Transcriber's Notes:
Blank pages have been eliminated.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in theoriginal.
A few typographical errors have been corrected.
The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.
ERASMUS.
London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
Glasglow: 263, ARGYLE STREET.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Bombay: E. SEYMOUR HALE.
ERASMUS
THE REDE LECTUREDELIVERED IN THE SENATE-HOUSEON JUNE 11, 1890
BY
R. C. JEBB, Litt. D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
SECOND EDITION.
CAMBRIDGE:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1897
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
ERASMUS.
Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdamon the 27th of October, 1467. Hisfather, Gerhard de Praet, belonged to a respectablefamily at Gouda, a small town ofsouth Holland, not far from Rotterdam: hismother, Margaret, was the daughter of a physicianat Sevenberg in Brabant. Gerhard'sparents were resolved that he should becomea monk. Meanwhile he was secretly betrothedto Margaret. His family succeeded in preventingtheir marriage, but not their union.After the birth of a son—the elder and onlybrother of Erasmus—Gerhard fled to Rome.[2]A false rumour of Margaret's death there inducedhim, in his despair, to enter the priesthood.On returning to Holland, he foundMargaret living at Gouda with his two boys.He was true to the irrevocable vows whichparted him from her. After a few years, duringwhich the supervision of their children's educationhad been a common solace, she died, whilestill young; and Gerhard, broken-hearted, soonfollowed her to the grave.
The boy afterwards so famous had been givenhis father's Christian name, Gerhard, meaning'beloved.' Desiderius is barbarous Latin forthat, and Erasmus is barbarous Greek for it. Ifthe great scholar devised those appellations forhimself, it must have been at an early age.Afterwards, when he stood godfather to the sonof his friend Froben the printer, he gave the boythe correct form of his own second name,—viz.,Erasmius. The combination, Desiderius Erasmus,is probably due to the fact that he hadbeen known as Gerhard Gerhardson. It was a[3]singular fortune for a master of literary styleto be designated by two words which meanthe same thing, and are both incorrect.
He was sent to school at Gouda when hewas four years old. Here it was perceived thathe had a fine voice; and so he was taken toUtrecht, and placed in the Cathedral choir.But he had no gift for music. At nine years ofage he was removed from Utrecht to a goodschool at Deventer. His precocious genius soonshowed itself, and his future eminence was predictedby the famous Rudolph Agricola—one ofthe first men who brought the new learningacross the Alps.
Erasmus was only thirteen