Erasmus, early in life, acquired a high reputation among the learned, but the enraged monks owed him a grudge, and vowed vengeance. He was much courted by princes, and was inexhaustible in finding excuses to evade their invitations, liking better to gain his livelihood in correcting books with the printer Frobenius, than to live surrounded by luxury and honour, at the magnificent courts of Charles V, Henry VIII, and Francis I, or to encircle his head with the Cardinal's hat which was offered him.[96] [96] "A principibus facile mihi contingeret fortuna, nisi mihi nimium dulcis esset libertas." (Ep. ad Prich.) I might easily make my fortune by princes, were not liberty too dear to me. He taught in Oxford from 1509 to 1516, and then left it for Bâsle, where he fixed his residence in 1521. What was his influence on the Reformation? It has been overrated by some and underrated by others. Erasmus never was, and never could have been, a Reformer, but he paved the way for others. Not only did he diffuse among his contemporaries a love of science, and a spirit of research and examination, which led others much farther than he went himself, but he was also able, through the protection of distinguished prelates and mighty princes, to expose the vices of the Church, and lash them with the most cutting satire. Erasmus, in fact, attacked monks and abuses in two ways. First, there was his popular attack. That little fair-haired man, whose peering blue eyes keenly observed whatever came before him, and on whose lips a somewhat sarcastic smile was always playing, though timid and embarrassed in his step, and apparently so feeble that a breath of air might have thrown him down, was constantly pouring out elegant and biting sarcasms against the theology and superstition of his age. His natural character and the events of his life had made this habitual to him. Even in writings where nothing of the kind was to have been expected, his sarcastic humour is ever breaking out, and, as with needle points, impaling those schoolmen and ignorant monks against whom he had declared war. There are many features of resemblance between Erasmus and Voltaire. Previous authors had given a popular turn to that element of folly which mingles with all the thoughts and all the actions of human life. Erasmus took up the idea, and personifying Folly, introduces her under the name of Moria, daughter of Plutus, born in the Fortunate Islands, nursed on intoxication and impertinence, and swaying the sceptre of a mighty empire. Giving a description of it, she paints, in succession, all the states of the world which belong to her, dwelling, especially, on church folks, who refuse to own her kindness, although she loads them with her favours. She directs her jibes and jests against the labyrinth of dialectics, in which the theologians wander bewildered, and the grotesque syllogisms by which they pretend to support the Church. She also