Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/386

Vives by the degree of D.C.L., and had also been made a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Richard Fox's recently founded ‘College of Bees’ (Collegium Apum), as Erasmus styles it when writing to Vives there. The statements of Harpsfield and others respecting his residence at Corpus Christi and his lectureship there are vague and inaccurate, but Dr. Fowler (Hist. of Corpus Christi College, p. 370, see also pp. 85, 87–9) is of opinion that there is no doubt that, ‘in some capacity or other, Vives lectured at Corpus and was at some time an inmate of the college.’ On 10 Oct. 1523 he presented his supplicat for incorporation (, Alumni Oxon. ad nom.). His sojourn in this country was however twice, at least, broken by a visit to Flanders. On 16 June 1524 we find him writing to Erasmus from Bruges, and explaining that he had temporarily left England in order to get married. His marriage took place on 26 May 1524 to a lady who belonged to a family to which he was already related, Margaret Valdaura, daughter of a Spanish merchant resident in Bruges. The marriage was a happy one, and of the lady herself he speaks in terms of highest praise for her many virtues. On this occasion he published one of his best known works, the ‘Introductio ad Sapientiam.’ His second visit was in 1527, when the divorce of his royal mistress was impending. Henry consented to his leaving England only on condition that he returned ‘after the hunting season,’ which Vives explains to have meant Michaelmas (, Letters of Royal Ladies, ii. 202). He warmly sympathised with Catherine in the unjust treatment under which she laboured, and not only wrote in her defence, but was one of the three counsellors of foreign extraction whom Henry permitted her to consult (, Reign of Henry VIII, ii. 303). He eventually paid the penalty of his boldness by a six weeks' imprisonment, and on his release was forbidden to appear again at court (, Vita, p. 99). On his liberation he declined the perilous honour of appearing as one of Catherine's defenders in the court of the Roman legate, and the queen, highly displeased, withdrew his pension. He retired to Bruges, where his wife appears to have been resident, and there resumed his occupation as a teacher and the studies in which he especially delighted. For the next three years (1528 to 1531) his means were extremely narrow, and he suffered severely from the gout. It was, however, the period in which his best literary work was given to the world. In 1529 he dedicated to Charles V his ‘De Concordia et Discordia in Humano Genere,’ a work breathing the spirit of a highly enlightened philanthropy, forgetful of its own misfortunes and neglect. This was followed in 1531 by the three treatises on which the reputation of Vives as a thinker and philosopher mainly rests, and which, in the opinion of Dr. Hermann Schiller (Lehrbuch d. Gesch. d. Pädagogik, p. 116), transmitted to succeeding generations more novel and original views on the subject of education than did all the scholars and humanists who represented the same movement among protestants. These are the ‘De Corruptis Artibus,’ the ‘De Tradendis Disciplinis,’ and the ‘De Artibus.’ The complete work was dedicated to King John III of Portugal, who acknowledged the compliment with a munificence as princely as it was timely.

In 1536 we find Vives again in Paris, whither he had gone in response to an invitation to deliver a course of lectures before the university. In the following year he was at Breda in the train of the Princess Mencia de Mendoza, and here he composed a commentary on the ‘Bucolics’ of Virgil. His last days, passed at Bruges, were devoted to the composition of his treatise ‘De Veritate Fidei Christianæ.’ He had scarcely completed it when he was carried off by fever (6 May 1540) at the age of forty-eight. He was buried in the church of St. Donatian, the patron saint of Bruges, and twelve years later his widow was laid by his side. A monument to the pair was erected by her surviving sister Maria and her husband.

Vives was the author of a number of works on devotional subjects, theology, grammar, philology, rhetoric, philosophy, law, politics, and history. A full classified list is given in Majan's edition, which is the best. It was published, with an elaborate life of the author, at Valence, 1782–90, in 8 vols. 4to, and is entitled ‘Johannis Ludovici Valentini Opera Omnia, distributa et ordinata in Argumentorum Classes præcipuas a Gregorio Majansio, Gener. Valent.’ In his critical labours the editor is largely indebted to the earlier edition by Nicholas Episcopius, in 2 vols. fol. Basel, 1555. The later edition is, however, far from complete, and does not contain the commentary on the ‘De Civitate Dei,’ of which the best edition was printed in two vols. Frankfort, 1661. For an account of the bibliography of Vives's writings the ‘Mémoire sur la vie et les écrits de Jean-Louis Vives’ by A. J. Namèche, in vol. xv. of ‘Mémoires couronnés par l'Académie royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Bruxelles,’ 1841, may be consulted.

Vives's works have been translated from