nd; and the mother of the Virgin, who is the
object of Christian worship. Would that my poor talents might avail,
that posterity may know of your piety and snow-white purity, and count
you the fourth member of this glorious band! It was no mere chance
that conferred upon you this name, making your likeness to them
complete. Were they noble? So are you. Did they excel in piety? Yours,
too, redounds to heaven. Were they steadfast in affliction? Alas that
here, too, you are constrained to resemble them. Yet in my sorrow
comfort comes from this thought, that God sends suffering to bring
strength. Affliction it was that made the courage of Hercules, of
Aeneas, of Ulysses shine forth, that proved the patience of Job.'
This, of course, is only a brief epitome. After a great deal more in
this strain, he concludes: 'I send you a poem to St. Anne and some
prayers to address to the Virgin. She is ever ready to hear the
prayers of virgins, and you I count not a widow, but a virgin. That
when only a child you consented to marry, was mere deference to the
bidding of your parents and the future of your race; and your wedded
life was a model of patience. That now, when still no more than a
girl, you repel so many suitors is further proof of your maiden heart.
If, as I confidently presage, you persevere in this high course, I
shall count you not amongst the virgins of Scripture innumerable, not
amongst the eighty concubines of Solomon, but, with (I am sure) the
approval of Jerome, among the fifty queens.'

The taste of that age liked the butter spread thick, and Erasmus' was
the best butter. He relieved his mind the same day in a letter to
Batt--which he did not shrink from publishing in the same volume with
his effusion to the Lady Anne: 'It is now a year since the money was
promised, and yet all you can say is, "I don't despair," "I will do my
best." I have heard that from you so often that it quite makes me
sick. The minx! She neglects her property to dally and flirt with her
fine gentleman' (a young man whom Erasmus feared she would marry, as
in fact she did, shortly afterwards). 'She has plenty of money to give
to those scoundrels in hoods, but nothing for me, who can write books
which will make her famous.' _In ira veritas._ But for Erasmus--and
Batt--the rather simpering statue of Anne on the front of the
town-hall at Veere would have little meaning for us to-day.

We must not judge Erasmus too hardly in his double tongue. Schol