logical sequence and thus, at least as far as intentions go, is an improvement on his predecessors; but he complicates the matter by presenting a twofold chronological series. In his first part he gives some 1,300 letters, apparently in a rude chronological order, but almost entirely without critical sifting. In the second he prints about 500, again attempting a chronological arrangement, though these letters cover the same period as the former series and include 130 to which he does not venture to assign any dates at all. An enormous index of inconceivable futility, covering 180 folio pages, rather increases than lessens the difficulty of utilizing this extraordinary jumble. In fact, this monumental edition suffers, like the letters themselves, from the overprominence of the rhetorical point of view. It is, however, the basis on which all work upon the Epistles must chiefly rest. Its one merit is that it brought together into one publication all letters by and to Erasmus obtainable at the time, and the number of such letters brought to light since is not very large.

In attempting to fix the chronological sequence, the aim must of course be to determine certain fixed points, and then to test other indications as far as possible by their agreement with these. One's first instinct would be to try the allusions in the letters by their agreement with the known facts of the writer's life; but in the case of Erasmus almost everything we think we know about his life comes from the letters. We are therefore at the outset started on a circle of arguments from which we can never quite escape. Perhaps the best illustration of this difficulty is seen in the attempts to fix the birth year of Erasmus, an inquiry which Mr. Nichols describes as "not very important," but which is certainly of very considerable interest, since almost all Erasmus's attempts to date events are expressed in terms of his own age. Dr. Richter devotes to this question an elaborate appendix, which Mr. Nichols has made the basis of his own inquiry and the result of which, as setting the birth year at 1466, he accepts. Our concern is rather with the method employed than with the actual value of the result.

In examining the evidence for the year of birth we have really but two fixed points-the day of the month, October 28, and the day of death, July 12, 1536. Let us for a moment H. Doc. 702, pt. 1-12

follow the tracks of Dr. Richter and notice first his evidence. from contemporary sources. Of these he cites nine, but one

is a letter of Erasmus himself merely quoted by a contemporary. Another is a statement of Theodore Beza written fortyfour years after Erasmus's death, and hence, as Dr. Richter admits, "no longer strictly contemporaneous.' Of the remaining seven, one is a birthday poem inscribed to Erasmus in January or February, 1517, and enumerating his writings. The poet speaks of Erasmus as burning the midnight oil over his Hebrew studies after he has completed his fiftieth year; but Erasmus himself says a year earlier that he is studying Hebrew in his forty-ninth year. Dr. Richter thinks the poet friend had seen this statement and simply brought it up to date, and that therefore the evidence is merely quoted from Erasmus and can not be called evidence of a contemporary. This disposes of three out of the nine cases. The fourth is the inscription on the tombstone in Basel, erected by the most intimate friends and daily associates of the scholar. They, if anyone, ought to have known his age-if, indeed, he knew it himself. The inscription states that he died July 12, 1536, "jam septuagenarius." The only meaning I can discover for "septuagenarius" is "a man of 70 or more," but Dr. Richter says it "dürfte" mean a man in his seventieth year. In that case it would give 1466 as the birth year, but for this usage Dr. Richter gives no authority, and it must be added that he employs the other meaning with equal readiness when it serves his turn. He also finds his position strengthened by the use of "jam," whereas this addition seems to me to work in quite the opposite direction and to point to the year 1465 as the year of birth.

(5) The fifth point cited by Richter is a remark by Erasmus's biographer and intimate friend, Beatus Rhenanus: "He lived to his seventieth year, or certainly did not live far beyond it.” Evidently Beatus thought he had completed his seventieth year, and if so, he must have been born in 1465; but Dr. Richter uses this passage for 1466. Later on Beatus expressly states that he does not know the year of birth.

(6) Germanus Brixius, writing immediately after Erasmus's death, says, "He died at the age of 70, more or less "-that is, he was born in 1465, or a little earlier or later. It is a plain confession of ignorance.

(7) Frederic Nausea dedicated a poem to Erasmus's memory soon after his death. He says: "He labored no less diligently as a septuagenarius or even much more advanced in age (aetate multo provectior) than he did as a man in middle life." Now, if he was a septuagenarius he must have been born as early as 1465; if much more advanced, still earlier; but Dr. Richter thinks this passage points by preference (vorzugsweise) to 1466.

(8) Amerbach of Basel, Erasmus's executor and intimate friend, writing immediately after his death, says, "He died in his seventy-second year," i. e., he was born in 1464.

(9) The contemporary historian, Paulus Giovius, states that Erasmus died "septuagesimum excedens aetatis annum." Here all turns on the meaning of excedens. If it means "coming out of" or "on the way out of," then it might point to 1466. If it means, as seems altogether probable, "exceeding," then it points clearly to 1465, and Giovius agrees with most of his contemporaries in suggesting a date earlier than 1466. Not one of Dr. Richter's strictly contemporary passages, therefore, can be used for this year. The burden of them all is for a year earlier than the one toward which, according to him, the majority of them point. Mr. Nichols rejects the whole of this contemporary evidence as lacking in independent value, but it certainly seems striking that men as closely related to Erasmus as were several of these witnesses should have come so near agreement as to the completion of his seventieth year before his death.

There follow thirty passages selected from Erasmus's own writings. I have examined all these and made a tabulation of results. The prevailing impression is that of uncertainty in Erasmus's own mind. In about one-third of the cases this uncertainty is directly expressed by some such phrases as: "If, indeed, I am now in my fifty-first year," "I am now 52 or at the most 53 years of age," "I am now not far from 60," "I believe I am now of the same age as Cicero was when he died." In many more cases the uncertainty is suggested by the use of round numbers: "I am not yet 40," "I have passed my fiftieth year," "I am a quinquegenarius," "pene septuagesimum," "prope septuagesimum," "ferme quadragenarius." In but few cases have we direct statements, and in most of these there is some question as to the date of the writings in which they occur.

Let us notice a few illustrations of the difficulty of drawing any certain conclusions. In a preface written, according to Dr. Richter, in 1515 (though he gives equally cogent reasons for 1516), Erasmus says: "I am now, in my forty-ninth year, going back to the study of Hebrew." In a second edition he says: "I am now, in my fifty-third year, going back to the study of Hebrew." Evidently Erasmus, or whoever prepared the preface to the second edition, wished to indicate that four years had passed since the first, and was not at all troubled by the implication that Erasmus had been at any time these four years going back to the study of Hebrew as a new occupation. Dr. Richter, having convinced himself that the first edition was in 1515 and in the forty-ninth year of Erasmus's age, then uses all his ingenuity to show that the second edition may have been late in 1518, and so in the very beginning of his fifty-third year, and hence that he was born in 1466. Perhaps he was, but this is not very cogent proof.

Erasmus writes, under a date which Richter assumes to be correct (April 17, 1519): "I left Deventer when I was 14 years old." He states also that the Deventer bridge was not yet built. Dr. Richter offers evidence, which we need not question, that this bridge was building from August 1, 1481 to March 16, 1482. Now, if Erasmus left before his birthday, October 28, 1481, and was 14 years old, he must have been born in 1466. But why might he not have left Deventer a year earlier, in 1480? Richter says because he saw Rudolf Agricola there in September, 1480; but this date is not precisely fixed and he gives no reason why the lad may not have left before his birthday, October 28, of that year. I have dwelt upon this matter of the birthyear because it gives the best opportunity to test the method of our editors on a large scale.

Coming now to the chronology of the letters themselves, we have to seck for some principle of arrangement. Obviously the best principle would be to fit the letters into the several stages of the writer's life; and this is what all three of our editors have tried to do. Unhappily the limits of these various stages-the life in the monastery at Steyn, the residence with the bishop of Cambrai, the years at Paris, the numerous trips to the Low Countries, the first visit to England, and especially the details of the interval between this visit and the Italian journey-are all to be determined, if at all, chiefly

from the testimony of the letters. So the vicious circle is always threatening. For example, Richter's first group is a bundle of letters between Erasmus and his townsman, Cornelius of Gouda. These letters appear to have been written during the residence at Steyn, which we will assume for the moment extended from 1483 to 1493. Richter places the whole group after 1491, because in one of the letters-his No. 11-Erasmus mentions the works of a certain Bartholemew of Cologne as being in his hands. These writings are known to have been published in 1491, but why may they not have come into Erasmus's hands in manuscript? He refers frequently to manuscript works as circulating among the friends of learning, and, in spite of his later complaints, it is evident that Steyn was fairly well off in literary equipment. On this slight bit of evidence Richter groups these fifteen letters in the last two years of the Steyn period.

Mr. Nichols pays no attention to this clue, but enlarges upon a reference in this same letter (No. 11) to an oratio lugubris which Erasmus has written and which Mr. Nichols thinks may refer to a funeral discourse for a lady who died four or five years earlier. In this case the letter was undoubtedly written soon after the event, and thus Richter's whole scheme for this group is thrown out of gear. As to the succession of letters within this group, there is hardly a possibility of agreement. The only really safe guide is such a verbal reference to something in another letter as will show that the one in hand is a reply to it. But such verbal references are rare. Let us follow Richter's process in regard to those of this first group, beginning with his ep. 11, since he uses this to fix the place of the whole group. We have seen why he places this letter after 1491. He places it before 1493 because he thinks it was written at Steyn, and that Erasmus left there late in 1493. For this latter conclusion he gives the following evidence: (1) In the famous letter to Prior Servatius of Steyn, written perhaps thirty years after his entrance to the monastery, Erasmus, speaking of his year of probation, says: "Absurd! As if any one could ask of a boy in his seventeenth year, etc.," i. e., his year of probation was his seventeenth, but of course was not likely to be exactly conterminous with it. On Richter's supposition as to his birth, therefore, he entered the monastery somewhere about his sixteenth birth