[557] Jortin’s Erasmus, i. 92. Bayle, Fevre d’Etaples. Blount. Biogr. Univ., Febure d’Etaples.
[558] Erasmus himself says afterwards, Œcolampadius satis novit Græcè, Latini sermonis rudior; quanquam ille magis peccat indiligentia quam imperitia.
[559] Cox’s Life of Melanchthon, p. 19. Melanchthon wrote Greek verse indifferently and incorrectly, but Latin with spirit and elegance: specimens of both are given in Dr. Cox’s valuable biography.
[560] The lives and characters of Rhenanus, Pirckheimer, and Mosellanus, will be found in Blount, Niceron, and the Biographie Universelle; also in Gerdes’s Historia Evangel. Renov., Melchior Adam, and other less common books.
[561] Crocus regnat in Academia Lipsiensi, publicitus Græcas docens litteras. Erasm. Epist. clvii. 5th June 1514. Eichhorn says, that Conrad Celtes and others had taught Latin only, iii. 272. Camerarius, who studied for three years under Croke, gives him a very high character; qui primus putabatur ita docuisse Græcam linguam in Germania, ut plane perdisci illam posse, et quid momenti ad omnem doctrinæ eruditionem atque cultum hujus cognitio allatura esse videretur, nostri homines sese intelligere arbitrarentur. Vita Melanchthonis, p. 27; and Vita Eobani Hessi, p. 4. He was received at Leipsic “like a heavenly messenger:” every one was proud of knowing him, of paying whatever he demanded, of attending him at any hour of the day or night. Melanchthon apud Meiners, i. 165. A pretty good life of Croke is in Chalmers’s Biographical Dictionary. Bayle does not mention him. Croke was educated at King’s College, Cambridge, to which he went from Eton in 1506 and is said to have learned Greek at Oxford from Grocyn, while still a scholar of King’s.
[562] Erasmus gives a very high character of Ceratinus. Græcæ linguæ peritia superat vel tres Mosellanos, nec inferior ut arbitror, Romanæ linguæ facundia. Epist. 737 Dccxxxvii. Ceratinus Græcanicæ literaturæs tam exacte callens, ut vix unum aut alteram habeat Italia quicum dubitem hanc committere. Magnæ doctrinæ erat Mosellanus, spei majoris, et amaban unicè hominis ingenium, nec falso dicunt odiosas esse comparationes; sed hoc ipsa causa me compellit dicere, longe alia res est. Epist. Dccxxxviii.
Colleges at Alcala and Louvain. 28. Cardinal Ximenes, about the beginning of the century, founded a college at Alcala, his favourite university, for the three learned languages. This example was followed by Jerome Busleiden, who by his last testament, in 1516 or 1517, established a similar foundation at Louvain.[563] From this source proceeded many men of conspicuous erudition and ability; and Louvain, through its Collegium trilingue, became in a still higher degree than Deventer had been in the fifteenth century not only the chief seat of Belgian learning, but the means of diffusing it over parts of Germany. Its institution was resisted by the monks and theologians, unyielding though beaten adversaries of literature.[564]
[563] Bayle, Busleiden.
[564] Von der Hardt, Hist. Litt. Reformat.
Latin style in France. 29. It cannot be said, that many yet on this side of the Alps wrote Latin well. Budæus is harsh and unpolished; Erasmus fluent, spirited, and never at a loss to express his meaning; nor is his style much defaced by barbarous words, though by no means exempt from them; yet it seldom reaches a point of classical elegance. Francis Sylvius (probably Dubois), brother of a celebrated physician, endeavoured to inspire a taste for purity of style in the university of Paris. He had, however, acquired it himself late, for some of his writings are barbarous. The favourable influence of Sylvius was hardly earlier than 1520.[565] The writer most solicitous about his diction was Longolius (Christopher de Longueil), a native of Malines, the only true Ciceronian out of Italy; in which country, however, he passed so much time, that he is hardly to be accounted a mere cisalpine. Like others of that denomination, he was more ambitious of saying common things well, than of producing what was well worthy of being remembered.