mother, who still survives, is a most worthy woman.1 She bore her husband eleven sons and as many daughters; 2 of

randa formerly belonging to Henry St. George (Brit. Mus. Addl. MSS., 27,984). Henry Colet was Alderman of Farringdon Without in 1476, Sheriff in 1477, Lord Mayor in 1486, and again in 1495. He died in 1505, and was buried in St. Dunstan's Church, Stepney.—See Overall's Accounts of the Churchwardens of the Parish of St. Michael's, Cornhill, p. 218 n. His monument is on the north side of the chancel at Stepney. The arms shown there, as described by Lysons (Environs of London, 1795, iii. p. 429) were: "Sable, on a chevron engrailed between three hinds trippant argent, as many annulets of the field." The same coat appears in the engraving of Dean Colet's monument in Dugdale's St. Paul's, 1658, p. 64. But I am informed, on the best authority, that the chevron should be plain, not engrailed. The circumstance of these being used as the arms of St. Paul's School alone makes such a trifling point worth notice.

1 This was the good Dame Christian, of whom we get such charming glimpses in the letters of Erasmus and the Dean. She was the daughter of Sir John Knevet of Ashwellthorp, and Elizabeth, sister and heiress of Sir John Clifton, Knt., of New Buckenham, Norfolk. Her home, in the lifetime of her husband, was "a mansion called the Great Place, surrounded by a moat, nearly adjoining Stepney Church." This was afterwards leased by the Mercers' Company to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and was still standing when Lysons wrote, in 1795, being then 'an ancient wooden mansion," know as the Spring Garden Coffee House. After the death of Sir Henry Colet, Dame Christian resided in a smaller house, not far from the former, at the corner where White Horse Street and Salmon Lane now meet. In this house Cornelius Agrippa, in 1550, was set hard to work (“multum desudavi” is his expression) on St. Paul's Epistles, under the teaching of Dean Colet.-See the Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa, by Henry Morley, i. p. 230.

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2 Stow, in his account of St. Anthony's Church, in Budge Row, mentions the figures of Sir H. Colet, his wife, ten sons and ten daughters, as remaining to be seen in the stained glass windows on the north side. -Survey, by Thoms, p. 95. But the number given in the text is fully confirmed by other authorities. As a mere coincidence, it may be noted that the children of Odin and Frea, in Saxon mythology, were also eleven sons and eleven daughters.

whom John, as the eldest, would have been heir to the entire estate, according to the English law, even had the others been alive. But, at the time when my acquaintance with him began, he was the sole survivor of the band. To these advantages of fortune was added that of a tall and graceful figure.1

During his younger days, in England, he diligently mastered all the philosophy of the schools, and gained the title expressive of a knowledge of the seven liberal arts. Of these arts there was not one in which he had not been industriously and successfully trained. For he had both eagerly devoured the works of Cicero, and diligently searched into those of Plato and Plotinus; while there was no branch of mathematics that he left untouched.

After this, like a merchant seeking goodly wares, he visited France, and then Italy. While there, he devoted himself entirely to the study of the sacred writers. He had previously, however, roamed with great zest through literature of every kind; finding most pleasure in the early writers,

1

Corpus elegans et procerum.—George Lily, a son of the first High Master of St. Paul's School, to whom Colet's appearance must have been familiar, has left a similar description of him :—“ Huc accedebat egregii corporis proceritas, et suspiciendi oris serenitas, ut subinde in omni actione mirus venerandusque existeret.”—p. 87 of the Elogia Quorundam Anglorum, appended to Paulus Jovius's Britanniæ Descriptio, 1561. The portraits of him extant confirm this impression. But for its unfortunately defining ignotum per ignotius, the following passage from a letter of Stephen Vaughan to Thomas Cromwell, dated 28 March, 1528, would have had an interest for us :- "Two ambassadors have come from the Lady Margaret, who were here before, and lodged at Marcellys' house. The one is a man of sixty, a good deal like Dr. Colet, late dean of Powlys, both in person and gesture."-See Brewer's Letters and Papers of the reign of Hen. VIII., vol iv. p. 1813.

Dionysius, Origen, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Jerome. I should add that, among the old authors, there was none to whom he was more unfavourable than Augustine.'/At the same time he did not omit to read Scotus, and Thomas, and others of that stamp, if the occasion ever required it. He was also carefully versed in treatises of Civil and Canon Law. In a word, there was no work containing either the chronicles or enactments of our forefathers, which he had not perused. The English nation has poets who have done among their own countrymen what Dante and Petrarch have

1 Atque inter veteres nulli erat iniquior quam Augustino.—I am obliged to confess that the meaning of iniquior here is still doubtful to me. The general run of the sentence, and the use of atque, seem naturally to point to a climax rather than a qualification. "He read the others much, but Augustine most of all.” And the facts of the case appear to bear out this interpretation. For whatever may have been the differences of opinion between Colet and St. Augustine on predestination and other important subjects, it is undoubted that Colet quotes Augustine more frequently than any other Father of the Church in his extant writings; nowhere with disapproval, and more than once with the addition of a præclare dicit.-See the passages quoted in the Letters to Radulphus, Introd. p. xlvi. Hence I was at one time strongly inclined to think that Mr. J. G. Nichols was right in rendering the words, "none did he attack oftener than Augustine" (Pilgrimages, 1849, p. 131), in the sense of none did he read more than Augustine." But the usage of iniquior in four other passages of this letter, and elsewhere in Erasmus, in the simple meaning of "unfair" or "unfavourable," is a difficulty cannot get over. From the following instances out of many (the first four being all in this Epistle), the reader may form his own judgment as to Erasmus's use of the word :-"Nihil autem erat tam iniquum, quod non perpeteretur;" "Minus erat iniquus his qui, tametsi sacerdotes essent, etc.; "Ut minus esset iniquus iis qui non probarent, etc."; "Thomæ tamen nescio qua de causa iniquior erat quam Scoto;" 'Augustinus ex colluctacione cum Pelagio factus est iniquior libero arbitrio quam fuerat antea."

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done in Italy. And by the study of their writings he perfected his style; preparing himself, even at this date, for preaching the gospel.

Soon after his return from Italy he left his father's house, as he preferred to reside at Oxford, and there he publicly and gratuitously expounded all St. Paul's Epistles. It was at Oxford that my acquaintance with him began; some kind providence having brought me at that time to the same spot. He was then about thirty years old, some two or three months younger than myself. Though he had neither obtained nor sought for any degree in Divinity, yet there was no Doctor there, either of Divinity or Law, no Abbat, or

1 Gower and Chaucer are probably alluded to, in this rather vague description.

2 It is a matter of regret that the dates in the earlier part of Erasmus's history cannot be fixed with more certainty. M. Herminjard has done much for the chronology of his letters, in his Correspondance des Réformateurs, but his first volume only begins with the year 1512. If we could rely on the statement in the text, that Colet was the younger of the two by a few months, it would affect the question of the year of Erasmus's birth. For the date of Colet's death appears fixed beyond dispute as Sept. 16th, 1519 (see the inscription on his coffin, given at p. 505 of Oxf. Ref.), and there was added on his monument in St. Paul's, "vixit annos 53." Now if this could be depended upon as meaning that Colet had completed fifty-three years in September, 1519, and if Erasmus, who was born on October 27th (for he was sure of the day, though not the year), was a few months older, he must have been born in 1465. With this agrees a manuscript entry (I know not of what authority), on the flyleaf of a copy of the De octo orationis partium, etc., Paris, 1534 (Brit. Mus. 624, a. 6), written in an early hand : "Obijt Erasmus 12 Julii 1536 vixit 70 añ. 8 mens. 16 diebus." But on the other hand, the inscription "vixit annos 53" appears to have been a later addition to Colet's tomb. In Holland's Monumenta Sepulchraria, first printed in 1614, the words are absent. In the later edition of 1633, after the restoration of the monument, they appear. Hence they were possibly due to a mere

other dignitary, but came to hear him, and brought his text-books with him as well.1 The credit of this may have been due to Colet's personal influence; or it may have been due to their own good-will, in not being ashamed to learn, the old from the young, doctors from one who was no doctor. However, the title of Doctor was spontaneously offered him some time later, and accepted by him, though rather to oblige the offerers than because he sought it.

From these sacred occupations he was called back to London by the favour of Henry the Seventh, and made Dean of St. Paul's, so as to preside over the cathedral of that apostle, whose epistles he loved so much. This takes precedence of all the deaneries in England, though there are others with richer incomes. Hereupon our good Colet, feeling his call to be for the work, and not for the empty honour, restored the decayed discipline of the cathedral body, and— what was a novelty there-commenced preaching at every

inference from a passage in one of Erasmus's letters: "Joannes Coletus, qui decessit anno ferme quinquagesimo tertio" (Epist. xxiii. 5, ed. 1642). Assuming from this that Colet may have been only turned fifty-two in September, 1519, Erasmus, if the elder of the two, and born in October, could not have been born in a later year than 1466.

1 Etiam allatis codicibus.-Fault was found with Mr. Seebohm for rendering this "note-books," in the Oxford Reformers. But in truth the two might be much the same thing. The broad margins of manuscript texts were a favourite depository of notes. The point would not be worth alluding to, but for its connection with a charge brought by Dean Alford against Erasmus :-" Erasmus also, besides committing numerous inaccuracies, tampered with the readings of the very few MSS. which he collated." (Gk. Test. 4th ed. Proleg. ch. vi. § 1). The expression in italics is too strong a one to be justified, even on the authority of Wetstein. Erasmus, or any other scholar of his time, would use his "codices" as note-books, with more freedom than we can perhaps appreciate.