| 50 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 4. 
sense of the services which he has rendered 
to historical knowledge. Had we believed 
that if he has fallen into a mistake in this 
instance, it had been not merely a mistake, 
but a deliberate perversion of the truth, we 
should have regarded both book and writer 
with indifference, not to say with contempt. 
It is in the endeavour to furnish corrections 
of little unavoidable slips in such good honest 
books — albeit imperfect as all books must be 
—that we hope at once to render good ser- 
vice to our national literature, and to show 
our sense of the genius, learning, and research 
which have combined to enrich it by the 
production of works of such high character 
and lasting influence. 
LATIN EPIGRAM AGAINST LUTHER AND 
ERASMUS. 
Mr. Editor, — Your correspondent “ Rote. 
rodamus ” (pp. 27, 28) asks, I hope, for the 
author of the epigram which he quotes, with 
a view to a life of his great townsman, 
Erasmus. Such a book, written by some 
competent hand, and in an enlarged and 
liberal spirit, would be a noble addition to the 
literature of Europe. There is no civilised 
country that does not feel an interest in the 
labours and in the fame of Erasmus. I am 
able to answer your correspondent’s question, 
but it is entirely by chance. I read the 
epigram which he quotes several years ago, 
ina book of a kind which one would like to 
see better known in this country—a typo- 
graphical or bibliographical history of Douay. 
It is entitled, “ Bibliographie Douaisienne, vu 
Catalogue Historique et Raisonné des Livres 
imprimés & Douai depuis année 1563 jus- 
gqwa nos jours, avec des notes bibliographiques 
et littéraires; Par H. R. Duthilleeul. 8vo. 
Douai, 1842.” The 111th book noticed in this 
volume is entitled, “ Epigrammata in Here- 
ticos. Authore Andrea Frusio, Societatis 
| Jesu. Tres-petitin 8vo. 1596.” The book is 
stated to contain 251 epigrams, “ amied,” says 
M. Dnuthilloenl, “at the heretics and their 
doctrines. .. The author has but one design, 
which is to render odious and ridiculous, the 
lives, persons, and errors of the apostles of 
the Reformation.” He quotes three of the 
epigrams, the third being the one your cor- 
respondent has given you. It has this title, 
“ De Lutheri et Erasmi differentia,’ and is 
the 209th epigram in the book. 
I have never met with a copy of the work 
of Frusius, nor do I know any thing of him 
as an author. The learned writer who pours 
out such a store of curious learning in the 
pages of the Gentleman's Magazine is more 
likely than any body that I know, to tell you 
something about him. 
Mons. Duthillceul quotes another epigram 
from the same book upon the Excomium 
Morie, but it is too long and too pointless 
for your pages. He adds another thing which 
is more in your way, namely, that a former 
possessor of the copy of the work then before 
him had expressed his sense of the value of 
these “ epigrammes dévotes” in the following 
Nore :— 
“ Nollem carere hoc libello auro nequidem 
contra pensitato.” 
Perhaps some one who possesses or has 
access to the book would give us a complete 
list of the persons who are the subjects of 
these defamatory epigrams. And I may add, 
as you invite us to put our queries, Is not 
Erasmus entitled to the distinction of being 
regarded as the author of the work of which 
the largest single edition has ever been printed 
and sold? Mr. Hallam mentions that, “ in the 
single year 1527, Colineus printed 24,000 
copies of the Colloquies, all of which were 
sold.” This is the statement of Moreri. Bayle 
gives some additional information. Quoting 
a letter of Erasmus as his authority, he says, 
that Colinzeus, who—like the Brussels and 
American reprinters of our day — was print- 
ing the book at Paris from a Basle edition, 
entirely without the concurrence of Erasmus, 
and without any view to his participation in 
the profit, circulated a report that the book 
was about to be prohibited by the Holy See. 
The curiosity of the public was excited. 
Every one longed to secure a copy. The 
enormous edition — for the whole 24,000 was 
but one impression — was published con- 
temporaneously with the report. It was a 
cheap and elegant book, and sold as fast as it 
could be handed over the bookseller’s counter. 
As poor Erasmus had no pecuniary benefit 
