Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb (1841-1905) was a British classical scholar and Member of Parliament for Cambridge University. He was acknowledged to be one of the most brilliant classical scholars of his time, a humanist and an unsurpassed translator from and into the classical languages.
The Jebb's essay Erasmus of Rotterdam, which we propose to our readers today, is based on a Rede Lecture, delivered by the scholar in the Senate-House at Cambridge on June 11, 1890. It was included in 1907 in the collection Essays and Addresses, published by the Cambridge University Press.
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) was a Dutch humanist, Catholic theologian, educationalist, satirist and philosopher. Through his vast number of translations, books and essays, he is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the Northern Renaissance and one of the major figures of Dutch and Western culture.