in my text, ’I would sooner let the whole of Scotus perish than the books of one Cicero.’ But as these things are full of folly, so very many of the contents bear an equal malice joined to folly.  A speaker in my text rallies his comrade, who, although of abandoned life, nevertheless puts faith in indulgentiary bulls.  My Corrector makes the former confess that he, along with his master Luther, was of opinion that the Pope’s indulgences were of no value; presently he represents the same speaker as recanting and professing penitence for his error.  And these he wants to appear my corrections.  O wondrous Atlases of faith!  This is just as if one should feign, by means of morsels dipped in blood, a wound in the human body, and presently, by removing what he had supplied, should cure the wound.  In my text a boy says, ’that the confession which is made to God is the best;’ he made a correction, asserting ’that the confession which is made to the priest is the best.’ Thus did he take care for imperilled confession.  I have referred to this one matter for the sake of example, although he frequently indulges in tricks of this kind.  And these answer to the palinode (recantation) which he promises in my name in his forged preface.  As if it were any man’s business to sing a palinode for another’s error; or as if anything that is said in that work of mine under any character whatever, were my own opinion.  For it does not at all trouble me, that he represents a man not yet sixty, as burdened with old age.  Formerly, it was a capital offence to publish anything under another man’s name; now, to scatter rascalities of this kind amongst the public, under the pretended name of the very man who is slandered, is the sport of divines.  For he wishes to appear a divine when his matter cries out that he does not grasp a straw of theological science.  I have no doubt but that yonder thief imposed with his lies upon his starved printer; for I do not think there is a man so mad as to be willing knowingly to print such ignorant trash.  I ceased to wonder at the incorrigible effrontery of the fellow, after I learnt that he was a chick who once upon a time fell out of a nest at Berne, entirely [Greek:  hek kakistou korakost kakiston hoon].  This I am astonished at, if the report is true:  that there are among the Parisian divines those who pride themselves on having at length secured a man who by the thunderbolt of his eloquence is to break asunder the whole party of Luther and restore the church to its pristine tranquility.  For he wrote also against Luther as I hear.  And then the divines complain that they are slandered by me, who aid their studies in so many night-watches; while they themselves willingly embrace monsters of this description, who bring more dishonour to the order of divines and even of monks, than any foe, however foul-mouthed, can do.  He who has audacity for such an act as this, will not hesitate to employ fire or poison.  And these things are printed at Paris, where it is unlawful to print even the Gospel, unless approved by the opinion of the faculty.