In the meantime it may be readily imagined that, to CHAP. II. a man of such deep feeling and impulsive nature, as the occasional outbursts of burning zeal in his writings show Colet to have been, such a disappointment would leave a sore place to which he would not care often to recur in conversation with his friends. Such a shock as Grocyn's discovery must have been to him, may have simply produced in his mind a sense of bewilderment ending in a suspended judgment. He may have returned to his accustomed work feeling more than ever the uncertainty of human speculations, an humbler, a stronger, though perhaps a sadder man, more than ever inclined to cling closely to the Scriptures and his beloved St. Paul, and even ready sometimes to turn with relief, as we are told he did with admiration, from the involved logic1 of the Apostle to the simple majesty of Christ! 16 'Apostoli sermo (qui in MS. on 1 Corinthians, Emmanuel 'hoc loco artificiosissimus est) 'Coll. leaf a, 6. A.D. 1498. Erasmus arrives at Oxford. CHAPTER III. I. ERASMUS COMES TO OXFORD (1498). CHAP. III. IN the spring or summer of 1498, the foreign scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam-arrived at Oxford, brought over to England by Lord Mountjoy from Paris.1 Erasmus was an entire stranger in England; he did not know a word of English, but was at once most hospitably received into the College of St. Mary the Virgin, by the prior Richard Charnock. Colet had 1 The date of Erasmus's coming to England may be approximately fixed as follows. Epist. xxix. dated 12th April, and evidently written in 1500, after his visit to England, mentions a fever which nearly killed Erasmus two years before. Comparing this with what is said in the 'Life' prefixed to vol. i. of Eras. Op. Epist. vi. vii. and viii., dated 3 Feb., 4 Feb., and 12 Feb., seem to belong to Feb. 1498. Epist. vi. ix. and v. seem to place his studies with Mountjoy, at Paris, in the spring of that year. Epist. xxii. seems to mention the projected visit to England. Epist. xiv. Londini tumultuarie,' 5 Dec., is evidently written after he had been to Oxford and seen Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre, and yet, comparatively soon after his arrival in England. It alludes to his coming to England, but gives no hint that he is going to leave England. In the winter of 1499– 1500 Colet was at Oxford, intending to leave, but delayed by political reasons. He really did leave England 27 Jan. 1500. Whilst, therefore, it is just possible that Epist. xiv. may have been written in Dec. 1499, it is more probable that it was written in Dec. 1498, and that the first experience of Erasmus at Oxford had been during the previous summer and autumn. This seems to comport best both with Epist. vi. ix. v. and xxii., and also with the circumstances connected with his stay in England, mentioned in this chapter. See also the next note. The years attached to the early letters of Erasmus are not in the least to be relied on. A.D. 1498. indeed, as already mentioned, heard Erasmus spoken CHAP. III. of at Paris as a learned scholar,1 but as yet no work of his had risen into note,, nor was even his name generally known. He was scarcely turned thirty-just the age of Colet;2 but in his wasted sallow cheeks and sunken eyes were but few traces left of the physical vigour of early manhood. In place of the glow of health and strength, were lines which told that midnight oil, bad lodging, and the harassing life of a poor student, driven about and ill-served as he had been, had already broken what must have been at best a frail constitution. But the worn scabbard told of the sharpness and temper of the steel within. His was a The chamind restless for mental work, now fighting through Erasmus. the obstacles of ill-health and poverty, in pursuit of its natural bent, as it had once had to fight its way out of monastic thraldom to secure the freedom of action which such a mind required. Though well schooled and stored with learning, yet he had not come to Oxford to teach, or to make a name by display of intellectual power, but simply to add new branches of knowledge to those already acquired. Greek was now to be learned there-thanks to the efforts of Grocyn and Linacre-and Erasmus had come to Oxford bent upon adding a knowledge of Greek to his Latin lore. To belong to that little knot of men racter of His object in coming to Oxford. CHAP. III. north of the Alps who already knew Greek-whose A.D. 1498. number yet might be counted on his fingers—this had now become his immediate object of ambition. What he meant to do with his tools when he had got them, probably was a question to be decided by circumstances rather than by any very definite plan of his own. To gain his living by taking pupils, and to live the life of a scholar at some continental university, was probably the future floating indistinctly before him. Erasmus is introduced to Colet. Prior Charnock seems to have at once appreciated Erasmus. He did all in his power to give him a warm welcome to the university.' He seems to have taken him at once to hear Colet lecture;2 and he very soon informed Colet that his new guest turned out to be no ordinary man. Upon this report Colet wrote to Erasmus a graceful and gentlemanly letter, giving him a hearty welcome to England and to Oxford, and professing his readiness to serve him. 3 Erasmus replied, warmly accepting Colet's friendship, but at the same time telling him plainly that he would find in him a man of slender or rather of no fortune, with no ambition, but warm and open-hearted, simple, liberal, honest, but timid, and of few words. Beyond this he must expect nothing. But if Colet could love such a man-if he thought such a man. worthy of his friendship-he might then count him as his own.5 Colet did think such a man worthy of his friendship, 1 Epist. xii. Sixtinus Erasmo. 3 Virum optimum et bonitate 2 Else how could Erasmus de-'præditum singulari.'-Eras. Epist. scribe Colet's style of speaking so xi. 4 Coletus Erasmo: Epist. xi. 5 Eras. Epist. xli. Op. iii. p. 40, D. Erasmus and from that moment Erasmus and he were the best CHAP. III. of friends. The lord mayor's son, born to wealth and A.D. 1498 all that wealth could command, whilst steeling his heart against the allurements of city and court life, eagerly received into his bosom-friendship the poor foreign scholar, whom fortune had used so hardly, Colet and whose orphaned youth had been embittered by the become treachery of dishonest guardians, and who, robbed warm of his slender patrimony and cast adrift upon the world without resources, had hitherto scarcely been able to keep himself from want by giving lessons to private pupils. Whether he was likely to find in the foreign scholar the fulfilment of his yearnings after fellowship, it will be for further chapters of this history to disclose. II. TABLE-TALK ON THE SACRIFICE OF CAIN AND ABEL friends. (1498 ?). at Oxford. It chanced that, after the delivery of a Latin sermon, Table-talk the preacher-an accomplished divine-was a guest at the long table in one of the Oxford halls. Colet presided. The divine took the seat of honour to the left of Colet; Charnock, the hospitable prior, sat opposite; Erasmus next to the divine; and a lawyer opposite to him. Below them, on either side, a mixed and nameless group filled up the table. At first the tide of table-talk ebbed and flowed upon trivial subjects. The conversation turned at length upon the sacrifices of Cain and Abel-why the one was accepted and the other not. views upon Colet-if we may judge from the earnest way in Colet's which, in his exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, sacrifice. he had urged the uselessness of outward sacrifices, Н |