Princess of Vere and Battus.
Fortunately for him, one true friend at least turned up, willing and able to enter into sympathy with him. This was Battus, tutor to the Marchioness of Vere. Erasmus had already corresponded with him from Paris, pouring out his troubles to him, and declaring that he had no other hope but in him alone.[290] Kept away from Paris by the Plague, and finding not even a temporary home in Holland, he at last found a refuge for a while from his fears and cares in a visit to the castle of Tornahens,[291] the residence of the Marchioness of Vere and of Battus. It had the additional attraction of being near to St. Omer, where lived a former patron of Erasmus, the Abbot of St. Bertin.
Erasmus would like to visit Colet again.
Whilst staying with Battus he wrote to a friend, that he sometimes thought of returning to England to spend a month or two more with Colet, in order to confer further with him on some theological questions. He knew well, he said, how much good he should gain from doing so, but he could not get over the unlucky experience of his last voyage. As to his journey to Italy, that, too, was knocked on the head. He told his friend that he longed to visit Italy as ardently as ever, but it was out of the question; for, according to the adage of Plautus, ‘Sine pennis volare haud facile est.’[292]
Writes his ‘Enchiridion.’
Battus also wrote to Lord Mountjoy to tell him with what pleasure he had embraced Erasmus, but, ‘alas, how ill-treated and spoiled!’ He told him how he had been commiserating Erasmus on his ill-fortune in England, and how the philosopher had smiled and bade him put a good face on it, He did not regret having visited England; he cared more for the friends he had found in England than for all the gold of Crœsus. Battus concluded by telling Lord Mountjoy how Erasmus had described to him the courtesy of the Prior Charnock, the learning of Colet, the good nature of More, the virtues of his noble patron.[293] It was during this visit to St. Omer, in the summer of 1501, that Erasmus wrote his ‘Enchiridion.’
There happened to be staying in the castle a lady, a friend of Battus, who had a bad husband. The latter, whilst holding other divines at arm’s length, took to Erasmus. The wife, thinking that he possibly might have some influence over her husband, begged him, without betraying that it was at her instigation, to write something which might produce in him some religious impressions.[294] The ‘Enchiridion’ was the result, of which more will be said by and by.
John Vitrarius.
It was at St. Omer also that Erasmus became acquainted with John Vitrarius—a second John Colet in the earnestness of his Christian zeal against the corruptions of the church and vices of the clergy, in his love for St. Paul, in his outspoken preaching, and even in his manner of preaching, in his dislike of the Scholastic subtlety of Scotus, and even in his preference for Ambrose, Cyprian, Jerome, and Origen over Augustine. Erasmus ever afterwards linked the names of Colet and Vitrarius together, and admitted them both deservedly into his calendar of uncanonised saints.[295] The ‘Enchiridion’ was submitted to the judgment of Vitrarius, and obtained his approval.[296]
Return of Erasmus to Paris.