Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature

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Chapter XVIII On Desiderius Erasmus, 1467-1536

If there is any son of the Dutch nation whose name is familiar to the English people, and whose works have been read during four centuries by everybody in the highest circles of English society, it is Desiderius Erasmus. Not only because he had his pupils among the sons of the English aristocracy, not only because he was the intimate friend of Thomas Moore, but because of his Christian humanism, his high erudition and marvelous learning, his fine humor and criticism, attacking every kind of corruption and yet avoiding martyrdom, the entertaining style of his letters and books - this altogether has given to Erasmus that popularity among the higher classes of English society, which even after four hundred years has never ceased to accompany his familiar name. The young English nobleman, Lord Mountjoy, knew what he did, when, in the year 1497, he invited Erasmus, his tutor in Paris, to England, in order to bless his friends and his country with the wonderful learning and with the entertaining conversation of this broad-minded scholar, whose amiable humor and universal criticism, perhaps in no country was needed and appreciated as much as in England at the end of the 15th century.

The influence of Erasmus was a European one. His life was an international life: his works were printed and read in nearly every country, and his

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name was known even in the remotest corners of Christianity. And yet, his relation to England is a peculiar one, neither to be exaggerated nor to be underestimated.

Born at Rotterdam in the year 1467, he was educated in the Northern Provinces of the Netherlands till the twenty-seventh year of his life. Then there follow twenty years (1494-1519) in which we find him in France, in the Southern Netherlands (the only country where he had for years his own house - at Louvain), in England, and in Italy. And finally the third period of his life (1519-1536) in which he settled at Basel as editor in connection with the Froben-press till the death of his friend Froben, after which he retired to Freiburg in Breisgau, to stay there for seven years. In 1535 he returned to Basel, where he died the next year.

It was during the second period of his life (1497-1519) that he visited England, according to one of his biographers, Drummond,¹ four times; according to Nichols,² the editor of a part of his letters, six times. According to his correspondence, as published by Nichols, Erasmus was in England, first, from May, 1499, to January, 1500 (six months); second, from April, 1505, to June, 1506 (fourteen months); third, from July, 1509, to July, 1514 (five years); fourth, from March, 1515, to June, 1515 (three months); fifth, in August, 1516; sixth, in April, 1517; altogether nearly seven years, which was a tenth part of his whole life.

His personal influence with the most learned men of all Europe is evident from his letters published as

1 R.B. Drummond, Erasmus. His Life and Character. 2 vols. London, 1873.

2 Francis Morgan Nichols, The Epistles of Erasmus, from his earliest letters to his fifty-first year. English translations, 2 vols. London, 1904.

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Vols. IV and V of the edition of Erasmus' works in ten volumes in 1703 at Leyden, a part of which now have been translated and published by Nichols in two volumes. In the personal influence of Erasmus, England had a good share, since his most intimate friend was Thomas More (1478-1535) whom he himself called ‘a friend dearer to me than all besides.’ It was Thomas More who advised Erasmus to write his ‘Praise of Folly,’ and it is said that Erasmus wrote this famous book from his note-book in one week at the house of More. To stay in the home of More, in the midst of this delightful family, where the oldest daughter, Margaret-they called her ‘Mek’-was, for instance, so well educated that she knew the Greek and the Latin languages very well, must have been for Erasmus very pleasant and interesting. Some of the best information about Thomas More we have from Erasmus. He tells us that More published his ‘Utopia’ to point out the circumstances which diminish the happiness of states in general, but the British he chiefly had in view, the constitution of which he knows and understands thoroughly. The second book had been written some time during his leisure - he afterwards, as occasion served, wrote the first offhand. Hence there is some inequality of style.’¹ Erasmus himself took care of the printing of More's Utopia. The close connection of Erasmus with More, with Colet, with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and with many other prominent men in England, have made his life most interesting for the study of English history. His longest abode in England, 1509-1514, was at the time when Henry VIII

1 See Retrospective Review, Vol. V, 1822, p. 257, article on the Letters of Erasmus. In the edition of 1703 this quotation is to be found in an elaborate letter of Erasmus to Ulrich von Hutten on Thomas More, dated, Antwerp, July 23, 1519. Vol. III, p. 472-477.

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came to the throne, and began to act as a protector of sciences and arts. How little could Erasmus imagine at that time that twenty-five years later, in 1535, the message would reach him that his dearest friend, More, was put to death by the same monarch, and his head exposed on London bridge. Erasmus' personal influence on More, who was eleven years his junior, and on all the learned men in England with whom he came in contact, can hardly be overestimated. He was to them a living dictionary for all kinds of civilization and learning which existed in the great centers of the European continent, a civilization which at that time was in many respects ahead of that in England. From his letters we know how he gave advice about nearly everything. He even gave them advice how to get rid of their manifold diseases, such as the plague, by cleaning their houses and building them in a more sanitary way. This advice, given to the physician of Cardinal Wolsey, is for us the more remarkable because he describes in it the condition of the houses in which the upper classes in England lived at that time, and the more trustworthy because he wrote this to a man who knew all about it.¹ The editor of the Retrospective Review, in Vol. V, 1822, p. 250, gives a translation of this letter, and probably because he did not like this description of the English houses translated it incorrectly. Erasmus tells among other things that the floors of the houses generally were of clay and covered with rushes, which were so seldom renewed that the covering sometimes remained twenty years, conceal-

1 This letter is to be found in Tom., III, p. 1815, as Epistola 432 of the Appendix, Ed., Leyden, 1703. This edition of Erasmus' works is in 10 volumes, of which vols. III and IV contain the correspondence giving at first 1298 letters from and to Erasmus, and furthermore an Appendix containing 517 letters. At the end we find a careful index of names and one of subjects.

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ing beneath a mass of all descriptions of filth and other abominations not fit to mention. In translating this part, the poor zealot of English patriotism renders in this way: ‘The streets are generally covered,’ etc., which, of course, gives no sense at all in this connection.¹ If used in such a way, even the best sources for the truth of history lose their value. In connection with this description, and advice of Erasmus, F.M. Nichols, in his translation of a part of Erasmus' letters says: ‘And the accounts published in the abstracts of state papers show with how little comfort the highest personages were compelled to be content within royal palaces. A pallet for my lord marquis' bed and rushes for my lord's chamber are supplemented with an ounce of clover to make perfume to overcome the evil odors. We may imagine how my lord's numerous gentlemen and servants were lodged.’²

Quite another advice than that to clean the houses, and to build them in a more sanitary way, was that which Erasmus gave to his friend, Faustus Andrelinus, poet laureate, who lived in France for his health, and whom Erasmus advised to come to England for a reason which we hardly should expect from a man who remained a bachelor for all his life. At that time Erasmus himself was only thirty-two years of age, and he himself was for the first time in England. Invited by his pupil. Lord Mountjoy, it seems that he had a very good time, and so he wrote to his friend: ‘If you knew well the advantages of Britain, truly you would hasten hither with wings to your feet, and

1 Erasmus wrote literally this: ‘Tum sola fere strata sunt argilla, tum scirpis palustribus, qui subinde sic renovantur, ut fundamentum maneat aliquoties annos viginti, sub se fovens sputa, vomitus, mictum canum et huminum. projectam cervisiam, et piscium reliquias, aliasque sordes non nominanda.’ Appendix Epistola, 432, p. 1815. Opera, Tomus, III, ed. 1703. Leyden.

2 F.M. Nichols, Epistles of Erasmus, II, p. 44.

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DESIDERIUS ERASMUS.
Kopergravure naar en door Albert Dürer

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if your gout would not permit, you would wish you possessed the art of Daedalus. For just to touch on one thing out of many, here there are lasses with heavenly faces, kind, obliging; and you would far prefer them to all your muses. There is, besides, a practice never to be sufficiently commended. If you go to any place, you are received with a kiss by all; if you depart on a journey you are dismissed with a kiss; you return, kisses are exchanged; they come to visit you, a kiss the first thing; they leave you, you kiss them all round; do they meet you anywhere? kisses in abundance - lastly, wherever you move, there is nothing but kisses. And if you, Faustus, had but once tasted them, how soft they are, how fragrant, on my honour you would wish not to reside here for ten years only, but to take up your abode in England for life;’¹ Hundreds are the subjects treated in the letters of Erasmus showing the abundance of his knowledge, and the most interesting way he uses it. It is a delight just to look through the beautiful index of subjects in the edition of 1703 of Erasmus' works and the man who made that index must have known more about Erasmus than most of his biographers. From his correspondence we may deduce the character of his conversation, and it is clear that his personal influence, by his letters as well as by his conversation, must have been remarkable.

Not less than his personal influence was that of his writings. This is evident to everybody who looks at the many editions of his most famous books, as the Adages, the Praise of Folly and the Colloquies. In the bibliography of Erasmus, called Bibliotheca Erasmiana, published in seven volumes by the University of Ghent, there are mentioned 258 editions of the

1 Epistola, 65. p. 55. Opera Tom., III, Ed. 1703. The translation of this letter is in Retrospective Review, vol. V, p. 251.

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Adages and of parts of it, 247 editions of the Praise of Folly and 483 editions of the Colloquies and of parts of it. Many of these editions are, of course, in the original Latin, in which Erasmus wrote them, and in which they were spread all over Europe. But translations soon followed, and the 247 editions of the Praise of Folly are divided as follows: Latin 99, French 55, Dutch 32, English 22, German 21, Italian 14, Spanish 1, Swedish 1, Danish 1, Hungarian 1. The first Latin edition is of the year 1511 at Paris; the first English of 1549; the first Dutch of 1560; the first German of 1520, and the first French of 1520.

The first edition of the Adages is of the year 1500 at Paris; the first English translation of 1539 at London; the first German of 1539; the first Dutch of 1556. The first edition contained only 400 proverbs, some of the later editions more than 4,000.

The first edition of the Colloquies is of the year 1518 at Basel, but the translations of this work followed much later; the first of the 61 French editions is of the year 1720; the first of the 16 Dutch ones of 1610; the first of the 38 German ones of 1683; the first of the 48 English ones of 1671; two Greek editions were of the years 1566 and 1567 at Antwerp; one in Russian and Dutch of the year 1716; the first of the seven Italian editions is of 1545; the first of the seven Spanish ones of 1529 at Sevilla.

These lists of editions tell more than volumes about Erasmus' influence.

And even some of the much less known works of Erasmus, as for instance his Apophthegmata, or as they are called in English the ‘Apophtegmes, that is to saie prompte, quicke, wittie and sentencious saiynges of certain emperours, kynges, capitaines, philosophers’ have been published in a great number of

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editions. The bibliography of Erasmus, referred to above, mentions 98 editions of the Apophtegmes; 68 in Latin, of which the first is in the year 1531; 4 in English, of which the first is in 1542; 22 in French, of which the first is in 1539; one in Italian, in 1546; two in Spanish, both in 1549; and one in Dutch in the year 1672.

To investigate the reasons why these works were translated so many years earlier in one country than in another would take too long a time for the present purpose. It is also a difficult question why so many more editions appeared in one country than in another. In the investigation of these questions there is still room for some doctoral theses. In Holland, for instance, they did not need translations because the majority of the readers of Erasmus' works preferred the Latin original.

His influence on England, and consequently on the English literature by his conversation and his correspondence, as well as by his works, has been a threefold one: First, in bringing the best educated circles in England more closely into contact with the civilization of the continent; secondly, by fostering the study of the Roman and Greek literature with all its treasures of human knowledge and wisdom of life; and in the third place, by his criticism, in humor and in satire, of the corruption, the ignorance and the stupidity of the kings and nobles, clergymen and monks of his time.

This influence forms an antithesis to that of Thomas a Kempis, and the mystic movement of which he was the representative, because Erasmus, although a pious and true Christian, laid more stress on higher intellectual education than on quiet devotion.

And, finally, his influence was quite another than

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that of Luther, Calvin and Knox, because he looked at the corruption and the depravity of his time with another eye than the great Reformers. The Reformers looked at corruption as did the prophets and Apostles-from the guilty side of sin and depravity; it aroused their indignation; they preached conversion, and humiliation before God; and their theme was the duty of all creatures to glorify God. Erasmus looked at corruption and depravity from the side of its stupidity, its helplessness, its natural consequences, and it aroused his humor and his satire; his preaching was against the foolishness of sin; and his aim was more at morality than at religion; more at a humanistic reform than at a religious reformation. His eye was more on the innumerable relations between man and man in human society, than on the depths of the human heart, facing his relation to Almighty God.

How far he introduced his manifold knowledge of Greece and Rome, his humor and his satire into English literature, we can only presume or conjecture in a general way, and the investigation of this question we must leave to monographs on the subject, for which there is abundant room.