One of the charges made by Ulrich von Hutten in his little controversy with Erasmus (a controversy in which the last word was the _Spongia_, or _Sponge_, of the latter) was that he received money for work done for a printer. The charge was well founded, for Froben paid Erasmus two hundred guldens a year for his services as editor or reviser. It does not appear from the records that have been preserved whether he received, in addition, his board and lodging during the time that he sojourned in his publisher’s house, or whether there was for this a separate arrangement. There is also no precise statement concerning the receipts that came to Erasmus from the sale of Froben’s editions of his books, but the scholar makes a number of appreciative references to the effective service rendered by his Basel publishers and to the importance of these receipts. It is evident from the phrases used by the pugnacious Von Hutten that the earning of money by labour was still considered by many as something unbecoming a man of gentle birth or gentle station,--and, as before said, Erasmus was one of the first of European authors who had secured an income from the work of his pen. It would be more exact to say, from the sale of his own productions, for a considerable number of scholars of his generation were accepting compensation for services as editors and press-correctors. Kapp is of opinion that Luther, whose writings secured a wider circulation than even those of Erasmus, never accepted any honorarium, and that his compensation for his books was limited[88] to a few complimentary copies. Luther speaks of “the exceptional greed” of a translator who secured a gold gulden for the rendering of a quarto. The number of pages is not specified, but we may hope, for the sake of the translator, that the quarto was a thin one.[89] On the other hand, Thomas Murner sold his _Geuchmatt_ to the Strasburg publisher, Hupfuff, in 1514, for four guldens, a sum which Kapp estimates as the equivalent of forty guldens to-day. I will give consideration in a later chapter to the data that have been preserved concerning the general compensation secured in Germany during the century succeeding Gutenberg for literary or editorial work. The first of the books of Erasmus to be issued by Froben was the famous _Encomium Moriæ_ (_The Praise of Folly_), printed in 1515. Of the first Basel edition, 1800 copies were sold in the first six months. The Latin version was printed also by Aldus in Venice and by Badius in Paris. A German version was speedily issued, illustrated with designs by Holbein, and this was followed by translations in French and Dutch. During the lifetime of the author, no less than twenty-seven editions appeared, the larger number of which were unauthorised and brought to the author no returns. _The Praise of Folly_ was the first printed book that secured during the lifetime of its author what may be called a “world-wide circulation,”