himself, who is Master of his own Book, and so may leave out or alter his Original as he pleases: Which is more than a Translator ought to do, I am sure it is more than I have presumed to do.' Bishop Burnet's translation was often reprinted'. It is undoubtedly closer to the Latin and more correct than Robynson's, but wants the racy English which gives a charm to the older book. The reader will, however, be able to form his own. opinion, from specimens given from time to time in the notes. Another translation was made in 1808 by Arthur Cayly the younger. His work appeared in two vols. 4to, of which the first was occupied by Memoirs of Sir Thomas More, while the second contained the new version of the Utopia, the History of Richard III, and a rendering of some of More's Latin poems. The translation for the most part closely follows Burnet's, and has never been reprinted. A list of these reprints is given by Professor Arber. The most noticeable of them is that appended by Dr. F. Warner, in 1758, to his Memoirs of 2 I ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM TO HIS DEAR GOSSIP JOHN FROBEN1 GREETING. have hitherto been pleased beyond measure with all that my friend More has written, but felt some distrust of my own judgment, by reason of the close friendship between us. But now that I see learned men to be all unanimously of my opinion, even outdoing me in the warmth of their admiration for his transcendant genius,--a proof of their greater discernment, though not of their greater affection; I am quite satisfied that CV ERASMVS ROTERODAMVS IOAN NI FROBENIO COMPATRI SVO CHARISSIMO S. D. VM antehac omnia Mori mei mihi supra modum semper placuerint, tamen ipse meo iudicio nonnihil diffidebam, ob arctissimam inter nos amicitiam. Caeterum ubi uideo doctos uno ore omneis meo subscribere suffragio, ac uehementius etiam diuinum hominis ingenium suspicere, non quod plus ament, sed quod plus 1 John Froben, the printer, was a native of Hammelburg in Franconia, born in 1460. After studying in the university of Basle, he entered the printing-house of John Amerbach, and in time became himself a printer in that city. Erasmus, many of whose works issued from his press, was an intimate friend, and was godfather to his son John Erasmus, or Erasmius. Hence the term compater used in the superscription of this letter. Froben died in 1527. His widow, Gertrud, is mentioned in a letter of Beatus Rhenanus to Boniface Amerbach, dated Aug. 20, 1536. Erasmus's godson was married in that year.-See the Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus, ed. by Horawitz and Hartfelder, 1886, pp. 421, 430; and Erasmi Epist. 922. I am in the right, and shall not shrink in future from openly expressing what I think. What would not such marvellous natural gifts have accomplished, if his intellect had been trained in Italy; if it were wholly devoted to literature; if it had had time to ripen for its proper harvest, its own autumn? While quite young, he amused himself with composing epigrams, many of them written when he was a mere boy. He has never gone out of his native Britain, save once or twice, when acting as ambassador for his sovereign in the Netherlands'. He is married, and has the cares of a family; he has the duties of a public office to discharge, and is immersed in the business of the law-courts; with so many important affairs of state distracting him besides, that you would wonder at his having leisure even to think of books. So I have sent you his Prolusions and Utopia. If you think fit, let them go forth to the world and to posterity with the recommendation of being printed by you. For such is the reputation of your press, that for a book to be known to have been published by Froben, is a passport to the approbation of the learned. cernant; serio plaudo meae sententiae, nec uerebor posthac quod sentio palam eloqui. Quid tandem non praestitisset admirabilis ista naturae felicitas, si hoc ingenium instituisset Italia? si totum Musarum sacris uacaret, si ad iustam frugem ac uelut autumnum suum maturuisset? Epigrammata lusit adolescens admodum, ac pleraque puer. Britanniam suam nunquam egressus est, nisi semel atque iterum, Principis sui nomine legatione fungens apud Flandros. Praeter rem uxoriam, praeter curas domesticas, praeter publici muneris functionem et causarum undas, tot tantisque regni negociis distrahitur, ut mireris esse ocium uel cogitandi de libris. Proinde misimus ad te progymnasmata illius, et Vtopiam; ut si uidetur tuis excusa typis orbi posteritatique commendentur: quando ea est tuae officinae autoritas, ut liber uel hoc nomine placeat eruditis, si cognitum sit e Frobenianis aedibus prodiisse. This seems to be a mistake on the part of Erasmus. More, in his letter to Dorp, written in 1515, expressly says that, seven years before. he had been in the universities of Paris and Louvain, though not for long-non diu quidem.' More's second embassy, to Calais, was in the very month in which Erasmus wrote these words. |