ans work better, merchants
cheat no more.'

At the same time that Erasmus took this work to Froben, at Basle, to
print, a book of a young Frenchman, who had recently fled from France to
Basle, passed through the press of another Basle printer, Thomas
Platter. It too was to be a manual of the life of faith: the
_Institution of the Christian Religion_, by Calvin.

* * * * *

Even before Erasmus had quite completed the _Ecclesiastes_, the man for
whom the work had been meant was no more. Instead of to the Bishop of
Rochester, Erasmus dedicated his voluminous work to the Bishop of
Augsburg, Christopher of Stadion. John Fisher, to set a seal on his
spiritual endeavours, resembling those of Erasmus in so many respects,
had left behind, as a testimony to the world, for which Erasmus knew
himself too weak, that of martyrdom. On 22 June 1535, he was beheaded by
command of Henry VIII. He died for being faithful to the old Church.
Together with More he had steadfastly refused to take the oath to the
Statute of Supremacy. Not two weeks after Fisher, Thomas More mounted
the scaffold. The fate of those two noblest of his friends grieved
Erasmus. It moved him to do what for years he had no longer done: to
write a poem. But rather than in the fine Latin measure of that _Carmen
heroicum_ one would have liked to hear his emotion in language of
sincere dismay and indignation in his letters. They are hardly there. In
the words devoted to Fisher's death in the preface to the _Ecclesiastes_
there is no heartfelt emotion. Also in his letters of those days, he
speaks with reserve. 'Would More had never meddled with that dangerous
business, and left the theological cause to the theologians.' As if More
had died for aught but simply for his conscience!

* * * * *

When Erasmus wrote these words, he was no longer at Freiburg. He had in
June 1535 gone to Basle, to work in Froben's printing-office, as of old;
the _Ecclesiastes_ was at last going to press and still required careful
supervision and the final touches during the process; the _Adagia_ had
to be reprinted, and a Latin edition of Origenes was in preparation. The
old, sick man was cordially received by the many friends who still lived
at Basle. Hieronymus Froben, Johannes's son, who after his father's
death managed the business with two relatives, sheltered him in his
house _Zum Luft_. In the hope of his return a room had b