the world to our doors by the urgencies
of business or pleasure; and thus no one knows what the coming year
may bring forth. In the sixteenth century men knew that opportunities
lost might never recur, and that they must seize or make them as best
they might.

At that time visits of ceremony were in great vogue. Officials and
scholars alike groaned under them. After a visit to the Court Erasmus
writes: 'If Pollio (a disguised name, as he was writing of a man who
afterwards became an intimate friend) has been with you, you will
understand what I suffered at Brussels; every day hosts of Spanish
visitors, besides Italians and Germans.' A little later he apologizes
to a correspondent for having given him a chilly welcome: 'just then I
had escaped from Brussels, quite worn out with the salutations of
these persistent Spaniards.' The custom was widespread. An English
graduate, studying for a time at Louvain, congratulates himself on
having escaped from it at Cambridge. Clenardus found it thriving at
Salamanca; Casaubon complained of it at Montpellier; in Oxford it was
even obligatory for intending disputants in the schools to pay formal
visits beforehand to their examiners.

In 1517 Erasmus' fame was at its zenith; and in consequence visitors
came to him from every side, some to seek counsel, others to adore.
His correspondence gives us many instances. In the spring of 1517,
when the Cardinal of Gurk attended Maximilian to the Netherlands, his
two secretaries, Richard Bartholinus of Perugia and Ursinus Velius, a
Silesian, prepared panegyrical verses with which to greet Erasmus if
they should have the good fortune to meet him. For some reason
Bartholinus alone came, and, presenting both the poems, elicited a
complimentary letter in reply. A more distinguished visitor received
less attention. In the summer of 1518 Erasmus was at Basle, printing
the notes to his second edition of the New Testament. The Bishop of
Pistoia, nephew of one of the most influential cardinals, and Papal
nuncio in Switzerland, also came to Basle. Wishing to see the great
scholar, he asked him to dinner. But Erasmus could not spare the time.
He declined, and in his place sent his friends, Beatus Rhenanus and
the young Amerbachs. Three times he made excuse; and at length the
Nuncio went on foot to seek in Froben's press the scholar who would
not come to him. What their conversation was we do not know; but
before leaving, the Nuncio ordered a copy of the