Note 315 — Chapter XXI

Perhaps I am wrong in calling Erasmus an apostate canon, for though he quitted his monastery, he at times resumed his habit, whenever he found it convenient. He generally wore it in England, for old-fashioned ideas still held their ground at Oxford; and always appeared with it in Rome, until having been once mobbed by some ragamuffin boys, he applied to the Pope for a formal permission to lay it aside for ever.