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602] TO JOHN FROBEN 13 evident that there must have been an earlier budget to convey that news. It may be doubted, too, whether this letter can be of the same period as Ep. 629, for if they were contemporary, one of them might be expected to contain an allusion to the other. I therefore conjecture that this letter was written in haste, on the first sight of Badius’ book; which may be supposed to have reached Erasmus at Louvain about the middle of July, since Ep. 609, 17 July, reached him early in August (cf. Ep. 617). The first sentence of the letter might be interpreted to mean a charge of piracy ; but as the suggested preface only complains of underselling, it seems probable that Erasmus merely intended to send news that Badius had undertaken the same volume as Froben. It may be noted that this manuscript supplies another example of a preface written in a printer’s name ; cf. those composed for the Amorbachs in Jerome (Ep. 396 introd.), and see also p. 98. | S.D. Baprvs imitatus est tuum opus, addita prefatione qua testatur librum duplo minoris iam emi posse. Tu contra potes tali vti prefatione. 10. FROB. CANDIDO LECTORI S. D. Mihi semper studio fuit in excudendis libris vt non minus bonis studiis publice consulerem quam priuatim meo questui, et meam operam optimis probarem potius quam plurimis. Atque vtinam hoc animo sint omnes typographi, et rem sacram pure sancteque tractarent! Nunc sunt qui tantum hoc agunt vt studiorum detri- 5 mento suo consulant compendio, nec alia re commendant libros emptori quam vilitate, hoc freti paucissimos esse qui recte de libris iudicent. Non hac lege censentur tabulae, non equi, non vina, vt maxime sit vendibile quod emi possit minimo. Cur in libris minus sapimus quam in rebus leuioris momenti? Paruo emit 10 quisquis librum emendatum etiam magno emit, Magno emit quisquis codicem mendosum etiam minimo emit. Expende tecum, optime lector, quantum impendii detur toties emendandis exemplaribus. Id nisi a doctis viris prestari non potest, et horum opera non conducitur paruo. Tua igitur non minus refert quam mea 15 quod te rogabo, lector optime, vt meo in excudendis libris syncero studio tuum in emendis syncerum iudicium respondeat. Bene vale. D. Ioanni Frobenio. 603. To PHILIP OF BURGUNDY. Querela Pacis f°. a’. (Louvain. Lond. xxix, 61: LB. iv. 625. (July ? 1517.) [The preface to the Querela Pacis. Of the composition of this work Erasmus says (I. pp. 18,9) that it was written shortly after his appointment as councillor (Ep. 370. 18 n.) at the request of John Le Sauvage, when the conference at Cambray was being mooted which took place in March 1517 (Creighton iv. 241, 2) : his calculation that he wrote it ‘ante annos ferme septem ° (1. p. 18. 29, 30) is thus perhaps correct, if we suppose that it was proposed by Le Sauvage on the occasion of Erasmus’ visit to Brussels in July 1516 (Ep. 438 introd.). The preface, however, though possibly composed earlier (cf. Ep. 199),
