Erasmus and the Age of Reformation Part 6

Unperceived the orator has incorporated here with folly all that is vitality and the courage of life. Folly is spontaneous energy that no one can do without. He who is perfectly sensible and serious cannot live. The more people get away from me, Stult.i.tia, the less they live.

Why do we kiss and cuddle little children, if not because they are still so delightfully foolish. And what else makes youth so elegant?

Now look at the truly serious and sensible. They are awkward at everything, at meal-time, at a dance, in playing, in social intercourse.

If they have to buy, or to contract, things are sure to go wrong.

Quintilian says that stage fright bespeaks the intelligent orator, who knows his faults. Right! But does not, then, Quintilian confess openly that wisdom is an impediment to good execution? And has not Stult.i.tia the right to claim prudence for herself, if the wise, out of shame, out of bashfulness, undertake nothing in circ.u.mstances where fools pluckily set to work?

Here Erasmus goes to the root of the matter in a psychological sense.

Indeed the consciousness of falling short in achievement is the brake clogging action, is the great inertia r.e.t.a.r.ding the progress of the world. Did he know himself for one who is awkward when not bending over his books, but confronting men and affairs?

Folly is gaiety and lightheartedness, indispensable to happiness. The man of mere reason without pa.s.sion is a stone image, blunt and without any human feeling, a spectre or monster, from whom all fly, deaf to all natural emotions, susceptible neither to love nor compa.s.sion. Nothing escapes him, in nothing he errs; he sees through everything, he weighs everything accurately, he forgives nothing, he is only satisfied with himself; he alone is healthy; he alone is king, he alone is free. It is the hideous figure of the doctrinaire which Erasmus is thinking of.

Which state, he exclaims, would desire such an absolutely wise man for a magistrate?

He who devotes himself to tasting all the bitterness of life with wise insight would forthwith deprive himself of life. Only folly is a remedy: to err, to be mistaken, to be ignorant is to be human. How much better it is in marriage to be blind to a wife's shortcomings than to make away with oneself out of jealousy and to fill the world with tragedy!

Adulation is virtue. There is no cordial devotion without a little adulation. It is the soul of eloquence, of medicine and poetry; it is the honey and the sweetness of all human customs.

Again a series of valuable social qualities is slyly incorporated with folly: benevolence, kindness, inclination to approve and to admire.

But especially to approve of oneself. There is no pleasing others without beginning by flattering ourselves a little and approving of ourselves. What would the world be if everyone was not proud of his standing, his calling, so that no person would change places with another in point of good appearance, of fancy, of good family, of landed property?

Humbug is the right thing. Why should any one desire true erudition? The more incompetent a man, the pleasanter his life is and the more he is admired. Look at professors, poets, orators. Man's mind is so made that he is more impressed by lies than by the truth. Go to church: if the priest deals with serious subjects the whole congregation is dozing, yawning, feeling bored. But when he begins to tell some c.o.c.k-and-bull story, they awake, sit up, and hang on his lips.

To be deceived, philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not to be deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err, why should a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he was so born and made, and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly or does not walk on four legs? We might as well call the horse unhappy because it does not learn grammar or eat cakes. No creature is unhappy, if it lives according to its nature. The sciences were invented to our utmost destruction; far from conducing to our happiness, they are even in its way, though for its sake they are supposed to have been invented.

By the agency of evil demons they have stolen into human life with the other pests. For did not the simple-minded people of the Golden Age live happily, unprovided with any science, only led by nature and instinct?

What did they want grammar for, when all spoke the same language? Why have dialectics, when there were no quarrels and no differences of opinion? Why jurisprudence, when there were no bad morals from which good laws sprang? They were too religious to investigate with impious curiosity the secrets of nature, the size, motions, influence of the stars, the hidden cause of things.

It is the old idea, which germinated in antiquity, here lightly touched upon by Erasmus, afterwards proclaimed by Rousseau in bitter earnest: civilization is a plague.

Wisdom is misfortune, but self-conceit is happiness. Grammarians, who wield the sceptre of wisdom--schoolmasters, that is--would be the most wretched of all people if I, Folly, did not mitigate the discomforts of their miserable calling by a sort of sweet frenzy. But what holds good of schoolmasters, also holds good of poets, orators, authors. For them, too, all happiness merely consists in vanity and delusion. The lawyers are no better off and after them come the philosophers. Next there is a numerous procession of clergy: divines, monks, bishops, cardinals, popes, only interrupted by princes and courtiers.

In the chapters[12] which review these offices and callings, satire has s.h.i.+fted its ground a little. Throughout the work two themes are intertwined: that of salutary folly, which is true wisdom, and that of deluded wisdom, which is pure folly. As they are both put into the mouth of Folly, we should have to invert them both to get truth, if Folly ...

were not wisdom. Now it is clear that the first is the princ.i.p.al theme.

Erasmus starts from it; and he returns to it. Only in the middle, as he reviews human accomplishments and dignities in their universal foolishness, the second theme predominates and the book becomes an ordinary satire on human folly, of which there are many though few are so delicate. But in the other parts it is something far deeper.

Occasionally the satire runs somewhat off the line, when Stult.i.tia directly censures what Erasmus wishes to censure; for instance, indulgences, silly belief in wonders, selfish wors.h.i.+p of the saints; or gamblers whom she, Folly, ought to praise; or the spirit of systematizing and levelling, and the jealousy of the monks.

For contemporary readers the importance of the _Laus Stult.i.tiae_ was, to a great extent, in the direct satire. Its lasting value is in those pa.s.sages where we truly grant that folly is wisdom and the reverse.

Erasmus knows the aloofness of the ground of all things: all consistent thinking out of the dogmas of faith leads to absurdity. Only look at the theological quiddities of effete scholasticism. The apostles would not have understood them: in the eyes of latter-day divines they would have been fools. Holy Scripture itself sides with folly. 'The foolishness of G.o.d is wiser than men,' says Saint Paul. 'But G.o.d hath chosen the foolish things of the world.' 'It pleased G.o.d by the foolishness (of preaching) to save them that believe.' Christ loved the simple-minded and the ignorant: children, women, poor fishermen, nay, even such animals as are farthest removed from vulpine cunning: the a.s.s which he wished to ride, the dove, the lamb, the sheep.

Here there is a great deal behind the seemingly light jest: 'Christian religion seems in general to have some affinity with a certain sort of folly'. Was it not thought the apostles were full of new wine? And did not the judge say: 'Paul, thou art beside thyself'? When are we beside ourselves? When the spirit breaks its fetters and tries to escape from its prison and aspires to liberty. That is madness, but it is also other-worldliness and the highest wisdom. True happiness is in selflessness, in the furore of lovers, whom Plato calls happiest of all.

The more absolute love is, the greater and more rapturous is the frenzy.

Heavenly bliss itself is the greatest insanity; truly pious people enjoy its shadow on earth already in their meditations.

Here Stult.i.tia breaks off her discourse, apologizing in a few words in case she may have been too petulant or talkative, and leaves the pulpit.

'So farewell, applaud, live happily, and drink, Moria's ill.u.s.trious initiates.'

It was an unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters neither to lose the light comical touch, nor to lapse into undisguised profanation.

It was only feasible by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of sophistry. In the _Moria_ Erasmus is all the time hovering 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 minds: that the _Moriae Encomium_ is a true, gay jest. The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty than Rabelais's. 'Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite.' 'All common people abound to such a degree, and everywhere, in so many forms of folly that a thousand Democrituses would be insufficient to laugh at them all (and they would require another Democritus to laugh at them).'

How could one take the _Moria_ too seriously, when even More's _Utopia_, which is a true companion-piece to it and makes such a grave 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 Stult.i.tia speaks of her father, Plutus, the G.o.d of wealth, at whose beck all things are turned topsy-turvy, according to whose will all human affairs are regulated--war and peace, government and counsel, justice and treaties. He has begotten her on the nymph Youth, not a senile, purblind Plutus, but a fresh G.o.d, warm with youth and nectar, like another Gargantua.

The figure of Folly, of gigantic size, looms large 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 discriminating 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, ill.u.s.trating Erasmus, knows but of one representation of a fool: with a staff and a.s.s's ears. Erasmus speaks without clear transition, now of foolish persons and now of real lunatics. They are happiest of all, he makes Stult.i.tia say: they are not frightened by spectres and apparitions; they are not tortured by the fear of impending calamities; everywhere they bring mirth, jests, frolic and laughter. 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 make us feel how wide the gap has already become that separates us from Erasmus.

In later years he always spoke slightingly 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 camel were made to dance. But these disparaging utterances were not without a secondary purpose. The _Moria_ had not brought him only success and pleasure. The exceedingly susceptible age in which he lived had taken the satire in very bad part, where it seemed to glance at offices and orders, although 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 for many. His friend Martin van Dorp upbraided him with having made 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 affirming this he did his work injustice: it was much more than that. But in 1515 he was no longer what he had been in 1509. Repeatedly he had been obliged to defend his most witty work. Had he known that it would offend, he might 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.

Erasmus made no further ventures in the genre of the _Praise of Folly_.

One might consider the treatise _Lingua_, 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 something that reminds us of the style of the _Laus_, but it lacks all the charm both of form and of thought.

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 from a historical point of view, for the sake of becoming 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, more erudite, some more pious--some perhaps of equal or greater 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 become truly profound. In the _Praise of Folly_ Erasmus gave something that no one else could have given to the world.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sing through Switzerland, he travelled by boat. A. 1, IV 216.62.

[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 Erasmus's life: 1509 summer, till 1511 spring--Poverty-- Erasmus at Cambridge--Relations with Badius, the Paris publisher--A mistake profitable to Johannes Froben at Basle-- Erasmus leaves England: 1514--_Julius Exclusus_--Epistle against 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 comes to view again 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 n.o.ble and witty circle which to Erasmus appeared ideal. That house was also frequented by the friend whom Erasmus had made during his former sojourn in England, and whose mind was perhaps more congenial to him than any other, Andrew Ammonius. It is not improbable that during these months he was able to work without interruption at the studies to which he was irresistibly attracted, without cares as to the immediate future, and not yet burdened by excessive renown, which 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 mind requiring above all things liberty. At Paris he charged Badius with a new, revised edition of the _Adagia_, though the Aldine might still be had there at a moderate price. The _Laus_, which had just appeared at Gourmont's, was reprinted at Stra.s.sburg as early as 1511, with a courteous letter by Jacob Wimpfeling to Erasmus, but evidently without his being consulted in the matter. By that time he was back in England, had been laid up in London with a bad attack of the sweating sickness, and thence had gone to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he had resided before. From Cambridge 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 make some money he does not see; he will be obliged to spend everything he can wrest from his Maecenases--he, born under a wrathful Mercury.

This may sound somewhat gloomier than it was meant, but a few weeks later he writes again: 'Oh, this begging; you laugh at me, I know. But I hate myself for it and am fully determined, either to obtain some fortune, which will relieve me from cringing, or to imitate Diogenes altogether.' 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 media copia et in summa inopia_. That is to say, he was engaged in preparing for Badius's press the _De copia verborum ac rerum_, formerly begun at Paris; it was dedicated to Colet. 'I ask you, who can be more impudent or abject than I, who for such a long time already have been openly begging in England?'

Writing to Ammonius he bitterly regrets having left Rome and Italy; how prosperity had smiled upon him there! In the same way he would afterwards lament that he had not permanently established himself in England. If he had only embraced the opportunity! he thinks. Was not Erasmus rather one of those people whom good fortune cannot help? He remained in trouble and his tone grows more bitter. 'I am preparing some bait against the 1st of January, though it is pretty sure to be in vain,' he writes to Ammonius, referring to new translations of Lucian and Plutarch.

At Cambridge Erasmus lectured on divinity and Greek, but it brought him little success and still less profit. The long-wished-for prebend, indeed, had at last been given him, in the form of the rectory of Aldington, in Kent, to which Archbishop William Warham, his patron, appointed him in 1512. Instead of residing he was allowed to draw a pension of twenty pounds a year. The archbishop affirms explicitly that, contrary to his custom, he had granted this favour to Erasmus, because he, 'a light of learning in Latin and Greek literature, had, out of love for England, disdained to live in Italy, France, or Germany, in order to pa.s.s 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 Erasmus.

Relief from all cares the post did not bring. Intercourse and correspondence with Colet was a little soured under the light veil of jests and kindness by his constant need of money. Seeking new resources by undertaking new labours, or preparing new editions of his old books, remained a hard necessity for Erasmus. The great works upon which he had set his heart, and to which he had given all his energies at Cambridge, held out no promise of immediate profit. His serious theological 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 Testament, a task inspired, encouraged and promoted by Colet.