ng of river-beds, the diking and reclamation of moors. It
is the Netherlander who speaks here, and at the same time the man in
whom the need of cleansing and clearing away is a fundamental trait of
character.

Vague politicians like Erasmus are prone to judge princes very severely,
since they take them to be responsible for all wrongs. Erasmus praises
them personally, but condemns them in general. From the kings of his
time he had for a long time expected peace in Church and State. They had
disappointed him. But his severe judgement of princes he derived rather
from classical reading than from political experience of his own times.
In the later editions of the _Adagia_ he often reverts to princes, their
task and their neglect of duty, without ever mentioning special princes.
'There are those who sow the seeds of dissension between their townships
in order to fleece the poor unhindered and to satisfy their gluttony by
the hunger of innocent citizens.' In the adage _Scarabeus aquilam
quaerit_ he represents the prince under the image of the Eagle as the
great cruel robber and persecutor. In another, _Aut regem aut fatuum
nasci oportere_, and in _Dulce bellum inexpertis_ he utters his
frequently quoted dictum: 'The people found and develop towns, the folly
of princes devastates them.' 'The princes conspire with the Pope, and
perhaps with the Turk, against the happiness of the people,' he writes
to Colet in 1518.

He was an academic critic writing from his study. A revolutionary
purpose was as foreign to Erasmus as it was to More when writing the
_Utopia_. 'Bad monarchs should perhaps be suffered now and then. The
remedy should not be tried.' It may be doubted whether Erasmus exercised
much real influence on his contemporaries by means of his diatribes
against princes. One would fain believe that his ardent love of peace
and bitter arraignment of the madness of war had some effect. They have
undoubtedly spread pacific sentiments in the broad circles of
intellectuals who read Erasmus, but unfortunately the history of the
sixteenth century shows little evidence that such sentiments bore fruit
in actual practice. However this may be, Erasmus's strength was not in
these political declamations. He could never be a leader of men with
their passions and their harsh interests.

His life-work lay elsewhere. Now, at Basle, though tormented more and
more frequently by his painful complaint which he had already carried
for so many ye