By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson. F.S.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. 1 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 



1 An ancient volume of Erasmus's Commentary is still preserved in Westbury 

 Church, fastened to a desk by a chain. 



