opinions were more like Erasmus' than his own. The episode has
escaped Erasmus' biographers; and I cannot find any mention of it
except an allusion in one of his letters, and a description in a
treatise on the Brethren by Joachim Camerarius the elder (1500-1574).
Camerarius' book was not published till 1605; but we can perhaps trace
the source of his information. From 1518 onwards he spent some years
at Erfurt. In January 1521 Erasmus describes the visit of the
Brethren's envoys as having occurred six months before; at Antwerp,
according to Camerarius, where he may be traced in June 1520. If we
recall that it was in July that Draco came from Erfurt to pay his
visit of homage, it seems quite likely that on his return he may have
given to Camerarius the detailed record which the latter has
preserved.

By that time Erasmus' name was well known in Central Europe. 'Both
from Hungary and Bohemia' he says in 1518 'bishops and men of position
write to thank me for my New Testament.' Apart from the learned world
there were others, too, who must have known him; for a Bohemian
translation had just appeared of the new preface to his _Enchiridion_,
a preface in which he had written with an almost Lutheran freedom
about abuses in the Church, and had extolled the life of simple
Christianity. This was a book to appeal at once to the Brethren.
Another of his works which may have had its effect in attracting them
was the _Julius Exclusus_. This exquisitely witty satire dealt freely
with the Pope and his office, the Pope whom the Brethren accounted no
more than a simple priest; and though its licence was too bold for
Erasmus ever to admit its authorship--indeed, as we have seen, he
consistently denied it--, it was attributed to him on all sides, in
company with others, his secret being on the whole well kept. The
_Julius_ was translated into Bohemian, somewhere about this time: but
from the nature of it, a kind of book to which publishers as well as
authors were loath to put their names, it cannot be definitely placed.
So it was, too, with the _Moria_, which had been translated by Gregory
Hruby Gelenski, father of the scholar, Sigismund Gelenius; but of
which no contemporary edition survives.

If the Brethren had seen Erasmus' final letter to Slechta, they might
well have been encouraged to hope much from him. But of this there is
no indication. Slechta was hardly likely to communicate it to them;
and though such documents often leaked