PATRIAM] Holland.
64. CONVICTU] Evidently it had been proposed that Erasmus should come and live with Lord Mountjoy in Paris as his tutor.
IV
[An extract from a letter to an Italian friend domiciled in France. Erasmus was probably writing from Bedwell in Hertfordshire, where Sir William Say, Lord Mountjoy's father-in-law, had a country-house. For the practice which Erasmus playfully describes in the second paragraph, see an additional note on p. 157.[*]
[* See ADDITIONAL NOTES, first note, at the end of this text.
Transcriptor.]
4. INVITA MINERVA] 'refragante ingenio, repugnante natura, non favente coelo.' Erasmus, Adagia. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom.
6. MERDAS] It has been well pointed out that the use of so coarse a word is foreign to Erasmus, whose writings, though often free, are marked by a delicacy unusual in his age; and that he is therefore probably alluding to the compositions of his correspondent, who knew no such restrictions, e.g. in his Querela Parrhisiensis pavimenti.
7. UT … PEREAT] A wish.
9. ALATIS] Like Mercury, the messenger of the gods, who for his journeys attached winged sandals to his feet.
10. Daedalus was a mythical artificer who constructed the labyrinth for Minos, king of Crete; but being detained there against his will, he made wings for himself and his son Icarus and flew away to Sicily.