Part 6 (2/2)

'So farewell, applaud, live happily, and drink, Moria's illustrious initiates'

It was an unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters neither to lose the light couised profanation

It was only feasible by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of sophistry In the _Moria_ Eras on the brink of profound truths But what a boon it was--still granted to those times--to be able to treat of all this in a vein of pleasantry For this should be impressed upon our ay jest The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty than Rabelais's 'Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite' 'All coree, and everywhere, in so many forms of folly that a thousand Deh at theh at them)'

How could one take the _Moria_ too seriously, when even More's _Utopia_, which is a true corave impression on us, is treated by its author and Erasmus as a mere jest? There is a place where the _Laus_ seems to touch both More and Rabelais; the place where Stultitia speaks of her father, Plutus, the God of wealth, at whose beck all things are turned topsy-turvy, according to whose will all huovernotten her on the nymph Youth, not a senile, purblind Plutus, but a fresh God, ith youth and nectar, like another Gargantua

The figure of Folly, of gigantic size, looe in the period of the Renaissance She wears a fool's cap and bells People laughed loudly and with unconcern at all that was foolish, without discri between species of folly It is remarkable that even in the _Laus_, delicate as it is, the author does not distinguish between the unwise or the silly, between fools and lunatics Holbein, illustrating Erasmus, knows but of one representation of a fool: with a staff and ass's ears Erasmus speaks without clear transition, now of foolish persons and now of real lunatics They are happiest of all, he htened by spectres and apparitions; they are not tortured by the fear of i hter Evidently he here means harmless imbeciles, who, indeed, were often used as jesters This identification of denseness and insanity is kept up, however, like the confusion of the comic and the simply ridiculous, and all this is well calculated to ap has already become that separates us froly of his _Moria_ He considered it so unimportant, he says, as to be unworthy of publication, yet no work of his had been received with such applause It was a trifle and not at all in keeping with his character More had made him write it, as if a ca utterances were not without a secondary purpose The _Moria_ had not brought hie in which he lived had taken the satire in very bad part, where it seeh in his preface he had tried to safeguard himself from the reproach of irreverence His airy play with the texts of Holy Scripture had been too venturesome formade a mock of eternal life Erasmus did what he could to convince evil-thinkers that the purpose of the _Moria_ was no other than to exhort people to be virtuous In affir this he did his work injustice: it was er what he had been in 1509 Repeatedly he had been obliged to defend his ht have kept it back, he writes in 1517 to an acquaintance at Louvain Even towards the end of his life, he warded off the insinuations of Alberto Pio of Carpi in a lengthy expostulation

Erasenre of the _Praise of Folly_

One ua_, which he published in 1525, as an attempt to make a companion-piece to the _Moria_ The book is called _Of the Use and Abuse of the Tongue_ In the opening pages there is so that reminds us of the style of the _Laus_, but it lacks all the charht

Should one pity Erasmus because, of all his publications, collected in ten folio volumes, only the _Praise of Folly_ has remained a really popular book? It is, apart from the _Colloquies_, perhaps the only one of his works that is still read for its own sake The rest is now only studied fro acquainted with his person or his times It seems to me that perfect justice has been done in this case The _Praise of Folly_ is his best work He wrote other books, reater influence on his time But each has had its day

_Moriae Encomium_ alone was to be immortal For only when humour illuminated that mind did it becoave soiven to the world

[Illustration: XI The last page of the _Praise of Folly_, with Holbein's drawing of Folly descending from the pulpit]

[Illustration: XII THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] That he conceived the work in the Alps follows from the fact that he tells us explicitly that it happened while riding, whereas, after passing through Switzerland, he travelled by boat A 1, IV 21662

[12] Erasmus did not divide the book into chapters It was done by an editor as late as 1765

CHAPTER X

THIRD STAY IN ENGLAND

1509-14

Third stay in England: 1509-14--No information about two years of Eras--Poverty-- Erase--Relations with Badius, the Paris publisher--A mistake profitable to Johannes Froben at Basle-- Erasainst war

From the moment when Erasmus, back from Italy in the early summer of 1509, is hidden from view in the house of More, to write the _Praise of Folly_, until nearly two years later when he coain on the road to Paris to have the book printed by Gilles Gourmont, every trace of his life has been obliterated Of the letters which during that period he wrote and received, not a single one has been preserved

Perhaps it was the happiest time of his life, for it was partly spent with his tried patron, Mountjoy, and also in the house of More in that noble and witty circle which to Erasmus appeared ideal That house was also frequented by the friend wholand, and whose enial to him than any other, Andrew A these months he was able to ithout interruption at the studies to which he was irresistibly attracted, without cares as to the immediate future, and not yet burdened by excessive renohich afterwards was to cause him as much trouble and loss as joy

That future was still uncertain As soon as he no longer enjoys More's hospitality, the difficulties and complaints recommence Continual poverty, uncertainty and dependence were extraordinarily galling to a ed Badius with a new, revised edition of the _Adagia_, though the Aldine ht still be had there at a moderate price The _Laus_, which had just appeared at Gour as early as 1511, with a courteous letter by Jacob Wi consulted in the land, had been laid up in London with a bad attack of the sweating sickness, and thence had gone to Queens' College, Cae he writes to Colet, 24 August 1511, in a vein of comical despair The journey from London had been disastrous: a lame horse, no victuals for the road, rain and thunder 'But I am almost pleased at this, I see the track of Christian poverty' A chance to ed to spend everything he can wrest from his Maecenases--he, born under a wrathful Mercury

This looain: 'Oh, this begging; you laugh at me, I know But I hate myself for it and am fully determined, either to obtain so, or to iether' This refers to a dedication of a translation of Basilius's Commentaries on Isaiah to John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester

Colet, who had never known pecuniary cares himself, did not well understand these sallies of Erasmus He replies to them with delicate irony and covert rebuke, which Erasmus, in his turn, pretends not to understand He was now 'in want in the midst of plenty', _simul et in ed in preparing for Badius's press the _De copia verboruun at Paris; it was dedicated to Colet 'I ask you, who can beti to A left Rome and Italy; how prosperity had smiled upon him there! In the same way he would afterwards laland If he had only embraced the opportunity! he thinks Was not Erasood fortune cannot help? He rerows ainst the 1st of January, though it is pretty sure to be in vain,' he writes to A to new translations of Lucian and Plutarch

At Caht hi-wished-for prebend, indeed, had at last been given hiton, in Kent, to which Archbishop William Warha he was allowed to draw a pension of twenty pounds a year The archbishop affirranted this favour to Eras in Latin and Greek literature, had, out of love for England, disdained to live in Italy, France, or Germany, in order to pass the rest of his life here, with his friends' We see how nations already begin to vie with each other for the honour of sheltering Eras Intercourse and correspondence with Colet was a little soured under the light veil of jests and kindness by his constant need ofnew labours, or preparing new editions of his old books, rereat works upon which he had set his heart, and to which he had given all his energies at Cae, held out no proical labours ranked above all others; and in these hard years, he devoted his best strength to preparation for the great edition of Jerome's works and emendation of the text of the New Testaed and promoted by Colet