now took letters of introduction from him to English friends, but while there won the ill will of More and of Tunstall and generally disgraced himself in their eyes by defending Zwingli.1 Whether he solicited Erasmus's opinion, as he did that of many other divines, is unknown, but that the old scholar was approached by the other side is expressly told, two nobles from the imperial court acting as intermediaries. Apparently he tried to avoid giving them a direct answer, telling them what he hoped would happen, not what divine and human law required. Protesting his loyalty to the emperor, he denied that the rumor that he approved of the divorce had any foundation. The matter he thought too hard for him to decide. This was his reply to a letter from his Portuguese friend, Damian a Goes, who had written to express his surprise that Erasmus had favored the divorce, inasmuch as he has heard the direct opposite from his correspondent's own mouth. A quite different impression, however, is given by a letter to another friend, then at Padua, in which the writer opined that the king was justified in getting a divorce at last, as his course had been approved by so many doctors and had been going on for eight years. At the same time, when he heard the false rumor that Henry had taken back Catharine, though he regarded it as incredible, he hoped it was true," and when Cochlæus, in 1534, wrote against the divorce, the humanist applauded him." Probably Burnet is wrong in saying that Erasmus secretly favored the divorce, but was afraid to appear in the matter lest he should offend the emperor.' About 1 Erasmus to Viglius van Zuichem, November 8, 1533; LB. App. ep. 374. 2 To Damian a Goes, July 25, 1533; Lond. xvii, 19; LB. ep. 1253. June 20, 1533, Förstemann-Günther, ep. 188. To Viglius Zuichem, May 14, 1533; LB. App. ep. 372. To Olaus, November 7, 1533; Monumenta diplomataria Hungaria, xxv, 424. M. Spahn: J. Cochlaus, 1898, p. 250. 7 Burnet: History of the Reformation, ed. Pocock, 1865, i, 160. this time one of the humanist's numerous secretaries wrote a friend that Henry's divorce was indefensible because of the injury done to his daughter and because an heir might have been adopted with the consent of the people. The fact is that Erasmus was pulled in two ways: he loved peace, and yet he was bound by ties to both the king and the queen of England. He could not help pitying the latter, while he saw with apprehension the possibilities of bloodshed latent in a disputed succession. He approached the matter as far as possible from the practical standpoint, hoping for the solution that would entail least hardship on all parties. He therefore remained non-committal, even when he wrote, in 1532, a special treatise on divorce,2 intended as an answer to some enemy whom he designates as "Muzzle-mouth." There was an early English translation of this, though the exact date cannot be determined.3 However he may have felt toward Queen Catharine, Erasmus had no scruple in making friends with the Boleyns. Though it is hardly likely that he knew Anne's father, Thomas Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, personally, he received a letter from him dated November 4, 1529, in which the nobleman asked him to explain to him the Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd," and added to the Latin of his secretary in his own hand the English words: "I pray yow gyff credyt to thys and pardon me that I wryte not at thys tyme to yow myself. Your own asseurydly, T. Rochford." Erasmus complied, dedicat 1 Gilbert Cousin to Ulrich Zasius, son of the Freiburg professor of that name. The letter is dated only "ex ædibus Erasmicis," and was presumably penned, therefore, in the years 1530-35. It was first published in Cousin's (Cognatus) De iis qui Romæ jus dicebant olim, Lyons, 1559. I owe this reference to Prof. Edna Virginia Moffett of Wellesley College. 2 Responsio ad disputationem cujusdam Phimostomi de divortio, Freiburg, August 19, 1532. LB. ix, 955 ff. 3 The censure and judgment of . . . Erasmus: Whyther dyvorsemente betwene man and wyfe stondeth with the lawe of God. . . . transl. by N. Lesse, London, wyd. Jhon Herforde for R. Stoughton. Bibliotheca Erasmiana, i, 174. The Dictionary of National Biography, s. o. Nicholas Lesse, puts this dialogue in 1550. Förstemann-Günther, no. 114. ing his Ennaratio triplex in Psalmum XXII1 to Rochford, and later also his Symboli explanatio sive Catechismus.2 For these he got a warm note of thanks and a present of fifty crowns, accompanied by the further request for a work on Preparation for Death.3 Erasmus complied in this case also. Less than two years later he heard from Chapuis of the expected execution of Rochford, who therefore had a very practical use for the work he had asked for. In the same letter he recounts the pitiful tale of the demise of Queen Catharine, much comforted, if we may trust the writer, by the same book.5 1 LB. v; the dedicatory epistle, Lond. xxix, 34, is wrongly dated 1527. 2 LB. v, 1133 ff. English translation: A playne and godly exposytion. . . . of the commune Crede. . . . put forth by Erasmus. London, Redman, no date (1533?). Rochford to Erasmus, June 19, 1533. Enthoven, no. 109. Cf. letter of Rochford's secretary, Gerard Phrysius, June 8, 1533, Förstemann-Günther, no. 187. ♦ LB. v. 1294 ff. 5 Chapuis to Erasmus, February 1, 1536. Enthoven, no. 145. Catharine died January 6, 1536. CHAPTER XI THE COLLOQUIES AND OTHER PEDAGOGICAL WORKS OF F all the works of Erasmus the one in which his own nature and style appeared to the best advantage, that which surpassed all others in originality, in wit, in gentle irony, in exquisitely tempered phrase, and in maturity of thought on religious and social problems, was written as a text-book of Latin style. The Familiar Colloquies were intended to make easy and pleasant the once thorny path of learning for aspiring youth. They are stories in the form of conversations, always conveying, along with the necessary exercise in Latin, enough instruction and reflection on all sorts of matters to make them profitable reading for thoughtful minds. The author's most important "sources" were, indeed, his own experiences. If he borrowed something from Lucian, a plot from Hroswitha and a tiny bit from Poggio, far more he wove in of his own ripe thought on events in which he had participated.1 Like so many of its author's productions, this was a work of many years, each issue being a revision and expansion of the previous one. The first Colloquies were written at Paris in 1497 for the use of some pupils, among them Augustine Vincent Caminade.2 The author did not intend them for publication, but, as he wrote later,3 I dictated some trifles or other if anyone wished to chat after dinner and, as Horace says, to sport informally by the fireside. 1 See A. Horawitz: "Ueber die Colloquia des Erasmus von Rotterdam," Historisches Taschenbuch, 6te Folge, 6tes Jahrgang, 1887, pp. 53-122. 2 On whom see Appendix. 3 To the Reader, Louvain, January 1, 1519. of the Familiarium Colloquiorum Formula, 1519. 4 Satires, ii, l. 73. Preface to the revised edition There were some formulas of everyday intercourse and again some convivial conversations. . . . These trifles Augustine Caminade sucked up like an insatiable Laverna, and from them all patched up a book like Æsop's crow; or rather he concocted them just as a cook mixes up many scraps to make a broth. He added titles and names of persons from his own invention, so that the ass in the lion's skin might sometimes betray himself. For it is not as easy to write Latin trifles as some think. Twenty years later Beatus Rhenanus got hold of these exercises and published them, without the author's knowledge, at Basle in November, 1518.1 The work had a rapid sale, and several new editions were called for. Erasmus, at first indignant that his rough notes should be printed in such poor form, found it better to revise and acknowledge the work than to disown it altogether. A new edition was published by Froben on January 1, 1519, now bearing the title, Formulas of Familiar Conversations, by Erasmus of Rotterdam, useful not only for polishing a boy's Speech but for building his Character; this was revised and much enlarged in an edition of 1522 dedicated to young Erasmius Froben. The title was changed to Familiar Conversations in 1524, and at this, and at many other times, until March, 1533, further additions were made.2 The earliest colloquies are the easiest and most formal, dealing with such subjects as eating and drinking, games of ball, and matters of everyday life. All manner of proper salutations are catalogued, from the most distant to such affectionate titles as "my life, my delight, my little heart." Such instructions in manners are given as that it is polite to salute people when they sneeze or cough, and to wish them good luck, but not when their bowels rumble or when they are engaged in discharging the duties of nature. The interlocutors are Caminade, 1 Preface to N. and C. Stallberger, dated November 22, 1518, in Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus, p. 122. 2 Bibliotheca Belgica, Erasmus: Colloquia, 1903-07. Allen, i, p. 304. Dedications to Erasmius Froben, August 1, 1523, Lond. xxix, 18; August 1, 1524. LB. i, 627. The text of the Colloquies, ibid, 629 ff. |