dour and openness, those valuable solvents of
social humours, can only have been practised by the unwise.

Truth is one of those things in which to him that hath shall be given.
It is a common jest in the East that professional witnesses come daily
to the law-courts waiting to be hired by either side. The harder truth
is to discover, with the less are men content. With many inducements
to dissimulation and no great expectations of personal honesty, men
are likely to traffic with expediency and to be adept in justifying
themselves when they forsake the truth.

Some examples of this may be found in Erasmus' letters. When he was
in Italy in 1509, Henry VII died. His English patron, Lord Mountjoy,
was intimate with Henry VIII. A few weeks after the accession a letter
from Mountjoy reached Erasmus, inviting him to return to England and
promising much in the young king's name. The letter was in fact
written by Ammonius, an Italian, who afterwards became Latin secretary
to the king. He was recognized as one of the best scholars of the day;
and there can be no doubt that the letter was his composition.
Mountjoy was a sufficiently keen scholar to sit up late at night over
his books, and to be chosen as a companion to the young Prince Henry
in his studies; but such autograph letters by him as survive show that
he wrote with difficulty even in English, and it is impossible to
suppose that he would have kept an accomplished Latinist in his employ
merely to act as copyist to his effusions. Moreover, Erasmus, writing
a few years later, says that he recognized the letter as Ammonius'
work, not from the handwriting, which he had forgotten, but from the
style. Nevertheless he allowed it to be published in 1519 as his
patron's. Of his connivance in the matter there is actual proof; for
in 1517 he had the letter copied by one of his servant-pupils into a
letter-book, and added the heading himself. What he first wrote was:
'Andreas Ammonius Erasmo Roterodamo S.D.,' but afterwards he scratched
out Ammonius' name and wrote in 'Guilhelmus Montioius'. In a sense, of
course, he was correct; for the letter was written in Mountjoy's name.
But he cannot have been unaware that in an age which valued elegant
Latinity so highly, his patron would be gratified by the ascription.

It was no great matter, and did no harm to any one. But it throws some
doubt on Erasmus' statement as to the scholarship of Henry VIII. When
Henry's book against Luther appe