culture, and the kindness of the Italians, that he had quite made up his mind to settle at Rome, and would have done so had he not been irresistibly drawn back to England by the most splendid promises. Of these promises, however, there is very little trace except in his own letters. Mountjoy, writing to him from Greenwich on the 27th of May, does, indeed, assure him that he will be welcomed at the English court by the new king, who had already given proof of his fondness for literature, and speaks in general terms of the favor and the riches he may expect. He also speaks in glowing terms of the bounty of Henry's nature, contrasting so favorably with the niggardliness of his father's reign. But the only definite promise he makes is in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, he says, will give him a benefice if he returns. Besides, this letter is not an invitation to Erasmus, but a reply to two letters of his which have unfortunately been lost, but in which, it is clear from Mountjoy's answer, he had complained that the climate of Italy did not agree with his health, as well as of other misfortunes, the nature of which can only be conjectured.1

18

The truth seems to be that, finding that he was hopelessly disbarred by his birth from all hopes of promotion in Italy, and hearing that the Prince of Wales, in whose good graces he already stood high, had succeeded to the English throne as Henry VIII, he began of his own accord to turn his thoughts once more towards his friends in London, and wanted only a very little encouragement to return to them.

So we feel the real reason for his abandoning Rome, which seems to have escaped Drummond's observing mind, was, as we have just stated, his ineligibility to hold any office within the gift of the Roman Curia on account of his birth.

A second reason which may have actuated him was that the sort of book which he had in mind to write next was little calculated to delight the souls of the Roman Court as at that time constituted. refer to his celebrated work entitled The Praise of Folly.

We

In all other respects his Italian visit had been a pleasant experience; for besides having made a host of friends, he had met the most brilliant scholars of that country and had had the opportunity of measuring himself with them, a circumstance which gave him a supreme confidence in his own abilities. It taught him that in pure scholarship there were many who were his equals, and, possibly, here and there one who surpassed him in some special line of attainment, so that he must never rest on his laurels if he wished to reach a position in the learned world where he would have few peers and no superiors.

Like all travelers, he chose a different way back from Italy so that he might pass through varied scenes; and for this purpose he selected the route by Como, over the Splügen Pass into Chur, thence by Lake Constance to Strassburg. Later on he had many friends and learned associates in this city, but we see no trace in his letters that he made any stay here, for he seems to have hastened on down the Rhine to his 18 Erasmus, Vol. I, p. 180.

own country, Holland. Rhenanus tells us that, after a short visit to friends at Louvain and Antwerp, he presently set out for England.

It is here to be remarked that his letters show no trace of his having made any visit to Steyn, although he was only a day's ride from his old monastery when he arrived at Antwerp. This is the more noticeable because we remember that he had promised Prior Servatius, when informing him of his arrival in Italy, that he would call to see him the following summer. But three summers had elapsed, and now he was within a few miles of his former brethren, but decided to pass on without calling on them. It is doubtful that the Prior could have detained him against his will had he been so minded, but evidently Erasmus had resolved to take no chances. We cannot surmise what feeling actuated him to do this. It might have been fear; it might have been contempt. He had made powerful friends in Rome, and this fact may have given him the assurance of being able to extricate himself from trouble, should any arise from this action of his. Besides, the visit would naturally be very distasteful to him; and, like all men of little moral bravery, he hated scenes and avoided them consistently all his life.

So, after staying with his acquaintances at Louvain, and Antwerp, he set sail for England and arrived there in the late summer of 1509. For almost two years after this we have not a single letter by which to trace his movements; but it was during this stay that he composed his second famous work and thereby put himself before the public eye in a most astounding manner. This work was The Praise of Folly, and we shall be compelled to devote considerable time to an analysis of the book, premising at once that it fully merits our deepest attention. Under the guise of an allegory, Erasmus has put more of himself into this work than into any other which he wrote, with the possible exception of the Colloquies. It will be our task to deduce from it what is Erasmus, and what is the subject matter proper.

CHAPTER XXI

THIRD VISIT TO ENGLAND: THE "MORIAE ENCOMIVM"

Erasmus gives a history of the origin of the Praise of Folly which we may accept or not, just as its reasonableness or improbability strikes us. At the very outset we are met by the difficulty of stating the exact time of its appearance. The first edition was printed at Paris by Gilles Gourmont, and bore no date. The next edition was issued by Matthew Schürer at Strassburg in August, 1511. Another edition appeared from the press of Thierry Martens at Antwerp, in January, 1512, and still another by Badius at Paris dated July 27, 1512. After this, many editions were published, until in 1522 Froben of Basle issued one with the preface dated 1508. Now this is an impossible date, for according to Erasmus' own testimony the book was not in existence until he returned from Italy in 1509. On the other hand, when Froben brought out the 1522 edition, Erasmus was living with him and superintending the printing of his own works. Hence this date must have been supplied by him. Like many other obscure things which we have had occasion to notice heretofore, his reason for putting a wrong date is not just clear to us, but we must not on that account imagine that he did not have a reason, and probably a very strong one. Surmises are idle, and yet it may not be entirely profitless to consider the matter a little. We must remember that he had just passed through Strassburg on his way from Italy to England, and Strassburg was the home of Sebastian Brant, the author of the famous satire, The Ship of Fools. Here is a peculiar coincidence, since Brant was the originator of this style of satire and had issued his famous book only fifteen years previously. Here, too, lived Matthew Schürer, who issued the second edition of The Praise of Folly almost immediately after the Paris edition, the latter being so faulty in its execution that Erasmus complained of it. Did he meet Brant or Schürer during his passage through Strassburg? Brant's work had attracted the attention of the world by its keen but always good-natured satire. By way of allegory he had loaded a ship with fools and had sent them off to a fools' paradise called Narragonia. This gives him the opportunity to castigate vigorously the vices and weaknesses of the times, and those high up in Church and State came in for their full share of the castigation. But, as we have said, he was always good-natured about it, and there was nothing personal or vitriolic in the work. In fact, he classed himself among the fools, in which particular he differed from Erasmus. He was essentially Catholic and conservative in religious matters and sought to improve rather than destroy what he censured.

His

work, which he had written in German, was three years afterwards. translated into Latin by James Locher; and if Erasmus had read it at all it was in this Latin translation. When he reached London in 1509, he found that literary circles there had just been presented with another Ship of Fools from the press of Wynkyn de Worde. This was part translation and part imitation of Brant's work, and had been written by Alexander Barclay, a Catholic priest and, afterwards, a Benedictine monk. Whether or Whether or not Erasmus had been previously acquainted with Brant's work, certainly he found it the subject of discussion in the social and religious circles wherein he was now moving. Had he already written his Praise of Folly, or was Barclay's work the spur that set him at it? If he had already written it en route, he must have found on his arrival in London that Barclay had in a measure anticipated him. If he had it already finished on his arrival, he must have found the moment inauspicious for its publication, and so have awaited a more opportune time. This is our conjecture in the matter, and we fully coincide with Allen that the work was not published until 1511, when he went over to Paris to see it through the press. To show how popular this style of writing was becoming, we may state in passing that Brant's work was again translated into English in 1517 by Henry Watson, under the title of The Great Ship of Fools of the World, and even in 1510 Wynkyn de Worde had issued Cock Lovell's Boat on similar lines. We must not forget also that Erasmus' friend and former publisher, Badius Ascensius, had written a Latin paraphrase of it in 1507, so that he had many opportunities to become acquainted with Brant's work. Now let us hear Erasmus' account of the origin of his own work. In his preface to the book, which he dedicated to Thomas More, he relates that while riding day by day during his return from Italy to England, and reflecting the while on the good English friends whom he was so soon to meet, he deemed it wise, in order to beguile the tedium of the way, to write something for their delectation when he should at length see them. In thinking of More his mind was struck with the coincidence that his friend's name bore a close resemblance to the Greek word for folly, that is, uopia; and as folly was to be the subject of his book, he could not resist calling it the Moriae encomium, since it was to be dedicated to More. Forestalling any possible objection on the part of More, he thus ingeniously puts the matter: "But you will exclaim, 'What the mischief put that idea into your head?' Well, you see, your surname of More so nearly approaches the word moria, that it reminded me how far removed you are from anything like folly." After further elucidating this fanciful idea, he goes on to say that he knows More will like the sort of joking which he will find in the book, because he is generally fond of a joke, and consequently will, like another Democritus, enjoy a laugh at the follies of men. And then he makes a direct bid for the assistance of More in warding off the attacks which he shrewdly foresees the work will bring down upon his head.

Accept [he says], this little souvenir of your friend, which,

having been dedicated to you, is no longer mine but yours. For perchance there will be fault-finders who will misrepresent the things I have written, some saying that they are trifles quite unbecoming to a theologian, others alleging that they are too harsh to be quite consonant with Christian moderation, and will keep crying out that I am bringing back the old comedy or another Lucian with his satire, and that I am using my teeth on everything.

Then he goes on to adduce the examples of Homer and Vergil and Ovid as his sufficient justification, not forgetting others who have used similar methods, as, for instance, Isocrates, Lucian, Seneca, and even St. Jerome. He goes on to justify himself as follows:

Replying now to the charge of harshness, let me say that permission was always granted to men of genius to make sport of the common lot of men with impunity, and in a witty way, provided that license did not end in venom.' He who criticizes men's lives, so that no name is mentioned, seems rather to advise and admonish than to hurt, does he not? . . . Besides, he who spares no class of men would seem to be angry, not with any one man, but with every kind of vice. So if any man comes forward and declares himself injured, he will disclose either guilt or fear. . . . Moreover, in addition to refraining from the use of names, I have so tempered my pen that the judicious reader will easily perceive that I have sought to give pleasure rather than pain. . . . But why do I say these things to a patron so matchless as yourself, who are able to make even commonplace causes seem the very best possible. Farewell, most accomplished More, and defend your Moria diligently.' And so he very airily passes any possible onus which might spring from the book, on to More's good-natured shoulders. Even in the moment of issuing the work he already felt an inner voice telling him that all was not well in the matter, and that he should perpend. He knew that he was doing what he had frequently done and was often to do again in the future, viz., make his attack and then run away to avoid a reprisal. Nichols says:

The Moria was placed in the charge of Richard Croke, in order that it might pass behind the author's back into the hands of some publisher to whom Erasmus was unknown. It appears to have been in fact printed by an obscure printer named Gilles Gourmont, in a small volume on old-fashioned black letter type, without date or name of author. Erasmus seems to have wished, if he could not disclaim the authorship, at any rate to be able to disown the publication.

1 "Modo ne licentia exiret in rabiem." (Eras. Ep. 222, 1. 57.)

2 Ibid., passim.

3

Epistles of Erasmus, Vol. II, p. 15. It is evident that Nichols never saw a copy of this first edition of the Moria, or he would not have stated that it was published anonymously. I have seen two copies of this first edition, the one in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and one in the hands of Olschki the bookseller in Florence, and both have Erasmus' name on title.