LECTURE II. ERASMUS, SIR DAVID LINDSAY, AND It was not to be expected that an event like the Reformation would happen in the world without our friend the Satirist having a hand in it. Whenever great changes and convulsions are at work in human society, when the king grasps his sword, and the priest his crucifix, and the soldier mounts his horse, -at such times the satirical writer seizes his pen, and contributes his share of exertion to the general movement. As the men whom we last dealt with spent their faculties in exposing and delineating, for their times and our own, the corruptions of a state of life existing in a nation which had lost its great moral qualities, so the men who are now to come before us devoted their faculties to an analogous and equally important task. The order of things which had supervened on the final corruption of the empire had itself, in its turn, and according to inevitable laws, advanced to a stage when immense changes were necessary. The religious man found that the machinery of his element was become disorganised; and the intellectual man, born with those qualities of humour and moral insight which combine to form the great satirist, found that the world was in a condition when they must be employed honestly in the delineation and correction of innumerable base, dangerous, and ridiculous objects around him. Kindly Nature, in her genial abundance, gives every man some use for his faculty. She has not forgotten the humorist-light, warm-hearted, and quick-seeing,with his shrewd eye and his brilliant laugh. The true satirist listens to the mighty mother, and joyfully obeys her; he has influence in time, just in proportion as he deserves it and long after his death men love his memory, and his image becomes a household god in the sacraria of the nations. I shadowed out to you, in the first of these Lectures, the general principles of my design. I wish, in every case, to select, for what exposition I am capable of, men of notable influence. I confined myself in my last to the two Roman satirists who have most contributed to form modern satire; and I now proceed to their earliest and most distinguished followers, all three of whom were the products of the revival of learning, and more or less represent the influence which the study of the ancient writers produced on the European mind. Erasmus, our first and most influential subject, is wel known to have had Horace by heart. With him I begin, and shall take the liberty to give you a sketch of his biography. His adventures, conversation, and habits of life were the counterpart of that brilliant and versatile mind, and that interesting and curious character, which together perhaps exercised as much influence on Europe as it has ever been the lot of a man of letters to do. In the latter half of the fifteenth century, one Gerard, of the town of Tergou, within the boundaries of the Germanic empire, was enslaved by the attractions of Margaret, the daughter of Peter, a physician of Sevenbergen. Gerard was a lively and genial man, as we are told; and this was undoubtedly the opinion of Peter the physician's daughter! Gerard wooed her, promised to wed her, and she believed him. Poor Margaret, indeed, believed him only too implicitly,—and the result was, that in the neighbouring city of Rotterdam she gave birth one day to Erasmus. Gerard the genial had occasion, it seems, to be at Rome. He was bound homewards, however, to fulfil his promise, when his relations wrote to him that Margaret was dead. Struck with shame and repentance, he rushed into priest's orders; and when he came again to Holland, found that he had raised 1 There is no doubt that Erasmus was one of the great men of the bend sinister; and unfortunately he was the second offspring of Gerard and Margaret's affection. But there seems no reason to doubt, also, that the case admits of the palliations given in the text. See Bayle, art. Erasme; and de Burigni, Vie d'Erasme. |