'I was very sorry to learn from your letter that you had been here just when I was away. There are so few opportunities of meeting any one who cares for learning that you would have been most welcome. My position becomes increasingly distasteful to me: since I left Italy, I forget everything—the classics, history, even how to write with any style. In prose I can get neither ideas nor language. Such as come only serve to fill the page with awkward, disjointed sentences. Verse I hardly ever attempt, and when I do, there is no flow about it; sometimes the lines almost refuse to scan. The fact is that I can find no one here who is interested in these things. If only we were together!
'My youngest brother Henry has been fired with the desire to study. I have advised him against it, but as he persists, I do not like to do more. For the last six months he has been with Frederic Mormann at Munster, and has made some progress: but now Mormann <who was one of the Brethren of the Common Life> has been sent as Rector to a house <at Marburg>, and Henry has come home. If you can have him, I should like him to come to you. He will bring with him the usual furniture,[3] money will be sent to him from time to time, and he will find himself a lodging[4] wherever you advise. I should be glad to know whether there are any teachers who give lessons out of school hours, as Mormann does; and whether any one may go to them on payment of a fee, whether candidates for orders[5] or not. I should like him to get over the elements as quickly as possible; for if boys are kept at them too long, they take a dislike to the whole thing. The Pliny that you ask for shall come to you soon. I use it a great deal; but nevertheless you shall have it.'
In answer to a question from Hegius, Agricola goes on to distinguish the words mimus, histrio, persona, scurra, nebulo; with quotations from Juvenal and Gellius. 'Leccator', he says, 'is a German word; like several others that we have turned into bad Latin, reisa, burgimagister, scultetus, or like the French passagium for a military expedition, guerra for war, treuga for truce.'
He then proceeds to more derivations in answer to Hegius. Ανθωπος he considers a fundamental word, which, like homo, defies analysis: but nevertheless he suggests ανα and τρεπω, or τερπω, or τρεφω. To explain vesper he cites Sallust, Catullus, Ovid, Pliny's Letters, Caesar's Civil War, Persius and Suetonius. (We must remember that in those days a man's quotations were culled from his memory, not from a dictionary or concordance.) He goes on: 'About forming words by analogy, I rarely allow myself to invent words which are not in the best authors, but still perhaps I might use Socratitas, Platonitas, entitas, though Valla I am sure would object. After all one must be free, when there is necessity. Cicero, without any need, used Pietas and Lentulitas; and Pollio talks of Livy's Patauinitas.' Other words explained are tignum, asser, διοικησις; and then Agricola proceeds to correct a number of mistakes in Hegius' letter. Rather delicate work it might seem; but there is such good humour between them that, though the corrections extend to some length, it all ends pleasantly.
4. HEGIUS TO AGRICOLA; from Deventer, 17 Dec. <1484>.
After apologies for not having written for a long while, he proceeds:
'You ask how my school is doing. Well, it is full again now; but in summer the numbers rather fell off. The plague which killed twenty of the boys, drove many others away, and doubtless kept some from coming to us at all.
'Thank you for translating Lucian's Micyllus. I am sure that all of us who read it, will be greatly pleased with it. As soon as it comes, I will have it printed. If I may, I should much like to ask you for an abridgement of your book on Dialectic: it would be very valuable to students. I understand that you have translated Isocrates' Education of Princes. If I had it here, I would expound it to my pupils. For some of them, no doubt, will be princes some day and have to govern.
'I have been reading Valla's book on the True Good, and have become quite an Epicurean, estimating all things in terms of pleasure. Also it has persuaded me that each virtue has its contrary vice, rather than two vices as its extremes. I should like to know whether the authorities at Heidelberg have abandoned their Marsilius[6] on the question of universals, or whether they still stick to him.'
5. AGRICOLA TO HEGIUS; from Worms, Tuesday <January 1485>, in reply.