Pagina 8 [8]
OCR
iv PREFACE written over the top have proved illegible, I have adopted the first version without recording the fact. But where a sentence after much cutting about has been left with an imperfect construction, I have noted any rectifications that I have made. As this edition advances, each volume contains more letters found and published by modern pioneers, Much of that work was done hurriedly and under pressure, for publication in fugitive periodicals ; so that its accuracy is not always so great as could be desired. It has therefore been necessary, before reprinting such letters, to collate them with the original manuscripts; and this has been done independently by my wife and myself. Manifest misreadings of our predecessors are not, however, included in the eritical notes; and in cases of divergence between this text and theirs, I would invite the reader to give the preference here. For, besides the first collation of the manuscripts, the proofsheets have been carefully corrected by each of us,in many cases not with the ‘copy’ but with the original manuscript; and they have also enjoyed the benefit of searching revision by Mr. Ingram Bywater. Thus I venture to hope that error in this text has been reduced to a narrow compass. As in the preceding volume, I have abundant aid to acknowledge. Besides the helpers mentioned in that preface, to many of whom I am again no less indebted, my cordial thanks are due to Dr. Lange and the authorities of the Royal Library at Copenhagen for the loan of a rich codex of Erasmus’ rough drafts ; to Count Grégoire Stroganoff and the Earl of Radnor for permission to reproduce the two portions of Metsys’ diptych ; and to the late Major-General E. Renouard James for allowing me to publish Ep. 440—the existence of which was brought to my notice by Dr. Stein from Srinagar on his return from Central Asia. Dr. Reicke, Custos of the Town Library at Nuremberg, has most generously placed at my disposal all the material he has gathered in preparation for an edition of Pirckheimer’s letters. Dr. Brom, Director of the Dutch Historical Institute at Rome, has continually remembered me in his work, and has communicated to me with the utmost readiness everything that he has found in the Vatican which seemed likely to be of use. Dr. Clauss, who has succeeded Dr. Gény at Schlettstadt, has given me every facility and assistance; Dr. Cowley has interpreted for me the occasional Hebrew; and for many varied
