rity. In March 1505 already Josse Badius at Paris
printed Valla's _Annotationes_ for Erasmus, as a sort of advertisement
of what he himself one day hoped to achieve. It was a feat of courage.
Erasmus did not conceal from himself that Valla, the humanist, had an
ill name with divines, and that there would be an outcry about 'the
intolerable temerity of the _homo grammaticus_, who after having
harassed all the _disciplinae_, did not scruple to assail holy
literature with his petulant pen'. It was another programme much more
explicit and defiant than the _Enchiridion_ had been.

Once more it is not clear why and how Erasmus left Paris again for
England in the autumn of 1505. He speaks of serious reasons and the
advice of sensible people. He mentions one reason: lack of money. The
reprint of the _Adagia_, published by John Philippi at Paris in 1505,
had probably helped him through, for the time being; the edition cannot
have been to his taste, for he had been dissatisfied with his work and
wanted to extend it by weaving his new Greek knowledge into it. From
Holland a warning voice had sounded, the voice of his superior and
friend Servatius, demanding an account of his departure from Paris.
Evidently his Dutch friends had still no confidence in Erasmus, his
work, and his future.

In many respects that future appeared more favourable to him in England
than it had seemed anywhere, thus far. There he found the old friends,
men of consideration and importance: Mountjoy, with whom, on his
arrival, he stayed some months, Colet, and More. There he found some
excellent Greek scholars, whose conversation promised to be profitable
and amusing; not Colet, who knew little Greek, but More, Linacre,
Grocyn, Latimer, and Tunstall. He soon came in contact with some high
ecclesiastics who were to be his friends and patrons: Richard Foxe,
Bishop of Winchester, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and William
Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon he would also find a friend whose
congenial spirit and interests, to some extent, made up for the loss of
Batt: the Italian Andrew Ammonius, of Lucca. And lastly, the king
promised him an ecclesiastical benefice. It was not long before Erasmus
was armed with a dispensation from Pope Julius II, dated 4 January 1506,
cancelling the obstacles in the way of accepting an English benefice.

Translations from Greek into Latin were for him an easy and speedy means
to obtain favour and support: a dialogue by Lu