vii

Preface.

HIS is a pleasant, gossipy book,-full of wise saws, if not of modern instances. It may be considered one of the earliest English jest books..

The wit in it is not as startling as fireworks, but there is a good deal of grave, pleasant humour, and many of those touches of nature which make the whole world kin., It is very interesting to have not only the great thoughts of great men, but to see these men in their moments of leisure, when they unbend and come down to the level of ordinary mortals. Weak stomachs cannot bear too much of a good, thing, and nothing is so tiresome as the everlasting preaching of very good and very wise people. We find that even. in the palmy days of Greece the greatest orators had occasionally to recall the attention of their wearied hearers, by some witty, and humourous tale, such as the "Shadow of the Ass," (p. 84). ERASMUS complains of this same inattentiveness in his Praise of Folly, and says the preacher on such occasions would tell them a tale out of Gesta Romanorum, when they would "lyft vp theyr heads, stand vp, and geue good eare." Plenty of instances may be found here to prove a universal truth, that really great men are generally fond of a joke. It was sound advice, depend upon it, which the philosopher gave to the young man—“ Be not anything over much." The familiar life of the ancients is

also brought pleasantly before us, reminding us of the wellknown saying that "there is a deal of human nature in a man."

Was it good nature in the Greeks that made them so patient under the coarse reproofs of Diogenes? If so, one cannot help wondering that, while they were so tolerant of him, they put Socrates to death, who was in all things so much wiser and better. Was it not that Diogenes was a crafty man, who was shrewd enough to see that it does not do to prove one's superiority too strongly? So, like our mediæval jesters, he mingled a little wit with a good deal of folly. He was fully aware of the great truth lately uttered by a bucolic friend here:-" To git on i' th' world, a man wants to appear like a fool, we'out bein' one. Men's desp'rately afread ov a clever fella'-they doant feel safe we 'im. Nice, soft-lookin' chaps alus git on best." So Diogenes made himself purposely dirty and contemptible. His coarse buffoonery was the traditional "tub" thrown to the whale (by-the-by, do they really throw tubs to whales?) to amuse it while the harpoon which was to pierce through its blubber was being prepared. And the Greek public, so fond of seeing and hearing new things, was amused accordingly, and pierced in due course; and very barbed some of the harpoons were. Socrates scorned to stoop to this, and consequently had to pay the price usually paid by those whose virtue is a reproach to their neighbours.

This reprint is made from the second edition,—that of 1562. The two have been read very carefully together, and no difference discovered between them, except in the spelling. A facsimile of the first leaf of the 1542 edition is given, which will show how much this varies. The second was chosen principally because it is very much

the rarer book. The reprint is literal; the only difference being that, to make it easier for the general reader, the contractions have been filled in, and the Greek quotations, which were exceedingly incorrect, have been, in most cases, put right. The Rev. E. Johnson, M.A., kindly consented to write a short sketch of the life of ERASMUS, and an Appendix of Notes and Illustrations has been added. The list of curious and unusual words might have been increased ten-fold; but, as in most cases a careful reading of the context will show sufficiently well their meaning, it was not necessary to make it larger.

When Nicolas Udall undertook to translate this work he was the right man in the right place. Probably no old English book so abounds with colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions. It is very valuable on that account. It has always been a favourite with the editor, and seeing that a fair copy of the original fetches £5 or £6 by auction, he thought 250 readers might be found who would be glad to have a reprint of it. The production of these antiquarian works in short numbers is necessarily very expensive, and after "trade allowances" and other deductions have been made, it is impossible in this instance there should be any profit; but it has been a labour of love, and the editor will be quite satisfied if he has succeeded in giving the slightest help to a wider knowledge of so fine and loveable a character as ERASMUS.

BOSTON,

R. R.

July 3, 1877.

IN marketplace of the e, thepo stands a

N the great market-place of the Dutch port whence Birth and

parentage.

Not much to

remind us that

he was a

bronze statue of the great scholar; and in the Breede Kerkstraat the house is pointed out in which he was born, bearing the inscription, Haec est parva domus, magnus qua natus Erasmus. With the exception of the fact of his place of birth and parentage, however, there is little that connects him with Holland; nothing in his character or history to remind us that he was a Dutchman. There was no flavour of peculiar nationality in his genius; his greatness is the Dutchman. common boast of lettered Europe. His name is linked by important associations with France, with England, with Italy, and with Germany. Our own country in particular, to which he owed the greatest benefits and sweetest friendships of his life, may claim the largest share in his reflected renown. But in truth he was a man without a home, in any fixed local sense; his outward history is the record of a series of wanderings to and fro, and changeful sojourns in various cities, and with various friends and patrons; but in the best society, that of men of learning and wit, he was always to be found; anywhere, within the free territory of the glorious Republic of Letters, he felt himself to be at home. He may well have made the motto his b

Own:

No fixed home, but was always to be found in the society of men of wit and learning.