whom politeness will not let me sit altogether aloof. But read
carefully and you will understand me. At least I hope this
letter won't be quite so barbarous as the monstrosities which
the usher from Osnabruck sends you every day: they sound like
the spells of witches to bring up their familiar spirits, or
the enchantments "Fecana kageti", &c., which open locks whoever
knocks. Poor Latin! it is worse handled than was Regulus by the
Carthaginians. Forgive this scrawl: I am writing by
candlelight.'

We shall have other occasions to notice the admiration of the Northern
humanists for Lorenzo Valla (d. 1457), the master of Latin style, and
the audacious Canon of the Lateran, who could apply the spirit of
criticism not only to the New Testament but even to the Donation of
Constantine.

2. VRYE TO ARNOLD OF HILDESHEIM (Schoolmaster at Emmerich): <?
Cologne, _c._ 1477>.

'I have still a great many things to do, but I shall not begin
upon them till the printed books from Cologne arrive at
Deventer. My plan was to go to Heidelberg, Freiburg, Basle and
some of the universities in the East and then return to
Deventer through Saxony and Westphalia. But at Coblenz I met
four men from Strasburg who declared that Upper Germany was
almost all overrun by soldiers. This unexpected alarm has
compelled me to dispose of the 1500 copies of _The Revival of
Latin_ amongst the schools.[2] After visiting Deventer and
Zwolle I shall go to Louvain, and then, if it is safe, to
Paris. I thought you ought to know of this change in my plans;
that you might not be taken by surprise at finding me gone
westwards instead of into Upper Germany.

'Please take great pains over the correction of the
manuscripts.'

[2] particularibus studiis.

3. AGRICOLA TO HEGIUS <at Emmerich>: from Groningen, 20 Sept. 1480.

'I was very sorry to learn from your letter that you had been
here just when I was away. There are so few opportunities of
meeting any one who cares for learning that you would have been
most welcome. My position becomes increasingly distasteful to
me: since I left Italy, I forget everything--the classics,
history, even how to write with any style. In prose I can get
neither ideas nor language. Such as come only serve to fill the
page with awkward, disjointed sentences. Verse