ainty. In such a world
of bewilderment, sobriety of judgement does not thrive.

Two examples may show the difficulty of learning the truth. In 1477
Charles the Bold was killed at Nancy. That great Duke of Burgundy was
not a person to be hidden under a bed. Yet nearly six years later
reports were current that he had escaped from the battle and was in
concealment. Again, Erasmus, during his residence at Bologna in 1507,
made many friends. One of these was Paul Bombasius, a native of that
town, who became secretary to Cardinal Pucci, and lost his life at
Rome in May 1527, when the city was sacked by Charles V's troops;
another was the delightful John de Pins, afterwards diplomatist and
Bishop of Rieux. To him in 1532 Erasmus wrote asking for news of
Bombasius. The Bishop replied that he had heard a rumour of his death,
but hoped it was not true. Not till May 1535 could Erasmus report the
result of inquiries made through a friend visiting Bologna, that
Bombasius had fallen a victim to the Bourbon soldiery eight years
before.

That the movements of the stars should affect human life is not easy
to disprove even now, to any one who is determined to maintain the
possibility of it; but under the training of modern science scarcely
any one retains such a belief. Of the influence formerly attributed to
the planets, traces survive in such epithets as mercurial, jovial,
saturnine. Comets appearing in the sky caused widespread alarm, and
any disasters that followed close were confidently connected with
them. The most learned scientists observed the stars and cast
horoscopes: Cardan, for instance, published a collection of the
horoscopes of great men. The Church looked askance on astrology,
suspecting it of connexion with forbidden arts; but it could not
check the observance of lucky days and the warnings of the heavens.
Even a Pope himself, Julius II, deferred his coronation until the
stars were in a fortunate conjunction.

Every university student should be familiar with the story of Anthony
Dalaber, undergraduate of St. Alban's Hall in Oxford, which Froude
introduced into his _History of England_ from Foxe's _Book of
Martyrs_; it is the most vivid picture we have of university life in
the early sixteenth century. Dalaber was one of a company of young men
who were reading Lutheran books at Oxford. Wolsey, wishing to check
this, had sent down orders in February 1528 to arrest a certain Master
Garret, who was abetting them in the