f St. Victor, which fill many
folios. It was to be within reach of the poor parish priest, and so
must not be costly. But the surprising part of the book is its
triviality. With so little space available, one would have expected to
find nothing admitted that was not important: but the fact is that it
has nothing which is not elementary. There is nothing historical,
nothing theological, only a few simple points of grammar and quantity.
For example, in the story of Deborah, Judges iv, the commentary runs
as follows:

2. Sisara: middle syllable short.

4. Debbora: middle syllable short. Prophetes masc., Prophetis
fem.; meaning, propheta.

10. Accersitis: last syllable but one long; meaning, vocatis.

15. Perterreo, perterres; meaning, in pauorem conuertere.
Active.

17. Cinci (the Kenites): middle syllable long.

15. Desilio, desilis, desilii or desiliui: middle syllable
short in trisyllables in the present; meaning, de aliquo salire
siue descendere festinanter.

21. clauus, masc., claui: meaning, acutum ferrum, malleus,
masc., mallei: meaning, martellus.

tempus, neut.: meaning, pars capitis, for which some people say
timpus.

For Daniel vi, the story of Daniel in the lions' den, the commentary
is even briefer:

6. surripuerunt: meaning, falso suggesserunt. Surripio,
surripis, surrepsi(!): meaning, latenter rapere, subtrahere,
furari.

10. comperisset; meaning, cognouisset. Comperio, comperis,
comperi: fourth conjugation.

20. affatus: meaning, allocutus. From affor, affaris; and
governs the accusative.

We must not exalt ourselves above the author. He is very humble. 'Let
any imperfections in the book', says his preface, 'be attributed to
me: and if there is anything good, let it be thought to have come from
God.' He gave them of his best, explaining away such as he could of
the difficulties which had confronted him. But one can imagine the
disgust of even a moderate scholar if, wishing to study the Bible more
carefully, he could obtain access to nothing better than
Mammotrectus.

Though Erasmus has not much to tell us of his time at Deventer, a
fuller account of the school may be found in the autobiography of John
Butzbach (_c._ 1478-1526), who for the last nineteen years of his life
was Prior of Laach.[12] Indeed, his narrative is so detailed and so
illustrative of the age that it may well detai