The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Volumes 1 and 2. Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq
likely that her mistress would allow her to remain an inmate of the Seigneur’s house. In justice to George Ghiselin himself, it must be remembered that the standard of morality in Flanders, with regard to such connections, was not high, as is shown by Motley’s55 description of a seigneur’s privileges in old times; and also by the fact that up to a late date they retained the right of legitimating their bastard children. At any rate, his conduct as a father was unimpeachable; he received the little fellow into his château, and gave him an excellent education.
From considerations already stated, it is impossible to doubt that Busbecq came under the influence of George Halluin. He must often have been found in the famous library56 of the Seigneur of Comines, with his head buried in some weighty folio; thither, no doubt, he brought the botanical specimens he had discovered in the woods and fields of Bousbecque, and the Roman coins he had unearthed at Wervicq. From his kind patron he must have heard of the great Erasmus, of Melancthon, Thomas More, and other leaders of that age. One can picture to oneself how Ogier may have questioned him as to Luther, and asked how it was that he and Erasmus were so far apart, when they agreed so heartily in detesting the greed and superstition of the monks. ‘My boy,’57 one can imagine George Halluin saying, ‘when your grandsire, Gilles Ghiselin, was about to restore the Bousbecque château, he took me to see the old place. The great hall was well-nigh perfect, and all the windows had been closed with boards. On entering, we found it had been made a home for the owl and the bat; the creatures flew up against me; and as I tried to escape, I stumbled over the rubbish, and fell on the floor, which was covered with filth. I was so disgusted that I would fain have persuaded your grandfather to leave the old place to its present occupants, and build a fair castle at some little distance; but he laughed at my boyish fancy, saying it were foul scorn that he should be ousted from the roof of his ancestors by a set of night-birds. He called in his men, the windows were unbarred, and broad streams of light poured into the hall. Then might you have seen owl and bat shrinking from the bright sunbeams; thenceforth the Bousbecque hall was no resting-place for them, for they love not to roost save where there is perpetual darkness and night.58 Here is my parable, Ogier; Luther would quit our Church because of the many corruptions and abuses that have crept in; he would leave the monks to their darkness, and build himself a brand-new chapel after his own design. Erasmus would count it shame to allow such night-birds to deprive him of his inheritance in the Church. He would do what your grandsire did, open the windows and pour in the light; that is a power against which neither monks nor bats can stand.’ ‘But where is the light,’ says Ogier, ‘and where are the windows?’ ‘There,’ replies the Seigneur, pointing to his well-stored shelves, ‘there is the light of antiquity, which will chase the night-birds from our Church. Never think, Ogier, that the Bible is the only revelation of God; all knowledge comes from him. Seneca, who never read a word of the Bible, can help us to the truth; and if it be the truth, it is God’s truth, as much as if it had been uttered by inspired lips. I will tell you a secret, boy; you remember the old line, “Fas est et ab hoste doceri.” The drones in the monasteries have, like other animals, that intuitive knowledge which tells them what is fatal to their existence; so we may learn from them their vulnerable part. Erasmus has said many hard things of them, but that is not the chief reason of their hate. What is it then? It is because he has sent the world to school with Greece and Rome for its masters.59 Just as the owls and bats in your grandsire’s hall might have held their own had we attacked them with sticks and stones, but shrank discomfited before the light of day, so the monks might battle against downright attacks, but they know that the light of antiquity must drive them from their roosts. My ancestors have left their mark on the history of Flanders; but I doubt whether they ever discharged a more glorious office than that which fell to me when I undertook the translation of the great satire which Erasmus60 dedicated to Sir Thomas More. I once spoke of it to my friend. He shook his head. “You have brought me, my dearest George, into some trouble with your translation; it is too good; it seems incredible, but the lazy crew positively understand it. No, no, stick to your Virgil; they cannot attack me about it; and, between ourselves, you will frighten them much more.” As he said to me, so I say to you, my dear young friend, leave religious questions alone; they will right themselves, if we only let in the light.
‘And why should not you help in this work, Ogier? There are manuscripts yet to be discovered, there are inscriptions yet to be copied, there are coins of which no specimen has been garnered. Then there is the great field of Nature before you; plants with rare virtues for healing sicknesses, fruits that are good for food, flowers with sweet scents and various hues. Why, again, should you not utilise the taste you have for observing the habits of the animal world? Depend upon it, these studies are intended by God for the improvement and advancement of the human race. Let monk and sectary fight it out as they will; do you be content to let in the light, and leave the rest to God.’
Such was the influence that presided over Comines during Busbecq’s earlier years; for the ideas of George Halluin were the ideas of Erasmus. We may be quite certain also that, under the same guide, Busbecq was not allowed to damp his ardour and stupefy his brains with too copious doses of Latin grammar, before he was made free of his Livy and his Virgil. As much as possible of the works of the ancients, and as little as possible of the cut and dried rules of the moderns—such would be George Halluin’s advice. If any one be curious as to the result of such a system, they have but to look at Busbecq’s Latin for the answer.
At the age of thirteen Busbecq became a student at Louvain, the celebrated University of Brabant, where Erasmus once taught. Here he spent five years, at the end of which he received a reward, which must have been more precious to him than any of his University laurels. In consideration of his merits as a student, and other good qualities, Charles V. issued a Patent,61 removing the stain from his birth, and admitting him into the noble family of Busbecq.
According to the fashion of the times, the young man’s education was not completed at Louvain. He went the round of the great Universities of Europe, studying at Paris, Bologna, and Padua; at the last he became the pupil of the famous Baptista Egnatius, the friend and fellow-worker of Erasmus.
The ideas which he imbibed in the course of his education appear to be a sort of continuation or development of those of Erasmus. There is a striking resemblance between the views of Busbecq and those of his contemporary, Pierre de la Ramée. These views and theories consisted in making the results achieved by the ancients a new point of departure for the learning of modern times.62 In medicine, for instance, the works of Galen and Hippocrates were to be taken for the foundation, and all later writers ignored; on this substratum the medical science of the future was to be built. That these ideas rested on a sound basis there can be no doubt. Immense results, in almost every field of human knowledge, had been achieved during the palmy days of Greece and Rome; with the downfall of the latter a flood of barbarism had poured over the civilised world. The human race had been struggling again towards the light, but struggling with slow and feeble step. In Busbecq’s days they had not nearly reached the point where Greece and Rome left off.
Compare, for instance, the writings of Philippe de Comines, one of the ablest men of his time, with those of Busbecq sixty years later. The former are stamped with the ideas of the middle ages, the latter are bright with the freshness of a modern writer. The difference is simply enormous, and it is to be attributed to the fact that Philippe de Comines, who was fully conscious of his loss, was ignorant of Latin, while Busbecq had kept company, as it were, with the brightest wits and most learned men of ancient times.
But it must not be supposed that the men of Ramée’s school had any idea of contenting themselves with the knowledge of the ancients; on the contrary, they made it the starting-point for the prosecution of further discoveries. Busbecq’s letters furnish us with an excellent instance of the practice of these ideas. With Pliny, Galen, Vopiscus at his fingers’ ends, he is ever seeking to verify, correct, or enlarge the store he has received. For him all knowledge is gain, and he seeks it in every quarter; inscriptions, coins, manuscripts; birds, beasts, and flowers; the homes, customs, and languages of mankind; the secrets of earth, air, and water—all alike are subjects of interest to him. One trait marks the man. On his journeys he made it a rule, as soon as he reached his halting-place for the night, to sally forth in search of some discovery. Occasionally an inscription, or some of his favourite coins, was the result; at other times it would be a strange plant, or even