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588 APPENDIX V hat. His departure can be dated after 25 Apr. 14921, on which day he was ordained priest by David of Burgundy’, Bishop of Utrecht? ; if Beatus Rhenanus + is correct in saying that he was already ordained when he joined the Bishop. The first few months were full of happiness, in expectation of a visit to Italy, still the goal of classical students, and his relations with the Bishop were most cordial®. He accompanied him to Bergen-op-Zoom, where the Bishop’s family had a hereditary residence, and there made the acquaintance of James Batt, who was secretary to the council of the town, and who was destined to be a true and valuable friend to him for the next nine years of his life. Erasmus corresponded frequently with Steyn, and his letters made William Herman desirous of Batt’s acquaintance’. He seems also to have revisited the monastery, for Ep. 35, which is Herman’s first letter to Batt and which was perhaps written for Erasmus to take back to Bergen, says that Herman had heard Batt’s praises from Erasmus’ lips. After rejoining the Bishop Erasmus was driven into retreat by an outbreak of the plague at Bergen or perhaps at Brussels. The Bishop sent or took him to a country house at Halsteren’, near Bergen, and there to amuse his leisure the Antibarbari*® was revised and cast into the form of a dialogue, the opening scene of which is doubtless drawn, according to Erasmus’ frequent custom, from life. In it Herman comes on a visit to Erasmus and meets Batt for the first time, an incident which is possibly substantiated by the conversation with Batt which Herman records in Ep. 38. The scene is laid in the spring, the Burgomaster and Town-physician come over from Bergen to take part in the dialogue ; their names, William Conrad and John®, are mentioned, and facts of Batt’s previous life are given in a way which imparts an air of reality to the narrative. Opmeer’s statement that the journey to Rome was still in contemplation when the Antibarbari was being composed is not to be pressed ; for there is evidence to show that the disappointment had come earlier. Herman’s Ode 4 speaks of complaints from Erasmus”, which may well imply that the journey had already been abandoned ; since Batt’s company is urged in consolation, but there is no men1 The earliest authority for this date is a manuscript written by P. C. Bockenberg (1548-1617), which is quoted in I, W(alvis)’ Beschryv. d. Stad. Gouda, i. p. 261. Val. Andreas has produced from it the contradictory date ‘v Kal. Maias, die S. Marco sacro,” which is copied by Foppens. 2 In tho Ecclesiastes (LB. v. 808) Erasmus tells an amusing tale of the Bishop’s attempt to raise the standard of his ordination examinations ; for another anecdote of the Bishop see Adag. 2838. 3 LB. x. 15734. 4 iv. 40. 5 Ep. 153. 22-7. © Herman, Ode 4; see Ep. 38. 4 n. 1 Dum Episcopus profectionem adornat, in castello Haltereno agri Bergensis libros Antibarbarorum conscribit. Opmeer, Opus Chronographicum, Antwerp, 1611, i. p. 488. 8 See p. 121. 9 Possibly Joannes a Mera, who is described as a ‘primarius ciuis’ of Bergen in Lond. xxvii. 5, LB. 1230. 10 Desine, Herasme, queri, iuste quid enim tibi querele est? i Vt semper, et nunc sors benigna fauit. i Nam quid dissimulem, aut qui 1am pudeat tibi fateri? Saepe inuidus te credidi beatum. _ Tempore non modico tibi fata viro frui dedere ; Nobis semel vel colloqui negatum.
