could scarcely have been less than £700 in Er the present day; but Erasmus was no ecor literary labours involved a considerable o standing therefore these liberal aids, he was Ammonius for further loans, as he preferred though he appears to have taken a flat ref good temper. An acute attack of his completed the long list of his misfortunes. At last the plague, which had long b distance, again made its appearance at university sought safety in flight, and almost alone. It was then that, in his ! to Ammonius, he gave full vent to his dency. For some months past,' he living the life of a snail in its shell, college, and perfectly mum over my 1 is a solitude; most are away throm though even when all are here, I find expense is past enduring; the gain, · me, as though I were on my oath: i I came back and I have spent si received only one from my pupils, r protesting and declining on my pa leave a stone unturned this winter my sheet-anchor. If this succeedif otherwise, I shall wing my flig history, not even after the Restoration, have we more frequent evidence of contemptible swindling and corrupt practices pervading all classes. 1 In consequence of this, a grace had already been passed for dispens ing with the ordinary ketares, and those in divinity and sophistry, until the feast of St Leonard's laser, MSS. xxxm 173; Cooper, A•*. 4, I 295. Nos, mi Ammoni, jam aliquot plane cochie v vitair vi domi contracti condit qe m in studiis. Marns the 1 absunt pestilentio metu päri quanquam quum adsunt unte. The new Vlagón, in **on in his TT'w preime di Fridge must go cal delight reised, not in y to chill the in true learning y went forth to and in an evanminds of men of us non en tradantar qam sown account and from the t be admitted that Erasmus Sojourn at Cambridge as a by his different biographers was also their opinion. He had 1ound him a circle of learners reat reputation; respecting his , not a single tradition remains; is efforts, as a teacher of Greek, , that on the occasion of Richard r in this respect) being appointed for a few years later, the latter was certain special privileges, expressly had been the first introducer of ty. But on a careful examination reeptible within a short time after we shall probably be inclined to infer far more apparent than real; and even e impulsive, sensitive scholar could have might have been rewarded by the realisanecess, and have for ever directly associated most important movement that Cambridge ted. It is certain, that in the years immeupon his residence, we are met by indicantal and speculative activity that is almost "compared with the lethargy that had reigned years before, and we can have no hesitation in Novum Instrumentum as the centre round which y mainly revolved. Verum Instrumentum' of Erasmus, appeared, as is large, we can ask for no le verdict than the fol- + doctrina quondam ἀπαιδεύο Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Roterodamo recognitum et emendatum, non solum ad Græcam veritatem, verum etiam ad multorum utriusque linguæ codicum, eorumque veterum simul et emendatorum fidem, postremo ad probatissimorum autorum citationem, emendati onem, et interpretationem, præcipue, Origenis, Chrysostomi, Cyrilli, Vulga rii, Hieronymi, Cypriani, Ambrosii, well known to every scholar, from the printing press of CHAP Frobenius at Basel, on the 1st of March, 1516; but, as Professor Brewer observes, it was strictly the work of his resi-D dence in England' (that is at Cambridge). In the collation an examination of manuscripts required for the task, he bad the assistance of Englishmen; Englishmen supplied the funds, and English friends and patrons lent him that support and encouragement without which it is very doubtful whether Erasmus would ever have completed the work....The experi- proder ment was a bold one, the boldest that had been conceived in this century or for many centuries before it. We are accustomed to the freest expression of opinion in Biblical criticism, and any attempt to supersede our English version, to treat its inaccuracies with scorn, to represent it as far below the science and scholarship of the age, or as a barbarous, unlettered production, made from inaccurate manuscripts, and imperfectly executed by men who did not understand the language of the original, would excite little apprehension or alarm. To explain the text of Scripture exclusively by the rules of human wisdom, guided by the sane prit ciples as are freely applied to classical authors,-to discriminate the spurious from the genuine, and decide that this was canonical, and that was not,-might, perhaps, be regarded as audacious. Yet all this, and not less than this, did Erasmus propose to himself in his edition and translation of the New Testament. He meant to subvert the authority of the Vul gate, and to shew that much of the popular theology of the day, its errors and misconceptions, were founded entirely on a misapprehension of the original meaning, and inextrically the authority of both Augustine and Hilarii, Augustini, una cum annotati- PART II. CHAP. V. entangled with the old Latin version. It was his avowed object to bring up the translation of the sacred books, and all criticism connected with them, to the level of that scholarship in his day which had been successfully applied to the illustration of ancient authors; to set aside all rules of interpretation resting merely on faith and authority, and replace them by the philological and historical. And it was precisely for this reason that Luther disliked the work. In this respect the New Testament of Erasmus must be regarded as the foundation of that new school of teaching on which Anglican theology professes exclusively to rest; as such it is not only the type of its class, but the most direct enunciation of that Protestant principle which, from that time until this, has found its expression in various forms: "The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants." Whatever can be read therein or proved thereby, is binding upon all men; what cannot, is not to be required of any man as an article of his faith, either by societies or by individuals. Who sees not that the authority of the Church was displaced, and the sufficiency of all men individually to read and interpret for themselves was thus asserted by the New Testament of Erasmus'?' Defects and errors in the work If from the foregoing general estimate of the influence of the work, we turn to the consideration of its abstract merits, we may discern, from the vantage-ground of three centuries of progressive biblical criticism, more clearly than either bishop Fisher or bishop Lee, its merits and defects. Nor is it possible to deny the existence of numerous and occasionally serious errors and shortcomings. The oldest manuscript to which Erasmus had access, was probably not earlier than the tenth century; the typographical inaccuracies are frequent; the very title-page contains a glaring and singularly discreditable blunder'; he even shews such ignorance of ancient 1 Preface to Letters and Papers, vol. 1 pp. celxiv-v. This was the mention, in the list of the Fathers whose works had been used in the preparation of the text' (see note 2, p. 508), of Vulgarius, a writer no one had ever heard of before. The mistake arose in the following way. Erasmus had a copy of Theophylact on Matthew, with this title: Tou copierтárov 'Ap χιεπισκόπου Βουλγαρίας κυρίου Θεοφυ λάκτου ἐξήγησις εἰς τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖ ον Ευαγγέλιον. In his haste he took copulakтou for an epithet, while for Bouλyapias he must have read Bovλya. failure and in perplexity as to his future course, as his deliberate estimate of a university which, in reality, afforded" him far more substantial aid than he received from any mpor other learned body throughout his whole life; and the follow me regardles ing passages from subsequent letters may fairly be regard Sunt hic collegia, in quibus tantum est religionis, tanta vite modestia, ut nullam religionem eis præ hac non contempturus, si videns.' Opera, in 1529. Lutetie Cantabrigiæque sic floret theologiæ studium, ut nunquam alias que. Quid in cansa? Nimirum quod sese accommodant seculo alio se fleetenti, quod has meliores litteras, vel vi irrumpere conantes, non repellunt ut hostes, sed ut hospites comiter amplectuntur. Ibid. 111 677. ''in quibn |