Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/260

256 FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES. determined to take passage with them. Me. Are the skippers of that country any better than others? Og. I confess, as an ape will always be an ape, so a skipper will always be a skipper; but if you compare them to those that live upon the catch, they are angels. Me. I shall remember it, if I ever have a mind to visit that island. But go on again, I have led you out of the way.

Og. In our journey to London, not far] from Canterbury there is a narrow, hollow, steep way, and a cragged, steep bank on either side, so that you cannot escape it, for there is no other way to go. Upon the left hand of that way there is a little cottage of old mendicants. As soon as they espy a man on horseback coming, one of them runs out and sprinkles him with holy water, and then offers him the upper leather of a shoe, with a brass ring to it, in which is a glass, as if it were some gem. Having kissed it, you give a small piece of money. Me. In such a way I had rather meet with a cottage of old mendicants than a gang of lusty footpads,

Og. Gratian rode on my left hand, next to this cottage; he was sprinkled with holy water, and took it pretty well; but upon presenting the shoe he asked what was meant by that? This, says the poor man, was St. Thomas’s shoe. Gratian fell into a passion, and turning to me said, What would these brutes have? "Will they make us kiss the shoes of all that have been good men? Why do they not as well give us their spittle and the other excrements of their bodies to kiss? I pitied the poor old man, and comforted him, being sorrowful, by giving him a little money. Me. In my opinion Gratian was not angry altogether without a cause. If these shoes and slippers were preserved as an argument of moderation in living I should not dislike it, but I think it a piece of impudence to thrust slippers, and shoes, and stockings upon any one to be kissed. If any one shall do it of their own free choice, from a great affection to piety, I think they deserve to be left to their own liberty.

Og. Not to dissemble, I think those things had better be let alone; but in those matters that cannot be mended on a sudden, it is my way to make the best of them. In the meantime my mind was delighted with this contemplation, that a good man was like a sheep and a wicked man like a hurtful beast. A viper, indeed, cannot bite when it is dead, yet it is infectious by its stink and corruption. A sheep, while it lives, nourishes us with its milk, clothes us with its wool, and enriches us by its increase; when it is dead it supplies us with leather, and is every part of it fit to be eaten. In like manner, men that are furious and devoted to this world while they live are troublesome to all persons, and when they are dead are a disturbance to those that are alive, with the noise of the bells and a pompous funeral, and sometimes to their successors at their entering upon their possessions, by causing new exactions. But good men make themselves profitable in all respects to the whole world, As this saint, while he was alive, by his example, his doctrine, and admonitions invited to piety, comforted the friendless, succoured the needy, so now he is dead he is in some sort more useful. He built this magnificent church, and advanced the authority of the priesthood all over England; and now, after all, this fragment of his shoe maintains a conventicle of poor men.

Me. That, indeed, is a very pious contemplation; but I wonder,