1790; a shorter by Adolf Müller, Ham- | to catch by their wiles, the parents often burg, 1828, with a long, wearisome, and being ignorant, not rarely decidedly advery German preface on the development verse. This wickedness, which is more of mankind, and of the individual man. The life, however, has considerable merit; but Müller labours so hard not to be partial to Erasmus, as to fall into the opposite extreme. Perhaps the best appreciation, on the whole, of the great Scholar is in an article in Ersch and Gruber's Cyclopædia. M. Nisard has a lively and clever sketch, which originally appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes,' and was reprinted in his Etudes sur la Renaissance,' but, as M. Nisard's wont, too showy, and wanting in grave and earnest appreciation of a character like Erasmus.

wicked than any kidnapping (plagio), these actors dare to perpetrate in the name of piety." This was intelligible when they sought to enlist sons of family or wealth, who might fill their coffers or extend their influence; or men of very high promise, who might advance or extend their cause. But Gerard, the father of Erasmus, was one of ten sons, born of decent but not opulent parents, at Gouda is│(Tergau) in Holland. One, at least, of that large family (the desire to disembarrass themselves of the charge and responsibility of troublesome younger brothers was ever unhappily conspiring with the proselytizing zeal) must be persuaded or compelled to enter into holy orders or the cloister. Gerard might seem by temperament and disposition the least suited to a life of mortification and sanctity. He was gay and mirthful; even in later life he bore a Dutch name, best rendered the fa

Erasmus was born in the city of Rotterdam, October 28, 1467. Even before his birth he was the victim of that irreligious and merciless system which showed too plainly the decay and degeneracy of the monastic spirit. It blighted him with the shame of bastardy, with which he was taunted by ungenerous adversaries His father before him was trepanned against cetious.' But there was a graver disqualihis inclinations, against his natural disposi- fication, of which neither his parents nor tion and temperament, into that holy func- the monks were ignorant; he had formed tion, of which it is difficult enough to main- a passionate attachment to the daughter of tain the sanctity with the most intense de- a physician. The opposition of his parents votion of mind and heart. If we did not to the marriage, fatal to their design of daily witness the extraordinary influence driving him into the cloister, did not break of a strong corporate spirit, we might ima- off, but rendered the intimacy too close; gine that it was the delight of the monks of he fled from his home. Margarita, who those days, and their revenge upon man- should have been his wife, retired to Rotkind, to make others as miserable as they terdam, where she gave birth to a son desfound themselves. In the words applied tined to a world-wide fame. Gerard, after by Erasmus himself, they might seem to many wanderings, had found his way to compass heaven and earth to make prose- Rome. There he earned his livelihood by lytes, such proselytes usually fulfilling the transcribing works, chiefly those of classiwords of the Scripture. That strange pas- cal authors, the office of transcriber not sion for what might be called, in a coarse being yet superseded by the young art of phrase, crimping for ecclesiastical recruits, printing. He is said to have acquired a -a phrase, unless kidnapping be better, strong taste for those writers, and a fair often used by Erasmus-without regard knowledge of their works. A rumour was to their fitness for the service, lasted to industriously spread, and skilfully conveylate times, and became extinct, if it be ex-ed to his ears, that his beloved Margarita tinct (which we sadly doubt), with monkwas dead. In his first fit of desperation hood itself. Our readers may recollect he severed himself from the world, and how the Jesuits laid their snares for pro- took the irrevocable vows. On his return mising youths, and nearly caught Mar- to his native Gouda he found the mother montel and Diderot; though perhaps it of his son in perfect health. But he took was easier to make clever Jesuits of clever the noblest revenge on the fraud which boys, than devout or even decent monks of had beguiled him into Holy Orders: he those who had no calling for cloistral aus- was faithful to his vows. terities or ascetic retreat. In the days of sented by the Pope with a prebend, a deErasmus the system was carried on with- cent maintenance, in his native country. out any scruple. What boy was there of No suspicion seems from this time to have hopeful genius, of honourable birth, or of attached to his conduct, though he still wealth, whom they did not tempt with preserved his animal spirits and wit, and their stratagems, for whom they did not spread their nets, whom they did not try

He was pre

Epist. ad Grunnium.

the lighter appellation of his youth still clung to him. The mother, too, from that time lived with unsullied fame. It was said of her

VOWS.

Huic uni potuit succumbere culpæ.'*

school was Alevander Hegius, a pupil of the celebrated Greek scholar Rudolph Agricola, the first who brought the Italian learning over the Alps. Of Hegius Erasmus ever spoke with profound respect. But Sinheim the sub-rector, was his chief instructor; he was too young, perhaps too poor, to come under the former. Sinheim was the first to discern the promise of Erasmus. On one occasion he addressed him: Go on as thou hast begun; thou wilt before long rise to the highest pinnacle of letters.' Agricola himself, on a visit to Hegius, was so much struck by an exercise of the boy that, having put a few questions to him, and looked at the shape of his head and at his eyes,' he dismissed him with the words, 'You will be a great man.' Erasmus himself says that at Deventer he went through the whole course of scholastic training, logic, physics, metaphysics, and morals, with what profit may be a question; but he had learned also Horace and Terence by heart. What a step for one to whom Latin was to be almost his vernacular language! Yet even at Deventer he was exposed to those trials, with which inveterate monkish proselytism had determined to beset him. There was no youth of candid disposition and of good fortune whom they (the monks and friars) did not study to break and subdue to their service. They spared neither flatteries, insults, petty terrors, entreaties, horrible tales, to allure them into their own, or to drive them into some other, fold. I myself was educated at Deventer. When I was not fifteen, the President of that Institution used every endeavour to induce me to enter into it. I was of a very pious disposition; but though so young, I was wise enough to plead my age and the anger of my parents if I should do anything without their knowledge. But this good man, when he saw that his eloquence did not prevail, tried an exorcism. "What do you mean?" He brought forth a crucifix, and, while I burst into tears, he said, with a look of one inspired, "Do you * Was there another son three years older than acknowledge that He suffered for you?" Erasmus? The earlier lives, those of which Eras-"I do fervently." "By Him, then, I be

Gerard, the son of Gerard (the name was fancifully, it does not appear by whose fancy, Latinized into Desiderius, and Desiderius again repeated in the Greek Erasmus), was sent to the school at Gouda, kept by a certain Peter Winkel. Winkel held him for a dunce; but the dulness may have been in the teacher, not in the pupil. He is said to have profited as little by the scanty instruction which he received as a chorister at Utrecht. At nine years old he was sent to the school at Deventer, accompanied by his mother, seemingly an accomplished woman, who, in addition to his ordinary studies, obtained him lessons in design and drawing. Deventer was a school kept by a religious brotherhood, not bound by The brothers of the common life' were the latest, and not the least devout and holy effort of monachism to renew its youth. The Order was founded by Gerard Groot, no unworthy descendent of the monks of Clugny, of St. Bernard or St. Francis; they were rivals of the mystic school of Tauler, Rysbroeck, and de Suso, in the south of Germany. Their monas. tery of Zwoll, near Brunswick, had nursed in its peaceful shades Thomas of Kempen (near Cologne), in our judgment the undoubted author of the last, most perfect, most popular manual of monastic Christianity, the De Imitatione Christi.' And now, as ever, in less than a century, among the brothers of Deventer, few hearts beat in response to the passionate, quivering ejaculations of that holy book,-they had become low, ignorant, intriguing, worldly fri

ars.

The light of the new learning was, however, struggling at Deventer against the old scholastic system. At the head of the

mus himself furnished the materials, are silent about him: but if the narrative, in the celebrated

Epistle to Grunnius, be the early life of Erasmus himself-and this cannot be reasonably doubtedthere was; and a passage in another letter, indicated by Jortin, seems conclusive. If so, the elder was a dull, coarse boy, who, having determined with Erasmus to resist, deserted his more resolute brother, and became a monk-a stupid and profligate one, whom Erasmus might be glad to forget, and for whose death he felt no very profound sor

row

But this makes the case of the deception practised on the father even worse. Dupin, a Sound authority, and M. Nisard, admit the existence of the elder brother as certain.

seech you that

you

suffer Him not to have died in vain for you; obey my counsels, seek the good of your soul, lest in the world you perish everlastingly."'*

But the boy was obliged to leave Deventer. The plague bereft him of his mother; the widowed father pined away with sorrow, and died at forty years of age. Erasworse than friendless, with faithless friends. mus was cast upon the world an orphan,

* De Pronunciatione. Opera, vol. i. p. 121-2

Life of Erasmus.

errors, entreaties, horrible tales, hem into their own, or to drive t ome other, fold. I myself was e t Deventer. When I was note resident of that Institution used deavour to induce me to enter as of a very pious disposition; but I was wise enough to pi young, e and the anger of my parents l anything without their knowledge is good man, when he saw that be ence did not prevail, tried at e What do you mean?" He bro crucifix, and, while I burst into Ed, with a look of one inspired, "I knowledge that He suffered for do fervently." "By Him, the that you

The youth's consolation was in his books. His studies he still pursued, if with less freedom and with more interruption from enforced religious ceremonies, with his own indefatigable, zeal and industry. Either within or without the cloister he found friends of more congenial minds. William Hermann of Gouda, with whom he entered into active correspondence, indulged in Latin verse-making, which in that age dignified itself, and was dignified by Erasmus, with the name of Poetry. Erasmus wrote a treatise, like other voluntary or enforced ascetics, on the Contempt of the World.” But while he denounced the corruption of the world, it was in no monastic tone; he was even more vehement in his invective against the indolence, the profligacy, the ignorance of the cloister. This dissertation did not see the light till much later in his life. Among the modern authors who most excited his admiration was Laurentius Valla. Not only by his manly and eloquent style, but by the boldness and originality of his thoughts, Valla had been the man who first assailed with success the monstrous edifice of fiction, which in the Middle Ages passed for history. Ithuriel spear had pierced and given the deathblow to the famous donation of Constantine.

pure, sober enjoyment; pious, intellectual | Praise of Folly' and the Colloquies ?" luxury. Erasmus listened, and after some If they did read them, had they no comresistance entered on his probation. His punctious visitings as to the formidable foe visions seemed to ripen into reality; all they had galled and goaded beyond enwas comfort, repose, indulgence, uninter- durance? rupted reading, no rigid fasts, dispensations from canonical hours of prayer, nights passed in study with his friend, who took the opportunity of profiting (being very slow of learning, and with only some knowledge of music) by the superior attainments of Erasmus. The pleasant peace was only broken by light and innocent pastimes, in which the good elder brothers condescended to mingle. So glided on the easy months; but, as the fatal day of profession arrived, suspicions darkened on the mind of Erasmus. He sent for his guardians; he entreated to be released; he appealed to the better feelings of the monks. Had they been,' he wrote at a later period, good Christian religious men, they would have known how unfit I was for their life. I was neither made for them, nor they for me.' His health was feeble; he required a generous diet; he had a peculiar infirmity, fatal to canonical observance-when once his sleep was broken he could not sleep again. For religious exercises he had no turn; his whole soul was in letters, and in letters according to the new light now dawning on the world. But all were hard, inexorable, cunning. He was coaxed, threatened, compelled. St. Augustine himself (they were Augustinian friars) would revenge himself on the renegade from his Order. God would punish one who had set his hand to the plough and shrunk back. Verden was there with his bland seemingly friendly influence. He would not lose his victim, the sharer in his lot for good or evil, the cheap instructor. Erasmus took the desperate, the fatal plunge. Ere long his eyes were opened; he saw the nakedness, the worse than nakedness, of the land. The quiet, the indulgence, the unbroken leisure were gone. He must submit to harsh, capricious discipline; to rigid but not religious rules; to companionship no longer genial or edifying. He was in the midst of a set of coarse, vulgar, profligate, unscrupulous men, zealots who were debauchees; idle, with all the vices the proverbial issue of idleness. Erasmus confesses that his morals did not altogether escape the general taint, though his feeble health, want of animal spirits, or his better principles, kept him aloof from the more riotous and shameless revels. He was still sober, quiet, studious, diligent. Did any of these men ever read the bitter sarcasms, the bright but cutting wit of the

His

So passed about five years, obscure but not lost. He was isolated except from one or two congenial friends. With his family, who seem hardly to have owned him, he had no intercourse; he was a member of a fraternity, who looked on him with jealousy and estrangement, on whom he looked with ill-concealed aversion, perhaps contempt. He was one among them, not one of them. At that time the Bishop of Cambray, Henry de Bergis, meditated a journey to Rome, in hopes of obtaining a Cardinal's hat. He wanted a private secretary skilful in writing Latin. Whether he applied to the Monastery, which was not unwilling to rid itself of its uncongenial inmate, and so commended him to the Bishop, or whether the fame of Erasmus had reached Cambray-the offer was made and eagerly accepted. He left his friend Herman alone with regret; and Herman envied the good fortune of his friend, who had hopes of visiting pleasant Italy.

At nunc sors nos divellit, tibi quod bene
Sors peracerba mihi,

[vortat,

*Rabelais' reminiscences of the Collège Monsome, and no one was exempt from the danger.taigu were not more pleasing. Ponocrates says to Was not that the extreme of cruelty? Grandgousier, 'Seigneur, ne penses que je l'aye mis au Collège de pouillerie qu'on nomme Montaigu; mieux l'eusse voulu mettre entre les guenaulx de St. Innocent, pour l'enorme cruaulté et villenie que j'y ai cognue; car trop mieulx sont traictés les forcez entre les Maures et Tartres, les meurtriers en la prison criminelle, voyre certes les chiens en vostre maison, que sont ces malautrus au dit Collège.