ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

again bring our army into the field, a general may be found capable of leading it to victory-one who will possess the administrative as well as the military talent of our great Duke, and who, like him, will be capable of maintaining, amongst his officers and men, an iron discipline, and who will enforce an implicit and unquestioning obedience to his will, from all under his command. From the many improvements which have lately been effected in the organization of our army, and the increased liberality of Parliament in dealing with military matters, an English general will not again, we trust, be compelled to organize his troops or departments when in the field; but from the long absence of a master mind among its chiefs, and the increasing disposition, on the part of officers of all ranks, to call in question, and discuss in a tone of depreciation, the actions of their superiors, we feel convinced that a general will have a hard task, to obtain from those below him, a cheerful obedience, in temper as well as in act. Once obtained, we are sure that by this infusion of the old spirit, with the modern improvements of military science, the British army will be found capable of maintaining the high position that it held at the close of the last French

war.

Erasmus as a Satirist.

49

ART. III.—1. ΜΩΡΙΑΣ ΕΓΚΩΜΙΟΝ. Stultitia Laus. Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami declamatio, 1518. Erasmi Opera omnia IV., 380-503. (Lugduni Batavorum). Written in 1510.1

2. Colloquia Familiaria Auctore Desiderio Erasmo Roterodamo. 1524. Erasmi Opera Omnia I. 626-894. (Lug. Bat. Written in 1522.2

3. Erasmus Roterodamus De Utilitate Colloquiorum ad Lectorem. 1527. Erasmi Opera Omnia I., 901-908. (Lug Bat.).

DURING the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, a little comedy was acted in the dining-hall of Charles V., to amuse him and his guests. A man in doctor's dress first entered the hall bearing a bundle of billets of wood, crooked and straight, threw it down on the broad hearth, and, in retiring, revealed the word Reuchlin, written on his back. The next actor was also clad in doctor's garb, and he set about making fagots of the wood; but having laboured long to no purpose, in fitting the crooked billets to the straight, he also went away out of humour, shaking his head; and a smile went round among the princes as they read upon his back Erasmus. Luther came next with a chafing-dish of fire, set the crooked billets thereon, and blew it till it burned. A fourth actor, dressed like the Emperor himself, poked the fire with his sword, meaning thereby to put it out, but making it instead burn brighter than ever. And lastly, a fifth actor came, in pontifical robes, and, by mistake, poured oil instead of water on the flames.

The part assigned to Erasmus in this little comedy, three centuries ago, is very much the part assigned to him by historians of the struggle which it was intended to represent. It is the part which he undoubtedly seemed to play as an actor on the Protestant stage. At a certain point he seemed to turn from the Reformation in fear and disgust. It was very natural that Protestants should, therefore, conclude that, so far as regards religious reform, he was a time-server; and this has ever been the Protestant verdict.

Such a verdict is not, however, a logical deduction from the evidence, unless it be proved that, in turning away from the Protestant cause, he was departing also from his own convictions, and kicking against the pricks of his own conscience. It 'Letter from Erasmus to More, prefixed to the "Praise of Folly."

2 Eras. Op. i., p. 895. VOL. XXXIL NO. LXIII.

D

may be that he was adhering throughout to his own previously formed opinions; and that the reason why he seemed to forsake the Protestant path was, that he and the Protestant Reformers, though walking for a while in company, were really travelling different roads. How far this was the case must be learned by the comparison of his early views with his subsequent writings; and none of these are better fitted for this comparison than his satires. We have "The Praise of Folly," written before Luther was heard of; and we have "The Familiar Colloquies" written after the Pope's Bull had issued against Luther, and after the epithet of "Antichrist" had been hurled back upon his Holiness by the excommunicated heretic. And, finally, we have a defence of these Colloquies, written in the midst of the Anabaptist riots, and after Erasmus had himself entered the lists against Luther. If the tone of the one differs from the tone of the other, or the last vein of satire, by its mildness, belies the keenness of the first,—or if the same views are not found in both,-then the old theory may be true. Was it so?

1st, What were the early views of Erasmus upon religious questions, and from whence derived?

He is at Oxford in 1498. Though only just turned 30, his wasted sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, show that youth has long ago taken leave of him-that long deep studies, bad lodging, and the harass of the life of a poor student, driven about, and ill-served, as he has been, have long ago sapped out of a weakly body the most part of its physical energy and strength. The sword has proved itself, ere half worn, too sharp for the scabbard. His fame, as a Latin scholar, is in every one's mouth. He has written one or two Latin works, chiefly of a critical nature; and the learned world has read and admired them. Why, then, is he at Oxford? Greek is to be learned there; and Greek, Erasmus is bent upon adding to his Latin. To belong to that little knot of men north of the Alps, who know Greek, whose numbers he may count. upon his fingers, is his object of ambition,-his motives, love of fame, and distinction-nothing worse certainly, and perhaps nothing better. His college companions, it chances, are young More and Dr Colet, men who ever after count as his closest bosom friends. When three such men are thus thrown together, the strongest character of the three must leave its impress on the other two. Elsewhere we have traced that influence on More. How does it work upon Erasmus?

Erasmus is skilled enough as a logician. He knows well how to make the worse appear the better reason. He can argue on any side of any subject. No theologian-in the round of his learning he yet knows something of the theology of the schoolmen; and, consequently, is wont to draw arrows from their capa

[blocks in formation]

cious quiver whenever Colet, as he often does, engages him on theological subjects.

Colet has just come home fresh from that Italy to which Erasmus is longing to go. He was in Italy while Lorenzo de Medici was in the full blaze of his glory, as the patron of art and learning, and artists and learned men. He talked with many of these, he mingled in the crowd of their admirers, and now he has come home master, not only of the elegant Latin of Politian, but master of that art of the use of language in general, which makes some men's words, few and simple, tell more than torrents of eloquence,—an art which is not to be learned, so much as it is the gift of men of character. Idle words fall not from such lips as his." You speak what you mean, and mean all you speak," says Erasmus. "Words rise from your heart-your lips utter your thoughts without changing them; and when you write, your letters are so open and plain that I read the image of your soul in them, reflected as in clear water."

The truth is, little as Erasmus may as yet understand it, that Colet's whole heart and soul are wrapt up in one great idea, and from thence is derived that strength of purpose in everything he does, that earnestness and force in everything he says. Whether, as we have elsewhere hinted, the fire in his own heart was kindled by personal contact with the great Savonarola, when in Florence, is not our present question. It is rather to trace the influence of Colet on Erasmus. He is wont to bring forward some passage from the Gospels or Epistles, upon which his own thoughts have long been brooding. He pares off, one by one, what he calls the cobwebs of the schoolmen, and then gives his own clear simple view of its real meaning. Erasmus is wont to take the schoolmen's side, and clever and keen are his arguments. But the question is with him a mere trial of skill. Colet's first work is to wean him from this schoolmen's habit. "Let us defend (he one day writes to Erasmus) that opinion. only which is true, or most like the truth, and when, like two flints, we are striking one another, if any spark of light flies out, let us eagerly catch at it!"1

Sometimes, when away from Oxford, Colet, in his letters, starts questions concerning passages from the writings of St Paul, of so free a nature, that Erasmus dares not reply in writing, "since," he says, "it is dangerous to speak of them openly."" But as the two friends become more closely knit together, their flints strike more and more often the one against the other, till spark after spark enters deep into the heart of Erasmus, and he is fast becoming the disciple of Colet.

One day they are talking, as they often do, of the schoolmen. 1 Colet to Erasmus, Eras. Op. v. 1291-2. Eras. Op. v. 1292, A.

Erasmus has singled out Aquinas, the best of them, as at least worthy of praise, seeing that he had, at all events, studied the Scriptures. Colet holds his tongue, as if wishing to pass from the subject. Erasmus is not then mine even yet; perhaps he is thinking to himself. But Erasmus turns the conversation upon Aquinas again. Colet turns his searching eye upon his friend, to see whether he is speaking, as he does still, sometimes, in jest, to bring on an argument such as he delights in. Erasmus is this time in earnest. He really does think still that Aquinas. was a great theologian. The fire kindles in Colet's eye. "Why do you praise such a man as Aquinas?" he says earnestly-" a man who, unless he had savoured much of the spirit of the world, would never have polluted, as he did, Christ's doctrine, by mixing up with it his profane philosophy."

Few words these, as is Colet's wont; but Erasmus opens his heart to receive them. He likes Colet's boldness, and begins to think that he must be right. Yes, he thinks over to himself, this strange, complicated web of philosophy-this splitting of hairs, and discoursing upon utterly immaterial points-whatever else it be, it cannot be that Christianity which is to save the souls, not only of the learned, but of women and children, peasants and weavers. But, if I begin to doubt what the Church divines teach, where am I to stop? And again, he goes to Colet, the when and the where we know not exactly, but this we do know is the lesson he learns a lesson that will stick by him for the rest of his life, and be, as it were, a loadstar to him in the darkness of the troublous times that are coming. "Believe what you read in the Bible, and in what is called the Apostles' Creed," says Colet, "and don't trouble your mind any further. Let divines, if they like, dispute about the rest. And, as to the observances in general use among Christians, it is better to observe them whenever they are clearly not contrary to the Scriptures, lest you should harm others by their non-observance."1

Erasmus begins now to enter into the great object of Colet's life. It is to bring out again the Scriptures as the foundation of theological studies to fight down the schoolmen with the Bible, -to preach the Bible and not the schoolmen, from the pulpit-to teach the Bible and not the schoolmen at the Universities, utterly regardless of the tempest and the dust that may be raised, or whether he, D. Colet, shall survive it or not. "Erasmus, will you join me in this work?" he writes to his disciple at last, "I want a partner in my labours." Erasmus replies, bidding Colet God speed! That Colet should have put his own shoulder to the wheel, he marvels not, but he does marvel that Colet should wish such a novice as he to join hands in Opera Eras. i. 653, C.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »