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THE GOUDA MANUSCRIPTS 611
and one entitled Carmen Petri Nannonis paraneticum ad studiosos
adulescentes, vt Goudam adeant literas Latinas Graecasque sub doctis
pracceptoribus discituri. On ff. 40-56 is Adrian Barland’s Epithome
de omnibus Hollandiae Principibus, which is taken from the second
edition, Antwerp, Hillen, Jan. 1520; on f. 56 an extract from
‘Herasmus’’ adage, Auris Bataua, the last in the Aldine Adagia of
1508; and on ff. 57-60 more poems by Cornelius Gerard and
Herman, of which only one, Herman’s Ode g (cf. p. 136), has been
published, until recently by Dr. Molhuysen. Ff. 61-181 are occupied
by Collecta quaedam ex magno Epistolari Erasmi impresso Basileae
n officina Frobeniana anno 1538 (N1), written by Hand B.
In 1324, which is written throughout by Hand A, the contents
are also miscellaneous. The first item is Erasmus’ preface to the
reader prefixed to his paraphrase of St. Matthew, published in
Feb. 1522. Then follow various extracts from his writings and
letters ; including the prefaces to his Suetonius (June 1518) and
Seneca (July 1515) and the three letters prefixed to F (1521),
which are not in E (1519). As the first, f. 46, to Beatus Rhenanus,
is styled in the margin ‘Praefatio in 2% aeditionem Farraginis
epistolarum suarum,’ the suggestion is that the writer was in posses¬
sion of E, and took an opportunity to begin copying the new letters
added in F. Following these, f. 50 v°, is a copy of Reyner Snoy’s
preface to the Silua Carminum Herasmi, a very rare volume printed
at Gouda in 1513. Then on f. 50 follows Dorp’s letter to Erasmus
attacking the Moria, which was written from Louvain in Sept. 1514.
On f. 57 is the Brief of Adrian vı to Erasmus, 1 Dec. 1522, fol¬
lowed by Erasmus’ letter to Jodocus Gaverus, 1 March 1524; both
of which were printed in Erasmus’ Æxomologesis, e. Sept. 1524.
The next item is Erasmus Paraphrase on the 3rd Psalm, addressed
to Melchior Viandal, 25 Feb. 1524, which was published with the
Exomologesis ; and then long sections from the Hxomologesis and the
De Conscribendis Epistolis, in the latter case following the edition
of 1522. After some extracts from Politian and other Italian
humanists comes the preface to Erasmus’ edition of Cicero’s Tuscu¬
lanae Quaestiones, published in October 1523; and the book con¬
cludes with the two Disputations by Erasmus, the importance of
which has been shown on pp. 245-6.
It is remarkable that in almost all cases the manuscripts have a
text which differs from the printed versions, and which in some
points is fuller and more correct. Not only is this so for the letters of
Snoy and Dorp, but even with the correspondence of Erasmus—the
Wimpfeling letters, the three prefixed to F, the prefaces to Suetonius,
Seneca, and Cicero, the letter to Gaverus, and the Brief of Adrian—
the manuscripts have in places a better text than that printed under
the direction of Erasmus or his friends. This fact alone is very
significant; and when it is combined with the possession of the
Gerard correspondence, Erasmus’ early poems, including the original
form of the Carmen Bucolicum, and finally of the Disputations
written in Oxford, —all of them known from no other source—it
becomes plain that the writer of the manuscripts must have been
some one who enjoyed the confidence of Erasmus or of one of his
intimate friends, and thus had access to original documents.