f promise. The details of this charity he
left to Amerbach.

In March 1536, he still thinks of leaving for Burgundy. Money matters
occupy him and he speaks of the necessity of making new friends, for the
old ones leave him: the Bishop of Cracow, Zasius at Freiburg. According
to Beatus Rhenanus, the Brabant plan stood foremost at the end of
Erasmus's life. The Regent, Mary of Hungary, did not cease to urge him
to return to the Netherlands. Erasmus's own last utterance leaves us in
doubt whether he had made up his mind. 'Though I am living here with the
most sincere friends, such as I did not possess at Freiburg, I should
yet, on account of the differences of doctrine, prefer to end my life
elsewhere. If only Brabant were nearer.'

This he writes on 28 June 1536. He had felt so poorly for some days that
he had not even been able to read. In the letter we again trace the
delusion that Aleander persecutes him, sets on opponents against him,
and even lays snares for his friends. Did his mind at last give way too?

On 12 July the end came. The friends around his couch heard him groan
incessantly: 'O Jesu, misericordia; Domine libera me; Domine miserere
mei!' And at last in Dutch: 'Lieve God.'

FOOTNOTES:

[20] See Erasmus's letter, p. 224.

CHAPTER XXI

CONCLUSION

Conclusion--Erasmus and the spirit of the sixteenth century--His
weak points--A thorough idealist and yet a moderate mind--The
enlightener of a century--He anticipates tendencies of two
centuries later--His influence affects both Protestantism and
Catholic reform--The Erasmian spirit in the Netherlands

Looking back on the life of Erasmus the question still arises: why has
he remained so great? For ostensibly his endeavours ended in failure. He
withdraws in alarm from that tremendous struggle which he rightly calls
a tragedy; the sixteenth century, bold and vehement, thunders past him,
disdaining his ideal of moderation and tolerance. Latin literary
erudition, which to him was the epitome of all true culture, has gone
out as such. Erasmus, so far as regards the greater part of his
writings, is among the great ones who are no longer read. He has become
a name. But why does that name still sound so clear and articulate? Why
does he keep regarding us, as if he still knew a little more than he has
ever been willing to utter?

What has he been to his age, and what was he to be for later
generations? Has he been rightly called a p