to glory from the bondage of the barbarians.  May the earth lie lightly on him and the spring shine ever round his urn!  Even if the book is not by Valla himself, it must come from his school.

’I write in haste and with people talking all round me, from whom politeness will not let me sit altogether aloof.  But read carefully and you will understand me.  At least I hope this letter won’t be quite so barbarous as the monstrosities which the usher from Osnabruck sends you every day:  they sound like the spells of witches to bring up their familiar spirits, or the enchantments “Fecana kageti”, &c., which open locks whoever knocks.  Poor Latin! it is worse handled than was Regulus by the Carthaginians.  Forgive this scrawl:  I am writing by candlelight.’

We shall have other occasions to notice the admiration of the Northern humanists for Lorenzo Valla (d. 1457), the master of Latin style, and the audacious Canon of the Lateran, who could apply the spirit of criticism not only to the New Testament but even to the Donation of Constantine.

2.  VRYE TO ARNOLD OF HILDESHEIM (Schoolmaster at Emmerich):  c. 1477>.

’I have still a great many things to do, but I shall not begin upon them till the printed books from Cologne arrive at Deventer.  My plan was to go to Heidelberg, Freiburg, Basle and some of the universities in the East and then return to Deventer through Saxony and Westphalia.  But at Coblenz I met four men from Strasburg who declared that Upper Germany was almost all overrun by soldiers.  This unexpected alarm has compelled me to dispose of the 1500 copies of The Revival of Latin amongst the schools.[2] After visiting Deventer and Zwolle I shall go to Louvain, and then, if it is safe, to Paris.  I thought you ought to know of this change in my plans; that you might not be taken by surprise at finding me gone westwards instead of into Upper Germany.

     ’Please take great pains over the correction of the
     manuscripts.’

     [2] particularibus studiis.

3.  AGRICOLA TO HEGIUS at Emmerich:  from Groningen, 20 Sept. 1480.

’I was very sorry to learn from your letter that you had been here just when I was away.  There are so few opportunities of meeting any one who cares for learning that you would have been most welcome.  My position becomes increasingly distasteful to me:  since I left Italy, I forget everything—­the classics, history, even how to write with any style.  In prose I can get neither ideas nor language.  Such as come only serve to fill the page with awkward, disjointed sentences.  Verse I hardly ever attempt, and when I do, there is no flow about it; sometimes the lines almost refuse to scan.  The fact is that I can find no one here who is interested in these things.  If only we were together!

’My youngest brother Henry has been fired with the desire to study.  I have