am pointed
out in public', he asserts, 'as the man who has received a letter from
Erasmus.' 'Thrice greatest hero, you great Jove' is a moderate
apostrophe for him. 'The Swiss', Zwingli writes in 1516, 'account it a
great glory to have seen Erasmus.' 'I know and I teach nothing but
Erasmus now,' writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and Henry
Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside Erasmus, as Alcibiades
stood beside Socrates. And Beatus Rhenanus devotes to him a life of
earnest admiration and helpfulness that was to prove of much more value
than these exuberant panegyrics. There is an element of national
exaltation in this German enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently
stimulated mood into which Luther's word will fall anon.

The other nations also chimed in with praise, though a little later and
a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall promise him immortality,
Etienne Poncher exalts him above the celebrated Italian humanists,
Germain de Brie declares that French scholars have ceased reading any
authors but Erasmus, and Budaeus announces that all Western Christendom
resounds with his name.

This increase of glory manifested itself in different ways. Almost every
year the rumour of his death was spread abroad, malignantly, as he
himself thinks. Again, all sorts of writings were ascribed to him in
which he had no share whatever, amongst others the _Epistolae obscurorum
virorum_.

But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. The time was
long since past when he asked More to procure him more correspondents.
Letters now kept pouring in to him, from all sides, beseeching him to
reply. A former pupil laments with tears that he cannot show a single
note written by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully sought an introduction
from one of his friends, before venturing to address him. In this
respect Erasmus was a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to answer
what he could, although so overwhelmed by letters every day that he
hardly found time to read them. 'If I do not answer, I seem unkind,'
says Erasmus, and that thought was intolerable.

We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that time, occupied more
or less the place of the newspaper at present, or rather of the literary
monthly, which arose fairly directly out of erudite correspondence. It
was, as in antiquity--which in this respect was imitated better and more
profitably, perhaps, than in any other sphere--an art. Even before 1500
Erasmu