"For various purposes, and particularly when a cause is brought to a hearing in a court of equity, a duty devolves on the solicitors employed on both sides to abbreviate the pleadings, and the depositions of witnesses, if there should be any. This business was formerly done by the solicitor himself, or by an experienced clerk, whose work was corrected by the solicitor. It is now usually delegated to a stationer, who often delegates it again to his boy. What is called a brief, is, therefore, no longer a brief. It is a mere transcript." p. 51. It is to the solicitors then, that his lordship attributes the delay and embarrassment of the courts. They have too many irons in the fire, and have got above their business. We are by no means sure that these observations are entirely inapplicable to our own judicial proceedings. Our lawyers practise in every court to which they can get admittance, and are engaged in all kinds of professional business. In Charleston, the evil from this cause, has become very great. The lawyers cannot attend, or take the time to procure the witnesses when the cause is called, and the case is continued from one term to another; so that after a session of six weeks, the judge has transacted uery little business, except hearing motions for continuance. Mutual indulgence, negligence and forgetfulness are the necessary consequence, so that even cases at Common Law, are often four or five years on the docket. If the following remarks be thought to savour somewhat of the laudatur temporis arti, it must yet be admitted that they contain a great deal of truth:— "Redundancy is the vice of the age, and it appears in every thing. Perhaps, it is no where more striking, than in the length of modern reports. What Peere Williams would have comprised in a single page, in a modern report may occupy half a volume. The length, indeed, of modern reports, is a serious evil, and a great obstruction in the despatch of business. A case in Peere Williams may be read in five minutes, and its import perfectly comprehended: it may take as many hours to read over a modern report, and in the mass of matter, it may be difficult to discover the import of the whole. In citing a modern case at the bar, the counsel can scarcely avoid adopting something of the prolixity. of the reporter; and if in curtailing, he omits what his adversary may think or choose to think important, the court may be compelled to hear a re-statement of the same long case. The prolixity complained of, is not attributable only to those subjects already noticed: it is to be found every where-in Parliament as well as in Courts of Justice. Almost every modern act of Parliament is an example, and it should be remembered, that six days were occupied by a celebrated orator in opening one article of an impeachment.' p. 65. We recommend these remarks to our new reporter, Mr. Peters, who prints from the counsel's brief every thing, with long letters and all sorts of evidence, without any bearing on the decision, and then gives the whole story over again in the judge's opinion. He is not so bad, however, as Wheaton, who when the crop of cases happened to be short, was accustomed to eke out the volume, by long extracts from other works, or even from his own common-place book. ART. IV.-The Life of Erasmus; with Historical Remarks on the state of Literature, between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. By CHARLES BUTLER, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. London. 8vo. John Murray. 1825. THERE is no portion of history more rich in important events, or which more immediately strikes the mind as having produced definite and lasting effects on the world, than that of the early part of the sixteenth century. The illustrious monarchs that swayed the sceptre-the distinguished pontiff that held the chair of St. Peter-the storms that severed the Christian world into Romanist and Reformer, all combine to give interest to the period. Learning, the fine arts and the elegancies of life, which had before been the almost exclusive property of Italy, now began to develope themselves beyond the Alps in abundance and maturity; and the newly discovered art of printing, while it rendered common the relics of ancient lore, teemed with a modern literature which evinced from its taste and elegance, that the dawn of civilization was complete. Yet far the greatest number of authors of that time, on account of the temporary or local interest of their works, or an overstretched imitation of the ancients, totally destructive of originality and force, have nearly sunk into oblivion. Bembo, Sadoleti, Sannazaro, Sebastian Brand, Paulus Æmilius, &c. are known but to a few scholars, who have given their works a very cursory inspection. Erasmus alone is immediately remembered as one completely identified with his age, while his writings exhibit a wisdom, raciness and genuine humour, still in accordance with the manner of thinking of our day. His labours in the cause of learning recur to the scholar-his exertions for christianity to the theologian, and his lighter effusions still please the mere general reader. Indeed, a book cannot be written on that period without bringing to view the extensive influence he exerted, or without quoting some sensible remark, some shrewd observation, or humourous saying of that eternal glory of Holland. His name is much less known in England than on the Continent, where his works, especially some of his minor productions, either in the original or in translation, form a necessary part of the permanent standard literature. We shall give a short sketch of his life after our own fashion, and then take notice of Mr. Butler and some of his other biographers. Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam, the tenth of October, 1467, or thereabouts, as he himself never knew the precise period. He was the love-begotten progeny of a young man of respectable family of Gouda, and Margaret, a physician's daughter of Zevenbergen. His real name is said to have been Gerardus Gerardi,† which means in the German language amiable. "Following the fashion of learned men of those times, who affected to give their names a Latin or Greek turn, he called himself Desiderius, which, in Latin, and Erasmus, which in Greek, has the same signification." It is true that his mother "had loved, and was a woman," but this instance excepted, her conduct appears to have been irreproachable; and it is evident from the history of the circumstances, that the perverseness of their parents was the sole cause of the aberration of two amiable and well-disposed lovers. The father sometime after embraced the ecclesiastical state, yet continued to provide for the maintenance of Margaret and her offspring. At the age of four years, he was put to school, probably at Utrecht, where, by his own account, he made little progress, and, according to some authors, was long held up in Holland as a shining example of the beneficial effects of fagging. Bayle suggests that the dullness attributed to him, if any, was in music, a study then of great importance; yet even in this he must have been a towardly boy, as he was soon engaged as a singer in the cathedral of Utrecht. In his ninth year he went to the school at Deventer, where his mother attended him to take care of his tender age. This * Compend. Vitæ. + Saxius, Onomasticon Literarium, 3. 14. Jortin's Life of Erasmus, 1. 3. Fabricius says Erasmus prius patrio more Gerardus Gerardi F. postea e Gerardo (a Germanico Gier, avidus, et Arth, natura) Desiderius e Gerardi filio Erasmus fuit appellatus.' Owen thus derives it, Quæritur unde tibi sit nomen Erasmus? Eras mus. [Jo. Alb. Fabricius. Sylloge. Opusc. 363. § Jo. Herold. Declamatio Oper. Erasmi. 8. 637. institution, in the thirteenth century, was considered as the Athenæum of Belgium, and still maintained a high reputation, notwithstanding the increased light of the succeeding age. His genius here began soon to develope itself, and to attract attention. "He acquired, with facility, whatever was taught, and retained it faithfully. As a proof of the excellence of his memory, it is stated that he could repeat every word of Terence and Horace. One of his teachers, John Swinthein, was so delighted with him, that kissing him, he declared that he would attain the highest pinnacle of erudition. The celebrated Rudolph Agricola, who may be said to have introduced the muses into Germany, coming into the school during an examination of the themes of the boys, perused that of Erasmus, then in his twelfth year; he was surprised at the invention and the various beauties which it displayed, and after complimenting Erasmus, told him that with perseverance he would make a great man.‡ In many places, Erasmus speaks of the encouragement he derived from those praises. Among his works are preserved some Latin verses, written by him at Deventer, in his fourteenth year, which are very creditable, but like most grammar-school poetry, have probably the finishing touch of the master. Whilst at this school he received something not quite as pleasant as the praises before mentioned, but quite as durable in a school-boy's memory-various substantial and fundamental applications of the birch, to which he often bitterly alludes, "alas," exclaims the worthy Fuller, speaking on that subject "many a school-master" better answereth the name παιδολείβης than παιδαγωγός, rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good education. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends and furies." Losing both his parents while at Deventer, he was left in the hands of faithless guardians, who first dissipated his fortune, and then wished to force him to become religious, to escape a just retribution for their own want of religion. But even at that early age, thinking there was "more warmth than piety in a cowl," he resisted manfully the idea of entering a monastery. After using many persuasions, one of his guardians said to him in a rage, “you are a rascal (nebulo) devoid of the good spirit; I renounce my guardianship; see how you will support yourself." Even these threats could not force him to adopt a vocation so repugnant to his feelings. In the meanwhile, on a visit to the Beatus Rhenanus, Vita Erasmi. Holy and profane state. t Ibid. Encomium Moriæ, &c. monastery of Steyne, he encountered one of his former companions at Deventer, a certain Cornelius, who depicted to him in glowing colours, the tranquillity, the repose, the abundance of books, the angelic society of the place, until Erasmus, between persuasion and force, aided by sickness, entered as a novice, probably in his seventeenth year, and in regular time was professed.* He often, in after life, complained bitterly of the arts employed to inveigle him into the monastery, and to retain him. They told him, particularly, the horrible fate of the various reprobates who had returned to the world after commencing the noviciate some died of dreadful disorders-many were thunderstruck-others, snake-bitten.t He was fortunate in contracting, in the monastery, a friendship with William Herman of Gouda, a studious young man of talents and attainments. The time spent by their companions, in joking, sleeping and eating, was, by Erasmus and his friend, devoted to the best Roman authors and to Latin composition.‡ His poems, written at this period, exhibit facility and considerable poetic talent, though he never valued himself as a poet. His letters also evinced that he had attained that purity of style so uncommon out of Italy, that ease and pleasantness that afterwards acquired him such an elevated rank among epistolary authors. It is worthy of remark that in his first letters at Steyne, he speaks highly in favor of the "elegancies of the Latin language," by Lorenzo Valla, and enters warmly into his defence against the attacks of Poggio Bracciolini. Later in life, (1505) he published Valla's Commentary on the New Testament, and we think it not improbable, that Erasmus, even then, might have been awakened to religious research by the works of this author. Valla denied the validity of Constantine's donation, the letter of Abogarus to Jesus Christ, and the received opinion that each of the articles of the Apostles' creed was composed separately by every one of the Apostles; he had also severely attacked the immoralities of the clergy. For his boldness, he was obliged to fly from Rome to Naples, where he was protected by king Alphonso; but, if reports be true, even there, though he escaped the fires.of the Inquisition, he had to compound for a severe scourging in the convent of the Jacobins. The cause of letters also received Compend. Vitæ. + Erasmi Opera. Tom. iii. p. 1828. Epist. 442. App. Beat. Rhenanus, Vita Erasmi.-Besides his poems, this William Herman was the author of an Explanation of the Mass-Aubertus Miræus, Auctuarum de Script. Eccles. 131, and a History of the War of Holland and Guelderland-Fabricius, Bibl. Med. et Infim. Latin. 3. 147 Opera Erasmi. Tom. iii. p. 2. Epist. 1-2, p. 1793. Epist. 407 to 420. |