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APPENDIX XII
THE EPISTOLAE SELECTAE PER BARLANDVM, 1520
In December 1520 Martens published at Louvain a volume entitled
Epistolae aliquot selectae ex Erasmicis per Hadrianum Barlandum. In
the preface Barland states that Martens had requested him to select
some of the shorter letters ‘ex magno epistolarum Erasmi volumine ’,
for publication as a schoolbook. The ‘magnum volumen’ is, of
course, the Farrago (E), which had appeared in October 1519. Of
the 123 letters which the selection contains, 115 are derived from
E, 6 are not in E but appear in the Æpistolue ad diuersos (F), Aug.
1521, and 2 are not found elsewhere than in this volume of selec¬
tions. We are indebted, as so often before, to the kindness of the late
M. Vander Haeghen of Ghent ; who by lending us a copy of Barland’s
volume has rendered possible a minute examination of its contents.
And a careful collation by my wife of the variants between E and F
has indicated clearly the position occupied by this book relatively to
those two editions.
The date of the preparation of F has been involved in some
obscurity, and it has been possible to infer that the printing of the
book was far advanced at a time when in fact Erasmus had not yet
begun the necessary work of revision. This obscurity has arisen
from a wrong year-date, 1520, added in the Opus Epistolarum (H),
1529, to Erasmus’ preface to F, addressed to Beatus Rhenanus from
Louvain, 27 May. In this preface, Lond. i. 1, LB. 507, Erasmus
says that he had revised the letters already published, and sent them
to be printed by Froben; who at the time of writing ‘iam. . ad xli.
senionem peruenit’. E and its predecessors, C1, B, D1, as reprinted
in F, reach p. 472,\ including a few new letters, amongst them
Epp. 361, 392, 540, 605, inserted out of place in order to be next
the letters they answer; and the fortieth sheet ends on p. 478.*
We may take it, therefore, that Froben’s words, which Erasmus
repeats, meant that he had completed the reprinting of E and its
predecessors, and was ready to begin on the forty-first sheet.
Now on p. 478 of F a letter is printed (Lond. xii. 11, LB. 535)
which bears date 4 Oct. 1520; and on p. 534 another (Lond. xiv. 3,
LB. 591) with the date 24 Aug. 1521. Counting the time occupied
in the transit of Froben’s letter to Louvain, and of copies of Erasmus”
letters to Basle—perhaps a fortnight each way—we may reckon that
if Erasmus’ preface to F is really to be dated in 1520, Froben must
have waited about five months, May — Oct. 1520, before advancing
six pages, 472-8; and nearly sixteen months, May 1520 — Sept. 1521,
before printing 62 pages: a rate of progress which is not only
1 The page-numbers 214, 215 are duplicated in F through an oversight.
ss2