een built
expressly for him and fitted up as was convenient for him. Erasmus found
that at Basle the ecclesiastical storms which had formerly driven him
away had subsided. Quiet and order had returned. He did feel a spirit of
distrust in the air, it is true, 'but I think that, on account of my
age, of habit, and of what little erudition I possess, I have now got so
far that I may live in safety anywhere'. At first he had regarded the
removal as an experiment. He did not mean to stay at Basle. If his
health could not stand the change of air, he would return to his fine,
well-appointed, comfortable house at Freiburg. If he should prove able
to bear it, then the choice was between the Netherlands (probably
Brussels, Malines or Antwerp, perhaps Louvain) or Burgundy, in
particular Besancon. Towards the end of his life he clung to the
illusion which he had been cherishing for a long time that Burgundy wine
alone was good for him and kept his malady in check. There is something
pathetic in the proportions which this wine-question gradually assumes:
that it is so dear at Basle might be overlooked, but the thievish
wagoners drink up or spoil what is imported.

In August he doubted greatly whether he will return to Freiburg. In
October he sold his house and part of his furniture and had the rest
transported to Basle. After the summer he hardly left his room, and was
mostly bedridden.

Though the formidable worker in him still yearned for more years and
time to labour, his soul was ready for death. Happy he had never felt;
only during the last years he utters his longing for the end. He was
still, curiously enough, subject to the delusion of being in the thick
of the struggle. 'In this arena I shall have to fall,' he writes in
1533. 'Only this consoles me, that near at hand already, the general
haven comes in sight, which, if Christ be favourable, will bring the end
of all labour and trouble.' Two years later his voice sounds more
urgent: 'That the Lord might deign to call me out of this raving world
to His rest'.

Most of his old friends were gone. Warham and Mountjoy had passed away
before More and Fisher; Peter Gilles, so many years younger than he, had
departed in 1533; also Pirckheimer had been dead for years. Beatus
Rhenanus shows him to us, during the last months of his life,
re-perusing his friends' letters of the last few years, and repeating:
'This one, too, is dead'. As he grew more solitary, his suspiciousness
and