letter he gives us a ludicrous example of this, where he laments that the Dutch intellects are of the dullest, and, a few sentences afterwards, stoutly exhorts Sixtin to maintain at every hazard that the Dutch are not only equal to the Italians but even superior.

13

That he had not yet discovered what was to be his life's work is evident from the tone of levity which pervades his correspondence with Sixtin. We see the graceful style, the polished phrase, and the learned allusion; but we miss the earnestness of purpose, the consciousness of an object to be attained, which was so soon to dominate him and to make itself manifest in his work. He was as yet the dilettante, loving literature for the pleasure it gave him and enjoying the friendship of those to whose company it earned him admission. He was a literary swordsman who liked to cross weapons with such worthy opponents as Sixtin, Colet, More, and others of the same calibre; and he lost no opportunity to test the edge of his blade. So, in the letter before us, he says to Sixtin, "We will draw our swords on any subject worthy of literary controversy," so full was he of the joy of life and the sheer desire to contend. The same spirit is very evident in a short letter which he sent to More; and it also shows how deep was the appreciation of each for the other at that early period of their acquaintance:

I am hardly equal to the task of stating in writing to what dire furies I should devote the head of that messenger by whose carelessness or perfidy I deem myself to have been frustrated in my hopes. of a letter from you, my dear More. For I ought not, nor will I, suspect that you have been remiss in your usual kindness, although in my last letter I expostulated with you somewhat vigorously. Nor do I fear that my recent freedom of speech has chagrined you, for you are well accustomed to the Spartan method of sharp fighting at close quarters. Joking aside, dearest Thomas, I beg that the anxiety I have felt on account of you and your too long delayed letter will be repaid by you with a little interest. I expect now not a letter, but a bundle of letters so huge that they would overwhelm even an Egyptian porter. If there be any lovers of good literature in your vicinity, it were a favor to urge them to write to me, so that I may make the circle of my friends quite complete, for I have not sufficient assurance to bother them by writing first. As for yourself, I deem it does not matter what terms I observe in writing to you, who are the most good-natured of men, but particularly so to me, I am sure. Farewell, my most charming More. Oxford, October 28, 1499.**

14

We learn from another letter which he wrote about this time to Lord Mountjoy, his munificent patron, that he was enjoying his English visit immensely, and that he was greatly gratified with the kind manner in which he had been treated by Colet and Prior Charnock. And he adds in closing:

13 The Italians had been influenced by the Renaissance much earlier than other nations. 1 Eras. Ep. 114.

Send me my monies with all care, and under your own seal. I am in the Prior's debt in many ways, and indeed he is very kind and attentive to me. Therefore, since he has rendered me the service of a most kindly man, it is proper that I should in turn discharge the obligations of a most grateful man; and what he so willingly gave me, for that I should just as willingly recompense him. For as it is with elaborate furniture, so it is with good friends, I think-wear them out as little as possible.1

15

This paragraph tells us a few things about the status of Erasmus on this visit. Here he was staying in a monastery of his Order, under a Prior who was naturally his ecclesiastical superior. If he had come to St. Mary's as an Augustinian canon, with the proper and usual documents from his superiors at Steyn, he would have been entitled to free board and lodging at the cost of Prior Charnock. So, too, he would have been subject to the general Rule governing all monasteries of the Order in every country, including the chanting of the Offices in common, the obligation of rising at midnight, and the observance of the set fasts and abstinences. Now there is not the slightest evidence that he had sought for permission to make this holiday trip to England, or had applied at Steyn for the usual Exeat (or whatever the document is called that is sought for on such occasions). He left Paris in a hurry when Mountjoy said the word, and had only time to dispatch a short note to his faithful Batt, acquainting him of the trip. Had he been any ordinary and vagrant monk, Prior Charnock would undoubtedly have taken him in and soundly disciplined him, after which he would have made him perform the lowest offices in the community until word had been received from the monk's own monastery as to his further disposition. Erasmus was fully aware of all this, and the knowledge that he was contravening the rules of his Order and incurring its possible penalties, was not calculated to make him enthusiastic in his love for the monastic system, nor any the more friendly towards the authorities at Steyn, whose duty it would be in such case made and provided, to enforce whatever pains and penalties he might have incurred. Now, however, it was no common, vagrant monk who had applied for the hospitality of Prior Charnock, but a very remarkable member of their common Order, whose attainments in literature, painting, and the kindred arts had attracted the attention of scholars wherever he had appeared. He had come to Oxford under the auspices of the influential Lord Mountjoy, who was his pupil and friend; and such was the charm of his manner, the fascination of his discourse, and the attraction of his wit, that he made his way with ease into the select, learned, and cultured circles of England. So it was as an honored guest that he was so hospitably received and entertained by Prior Charnock; and it was not a question of how little, but of how much, could be done for the comfort of this brilliant young monk. It would seem that by this time his superiors at Steyn had definitely decided to give him a loose rein for the moment, probably observing the fact that he was beginning to make good his 15 Ibid., 115.

promise of winning name and fame both for himself and for his monastery. However that may be, we hear no complaints from Erasmus on this head, although all his letters to Steyn and the replies thereto are missing for this year and the next.

We must not omit another letter of his to his friend Sixtin, of whom mention has previously been made, because it gives us a lively picture of the way in which Erasmus spent his time on this English visit; while it will also serve to show us Colet as seen through the admiring eyes of his future biographer. Another reason for reproducing it here is the fact that Lupton and Seebohm have given us the merest sketch of this phase of their relations.

16

How I wish that you had been present the other day, as I fully expected you would be, at our feast, for a feast it was and not a symposium. To me surely never was there anything more agreeable, elegant, or lovely. Nothing was lacking. Cheerful fellows, as one would say, the time opportune, the place select, the table details sedulously attended to. The service was such as would delight Epicurus, the conversation such as would have charmed Pythagoras. And not only good fellows, but the very best, and of the sort that would do honor not only to a banquet, but even to a sitting of Plato's Academy. "Who were they?" you will ask. Listen, that you may regret the more your absence. First there was Prior Richard, the high priest of the Graces; then that theologian who preached a Latin sermon that day, a man as modest as he was erudite; then your friend Philip, a man of the gayest humor. At the head of the table sat Colet, the vindicator and assertor of the old theology. On his right was the Prior, a man, please God, a compound no less of every sort of literary taste than of the highest humanity and integrity. On the left sat that younger theologian, and on his left again I myself sat, that the banquet might not lack its poet. Opposite me sat Philip, so that we might have a lawyer with us. Below us were seated a mixed, and to me an unknown, gathering.

The guests being thus disposed, immediately war broke out over the cups, but not on account of our cups, nor yet a war of drinkers. Although there was a variety of opinions on several matters, yet it was about the following that the battle was most strenuous. Colet said that from the very first Cain had offended God in this, that he lacked trust in the goodness of the Creator and, relying on his own efforts, had been the first man to till the soil, while Abel fed his sheep contentedly on what grew spontaneously from the earth. We opposed this view, each man speaking for himself, the theologian trying to disprove it with syllogisms, I with rhetoric. Now the Greeks have a saying that "not Hercules himself may prevail against two"; but he alone vanquished us all, for he seemed to rage with a certain sacred fury, and to comport himself in some way

1. Allen's surmise that Colet had invited Erasmus, Charnock, Sixtin, and an unidentified lawyer named Philip to dine with him at Magdalen College is not without its basis of probability.

grander and more sublime than would a mere man. Changed were his eyes, his voice, his face, his glances, and he appeared to be magnified, inspired by some divine influence. At length, when the disputation gave promise of proceeding too far, and already had become somewhat more grave and serious than was suitable for a banquet, I took upon myself to perform my part, that of the poet, in order that I might put an end to the discussion and enliven the dinner with a more joyous topic. "There is a very old story," I said, "one to be looked for in the most ancient authors, and I will tell you the version I found of it if you will give me your word that you will not consider it a mere fable." When they had promised this, I went on:

"Once upon a time I happened on a very old manuscript, whose title and authorship the lapse of time had blotted out and the bookworms, ever hostile to letters, had eaten away. One page alone there was which had not been damaged by decay nor gnawed by worms and mice, due to the care of the Muses, no doubt, for they protect their own. Therein I remember reading the true story of this very thing which you are debating, or, if not the true story, then one most certainly like truth; which I will relate to you if you so desire." At their bidding me to go on, I began:

"This man Cain was just as industrious as he was greedy and covetous. He had often heard from his parents that in the garden whence they had been expelled the crops of corn grew spontaneously, with the finest ears, with the largest grains, with stalks so tall that they would equal our alder-trees; and that neither cockle, thorn, or thistle grew thereamong. After he had dwelt on this thing and observed how poor and small a crop he with difficulty received from this soil which he was then plowing, he added guile to industry. He approached the angel who guarded paradise, and, having overcome him by his cunning arts, he persuaded him by magnificent promises to give him secretly a few grains of corn from the riper stalks. He said that God was always careless and negligent about the matter, and that even if it were found out he would not be punished, since it was a matter of no moment, provided that yonder apples were untouched, concerning which alone God had threatened them.

"Come, do not be so careful a sentry. What if your excessive watchfulness be displeasing to Him? what if He desire to be deceived and will be more delighted by the skilful industry of men than by their slothful ease? Does this duty that is put upon you really please you? From an angel he made you an executioner, that you may drive us poor lost wretches cruelly away from our native soil. He has bound you to the gates with a sword, to do the work that we used to assign to our dogs. We indeed are very wretched, but you seem to me to be in worse case still. We, 'tis true, are shut out of paradise because we enjoyed a too sweet apple; but you that keep us out of here are deprived of both Heaven and Paradise, and you are more miserable than we in this, that we are free to

wander here and there wherever it is our pleasure to go. This world of ours, if you only knew it, has many things to console us for our exile groves of the greenest foliage, a thousand kinds of trees, for which we have scarcely found names, rivulets flowing down here and there from the rocky passes, rivers lapping the mossy banks with their limpid waters, lofty mountains, shady valleys, mighty oceans. Nor do I doubt that in its most intimate recesses the earth conceals some treasures, and I will examine her every vein in order to wrest them from her, or, if time shall fail me, of a surety my descendants will. Here too we have golden apples, and the most luscious figs, with perennial fruits of every description. Many things grow everywhere spontaneously, so that we should not greatly miss that Paradise of yours, if we might live here forever. We are subject to disease, but human diligence will find a remedy for this. I have seen plants breathing forth wonderful qualities. What if we should find something to make us immortal? Yet I do not see what the knowledge of such things has to do with this matter. Why should I bother myself about things that do not interest me? However, even in this I will not be inactive, since there is nothing that constant effort will not overcome. So, instead of one garden, we have gained the whole wide world; but you, shut out from both, enjoying neither Paradise nor Heaven nor the earth, stationed forever at these gates, and forever brandishing your sword, what do you fight with other than the wind? Come now, if you are wise, look out for your own interests and ours too. Give us what you are able to bestow without doing any harm, and accept from us what we will make you a share of in return. You are wretched, help us who are also wretched; you are shut out, assist us who are also shut out; you are being even more punished than we, befriend us who are also being punished.'

"The worst of men may win the worst causes, provided that he is the best talker. The few grains stealthily obtained he buried in the earth, and they were returned to him with increase, which increase again committed to the bosom of the earth, and afterwards again and again gave him like increase. And as often as the summer returned he filled this now vast and spacious tract of tillage with this sowing. Now, when the matter had become so evident that it could be no longer concealed from the powers above, God, very much angered, said, 'Inasmuch as I perceive that his labor and sweat assist this thief, so will I mightily increase them unto him.' And at the word he assembles from all parts, and sends upon the crops, a close-packed swarm of ants, weevils, toads, caterpillars, mice, locusts, swine, crows, and other destructive things of this nature, to feed on the crops which were still in the ground, or just sprouting up, or already ripe, or gathered in the granary. There came a great storm of hail from heaven, and a whirlwind so strong that the tops of the dry stalks would have been snapped had they been as sturdy as oaks. The angel at the gates was transformed into a man, because he had yielded to man. When Cain desired to placate God