He that will not suffer himself to be
discouraged by fancied impossibilities, may sometimes find his abilities
invigorated by the necessity of exerting them in short intervals, as the
force of a current is increased by the contraction of its channel.
From some cause like this, it has probably proceeded, that, among those
who have contributed to the advancement of learning, many have risen to
eminence in opposition to all the obstacles which external circumstances
could place in their way, amidst the tumult of business, the distresses
of poverty, or the dissipations of a wandering and unsettled state. A
great part of the life of Erasmus was one continual peregrination; ill
supplied with the gifts of fortune, and led from city to city, and from
kingdom to kingdom, by the hopes of patrons and preferment, hopes which
always flattered and always deceived him; he yet found means, by
unshaken constancy, and a vigilant improvement of those hours, which, in
the midst of the most restless activity, will remain unengaged, to write
more than another in the same condition would have hoped to read.
Compelled by want to attendance and solicitation, and so much versed in
common life, that he has transmitted to us the most perfect delineation
of the manners of his age, he joined to his knowledge of the world such
application to books, that he will stand for ever in the first rank of
literary heroes.
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