tyrdom, and Martyrdom the destiny of a peculiar order of minds. the same feeling. Albert Dürer in particular, told him that he was a little old manikin, whose life being no longer of much value, could well be spared. This curious mixed feeling of desire to see another purchase honour by means of suffering, and to enjoy heroic sensations by proxy, might be a curious phenomenon for study and analysis. ERASMUS, however, was not disposed to gratify this ambition of his friends on his behalf; and there was surely nothing strange in this. A good man is not bound to expose his life, while in the pursuit of truth, to violence and injustice; he should keep his life as long as it can be kept with honour. Martyrdom appears to be the destiny of a peculiar order of minds; there are men, says Emerson, who from their cradles "take a bee-line to the rack and the stake." Recalling the example of the Founder of our faith, and also that of Socrates, we are reminded of a sublime order of spirits who have seen in the voluntary surrender of life for truth's sake, an act necessary to the completion and illustration of their life and character, and have gone forward to their doom with a rapturous sense of victory. But martyrdom is a vocation; and what if a man thrusts himself upon it uncalled, only to earn a barren meed of renown? The remarks of ERASMUS with reference to the burning of his acquaintance, the intrepid Louis de Berquin at Paris, show that he did not feel himself to be of the martyr's vocation, perhaps that he did not understand it. He insists strongly on the folly of rashErasmus ness, on the necessity of mixing caution with courage, taught the advises fighting from a tower, and not coming to close necessity of mixing caution quarters, and so on. There is a coldness here which with courage. makes a somewhat unfavourable impression; but from the the charge of not being willing for martyrdom he does not need to be defended. He had good reasons, like all of us, for loving life; and there was nothing that made it dishonourable for him to retain it. If our preceding estimate of his mind and opinions be at all just, there was no idea, no abstract principle to which he was attached, and in behalf of which he could be required to shed his blood. Was he to die, he might have asked, for a misconception? Or was he by rash want of circumspection, to throw himself into the hands of stupid and malignant fools, who would have made him the victim of their spite and revenge? It is the duty of a good man, as an oriental sage has said, to try to live as long he as can, provided he is convinced his life is useful to society. ERASMUS might justly apply that principle to his own circumstances. The spirit of our holy religion demands of every one of us in some form the sacrifice of self for the good of humanity; but "every man in his own order." While none would grudge the noble martyr his crown, who has achieved. his sacrificial destiny in one brief hour of agony, let not one leaf be taken from that of the life-long toiler, whose exertions and sufferings may have been a daily dying, protracted to his latest conscious hour. He had good reasons for loving life. It is the duty of a good man to live as long as he can, es pecially if his life is useful. mata. The present work of ERASMUS consists of a free ren- Account of the dering of the Apophthegmata ascribed to Plutarch, en- Apophthegriched by explanatory notes from his own hand. The old Greek schoolmaster and friend of Trajan was evidently a favourite and congenial author with our great scholar. Concerning Plutarch's "Morals," he puts the following sentiment into the mouth of one of the speakers in the Convivium religiosum: "I find in them so much of purity, that it appears to me like a prodigy, that Erasmus was a great admirer of Plutarch. Heathen wis dom and piety. Probably the spirit of Christ diffused than we think. that such evangelical thoughts should have entered the mind of an ethnic man." And here it may be appropriate to introduce another beautiful passage from the same Colloquy; which does honour to his character, and reveals his religious position as what we should now-a-days term a broad churchman: One of the guests, in the course of a religious discussion, being about to introduce, with apology, a citation from a "profane" author, the host replies: "Nay! nothing whatever that is pious, and conduces to good manners should be called profane. To the sacred Scriptures indeed the first authority is everywhere due; but nevertheless I sometimes meet with certain things either said by the ancients, or written by ethnics, even by poets, so chastely, so purely, so divinely, that I cannot but persuade myself that some good divinity swayed their minds when they wrote them. And perchance the spirit of Christ is more is more widely widely diffused than we interpret. And many there are in the company of the saints who are not in our catalogue. I confess my feeling amongst friends: I cannot read Cicero's book De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Officiis, De Tusculanis quaestionibus, without now and again pressing my lips to the parchment, and doing reverence to that holy mind, which was breathed upon by a heavenly divinity. On the other hand, when I read the teachings of our moderns concerning the œconomy or ethics of the state, good heaven! how cold they are compared with the former; nay, they do not appear to feel what they write; so that I would more readily suffer the whole of Scotus, with a few more like him, to perish, than the books of one The high morality of Cicero. Rather perish the whole of Duns Scotus than one book of Cicero. Cicero, or Plutarch. Not that I would condemn the others others altogether, but because I feel the latter make Because the latter make us better men. me a better man; while I rise from the reading of the former, I know not how, more coldly disposed towards true virtue, but more excited to contention. Therefore do not fear to bring forward the passage, whatever it is." The noble passage from the De Senectute, in which Cato takes a retrospect of life, comparing it to a sojourn in an inn, and utters his longing to depart to the society of the blessed, is then quoted and discussed; also the words of the dying Socrates to Crito, "Whether God will approve my works I know not; certainly I have earnestly endeavoured to please Him. And I have a good hope that he will accept my endeavours." "Truly," says another speaker, "an admirable spirit Sancte Socrate, in one who knew not Christ and the sacred Scriptures. ora pro nobis. Indeed, when I read things of this kind from such men, I can hardly restrain myself from saying, Sancte Socrate, ora pro nobis !" “And I,” rejoins another, "frequently cannot forbear to hold happy augury of the holy soul of Maro and of Flaccus." It has been said of Plutarch's Lives that it is "the book of those who can nobly think, and dare and do." In a similar spirit to that in which the Lives were written, the present collection of " utterances," or sententious sayings has been selected from the treasurehouse of ancient tradition. Work of this kind appears to have afforded a species of revelry to ERASMUS. His preface is a very characteristic piece of writing, and is full of interesting suggestion. There are one or two points in it to which we may for a moment refer. The preface The The genesis of trace them to their authors. The natural history, as it might be termed, of proverbs or apophthegms, forms a curious subject of study. Very happily a living poet has described them as Very difficult to and indeed it is seldom easy to fix their exact origin, to trace them to their matrix. They resemble winged seeds which find an accidental lodgment here or there, on any projecting spot of earth that may offer. As in the present day current popular jests are constantly "fathered" upon conspicuous humourists, quite guiltless of their birth, so it has always been. For example, Cicero, like ERASMUS and other great men, was given to the weakness of punning; but he was probably the real author of very few of the great crop of puns which Most of them gradually improved and polished into form. are said to have sprung from his talk. And in like manner with serious and witty sayings: it is impossible to find the real originator of the vast majority of them; for it can be shown that they have been ascribed in variant forms, and at different times, to a number of different men. All are familiar with Lord Russell's notable definition of a proverb as "the wisdom of many and the wit of one;" but the history of the matter would appear to show that the clear-cut form of the saying, through which like a coin it becomes fitted for general currency on the lips of society has itself been the result of time, and the shaping effort of many minds. The printer of this book has supplied some illustrations of this point in his notes on the English of Udall's translation. The subject is interesting, not only from an antiquarian, but also from a psychological point of view. |