his acquaintance.

Once blooded with the printers, Erasmus went steadily on. In a few
months he published some poems of his own, on Christ and the
angels--_de casa natalitia Jesu_, a very rare volume, of which only
two copies are known. It was dedicated to a college friend, Hector
Boys, of Dundee, subsequently the first Principal of King's College,
Aberdeen, and historian of Scotland. It may be wondered what was
Erasmus' motive. A dedication of a book had a market value and usually
brought a return in proportion to the compliments laid on. Correctness
certainly required that the book should be sent to the Bishop of
Cambray. Boys was only a fellow-student, whose acquaintance Erasmus
had made at Montaigu. The explanation perhaps lies in the fact that
Bishop Elphinstone was then negotiating with Boys to come to Aberdeen;
in the newly-founded university Erasmus may have sighted hopes for
himself. The following year saw another volume produced by him; the
poems of his Gouda and Deventer friend, William Herman, with a few of
his own added. This time the Bishop of Cambray did not fail of his
due.

When Erasmus came to Paris, he was nearly 29, older by far than the
ordinary arts student, but not old for the theological course, which
lasted longer than the others. To reach the first step, the Bachelor's
degree, he had to attend a number of lectures; and very tedious he
found them. Theologians are apt to be conservative. The method of
instruction had not advanced far beyond the dictation of text and
gloss and commentary, which had been current before the days of
printing. Erasmus yawned and dozed, or wrote letters to his friends
making fun of these 'barbarous Scotists'. 'You wouldn't know me,' he
says, 'if you could see me sitting under old Dunderhead, my brows knit
and looking thoroughly puzzled. They tell me that no one can
understand these mysteries who has any traffic with the Muses or the
Graces. So I am trying hard to forget my Latin: wit and elegance must
disappear. I think I am getting on; maybe some day they will recognize
me for their own.' They did, and he proceeded B.D.; when is not known,
but probably by Easter 1498.

At the present day in England our systems are very set. A man
matriculates at a university and completes his course there: to change
even from one college to another is becoming almost unknown. Abroad,
however, things are more fluid, and students pass on from university
to university in search of t