These dolorous letters bear date 1511, but cannot all belong in that year, and month and day are often obviously incorrect. Dated early in 1512 we have a letter to the abbot of St. Bertin. After explaining why he had not reported himself earlier, Erasmus goes on to say:
"If you care to hear how I am getting on: Erasmus is almost completely transformed into an Englishman, with such distinguished consideration am I treated by very many others, but especially by my incomparable (unicus) Mæcenas, the archbishop of Canterbury,—patron not of me alone, but of all learned men, among whom I hold the lowest place, if indeed I hold any place at all. Eternal God! how happy, how productive, how ready is the talent of that man! What skill in unravelling the most weighty matters of business! what uncommon learning! what unheard-of graciousness towards all! what geniality in company, so that,—a truly royal quality,—he sends no one away from him sad. And besides all this: what great and ready generosity! Finally, in such a conspicuous position of fortune and rank, how absolutely free from haughtiness,—so that he seems to be the only one who is ignorant of his own greatness. In caring for his friends no one is more faithful or more constant. In short he is indeed Primas, not in rank alone but in all praiseworthy things. Since I have this man for a friend, why should I not deem myself exceptionally fortunate, even if there were nothing more?"
It is idle to attempt to determine which of these moods represents the real state of mind of Erasmus at Cambridge. Probably he was at his old tricks of making himself valued by threatening to leave an unbearable situation, and at the same time making that situation appear as delightful as possible to anyone outside who might conceivably raise a bid for him in another quarter. He tells Ammonius again how charming Italy was to him and what a prospect he had given up there to come to England. He thinks he will come to London, and begs Ammonius to find him a warm lodging not too far from St. Paul's. He cannot go to Mountjoy's so long as "that Cerberus" is there. Evidently he did not have the run of many hospitable homes in London.
As regards Erasmus' official position at Cambridge there is some room for doubt. He appears in the lists of university officers as the "Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity," but precisely what this means is not clear. The Lady Margaret was the Countess of Richmond, mother of King Henry VII., never queen herself, but claiming the doubtful honour of blood-relationship to sixty or seventy persons of royal lineage. This benevolent lady, influenced undoubtedly by the advice of John Fisher, afterward Bishop of Rochester, had founded in 1503 a readership in divinity at each of the great English universities. The endowment had been intrusted to the abbey of Westminster with instructions to pay over the salary to the holder. The election to the office was to be biennial, and besides the chancellor all doctors, bachelors, and inceptors in divinity were to have the right to vote. The place was to be no sinecure. The reader must read libere, sollenniter, and aperte. He was to have no fees beyond his salary, and must read such works in divinity as the chancellor with the "college of doctors" should judge necessary. He must "read every accustomed day in each term, and in the long vacation up to the eighth of September, but might cease in Lent, if the chancellor should think fit, in order that during that season he and his auditors might be occupied in preaching." Evidently it was contemplated that the reader of the Lady Margaret should devote himself wholly to this work. The salary was the very respectable sum of sixty-five dollars a year, enough to provide a modest living for a man of quiet habits. We are almost wholly without information as to Erasmus' performance of the duties of this office. Everything points toward the belief that in the sense described by the act of foundation he never filled it at all. The only references he makes are to his attempts to teach Greek, certainly not one of the functions of the Lady Margaret Professor. It has often been assumed that[91] Erasmus' complaints about his Cambridge life were caused by a sense of failure in his work as a teacher. We are prepared to believe from all his previous experience that he never cared to succeed as a teacher, and, further, we may be tolerably sure that, for this quite sufficient reason, he was not a very good teacher. He held his readership, we may believe, for two terms of two years each—if indeed he held it at all—and meanwhile tried to give Greek lessons, but could get neither pupils nor pay. Mr. Mullinger says, "Disappointed in his class-room, he took refuge in his study," as if his literary work were a kind of last resort on the failure of his true profession.
The truth would seem to be just the opposite of this. What really commanded the allegiance of all that was best and most effective in Erasmus' makeup was his study and writing. His proper medium of self-expression was his pen, and until he took his pen in hand he was not his best self. If he was capable of any sincere utterance he was sincere when he said to Ammonius that he felt himself moved by an almost divine inspiration when he got going on his Jerome. A few more glimpses at the working of his mind at Cambridge and we will pass on to see what he accomplished there in the way of contributions to learning.
Besides Ammonius his other most important correspondent during this time was his old friend, John Colet, now definitely settled in London as dean of St. Paul's and greatly absorbed in the work which was to be his most lasting monument, the new school for boys. The correspondence seems to have begun by a begging letter from Erasmus in which he had gone beyond the limits of good taste, and to which Colet had replied with some heat. It is not beyond our belief that Erasmus may have given his letter a jocose form, and that Colet, Englishman as he was, had not seen the joke. At all events, Erasmus writes:
"You answer seriously a letter written in jest. Perhaps I ought not to have joked with so great a patron, yet it pleased my fancy just then to try a little 'Attic salt' on such a very dear friend, being mindful rather of your gentle character than of your high position. It will be the part of your friendliness to make allowances for my awkwardness. You write that I am in your debt whether I like it or not. Indeed, my dear Colet, it is hard, as Seneca says, to be an unwilling debtor, but I know no man to whom I would more willingly be in debt than to you. You have always had such kind feelings towards me that, even if no good offices had been added, still I should have been greatly your debtor; but now you have added so many services and kindnesses that if I did not acknowledge them I should be the most ungrateful of men. As to your embarrassments I both believe in them and grieve for them, but my own difficulties were so much more pressing that I was compelled to take advantage of yours. How unwilling I was to do this you may gather from the fact that I was so long in asking what you had long since promised. I don't wonder that you, occupied as you are with so many affairs, should have forgotten your promise; but when we were in your garden talking about the Copia,[92] I proposed to dedicate some juvenile work to our youthful prince, and you asked me to dedicate the new work to your new school. I answered with a smile that your new school was a trifle poverty-stricken and what I needed was someone who would pay cash down. Then you smiled. Then, when I had told over many reasons for expense, you said with some hesitation that you could not give me as much as I needed, but would gladly give fifteen angels. When you repeated this with an eager face, I asked if you thought that was enough. You answered eagerly again that you would willingly pay that. Then I said I would gladly take it. This reminder will perhaps bring the matter to your memory. I might pile up more arguments, if you had not faith in me of your own accord. There are some, and friends, too,—for I have no dealings with enemies and don't value their words one hair,—who say that you are a little hard, and in giving money a trifle exacting. They say that this does not come from meanness—so I understand them—but because from the very gentleness of your nature you cannot resist those who press and urge themselves upon you, and are the less generous with your modest friends because you cannot satisfy both.... If it would not burden you to send me the remnant of what you promised, as my affairs are at present, I will take it, not as a debt, but as a gift to be repaid when I can do so. I was sorry to hear, at the end of your letter, that you were so unusually burdened by business cares. I could wish you were as far as possible removed from the cares of this world, not for fear that the world's allurements can lay hold upon you, but because I should like to see such genius, eloquence, and learning as yours wholly devoted to Christ. If you cannot escape, look out that you do not sink deeper and deeper. It might be better to fail than to buy success at so great a price, for the highest good is peace of mind. These are the thorns that accompany riches.... I have finished the collation of the New Testament and am going on to Jerome. When I have finished him I will fly to you."
Singular that in all Erasmus' complaints of his Cambridge life he makes no reference to any failure on the part of the authorities to pay him his due stipend. It seems clear either that he held no position which carried a salary with it, or that his begging was for "extras" beyond the modest needs of a celibate scholar. Some light is thrown upon this point in a letter to Colet, dated October, 1513, but quite as likely belonging, as Mr. Drummond suggests, in 1511.