The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus

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Title: In Praise of Folly
Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts

Author: Desiderius Erasmus

Illustrator: Hans Holbein

Release Date: October 6, 2009 [EBook #30201]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN PRAISE OF FOLLY ***

Produced by David Widger

[Illustration: Frontispiece]

IN PRAISE OF FOLLY

By Erasmus

Illustrated with many curious CUTS, Designed, Drawn, and Etched by Hans
Holbein,

WITH PORTRAIT,

LIFE OF ERASMUS,

AND HIS

Epistle addressed to Sir Thomas More.

LONDON: REEVES & TURNER, 196, STRAND, W.C.

1876.

THE LIFE OF ERASMUS.

ERASMUS, so deservedly famous for his admirable writings, the vast
extent of his learning, his great candour and moderation, and for being
one of the chief restorers of the Latin tongue on this side the Alps,
was born at Rotterdam, on the 28th of October, in the year 1467. The
anonymous author of his life commonly printed with his Colloquies (of
the London edition) is pleased to tell us that _de anno quo natus est
apud Batavos, non constat_. And if he himself wrote the life which we
find before the Elzevir edition, said to be _Erasmo autore_, he does not
particularly mention the year in which he was born, but places it _circa
annum 67 supra millesintum quadringentesimum_. Another Latin life, which
is prefixed to the above-mentioned London edition, fixes it in the year
1465; as does his epitaph at Basil. But as the inscription on his statue
at Rotterdam, the place of his nativity, may reasonably be supposed the
most authentic, we have followed that. His mother was the daughter of a
physician at Sevenbergen in Holland, with whom his father contracted an
acquaintance, and had correspondence with her on promise of marriage,
and was actually contracted to her. His father's name was Gerard; he
was the youngest of ten brothers, without one sister coming between; for
which reason his parents (according to the superstition of the times)
designed to consecrate him to the church. His brothers liked the notion,
because, as the church then governed all, t