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PREFACE viii necessary to do more than trace the variants through the sequence of editions; for experiment has shown that it is only very rarely that a change is introduced into an intermediate edition and removed in a later one, and such changes are either obvious errors or entirely negligible. The present text is therefore not an exact reproduction of any one edition but a conflation from all. In the matter of headings to letters I have usually given that of the earliest edition, with occasional exceptions where an amplification was made later; but as the variations of headings in different editions are often considerable but unimportant, I have allowed myself more freedom to neglect them in the critical notes than I have used in dealing with the letters themselves. Of the numerous variations in the spelling of words I have not attempted to preserve any record, except in the case of proper names, where differences of form are sometimes noted. Variations in order also are discarded except on rare occasions where the sense of the passage is affected. The dates are reproduced from the earliest form with a minuteness which may perhaps seem somewhat scrupulous; but I have wished the reader to feel that in scrutinizing them he has before him the precise details of the original. In preparing this volume I have met with abundant and most ready help. To many institutions I am indebted for the loan of manuscripts. The Bodleian Library has sheltered for me the great Deventer codex, which the kindness of Dr. van Slee and the Curators of the Athenaeum Library at Deventer has enabled me to examine at leisure undisturbed; some manuscripts of Cornelius Gerard, lent from the University Library at Leiden through the friendship of Dr. de Vries and Dr. Molhuysen; and the important manuscripts from the Town Library of Gouda, whose value Dr. Kesper, Archivar to the town, enabled me to recognize, and of which his influence and that of Dr. van Ysendyk, the Town Librarian, obtained for me the use. To Dr. Hippe and the Curators of the Town Library of Breslau I owe the permission to decipher and copy with my wife’s aid the 167 letters of the Codex Rehdigeranus 254 in a busy month among Beatus Rhenanus’ books at Schlettstadt; and to the authorities of Trinity College, Dublin, I owe the opportunity to examine here in the Library of Corpus Christi College
