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612 APPENDIX IX The manuscripts have therefore the highest authority. Their value would be still further increased if it were possible to discover the identity of Hand A. Various indications go to show that he was closely connected with Gouda. Gerard, Herman, and Snoy, whose writings form so important a part of the contents, were all natives of that town ; the poem by Peter Nanno is specially concerned with it; the writer can explain the allusions to Winckel and Cornelius of Woerden®; and finally he relates in the margin of 1324, f. 9, against a remark by Erasmus on preachers who try to arouse laughter in their audiences, an incident of a Franciscan preaching at Gouda, who made his hearers laugh at and not with him. The date at which 1324 was written was probably about 1524, since a large proportion of its contents were composed by Erasmus between the years 1521-4. 1323, however, as far as Hand A is concerned, may be placed somewhat earlier, since it has nothing later in date than 1519. There are two other clues which may help to establish the writer’s identity. He was unable to write Greek; and when words or sentences occur in the original, he usually writes ‘ Hic Greca. In a few cases he transliterates into Latin, not always successfully; and only on three occasions’ does he essay Greek characters, once with conspicuous failure. Again, at the end of Dorp’s letter, 1324, f. 55, he writes: ‘ Huic epistolae respondet Erasmus apologia prolixa, quam reperies in codice Adagiorum nigro ad literam a, Non fuit, ete.’ This evidently refers to some book of his own or belonging to some library which he frequented ; and it may be conjectured that he had copied the letter in question into it with his own hand, since that letter was never printed with the Adagia. The two manuscripts may perhaps have been the property of Hermann Lethmaet (1492-1555) a young man belonging to a good Gouda family, who in 1522 had recently entered the service of John Carondilet, Archbishop of Palermo, and in consequence had come into contact with the Imperial household and the life of a Court. Erasmus took much interest in him at this time, and wrote him two letters” which Lethmaet, who on his side was devotedly attached to his patron, was so delighted to receive that he carried them about in his pocket until they were nearly destroyed. After his death these two letters, with a few others written to him by distinguished personages, passed into the Gouda Library, where one of them still survives. In this Erasmus jests with him about the way to get on in life, and adds: ‘Scripsimus epistolam iocosam de vtendo aula, sed quae seria ducat ; ea est in libello de ratione componendi epistolas. When, in 1524, Hand A began to make extracts from the De Conscribendis Epistolis, the first item selected is this Epistola iocosa, which it heads: ‘Ex libello Erasmi de componendis epistolis exemplum epistolae monitoriae de vita aulica.’ It is noticeable that the title given to the book is that used by Erasmus in the letter quoted, instead of that which is found in all the printed editions. i It does not seem possible to discover whether the manuscripts % 1824; f. 108 v°, and 1323, f. a1 ; cf. © 1323, f.22 v°, and 1324, ff. 19 and 35. PP. 73 and 565. 7 LB. App. 321 and 324.
