questions. By nature he was silent and absorbed, and often in company
he would sit deaf to all questions, his elbows on the table and biting
his nails. But when roused he was at once captivating; and this
unintended rudeness never lost him a friend. There was a small band of
true humanists, who, as Geldenhauer puts it, 'had begun to love purity
of Latin style'; to them he was insensibly attracted, and spent with
them over Cicero and Quintilian hours filched from the study of
Aristotle. Later in life he openly regretted having spent as much as
seven years over the scholastic philosophy, which he had learnt to
regard as profitless.

From 1468 to 1479 he was for the most part in Italy, except for
occasional visits to the North, when we see him staying with his
father at Siloe, and, in 1474, teaching Greek to Hegius at Emmerich.
Many positions were offered to him already; gifts such as his have not
to stand waiting in the marketplace. But his wits were not homely, and
the world called him. Before he could settle he must see many men and
many cities, and learn what Italy had to teach him.

For the first part of his time there, until 1473, he was at Pavia
studying law and rhetoric; but on his return from home in 1474 he went
to Ferrara in order to enjoy the better opportunities for learning
Greek afforded by the court of Duke Hercules of Este and its circle of
learned men. His description of the place is interesting: 'The town is
beautiful, and so are the women. The University has not so many
faculties as Pavia, nor are they so well attended; but _literae
humaniores_ seem to be in the very air. Indeed, Ferrara is the home of
the Muses--and of Venus.' One special delight to him was that the
Duke had a fine organ, and he was able to indulge what he describes as
his 'old weakness for the organs'. In October 1476, at the opening of
the winter term of the University, the customary oration before the
Duke was delivered by Rodolphus Agricola Phrysius. His eloquence
surprised the Italians, coming from so outlandish a person: 'a
Phrygian, I believe', said one to another, with a contemptuous shrug
of the shoulders. But Agricola, with his chestnut-brown hair and blue
eyes, was no Oriental; only a Frieslander from the North, whose cold
climate to the superb Italians seemed as benumbing to the intellect as
we consider that of the Esquimaux.

During this period Agricola translated Isocrates _ad Demonicum_ and
the _Axiochus de contemne