The long-sought opportunity came to him in a form which he had once vowed he would never accept, namely, through an engagement as private tutor to the two sons of Battista Boerio, the Genoese physician of King Henry VII. Beatus takes some pains to tell us that Erasmus was not to teach these youths, but it is not quite clear what else his function was. They had an attendant (_curator_) named Clyston, whom Erasmus describes in one of these early letters as the most pleasant, lovable, and faithful fellow in the world. The lads, too, were, he says, most modest, teachable, and studious. He has great hopes that they will fulfil the expectations of their father and reward his own pains. The voyage across the Channel was a dreadful one, lasting four days, so that a report spread in Paris that they were lost, and Erasmus appeared among his friends, he says, like one risen from the dead. The result was that he was taken with an illness, which he describes so exactly as to leave no doubt that he had a good clear case of the mumps. From Paris the journey was by way of Lyons and the western Alps. We have a brief account of it in that singular hodge-podge, the catalogue of his writings, made by Erasmus eighteen years afterward and sent to John Botzheim of Constance. The story of the journey there given is only incidental to the account of a little poetical dissertation[68] on the approach of old age which he wrote on the way and sent back to Paris to his medical friend, William Cop. Erasmus was only about forty years old, but he felt himself getting on in life and declares here his determination to give up the charms of pure literature and devote the rest of his days to Christ alone. Most serious men of the Renaissance from Petrarch and Boccaccio down had had their moments of self-reproach for their over-devotion to the heathen Muses and perhaps Erasmus' feeling on this point was as sincere as that of his colleagues. Surely his life up to this time had not been so frivolously classical as to cause him any deserved regrets. He represents this poem as written to relieve his mind from the unpleasantness of his companions, especially the distinguished Clyston, who was now already as dreadful a being as a few weeks before he had been charming. While Clyston was alternately brawling and drinking with an English man-at-arms whom the king had specially deputed for their protection, Erasmus was, he says, devoting himself to poetical reflection and composition. Another reference to this journey is probably found in the well-known colloquy "_Diversoria_," in which one of the speakers describes the charms of the French inns, their cleanliness, their good wines and cookery, and the great efforts of the landladies and their fair attendants to make things pleasant for the traveller. All this is then made the more effective by a counter-description of the swinish customs of the inns in Germany.[69] Again we have an illustration of Erasmus' æsthetic indifference.