' Hallam remarked that Erasmus was always ready with a
compliment; but he admitted that before the year 1520 there were probably
more scholars in England than in France, 'though all together they might
not weigh as heavy as Budaeus.'
CHAPTER IX.
FRANCE: EARLY BOOKMEN--ROYAL COLLECTORS.
We shall take Budaeus as our first example of the French bookmen in the
period that followed the invention of printing. Of Guillaume Bude, to
give him his original name, it was said that he knew Greek as minutely as
the orators of the age of Demosthenes. If there was any real foundation
for the compliment it must have consisted in the fact that the Frenchman
had more acquaintance with the language than his instructor George of
Sparta. Budaeus is said to have paid a very large sum for a course of
lectures on Homer, and to have been not a pennyworth the wiser at the
end. Erasmus, who also learned of the Spartan, confessed that his tutor
only 'stammered in Greek,' and that he seemed to have neither the desire
nor the capacity for teaching. It is interesting to see how these
students made the best of their bad materials. 'I have given my whole
soul to Greek,' wrote Erasmus, 'and as soon as I get any money I shall
buy books first, and then some clothes.' Budaeus was known as 'the prodigy
of France,' and even Scaliger allowed that his country would never see
such a scholar again; and it is rather surprising that Erasmus should
have compared his style unfavourably with that of Badius, the printer
from Brabant.
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