expected, disappointed. In fact, Lord Montjoy, in the letter before mentioned, had given pledges in the name of other men, without authority, presuming on the good will of the King and the Archbishop towards his friend. Erasmus, of course, therefore, found his prospects of aggrandizement and wealth overclouded. He was hospitably entertained, it is true, and provided with a sufficiency for his support. But either from the want of all economy, or his enfeebled health, which multiplied his wants, he was unable to procure himself subsistence. We find him in one of his letters to Dean Colet, suing for fifteen angels as the price of a dedication. He refused a profitable living which was offered to him by Archbishop Warham, professedly from conscientious scruples with regard to sinecures; and yet seems to have wearied the patience of his patrons by his constant impor

tunities.

Our author seems disposed to think, that this discontent with his abode in England, sprang neither from a want of patronage, nor from his own extravagance; but from a restlessness of disposition, which rendered him incapable of strong and permanent attachments. That he was treated with all honour and respect in England, there can be no doubt. His society was courted by the most distinguished men, and his merits talked of, even by the vulgar. At Cambridge he was appointed Professor both of Divinity and Greek, and the lectures which, as such, he occasionally read, were heard with flattering attention and applause. Notwithstanding all this, however, he grew more and more dissatisfied, and multiplied his complaints and importunities, till at last his English friends and he were heartily weary of each other. Such was the position of affairs, when political commotions and the prospect of a war with France, diverted the attention of the King and the nobility from letters altogether, and Erasmus, of course, began to be neglected. This circumstance, together with his gradual decline in

health, increased his desire to leave the country, which is manifested very unequivocally in his letters to the Cardinal Grimani, and other friends at Rome, which at this period contain the most fulsome panegyrics upon Italy, Italian learning, and Italian learned men. His regret at having left that country was increased, too, by the elevation of his friend, the Cardinal de Medicis, to the pontifical office. Such were his feelings, when in 1513, Bishop Fisher was appointed, by the King, to represent England in the Lateran Council. Erasmus instantly resolved to leave England in his suite; and although the Bishop was not sent, he persevered in his determination, which indeed, was strengthened by an invitation to the court of Charles, Archduke of Austria. After taxing his English friends for money to defray his charges, he accordingly set sail; and after much distress about the apprehended loss of his baggage, and especially his manuscripts, arrived at Calais.

During his residence in England, besides many smaller pieces, religious discourses, hymns, and prayers, he composed his treaties de copia verborum ac rerum, and de pur tibus orationis, elementary books in rhetoric and grammar, intended for the use of a school, established by his friend, Dean Colet. He was chiefly employed, however, in the reading of Greek authors, and in making preparations for his critical edition of the New Testament.

On his return from England, he repaired to Brussels, where he was received with great distinction, and appointed a counsellor of State, with a pension of four hundred florins. The Archduke also gave him a Sicilian bishopric; but unfortunately, it was afterwards discovered, that the right of presentment belonged to the Pope, and had been exercised in favour of another. This mistake, instead of grieving, seems to have amused Erasmus, who, in his private letters, laughs, as well at the nomination, as the disappointment. The only duty which he seems to have performed as a

counsellor of state, was the composition of a treatise for the benefit of Charles, then fifteen years of age, entitled Institutio Principis Christiani. This work proved both beneficial and acceptable to Charles, and his younger brother, Ferdinand, and procured for the author additional honours and rewards.

The chronology of this period of his life is somewhat confused, and differs considerably in the different accounts. We find him, however, in the early part of 1516, at Basle, where he went to have his New Testament printed, by John Froben, the most celebrated printer of the day, excepting Aldus. In the course of the same year, the work was published, with a dedication to the Pope, and met with such success, that a second edition was issued in 1518, and a third in 1522. This will not be thought surprising, when it is considered, that the Greek text had never yet been given to the world; that the revival of classical learning had directed the attention of the learned to the subject; that Erasmus was the most celebrated scholar of his times; and that his edition had the sanction of pontifical authority. The text was accompanied by a Latin version, altogether new, and varying in many cases from the Vulgate, with annotations, which, though ostensibly mere critical remarks upon the text, abound in declamation and invective against scholastic theology and the monks. To his second edition, he prefixed the recommendation of Leo X. under his own hand; an appendage of great service, at a time, when his orthodoxy was suspected, and the church divided into zealous parties. To the third he prefixed a vindication of vernacular translations of the scriptures. His next publication was his paraphrase of the New Testament, of which Melancthon's eulogium is well known. Our author, however, while he admits its elegance, seems to question its utility. With his brief residence at Basle, Erasmus seems to have been much delighted. With the learned printers, Amerbach

and Froben, and the sons of Ammerbach, who were Hebrew scholars, his time was very pleasantly spent. He also became acquainted with Beatus Rhenanus, Oecolampadius, Berus, and the Bishop of Basle, who used every effort to induce him to remain there.

On his return to Brussels, he was urged to accompany King Charles to Spain, but could not be prevailed upon. Soon after, he received a pressing invitation to reside at Paris, which was communicated to him by Budaeus from Francis I. himself. This offer,though he gave no positive refusal, he did not accept. His roving habits had become so fixed, that he was now unwilling to accept of any offer, which would lay him under obligations to forego the capricious independence which was his delight, From the same motive he declined repeated invitations to reside in different countries, and among the rest, an application from the Duke of Bavaria, who wished to give respectability to his new university at Ingolstadt, by the name and influence of so great a man, and who, with this view, offered him two hundred ducats yearly, without requiring any other service in return, than residence at Ingolstadt. The five years intervening between 1516 and 1521, he appears to have passed in constant motion, sometimes in Flanders, sometimes in England, and seldom many months successively in either. Our author mentions here, the impossibility of tracing the movements of Erasmus accurately, by the dates and contents of his letters; it being notorious, that in his printed correspondence the dates are often falsified, and the epistles mutilated. During the period in question, his external circumstances were more comfortable than at any former time. He mentions incidentally, himself, that he enjoyed a constant income of three hundred ducats, besides the benefactions of his patrons, and occasional supplies from other sources. During the same period, he published his Querela Pacis, and began his edition of

the Works of Jerome, which he dedicated to Archbishop Warham.

The last of the three sections, into which the work before us is divided, contains a view of the relations which Erasmus bore to the Reformation. On a subject so familiar as the origin of that great revolution, detail must be unnecessary. Our author has rendered this part of the subject interesting by inserting facts and extracts, which exhibit in a clearer light the sentiments and feelings of Luther and Erasmus towards each other, at an early period. It appears, that the latter took no notice for some time, of the dispute about indulgences, regarding it as nothing more than one of those dissentions, which were constantly arising in the bosom of the church. The Reformer on the contrary, had watched Erasmus, keenly, and with great anxiety, and in his letters had expressed opinions in relation to his character, evincing great sagacity, and fully verified by subsequent events. While he gave him all due praise for classical learning, eloquence, and wit, he appeared to doubt the soundness and firmness of his principles; and although he coincided with him in opinion, respecting the abuses and corruptions in the church, which Erasmus had exposed, he disapproved in toto of the unbecoming levity with which the latter had described and ridiculed them.

When the dispute with Tetzel grew more serious, and threatened to produce momentous consequences, the attention of Erasmus was attracted to the subject, and he seems to have regarded it with lively interest. Our author here suggests a supposition, which we think affords a satisfactory solution of the fickle and capricious conduct of Erasmus during this eventful period. It is, that he at first imagined Luther to be just such another as himself, a reformer in the same sense, and with the same design; that is, a zealot in the cause of learning, and an enemy to superstition for the sake of learning. Under this impression, he appears to