Colet to Erasmus.
‘You cannot easily believe, my dear Erasmus, how much joy your letter gave me, which was brought to me by our “one-eyed friend.” For I learned from it where you are (which I did not know before), and also that you are likely to return to us, which would be very delightful both to me and to your other friends, of whom you have a great many here.
What Colet thought of the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’
‘What you say about the New Testament I can understand. The volumes of your new edition of it [the “Novum Instrumentum”] are here both eagerly bought and everywhere read. By many, your labours are received with approval and admiration. There are a few, also, who disapprove and carp at them, saying what was said in the letter of Martin Dorpius to you. But these are those divines whom you have described in your “Praise of Folly” and elsewhere, no less truly than wittily, as men whose praise is blame, and by whom it is an honour to be censured.
‘For myself, I so love your work, and so clasp to my heart this new edition of yours, that it excites mingled feelings. For at one time I am seized with sorrow that I have not that knowledge of Greek, without which one is good for nothing; at another time I rejoice in that light which you have shed forth from the sun of your genius.
‘Indeed, Erasmus, I marvel at the fruitfulness of your mind, in the conception, production, and daily completion of so much, during a life so unsettled, and without the assistance of any large and regular income.
Edition of ‘Jerome.’
‘I am looking out for your “Jerome,” who will owe much to you, and so shall we also when able to read him with your corrections and explanations.
The ‘Christian Prince.’
‘You have done well to write “De Institutione Principis Christiani.” I wish Christian princes would follow good institutes! By their madness everything is thrown into confusion....