ellent brother.'

The misfortune of his position did not check Erasmus's intellectual
growth. He was a brilliant, witty, sarcastic, mischievous youth. He did
not trouble himself to pine and mope; but, like a young thorough-bred in
a drove of asses, he used his heels pretty freely.

While he played practical jokes upon the unreverend fathers, he
distinguished himself equally by his appetite for knowledge. It was the
dawn of the Renaissance--the revival of learning. The discovery of
printing was reopening to modern Europe the great literature of Greece
and Rome, and the writings of the Christian fathers. For studies of this
kind, Erasmus, notwithstanding the disadvantages of cowl and frock,
displayed extraordinary aptitude. He taught himself Greek when Greek was
the language which, in the opinion of the monks, only the devils spoke
in the wrong place. His Latin was as polished as Cicero's; and at length
the Archbishop of Cambray heard of him, and sent him to the University
of Paris.

At Paris he found a world where life could be sufficiently pleasant, but
where his religious habit was every moment in his way. He was a priest,
and so far could not help himself. That ink-spot not all the waters of
the German Ocean could wash away. But he did not care for the low
debaucheries, where the frock and cowl were at home. His place was in
the society of cultivated men, who were glad to know him and to
patronise him; so he shook off his order, let his hair grow, and flung
away his livery.

The Archbishop's patronage was probably now withdrawn. Life in Paris was
expensive, and Erasmus had for several years to struggle with poverty.
We see him, however, for the most part--in his early letters--carrying a
bold front to fortune; desponding one moment, and larking the next with
a Paris grisette; making friends, enjoying good company, enjoying
especially good wine when he could get it; and, above all, satiating his
literary hunger at the library of the University.

In this condition, when about eight-and-twenty, he made acquaintance
with two young English noblemen who were travelling on the Continent,
Lord Mountjoy and one of the Greys.

Mountjoy, intensely attracted by his brilliance, took him for his tutor,
carried him over to England, and introduced him at the court of Henry
the Seventh. At once his fortune was made. He charmed every one, and in
turn he was himself delighted with the country and the people. English
character, En