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CORRESPONDENCE WITH CORNELIUS GERARD 587 with which Engelbert is spoken of in the latter. The defence of Valla in Ep. 29 plainly differs from that in Ep. 26, for there Erasmus answers a written charge against Valla, here he combats criticisms made by Cornelius during a recent visit to Steyn. Ep. 30 refers to an oration, the Antibarbari, which Erasmus has in hand and is therefore later than Ep. 28, in which the Oratio lugubris is spoken of as the first of Erasmus’ efforts in prose to be sent to Lopsen. From the fact that Epp. 17 and 22 have points of resemblance to the Antibarbari and that in Ep. 30 Erasmus speaks of resuming it at Cornelius’ request, some interval, not necessarily long, may be presumed between this group and the letters preceding. Not much Importance can be attached to the fact that the date assigned by Erasmus to Ep. 29 coincides with that given conjecturally here ; for since Ep. 26 probably precedes it, one of the dates supplied in the Farrago must be wrong. To obtain definite year-dates for these letters seems impossible, although one of them, Ep. 20, has the month-date given. A number of Erasmus” early compositions are mentioned, the dates of which he attempted to fix in later years by estimates of his age at the time of writing. Thus Epp. 17, 22, 29, 30 recall or refer to the Antibarbari, which is said in his preface to have been begun when he was not yet nineteen ; Epp. 19, 22, 23 to the Apologia, which, as Snoy states, was commenced at the same age; Ep. 28 to the Oratio Sunebris, written in his twenty-first year; Ep. 23 probably to the Paraphrase of Valla’s Elegantiae, which he variously avers that he wrote when about eighteen, or when scarcely twenty and seven years before he went to Paris”. But, as has been shown in App. 2, Erasmus’ estimates of time are usually untrustworthy, and these cannot be accepted with confidence. No clue is given by the external events alluded to, the Utrecht war, the death of Rudolph Agricola’, or Balbus’ poems*; and in view of the wide extent to which manuscript was still used for circulating literary matter, it is not safe to conclude with Richter that the poems of Bartholomew of Cologne mentioned in Ep. 28. 22 are the Deventer edition of 16 Feb. I49I. The general outcome of these considerations is that they indicate à period some years later than Erasmus” entry into Steyn, and this is corroborated by Ep. 28. 16, 7, where he refers to works composed during his boyhood and during the year of probation. The date which has the greatest value of those given above is that of the Paraphrase of Valla. Seven years before Erasmus went to Paris yields 1488. If Erasmus was working at Valla in that year, his championship of him in Epp. 23, 26, 29 perhaps followed in 1489. APPENDIX V ERASMUS WITH THE BISHOP OF CAMBRAY Erasmus left Steyn to accompany Henry of Bergen, Bishop of Cambray, who was going to Rome in the hope of winning a cardinal’s 5 p. 108. 7 Indicated by callwit, Ep. 23. 59. $ Ep. 20. 109 n. $ Epp. 28, 25, 27. Qq2
