O CAECA MENS MORTALIUM!said the learned man well was it sung by Junius Juvenalis,'NUMINIBUS VOTA EXAUDITA MALIGNIS!'Learned Magister,said Tressilian,your erudition so greatly exceeds my poor intellectual capacity that you must excuse my seeking elsewhere for information which I can better understand.There again now,replied the pedagogue,how fondly you fly from him that would instruct you!Truly said Quintilian--I pray,sir,let Quintilian be for the present,and answer,in a word and in English,if your learning can condescend so far,whether there is any place here where I can have opportunity to refresh my horse until I can have him shod?Thus much courtesy,sir,said the schoolmaster,I can readily render you,that although there is in this poor hamlet (NOSTRAPAUPERA REGNA)no regular HOSPITIUM,as my namesake Erasmus calleth it,yet,forasmuch as you are somewhat embued,or at least tinged,as it were,with good letters,I will use my interest with the good woman of the house to accommodate you with a platter of furmity--an wholesome food for which I have found no Latin phrase--your horse shall have a share of the cow-house,with a bottle of sweet hay,in which the good woman Sludge so much abounds,that it may be said of her cow,FAENUM HABET INCORNU;and if it please you to bestow on me the pleasure of your company,the banquet shall cost you NE SEMISSEM QUIDEM,so much is Gammer Sludge bound to me for the pains I have bestowed on the top and bottom of her hopeful heir ****ie,whom I have painfully made to travel through the accidence.Now,God yield ye for it,Master Herasmus,said the good Gammer,and grant that little ****ie may be the better for his accident!And for the rest,if the gentleman list to stay,breakfast shall be on the board in the wringing of a dishclout;and for horse-meat,and man's meat,I bear no such base mind as to ask a penny.Considering the state of his horse,Tressilian,upon the whole,saw no better course than to accept the invitation thus learnedly made and hospitably confirmed,and take chance that when the good pedagogue had exhausted every topic of conversation,he might possibly condescend to tell him where he could find the smith they spoke of.He entered the hut accordingly,and sat down with the learned Magister Erasmus Holiday,partook of his furmity,and listened to his learned account of himself for a good half hour,ere he could get him to talk upon any other topic,The reader will readily excuse our accompanying this man of learning into all the details with which he favoured Tressilian,of which the following sketch may suffice.
He was born at Hogsnorton,where,according to popular saying,the pigs play upon the organ;a proverb which he interpreted allegorically,as having reference to the herd of Epicurus,of which litter Horace confessed himself a porker.His name of Erasmus he derived partly from his father having been the son of a renowned washerwoman,who had held that great scholar in clean linen all the while he was at Oxford;a task of some difficulty,as he was only possessed of two shirts,the one,as she expressed herself,to wash the other,The vestiges of one of these CAMICIAE,as Master Holiday boasted,were still in his possession,having fortunately been detained by his grandmother to cover the balance of her bill.But he thought there was a still higher and overruling cause for his having had the name of Erasmus conferred on him--namely,the secret presentiment of his mother's mind that,in the babe to be christened,was a hidden genius,which should one day lead him to rival the fame of the great scholar of Amsterdam.The schoolmaster's surname led him as far into dissertation as his Christian appellative.He was inclined to think that he bore the name of Holiday QUASI LUCUS ANON LUCENDO,because he gave such few holidays to his school.
Hence,said he,the schoolmaster is termed,classically,LUDIMAGISTER,because he deprives boys of their play.And yet,on the other hand,he thought it might bear a very different interpretation,and refer to his own exquisite art in arranging pageants,morris-dances,May-day festivities,and such-like holiday delights,for which he assured Tressilian he had positively the purest and the most inventive brain in England;insomuch,that his cunning in framing such pleasures had made him known to many honourable persons,both in country and court,and especially to the noble Earl of Leicester.And although he may now seem to forget me,he said,in the multitude of state affairs,yet I am well assured that,had he some pretty pastime to array for entertainment of the Queen's Grace,horse and man would be seeking the humble cottage of Erasmus Holiday.PARVOCONTENTUS,in the meanwhile,I hear my pupils parse and construe,worshipful sir,and drive away my time with the aid of the Muses.