Here Eberbach, delighted to find an opportunity to afford the honoured man whom he had unwittingly grieved a little pleasure, eagerly interrupted.  Hurriedly thrusting his hand into the breast of his black doublet, he drew forth several small sheets on which he had succeeded in copying the beginning of the precious new manuscript, and handed them to Peutinger, who, with ardent zeal, instantly became absorbed in the almost illegible characters of his young comrade in learning.  Wilibald Pirckheimer and Lienhard Groland also frequently forgot the fresh salmon and young partridges, which were served in succession, to share this brilliant novelty.  The Abbot of St. AEgidius, too, showed his pleasure in the fortunate discovery, and did not grow quieter until the conversation turned upon the polemical writing which Reuchlin had just finished.  It had recently appeared in Frankfort under the title:  The Eye Mirror, and assailed with crushing severity those who blamed him for opposing the proposal to destroy the books of the Jews.

“What in the world do we care about the writings of the Hebrews?” the deep bass voice of Hans von Obernitz here interrupted the conversation.  “A new Latin manuscript—­that I value!  But has this noble fragment of Tacitus created half as much stir as this miserable dispute?”

“There is more at stake,” said Lienhard Groland positively.  “The Jewish writings merely serve as a pretext for the Cologne inquisitors to attack the great Reuchlin.  He, the most profound and keenest student of the noble Greek tongue, who also forced the venerable language in which the Old Testament speaks to discourse to us Germans—­”

“The Hebrew!” cried Hans von Obernitz impatiently, passing his napkin over his thick moustache; “what do we want of it?  How can a sagacious man plunge into such annoyances on its account?”

“Because the excess of liberty which you gentlemen grant to the human intellect blinds him,” observed the abbot.  “His learning would throw the doors wide open to heresy.  The Scriptures are true.  On them Tungern and Kollin, whom you mention, rely.  In the original Hebrew text they will be given up to every one who wishes to seek an interpretation——­”

“Then a new bridge will be built for truth,” declared the little Thuringian with flashing eyes.

“The Cologne theologians hold a different opinion,” replied the abbot.

“Because the Grand Inquisitor and his followers—­Tungern, Kollin, and whatever the rest may be called—­are concerned about some thing very different from the noblest daughter of Heaven,” said Lienhard Groland, and the other gentlemen assented.  “You yourself, my lord abbot, admitted to me on the ride here that it angered you, too, to see the Cologne Dominicans pursue the noble scholar ’with such fierce hatred and bitter stings.’”—­[Virgil, Aeneid, xi. 837.]

“Because conflict between Christians always gives me pain,” replied the abbot.