Having established himself in the college he introduced himself to the literary circle in Paris, through its head, Robert Gaguin, the aged General of the Maturins, who had served on many embassies, to Spain, to Italy, to Germany, to England.  Gaguin had written much himself, and had been one of the promoters of printing in Paris.  To know him was to be known of many.  Erasmus began by addressing to him a poem and some florid letters, and showed him some of his work.  Then an opportunity came to do him a service.  Gaguin had composed a history of the French, and it was just coming through the press.  At the end the printer found himself with two pages of the last sheet unfilled, despite ample spacing out, and the author was too ill to lend any help.  Erasmus heard of the difficulty, and came to the rescue with a long and most elegant epistle to Gaguin, comparing him to Sallust and Livy, and promising him immortality.  Time has turned the tables:  Gaguin’s name lives, not because of his history, but because the young and unknown Augustinian canon thought fit to court his acquaintance.

Once blooded with the printers, Erasmus went steadily on.  In a few months he published some poems of his own, on Christ and the angels—­de casa natalitia Jesu, a very rare volume, of which only two copies are known.  It was dedicated to a college friend, Hector Boys, of Dundee, subsequently the first Principal of King’s College, Aberdeen, and historian of Scotland.  It may be wondered what was Erasmus’ motive.  A dedication of a book had a market value and usually brought a return in proportion to the compliments laid on.  Correctness certainly required that the book should be sent to the Bishop of Cambray.  Boys was only a fellow-student, whose acquaintance Erasmus had made at Montaigu.  The explanation perhaps lies in the fact that Bishop Elphinstone was then negotiating with Boys to come to Aberdeen; in the newly-founded university Erasmus may have sighted hopes for himself.  The following year saw another volume produced by him; the poems of his Gouda and Deventer friend, William Herman, with a few of his own added.  This time the Bishop of Cambray did not fail of his due.

When Erasmus came to Paris, he was nearly 29, older by far than the ordinary arts student, but not old for the theological course, which lasted longer than the others.  To reach the first step, the Bachelor’s degree, he had to attend a number of lectures; and very tedious he found them.  Theologians are apt to be conservative.  The method of instruction had not advanced far beyond the dictation of text and gloss and commentary, which had been current before the days of printing.  Erasmus yawned and dozed, or wrote letters to his friends making fun of these ‘barbarous Scotists’.  ‘You wouldn’t know me,’ he says, ’if you could see me sitting under old Dunderhead, my brows knit and looking thoroughly puzzled.  They tell me that no one can understand these mysteries who has any traffic with the Muses or the Graces.  So I am trying hard to forget my Latin:  wit and elegance must disappear.  I think I am getting on; maybe some day they will recognize me for their own.’  They did, and he proceeded B.D.; when is not known, but probably by Easter 1498.