Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/17

 1920 ERASMUS 9 spondents appear three : Cornelius Gerard, Cornelius Aurelius, and Cornelius Lopsen.^ The insight of Mr. Allen has succeeded in identifying all these as the same friend under different names, for ' Aurelius ' was the equivalent of ' van Gouda ', although he had previously been held to be distinct from the two others. Cornelius had urged Erasmus to read the Fathers, and above all the Epistles of St. Jerome. In reply Erasmus says he has read and even copied them out carefully, and this is one indication among many of his early bent towards such studies.^ In the Epistle to Grunnius we have the pathetic story of Erasmus and his youthful friend sitting up late in their little cells by dim candle-light and studying together classics and the works of their beloved Fathers. The next years 1500-3 are spent at Paris and in short visits which had little permanent effect upon his life. In 1503-4 he is for the first time at Louvain, where he had many friends, Dorpius and others, and where the university afterwards became the stronghold of conservatism. In 1506 he was once more in England and on this visit added Tunstall and Warham to his friends and patrons, while he also paid a short visit to Cambridge. England he left for Italy. It was naturally the Renaissance side of Roman life which most impressed him, and we may consider that his reputation was now nearing the height at which it stood so long. To visit Italy was the dream of every scholar, especially of those who, as Beatus Rhenanus assures us Erasmus was, were mainly self-taught.^ And Erasmus himself tells us that his mind was in Italy, which he visited chiefly to improve his Greek. But Italian wars, the prevalent plague, and varied misfortunes spoilt his visit ; moreover, the charge of the pupils was a hindrance to his freedom. From the common life of the country he stood apart ; Italian he spoke even less than German : ^ of both lan- guages he knew a few words, just enough for the ordinary purposes of travel, but, for instance when he met the elector of Saxony, Spalatin had to interpret for him. And at Rome it was the com- pany of the learned, especially of Tommaso Inghirami, a librarian of the Vatican, in which he most delighted.^ Significantly enough, ' See Allen, i. 92, and app. iv ; also Nichols, i. 56-8. "" See Allen, i. 103, and Nichols, i. 75. ' Beatus Rhenanus says in his life of Erasmus that save for the rudiments, he had been self-taught. For Beatus see Allen, Age oj Erasmus, 154 f. For the Italian visit I am indebted chiefly to Nolhac's admirable book, Erasme en Italic, and to the notes in Allen's Epistolae Erasmi. At Bologna, in the house of Paolo Bombasio, Erasmus studied Greek for himself with the help of his friends. On Bombasio see Nichols, i. 427, and Drummond, i. 169. native tongue: so he says in a letter to Lang; see Nichols, i. 153, and Allen, i. 216. He only wrote in bad French : see Nichols, i. 236, and Allen, i. 287. where there was a great dearth of sacred books.
 * He says, 'Italice non intelligo' (in 1535). He could not write easily in his
 * Erasmus speaks of the libraries at Rome in a letter to Campeggio in 1520. Else-