red nothing for their entreaties and the tears which
accompanied them. I am telling the truth, exaggerating not at all; the
English realize that the money of all England means nothing to me. This
refusal, which I still maintain, was not made without due consideration;
not for any reward will I let myself be drawn away from theological
studies. I did not come here to teach or to pile up gold, but to learn.
Indeed I shall seek a Doctorate in Theology, if the gods so will it.

The Bishop of Cambrai is marvellously fond of me: he makes liberal
promises; the remittances are not so liberal, to tell the truth. I wish
you good health, excellent Father. I beg and entreat you to commend me
in your prayers to God: I shall do likewise for you. From my library in
Paris.

III. TO ROBERT FISHER[25]

London, 5 December [1499]

To Robert Fisher, Englishman, abiding in Italy, greetings:

... I hesitated not a little to write to you, beloved Robert, not that I
feared lest so great a sunderance in time and place had worn away
anything of your affection towards me, but because you are in a country
where even the house-walls are more learned and more eloquent than are
our men here, so that what is here reckoned polished, fine and
delectable cannot there appear anything but crude, mean and insipid.
Wherefore your England assuredly expects you to return not merely very
learned in the law but also equally eloquent in both the Greek and the
Latin tongues. You would have seen me also there long since, had not my
friend Mountjoy carried me off to his country when I was already packed
for the journey into Italy. Whither indeed shall I not follow a youth so
polite, so kindly, so lovable? I swear I would follow him even into
Hades. You indeed had most handsomely commended him and, in a word,
precisely delineated him; but believe me, he every day surpasses both
your commendation and my opinion of him.

But you ask how England pleases me. If you have any confidence in me,
dear Robert, I would have you believe me when I say that I have never
yet liked anything so well. I have found here a climate as delightful as
it is wholesome; and moreover so much humane learning, not of the
outworn, commonplace sort, but the profound, accurate, ancient Greek and
Latin learning, that I now scarcely miss Italy, but for the sight of it.
When I listen to my friend Colet, I seem to hear Plato himself. Who
would not marvel at the perfection of encyclopaedic learni