book in his hands, some author of whom he approved. His face
was radiant with pleasure, and you might have supposed that he had
already received a large return of profit. The excellence of his work
would bear comparison with that of the best printers of Venice and
Rome. Six years before his death he slipped down a flight of steps on
to a brickwork floor, and injured himself so severely that he never
properly recovered: but he always pretended that the effects had
passed away. Last year he was seized with a serious pain in his right
ankle, and the doctors could do nothing except to suggest that the
foot should be taken off. Some alleviation was brought by the skill of
a foreign physician, but there was still a great deal of pain in the
toes. However, he was not to be deterred from making the usual
journeys to Frankfort (in March and September for the book-fairs) and
rode on horseback both ways. We entreated him to take more care of
himself, to wear more clothes when it was cold; but he could not be
induced to give in to old age, and abandon the habits of a vigorous
lifetime. All lovers of good learning will unite to lament his loss.'

If Erasmus was fortunate in his printer, he was still more fortunate
in the friend and confidant whom he found awaiting him at Basle, Beat
Bild of Rheinau, 1485-1547, known then and now as Beatus Rhenanus, one
of the choicest spirits of his own or any age. His father was a
butcher of Rheinau who left his home because of continued ravages by
the Rhine which threatened to sweep away the town. Settling in
Schlettstadt, a free city of the Empire near by, he rose to the
highest civic offices, and sent his son to the Latin school under
first Crato Hofman and then Gebwiler. Beatus was contemporary there
with Bruno and Basil Amorbach, and staying on longer than they did,
rose to be a 'praefect' in the school, which a few years later,
according to Thomas Platter, had 900 boys in it. This number seems
large for a town of perhaps not more than four or five thousand
inhabitants; but it was equalled by the school at Alcmar in the days
of Bartholomew of Cologne, and by Deventer, as we have seen, it was
far surpassed. In 1503 Beatus went to Paris, and there overtook the
Amorbach boys who had two years' start of him; becoming B.A. in 1504
and M.A. in 1505, a year before Bruno. After his degree he stayed on
in Paris as corrector to the press of Henry Stephanus for two years;
and then returning home engaged