[A letter written from Paris in the winter of 1504, after Erasmus had returned from two years' sojourn in the Netherlands. The influence exerted upon him by Colet in Oxford five years before is clearly shown.]

14. PERSUASERIM] Cf. I. 1 n.

19. NIHIL DUM] 'nothing as yet.' Cf. nondum.

TUARUM COMMENTATIONUM] Colet had been lecturing on the Epistles of St.
Paul, at the time of Erasmus' visit to Oxford. Cf. XXIV. 308, 9.

23. The precise date of Colet's D.D. is not known. He was now administering the Deanery of St. Paul's, though he did not actually receive it until May 1505.

31. VELIS EQUISQUE] 'id est summa vi summoque studio.' Erasmus, Adagia.

41. AD ROMANOS] Cf. XVI. 183, 4. Never completed.

49. Origen (fl. 230 A.D.) was one of the Greek Fathers of the Church. Erasmus was engaged on an edition of his works at the time of his death in 1536.

50. evolvere, to unroll, is the classical word for opening and reading a book; belonging to the days when books were rolls (volumina) of papyrus.

54. LUCUBRATIUNCULAS] Erasmus published a volume with this title in 1503 or 1504. Its contents are sufficiently indicated here. One of them was the Enchiridion Militis Christiani, which was a manual of practical Christianity; its title, which may mean either 'dagger' or 'handbook', being perhaps intentionally ambiguous.

68. Erasmus had recently published a Panegyric, which he had delivered at Brussels on 6 Jan. 1504 in the presence of Philip, Archduke of Austria, and son of the Emperor Maximilian, congratulating the Archduke on the success of his recent journey to Spain; to the thrones of which he was, through his wife, the heir apparent.

103. INSCRIPTUM] The Adagia were dedicated to Mountjoy.

106. STUDIO] 'intentionally.'

124. Christopher Fisher was an English lawyer in the service of the Papal Court: who was at this time resident in Paris.