Such was Erasmus. He wanted that internal liberty which makes a man truly free. How different he would have been if he had abandoned himself, and sacrificed all for truth! But after trying to effect some reforms with the approbation of the Church, and for Rome deserting the Reformation when he saw the two to be incompatible, he lost himself with all parties. On the one hand, his palinodes could not suppress the rage of the fanatical partisans of the Papacy. They felt the mischief which he had done them, and they did not forgive it. Impetuous monks poured out reproaches on him from the pulpit,--calling him a second Lucian,--a fox, which had laid waste the vineyard of the Lord. A doctor of Constance had the portrait of Erasmus hung up in his study, that he might have it in his power at any moment to spit in his face. On the other hand, Erasmus, by deserting the standard of the gospel, deprived himself of the affection and esteem of the noblest men of the period in which he lived, and must, doubtless, have forfeited those heavenly consolations which God sheds in the hearts of those who conduct themselves as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. At least we have some indication of this in his bitter tears--his painful vigils, and troubled sleep--his disrelish for his food--his disgust with the study of the muses, once his only solace--his wrinkled brow--his pallid cheek--his sad and sunken eye--his hatred of a life to which he applies the epithet of cruel--and those longings for death which he unbosoms to his friends.[113] Poor Erasmus! [113] "... Vigiliæ molestæ, somnus, irrequietus, cibus insipidus omnis, ipsum quoque musarum studium ... ipsa frontis me mœstitia, vultus pallor, oculorum subtristis dejectio." (Erasm, Ep. i, p. 1380.) The enemies of Erasmus went, we think, somewhat beyond the truth when they exclaimed, on Luther's appearance, "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther has hatched it."[114] [114] The works of Erasmus were published by John Le Clerc at Liege, in 1703, in ten volumes folio. For his life, see Burigny, Vie D'Erasme, Paris, 1757; A Müller Leben des Erasmus, Hamb., 1828; and the Life inserted by Le Clerc in his Bibliothèque Choisie; see also the fine and faithful work of M. Nisard, (Revue des deux Mondes.) who, however, seems to me mistaken in his estimate of Erasmus and Luther. CHAP. IX. The nobles--Different Motives--Hütten--Literary League--Letters of some Obscure Men--Their Effect--Luther's Opinion--Hütten at Brussels--His Letters--Seckingen--War--His Death--Cronberg--Hans Sachs--General Fermentation.