The litei'ary industry of Erasmus during his whole life was prodigious. He early imljibed a love for the ancient classics, and contributed largely to increase the taste for ancient culture by his writings in praise of them, by his editions of classic authors, and by his attacks on the scholastic theology and on the igno- rance of the monks. " He worked incessantly in vari- ous branches, and completed his works with great ra- pidity; he had not the patience to revise and polish them, and accordingly most of them were printed ex- actly as he threw tiiem out; but this very circum- stance rendered them universally acceptable ; their great charm was that they communicated the trains of tliouglit which passed through a ricii, acute, witty, intrc]iid, and cultivated mind, just as they arose, and ■without any reservations. Who remarked the many errors which escaped him .' His manner of narrating, ■which still rivets the attention, then carried every one away" (Kanke, liejbi-mation, by Austin, bk. ii,chap. i). His Ciceronianus is "an elegant and stinging satire on the folly of those pedants who, with a blind devotion, refused to use in tiieir compositions any words or ))hrases not to be found in Cicero. Erasmus's own Latin style is clear and elegant; not always strictly classical, but like that of one who spoke and wrote Latin as readily as his mother tongue. His ' Letters,' comprising those of many learned men to himself, form a most valualilp and aniusi»ig collection^ to those who are interested iu tiie manners an<l literary histories of the age in which they were written ; and several of
them in particular are highly valuable to Englishmen as containing a picture of the manners of the English of that day"' (^Eng. Cyclop.). But, of all his writings, the only ones that are likeh^ to retain a lasting place in literature are the Colloquies, and the Panegyric on Folly — -writings of his comparative j'outh, and regarded by him rather as pastime. " For neither as a wit nor as a theologian, nor perhaps even as a critic, does Eras- mus rank among master intellects ; and in the other departments of literature no one has ventured to claim for him a ver}'^ elevated station. His real glor}' is to have opened at once new channels of popular and of abstruse knowledge — to have guided the few, while he instructed the manj^ — to have lived and written for noble ends — to have been surpassed by none in the compass of his learning, or the collective value of his works — and to have prepared the way for a mighty revolution, which it required moral qualities far loftier than his to accomplish. For the soul of this great man did not partake of the energy of his intellectual faculties. He repeatedly confesses that he had none or the spirit of a martyr, and the acknowledgment is made in the tone of sarcasm rather than in that of re- gret. He belonged to that class of actors on the scene of life who have always appeared as the harbingers of great social changes — men gifted with the power to discern and the hardihood to proclaim truths of which the}' want the courage to encounter the infallible re- sults ; who outrun their generation in thought, but lag behind it in action ; players at the sj)nrt of reform so long as reform itself appears at an indefinite distance; more ostentatious of their mental superiority than anx- ious for the well-being of mankind ; dreaming that the dark page of history maj' hereafter become a fairy tale, in which enchantment will bring to pass a glorious catastrophe, unbought by intervening strife, and ago- ny, and suffering; and therefore overwhelmed Avilh alarm when the edifice begins to totter, of which their own hands have sapped the foundation. He was a re- former until the Eeformation became a fearful reality; a jester at the bulwarks of the papacy until thej^ be- gan to give way ; a propagator of the Scriptures until men betook themselves to the study and the applica- tion of them ; depreciating the mere outward foims of religion until thej' had come to be estimated at their real value ; in short, a learned, ingenious, benevolent, amiable, timid, irresolute man, who, bearing the re- sponsibilit}^ resigned to others the glory of rescuing the human mind from the bondage of a thousand years. The distance between his career and that of Luther was therefore continuall}' enlarging, until they at length moved in op])Osite directions, and met each oth- er with mutual animositj'" (^Edinhuryh Heview, Ixviii, 302).
The relations of Erasmus to the Eeformation have been summarily stated in the paragraph just cited. He ■was the literary precursor of the Eeformation. His exegetical writings prepared the way for later exposi- tors, opened a new era in Bil)lical criticism, and also aided in giving the Biljle its Protestant position as the rule of faith. His satires upon the monks, upon the scholastic theology, and upon Church abuses gtneral- 1}', contributed largely to prepare the minds of literaiy men throughout Europe for a rupture with Eome. He taught, ill anticipation of Protestantism, that Christian knowledge should be drawn from the original sources, viz. the Scriptures, which he said should be translated into all tongues. In his Eneomiiim Moriw^ I'oUy is introduced rs an interlocutor who "turns into ridicule the labyrinth of dialectic in which theologians have lost themselves, the syllogisms with which they labor to sustain the Church as Atlas does the heavens, the intolerant zeal with which they jjersecute every differ- ence of opinion. She then comes to the ignorance, the dirt, the strange and ludicrous pursuits of the monks, their barbarous and objurgatory style of preach- ing ; she attacks the bishojis, who are more solicitous