'I altogether and utterly dissent from those | tery-one of bribery-of persuasion, of who are unwilling that the Holy Scriptures, menace, of compulsion, to compass the translated into the vulgar tongue, should be read invaluable proselyte. Could he maintain by private persons (idiotis), as though the teachings of Christ were so abstruse as to be intellia stately neutrality? approve each party gible only to a very few theologians, or as though so far as it seemed right, condemn it where the safety of the Scripture rested on man's it seemed wrong? Could he offer a friendly ignorance of it. It may be well to conceal the mediation, soften off the fierce asperities, mysteries of kings; but Christ willed that his mitigate the violence of the collision? mysteries should be published as widely as possi- Alas! such days were passed. Those terble. I should wish that simple women (mulier-rible texts, Who is on the Lord's side, cula) should read the Gospels, should read the who? Cursed be he that doeth the work Epistles of St. Paul. Would that the Scripture were translated into all languages, that it might of the Lord deceitfully,' were become the be read and known, not only by Scots and Irish- battle words on either banner. On the men, but even by Turks and Saracens.'- application of that other text, Thou canst (Paraclesis in Nov. Testamentum.) not serve Christ and Belial,' there was perfect agreement; the two parties only dif fered as to which cause was Christ's, which Belial's. There was no escape from the conscription, exercised with as little scruple or mercy on one side as the other; he must take up arms; he must provoke fierce unforgiving hostility; he must break ties of friendship; he must embrace a cause, while he was firmly convinced that neither cause had full justice on its sidethat, according to his views, there were errors, faults, sins on both, that neither was in possession of the full, sincere, unalloyed truth. And this terrible alternative was forced upon Erasmus in the decline of life, when the mind usually, especially a mind vigorously exercised, yearns for repose; and when a constitution naturally feeble had been tried by a painful, wasting, in those days irremediable, malady. The man of books, who had thought to devote the rest of his days to his books, must be dragged forth, like a gladiator, to exhibit his powers, himself with no hearty interest on either side. It is true that he had been involved in much controversy, and was not wanting in the gall of controversy--but it had been in self defence; his was personal resentment for personal attacks. He had not spared the Lees and the Stunicas, or the Louvain divines, who had set upon him with malignant rancour-rancour which he retorted without measure and without scruple.

IV. If the amazement was great with which we surveyed the labours of Erasmus as editor of the classical authors, as compared with those of the most industrious of scholars in our degenerate days, what is it when we add his editions of the early Fathers? It is enough to recite only the names of these publications, and to bear in mind the number and the size of their massy and close-printed folios, some of them filled to the very margin. They were -St. Jerome, his first and favourite author; Syprian; the pseudo-Arnobius; Hilary, to which was affixed a preface of great learning, which excited strong animadversion; Irenæus, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine; some works of Epiphanius, Lacantius; some treatises of St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and others; St. Chrysostom, St. Basil (not the complete works). At his death Erasmus had advanced far in the preparation for the press of the whole works of Origen.

But in the fatal year of 1520-21 the awful disruption was inevitable: from the the smouldering embers of the Papal Bull burned at Wittemberg, arose the Reformation. The great Teutonic revolt, which at that time seemed likely to draw with it even some nations of Latin descent, France, with Italy and Spain, was now inevitable; the irreconcilable estrangement between the two realms of Western Christendom was to become antagonism, hostility, war. On which side was Erasmus, on which side was the vast Erasmian party to be found -that multitude of all orders, especially of the more enlightened, whose allegiance to the established order of things, to Papal despotism, to scholasticism, to monkery, to mediaval superstition, had been shaken by his serious protestations, by his satires, by his biblical studies? Both parties acknowledged his invaluable importance by their strenuous efforts to enrol him among their followers; both used every means of flat

The Utopian vision of Erasmus, no doubt, had been a peaceful Reformation. He had fondly hoped that the progress of polite letters would soften and enlighten the general mind; that the superstitions of the middle ages would gradually be exploded by the diffusion of knowledge; that biblical studies would of themselves promote a pure and simpler religion; that obstinate monkhood would shrink into its proper sphere, the monasteries become retreats for literary leisure. He had imagined that Leo X., the patron of arts, letters, and

Greek. We have seen him in Italy, al- | tion, the strife of centuries downwards from most running the risk of his life from his the Thirty Years' War, for emancipation disdainful refusal to learn even the com- not yet nearly won, may pity the ignorance monest phrases. To French he had an ab- of mankind, the want of sagacity and even solute aversion' It is a barbarous tongue, of common sense in Erasmus; we may with the shrillest discords, and words hardly shake our knowing heads at the argument human. He gave up his benefice in Eng- which he propounded in simple faith, that land because he would not learn to speak it was not a greater triumph than that English. We know not how far he spoke achieved at the first promulgation of his native Dutch, but Dutch can have been Christianity.' of no extensive use. He more than once declined to speak German. Of the SwissGerman, spoken at Basil, where he lived so long, he knew nothing. In one passage, indeed, he devoutly wishes that all languages, except Greek and Latin, were utterly extirpated; and what bears more directly upon our argument, we think that we remember a passage in which he expresses his deep regret that Luther condescended to write in any tongue but Latin.

We, according to our humour, may smile with scorn or with compassion at the illusion which, as we have before said, possessed the mind of Erasmus of a tranquil reformation, carried out by princes, and kings, and popes. Yet it was his fond dream that Churchmen, as Churchmen then were, might be persuaded to forego all the superstitions and follies on which rested their power and influence, and become mild, holy, self-denying pastors; that sove reigns, like Charles, and Francis, and Henry-each a bigot in his way; Charles a sullen, Francis a dissolute, Henry an imperious bigot-should forget their feuds, and conspire for the re-establishment of a pure and apostolic church in their dominions; that Popes, like the voluptuous Leo; the cold and narrow Adrian of Utrecht; the worldly, politic, intriguing Medici, Clement VII, should become the apostles and evangelists of a simple creed, a more rational ritual, a mild and parental control; that the edifice of sacerdotal power, wealth, and authority, which had been growing up for centuries, should crumble away before the gentle breath of persuasion. We, who have read the whole history of the awful conflict for emancipa

Yet blinded-self-blinded, it may befor a time by this, dare we say pardonable, hallucination, Erasmus stood between the two parties, and could not altogether close his eyes. He could not but see on one side the blazing fires of persecution, the obstinate determination not to make the least concessions, the monks and friars in possession of pulpits, new enemies springing up in all quarters against himself and against polite letters, which were now openly branded as the principal source of all heresy; the dogs of controversy-the Sorbonne, men of rank and station, like Albert, Prince of Carpi, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, Italians,-let loose upon himself, or bursting their leashes, and howling against him in unchecked fury. On the other hand, tumult, revolt, perhaps and too soon to come-civil war; the wildest excesses of language, the King of England treated like a low and vulgar pamphleteer, the Pope branded as Antichrist; excesses of conduct, at least the commencements of iconoclasm; threatening schisms, as on the Eucharist; polite letters shrinking back into obscurity before fierce polemics; the whole horizon darkened with things more dark, more awful, more disastrous.

But the man of peace, the man of books, could not be left at rest. The unhappy conflict with Ulric Hutten, forced upon him against his will, not merely made him lose his temper, and endeavour to revenge himself by a tirade, which we would most willingly efface from his works, but committed him at least with the more violent of the Lutheran party. Erasmus, in more than one passage of his letters, deplores the loose morals, as well as the unruly conduct, of many who called themselves Lutherans.

* A German child will learn to speak French-All revolutions, especially religious revoluQuod si id fit in linguâ barbará et abnormi, quae aliud scribit quan sonat, quæque suos habet stridores et voces vix humanas, quanto id facilius fieret in linguâ Græcâ seu Latina.-De Peuris educandis. Compare Hess, i. 133.

† Epist. 655. See also Jortin, i. p. 246. Optabam illuc sie tractare Christi negotium, yt ecclesiæ proceribus, aut probaretur aut certe non reprobaretur.-Jodoco Jonæ, Epist.

At ego libertatem ita malebam temperatam, ut Pontifices etiam et monarchæ ad hujus negotii consortium pellicerentur.-Melancthonii, Epist.

tions, stir up the dregs of society; and most high-minded and dauntless Reformers, who find it necessary to break or loosen the bonds of existing authority, must look

to bear the blame of men who seek freedom only to be free from all control

'Who licence mean when they cry liberty.'

Of a far higher cast and rank than such

men, but of all the disciples of Luther the | gests to Erasmus to take refuge in Basil.* one in some respects most uncongenial to Erasmus did retire to Basil, but retired to Erasmus, was Ulric Hutten. Of Hutten's place himself in connexion with his printer. literary labours, his free, bold, idiomatic Two years after, Ulric Hutten, in wretched Latinity; his powers of declamation, elo- health, in utter destitution, almost an outquence, satire; his large share in the law, hunted down, it might seem, as one of famous Epistolæ Obscororum Virorum'* Franz Sickengen's disbanded soldiers, who (now, thanks to Sir W. Hamilton and to could find no refuge in Germany, appeared Dr. Strauss, ascertained with sufficient in Basil. The intercourse between Hutten accuracy), no one was more inclined to and Erasmus took place, unfortunately, judge favourably, or had expressed more through the busy and meddling, if not freely that admiring judgment, than Eras- treacherous, Eppendorf. This man, by mus. He had corresponded with him on some said to have been of high birth, was friendly terms. But Hutten's morals cer- studying theology at Basil, at the cost of tainly were not blameless. He was a tur- Duke George of Saxony, the determined bulent, as well as a dauntless man-restless, enemy of Lutheranism. The unpleasant reckless, ever in the van or on the forlorn quarrel which afterwards took place hope of reform; daring what no one else between Eppendorf and Erasmus, in which would dare, enduring what few would Eppendorf tried to extort money from endure, provoking, defying hostility, wield- Erasmus on account of an imprudent and ing his terrible weapon of satire without ungenerous letter of Erasmus to the disadscruple or remorse, and ready, and indeed vantage of Eppendorf, gives but a mean notoriously engaged, in wielding other not opinion of this man. On the instant of his bloodless weapons. The last that was arrival, Hutten sent Eppendorf to Erasmus, heard of him had been in one of what we it might seem expecting to be received with fear must be called the robber bands of open arms, if not taken under his hospitable Franz Sickengen. Already Ulric Hutten roof. But Erasmus was by no means dishad taken upon himself the office of com- posed to commit himself with so unwelcome pelling Erasmus to take the Lutheran side. a guest, who was still suffering under a In a letter written (in 1520), under the loathsome malady; or to make his house guise of the warmest friendship, he had the centre, in which Hutten would gather treated him as an apostate from the com- round him all the most turbulent and desmon cause. In the affair of Reuchlin, perate of the Lutherans. He shrunk from Erasmus, in Hutten's judgment (a judg- the burthen of maintaining him. Hutten, ment which he cared not to conceal), acted if we are to believe Erasmus, was not timidly and basely. He had at first highly scrupulous in money matters, ready to burlauded the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,' row, but unable to pay. Erasmus repelled afterwards treacherously condemned them. his advances with cold civility, but there is He had endeavoured to persuade the a doubt whether even his civil messages adversaries of Luther that the Reformation reached Hutten. There were negotiations, was a business in which he (Erasmus) had no doubt insincere on both sides. One no concern. In a second letter, Hutten could not bear the heat of a stove, the had endeavoured to work on the fears of other could not bear a chill room without Erasmus. He urged upon his adorable one. In short, they did not meet. The friend' that he could not be safe, since indefatigable Hutten employed his time at Luther's books had been burned: will they Basil, sick and broken down as he was, in who have condemned Luther, spare you? his wonted way, in writing two fierce Fly, fly, and preserve yourself for us! Fly pamphlets; one against the Elector Palawhile you can, most excellent Erasmus, tine, one against a certain physician, who lest some calamity, which I shudder to probably had been guilty of not curing think of, overtake you. At Louvane, at him, to distract his mind, as Eppendorf Cologne, you are equally in peril.' He sug- said, from his sufferings. After two months Hutten received cold but peremptory orders from the magistrates to quit Basil. He retired to Mulhausen, to brood over the coolness and neglect of one from whom a man of calmer mind would hardly have expected more than coolness and neglect.

* Erasmus is said to have owed his life to this publication. He laughed so violently while readinr the letters, as to break a dangerous imposthume. He, however, not only disclaimed, but expressed strong disapprobation of the tone and temper of

the book.

This letter, recently published in two theological journals in Germany, we know only as cited by Dr. Strauss; it is addressed Des Erasmo Rot. Theologo, amico summo.

*Opera Hutteni, Munch. 4. 49. 53.

The account in Dr. Strauss's Life of Hutten' is on the whole fair and candid.