The Ship of Fools | Page 3

"able-bodied" is never wanting to man
this old, weather-beaten, but ever seaworthy vessel. The thoughtful,
penetrating, conscious spirit of the Basle professor passing by, for the
most part, local, temporary or indifferent points, seized upon the
never-dying follies of _human nature_ and impaled them on the printed
page for the amusement, the edification, and the warning of
contemporaries and posterity alike. No petty writer of laborious _vers
de societe_ to raise a laugh for a week, a month, or a year, and to be
buried in utter oblivion for ever after, was he, but a divine seer who
saw the weakness and wickedness of the hearts of men, and warned
them to amend their ways and flee from the wrath to come. Though but

a retired student, and teacher of the canon law, a humble-minded man
of letters, and a diffident imperial Counsellor, yet is he to be numbered
among the greatest Evangelists and Reformers of mediæval Europe
whose trumpet-toned tongue penetrated into regions where the names
of Luther or Erasmus were but an empty sound, if even that. And yet,
though helping much the cause of the Reformation by the freedom of
his social and clerical criticism, by his unsparing exposure of every
form of corruption and injustice, and, not least, by his use of the
vernacular for political and religious purposes, he can scarcely be
classed in the great army of the Protestant Reformers. He was a
reformer from within, a biting, unsparing exposer of every priestly
abuse, but a loyal son of the Church, who rebuked the faults of his
brethren, but visited with the pains of Hell those of "fals herytikes," and
wept over the "ruyne, inclynacion, and decay of the holy fayth
Catholyke, and dymynucion of the Empyre."
So while he was yet a reformer in the true sense of the word, he was too
much of the scholar to be anything but a true conservative. To his
scholarly habit of working, as well as to the manner of the time which
hardly trusted in the value of its own ideas but loved to lean them upon
classical authority, is no doubt owing the classical mould in which his
satire is cast. The description of every folly is strengthened by notice of
its classical or biblical prototypes, and in the margin of the Latin
edition of Locher, Brandt himself supplied the citations of the books
and passages which formed the basis of his text, which greatly added to
the popularity of the work. Brandt, indeed, with the modesty of genius,
professes that it is really no more than a collection and translation of
quotations from biblical and classical authors, "Gesamlet durch
Sebastianu Brant." But even admitting the work to be a Mosaic, to
adopt the reply of its latest German editor to the assertion that it is but a
compilation testifying to the most painstaking industry and the
consumption of midnight oil, "even so one learns that a Mosaic is a
work of art when executed with artistic skill." That he caused the
classical and biblical passages flitting before his eyes to be cited in the
margin proves chiefly only the excellence of his memory. They are also
before our eyes and yet we are not always able to answer the question:
where, _e.g._, does this occur? ... Where, _e.g._, occur the following

appropriate words of Goethe: "Who can think anything foolish, who
can think anything wise, that antiquity has not already thought of."
Of the Greek authors, Plutarch only is used, and he evidently by means
of a Latin translation. But from the Latin large draughts of inspiration
are taken, direct from the fountainhead. Ovid, Juvenal, Persius,
Catullus, and Seneca, are largely drawn from, while, strangely enough,
Cicero, Boethius, and Virgil are quoted but seldom, the latter, indeed,
only twice, though his commentators, especially Servetus, are
frequently employed. The Bible, of course, is a never-failing source of
illustration, and, as was to be expected, the Old Testament much more
frequently than the New, most use being made of the Proverbs of
Solomon, while Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, and the Sapientia follow at
no great distance.
The quotations are made apparently direct from the Vulgate, in only a
few cases there being a qualification of the idea by the interpretation of
the Corpus Juris Canonici. But through this medium only, as was to be
expected of the professor of canon law, is the light of the fathers of the
Church allowed to shine upon us, and according to Zarncke
(Introduction to his edition of the Narrenschiff, 1854), use of it has
certainly been made far oftener than the commentary shows, the
sources of information of which are of the most unsatisfactory
character. On such solid and tried foundations did Brandt construct his
great work, and the judgment of contemporaries