Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/299

 THE FUNERAL., 295 were but 7,000, and a great many of those he never paid neither. Ma. A very compendious way of accounting ! Ph. Then he would lengthen out the war, and raise contributions monthly, both from friends and foes ; from his enemies that they might not be plundered, and from his friends that they might have commerce with the enemy. Ha. I know the common way of soldiers ; but make an end of your story. Ph. Bernardine and Vincent staid with the sick man, and the rest had their provisions sent them. Ma. Well, and did they agree among themselves that staid upon duty 1 Ph. Not very well ; they continually grumbled something about the prerogative of their bulls ; but th'ey were fain to dissemble the matter, that they might go the better on with their work. Now the will is produced, and covenants entered into before witnesses, according to. what they had agreed upon, b.etween, themselves. Ma. I long to hear what that was. Ph. I will tell you in brief, for the whole would be a long history. He leaves a widow of thirty-eight years of age, a discreet, virtuous woman ; and two sons, the one of nineteen, and the other fifteen years of age ; and two daughters, both under age. He provided by this testament, that his wife, seeing she would not be prevailed " upon to confine hex-self to a cloi&ter, should put on the habit of a Beguin, which is a middle order between a laic and a religious ; and the eldest son, because he could not be prevailed upon to turn monk Ma. There is no catching old birds with chaff. Ph. That as soon as his father's funeral was over, he should ride post to Rome, and there being made a priest before his time, by the pope's dispensation, he should say mass once a day, for one whole year, in the Lateran Church, for his father's soul, and creep up the holy steps there upon his knees every Friday. Ma. And did he take this task upon himself willingly 1 Ph.. To deal ingenuously with you, as willingly as an ass takes his burden. His younger son was dedicated to St. Francis, his eldest daughter to St. Clare, and the younger to Catherine Senensis. This was all that could be obtained ; for it was George's purpose that he might lay the greater obligation upon God, to dispose of the five survivors into the five orders of the mendicants ; and it was very hard pressed too. But his wife and his eldest son could not be wrought upon by any terms, either fair or foul. Ma. Why, this is a kind of disinheriting. Ph. The whole estate was so divided, that the funeral charges being first taken out, one twelfth-part of it was to go to his wife ; one half of that for her maintenance, and the other half to the stock of the place where she should dispose of herself, upon condition that, if she should alter her mind, the whole should go to that order. Another twelfth was to go to the eldest son, who was to have so much money paid him down upon the nail as would bear the charges of his journey, purchase him a dispensation, and maintain him at Rome ; provided always, that if he should at any time change his mind, and refuse to be initiated into holy orders, his portion should be divided between the Franciscans and Dominicans ; and I fear that will be the end of it, for he had a strange aversion to that course of life. Two twelfth-parts were to go to the monastery that should receive his younger son, and two more to those that should entertain his daughters ; but upon this con- dition, that if they should refuse to profess themselves, the money