[An extract from the Adagia, no. 796. The Dutch physician referred to is perhaps a Dr. Bont whom Erasmus knew at Cambridge in 1511 and who died there of the plague in 1513.]

9, 10. QUID MULTIS] Cf. IX. 219 n.

10. GERMANO] Their standards of honesty were then high, and they were in consequence apt to be imposed upon. England on the contrary was already 'perfide Albion'; as Erasmus writes in a letter of 1521, 'Britannia vulgo male audit, quoties de fide agitur'.

24. tuissare: to address as 'thou'. Cf. Fr. tutoyer, Germ. dutzen.

33. QUAE NULLA] a condensed expression equivalent to quae, quamvis maxima, non tamen.