ars of
to-day, secure in their endowments, can hold their heads high; of
their obligations to pious Founders no utterance is required save
_coram Deo_--'vt nos his donis ad Tuam gloriam recte vtentes'. We hear
much now of the artistic temperament which brooks no control, which at
all costs must express its message to the world. No artist has ever
burned with a fiercer fire than did Erasmus for the high tasks which
his powers demanded of him; but at this period of his life there was
no pious Founder to make his way plain. Later on, in all time of his
wealth, he was generosity itself with his money, and inexorable in
refusing honours and places that would have hindered him from his
work.

V

ERASMUS' LIFE-WORK

In August 1511 Erasmus returned to Cambridge. He was a different man
from the young scholar who had determined twelve years before that it
was no use for him to stay in Oxford. In the interval he had learnt
what he wanted--Greek; he had had his desire and visited Italy; and
now he came back to sit down to steady work, in accordance with his
promise to Colet, in accordance with the purpose of his life, to
advance the study of the Scriptures and the knowledge of God. It had
been no light matter to learn Greek. Books were not abundant, and the
only teacher to be had, Hermonymus of Sparta, was useless to him,
neither could nor would impart the classical Greek that scholars
wanted. So Erasmus was compelled to fall back on the best of all
methods, to teach himself. He had no Liddell and Scott, no Stephanus;
probably nothing better than a manuscript vocabulary copied from some
earlier scholar, and amplified by himself. No wonder that he found
Homer difficult and skipped over Lucian's long words. He exercised
himself in translation, from Lucian, from Libanius, from Euripides.
But that ready method of acquiring a new language--through the New
Testament, was probably not open to him, for copies of the Gospels in
Greek were rare, and not within the reach of a needy scholar's purse.
However, he persevered, and at length he was satisfied. He never
attained to Budaeus' mastery of Greek, but he had acquired a working
knowledge which carried him as far as he wished to go.

His visit to Italy need not detain us long. Twenty-five years later he
wrote to an Italian nobleman with whom he was engaged in controversy,
to say that Italy had taught him nothing. 'When I came to Italy, I
knew more Greek and Latin than I do now.