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46 LETTERS OF ERASMUS [1523-4
mercedem nisi depulso morbo. Sed quem sponsorem dabit non
recursurum vbi fuerit depulsus? Denique quis praestabit, ne mor¬
bum sic expellat vt simul et vitam ? Non arbitror tutum hoc corpu¬
sculum ignoto medico committere. Nactus sum hic iuuenem quendam
5 Ioannem Antoninum Cassouiensem, natione Hungarum, eleganter
eruditum, moribus candidissimis et perquam amoenis, qui mihi
praeter alia remedia dedit leonem astrologicum, vnde bibo. His
quae sapiunt magiam an aliquid tribuendum sit nescio; certe dies
iam complures mitius me tractat calculus, siue hoc vino mutato, siue
To aliis remediis, siue leoni debeo. Nec me fugit vetus prouerbium,
iuuenem tonsorem, medicum senem accersendum esse. Verum in
Antonino meo nihil iuuenile video praeter faciem ; mores et eruditio
suam habent caniciem, quum aetate non sit maior annis viginti
quinque, Graece Latineque doctus, mei sic obseruans yt, si filius
15 esset, non posset religiosius,
Cura vt quam bellissime valeas, ornatissime Botzeme, cum optima
sodalitate, cum Gratiis ac Musis tuis ; inter quas tibi contingat diu ac
suauiter viuere. Salutem dices nominatim meis verbis viro citra
supercilium erudito, Michaeli Hymelbergio, simulque Ioanni Vannio
20 concionatori, virtuti pietatique natis fratribus Ambrosio Thomaeque
Blaureris, cuique sequundum Burgundiense vinum plurimum debeo,
Ioanni Menlishouero medico, homini, mea sententia, non minus
humano quam erudito. Ornatissimo praesuli nec tu me desines com¬
mendare, nec ego desinam fausta laetaque omnia deprecari, et quic¬
25 quid hominis eximia virtus promeretur.
Basileae, tertio Calend. Febru. An. a Christo nato M.D. XXIII.
I. Comprnpivm VITAE ERASMI.
Vita Erasmi p. 9. (Basle. J
Lond. init.: LB. i. init. (c. 2 April 1524.)
[This document was first published by Paul Merula, Professor of History
in Leiden University, as Vita Des. Erasmi Roterodami ex ipsius manu fideliter reprae¬
sentata, Leiden, Th. Basson, 1607 (0'), at the end of a letter from Erasmus to
Goclen, dated from Basle, 2 April 1524; and was printed again after Merula’s
death by Peter Scriverius, Professor of Jurisprudence in the University, with
the title Magni Des. Erasmi Roterodami Vita, Leiden, G. Basson, 16r5 (0?). It
exists also in manuscript in the Imperial Library at Vienna (No. 9058) ; and
has been printed from that source in Erasmiani Gymnasii Programma, Rotterdam,
1894, by Dr. J. B. Kan, who gives, however, no account of the manuscript.
Dr. Mengik, Custos of the Imperial Library, who has kindly confirmed for me
some of Dr. Kan’s readings, places it in the middle of the sixteenth century.
Merula’s text, printed from Erasmus’s original autograph, has equal authority
with this manuscript (a), which has a few obvious blunders, For the authen¬
ticity of the Compendium see Appendix r.]
20. virtuti . . . 21 Blaureris add. B. 21. sequundum , .. vinum 0. 6.
26. M.D.XXIII a : M.D.XXIMI Y.