There is a touch of sincerity about these expressions, in spite of
their conventional form, which is borne out by the whole future
relation of Erasmus to the English group of scholars. For the first
time in his life he forgets to grumble and has no occasion to beg.
[Illustration: THOMAS MORE.
FROM THE DRAWING BY HOLBEIN, IN WINDSOR CASTLE.]
In England, too, Erasmus found himself, for the first time, in
relations with men who he had to confess were his superiors in many
ways. We know nothing of the circumstances of Erasmus' arrival,
but it seems that Mountjoy soon sent him on to Oxford and that he
was received there in a college of Augustinian Canons known as
the College of St. Mary. So far as any place could be called his
English headquarters, this was it. The prior of the college, Richard
Charnock, was far from being the kind of person Erasmus became so
fond of representing as the natural head of a monastic establishment.
He was a cultivated gentleman and sound scholar after Erasmus' own
heart and in the friendliest relations with the most "advanced" of
the early English humanistic scholars. On just what terms Erasmus
lived at St. Mary's is not quite clear. He refers often to the
Prior's "hospitality," but we find him asking Mountjoy to send him
"his money" (_pecunias meas_) at once that he might repay Charnock
his many obligations. Erasmus was very careful in his use of all the
parts of speech except adjectives, and this phrase seems to indicate
on the one hand that he was a boarder at the college, and on the
other that he had some regular understanding with Mountjoy as to a
supply of money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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