————— 
* 
By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson. F.8.A. 45 
VIII. He had for his preceptor the celebrated Erasmus, from whom 
he acquired that taste for letters for which the Court was then 
remarkable. Erasmus says, in one of his letters, that he looked 
upon England as his own country by adoption,"and desires to serve 
it as much as his own native country. He often describes himself 
as charmed with it, especially with the flourishing state of learning 
and the number of learned men. He observes that it was the 
peculiar distinction of England that the nobility and men about the 
Court were conspicuous for the culture of the sciences; that there 
was among them more rational conversation both on religious and 
secular matters than in all the schools and monasteries in the 
country. It was to William, Lord Mountjoy, that Erasmus had 
dedicated his large folio work, the collection of proverbs, called 
« Adagia Erasmi,’ but the father happening to die the very year 
the work came out Erasmus wrote a supplementary dedication to 
the son, Charles, Lord Mountjoy, then of Brook, of whom he speaks 
as a person no less elegantly accomplished than the father. It is, 
therefore, not unlikely that Erasmus may, in one of his many visits 
to England, have been a guest at Brook House.' Charles, Lord 
Mountjoy, was a soldier engaged in the wars with France. Whilst 
there, not unmindful of the special uncertainty of a soldier’s life, he 
made a will, which, under the circumstances, is so remarkable that 
it must not be passed over in these notes of Westbury history. 
Though a soldier, and busy in the rough work of war, he did not 
forget the parish in which he was now a large owner of land. He 
did that which in these days so boastful of enlightenment, so many. 
people are striving to undo, or rather prevent, he made provision 
for the religious education of the young in Westbury ; and although, 
as will be perceived, he belonged to the faith which is not now the 
national one, still, with a single exception, there is nothing in his 
instructions but what might be usefully adopted at the present 
time. His will runs thus :—“ Also I will that for the space of two 
years after my decease a godly and discreet man may be chosen to 
SS eee 
"1 An ancient volume of Erasmus’s Commentary is still preserved in Westbury 
Church, fastened to a desk by a chain. 
