II. ERASMUS AGAIN LEAVES ENGLAND FOR ITALY (1506). Erasmus seems to have spent some months during the spring of 1506 with his English friends, busying himself, as already mentioned, in translating in More's company portions of Lucian's works, and, so far as his letters show at first sight, not very eagerly pursuing those sacred studies at which he had told Colet that he longed to labour. CHAP. V. A.D. 1506. longs to visit Italy, but wants Nor was there really anything inconsistent in this. The truth was that, in order to complete his knowledge of Greek, without which he had declared he could do nothing thoroughly, he had yet to undertake that jour- Erasmus ney to Italy which had been the dream of his early manhood, and the realisation of which six years ago had only been prevented by his unlucky accident at Dover. This journey to Italy lay between him and the great work of his life, and still the adage of Plautus. remained inexorable, 'Sine pennis volare haud facile 'est.' It was therefore that he was translating Lucian. It was therefore that he dedicated one dialogue to one friend, another to another. It was therefore that he paid court to this patron of learning and that. It was not that he was importunate and servilely fond of begging, but that, by hook or by crook, the necessary means must be found to carry out his project. It was thus that we find Grocyn rowing with him to 1 Lucian's dialogue called Som- | Winchester (Ibid. p. 214); Timon nium he sent to Dr. Christopher to Dr. Ruthall, afterwards Bishop of Urswick, a well-known statesman Durham (Ibid. p. 255); De Tyran(Eras. Op. i. p. 243); Toxaris, sive nicida, to Dr. Whitford, chaplain de Amicitia, to Fox, Bishop of to Fox (Ibid. p. 267). funds. V CHAP. V. Lambeth to introduce him to Archbishop Warham, and A.D. 1506. the two joking together as they rowed back to town, upon the small pecuniary result of their visit.1 Funds, it appeared, did not come in as quickly as might have been wished, but at length the matter was arranged. Erasmus was to proceed to Italy, taking under his wing two English youths, sons of Dr. Baptista, chief physician to Henry VII. A young Scotch nobleman, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, was also to be placed under the scholar's care. By this arrangement Erasmus was, as it were, to work his passage; which he thankfully agreed to do, and set out accordingly. With what feelings he left England, and with what longings leaves for to return, may be best gathered from the few lines he Italy, with wrote to Colet from Paris, after having recovered from the effects of the journey, including a rough toss of four days across the Straits : Erasmus two pupils. 6 6 Erasmus to Colet. 'Paris: June 19, 1506. 'When, after leaving England, I arrived once more in 'France, it is hard to say how mingled were my feelings. 'I cannot easily tell you which preponderated, my joy in visiting again the friends I had before left in France, or my sadness in leaving those whom I had recently found in England. For this I can say truly, that there is no 'whole country which has found me friends so nume'rous, so sincere, learned, obliging, so noble and accom'plished in every way, as the one City of London has 'done. Each has so vied with others in affection and 1 See an amusing account of this visit to Lambeth Palace in the letter to Botzhem (Catalogus, leaf a, 5); also Knight's Life of Erasmus, p. 83. 2 See Knight's Life of Erasmus, pp. 96-101. A.D. 1506. good offices, that I cannot tell whom to prefer. I am CHAP. V. 'obliged to love all of them alike. The absence of 'these must needs be painful; but I take heart again in the recollection of the past, keeping them as continu'ally in mind as if they were present, and hoping that 'it may so turn out that I may shortly return to them, Letter to 'never again to leave them till death shall part us. I Paris. trust to you, with my other friends, to do your best 6 'for the sake of your love and interest for me to bring this about as soon and as propitiously as you can. 'I cannot tell you how pleased I am with the dis'position of the sons of Baptista: nothing could be 'more modest or tractable; nor could they be more diligent in their studies. I trust that this arrangement 'for them may answer their father's hopes and my desires, and that they may hereafter confer great 'honour upon England. Farewell.'1 Colet from Linacre. To Linacre, too, Erasmus wrote in similar terms. He Letter to alluded to the unpleasant consequences to his health of his four days' experience of the winds and waves, and wished, he said, that Linacre's medical skill were at hand to still his throbbing temples. He expressed, as he had done to Colet, the hope that he soon might be able to return to England, and that the task he had undertaken with regard to his two pupils, might turn out well; and he ended his letter by urging his friend. to write to him often. Let it be in few words, if he liked, but he must write." CHAP. V. A.D. 1507. Erasmus on his way to Italy. German inns. III. ERASMUS VISITS ITALY AND RETURNS TO ENGLAND (1507-10). At length Erasmus really was on his way to Italy, trudging along on horseback, day after day, through the dirt of continental roads, accompanied by the two sons of Dr. Baptista, their tutor, and a royal courier, commissioned to escort them as far as Bologna. It is not easy to realise the toil of such a journey to a jaded delicate scholar, already complaining of the infirmities of age, though as yet not forty. Strange places, too, for a fastidious student were the roadside inns of Germany, of which Erasmus has left so vivid a picture, and into which he turned his weary head each successive night, after grooming his own horse in the stable. One room serves for all comers, and in this one room, heated like a stove, some eighty or ninety guests have already stowed themselves-boots, baggage, dirt and all. Their wet clothes hang on the stove iron to dry, while they wait for their supper. There are footmen and horsemen, merchants, sailors, waggoners, husbandmen, children, and women-sound and sick-combing their heads, wiping their brows, cleaning their boots, stinking of garlic, and making as great a confusion of tongues as there was at the building of Babel! At length, in the midst of the din and stifling closeness of this heated room, supper is spread coarse and ill-cooked meal-which our scholar scarcely dares to touch, and yet is obliged to sit out to the end for courtesy's sake. And when past midnight Erasmus is shown to his bedchamber, he finds it to be rightly named-there is nothing in it but a bed; and A.D. 1507. over the the last and hardest task of the day is now to find CHAP. V. between its rough unwashed sheets some chance hours of repose. So, almost in his own words,1 did Erasmus fare on his way to Italy. Nor did comforts increase as Germany was left behind. For as the party crossed the Alps, Journey the courier quarrelled with the tutor, and they even Alps. came to blows. After this, Erasmus was too angry with both to enjoy the company of either, and so rode apart, composing verses on those infirmities of age which he felt so rapidly encroaching upon his own frail constitution.2 At length the Italian frontier was reached, and Erasmus, as Luther did three or four years after, began the painful task of realising what that Italy was about which he had so long and so ardently dreamed. It is not needful here to trace Erasmus through all Erasmus in Italy. his Italian experience. It presents a catalogue of disappointments and discomforts upon which we need not dwell. How his arrangement with the sons of Baptista, having lasted a year, came to an end, and with it the most unpleasant year of his life; how he took his doctor's degree at Turin; how he removed to Bologna to find the city besieged by Roman armies," headed by Pope Julius himself; how he visited Florence and Rome; how he went to Venice to superintend a new edition of the 'Adagia;' how he was flattered, and how many honours he was promised, and how many of 1 See his Colloquy, Diversoria. Eras. Op. iv. p. 755. Erasmus to Botzhem, leaf a, 4. 3 Luther visited Rome in 1510, Luther's or a year or two later. Briefe, De Wette, 1. xxi. 4 Nullum enim annum vixi in- 5 Eras. Ep. cccclxxxvi. App. 7 Eras. to Botzhem, leaf b, 8. |