, by nation a Saxon. Of what avail is it to
add his name and surname, which he himself does not desire to have
suppressed? A monster like him knows not what shame is; he would rather
look for praise from his villany. This rogue added a new Preface in my
name, in which he represented three men sweating at the instruction of
one boy: Capito, who taught him Hebrew, Beatus Greek, and me, Latin. He
represents me as inferior to each of the others alike in learning and in
piety; intimating that there is in the Colloquies a sprinkling of
certain matters which savour of Luther's dogmas. And here I know that
some will chuckle, when they read that Capito is favoured by such a
hater of Luther with the designation of an excellent and most
accomplished man. These and many things of the like kind he represents
me as saying, taking the pattern of his effrontery from a letter of
Jerome, who complains that his rivals had circulated a forged letter
under his name amongst a synod of bishops in Africa; in which he was
made to confess that, deceived by certain Jews, he had falsely
translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew. And they would have
succeeded in persuading the bishops that the letter was Jerome's, had
they been able in any tolerable degree, to imitate Jerome's style.
Although Jerome speaks of this deed as one of extreme and incurable
roguery, our Phormio takes peculiar delight in this, which is more
rascally than any notorious book. But his malicious will was wanting in
power to carry out what he had intended. He could not come up to
Erasmus' style, unpolished though it be: for he thus closes his flowery
preface:_ Thus age has admonished, piety has bidden me, while life is
still spared in my burdensome age, to cleanse my writings, lest those
who follow my mournful funeral should transcribe my departed soul!

_Such being the man's style throughout, he has nevertheless not shrunk
from interweaving his flowers with my crowns; either pleasing himself in
a most senseless manner, or having a very ill opinion of the judgment of
divines. For these things were composed for their benefit, all of whom
he supposes to be such blockheads that they will not instantly detect
the patch-work he has so awkwardly sewn together. So abjectly does he
everywhere flatter France, Paris, the theologians, the Sorbonne, the
Colleges, no beggar could be more cringing. Accordingly, if anything
uncomplimentary seems to be said against the French, he transfers i