Erasmus of Rotterdam

“ However, who knows but that Erasmus, subtle professor that he was and will ever be, is contented with his corner, if indeed, as tradition tells, it be not far from his house? In a little street near the square, in the wall of a small house which is now used as a tavern, there is to be seen in a niche a bronze statuette of the great writer, and under it runs the inscription: Hæc est parva domus magnus qua natus Erasmus. Eight out of ten of the inhabitants of Rotterdam have probably never seen nor read it. ”

“ The celebrated Edzard, count of eastern Friesland, openly adopted the Reformation. While Erasmus of Rotterdam, without actually pronouncing himself a disciple of Lutheranism, effected more than all its advocates to throw the abuses of Catholicism into discredit.
We may here remark that, during the government of the House of Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. ”

“ For a long time both pictures were thought to be by the latter painter, as in 1517 these two learned men commissioned Matsys to paint a double portrait of them, which was sent as a present to Sir Thomas More.
Erasmus is represented in his black doctor’s robes, heavily trimmed with fur, and a black cap. His hands rest upon a book, bearing the inscription, partly in Greek and partly in Latin, “The Herculean labours of Erasmus of Rotterdam.” A curtain is behind his head, and on the left a stone pillar carved with fine Renaissance design. On the right a number of books are placed upon
Gray photo. ”

“ The country all about is as nice and flat as Rotterdam."
Anon, we sit down to rest and talk in the pavillion.
Sayth Erasmus to my father, "I marvel you have never entered into the king's service in some publick capacitie, wherein your learning and knowledge, bothe of men and things, would not onlie serve your own interest, but that of your friends and ye publick."
Father smiled and made answer, "I am better and happier as I am. As for my friends, I alreadie do for them alle I can, soe as they can hardlie consider me in their debt ”

“ LATIN WRITERS.—One of the great restorers of letters in Europe, and one of the most elegant of modern Latin authors, was Gerard Didier, a native of Rotterdam, who took the name of Erasmus (1467-1536) . To profound learning he joined a refined taste and a delicate wit, and few men have been so greatly admired as he was during his lifetime. The principal sovereigns of Europe endeavored to draw him into their kingdoms. He several times visited England, where he was received with great deference by Henry VIII., and where he gave lectures on Greek literature at Cambridge. ”

“ Dordrecht formed a perfect picture à la Rembrandt, with a host of windmills on the skyline, telling dark against the brightness, at the confluence of the Maes and Rhine. Here Cuyp was born, the painter of sunlit cows. Rotterdam pleased us greatly, and we strolled about in the evening, coming upon the statue of Erasmus, which I place amongst the most admirable statues I have seen. Rotterdam possesses in rich abundance the peculiar charm of a seaport. ”

“ The first important place we passed was Rotterdam, the most active seaport of Holland, with a population of three hundred and twenty thousand, and from the high railway bridge on which we crossed the Maas we had a good view of the boompjes, as they call the magnificent quays, which, with their graceful fringe of trees and their tangled forest of shipping, line the banks of the river for a mile and a half. We caught a glimpse also of the bronze statue of Erasmus, the Dutch scholar, who, as some say, "laid the egg which Luther hatched." ”

“ She does not possess the wealth of the capital; but is more industrious in increasing what she has; she dares, risks, undertakes like a young and adventurous city. Amsterdam, like a merchant grown cautious after having made his fortune by hazardous undertakings, begins to doze over her treasures. At Rotterdam fortunes are made; at Amsterdam they are consolidated; at the Hague they are spent....
In the middle of the market-place, surrounded by heaps of vegetables, fruit, and earthenware pots and pans, stands the statue of Desiderius Erasmus, the first literary light of Holland ”

“ I saw houses in the city standing in pools of dull blue water, reached by a bridge from the street: I suppose, however, there might be gardens behind them. Many of the houses decline very much from the perpendicular; they are, however, apparently well-built and are spacious. We made no long stay in Rotterdam, but after looking at its bronze statue of Erasmus, and its cathedral, which is not remarkable in any other respect than that it is a Gothic building of brick, stone being scarce in Holland, we took the stage-coach for the Hague the next day. ”

“ Born at Rotterdam in 1467, Erasmus was approaching manhood when Italian humanism, having culminated in the days of Politian, was about to decline. His own training was not directly due to Italy. When he was a schoolboy at Deventer, his precocious ability was recognised by Rudolf Agricola, whom he has designated as "the first who brought from Italy some breath of a better culture." Erasmus avers that, in his boyhood, northern Europe was barbarously ignorant of humane literature. A knowledge of Greek was "the next thing to heresy." ”

“ One likes a chemist’s shop at least to look as if it contained reasonable remedies. These do not. Either our shops contain too many drugs or these too few. The chemist’s sign, a large comic head with its mouth wide open (known as the gaper) , is also subversive of confidence. A chemist’s shop is no place for jokes. In Holland one must in short do as the Dutch do, and remain well.
Rotterdam’s first claim to consideration, apart from its commercial importance, is that it gave birth to Erasmus, a bronze statue of whom stands in the Groote Market, looking down on the stalls of fruit. ”

“ Erasmus was at Louvain when Luther's works arrived in the Netherlands. The prior of the Augustins of Antwerp, who had studied at Wittemberg, and according to the testimony of Erasmus, held true primitive Christianity, and many other Belgians besides, read them with avidity. "But," says the scholar of Rotterdam, "those who sought only their own interest, and entertained the people with old wives' fables, gave full vent to their grovelling fanaticism." ”

“ The acknowledged prince of the humanists was Erasmus. No other man of letters, unless it be Voltaire, has ever enjoyed such a European reputation during his lifetime. He was venerated by scholars far and wide, even in Spain and Italy. Although he was born in Rotterdam he was not a Dutchman, but a citizen of the world; he is, in fact, claimed by England, France, and Germany. ”

“ Erasmus, the greatest scholar of his age, the autocrat of letters, and, at that time, living in Basle. He was born in Rotterdam, in 1467, of poor parents, but early attracted notice for his attainments, and early emancipated himself from the trammels of scholasticism, which he hated and despised as cordially as Luther himself. He also attacked, with elegant sarcasm the absurdities of his age, both in literature and (p. 014) morals. He denounced the sins and follies of the monks, and spoke of the necessity of reform. But his distinguishing excellence was his literary talent and taste. ”

“ Delighted as he plainly was with everything and everybody in England, better treated than he had ever been in his life, why did not Erasmus take his own advice and settle down there in some regular occupation? So cosmopolitan a genius as his could hardly have dreaded a change of residence; the scholar's home was wherever the sun shone, and certainly never was man more free to follow the bent of his own wishes than was Erasmus. ”

“ They say that Rotterdam derives its Origin from Ruther King of the Franks. This City is large and well built; and by its several Canals has a convenient Communication with all the Towns of Holland. The only Monument at Rotterdam is a Statue of Brass in the great Square, representing the famous Erasmus, to whom this City gave Birth.
From Rotterdam I went to Dort, or Dordrecht, which is a very ancient Town, and the first in Rank in the Dominions of Holland. ”

“ In the great marketplace of Rotterdam there stands a fine bronze statue of Erasmus.
To merchants Rotterdam is known as one of the busiest import cities on the Continent; as in its import trade it is exceeded only by Hamburg and Antwerp, while its cattle market is the most important in Holland. There is much life in Rotterdam, and plenty of entertainment to enliven the visitor who goes there for other purposes than those of trade.
THE POSTOFFICE, ROTTERDAM
Boyman’s Museum contains a most valuable collection of Dutch art, and the churches, parks, and public ways are attractive and interesting. ”

“ I will only say at present that France was ever dear to me on many accounts [we remember his affection for the Collége Montaigu, and his reference to that 'dunghill of a Paris'] and is now attractive to me for no reason stronger than that Budæus is there. Indeed there is no reason to make me out a stranger as you do for, if we [Pg 252] may believe the map-makers, Holland too is a part of France."
Nor does Erasmus commit himself any more decidedly in the personal letter which he sent at the same time to King Francis. ”

“ Some of the provinces lay within the Empire, others were vassals of France, a few were independent. Dutch was regarded as a dialect of German. The most illustrious Netherlander of the time, Erasmus, in discussing his race, does not even contemplate the possibility of there being a nation composed of Dutch and Flemish men. The only alternative that presents itself to him is whether he is French or German and, having been born at Rotterdam, he decides in favor of the latter. ”

“ Just as his powerful will compelled his frail and suffering body to do the bidding of his unconquerable spirit, so the literary impulse carried him on to utterances far beyond the capacity of his personality to realise in action. If Erasmus could have lived up to himself, he would have been the greatest of men. Let us in our judgment of him beware lest we make superhuman demands upon him. It is as idle as it is unjust to ask that Erasmus should be both Erasmus and Luther at once. ”

“ Never in my life was I less in concealment, never more openly before the eyes of all men. And meanwhile there were some among those babblers who wrote to Germany that Erasmus was somewhere in hiding,—which I never found out until I got here in [Pg 349] Basel. And again when the emperor was at Brussels with the king of Denmark, and Thomas, cardinal of York, was there as ambassador of the king of England, you know yourself, even if I had kept myself to your house, how much in hiding I should have been ”

“ Budæus then goes on to say that he has little to do with court affairs, but that if Erasmus likes it, he may well promise himself a fine position in Paris.
"Immortal gods! what an honour for you! what a splendid fortune in the judgment of all learned men, to be summoned into a distant land by the greatest and most illustrious of kings on the sole recommendation of your learning!... As far as one can guess, he desires to be the founder of a splendid institution, so that in the future, quite otherwise than in the past, liberal learning may seem to be a thing of profit." ”

“ His friends are Servatius Roger of Rotterdam and William Hermans of Gouda, both his companions at Steyn, and the older Cornelius Gerard of Gouda, usually called Aurelius (a quasi-latinization of Goudanus) , who spent most of his time in the monastery of Lopsen, near Leyden. With them he read and conversed sociably and jestingly; with them he exchanged letters when they were not together.
Out of the letters to Servatius there rises the picture of an Erasmus whom we shall never find again—a young man of more than feminine sensitiveness; of a languishing need for sentimental friendship. ”

“ The biographer of Erasmus is tempted to draw a somewhat pathetic picture of his last years; an aged man, broken with pain and disappointment, rejected by all parties, without influence in the world, living under continual fear of some unforeseen disaster,—these form, indeed, the elements for a sufficiently mournful description. And yet the end of Erasmus' course was such as he had been deliberately planning for himself all his life long. Isolation from all the various groupings of men upon great public questions had been his avowed ideal, and he had reached it. ”

“ He dragged me to his house and there on a little table, among his toll-receipts, lay the writings of Erasmus. He cries out that he is a blessed man, calls his wife, his children, and all his friends. To the clamorous boatmen he sends two jugs of wine and when they burst out into new clamours he sends some more, and promises that on their return he will remit the toll because they have brought him so great a guest. From here I was escorted as far as Coblenz by John Flaminius, head of a convent of women there, a man of angelic purity, of sound and sober judgment, and of unusual learning. ”

“ We are not well informed as to the end of Erasmus' life. The last letter in the collection of Le Clerc, perhaps the last he ever wrote, is to his old friend Goclenius at Louvain, under date of June 28, 1536. He is among faithful friends, better friends than he had at Freiburg, "but on account of differences in doctrine I would rather end my life elsewhere. Would that Brabant were nearer!" Again he repeats his declaration that he came to Basel only for a change of air and was intending to go elsewhere as soon as he felt better. The ruling passion was strong upon him even to his death. ”