natural ability. This was done in the year 1522.
But the nature of this work is such, that it receives
addition as often as it is revised. Accordingly
I frequently made an addition for the sake of the
studious, and of John Froben; but so tempered the
subject-matters, that besides the pleasure of reading,
and their use in polishing the style, they might also
contain that which would conduce to the formation
of character. Even while the book I have referred
to contained nothing but mere rubbish, it was read
with wonderful favour by all. But when it had
gained a richer utility, it could not escape [Greek:
ton sykophanton degmata]. A certain divine of
Louvain, frightfully blear of eye, but still more of
mind, saw in it four heretical passages. There
was also another incident connected with this work
worth relating. It was lately printed at Paris
with certain passages corrected, that is to say, corrupted,
which appeared to attack monks, vows, pilgrimages,
indulgences, and other things of that kind which,
if held in great esteem among the people, would be
a source of more plentiful profit to gentlemen of
that order. But he did this so stupidly, so clumsily,
that you would swear he had been some street buffoon:
although the author of so silly a piece is said to
be a certain divine of the Dominican order, by nation
a Saxon. Of what avail is it to add his name
and surname, which he himself does not desire to have
suppressed? A monster like him knows not what
shame is; he would rather look for praise from his
villany. This rogue added a new Preface in my
name, in which he represented three men sweating at
the instruction of one boy: Capito, who taught
him Hebrew, Beatus Greek, and me, Latin. He represents
me as inferior to each of the others alike in learning
and in piety; intimating that there is in the Colloquies
a sprinkling of certain matters which savour of Luther’s
dogmas. And here I know that some will chuckle,
when they read that Capito is favoured by such a hater
of Luther with the designation of an excellent and
most accomplished man. These and many things
of the like kind he represents me as saying, taking
the pattern of his effrontery from a letter of Jerome,
who complains that his rivals had circulated a forged
letter under his name amongst a synod of bishops in
Africa; in which he was made to confess that, deceived
by certain Jews, he had falsely translated the Old
Testament from the Hebrew. And they would have
succeeded in persuading the bishops that the letter
was Jerome’s, had they been able in any tolerable
degree, to imitate Jerome’s style. Although
Jerome speaks of this deed as one of extreme and incurable
roguery, our Phormio takes peculiar delight in this,
which is more rascally than any notorious book.
But his malicious will was wanting in power to carry
out what he had intended. He could not come up
to Erasmus’ style, unpolished though it be:
for he thus closes his flowery preface: Thus age
has admonished, piety has bidden me, while life is
still spared in my burdensome age, to cleanse my writings,
lest those who follow my mournful funeral should transcribe
my departed soul!