practice at the bar became rapidly extensive. Every- CHAP. V. thing went well with him. Once more he was drinking A.D. 1509. the wine of life. There was probably no brighter home-brighter in present enjoyment, or more brilliant in future prospects-than that home in Bucklersbury, into which Erasmus, jaded by the journey, entered on his arrival from Italy. He must have found More and his gentle More's wife rejoicing in their infant son, and the merry happiness. voices of three little daughters echoing the joy of the house.2 V. ERASMUS WRITES THE PRAISE OF FOLLY' WHILE For some days Erasmus was chained indoors by an attack of a painful disease to which he had for long been subject. His books had not yet arrived, and he was too ill to admit of close application of any kind. domestic 'Praise of More's To beguile his time, he took pen and paper, and The began to write down at his leisure the satirical reflec- of Folly, tions on men and things which, as already mentioned, written in: had grown up within him during his recent travels, and house. served to beguile the tedium of his journey from Italy to England. It was not done with any grave design, or any view of publication; but he knew his friend. More was fond of a joke, and he wanted something to do, to take his attention from the weariness of the pain which he was suffering. So he worked away at his manuscript. One day when More came home from business, bringing a friend or two with him, Erasmus 1 Roper, p. 9. 2 More's son John-nineteen in 1528, according to Holbein's sketch -was probably born in 1509. More's three daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Cicely, were all older. A.D. 1510. CHAP. V. brought it out for their amusement. The fun would be so much the greater, he thought, when shared by several together. He had fancied Folly putting on her cap and bells, mounting her rostrum, and delivering an address to her votaries on the affairs of mankind. These few select friends having heard what he had already written, were so delighted with it that they insisted on its being completed. In about a week the whole was finished.' This is the simple history of the 'Praise of Folly.' Gram marians and schools. 6 It was a satire upon follies of all kinds. The bookworm was smiled at for his lantern-jaws and sickly look; the sportsman for his love of butchery; the superstitious were sneered at for attributing strange virtues to images and shrines, for worshipping another Hercules under the name of St. George, for going on pilgrimage when their proper duty was at home. The wickedness of fictitious pardons and the sale of indulgences, the folly of prayers to the Virgin in shipwreck or distress, received each a passing censure. Grammarians were singled out of the regiment of fools as the most servile votaries of folly. They were described as 'A race of men the most miserable, who grow old in penury and filth in their schools-schools, did I say? prisons! dungeons! I should have said— among their boys, deafened with din, poisoned by a 'fœtid atmosphere, but, thanks to their folly, perfectly 'self-satisfied, so long as they can bawl and shout to 'their terrified boys, and box, and beat, and flog them, 2 1 See the letter of Erasmus to| 1515, leaf F, iv. Argent. 1511, leaf D, iii., where occurs the marginal reading, 'In'dulgentias taxat.' "and so indulge in all kinds of ways their cruel dis- CHAP. V. position.'1 A.D. 1510. lastic sys After criticising with less severity poets and authors, The schorhetoricians and lawyers, Folly proceeded to re-echo the censure of Colet upon the dogmatic system of the Schoolmen. science. She ridiculed the logical subtlety which spent itself on splitting hairs and disputing about nothing, and to which the modern followers of the Schoolmen were so painfully addicted. She ridiculed, too, the prevalent dogmatic philosophy and science, which having been embraced by the Schoolmen, and sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority, had become a part of the scholastic system. With what ease do they dream Scholastic and prate of the creation of innumerable worlds, 'measuring sun, moon, stars, and earth as though by thumb and thread; rendering a reason for thunder, wind, eclipses, and other inexplicable things; never 'hesitating in the least, just as though they had been 'admitted into the secrets of creation, or as though they had come down to us from the council of the "Gods-with whom, and whose conjectures, Nature is mightily amused!'2 theology. From dogmatic science Folly turned at once to dog- Scholastic matic theology, and proceeded to comment in her severest fashion on a class whom, she observes, it might have been safest to pass over in silence-divines.3 Their pride and irritability are such (she said) that 'they will come down upon me with their six hundred conclusions, and compel me to recant; and, if I refuse, 1 Argent. 1511, E, 8, and Eras. Eras. Op. iv. p. 462. Op. iv. p. 457. 2 3 Argent. 1511, leaf F, and Eras. Argent. 1511, leaf E, viii., and Op. iv. p. 465. 6 CHAP. V. ' declare me a heretic forthwith. They explain to 4.D. 1510. their own satisfaction the most hidden mysteries: how 'the universe was constructed and arranged-through 'what channels the stain of original sin descends to pos'terity-how the miraculous.birth of Christ was effected: -how in the Eucharistic wafer the accidents can exist 'without a substance, and so forth. And they think 'themselves equal to the solution of such questions as 'these :-Whether . . . God could have taken upon ' himself the nature of a woman, a devil, an ass, a gourd, 'or a stone? And how in that case a gourd could have preached, worked miracles, and been nailed to 'the cross? What Peter would have consecrated if he 'had consecrated the Eucharist at the moment that the body of Christ was hanging on the Cross? Whether Foolish questions. 6 ' at that moment Christ could have been called a man? + Argent. 1511, leaf F, and Eras. Op. iv. p. 465. 2 Basle, 1519, p. 178 et seq., and Eras. Op. ix. pp. 466 et seq. But A.D. 1510. 'keys, and received them from Him who would not CHAP. V. have committed them to one unworthy to receive them, but I know not whether he understood (cer'tainly he never touched upon the subtlety!) in what 6 way the key of knowledge can be held by a man who 'has no knowledge. They often baptized people, but 'they never taught what is the formal, what the material, what the efficient, and what the ultimate 'cause of baptism; they say nothing of its delible and indelible character. They worshipped indeed, 'but in spirit, following no other authority than the "gospel saying, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship “Him must worship him in spirit and in truth.' it hardly seems to have been revealed to them, that in one and the same act of worship the picture of 'Christ drawn with charcoal on a wall was to be 'adored, as well as Christ himself. . . . Again, the Apostles spoke of "grace," but they never distinguished between "gratiam gratis datam," and " gra""tiam gratificantem." They preached charity, but 'did not distinguish between charity "infused" and ""acquired," nor did they explain whether it was an 'accident or a substance, created or uncreated. They abhorred "sin," but I am a fool if they could define 'scientifically what we call sin, unless indeed they were 'inspired by the spirit of the Scotists!'1 After pursuing the subject further, Folly suggests that an army of them should be sent against the Turks, not in the hope that the Turks might be converted by them so much as that Christendom would be relieved by their absence, and then she 1 Basle, 1519, p. 181. |