[410] See note of Erasmus in his ‘Annotationes,’ in loco Titus iii. 10; also the Praise of Folly, where the story is told in connection with further particulars. The exact coincidence between the two accounts of the old divine’s construction of Titus iii. 10 leads to the conclusion that the rest of the story, as given in the Praise of Folly, may also very probably be literally true. Knight, in his Life of Colet, concludes that as the story is told in the Praise of Folly, the incident must have occurred in a previous convocation, as this satire was written before 1512.—Knight, pp. 199, 200. But the story is not inserted in the editions of 1511 and of 1515, whilst it is inserted in the Basle edition of the Encomium Moriæ, November 12, 1519, published just after Colet’s death (p. 226). Nor is the first part of the story relating to Titus iii. 10 to be found in the first edition of the Annotationes (1516). The story is first told by Erasmus in the second edition (1519), published just before Colet’s death, and then without any mention of Colet’s name; the latter being possibly omitted lest, as Bishop Fitzjames was still living, its mention should be dangerous to Colet. It was not till the third edition was published (in 1522), when both Colet and Colet’s persecutor were dead, that Erasmus added the words, ‘Id, ne quis suspicetur meum esse commentum, accepi ex Johanne Coleto, viro spectatæ integritatis, quo præsidente res acta est.’—Annotationes, 3rd ed. 1522, p. 558.
[411] Praise of Folly, 1519, p. 226.
[412] There is an old English translation given by Knight in his Life of Colet (pp. 289-308), printed by ‘Thomas Berthelet, regius impressor,’ and without date. Pynson was the King’s printer in 1512 (Brewer, i. p. 1030), and accordingly he printed the Latin edition of 1511, i.e. 1512.—Knight, p. 271. Knight speaks of the old English version as ‘written probably by the Dean himself,’ but he gives no evidence in support of his conjecture.—See Knight’s Life of Colet, p. 199.
[413] ‘Neque valde miror si clarissimæ scholæ tuæ rumpantur invidia. Vident enim uti ex equo Trojano prodierunt Græci, qui barbaram diruere Trojam, sic è tuâ prodire scholâ qui ipsorum arguunt atque subvertunt inscitiam.’—Stapleton’s Tres Thomæ, p. 166, ed. 1612; p. 23, ed. 1588.
[414] Brewer, vol. ii. No. 3190. The true date, 1512, is clearly fixed by the allusion to the ‘De Copia,’ &c.—Eras. Epist. App. ccccvi.
[415] Dated ‘M.DXII. iii. Kal. Maias: Londini.’
[416] The first edition was printed at Paris by Badius. Another was printed by Schurerius (Argentorat.), January 1513. And, in Oct. 1514, Erasmus sent to Schurerius a revised copy for publication.
[417] Eras. Op. iii. p. 460, D and E.
[418] Ibid. p. 460, E.
[419] 3 Tyndale, p. 168 (Parker Society).