living. Her bright eyes had
closed ere she reached maidenhood.

Dr. Eberbach, in painful embarrassment, tried to apologize for his
heedlessness, but the Augsburg city clerk, with a friendly gesture,
endeavoured to soothe his young fellow-scholar.

"It brought the true nature of happiness very vividly before all our
eyes," he remarked with a faint sigh. "In itself it is not lasting. A
second piece of good fortune is needed to maintain the first. Mine was
indeed great and beautiful enough. But we will let the dead rest.
What more have you heard concerning the first books of the Annales of
Tacitus, said to have been discovered in the Corvey monastery? If the
report should be verified----"

Here Eberbach, delighted to find an opportunity to afford the honoured
man whom he had unwittingly grieved a little pleasure, eagerly
interrupted. Hurriedly thrusting his hand into the breast of his black
doublet, he drew forth several small sheets on which he had succeeded in
copying the beginning of the precious new manuscript, and handed them
to Peutinger, who, with ardent zeal, instantly became absorbed in the
almost illegible characters of his young comrade in learning. Wilibald
Pirckheimer and Lienhard Groland also frequently forgot the fresh salmon
and young partridges, which were served in succession, to share this
brilliant novelty. The Abbot of St. AEgidius, too, showed his pleasure
in the fortunate discovery, and did not grow quieter until the
conversation turned upon the polemical writing which Reuchlin had just
finished. It had recently appeared in Frankfort under the title: The
Eye Mirror, and assailed with crushing severity those who blamed him for
opposing the proposal to destroy the books of the Jews.

"What in the world do we care about the writings of the Hebrews?" the
deep bass voice of Hans von Obernitz here interrupted the conversation.
"A new Latin manuscript--that I value! But has this noble fragment of
Tacitus created half as much stir as this miserable dispute?"

"There is more at stake," said Lienhard Groland positively. "The Jewish
writings merely serve as a pretext for the Cologne inquisitors to attack
the great Reuchlin. He, the most profound and keenest student of the
noble Greek tongue, who also forced the venerable language in which the
Old Testament speaks to discourse to us Germans--"

"The Hebrew!" cried Hans von Obernitz impatiently, passing his napkin
over his thick moustache; "what do we want