "and have spent sixty nobles, without receiving more than one. The expense is intolerable, and the remuneration nothing." College beer did not agree with his stomach. College gyps stole his wine, or mixed it with water. College porters mislaid his letters. Masters of Arts, divided into rival sections of Thomists and Scotists, scouted lectures on theology which denuded Scripture of all mystery and aimed at nothing higher than a literal and grammatical interpretation. The Scriptures, said they, are levelled to the capacity of children and laymen. St. Jerome was a mere grammarian; St. Augustine was a dunce. What could they or any other fathers know of entity, relation, ampliation, restriction, formality, hæcceity, quiddity, or the like? What help can the Scriptures afford for the refutation of heresy? How is the Church to stand, or the dignity of theology to be maintained, by the laws of syntax or the aids of lexicography? To increase his vexation, the war with France carried away, in 1513, his most intimate friends, Ammonius and Mountjoy. Engrossed with the bustle of a great campaign, bishops and noblemen, who in times of peace might have repaid a translation from Lucian or a copy of complimentary verses in angels, were either occupied in mustering their retainers, or in discussing the merits of Almain rivets, apostles, and falconets. Erasmus groaned with disgust. He hated war for its own sake; he regarded it exclusively from its noisy and horrible side. He could see nothing in it, except a disorderly mob of vagabonds and scoundrels bent upon pulling down what the wisdom, patience, and experience of former ages had built up. But he hated it still more because it was incompatible with the cultivation of letters. Unfortunately, also, during the autumn of this year, the sweating sickness made its appearance. Cambridge was deserted; his hearers dispersed. In a pardonable but by no means pleasant mood, he writes to Ammonius (Nov. 28), that he had been shut up in Cambridge for some months, confined to his books, like a snail in its shell. "Here," he adds, "is one unbroken solitude. Many have left for fear of the plague; and yet, when they are all here, the solitude is much worse. This winter I am resolved to

turn every stone, and throw out my sheet-anchor. If I succeed, I shall make a nest for myself. If I fail, I shall flit elsewhere. Had I no other reasons, I am resolved not to die in England."

But although Cambridge had disappointed his expectations, and was not yet sufficiently prepared to do justice to his Greek or his theological lectures, his residence in that University had not been thrown away. The more scanty his audience, the more time was left to his own disposal; and he was not of a temper to let it remain idle. As early as the year 1505, in a preface to Valla's notes on the New Testament, he had ventured to express his approbation of the new rules of criticism applied by Valla to the revision of the Vulgate. "Where is the harm," he remarks, "if Valla, upon the authority of the ancient Greek copies, wrote notes on such passages of the New Testament as he found to be at variance with the original, or had been less correctly rendered by dozing interpreters?" He avowed his belief that the translation of Scripture belonged exclusively to the philologist, and that Jethro in some things was wiser than Moses. "Grammar, I admit, is employed upon minutiæ; but these minutiæ are small things without which no one can become great. It is busied with trifles, sed hæ nuga seria ducunt. If it be said that theology is too dignified to be restrained by the laws of syntax, and that the interpretation of Scripture rests upon inspiration;-I reply, that this is claiming a new dignity for theologians, if they are to have the exclusive privilege of writing nonsense. But I hear it said, that the old translators were skilled in the languages of the original, and are sufficiently intelligible for all practical purposes. I reply, that I prefer to see that with my own eyes, rather than with the eyes of others; and, secondly, allowing they have done much, they have certainly left much to be done by those who come after

them."

With views so liberal as these, so far in advance of his age, it is not surprising that he should have entertained the idea of following the steps of Valla, and devoting his time and abilities to a critical revision of the New Testament. In common with others, he may have been influenced in this determination by his classical distaste for the old unclassical version. Yet it must be admitted that he was influenced by a nobler feeling; more than once in his serious moods he has avowed his belief that the only remedy for the vices and disorders of the time was to be found in the careful study of the holy Scriptures. More than once he expressed a wish that the pure oracles of divine truth were made accessible to all. He hoped to turn men from the unprofitable dialectics and noisy discussions of the schools to the more quiet and thoughtful study of philology. He evidently anticipated

such a result from the appearance of the New Testament and the aids it would afford to a more certain and speedy study of the original. With these motives, others less pure may have been combined. There was the refinement of the scholar, in common with other classical revivalists, unduly offended with a Latin version which could be referred to no era of established Latinity. Less fastidious than his Italian contemporaries, he yet saw no reason why theology, and still more that work on which all true theology was based, should adhere to the exclusive and unenviable distinction of speaking a more barbarous language than any other science. From the two bodies into which the theological world was divided, he had little reason to anticipate opposition. The revivalists could not be offended if the New Testament appeared in a style of eloquence more conformable with their notions, at least so free from gross violations of classical Latinity that they might read it without fear of vitiating their taste; whilst by Scotist and Thomist, exclusively occupied with their favourite masters, this or any other attempt to promote the study of the Gospels would be regarded with indifference amounting to contempt.

With these views he set to work whilst at Cambridge to collate such Mss. of the New Testament, whether Greek or Latin, as were within his reach. In this task he had the assistance of Lupset, one of his Greek pupils, a protégé of More and Colet. He tells the latter, in a letter dated May 1512, that he had already collated the New Testament with the ancient Greek copies, and annotated it in more than a thousand places. His collations were completed and his work ready for the press in the summer of 1513. Concurrently with these labours, either of which alone might have been deemed sufficient for the ambition of the most enterprising and indefatigable student, he was employed in preparing a new edition of St. Jerome. But though his health was suffering from excessive exertion, and the plague was then raging at Cambridge, he tells Ammonius, in September, that his labours were drawing to a close; and so earnestly was he bent upon the task that he felt as if he was inspired.

Suddenly he disappeared from England in the spring of 1514. In a letter from Hammes Castle, dated 8th July, of which his friend Lord Mountjoy, afterwards lieutenant of Tournay, was the governor, he informed Ammonius of his prosperous voyage. The Dover boatmen, whose extortions may boast the prescription of three centuries, carried off his portmanteau with all his papers. "It is the way of these fellows," he adds, "to steal where they can conveniently; and when they cannot steal, they extort money and sell you your own property. When I

fancied the labour of so many years had perished, I felt as much grief as a mother might feel at the loss of her children." "I know not," he continues, "whether I told you that I went to take leave of his majesty (Henry VIII.). He received me with a very friendly countenance. The Bishop of Lincoln (Wolsey) bade me be of good cheer, but uttered no hint of a present; and I did not dare to allude to it, for fear of appearing importunate. Durham (Ruthal) gave me six angels; the archbishop (Warham) took the opportunity of pressing on my acceptance as many more; Rochester (Fisher), a royal. I am now staying a few days with my friend Mountjoy at Hammes Castle, and intend to go to Germany." He visited Basle in the autumn, and arranged with Frobenius, then rising into celebrity, for the printing of the New Testament. In the winter of 1514 or the spring of 1515, he returned to England; was in London in March, with a view of securing the good offices of Henry VIII. with Leo X. At this time the influence of Henry with the pontiff was supreme. Louis XII. was dead; Charles, not yet emperor, was a young man without influence; Ferdinand of Arragon and Maximilian were in close amity with England; and Wolsey was exerting all his skill to imitate the policy of the League of Cambray, and, by a close union of the chief European powers, attempting to shut out France from all political influence. Of these movements Erasmus was kept well informed by Ammonius, the Latin secretary to Henry VIII. Accordingly, from London he addressed a highly complimentary letter to Leo X.;* applauding his political sagacity, his wise efforts for peace, and dexterously contrasting the mildness and wisdom of his rule with the turbulence of his predecessor Julius, he applied to Leo those words in the Apocalypse, «Vicit Leo de tribu Juda." Then glancing at his labours upon St. Jerome, "the prince of Latin theologians," he told the Pope that the fatigues he had endured in editing the works of that father were little less than St. Jerome had experienced in writing them. He expected no remuneration, and only begged his holiness's approbation. The Pope returned a complimentary answer on the 10th July, but neither invited him to Rome, nor held out hopes of preferment. He accompanied his letter with a recommendation of Erasmus to Henry VIII. "These scholars," he said, "who devote themselves to literature and the arts are not a bad sort of people.† I have on more than one occasion found them very honest and trustworthy. I was acquainted with Erasmus, who is one of the best of them, before I was raised to the papal chair; and I beg to recommend him to you. I do not ask any favour for him; but, if it should fall in your way to

* 29th April.

+"Minime malos esse."

Z

oblige him, I shall be glad if you will let him know that my recommendation has had its due weight."

At the end of the summer of 1515 Erasmus hurried off to Basle, dropping an occasional letter to Ammonius full of high spirits. In one, dated 2d October, shortly after the battle of Marignano, he writes to say that the printers had commenced the New Testament. 66 My health," he continues, "has been very good until they began their stoves." The German stoves. were as hateful to Erasmus as afterwards to Wordsworth; and he was obliged to have an English fireplace in his chamber. "I can neither stay, from the intolerable smell of the stoves, nor leave my work, which cannot get on without me. Our friends the Swiss are in high dudgeon because the French would not civilly allow themselves to be beaten (at Marignano), as they were beaten by the English at Tournay, but dispersed the Swiss with their artillery. They have returned home with tattered ensigns, somewhat fewer in number, torn, mutilated, and wounded. So, instead of a victory, they are holding a funeral. If my health allows me, I intend staying here until Christmas. If not, I shall go to Flanders or Rome. York (Wolsey, then bishop of Tournay) has given me a prebend at Tournay; mere moonshine. His commissary (Dr. Sampson) has been publicly excommunicated in Flanders. Such is the reverence they show York in that part of the world. However, I have accepted it; for nothing is easier than to lose." In December he was still at Basle, and told Ammonius he intended to stay till March; the printing of the New Testament was nearly completed, and he reckoned it would extend to eighty sheets. The labour was enormous; his health and strength feeble. "I am overwhelmed," he tells one of his correspondents in a letter, still dated from Basle, late at night, "with a double burden, either of which would require rather a Hercules than an Erasmus. To say nothing of other labours of less consequence, I have the weight of St. Jerome and the New Testament upon my shoulders." On the 7th of March 1516, he writes to say that the New Testament is out, and the last colophon was then being added to St. Jerome. But all who have had any experience of the press know too well that the last colophon is seldom the last. Month after month slipped away, and it was not until Whitsunday in 1516 that he was able to write to his friend, the burgomaster of Nuremberg, that the Testament was completed.

He took leave of Basle in a sort of triumph, rejoiced to escape from his prison-house. If he had been delighted above measure with his reception, he could scarcely be less delighted * "Ergastulo," vii. 10.