CHAPTER III E ENGLISH FRIENDS RASMUS made at least six visits to England, the first lasting from June to December, 1499, the second from the autumn of 1505 to August, 1506, the third from about October, 1509, to July, 1514, the fourth in May, 1515; the fifth in the summer of 1516; the sixth a brief visit in April, 1517. He sometimes wished that England were joined to the Continent by a bridge, for "he hated the wild waves and the still wilder sailors."1 Indeed, in that age the passage was far worse than it is now, when it is still so much disliked. Bad weather and storms often caused delays of many days, or even weeks before the small boats, sixty feet in length, dared to venture forth. The time required was greater than it now is, and accommodation and food for the passengers, of whom seventy were taken at a time, were poor.2 The first trip was made in the company, and probably at the invitation, of Lord Mountjoy, whom Erasmus had been tutoring in Paris. The young nobleman, though still a minor, had been married for more than two years, but his child wife remained in the custody of her father, Sir William Say. It was to the estate of this gentleman, at Bedwell in Hertfordshire, that Mountjoy and his tutor first repaired. Erasmus was delighted beyond words by his reception here, and pleased with Mountjoy's bride and her kind father.4 Charmed with the blandish 1 Allen, ep. 756, January 7, 1518. E. S. Bates: Touring in 1600 (1911), p. 64, and the account of Casaubon's passage in 1610, M. Pattison: Casaubon,2 1892, pp. 274 ff. a Nichols, i, p. 200; Allen, i, p. 238. Enthoven, ep. 12 (January 28, 1528, not as dated in Enthoven). 4 Allen, ep. 115; Nichols, ep. 104. ments of that most pleasant of all resorts, an English country house, he almost threw aside his studies.1 He himself also made a good impression on his hosts. A young man who visited Bedwell twenty-nine years later found that "it was still full of memories of Erasmus." The enthusiasm of the young Dutchman was reflected in one of his gayest letters to his gay friend, Faustus Andrelinus.3 We, too, have made progress in England. The Erasmus you knew has almost become a good hunter, no bad rider, a courtier of some skill, bows with politeness, smiles with grace, and all this in spite of his nature. What of it? We are getting on. If you are wise, you, too, will fly over here. Why should a man with a nose like yours grow old among those French "merdes." But you will say your gout detains you. The devil take your gout if he will only leave you! Nevertheless, did you but know the blessings of Britain, you would run hither with winged feet and if the gout stopped you you would wish yourself another Dædalus. To take one attraction out of many; there are nymphs here with divine features, so gentle and kind that you would easily prefer them to your Camenæ. Besides, there is a fashion which cannot be commended enough. Wherever you go you are received on all hands with kisses; when you leave you are dismissed with kisses; if you go back your salutes are returned to you. When a visit is paid, these sweets are served; and when guests depart kisses are shared again; whenever a meeting takes place there is kissing in abundance; in fact, whatever way you turn you are never without it. Oh Faustus, if you had once tasted how soft and fragrant those kisses are, you would wish to be a traveler, not for ten years, like Solon, but for your whole life, in England. The habit which pleased Erasmus so much was indeed noticed by many travelers in Britain at this time, and the coaxing young man, "most inclined to love," as he 1 Allen, ep. 136, line 46, referring to the whole visit in England. 2 Enthoven, ep. 12. Allen, ep. 103; Nichols, ep. 98. Summer, 1499. This word "merda," though found in Horace, was hardly in decent usage. Erasmus quoted it from one of Faustus's own poems. "Some references given in Nichols, i, p. 204; more in Mrs. H. Cust; Gentle men Errant, 1909, pp. 42, 496-498. The same freedom of kissing pretty women was noted by Balcus in his Description of Switzerland (1500-04), quoted in S. M. Jackson: U. Zwingli, 1900, p. 16. Allen, ep. 107, October, 1499. called himself, would be likely to make the most of his opportunities. From Bedwell Erasmus went with Mountjoy to the latter's country house at Greenwich. Here he met young Thomas More, later destined to prove himself, by his noble Utopia and by his courageous resistance to tyranny, the chief ornament of his country. Among the friends of More, Erasmus met also a certain Arnold, who may perhaps be identified with Richard Arnold, a citizen of London, who died in 1521, and whose Chronicle, published in the Netherlands in 1502, furnishes information about the coinage and tolls of Flanders, but is chiefly remembered for containing the famous ballad "The Nut-Brown Maid." Through the good offices of More, Erasmus was taken to Eltham Palace, near Greenwich, and presented to the children of Henry VII, all but Arthur, who was away being educated. "In the midst of the group," says the visitor, "stood Prince Henry, then nine years old, and having already something royal in his demeanor, in which loftiness of mind was combined with singular culture. On his right was Margaret, about eleven years old, afterward married to James, King of Scots, and on his left played Mary, a child of four. Edmund was an infant in arms." More presented a complimentary address or poem to Prince Henry; but Erasmus was unprepared, and angry at his companion for not having warned him, especially as the boy sent him a little note challenging something from his pen. Immediately on returning home he wrote a poem entitled Prosopopoeia Britanniae Majoris, in which Britain speaks her own praises and those of her king. It was printed, with a flattering introductory letter to 1 On Arnold, see Dictionary of National Biography, and J. M. Berdan; Early Tudor Poetry, 1920, pp. 153 f. 2 Allen, i, p. 6; Nichols, i, p. 201. The scene here described has been made the subject of a beautiful painting by Frank Cadogan Cowper, in the Houses of Parliament. More is kneeling, presenting Henry with his writing; while Erasmus stands behind More to the left. 3 LB i. 1213 ff. Prince Henry1 in the first edition of the Adages (1500). The letter concludes with an exhortation to literary studies, and a complimentary allusion to Skelton, "that incomparable light and ornament of British letters.' As Skelton is also mentioned in the poem itself, and as he was tutor to Prince Henry at this time, Erasmus must have met him. For the poet, whose works he could not enjoy, as they were nearly all in English, he wrote a laudatory lyric which he never published possibly because Skelton did not on his side produce anything in praise of the author, though he apparently wrote something, or was expected to do so. The verse, which has remained unpublished until the present,3 may be translated as follows: O Skelton, worthy of eternal fame, Why should thy fount of speech pour on my name Pierian grottos, nor drunk water brought From the Aonian fountain, liquor which The lips of poets ever doth enrich. But unto thee Apollo gave his lyre, Thou playest the strings taught by the Muses' choir; Given by Calliope, and thou hast sung A song more sweet than dying swan's by far, And when thou strik'st it savage beasts grow mild, Thou leadest oaks and stayest torrents wild, And with thy soul-enchanting melodies Thou meltest rocks. The debt that ancient Greece That debt to Skelton owes Britannia, For he from Latium all the muses led, And taught them to speak English words instead 1 Allen, ep. 104; Nichols, ep. 97. 2 Iam puer Henricus genitoris nomine laetus Monstrante fonteis vate Skeltone sacros. (LB. i, 1216.) 3 Original in British Museum, Egerton MS. 1651, fol. 6 f. For text see Appendix III. By autumn Erasmus was found at Oxford, staying at St. Mary's College, a house founded in 1435 to enable young Austin canons to study at the university. The prior was a certain learned and virtuous Richard Charnock. A banquet, almost a Platonic symposium, in which Erasmus participated, is described by him in the following letter2 to his friend, John Sixtin, a fellow countryman then also at Oxford: How I wish you had been present, as I expected, at that last feast of ours, a feast of reason than which nothing was ever sweeter, cleaner, or more delicious. Nothing was wanting. A choice time, a choice place, no arrangements neglected and fine little men, as Varro says. The good cheer would have satisfied Epicurus; the table talk would have pleased Pythagoras. The little men were so fine that they might have peopled an Academy, and not merely made up a dinner party. First, there was Prior Richard Charnock, that high priest of the Graces; then the divine who had preached the Latin sermon that day, a person of modesty as well as learning; then your friend Philip, most cheerful and witty. Colet, assertor and champion of the old theology, was at the head of the table. In December, Erasmus returned to London and prepared to depart from England. He summed up his impressions of the land to his old friend Robert Fisher, then in Italy. The letter, perhaps, was intended for general perusal:4 But you will ask how I like England. Believe me, my Robert, when I say that I never liked anything so much before. I have found the climate here most agreeable and salubrious; and I have met with so much civility, and so much learning, not hackneyed and trivial, but deep, accurate, ancient, Latin and Greek, that but for curiosity I do not now much care whether I see Italy or not. When I hear my Colet I seem to be listening to Plato himself. In Grocin who does not marvel at such a perfect world of learning? What can be more acute, profound, and delicate than the judgment of Linacre? What has nature ever created more gentle, sweet, or happy than the genius of Thomas More? 1 Allen, ep. 106. 2 Allen, ep. 116; Nicholas, ep. 205, November, 1499. 3 Varro, Men. 335. 4 Allen, ep. 118; Nichols, ep. 110. |