And by the bed lay Donald watching still, move. I turned in silence, with my nails stuck deep In my clench'd palms; but in my heart of hearts I prayed to God. In Willie's mother's face Of speech between us. Here we dumbly bide, And wintry winds are moaning, here I dream I left behind me on the norland hills! And Willie's dead! - that's all I compre- Far far away beyond the norland hills, "HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY." SIR,- In your paper of the 11th inst. you review "Familiar Words," by J. Hain Friswell, and say, "Thus the lines quoted by Goldsmith in his 'Art of Poetry on a New Plan,' 'For he who fights and runs away Can never rise and fight again,' Beyond the silence of the untrodden snow. Butler may have taken the thought from the once well-known Greek verse- "versu illo notissimo" - with which Demosthenes is said in the "Noctes Attica" to have answered one who reproached him for his flight from Cheronea: Ανὴρ ὁ φεύγων και πάλιν μαχήσεται. of which the first line in Butler's couplet is an almost exact translation. - Ed. Examiner.] AN important discovery has been made by Mr. B. B. Woodward, the Queen's Librarian at Windsor. It is no other than some documents and letters of Prince Charles Edward (the young Pretender), who secretly visited London in the year 1750, and made a profession of Protestantism which has been a sore puzzle to those of our historians who have dealt with this period. These papers were discovered amongst some thousands of letters written or collected by the Stuart family during their exile, and were acquired by George IV., when Prince Regent, in part by purchase, and in part by the gift of Cardinal Gonsalvi. They are now all being arranged and catalogued, and very soon students of history will be enabled to consult them for fresh particulars of the period, 1716-1770. The professions of Protestantism made by the young Pretender are extremely curious. They occur on scraps of paper as though they were the jottings of idle moments, and do not always show a very correct acquaintance with the English tongue. These, for instance, are curious: For those that fly may fight again, Which he can never do that's slain. The reference to this seemed to us obvious. One reading is clearly varied from the other. We were surprised to see Sir John Mennis cited as having used the other reading thirty-two years before the first publication of Part III. of "Hudibras;" but his "Wit Restored," if not the "Musarum Delicia," varied as to its contents in different editions, and we only knew that in a late reprint of both works we had never seen the lines. We have since searched three times through the little volume of "Musarum Delicia' (Ed. 1656), and failed to find them. In two varying editions of the "Wit Restored we have also looked without success for such a pas-"I sage. Aulus Gellius used always to be a familiar author among lovers of odd reading, and " "Papish, Irish, such is fools, Such as them Cant be my Tools." hete all prists, and the regions they rein in, from the pope at Rome to the papists of Britain." From Macmillan's Magazine. "en hier is 't huis waar hij geboren war," at the same time conducting us a few steps till we were opposite a narrow building in the Breede Kerksteeg. Here, too, there was a tiny statue in front, much in the same style as on John Knox's house in the Canongate, and under it a halting hexameter, "Small is the house, yet within it was born the immortal Erasmus."* faces resembling the statue; but, with its round cheeks and padded cap, a little creature lay asleep in a wheelbarrow amongst BY JAMES HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S. cabbages and onions, and we fancied that THERE is a little town near Rotterdam Erasmus, when six months old, must have which the English call Gouda, and which is looked very like his little compatriot. known in Holland as Tergouw. Famous for "Where is the house of Erasmus?" we aska great church with painted windows, it was ed a policeman; and, in that variety of the once famous for its tobacco-pipes, and is still Aberdonian called Dutch, he made answer, renowned for its cheeses. But at the dis-"Daar is de man," pointing to the statue, tant day to which our story goes back there were no pipes, for as yet there was no tobacco, and the Brothers Crabeth had not yet glorified the Jans Kerk with their translucent jewelry. There then lived at Gouda an old couple, Helias and Catherine, who, although they had no daughter, rejoiced in ten sons. Of these, the youngest save one was bright and clever, brimming over with mirth, a beautiful penman and a capital scholar, and, by reason of his wit and exuberant spirits, a great favourite with his companions. He had become warmly attached to a physician's daughter, but he was not allowed to marry her. At that time, where sons were very numerous, it was a favourite plan to send one into a convent, thus making the best of both worlds; for, whilst a handsome amount of merit was credited to the family at large, the earthly inheritance made a better dividend among the secular members. For carrying out this excellent arrangement Gerrit was deemed most suitable. As a monk he could turn to the best account his Latin and his clerkly hand; but from the cloister his gay temperament and strong affections were utterly abhorrent. Marriage or no marriage, his attachment to the physician's daughter still continued, aud vows of indissoluble union passed between them. At last poor Margaret disappeared from Gouda and places where she was known; and by-and-by in the city of Rotterdam a hapless babe made its forlorn and unwelcome entrance into the world, as it is said another had done in circumstances too similar some time beforehand. * When we were last in Rotterdam, standing in the Groot Markt in front of a statue inscribed, "Here rose the mighty sun," &c., we thought of that dim and unlikely morning when he first peeped forth on the unsuspecting city. Amongst the peasantry and greengrocers it was of no use to look out for The best biographer of Erasmus, Hess, (Zürich, 1790, erste hälfte,p. 26) argues against the existence of this brother; bu there is no withstanding the minute details of the well-known epis le to Grunnius, Erasmi Opp. iii, co 1. 1821-1825, confirmed as they are by the csual allusion in the letter to Heemstede, where he says, "the deat of my own br ther did not overwhelm me; the loss of Froben is more than I can bear," Opp. iii. col. 1053 (Amsterdam edition, 17(3). We know that it was on the 28th of October that this event took place, and at three in the morning; but the year has been disputed. His own impressions on the subject seem to have fluctuated a little; or, rather, as he advanced in life he seems to have found reason for believing that he was not so young by a year or two as he had once supposed. The preponderance of proof is in favour of 1465. Assuming this date as correct, the present year brings us to his fourth centenary.† "Hæc est parva domus, magaus quâ natus Eras. mus." The date given above is that which has been adopted by Hallam, "Literature of Europe," sixth edition, vol. i. p. 292, although Bay e, Jortin, and almost all the biographers of Erasmus, following the inscrip ion on his statue at Rotterdam, have set down 1467. At one period of his life this latter date was accepted by himself. In hs poem on "Old Age," composed in 1507, he says that he will not be forty till October next: "nec adhuc Phoebeius orbis Natalem lucem, quæ bruma ineunte calendas Opp. iv. col. 756, But subsequently it would seem that he had found reason to throw his birth-year farther back. He writes to Budæus, Feb. 15, 1516, "If neither o' us err in or calculation, there is not auch difference in our age. I am in my 6fty-first year (siquidem ego jam annum ago primum et quinquage imum) and you say that you are not far from your fifty-second." Opp. iii. 178 B. Again, in a letter to Gratian, March 15, 128, as for my age, I think that I have now reached the year in which Tully died." Opp. iii. 1067 B. In tha case he could not have been born later than 1465: for it was in his sixty fourth year that Cicero died. No doubt his "arbitror" in the pas sage last quoted, and similar expressions elsewhere, show that his own mind was not quite clear on the subject; but they also show that he had found reason to suspect that he was older than he fancies when he wrote his poem on "Old Age." The inscription on his tomb at Basil speaks of him as dying in 1536, "jam septuagenarius," and his friend and biogra pher, Beatus Rhenanus, says, "He had reached his It was the fashion of that time for scholars to "cover with well-sounding Greek" or Latin the names of their harsh vernacular. The French Petit was Parvus; the English Fisher was translated into Piscator, and Bullock became Bovillus; and Dutch and German cultivators of the learned languages escaped from their native Van Horn, de Hondt, Neuenaar, Rabenstein, Reuchlin, Hussgen (= Hausschein), Schwarzerd, into the more euphonious Ceratinus, Canius, De Nova Aquila or Neoaëtos, Coracopetra, Capnio, Ecolampadius, Melanchthon. In the same way, when our hero grew up, believing that his own and his father's name had something to do with amiability or fondness.*- he made Gerrit Gerritzoon for ever classical as DESIDERIUS ERASMUS. To the second name exception has been taken by the adherents of jots and tittles, and in his old age he tacitly conceded that the insertion of an iota would have made it better Greek, when he christened his little godson Erasmius Froben. However, in behalf of his own earlier choice, it must be remembered that he had good authority. Long before his day there was a saint called Erasmus, whose castle has for many ages stood the guardian of Naples Bay and city, and who still on dark nights hangs out from the mast-head his lantern to warn Mediterranean seamen of the coming tempest. Elmo is a liquefaction of the harsher Erasmus, and no doubt the electric saint was present to the thoughts of the young Dutchman when he exchanged his seventieth year, which the prophet David has assigned as the ordinary limit of man's life: at least, he had not far exceeded it; for as to the year in which he was born amongst the Batavians we are not quite sure, though sure of the day, which was the 28th of October, the festival of St. Simon and St. Jude." Whatsoever may have been the circumstances which led him in later life to alter his estimate of his own age and add to it two years, we cannot but feel that the presumtions are in favor of 1465; and one advantage of the earlier da te is that it renders more intelligible, we might say more credible, some incidents recorded of his boyhood. We do not know how long he was a chorister at U recht, but it is easier o believe that he was eleven than nine when he ceased to be a singing boy; and if, instead of thirteen, we suppose him to have been fifteen when his father died, we can better understand how before leaving Deventer he had got the whole of Horace and Terence by heart, and had 1ready mastered the Dialectics of Petrus II spanus (see Opp. iii. 1822 F). patronymic, and to his own good Greek preferred the good name of the Italian tutelary. Tired out by the resistance of his relatives, and despairing of being ever lawfully wedded to his Margaret, before the birth of Erasmus, Gerrit, the father, left his home at Gouda and wrote to his parents that he would return no more. He went as far as Rome. Here his caligraphy served him in good stead. Printing was still a new invention, and an excellent income could be earned by copying books. At the same time he went on to study law and improve himself in Greek most likely with a secret hope that he might some day go back a travelled scholar and an independent man, and claim his affianced. That hope was rudely crushed. A letter came announcing that Margaret was gone. There was now no reason why he should continue to withstand parental urgency. The tie which held him to the secular life was broken; he renounced the world, and was ordained a priest. Time passed on, and he returned to Gouda, no longer to set the village in a roar with fun and frolic, but a sober ecclesiastic, under his sacred vestments bringing back the contrition of the penitent as well as the tender grief of the mourner. Here, however, a surprise awaited him. With a frightful shock of joy and consternation he found Margaret still living. The letter of his brothers had been a lie, but the lie had fulfilled its purpose. It had caused the despairing lover to leap the chasm which, in a moment crossed, now yawned a great gulf betwixt himself and the object of his affection; and, although he would have now gladly made reparation for his grievous wrong, and although history records that, the fatal error excepted, she was good and gentle and all that could be wished for in a wife, the vows of Rome were on him, and he kept them with stern bitterness, crushing down his own affection, and leaving her to a lot more sad than any widowhood. Still to poor Margaret there was beguilement in the little boy, all the rather that Gerrit loved his child, and supplied the means for her own honourable maintenance; and, for the few years that she was spared to him, we have the testimony of her son that she was a fond and devoted mother. Four hundred years ago there were no kinder-gartens nor infant-schools; and, although there was a very good Sunday picture-book, called the "Biblia Pauperum, it was not every household that could afford a copy. So the food for infant minds con sisted very much of the fairy-tales which | Before a glittering gate they stood, Where a rich man kept his revel; And wished them to the devil. At a poor man's door next Joseph begged, With welcome blithe she took them in To's wife then said the host, as sleep On the kitchen hearth, as up she sprang, long floated, life-like and real, through the The frost this night is fearful." Whilst o'er the fire the fragrant food "O mirror clear, O baby dear," She sang with joyful weeping; And so that host and his gracious wife Without delay or grudging, In all our hearts find lodging. For where He's guest there goes it best For if He dine the water's wine, In his fifth year Erasmus was sent to a school in Gouda, kept by Peter Winkel; but the fruit which grew on that tree of knowledge was harsh and crabbed, and the little pupil tasted it so sparingly that his father began to fear that learning was a thing for which he had no capacity. But, *Of these early Dutch Lays and Legends the largest collection is the "Niederländische Geistliche Lieder des XV. Jahrhunderts," in the "Hora Bel gica," of Hoffman von Fallersleben (Hannover, 1854). The above specimen is an abridgment, freely translated, of No. 24, spliced at the end from the German stanzas at pp. 64, 65. Of the class of picture books referred to in the text, two examples have been reproduced in admirable facsimile by Mr. Stewart, of King William Street, viz., the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," and the "Geschiedenis van het heylighe Cruys." A although he was no great reader, he could sing; he had a sweet, melodious voice, and his mother took him to Utrecht, where the cathedral authorities received him, and put him in the choir; and in a white surplice, along with other little children, he sang the Latin psalms and anthems in the grand old church where an older lad, named Florenszoon, was then a frequent worshipper, afterwards known to history as the preceptor of Charles the Fifth, and eventually as Adrian the Sixth, the only Dutchman, if we rightly remember, who ever wore the triple crown. At nine years he was taken to a school at Deventer, and here he began to be a scholar in earnest. Shortly before this (in July, 1471), in the neighbouring convent of St. Agnes, at Zwoll, there had fallen asleep a venerable monk, to be remembered through all time as Thomas à Kempis. He was an exquisite copyist as is attested by a sumptuous Bible in four volumes, still preserved, and he had also laid in a good store of scholarship at this very Deventer school which Erasmus was now attending. But, above all, he was a serene and saintly man, "inwardly happy, outwardly cheerful," to whom the world was nothing and God was all in all, and who in his pure and passionless career held on till he was upwards of ninety, drawing towards him the love, and all but the worship of those who in him felt a nearer heaven, and who heard from his lips those lessons on the hidden life which myriads since have read in "The Imitation of Jesus." Although a reviver of devotion rather than a restorer of learning, the cause of letters owed much to Thomas, for the worst foes of knowledge are grossness and apathy; and, when men like Rudolph Agricola and Alexander Hegius came under his spell, in the spiritual quickening which ensued, if they did not soar to the like elevation of enraptured piety, they at all events were raised to a region from which the coarse joys of the convent looked contemptible, and where the higher nature began to call aloud for food convenient. When Erasmus came to Deventer, the rector of the school was the disciple of à Kempis, Hegius, and the whole place was animated by his ardent scholarship. Erasmus was too poor to pay the fees required from the students in the rector's class, but on saints' days the lectures were gratuitous and open to all comers. However, in Sintheim he had a kind and skilful teacher. Although the royal road to learning was not yet constructed, the Deventer profess *Ullman's Reformers before the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 127. ors had done a good deal to smoooth and straighten the bridle-path; and, with a plank here and there thrown across the wider chasms, and with some of the worst stumbling-stones removed, a willing pupil could make wonderful progress. Even our dull little friend, who had been the despair of the pedantic Peter, woke up; and, like a creature which has at last found its element, he ramped in the rich pastures to which the gate of the Latin language admitted. As with Melanchthon a few years afterwards, Terence was his favourite, and in committing to memory all his plays he laid up betimes an ample store of the pure old Roman speech, as well as a rich fund of delicate humour, and dexterous, playful expression. Sintheim was delighted. On one occasion he was so charmed with his performance that he kissed the young scholar, and exclaimed, "Cheer up; you will reach the top of the tree." And on an occasion more august, when the famous Agricola visited Deventer, and was shown an exercise of Erasmus', he was so struck with it that he asked to see the author. The bashful boy was introduced; and, taking him with both hands behind the head, so that he was compelled to look full in the face the awful stranger, Agricola, told him, "You will be a great man yet." Such a prophecy, coming from one of the oracles of the age, could never be forgotten, especially as Agricola was almost adored by Rector Hegius. * Knowledge should be its own reward; but poor human nature is very thankful for those occasional crumbs of encouragement. Nor was Erasmus above the need of them. Even at Deventer the discipline was very severe; and, although Erasmus was both a good boy and a good scholar, and his master's favourite pupil, it was impossible to pass scathless through the ordeal. In after years he did all he could to mitigate a system the savage cruelty of which was so abhorrent from his gentle nature; and he quotes with approval the witty invention of an English gentleman, who, in order to make his son at once a scholar and a marksman, had a target painted with the Greek alphabet, and every time that the little archer hit a letter, and at the same time could name it, he was rewarded with a cherry. This was an effectual plan for teaching "the young idea how to shoot; " and to the same kindly method we owe alphabets of gingerbread or sugar, which *De Pueris Instituendis, published in 1529. See especially Opp. i. 485 et seq. † Opp. i. 511. |