But in 1482 came an offer he could not resist.  An old friend of Pavia days, John of Dalberg, for whom he had written the oration customary on his installation as Rector in 1474, had just been appointed Bishop of Worms.  He invited Agricola for a visit, and urged him to come and join him; living partly as a friend in the Bishop’s household, partly lecturing at the neighbouring University of Heidelberg.  The opening was just such as Agricola wished, and he eagerly accepted; but circumstances at Groningen prevented him from redeeming his promise until the spring of 1484.  For little more than a year he rejoiced in the new position, which gave full scope for his abilities.  Then he set out to Rome with Dalberg, their business being to deliver the usual oration of congratulation to Innocent VIII on his election.  On the way back he fell ill of a fever at Trent, and the Bishop had to leave him behind.  He recovered enough to struggle back to Heidelberg, but only to die in Dalberg’s arms on 27 Oct. 1485, at the age of 41.

Few men of letters have made more impression on their contemporaries; and yet his published writings are scanty.  The generation that followed sought for his manuscripts as though they were of the classics; but thirty years elapsed before the De inuentione dialectica was printed, and more than fifty before there was a collected edition.  Besides his letters the only thing which has permanent value is a short educational treatise, De formando studio, which he wrote in 1484, and addressed to Barbiriau—­some compensation to the men of Antwerp for his refusal to come to them.  His work was to learn and to teach rather than to write.  To learn Greek when few others were learning it, and when the apparatus of grammar and dictionary had to be made by the student for himself, was a task to consume even abundant energies; and still more so, if Hebrew, too, was to be acquired.  But though he left little, the fire of his enthusiasm did not perish with him; passing on by tradition, it kindled in others whom he had not known, the flame of interest in the wisdom of the ancients.

Another member of the Adwert gatherings was Alexander of Heck in Westphalia, hence called Hegius (1433-98).  He was an older man than Agricola, but was not ashamed to learn of him when an opportunity offered to acquire Greek.  His enthusiasm was for teaching; and to that he gave his life, first at Wesel, then at Emmerich, and finally for fifteen years at Deventer, where he had many eminent humanists under his care—­Erasmus, William Herman, Mutianus Rufus, Hermann Busch, John Faber, John Murmell, Gerard Geldenhauer.  Butzbach, who was the last pupil he admitted, and who saw him buried in St. Lebuin’s church on a winter’s evening at sunset, describes him at great length; and besides his learning and simplicity, praises the liberality with which he gave all that he had to help the needy:  living in the house of another (probably Richard Paffraet, the printer) and sharing expenses, and leaving at his death no possessions but his books and a few clothes.  And yet he was master of a school which had over 2000 boys.