Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/533

Rh 513 delivered a Latin oration on the occasion of the reception of the archduke Philip at Brussels in 1504, for which he got a handsome fee. In April 1506 we find him again in England, first in London, and becoming acquainted with More and Warham, then at Cambridge, performing the exercises for the divinity degree, and commencing B.D. &quot;The Athenae Cantabrigienses &quot; of Cooper make him take the degree of D.D. at the university, but this is an error. His stay in England was not long, as he found opportunity to carry out a long cherished project of a journey to Italy. Want of funds had hitherto been the obstacle ; &quot; I have a longing to visit Italy,&quot; he wrote in 1498, &quot; but it is not easy to fly without wings.&quot; He was engaged to escort the two sons of Baptista Boyer, physician to Henry VTL, as far as Bologna. In September 1506 he was at Turin, and took the degree of D.D. in that university. He passed the winter of 1506-7 at Bologna, where he was witness of the triumphal entry of Julius II., and where he made acquaintance with Paulus Bombasius and Scipio Carteromachus (Forteguerra). Here he obtained a papal dispensation permitting him to lay aside the dress of his order, though the story of his being mistaken for a plague-doctor in consequence of wearing it is justly dismissed by Drummond as a pleasant fiction. He visited Venice, where he stayed some time, for the purpose of passing through the press of Aldus a second and greatly enlarged edition of his Adagia. Here he was domesti cated in the house of Asulanus, and made the acquaintance of the circle of learned men who were clustered round the Aldine press, Marcus Musurus, Aleander, Baptista Egnatius, &c. In 1508 he removed to Padua, where he spent the winter as tutor to Alexander Stewart, natural son of James IV., king of Scotland. Father and son fell together, not long after, at Flodden. In the early spring of 1509 the tutor and pupil removed to Siena, and from Siena Erasmus ventonto Rome. As his reputation had gone before him, he was received wherever he came with marks of distinc tion. But he learnt nothing from intercourse with the Italian literati ; the Renaissance had already spent itself, find Erasmus complains &quot; In Italia frigent stadia, fervent bella.&quot; He had various offers of preferment, but a letter from Lord Mountjoy announcing the death of the king of England, April 1509, and magnifying the favourable disposition of the young sovereign Henry VIII. towards Erasmus, and towards learning in general, determined his return to this country. From London, where he was the guest of Thomas More, and where he wrote his Encomium Morice, he moved to Cambridge, whither he was invited by John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and lodged in Queen s College, of which Fisher was president. By Fisher s interest, he was appointed Lady Margaret s professor of divinity, and afterwards regius reader of Greek. From his mention of the grammars of Chrysoloras and of Gaza as the text books on which he lectured, it may be inferred that the study of Greek was still in its infancy in that university. Gibbon s sarcasm that &quot; Eras mus learned Greek at Oxford and taught it at Cambridge &quot; (Hist., ch. 66) has just this foundation. The stipends of these chairs were small, and Erasmus refused to take fees from students mostly very poor. He lived upon presents from wealthy ecclesiastics. Archbishop Warham was his principal patron. Erasmus says, &quot; He has given me a living worth a hundred nobles, and changed it at my request for a pension of one hundred crowns. Within these few years he has given me more than four hundred nobles without my asking ; one day he gave me one hundred and fifty. From other bishops I have received more than one hundred. Lord Mountjoy has appointed me a pension of one hundred crowns.&quot; He got fifteen angels from Colet for a dedication. He says, in the Compendium Vitce, that if the promises made to him had been performed he would have passed the rest of his days in England. But in this he perhaps deceived himself. At this period of his life, and till he was turned fifty, the agitation of locomotion, new places, and fresh faces were a necessity to him. An over-excited nervous sensibility was at the bottom of this feverish restlessness. In the autumn of 1513 he bade farewell to England, visited Lord Mountjoy at the Castle of Ham in Picardy, of which he was governor, and passed by the Rhine to Strasburg. Here he made the aquaintance of Wimpheling, Sebastian Brant, and the young Johann Sturm. He employed his time on board the tow-boat by which he leisurely ascended the river in correcting his &quot; Commentarii de duplici copia,&quot; &c., for a new edition. To Basel, which was to be the home of his old age, he was attracted by the reputation of its press. But he met with such a hearty welcome from Froben and Amerbach, and found so agreeable a circle of men of learning, that he passed the whole winter 1514-15 here. The bishop of Basel, Christoph von Uten- heim, was so much pleased with him that he sought to domesticate him in his house; he made the acquaintance of Zwingli and of Hans Holbein, and drew round him a circle of young students full of ardour for learning, and consequently of admiration for Erasmus, Glareanus, (Ecolampadius, Beer, Myconius, Sapidus, and, above all, Beatus Rhenanus, who became his attached disciple and biographer. Though from this time forward Basel became the centre of occupation and interest for Erasmus, yet for the next seven years he was in constant movement, from Basel to Flanders, thence to England in 1517, and back again to Basel. Offers of church preferment in various countries continued to be made to him. But his circumstances had improved so much, by pensions, the presents which were showered upon him, and the sale of his books, that he was now in a position to refuse all proposals which would have interfered with his cherished independence. Aware how necessary it was, if he would maintain his literary supremacy, to keep on good terms with the powerful in church and state, and therefore cautious not to give offence in word or act, he was yet most anxious to avoid dependence on any individual. It suited him to be always competed for, and never to sell himself. The general ardour for the restoration of the arts and of learning created an aristocratic public, of which Erasmus was supreme pontiff. Luther spoke to the people and the ignorant ; Erasmus had the ear of the educated class. His friends and admirers were distributed over all the coun tries of Europe, and presents were continually arriving from small as well as great, from a donation of 200 florins, made by Pope Clement VII., down to sweetmeats and comfits contributed by the nuns of Cologne (Ep. 666). From England, in particular, he continued to receive sup plies of money. In the last year of his life, Cromwell sent him 20 angels, and Archbishop Crammer 18. Though Erasmus led a very hard-working and far from luxurious life, and had no extragavant habits, yet he could not live upon little. The excessive delicacy of his constitution exacted some unusual indulgences. He could not bear the iron stoves of Germany, and required an open fire place, or a porcelain stove, in the room in which he worked. He was afflicted with the stone, and obliged to be particular as to the wine he drank. The white wines of Baden or the Rhine did not suit him ; he could only drink those of Burgundy or Franche-Comte. No more acceptable pre sent could be offered him than a cask of the light-red wine of the Jura. He could neither eat nor bear the smell of fish. &quot; His heart,&quot; he said, &quot; was Catholic, but his stomach vni. 65