Poems from the Egerton MS. 1651

Abstract

After his departure from the monastery Erasmus continued to write some verse, but with a less whole-hearted enthusiasm than formerly. Most of the poems he wrote during the following years were occasional. The young humanist had apparently begun to realize that poetry was not his destined medium. In the Catalogus Lucubrationum he asserted that for some years before his first visit to England in 1499 he had neither read nor written poetry ¹). This was not strictly accurate; but it is an indication of a changing interest. That he no longer took his poetic labors very seriously is further suggested by his frivolous letter to John Sixtin in October 1499, in answer to the latter’s fulsome praise of his poetry ²): Sobrii scribimus versus adeo sanos vt nullum omnino Apollinis vestigium habeant. .... Incidimus omnino in siccum quoddam, exile, exangue, exuccum carminis genus, partim ingenii paupertate quadam, partim cacozelia.