‘And why should not you help in this work, Ogier? There are manuscripts yet to be discovered, there are inscriptions yet to be copied, there are coins of which no specimen has been garnered. Then there is the great field of Nature before you; plants with rare virtues for healing sicknesses, fruits that are good for food, flowers with sweet scents and various hues. Why, again, should you not utilise the taste you have for observing the habits of the animal world? Depend upon it, these studies are intended by God for the improvement and advancement of the human race. Let monk and sectary fight it out as they will; do you be content to let in the light, and leave the rest to God.’ Such was the influence that presided over Comines during Busbecq’s earlier years; for the ideas of George Halluin were the ideas of Erasmus. We may be quite certain also that, under the same guide, Busbecq was not allowed to damp his ardour and stupefy his brains with too copious doses of Latin grammar, before he was made free of his Livy and his Virgil. As much as possible of the works of the ancients, and as little as possible of the cut and dried rules of the moderns—such would be George Halluin’s advice. If any one be curious as to the result of such a system, they have but to look at Busbecq’s Latin for the answer. At the age of thirteen Busbecq became a student at Louvain, the celebrated University of Brabant, where Erasmus once taught. Here he spent five years, at the end of which he received a reward, which must have been more precious to him than any of his University laurels. In consideration of his merits as a student, and other good qualities, Charles V. issued a Patent,[61] removing the stain from his birth, and admitting him into the noble family of Busbecq. According to the fashion of the times, the young man’s education was not completed at Louvain. He went the round of the great Universities of Europe, studying at Paris, Bologna, and Padua; at the last he became the pupil of the famous Baptista Egnatius, the friend and fellow-worker of Erasmus.