in 1517, of course anonymously, and Erasmus was pleased with its reception; but he soon found that people who were not in the secret were attributing it to him.  That would never do; so he set to work to repudiate it.  The friends that knew he exhorted to know nothing; the rest he endeavoured to persuade that he was not the author, using many forms of equivocation.  He rises to his greatest heights in addressing cardinals.  To Campegio, then in London, he writes on 1 May 1519: 

’How malicious some people are!  Any scandalous book that comes out they at once put down to me.  That silly production, Nemo, they said was mine; and people would have believed them, only the author (Hutten) indignantly claimed it as his own.  Then those absurd Letters (of the Obscure Men):  of course I was thought to have had a hand in them.  Finally, they began to say that I was the author of this book of Luther; a person I have hardly ever heard of, certainly I have not read his book.  As all these failed, they are trying to fasten on me an anonymous dialogue which appears to make mock of Pope Julius.  Five years ago I glanced through it, I can hardly say I read it.  Afterwards I found a copy of it in Germany, under various names.  Some said it was by a Spaniard, name unknown; others ascribed it to Faustus Andrelinus, others to Hieronymus Balbus.  For myself I do not quite know what to think.  I have my suspicions; but I haven’t yet followed them up to my satisfaction.  Certainly whoever wrote it was very foolish;’—­that sentence was from his heart!—­’but even more to blame is the man who published it.  To my surprise some people attribute it to me, merely on the ground of style, when it is nothing like my style, if I am any judge:  though it would not be very wonderful if others did write like me, seeing that my books are in all men’s hands.  I am told that your Reverence is inclined to doubt me:  with a few minutes’ conversation I am sure I could dispel your suspicions.  Let me assure you that books of this kind written by others I have had suppressed:  so it is hardly likely that I should have published such a thing myself, or ever wish to publish it.’

Not bad that, from the author of the Julius.  A fortnight later he wrote to Wolsey to much the same effect, instancing as books that had been attributed to him Hutten’s Nemo and Febris, Mosellanus’ Oratio de trium linguarum ratione, Fisher’s reply to Faber, and even More’s Utopia.  As to the Julius he says:  ’Plenty of people here will tell you how indignant I was some years ago when I found the book being privately passed about.  I glanced through it (I can hardly be said to have read it); and I tried vigorously to get it suppressed.  This is the work of the enemies of good learning, to try and fasten this book upon me.’  Finally, to clinch his argument, he asseverates with audacious ingenuity:  ’I have never written a book, and I never will, to which I will not affix my own name.’