Mayor of London, having held that office in 1461 and again in 1470. The young Edward was educated at Oxford, where he graduated in 1503. Wishing to continue his studies, and the plague at that time being endemic at Oxford, he went to Cambridge to complete them." He was accounted a man of great learning and talent, which recommended him to the court of Henry VIII, where he acquired the esteem of Sir Thomas More. The king likewise conceived so high an opinion of his political abilities that he sent him on several embassies to the continent. In 1529 he was made Chancellor of Sarum, and in 1531 was incorporated in the degree of D.D. at Oxford, which he had previously taken at Louvain. The same year he was consecrated Archbishop of York, which post he held through varying vicissitudes until his death in 1541. He lived in the stirring times of the Reformation, and, like most of the English bishops under Henry VIII, never felt that his head was secure for a moment. Hunt says that Sir Thomas More was somewhat displeased with him for attacking Erasmus, but that it did not lessen his friendship for Lee. Another writer says that Lee and More had been boyhood friends and that their attachment was very close all their lives.

Lee was much devoted to biblical studies and had written a commentary on the Old Testament, as Erasmus had written one on the New Testament. He was later a patron of scholars; and Ascham, to whom he had given a pension of forty shillings a year (equivalent to twenty times that amount nowadays), asks the assistance of a friend of his own to have this commentary printed, offering to do all the work of editing it, besides writing the preface for this work of his departed benefactor. Jortin, in mentioning this fact, informs us that the "Commentary never came forth"; ungraciously adding that "certainly posterity hath lost nothing by the suppression of it." Several of his works were published, however, especially those against Erasmus, and these still exist to attest to his learning and scholarship. In addition to the esteem in which he was held by the king and More, his talents were equally appreciated at Rome; and ecclesiastical preferment followed closely on his political advancement. Besides More's attachment for him, he was highly regarded by Colet, Warham, Fisher, and Tunstall; and while these continued to be friendly towards Erasmus they shared with Lee, in varying degrees, the same apprehension of harm to come from Erasmus' inopportune animadversions on Church officials and conventions. The Praise of Folly had been condoned for the sake of its author, from whom more worthy things were expected; but now that the New Testament had appeared, and his annotations were found to repeat the sort of thing which had given so much offense in the former work, they were not too well pleased. Luther was just beginning to question and challenge things in Germany; and it was an unpropitious time for Erasmus to advocate changes in the established version of the Scriptures, no matter how well founded they might be. It was a time of "Rev. William Hunt, in the Dictionary of National Biography, gives a very full but succinct account of Lee's birth, education, honors, and achievements, from which we have abstracted much concerning him.

Op. cit., p. 91n.

peril, of crisis in Church affairs, and the moment was ill chosen to weaken the authority of the Vulgate which had served the Church for so many centuries. And ever and always the personality of the man who was advocating these unusual departures was taken into account by those whose suspicions of his sincerity he himself had aroused by his ill-advised Praise of Folly. Such seem to have been the feelings and the attitude of Lee towards Erasmus and his New Testament at this precise moment; and it must have taken considerable moral courage to thus antagonize the friend of his own dearest friends by attacking his book. Erasmus has passed very uncharitable judgment on the motives that actuated Lee in this affair, but a careful and dispassionate survey of the circumstances has led us to the conclusion that Lee was at least sincere and not animated by any unworthy motives.

We must not, however, close our eyes to the fact that the quarrel between these two men was primarily a writers' quarrel; and that, on account of the jealous and sensitive nature of literary men, such differences are apt to deteriorate into bitter hostility. When Erasmus arrived at Louvain on his way to Basle to have the second edition of the New Testament printed, he met Lee whom he had previously known as a friend of More. In the course of conversation it transpired that Lee had been doing work on biblical subjects, some of which touched on the same topics treated by Erasmus in his annotations. But we will give the origin of the quarrel in Erasmus' own words, and so we shall not have to rely on the statements, inferences, or shadings of any of his biographers, all of whom seem to have condemned Lee, but without, as we think, just cause:

It was here [Louvain] that I first met Lee. Which of us first paid his respects to the other I do not remember, nor does it much matter, although he deems it of great importance that I should be credited with going to his house first. And, indeed, at that time my intimacy with the man was not displeasing, as I am very ready in acquiring friendships, too much so in the judgment of many, for at that time I was not unaware that he had spoken of me in anything but a friendly manner even before he had met or seen me. His courteous manners were pleasing, I appreciated the bent of his mind, and his studies met my approbation. At that time he had begun to study Greek, and for a long time we spoke of nothing else. I looked with favor on his efforts, but I would scruple to call myself his tutor. At length our friendship extended to the secrets of our own rooms, and I showed him my labors. For I had almost completed the entire work, except that efforts of this sort are seldom complete, as there always remains something to be done. He often saw all my margins filled in every direction, and with scraps of paper added here and there. For so many months I had done nothing else, for I am a man, as many know, neither fond of sleep nor lazy. At length he intimated that he also had made some annotations. I was glad to hear it, and begged him to let me see them. For believe me, what he insists on in many words, that with 7 "On the New Testament.

unfair entreaties I prevailed on him to leave his own studies and assist me, is far from the truth. Of his own volition he undertook the task, and undertook it for his own benefit. He showed me a few pages, but one by one, and many only half pages; nor were they consecutive, but now one on Matthew and now one on Paul. What his design was is uncertain. While thus comparing notes I felt it somewhat unpleasant to disagree with him on anything. So I made a compact with him, that, as he had the right to freely criticize any point he desired, so in turn it would be permitted to me at times to dissent from him, especially in my own work which was written not for one man alone but for the whole world. Now up to that time the affair had proceeded agreeably. But at length sheets were brought to me in which there were too many needlessly cutting remarks, as it seemed to me. In a few places I added some slight remarks which casually came into my mind. But I never

suspected that these things, thus set down, and which I myself could hardly read, would be made use of in his dialogue.

Erasmus here seems to be acting somewhat disingenuously, and is minimizing as much as possible. It was Lee's direct charge that Erasmus had used his ideas and given him no credit for them. Here Erasmus admits that after reading Lee's papers he made some changes in his own, which is exactly what Lee claimed. But Erasmus seeks to modify the importance of what he got by stating he could hardly read the things. Yet he would hardly have appropriated them for his work had he scarcely been able to read them.

Finally, when it appeared that he was becoming unnecessarily angry, I wrote this, "Remember that you are assisting a man with advice, but you yourself are only a man." How he took this I know not, but from that day he ceased to send me any more notes, and even refrained from calling on me.

Such a course of conduct on the part of Lee seems childish beyond belief, and is not consonant with his character as others have depicted it. In seeking to justify himself Erasmus seems to have attributed to Lee a sort of puerility which we cannot bring ourselves to credit.

His face seemed changed to me. I began to suspect that some evil tongue had come between us, which is a pest that often destroys good friendships. After a few days I met him by chance in St. Peter's Church and asked him why he had changed so. He said that that was no fit place for explanations; for he was engaged, as I imagine, in saying his office for Vespers. I departed and proceeded to do what I had come for. A little while after Easter, we were both dining with Adrian the Hebrew. Lee's face was not very cordial, but that was no place for discussions. Suspecting nothing worse than what had happened, I start off for Basle in order to reissue my New Testament, carrying away with me none of Lee's annotations except one little sheet, on which I had caused to

be copied the annotation which he had made on the genealogy of Christ according to Luke, a thing which was somewhat long, and which I had not the leisure to read up at that time in Annius, Philo, Ambrose, and Jerome. And even this was of no use to me, although I wish it had been, for the reason that it had become hidden among the sheets and was never found until everything was printed and I was planning my return."

And thus the Apology goes on through thirty solid pages, wherein he denies that he got any help from Lee, and then, consistently inconsistent, admits that he had carried off one sheet, but says that it was unimportant, and immediately unsays this by stating that he did not have time to read up in Annius and others on what this sheet contained. He proceeds to say that when he got back to Louvain he heard a report that Lee had attacked innumerable passages in his annotations. When Erasmus asked him why from a friend he had become an enemy, he gave these three reasons: first, that somebody in England had written to Erasmus and told him to beware of a certain theologian, and that Lee felt that he was the person meant. Secondly, that Erasmus had challenged him to a show of dialetics and that he had spoken disparagingly of his ability, which wound was still smarting. Thirdly, that Erasmus had despised his criticisms, calling them scribblings and trifles. Erasmus denies the first charge, partly admits the second, and explains away the third. Next he heard that Lee had incorporated all his criticisms of Erasmus' annotations into a book, which he was circulating from hand to hand, and that he was going to print it and show by it where Erasmus in six hundred passages of his annotations had made palpable errors. This thoroughly alarmed Erasmus. He asked Lee to let him see this manuscript book, which request Lee promptly refused. Lee made several attempts to have his work printed, but claimed that Erasmus suborned each printer to whom he applied not to touch the book. Erasmus denied this, but admitted that, when he heard that Lee was negotiating with printers in Antwerp, Cologne, Bonn, and eventually in Paris, he got into communication with each of these printers in order to secure in this way an early copy for his own perusal. After a delay of a year it was eventually printed at Paris; but whether Erasmus was responsible for this delay by influencing the German printers let each reader judge for himself.

Although it was a writers' quarrel, we must not assume that pure petulance moved either of them. It was now 1519, and the feelings of men were somewhat acidified by the happenings in Germany, where the learned were divided into two camps, one frankly Lutheran, and the other and larger camp frankly anti-Lutheran. The utterances of public men were being scrutinized for indications of their leanings in matters theological; and so it is not strange that Lee charged Erasmus specific

8

Apologia Erasmi Roterodami, nihil habens, neque nasi, neque dentis, neque stomachi, neque unguium, qua respondet duabus inuectiuis Eduardi Lei, nihil addo qualibus, ipse iudicato, lector. Antwerp, 1520. This, having been suppressed by Erasmus, however, is rare. See in Jortin, Erasmus, Vol. III, Appendix LI, pp. 186 sqq., where it is quoted.

ally with omitting the passage in St. John's Epistle, v, 7, about the "Three who give testimony in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost," thus giving comfort to Arianism. But it is not only the errors of Erasmus that stirred Lee to action, but the dread he felt that, by thus dissecting the wording of the sacred volume and showing wherein it differs from Greek originals which may or may not be correct, the whole sacred writings might come into doubt and contempt with the unlearned and the unthinking. This may or may not have been a wellfounded fear on the part of Lee but, so far as Erasmus was concerned, it was a pure question of scholarship, let come what might as a result. It is a knotty question, which we will not attempt to discuss here.

In replying to Lee, Erasmus at first made use of the delicate shafts of his cutting wit. He asks him why this sudden turning of a friend into an enemy; why this writing behind his back; why this criticizing of the first edition of the New Testament when he knew that he (Erasmus) was getting out a second; why Lee had scattered copies of his manuscript throughout every monastery, especially when he knew that there was very little love for Erasmus in those places; why he asserted that there were six hundred passages in annotations which were blameworthy, yet had never drawn their author's attention to one. Then he resorts to satire:

If you had straightway published your manuscript, everyone would have admired the felicity of your mighty genius which enabled you in a few short months to devour so much Greek and Hebrew, that, in your opinion, Erasmus knows nothing of Greek, or Jerome of Hebrew." Nay, they say that, three days after you had begun to study Hebrew, you found many things to condemn in Reuchlin, and not a few in Capito.10 It may be that the Supreme Pontiff, admiring this almost divine genius of yours, will hand over to you the rod, and entrust to you the censorship of the entire world; and no longer shall any book be either published or read unless it shall have merited the approval of Lee, the Aristarchus, forsooth, of all literary matters. There are many who are now saying that you are keeping your renowned criticisms under cover with this design, that, when I am satisfactorily disposed of, then at length you will publish them and be sole victor; that is, you will win an inglorious victory when there is no one to fight against you.11

Though this is the most delightful satire, it is not argument, and Lee is entitled to hold his ground. Soon Erasmus changes his tactics, and essays to menace Lee with the anger of the German scholars. He intimates that he would not wish for worlds that anything bad should happen to Lee on account of having unfavorably criticized the New Testament, but feels it to be his duty to warn him:

• To do Lee justice, he nowhere said so.

1o Erasmus is here working the on dit to extremes, for there is no evidence that Lee ever said a word about Reuchlin or Capito in their disfavor.

11 Eras. Ep. 998, 11. 27 sqq.