anner a collection of similitudes, _Parabolae_. It was a partial
realization of what he had conceived to supplement the _Adagia_--
metaphors, saws, allusions, poetical and scriptural allegories, all to
be dealt with in a similar way. Towards the end of his life he published
a similar thesaurus of the witty anecdotes and the striking words or
deeds of wisdom of antiquity, the _Apophthegmata_. In addition to these
collections, we find manuals of a more grammatical nature, also piled up
treasury-like: 'On the stock of expressions', _De copia verborum et
rerum_, 'On letter-writing', _De conscribendis epistolis_, not to
mention works of less importance. By a number of Latin translations of
Greek authors Erasmus had rendered a point of prospect accessible to
those who did not wish to climb the whole mountain. And, finally, as
inimitable models of the manner in which to apply all that knowledge,
there were the _Colloquia_ and that almost countless multitude of
letters which have flowed from Erasmus's pen.

All this collectively made up antiquity (in such quantity and quality as
it was obtainable in the sixteenth century) exhibited in an emporium
where it might be had at retail. Each student could get what was to his
taste; everything was to be had there in a great variety of designs.
'You may read my _Adagia_ in such a manner', says Erasmus (of the later
augmented edition), 'that as soon as you have finished one, you may
imagine you have finished the whole book.' He himself made indices to
facilitate its use.

In the world of scholasticism he alone had up to now been considered an
authority who had mastered the technicalities of its system of thought
and its mode of expression in all its details and was versed in biblical
knowledge, logic and philosophy. Between scholastic parlance and the
spontaneously written popular languages, there yawned a wide gulf.
Humanism since Petrarch had substituted for the rigidly syllogistic
structure of an argument the loose style of the antique, free,
suggestive phrase. In this way the language of the learned approached
the natural manner of expression of daily life and raised the popular
languages, even where it continued to use Latin, to its own level.

The wealth of subject-matter was found with no one in greater abundance
than with Erasmus. What knowledge of life, what ethics, all supported by
the indisputable authority of the Ancients, all expressed in that fine,
airy form for which he w